All goblins, especially their children, keep personal diaries written in secret Goblinese, a script based on knots, scratches, stains, and chew marks upon their animal hide clothes. I reread their contents at night and weep for what might have been after they get slaughtered in a session. My players never ask, thus they never know... and I secretly lord it over them as the brash insensitives they are!

Quote from: Opaopajr;919381All goblins, especially their children, keep personal diaries written in secret Goblinese, a script based on knots, scratches, stains, and chew marks upon their animal hide clothes. I reread their contents at night and weep for what might have been after they get slaughtered in a session. My players never ask, thus they never know... and I secretly lord it over them as the brash insensitives they are!

Can we have a moment of silence for Beedo and Vark, who only wanted to loot a church and play with the steeple bell?

Quote from: rgrove0172;919167And even in my short time here I cant say Im surprised at all by that.

"Frankly Ive met few players that approached the game from that shallow a position, and those that I have were either not well thought of by most others or they were twelve years old."

In the words of Master Yoda, "Dish it out you can, but take it you cannot, hmm?"

Call people with different tastes from you "shallow" and "not well thought of," and don't be surprised when you get a singing "Pack It Up Your Ass" -o-gram.

Quote from: Bren;919367Maybe one had to be there, but I've heard you tell that story a number of times and the McDonald's joke rationale never struck me as at all funny or useful. But I have a low tolerance for puerile humor and parody of sword and sorcery in my sword and sorcery nor do I want the setting or the session to turn into one giant series of bad Monty Python imitations and guys sitting around a campfire farting and telling fart jokes. As usual, YMMV.

And I know I've said this before but it bears repeating:

Phil Barker didn't have some sort of ingenious plan or cunning scheme dependent upon interdicting some monster's food supply.  He was purely busting my nuts because he thought my dungeon was 'unrealisitic.'

And when somebody busts your nuts, the only possible answer that contains even a tiny shred of self respect is to tell them to bite your ass.  Which is exactly what I did.

I just try to have as wandering monsters things which are either inhabitants of the dungeon or the area immediately nearby. But if some other crazy shit comes up that doesn't bother me, we'll figure it out.

If it's too big for the room it's in, that's cool, maybe it got brought in as a cub, or teleported in by a mad wizard, or maybe it was subjected to a reversed enlarge spell, or a Box of Diminuition - I think there's a troll in the temple of elemental stupidity who pops up out of a box after being 6" tall. Who knows? If the players ask, I'll say, "interesting question, how will your characters go about finding the answer?" and then they can go on a quest to find out how the 8' tall man-eating ape got into the 5' high tunnels, once it's finished eating their face. And this buys me some time to just make shit up.

Recently I created a whole new dungeon level this way. A Mind Flayer came up as a wandering monster in a goblin dungeon, "what's he doing here, how the fuck does he coexist with goblins?" they wondered, so I decided he was on a lower level and occasionally emerged to eat some goblin brains. In the end they found his lair and he had black silk sheets and robes of red and white silk like a barber's pole, and brains in jars on shelves.
"I take the silk sheets, that's smooth."
"No way man I'll bet he just lay around on his bed slurping on brains making a huge mess and those sheets are soaked with brain juices, that's disgusting."

Roll the dice, and roll with it.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;919645Recently I created a whole new dungeon level this way. A Mind Flayer came up as a wandering monster in a goblin dungeon, "what's he doing here, how the fuck does he coexist with goblins?" they wondered, so I decided he was on a lower level and occasionally emerged to eat some goblin brains.

THIS is the most fun part I have in random dungeon design. I absolutely love trying to makes sense of the WTF results.

Quote from: Spinachcat;919647THIS is the most fun part I have in random dungeon design. I absolutely love trying to makes sense of the WTF results.

I suggest that random tables aren't (just) there to make a lazy GM's life easier, they also give the GM moments of surprise.

That sort of thing is anathema to the "frustrated director/author" style of GM, but some of us like to be discovering the world along with the rest of the people at the table sometimes.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;919420Can we have a moment of silence for Beedo and Vark, who only wanted to loot a church and play with the steeple bell?

*wipes a tear from his eye*

The good die young.

And if my players are involved, so do the old and everyone else within range.

Quote from: darthfozzywig;919665*wipes a tear from his eye*

The good die young.

And if my players are involved, so do the old and everyone else within range.

And welcome to the site.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;919327Maybe finding out the ecology is a whole new adventure to keep us busy on weekends doing a hobby we enjoy.

Honestly I think this is the sort of thing that worries only DMs and BNGs. I've had plenty of players joke about this stuff, but nobody had a serious concern about dungeon ecology, not with god knows how many players I've had since 1983. Nobody cares, really, except for DMs and BNGs.

It's like those detailed 3,400 year histories of the game world and intricate descriptions of language development and royal family histories. Would the characters know? Will the players care? Fuck no!

In our last session the players had been captured by a hobgoblin warrior after they slew his cleric lord, and he wanted to sacrifice them to his barbaric man-eating ape god. One player's character ended up naked but for a loincloth, wrestling the hobgoblin on the edge of a firepit, each trying to fling each-other into the hot coals heating the bronze statue of the ape god where the victims were to be sacrificed by being roasted alive.

Does any of it make sense? Probably not. Does anyone care? No, because wrestling a hobgoblin into a fire pit and sacrificing him to his own man-eating ape god is good fun. The players finished the session very very happy, and they didn't ask any stupid fucking questions.

Roll the dice, and roll with it.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;919463"Frankly Ive met few players that approached the game from that shallow a position, and those that I have were either not well thought of by most others or they were twelve years old."

In the words of Master Yoda, "Dish it out you can, but take it you cannot, hmm?"

Call people with different tastes from you "shallow" and "not well thought of," and don't be surprised when you get a singing "Pack It Up Your Ass" -o-gram.

Read it again, I didn't call anyone anything... I said they were not well thought of.. not necessarily by me but as stated by anyone. Their age certainly wasn't an accusation. You are making an inference that what was thought about those people I encountered would be thought about those mentioned in the thread. You made it, I didn't. I was just drawing a similarity in how they seemed to approach the game.

OK. I've been resisting this for days.

RGrove, please step back and think about the feedback you are getting here. I am trying to help because I like some of your questions, like Wandering Monsters. But your miscomprehensions and passive-aggressive attacks are tiresome.

Basically, the feedback I'm seeing you get is: you post as if you misunderstand what people are saying (especially when they agree with you in part and disagree in part) and you tend towards not-so-subtle insults, and seem surprised when called on it.

Note the change from Justin's first post to his latest post.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;912209You have critically failed your Reading Comprehension roll.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;919613And that he's only posting these threads so that he can passive aggressively attack other people while hypocritically pretending (a) not to and (b) to be the real victim.

And then there is:

Quote from: Bren;919132Thus I am left with the conclusion that (a) you don't want to understand what I wrote and (b) you are behaving like a condescending ass.

Quote from: Tod13;919040Honest question: Do you really not understand the above sentence? You keep misrepresenting what is being said.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;919463Call people with different tastes from you "shallow" and "not well thought of," and don't be surprised when you get a singing "Pack It Up Your Ass" -o-gram.

Quote from: tenbones;919302I'll speak for myself - but others have said it many times in this thread, I find it odd you keep ignoring this pertinent part

Quote from: Omega;919571You keep mixing up people saying "Thats not what I like at my table" with "What you are doing is WRONG!" after everyone finally sorted out what the heck you were on about because your initial posts were both antagonistic and lacking in key data shifted to mainly just punting the ball whenever you make a pronouncement that just isnt so.

More here, if needed.

Spoiler

Quote from: Bren;919177You have yet to display any indication that you comprehend what I have expressed since you keep responding to things that I didn’t say. Why is that?

Quote from: Manzanaro;919341Sure. And then you keep coming back and saying stuff like, "People who don't like my style must have some weird cultural bias that I didn't even know existed!" Which is probably not the case, and just makes it seem like you think the actual reasoning people have given you is just a load of malarky.

Quote from: Manzanaro;919335Seems kind of like you are pulling a bit of a bait and switch here.
What is it you want exactly at this point? Approval? For everyone to admit you are right and they are wrong? Or what?

Quote from: Bren;919106What I said does not imply that. And no you don’t seem to get what I am saying. You may have incorrectly inferred that, though I think that to make that inference you must be reading what I said very uncharitably. Try reading it again please.

Then you are not understanding what I wrote.

Quote from: Bren;919316I did not argue for “not doing it at all.” You keep characterizing the choice as your type of description or “none at all.” Those are not the only choices.

Quote from: Bren;919486You know, you may not realize it, but you are coming across as patronizing and rather thick

Quote from: AsenRG;912249When you rethink this thread, you might want to notice that at least my condescending attitude only manifested when you began to answer condescendingly;).

Quote from: Bren;912343People would probably be less condescending or insulting if you didn't start out by claiming that people who don't do what you do when you GM are either dicks or lying.

Quote from: nDervish;912383Point of order:  The earlier references to dishonesty were specifically talking about your statement that you sometimes roll dice to make your players think something is random, then completely ignore the dice and make up a result from whole cloth.  This specific act is dishonest, as it deceives the players regarding the origin of the outcome presented to them.  I don't recall anyone saying that you're more broadly dishonest.

Quote from: CRKrueger;912895Like many of those who are concerned with Story, you're completely missing the point and thought processes of those who are not.

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I guess the point to all this is to double check what you think people have said and what you've said. People aren't going to always agree with you 100%. There comes a time where you go "ah, there is where we disagree. That's interesting" and move on to other things.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;919684Honestly I think this is the sort of thing that worries only DMs and BNGs. I've had plenty of players joke about this stuff, but nobody had a serious concern about dungeon ecology, not with god knows how many players I've had since 1983. Nobody cares, really, except for DMs and BNGs.

Same here. In all the years of DMing I've never had anyone flip out because "this dungeon doesnt make any sense! aaaagh!!!" Sometimes the players will try to find out why theres a lone goblin in this necromancers lair full of undead. Others just shrug and move on.

Quote from: Omega;919799Same here. In all the years of DMing I've never had anyone flip out because "this dungeon doesnt make any sense! aaaagh!!!" Sometimes the players will try to find out why theres a lone goblin in this necromancers lair full of undead. Others just shrug and move on.

My players may go home and return next session with a novella giving the backstory for the goblin. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Tod13;919800My players may go home and return next session with a novella giving the backstory for the goblin. :rolleyes:

And if it's any good, run with it!