What do you do when you make a mistake as GM?

In my last session, in a climactic boss fight, the players barely won by the skin of their teeth. It was a great session. But we later realized we'd interpreted one of the Sorcerer's abilities wrong; he couldn't Twin Magic Missile like we'd thought.

Now during the game I thought it was weird that the Sorcerer could put out like 8d4 damage a turn at level 3 compared to everyone else, but I figured it was just part of 5E's frontloaded combat design and part of the Sorcerer's gimmick. Later I read up on it and it turns out you can't Twin spells that have more than one target.

In hindsight though this throws the legitimacy of all the events in the session into doubt because so much was influenced by the way this combat went. Is the best idea to just accept what happened or retcon it or something?

accept and move on.  If you feel the need, create an ad hoc rationalization for why the PC was extraordinarily effective.

Yeah, just accept it, make it clear what happened and why and that it will change and move on. Toss in some reason like the gods were watching and being generous or it was a "high magic" zone that passed through the area that day. If you want to balance things out later have a hooker give the Sorceror a disease.

Yah, just let it be and carry on.
If you need to in game rationalize it just make something up:
Was standing on a ley line
An astrological conjunction was occurring that no one knew about and perhaps now the party wants to look into.
Some higher power has a use for the party and lent them aid...don't worry they will want something back soon, etc

Easy to come up with something and it in itself can be a hook for an adventure.

Depends on the goof up.

If its a minour one then just move on and if need be come up with an explanation why whatever happened happened.

If its major then things get tougher depending on if you spot the problem before or after the fact.

Say I placed too many orcs in a location. As it stands that could get the PCs killed through no fault of their own. So I have to think fast for some means to play this. The extra orcs are actually prisoners from another tribe. Some of the orcs are about to make a power play for leader. Some are straw dummies to make the fort look more garrisoned than it is. etc. In the case of the sorcerer casting the spell before thay could. You can just shrug and play it as it should be from then on. Or if you want an explanation. Maybe it was some heretofor magic item the PC had and didnt know about. It had been expending charges to allow the casting and is now used up. The PC doesnt know this though and so they can RP out fizzling on the twinned spell next time and being puzzled for example.

On the other hand DMing Shadowrun I totally screwed up and gave some guards automatic weapons that I didnt realize would make hamburger of the group. Realizing this we rewound the encounter and and I gave the guards more appropriate weapons. Sometimes you just have to admit you goofed and rewind a little.

Quote from: Montjoy;859868
Easy to come up with something and it in itself can be a hook for an adventure.

Yea, the guy whose magic power you accidentally intercepted, is now looking for you.

Accept it and move on. I also mention that I will try to prevent that mistake from then on. And I do ask players to help me catch something like that in the future (I often reward them with nominal XP for their honesty).

Looking it up...Twin Spell says 'one spell that targets only one creature'. It clearly excludes stuff thats area of effect like fireballs, but it seems like there's some latitude for interpretation in regard to magic missile; it could target multiple creatures but if all the missiles are aimed at one target, you could argue the spell actually 'targets one creature'.

In any case it doesn't seem like a biggie; 8d4 is an average of 20 damage but that'd be a 2nd level slot and 2 magic points. The same resource expenditure (well, and 50 gps' M component cost) would get you an 8d8 Chromatic Orb quite legally.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;859864What do you do when you make a mistake as GM?

It depends on the mistake and on the impact.

1) Is the mistake likely to effect continuity going forward? Then I try to find a way to reconcile things so that continuity is unaffected. The various suggestions people made to explain why the Sorcerer was more effective than the rules allowed are examples of reconciling things to preserve continuity--in this case rules continuity.

2) Was the mistake in favor of the PCs or against the PCs? If it is in the PCs favor, I'm likely to ignore it under the "No harm. No foul." rule of play.

3) If the mistake was against the PCs, did it result in a significant loss? If there was no significant loss to the PCs, then this too falls into the "No harm. No foul." rule and I'll let it go. If there was a significant loss to the PCs e.g. death, crippling injury, loss of a significant resource I'm much more likely to look to rewind stuff to undo the harm.

4) Is the mistake a rules issue? In this case, whether anything changes or not, I will point out the mistake so as to correct things in future and like Opaopajr I will ask for help in catching mistakes sooner in future.

QuoteNow during the game I thought it was weird that the Sorcerer could put out like 8d4 damage a turn at level 3 compared to everyone else...

I'd have asked about that during play. It's not to everyone's taste, but unless we affirmatively agreed to break or change a rule, I really prefer it when the PCs and NPCs follow the rules and we all do our part to avoid mistakes.

QuoteIn hindsight though this throws the legitimacy of all the events in the session into doubt because so much was influenced by the way this combat went.

I don't assume that the GM is tailoring every encounter to some theoretical degree of difficulty. So worrying about whether or not the win was legitimate is mostly a waste of my time as a player. Since as a player, I don't have a set expectation of how hard the encounter is supposed to be, any win is a legitimate win.

My campaigns are running about 8 players at the table, with full on food and "new player" chaos regularly.

Mistakes happen, alot.

My table rule is simple: if it happened more than a round ago, let it go.

Now, I've never had a problem with overt cheaters (except for one guy who keeps trying to jack up his HP...at this point I'm tired of dealing it, so just let him have the extra HP), and I chastise when a player screws up in a way that is a bit much (based on player skill level, newbies get alot more slack than guys that used to beta test Squad Leader rules).

The game is about having fun, and trying to tapback much past a round starts to interfere too much with all the decisions made after the error. It's just too much of a can of worms to open.

If it made a big difference, and the fight is ongoing, toss in an extra ogre or something. If the fight is long over, point out the proper rules, and get over it.

Own up to it, and move on.  Accepting is one thing, but if you don't take ownership and try to correct it, it'll just happen again.  I screw up, I take full blame for it.

If it is in the players favor I don't worry about it. I let whatever happens . I let whatever happens stand, then announce any mistakes/corrections before next session.  If I did something wrong and it worked against them, we conference it.  Players are pretty understanding about such things.

If it is in the players favor I don't worry about it. I let whatever happens stand, then announce any mistakes/corrections before next session.  If I did something wrong and it worked against them, we conference it, to see how (or if) we should handle it.  Players are pretty understanding about such things. They usually shrug and move on.  My players are pretty awesome that way.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;859864What do you do when you make a mistake as GM?

In my last session, in a climactic boss fight, the players barely won by the skin of their teeth. It was a great session. But we later realized we'd interpreted one of the Sorcerer's abilities wrong; he couldn't Twin Magic Missile like we'd thought.

Now during the game I thought it was weird that the Sorcerer could put out like 8d4 damage a turn at level 3 compared to everyone else, but I figured it was just part of 5E's frontloaded combat design and part of the Sorcerer's gimmick. Later I read up on it and it turns out you can't Twin spells that have more than one target.

In hindsight though this throws the legitimacy of all the events in the session into doubt because so much was influenced by the way this combat went. Is the best idea to just accept what happened or retcon it or something?

I think once something is done, retconning it feels cheap. If you made a really bad call and a PC died, that might be different. I've never retconned that kind of thing before, but I can understand doing so. If you made a really bad call and people survived by the skin of their teeth, I'd just leave it as is. If it happened and you realize the mistake two seconds later, it wouldn't bother me as a player or GM to go back and redo if it was just like one or two rounds difference. That is jarring though so I'd only do that if it were important.

When I do make a mistake, I acknowledge it.

Most GMs make mistakes. The more they make, the more unplayable a game session becomes. The less they make, the less mediocre the game session. Most players don't care really. Them showing up to a game is important enough for most gaming groups.