TheRPGSite

One of the most boring and unimaginative GMs I ever had to deal with could not allow an adventure to exist that wasn't a railroad. If your PC went somewhere that he shouldn't have and you asked what was there, the GM would say that all the PC saw was "a grey fog" or "raw holodeck panels". Talk to a NPC that wasn't part of the plot and they would answer with, "Why are you talking to me? I'm just an extra." Killed immersion dead. Didn't feel like a living world at all.

I could see this as being cool if you were doing a The Matrix rip-off, but it never was. This was just him keeping us in a tiny box that he could manage. I left after two games and the rest of the Players dropped out soon afterwards.

Anyone else ever encounter this level of unimaginative bullshit?

Quote from: jeff37923;756606One of the most boring and unimaginative GMs I ever had to deal with could not allow an adventure to exist that wasn't a railroad. If your PC went somewhere that he shouldn't have and you asked what was there, the GM would say that all the PC saw was "a grey fog" or "raw holodeck panels". Talk to a NPC that wasn't part of the plot and they would answer with, "Why are you talking to me? I'm just an extra." Killed immersion dead. Didn't feel like a living world at all.

I could see this as being cool if you were doing a The Matrix rip-off, but it never was. This was just him keeping us in a tiny box that he could manage. I left after two games and the rest of the Players dropped out soon afterwards.

Anyone else ever encounter this level of unimaginative bullshit?

Yes. In a RIFTS game his mistake was letting everything in and he literally reacted in the same way as your experience. We even said to him before the game please consider limiting the game to only certain books or the corebook only because we have all the books and you have no idea what you're getting yourself into.

He wouldn't even use some of the cool setting books like Vampire Kingdoms or whatever he just had us wandering around in some kind of featureless desert/Southwest US thing that had AM/PM stores in the middle of nothing. It made no sense and had no direction.

The game lasted 3-4 sessions before my Neo-Human broke the game on purpose so that we could go play another game.

One time at band camp, we were playing and the DM had our characters learn that an orc had stolen a pie from our village. Our ranger tracked it to his lair and we killed him and his brothers. We then ate the pie.

I played in a game at the FLGS for shits and giggles one night. We sneak into the castle via the dungeon, only to find we're trapped in a corridor with three exits. We first lost 3 PCs to each door covered by a disintegration shield. We then attempted to look at every square to find a switch or something. We had no dispel magic. We found no way out. We eventually killed ourselves out of boredom.

The DM tells us as we wrap up. "you were not supposed to go that way as a group. You we're supposed to split up and then someone could save you later by pulling this lever at the castle-side beginning of the dungeon".

Oooh, fun.

Railroading can be a sign of an inexperienced GM. Maybe take them aside and talk to about it.

It's funny. Long ago back in the 80's as a first time GM, I was running a module as at the time I didn't think I had the chops to do my own adventure. Anyway the PC's had to enter a specific building to find a secret entrance. In reality it didn't matter what building they used but I kept trying to steer them to the "right" one and they just weren't going for it. Then it hit me. It just didn't matter. It could be any of the houses.

It was ridiculously liberating. Never ran a module since.

I also used to run a postmortem on the sessions once we finished for the night. It was very helpful. Mostly.

Quote from: jeff37923;756606Anyone else ever encounter this level of unimaginative bullshit?

I've told this story before...
I once joined a traveller game with a friend of mine... the GM was a guy my friend had met in a game shop.
Right from the start it was obvious the GM was uncomfortable with high-tech, there were no scifi trappings at all.
He started us on an investigation (lost pet) that let to a tunnel, that caved in forcing us to an underground river... to a boat on the river... and a loooong chain of computer printer paper where he'd drawn out the river and its narrow banks. We were on a boat... on a river... going downstream...  because that was the only option. NOTHING happened for a long time till we pulled the boat to one side and started walking... met some guys... the guys wanted to force us back in the boat... my PC refused... the NPCs pointed guns at him... I was sick of the game and wanted my PC dead so I would have an excuse to leave. So my PC continued to refuse, hoping for a bullet (the GM was also chain smoking the whole time... cough cough).
THAT was when the GM pulled out an actual revolver (he was a security guard) and pointed it at me... telling me that 'THAT is how it feels to have a gun pointed at you and isn't it obvious your PC would NOT refuse to get in the boat!'
So yeah, very unimaginative up until that final bit of creativity. And then I left.

Quote from: Simlasa;756622THAT was when the GM pulled out an actual revolver (he was a security guard) and pointed it at me... telling me that THAT is how it feels to have a gun pointed at you and isn't it obvious your PC would NOT refuse to get in the boat.
So yeah, very unimaginative up until that final bit of creativity. And then I left.

I may have called the cops on him as soon as I was out of the building! That's serious crazytown stuff there.

Quote from: Simlasa;756622THAT was when the GM pulled out an actual revolver (he was a security guard) and pointed it at me...

OK, now that is beyond acceptable. Jebus....

Holy Jebus.  No, you got me there, Jeff; plainly I have to revise my standard for "suck-ass GM."  I've known some bad GMs in my day, but I've only rarely heard of a GM on the "Why are you talking to me? I'm just an extra" level, never mind seen one with my own eyes.

My condolences.

EDIT: And my amazement at your fortitude.  I don't think I could've gotten past the point where I realized I wasn't in The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari In Space and that the GM really was calling everything not already written in his notes a "grey fog" without snarling.

Quote from: jeff37923;756624OK, now that is beyond acceptable. Jebus....

Yeah, it's practically fucking LARPing, and that shit's just not on.

I'm not a fan... of... games... being... drawn... out... long past the point of interest. It doesn't always make things more exciting to do a situation in minute detail; it just makes it take longer.

Only real problem I had was in the infamous Dragon Storm session with the Stormriders Guilds head and his right hand flunkie in on it.

Id had minor problems with these two all year and it came to a head at Gencon. I had one of the older characters in the game as Id been around since the start. So Im playtesting a new character race which I was footing the bill for and working with BDP to get right. AND payed extra to make expressly sure it was Guild ok.

So we are going through the adventure, trekking across country to deliver something. And while we are going along all of a sudden my character is lagging far behind the group and ambushed by a pack of pumped up drakkels with the rest of the group conveiniently out of sight or earshot. I saw what was being pulled and fought like hell. But the GM kept throwing more in. Luckily one of the players baulked at being told they could do nothing and charged back with a few others following suit. By the time they got there I was down and my body being ripped to shreds. They fought off the remaining monsters and administered healing spells and one of my better recovery potions.

The GM and his buddy were plenty pissed that I'd lived. But couldnt do anything about it directly as the other players were now watching him. But at the end  of the session he refused to sign the record for my exp and gains.

So I calculated what Id have gotten and donated it all to the other players who had been helpful through that.

Reported it to BDP and their response was that they had no control over the Guild. You know, the company and designers that officially sanction, support, and created that Guild?

And not long after they ban the use of playtest and personal characters. Among many other things.

So I pulled funding for any more product and talked with backers Id lined up who were interested in helping too.

Wasnt the only one having issues though. But that was the most costly ventures.

Up till that incident and the fallout after, working with BDP had been great. DS was a fun RPG. Especially when they phased out the CCG part.

Stop talking about my nine year old daughter GM like that, you pedo

So doing a smash and grab, my PC goes ahead and grabs a server after another PC fails their comp skill hacking roll. My PC has high strength and succeeds in a "feat of strength" roll, the server is originally only 15kg, but suddenly the GM changes in mid-stroke, it is 50kg, and I can't run with it. I get another PC to help carry it, and we try to run with it, nope, we can barely move; then combat erupts, the rent a cops guarding the place never moral check vs a much heavier armed party. This is a pbp as well, so I wind up carrying this server for about six weeks real time.

Quote from: Simlasa;756622I've told this story before...
I once joined a traveller game with a friend of mine... the GM was a guy my friend had met in a game shop.
Right from the start it was obvious the GM was uncomfortable with high-tech, there were no scifi trappings at all.
He started us on an investigation (lost pet) that let to a tunnel, that caved in forcing us to an underground river... to a boat on the river... and a loooong chain of computer printer paper where he'd drawn out the river and its narrow banks. We were on a boat... on a river... going downstream...  because that was the only option. NOTHING happened for a long time till we pulled the boat to one side and started walking... met some guys... the guys wanted to force us back in the boat... my PC refused... the NPCs pointed guns at him... I was sick of the game and wanted my PC dead so I would have an excuse to leave. So my PC continued to refuse, hoping for a bullet (the GM was also chain smoking the whole time... cough cough).
THAT was when the GM pulled out an actual revolver (he was a security guard) and pointed it at me... telling me that 'THAT is how it feels to have a gun pointed at you and isn't it obvious your PC would NOT refuse to get in the boat!'
So yeah, very unimaginative up until that final bit of creativity. And then I left.

Course that is the point when you and you mate pulled out machetes and taught he why he should never invite weirdos he met in game shops into his house :)

any idea why he used Traveller

Quote from: Ladybird;756632Yeah, it's practically fucking LARPing, and that shit's just not on.

I've been a long-term participant in several LARPs.  In not a single one of them was there so much as a single incident where someone drew a real weapon on another participant who wasn't banned for life, and a couple of those incidents had the eventholders call the cops.  Over fourteen years, and quite literally hundreds of events with thousands of participants, to the best of my recollection, there were four such.

If you don't like how a GM runs a game, why not man up and run the game yourself?

I have two bad gm stories. That's not bad for my gazillion years of heavy gaming.

1) Played with a gm that had a pet npc named 'Old Macdonald' who traveled with the pc's. Old Macdonald was very irritating, invulnerable to everything, and ate any and all gems the characters found.

This was also the guy that would have a dozen ogres in a 10x20 room, and had a medusa petrify someone at 100 yards even after he accidentally read from the monster manual out loud that it had a very short range for its gaze.


2) At a convention an RPGA dm did some crazy stuff. It was presumably a low level module of some sort, and my pregen character was a cavalier, with heavy plate armor, a shield, and 'A special parry ability'

So my cavalier is body guarding a frail npc, and a villain throws a daggaer at me. I asked the dm if I could get in the way, and use my special parry ability to protect the frail npc.

DM said "The dagger hits your jugular vein, you die"

Later in the adventure, although I was dead and just observing, he sicked a ninja like fire giant on the low level pc's and pounded them into paste.

"Look, stop fighting back: you're supposed to get captured in this session!"

Same GM a few sessions later after explaining to him how we hated railroading:

"Look, go into the haunted house or else there's no game. No you can't take any of your weapons: this is supposed to be horror."

Same GM again, after another few lectures:

"Look, those are all clever plans but there's only ONE way to kill the vampire and that's in his lair in the sewer. So stop wasting your time so we can get to the climax."

Needless to say, I don't play with that dick head anymore. On top of that he's the type who gets a hard-on about arguing about gun-related minutiae and his beloved GMPCs who were always 16-year old nymphomaniacs. Yes, you read that right.

Quote from: Simlasa;756622...
THAT was when the GM pulled out an actual revolver (he was a security guard) and pointed it at me... telling me that 'THAT is how it feels to have a gun pointed at you and isn't it obvious your PC would NOT refuse to get in the boat!'
So yeah, very unimaginative up until that final bit of creativity. And then I left.

I've had gaming groups where almost all the participants were carrying and I can almost guarantee that had any of the participants behaved that way (they wouldn't), police would have been involved.  I will note that nothing like this has ever occurred at any game I've played or run where people happened to be armed.

The most violence I've ever seen at a game has been a few small scuffles and thrown dice in my teens and some pushing and shoving when tempers flared during fights on hot ass days during fight LARPs.  Actual fist-fighting would be a one way trip to "don't come back" and/or police being called.

Quote from: Necrozius;756785...

Needless to say, I don't play with that dick head anymore. On top of that he's the type who gets a hard-on about arguing about gun-related minutiae and his beloved GMPCs who were always 16-year old nymphomaniacs. Yes, you read that right.

While I've met both of those types, I've never seen anything that suggests the two types necessarily go together to form one type, though they can cross over.  And really the problem from a bad GM perspective is "beloved GMPCs."  I don't care what kinks a GM fantasizes about in their private time, but seeing "beloved GMPCs" is a sign I probably don't want to play in that game.  As well when I was in my teens, "16 year old nymphomaniac" actually described a couple players we had.

What I have noticed is that those railroad GMs are often frustrated authors or easily bored when people engage the environment peacefully. I wonder how many examples here fall under either group.

Quote from: Opaopajr;756817What I have noticed is that those railroad GMs are often frustrated authors or easily bored when people engage the environment peacefully. I wonder how many examples here fall under either group.

I dislike the gm style of "You must fight everything" and the often included styles of "Every enemy suicides on the PC's" and "Even the zombies and oozes use intelligent tactics"

Quote from: Opaopajr;756817What I have noticed is that those railroad GMs are often frustrated authors or easily bored when people engage the environment peacefully. I wonder how many examples here fall under either group.

To be honest here, one of the reasons why the OP example bugged me so much is that I will go the opposite route. If the Players are going their own way that doesn't match what I prepared, then I must follow their lead to where they are going. Maybe I can gently steer them back and maybe the direction of the Players is much more fun, whatever happens it is my job as GM to try and be like the Wizard of Oz and not let them see the fakery behind the curtain which would break immersion.

Yeah, I feel there's a "I prepped too hard to throw all of this away!" and "talk? move stuff? but why?" (which might actually be 'how?') connection. I wonder if there's material out there to advise how to unclench and roll with the punches.

The DM that I had that drove me away from rpgs for years would throw fits if we didn't adhere to his grand epic story he had prepared for us. He practically reveled in the game being a railroad and the players having no real agency. In fact I'm convinced the guy actually had some kind of antisocial behavior going on and this was just one way he got his kicks in screwing with people. He would arbitrarily end games and kill off players if things weren't going the exact way he wanted it to go. (an example, our party was tasked with escorting a rescued hostage to safety. Party wanted to go explore some cave, my paladin told them to shove off and stick with the plan. DM Decides my paladin's god is upset with my actions and strips his paladinhood.)

Not only was he unimaginative, he thought he was god's gift to gaming.

Quote from: jeff37923;756606One of the most boring and unimaginative GMs I ever had to deal with could not allow an adventure to exist that wasn't a railroad. If your PC went somewhere that he shouldn't have and you asked what was there, the GM would say that all the PC saw was "a grey fog" or "raw holodeck panels". Talk to a NPC that wasn't part of the plot and they would answer with, "Why are you talking to me? I'm just an extra." Killed immersion dead. Didn't feel like a living world at all.

At least he was honest about the railroading, instead of wasting your time following stuff that he'd make turn into dead ends anyway.

Wow, nothing I've encountered was as bad as these examples. Two stories come to mind though, both from conventions:

1. At one con I played in a game (forget which system) based on the Alien movies. The last person alive would win a prize. There were supposed to be 8 or more players, instead there were 4 of us. For the next three hours we chug through a ruined spaceship shooting up Aliens. One by one we die as ammo runs out. I was the last one, thus the winner who escapes to star in a sequel. All pretty meaningless. The prize I got: a copy of the Aliens rules (obviously used) which is a crappy rulebook filled with B&W grainy pictures from the films. Yeah, thanks. Fun concept, could have been good if the GM was decent but he was bland.

2. I've mentioned this before, at conventions in Florida there's a group of overweight bearded guys who run a game called "Second American Revolution", a right-wing fantasy where the American government goes Communist and gun toting patriots fight for freedom "Red Dawn" style. Okay, fine, I can swallow that turd. So out of a 4 hour session one hour is spent explaining the concept and rules, a second hour or more on blah character generation and equipping (backpack, boots, rifle, knife, grenades, that's all you need) and one hour of play. My guy was a sniper type who fired two shots then got in close and threw one grenade which blew up a barracks killing 30 sleeping soldiers at once. Yeah, sure, thanks for wasting my valuable convention time. This was back in the 90's and these guys really thought their concept was soon to happen. Sigh.

Quote from: Doughdee222;7568641. At one con I played in a game (forget which system) based on the Alien movies. The last person alive would win a prize. There were supposed to be 8 or more players, instead there were 4 of us. For the next three hours we chug through a ruined spaceship shooting up Aliens. One by one we die as ammo runs out. I was the last one, thus the winner who escapes to star in a sequel. All pretty meaningless. The prize I got: a copy of the Aliens rules (obviously used) which is a crappy rulebook filled with B&W grainy pictures from the films. Yeah, thanks. Fun concept, could have been good if the GM was decent but he was bland.

That's funny, one of my one shot games I run to introduce people to GURPS is an Event Horizon style survival horror on a spaceship thing. It's extremely railroady (mostly because it's new players and I'm trying to teach the mechanics quickly.) But has always been popular when I've run it. I think Railroading at a convention or in a game with a tight schedule can be good, but there's no hope if you have a crap dm (or a crap system, as that sounds like it was.)

I've been the suck GM on many occasions.  Railroads, GM PC Theater, arbitrary calls against players.  I've done all the mainstream sins.

Most of the time, I was just trying to present something fun to my players.  I wasn't trying to be a suck GM.  I was trying to do something entertaining and doing it badly.

However, a few times I've just flat out been an ass.  They're not particularly interesting stories.

One time there was a player named Roger in our group who most of us had issues with.  So one game session he was making a routine pilot check and failed it by one.  I was in a bad mood that day, so I declared that his failed pilot check caused hs variable fighter to fall apart in the sky.  I told him he successfully ejected, but was going to have to sit out the adventure and wait for rescue, and that if he left before his character was rescued, then his character would die.   I then made him sit there for six hours doing nothing. It was purely a dick move.  No one else thought it was anything less than what he deserved, but it was still a dick move.

Another time I was running a game and doing a plotline where a PC had been possessed, but the player was still playing the character.  I told the player the little voice inside his head was instructing him to capture my GM PC and kill him.  So, the player did, quite eagerly I might add.  He never tried to struggle against this instruction even once.  I wonder why?  Anyway, it became clear the player was going to be successful in killing my GM-PC, so I paniced and arbitrarily pulled some crap out so I could kill his character before he killed mine.  Yeah, dick move, because I intentionally set him up to just declare his character dead.  Everyone was rightfully pissed with me for that one.

However, the funniest one is another Roger story.

Some backstory, I had this strange double pronged knife.  It was something I had found.  It was probably from the forties or something.  It was pretty wicked looking, and it had some rust on it to make it look especially nasty, because the rust was on it in just such a way that made it look like it was still stained with blood from a recent murder.

Anyway, we were having game night as usual.  As usual, Roger was being himself.  I forget what was happening in the game.  I think Roger said something about demonic sacrifice.  Whatever he said, it was the trigger for what we did next.

I told everyone else in the group "it is time."  We hadn't planned any of this beforehand.  It was purely spontaneous.  It's kind of scary how coordinated we were.  They grabbed Roger and hurled him down to the floor, holding him down while he screamed in confusion.  I turned and brought the evil looking knife out of it's hidey hole.

As I turned around I held my arms out and chanted stuff like "almighty satan, we do give this virgin sacrifice unto you..." blah, blah, blah.  This scared Roger even more, and he was screaming bloody murder and struggling for his life.  But everyone else managed to keep him held down while I kept chanting.  Then, I said something like "Amen Satan" and looked down at him as crazily as I could.  He was yelling, "Oh god, oh god, please don't kill me." or some shit like that.  I acted like I was going to stab him, and he let out a blood curdling girly scream worthy of a slasher movie.

That was finally what did it for me.  I started laughing and couldn't stop.  Neither could anyone else as they let go of Roger.  Roger was paralyzed for a moment, still recovering from fear.  He said something like "You guys are assholes" and fled.  We probably kept laughing about it for at least an hour.

I guess it wasn't quite bad enough a gaming experience, because Roger was back to play next week.

Quote from: Opaopajr;756817What I have noticed is that those railroad GMs are often frustrated authors or easily bored when people engage the environment peacefully. I wonder how many examples here fall under either group.

I haven't GMed in awhile (no one who'd play the games I'd run), but I try not to be that. E.G. having a go-gang in Shadowrun challenge the group to a race instead of to the fight the adventure originally called for.

Quote from: Gabriel2;756875I've been the suck GM on many occasions.  Railroads, GM PC Theater, arbitrary calls against players.  I've done all the mainstream sins.

Most of the time, I was just trying to present something fun to my players.  I wasn't trying to be a suck GM.  I was trying to do something entertaining and doing it badly.

However, a few times I've just flat out been an ass.  They're not particularly interesting stories.

One time there was a player named Roger in our group who most of us had issues with.  So one game session he was making a routine pilot check and failed it by one.  I was in a bad mood that day, so I declared that his failed pilot check caused hs variable fighter to fall apart in the sky.  I told him he successfully ejected, but was going to have to sit out the adventure and wait for rescue, and that if he left before his character was rescued, then his character would die.   I then made him sit there for six hours doing nothing. It was purely a dick move.  No one else thought it was anything less than what he deserved, but it was still a dick move.

Another time I was running a game and doing a plotline where a PC had been possessed, but the player was still playing the character.  I told the player the little voice inside his head was instructing him to capture my GM PC and kill him.  So, the player did, quite eagerly I might add.  He never tried to struggle against this instruction even once.  I wonder why?  Anyway, it became clear the player was going to be successful in killing my GM-PC, so I paniced and arbitrarily pulled some crap out so I could kill his character before he killed mine.  Yeah, dick move, because I intentionally set him up to just declare his character dead.  Everyone was rightfully pissed with me for that one.

However, the funniest one is another Roger story.

Some backstory, I had this strange double pronged knife.  It was something I had found.  It was probably from the forties or something.  It was pretty wicked looking, and it had some rust on it to make it look especially nasty, because the rust was on it in just such a way that made it look like it was still stained with blood from a recent murder.

Anyway, we were having game night as usual.  As usual, Roger was being himself.  I forget what was happening in the game.  I think Roger said something about demonic sacrifice.  Whatever he said, it was the trigger for what we did next.

I told everyone else in the group "it is time."  We hadn't planned any of this beforehand.  It was purely spontaneous.  It's kind of scary how coordinated we were.  They grabbed Roger and hurled him down to the floor, holding him down while he screamed in confusion.  I turned and brought the evil looking knife out of it's hidey hole.

As I turned around I held my arms out and chanted stuff like "almighty satan, we do give this virgin sacrifice unto you..." blah, blah, blah.  This scared Roger even more, and he was screaming bloody murder and struggling for his life.  But everyone else managed to keep him held down while I kept chanting.  Then, I said something like "Amen Satan" and looked down at him as crazily as I could.  He was yelling, "Oh god, oh god, please don't kill me." or some shit like that.  I acted like I was going to stab him, and he let out a blood curdling girly scream worthy of a slasher movie.

That was finally what did it for me.  I started laughing and couldn't stop.  Neither could anyone else as they let go of Roger.  Roger was paralyzed for a moment, still recovering from fear.  He said something like "You guys are assholes" and fled.  We probably kept laughing about it for at least an hour.

I guess it wasn't quite bad enough a gaming experience, because Roger was back to play next week.

Er... wow. I enjoy a bit of a headfuck occasionally, but that sounds... special.

I've mostly GMed, so I just hope I'm not someone's "full of suck" GM because while I do think I'm at least usually good and seem to have experiences and feedback that back that up, I've certainly had my off days.  :-)

That said, I have still had chances to play here and there (more when I was younger).  One of the worst games I recall was run by a GM I had actually had good experiences with on several other occasions (in different systems), but it was so gods-awful it's still in the running for worst.

This particular adventure had:
Utter railroad. despite claiming it was sandbox (and this guy usually did sandbox, so he knew what that meant).
Almost literally linear dungeon (though it had switchbacks, it looked like he went from left to right and bottom to top back and forth with the vast majority of doors only being from one room to another.
Invulnerable walls/floors/ceiling so no skipping by way of property destruction.
Dungeon was visible from major city (so we could go back and forth to resupply I guess).
No way to leave major city because "everything is full or broken" and any attempts to do anything in city either total cakewalk (like 5 minutes) or impossible (guards show up and say you must leave...).
Beloved GM(N)PC who was the only person who could open up new lengths of the dungeon by...
...requiring a "voluntary" child sacrifice, despite myself (father of small children) and a mother (of different small children) player trying to explain to them that small children can't volunteer for shit because it's impossible for a child to consent to such a thing.
...and that's pretty much where it ended, because me and the other parent pretty much said "fuck this, it's stupid" when we weren't allowed to attack the GM(N)PC.

To this day, I have NO idea what that GM was thinking at the time.  The GM moved away shortly afterward and we haven't heard from them since, so I still have no idea, even though we were otherwise friendly and they had been a good GM before this.

Quote from: Ladybird;756878Er... wow. I enjoy a bit of a headfuck occasionally, but that sounds... special.

I never sacrificed anyone to satan I didn't like.  100% true statement.

Freak.

For the three or four of you who haven't read this. It is the most hilarious takedown of an awful GM ever... In about 100 posts

http://irolledazero.blogspot.com/p/properly-ordered-posts.html?m=1

Seems appropriate.

Quote from: Opaopajr;756828Yeah, I feel there's a "I prepped too hard to throw all of this away!" and "talk? move stuff? but why?" (which might actually be 'how?') connection. I wonder if there's material out there to advise how to unclench and roll with the punches.

I suppose something like that could be done.  I've had heavy prep work blown out of the water any number of times by the players, glanced at the sheets I'd spent three nights preparing, shrug, and shove them unused into my "Old Adventures Folder," to be recycled five, ten, twenty years down the line.

But that's not the key element.  That's the willingness to unclench and roll with the punches in the first place.  You have to feel like doing, to allow the players to go in directions you hadn't predicted, to allow them to solve your scenario many hours (or many sessions) earlier than you'd planned, to allow them to slap down your Big Bad far easier than you'd hoped.

There are a lot of how-tos, and I bet most of you could come up with some that never would've occurred to me.  That just has to come after that initial decision to be the kind of GM who's willing to let go.

Quote from: Gabriel2;756875I've been the suck GM on many occasions.

After reading your account, I certainly agree with you.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a campaign where I played with a truly awful, and unimaginative GM. Nothing's really coming to mind. Maybe I've been lucky.

I've played with some ruthless GMs - one guy who ignored CR in a 3.5 campaign, and just brutalized the party. Near-TPK; one PC standing.

And I've played with some really odd players, who have freaked the hell out of me, and whom I didn't play with again, after that one session. But, no truly awful GMs.

Quote from: Doughdee222;7568642. I've mentioned this before, at conventions in Florida there's a group of overweight bearded guys who run a game called "Second American Revolution", a right-wing fantasy where the American government goes Communist and gun toting patriots fight for freedom "Red Dawn" style. Okay, fine, I can swallow that turd. So out of a 4 hour session one hour is spent explaining the concept and rules, a second hour or more on blah character generation and equipping (backpack, boots, rifle, knife, grenades, that's all you need) and one hour of play. My guy was a sniper type who fired two shots then got in close and threw one grenade which blew up a barracks killing 30 sleeping soldiers at once. Yeah, sure, thanks for wasting my valuable convention time. This was back in the 90's and these guys really thought their concept was soon to happen. Sigh.

Oh, you've been to HMGS-South's RECON or HURRICON? hee hee

Quote from: Ravenswing;756718I've been a long-term participant in several LARPs.  In not a single one of them was there so much as a single incident where someone drew a real weapon on another participant who wasn't banned for life, and a couple of those incidents had the eventholders call the cops.  Over fourteen years, and quite literally hundreds of events with thousands of participants, to the best of my recollection, there were four such.

Some of the European LARPs are alot less "safe" that the US ones. Theres a couple of combat sims in the US too that pass themselves off as LARPs but are just fighting. I was briefly in one here in MI and there was zero LARP to it.

But thats a matter for a different thread.

GM's and Players showing off BADLY with props or replicas or the real thing is nothing new. Luckily it seems to be pretty rare.

Ive used my 120 lb pull crossbow as an example of what they are like to players. Not loaded though.

Best to know how someone runs games first before being a player in one.

Quote from: Ravenswing;756718I've been a long-term participant in several LARPs.  In not a single one of them was there so much as a single incident where someone drew a real weapon on another participant who wasn't banned for life, and a couple of those incidents had the eventholders call the cops.  Over fourteen years, and quite literally hundreds of events with thousands of participants, to the best of my recollection, there were four such.

My experience as well, all of the LARP chapters I participated in took safety very seriously.

I am involved in Scouting right now because of my youngest son. I attended a leadership training and they were talking about tool safety. There was a part where they were talking about policing what the kids bring in. It seemed rather haphazard to me. So I explained how we did it at the boffer larps, (all combat gear needs to past inspection before an event) It was like a revelation to them. I figure Scouting would of thought of that before a bunch of LARPers.

Quote from: estar;757193My experience as well, all of the LARP chapters I participated in took safety very seriously.

I am involved in Scouting right now because of my youngest son. I attended a leadership training and they were talking about tool safety. There was a part where they were talking about policing what the kids bring in. It seemed rather haphazard to me. So I explained how we did it at the boffer larps, (all combat gear needs to past inspection before an event) It was like a revelation to them. I figure Scouting would of thought of that before a bunch of LARPers.

What does the 1st edition Scout Handbook say?

We did the Satan thing once.  Our friend Darren was new to the group and after several sessions we took him out to a bonfire and basically ripped off that comic.  "It's time you learned the real D&D, muwahaha."  No knife though...

As for railroading,  it's a tool in the toolbox that I am proud to use when needed. I know I am probably the only one here who will admit the sin, but c'est la vie.

Example:  3rd level Party runs across a randomly rolled Owlbear.  Kills it, but just barely.  Successfully tracks it to its lair - without having stopped to rest up.  Finds several more in the lair, females and young.  Over-enthusiastic-Cavalier says "I charge."  Bob the 'suck GM' says "No you don't, because this is a fight you know you can't win.  The party will almost certainly die if you pick this fight.  Plus you can tell from here that this cave isn't big enough to be the place you are seeking.  Let's not get distracted..."

So I was all sandboxy until the player failed to realize that the entire world wasn't there just to be XP, then I railroaded the party back to what it was doing before they found the lair.  They didn't seem to mind and we didn't spend the rest of the session rolling up new characters.

More on the topic, though, I did once play in a game where powerful NPCs would appear at odd times and insist that Steve's PC dance for them or die.  And in fact Colin made Steve himself dance to display the quality of the dancing.  It was pretty funny, as running gags go, but certainly a high school thing to do.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757199I know I am probably the only one here who will admit the sin, but c'est la vie.

I think we should re-label railroads that are used for good.  I like the term rollercoaster.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757199here who will admit the sin, but c'est la vie.

Example:  3rd level Party runs across a randomly rolled Owlbear.  Kills it, but just barely.  Successfully tracks it to its lair - without having stopped to rest up.  Finds several more in the lair, females and young.  Over-enthusiastic-Cavalier says "I charge."  Bob the 'suck GM' says "No you don't, because this is a fight you know you can't win.  The party will almost certainly die if you pick this fight.  Plus you can tell from here that this cave isn't big enough to be the place you are seeking.  Let's not get distracted..."

So I was all sandboxy until the player failed to realize that the entire world wasn't there just to be XP, then I railroaded the party back to what it was doing before they found the lair.  They didn't seem to mind and we didn't spend the rest of the session rolling up new characters.

That's not a definition of "railroading" I've ever seen anyone use before, ever.  That's not railroading, that's "breaking the fourth wall to tell players the consequences of their actions" which, for newer players, I'd have no problem with.

Quote from: Gabriel2;757202I think we should re-label railroads that are used for good.  I like the term rollercoaster.

One particular GM I play with has ran a couple of games set on trains, so he gets friendly ribbing about that.

In the most recent one, I spent so much time arsing about that he threatened to have the train leave without me, so I couldn't go to the next phase of our mission. I kept arsing about (I was having fun, unproductive and game-ruining fun, but fun nonetheless). The train left without me. Fair enough.

Quote from: Haffrung;756720If you don't like how a GM runs a game, why not man up and run the game yourself?

Playing is a different experience from GMing and sometimes a person may want to play more then GM. Though teaching by example can work.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757199I know I am probably the only one here who will admit the sin, but c'est la vie.

Yeah, that's not bad or 'railroading' to me either. I've had lots of GMs back up the situation for a moment, thinking perhaps they hadn't communicated the full danger of whatever is in front of us... or even to correct us when we're seriously barking up the wrong tree because of possible miscommunication.
In a game I was running for some kids, brothers, I had to interject a few times to explain why it would OBVIOUSLY go badly for the younger brother's PC if he were to kill his older brother's PC. A bit of setting info I had to pound in to him... followed by a retraction of his previous statement and a general getting back on track.
Later on I gave him a much milder warning about a group of local farmers he wanted to attack. He chose to do it anyway, I let him and it got him killed (kind of) and pretty much started a war.

A powerful referee tool: "Are you SURE you want to do that?"  Followed by silence and a little grin.

Way more powerful than a railroading.

Quote from: Scott Anderson;757289A powerful referee tool: "Are you SURE you want to do that?"  Followed by silence and a little grin.

Way more powerful than a railroading.

I find a raised eyebrow gets the message across with more subtlety but whatever works I guess.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757199We did the Satan thing once.  Our friend Darren was new to the group and after several sessions we took him out to a bonfire and basically ripped off that comic.  "It's time you learned the real D&D, muwahaha."  No knife though...

As for railroading,  it's a tool in the toolbox that I am proud to use when needed. I know I am probably the only one here who will admit the sin, but c'est la vie.

Example:  3rd level Party runs across a randomly rolled Owlbear.  Kills it, but just barely.  Successfully tracks it to its lair - without having stopped to rest up.  Finds several more in the lair, females and young.  Over-enthusiastic-Cavalier says "I charge."  Bob the 'suck GM' says "No you don't, because this is a fight you know you can't win.  The party will almost certainly die if you pick this fight.  Plus you can tell from here that this cave isn't big enough to be the place you are seeking.  Let's not get distracted..."

So I was all sandboxy until the player failed to realize that the entire world wasn't there just to be XP, then I railroaded the party back to what it was doing before they found the lair.  They didn't seem to mind and we didn't spend the rest of the session rolling up new characters.

More on the topic, though, I did once play in a game where powerful NPCs would appear at odd times and insist that Steve's PC dance for them or die.  And in fact Colin made Steve himself dance to display the quality of the dancing.  It was pretty funny, as running gags go, but certainly a high school thing to do.

Why would you give the owl bear a lair and young and other owl bears if you were going to invoke a "not in my game you don't sonny rule"

In my game you trail the owlbear back to its lair and you find a cave with some bones. The end.

Because he wanted to give the owlbear lair more stuff?

It's not a question of why as much as when. The paladin would know that pushing his party past their breaking point, just to finish off some owlbears that are not part of the quest at hand, would be unwise. But that was just that moment. If later, after rested, doubtful if it would have been a pause worthy moment. Nothing wrong with informing the player about the PC's normal understanding of the situation.

Things like alignment, ethos, history, power dynamics, known social mores, etc. I just inform players as they go. Sometimes that involves interrupting them from doing obviously (to the PC POV) counter-indicated behaviors. Then after informing the player to the fullest extent I can/they care, about PC's relevant 5 senses info and prior life knowledge, I ask if they still want to proceed.

Like suicidally running up to the queen to sodomize her with a trout during court, such things are worth pausing the game state to really let the full ramifications sink in. However I would have used that owlbear lair moment to explain instead of just say no.

Quote from: Opaopajr;757316Because he wanted to give the owlbear lair more stuff?

It's not a question of why as much as when. The paladin would know that pushing his party past their breaking point, just to finish off some owlbears that are not part of the quest at hand, would be unwise. But that was just that moment. If later, after rested, doubtful if it would have been a pause worthy moment. Nothing wrong with informing the player about the PC's normal understanding of the situation.

Things like alignment, ethos, history, power dynamics, known social mores, etc. I just inform players as they go. Sometimes that involves interrupting them from doing obviously (to the PC POV) counter-indicated behaviors. Then after informing the player to the fullest extent I can/they care, about PC's relevant 5 senses info and prior life knowledge, I ask if they still want to proceed.

Like suicidally running up to the queen to sodomize her with a trout during court, such things are worth pausing the game state to really let the full ramifications sink in. However I would have used that owlbear lair moment to explain instead of just say no.

Nah sorry can't see it.

If I want a game where I can't interact with 1/2 the scenery I will play an MMO.

As a GM I would never , never tell a player they can't do x, y or z unless it was physically impossible for their PC to actually do. Even then they could try. I bend the bars and escape, you stretch and strain and pull at the bars but to no avail.

If you show the PCs a thing don't be suprised if they want to investigate the thing. If you don't want them to investigate it then why is it there? and if the answer is simply because its there then you allow the party to investigate it and if they get killed and their quest fails and darkness envelops the land then okay shit happens.
By all means have an NPC scream that they don't have time to return for the treasure but don't be suprised if that NPC gets ignored or stabbed with a sharp pointy thing until they stop complaining.

Not with things like paladinhood. That is an instance where mistakes can be irrevocable. Similarly with other forms of certain destruction or loss, you should really inform players how unlikely that choice would be lightly made.

He told them no, but he really should have framed what the known consequences were. The owlbear lair is merely a matter of timing, nothing more.

Quote from: Marleycat;757295I find a raised eyebrow gets the message across with more subtlety but whatever works I guess.

See? Now that's funny right there.

I usually go with a furrowed brow and a "Oooookay..." or "Really?"

Not a thought through GMing strategy, just my gut reaction.

(And, on topic, while I'm usually a great GM, I have had my fair share of suckitude.)

If paladin-hood is in question over clearing out an owlbear den, that's kind of crappy. However, you could impart the same sense without telling anyone "no."

That seems to be at the heart of the argument here. Does the referee say "no!" Or does the referee let the players know in some other way that they're putting themselves in stupid danger?

As a player I prefer the latter because I like stupid danger and rolling up new guys. Other players may prefer the latter for other reasons. I can't think of a kind of player who would prefer to just lose control over their character for a moment when the referee shouts "no".

Quote from: Opaopajr;757316Things like alignment, ethos, history, power dynamics, known social mores, etc. I just inform players as they go. Sometimes that involves interrupting them from doing obviously (to the PC POV) counter-indicated behaviors. Then after informing the player to the fullest extent I can/they care, about PC's relevant 5 senses info and prior life knowledge, I ask if they still want to proceed.

Like suicidally running up to the queen to sodomize her with a trout during court, such things are worth pausing the game state to really let the full ramifications sink in. However I would have used that owlbear lair moment to explain instead of just say no.

Hmm this is a fine line.  Letting someone know setting information their character has but the player has forgotten or failed to consider is one thing, and should be done lightly.

Pausing to let the player know the action is unwise...is unwise.  The great thing about RPGs is a player can play more then one character.  If someone has gone into "Big damn Hero" mode, it's best to let them reap the whirlwind and learn the nature of the setting's reality.

In the example of the trout, or something less absurd but equally stupid, I think it's essential that you don't pause the game state.  If someone is being that stupid, they need a harsh lesson.  Of course, dealing with adults, here, if it's a kid, you may want to evaluate how you proceed as the best way to show them the nature of consequences.

Quote from: jibbajibba;757317Nah sorry can't see it.

If I want a game where I can't interact with 1/2 the scenery I will play an MMO.
...

I think there is a big difference between can't and "really really shouldn't."  The player is running the PC, but to me the PC is not the player.  That PC theoretically knows things the player doesn't and sometimes the GM has to step in and remind the player of that.  In-game is preferable, but sometimes GM to player is fine too.  If the player still wants to roll up a new PC, then sure fine.

Quote from: jibbajibba;757317If you show the PCs a thing don't be suprised if they want to investigate the thing. If you don't want them to investigate it then why is it there? and if the answer is simply because its there then you allow the party to investigate it and if they get killed and their quest fails and darkness envelops the land then okay shit happens.
...

If my players run off after everything I show them they will end up spending more time making new PCs than playing.  I often show them things that suggest "Abandon hope all ye who enter here without an army" and if they don't get the hint I think it's OK to outright say "I may not have explained that in a way that it was intended to be understood, but going there is HIGHLY likely to end up with a return to character generation."  I don't think that's breaking immersion any more than saying "roll your attack" (though both do lessen immersion, they are necessary).

Quote from: CRKrueger;757361Pausing ...

... pause the game state. ...

I don't agree with the idea that pausing the game state is bad.  There are meta moments as a normal part of the game in even serious LARPs.  To me this is nothing more than a meta moment equal to (as I note in my previous post) "roll your attack" or calling out damage in a LARP.  Sure it's preferable not to and as a GM I try to limit the meta moments and make them as seamless as possible, but I don't think it pauses the game state inappropriately.

Roll your attack is nothing like the above statements.  It's the resolution of the game system.  It's how the setting of that world is affected through the mechanics of the game system.

That has nothing to do with a character's knowledge, thought process, or actions.

If you're the type of GM that wants input into the player's decision-making process, toss in an NPC.  Then your NPC can say "Pardon Sir Paladin, but the last owlbear almost killed us all, aren't we too weak to take out another one?"  

If you don't have an NPC to say it, and no other player is saying it, then all the players, together are making the same, rather obvious error.  This isn't pixel bitching, "sheesh you guys didn't try turning the key 7 times counterclockwise and 9 times clockwise, of course you didn't open the door", this is very simple logic.  If the players can't see it, they're in "if it's there, we can kill it" mode and need a reality adjustment.

Let it play out.  If someone doesn't need a crutch, giving them one to use will end up crippling them.

Quote from: Scott Anderson;757289A powerful referee tool: "Are you SURE you want to do that?"  Followed by silence and a little grin.

I don't think I've ever said "no, you don't do that" but I have, in rare cases of real balls-out ruin-the-session idiocy, where an ordinary "are you sure" sly grin wasn't working, gone with "do you want to fucking die? That will kill you. You'll die."

Quote from: CRKrueger;757382Roll your attack is nothing like the above statements.  It's the resolution of the game system.  It's how the setting of that world is affected through the mechanics of the game system.

That has nothing to do with a character's knowledge, thought process, or actions.
...

Sorry, I don't buy it.  You and I may draw different lines at where meta begins and ends, but this strikes me as "it has to be perfect or it sucks" and I'm firmly in the "perfect is the enemy of best" camp.  The GM telling players things only the players know is exactly the rules of every TTRPG I've ever read.  I'm agreeing you should TRY to do it the way you suggest, but that's it's no gaming sin to keep the game moving by occasionally blurting out "That would be suicidal in case my hints didn't tell you."  Nothing wrong with a TPK because a party failed when they did know things, but it's certainly a greater break in the game to have everyone make new characters when they didn't understand the hints (and it's usually obvious to the GM, who is also allowed a mistake now and again).

Quote from: CRKrueger;757382Let it play out.  If someone doesn't need a crutch, giving them one to use will end up crippling them.

+100

Free will includes the right to death by stupidity. Either the players will get the idea of consequences after their 3rd TPK or so or not. Eventually they will want to reach 2nd level and play in a manner which allows them to do so.

OTOH if they enjoy the endless meat-grinding process then I won't stop them.

Quote from: Gabriel2;756875I've been the suck GM on many occasions.  Railroads, GM PC Theater, arbitrary calls against players.  I've done all the mainstream sins.

Most of the time, I was just trying to present something fun to my players.  I wasn't trying to be a suck GM.  I was trying to do something entertaining and doing it badly.

However, a few times I've just flat out been an ass.  They're not particularly interesting stories.

One time there was a player named Roger in our group who most of us had issues with.  So one game session he was making a routine pilot check and failed it by one.  I was in a bad mood that day, so I declared that his failed pilot check caused hs variable fighter to fall apart in the sky.  I told him he successfully ejected, but was going to have to sit out the adventure and wait for rescue, and that if he left before his character was rescued, then his character would die.   I then made him sit there for six hours doing nothing. It was purely a dick move.  No one else thought it was anything less than what he deserved, but it was still a dick move.

Another time I was running a game and doing a plotline where a PC had been possessed, but the player was still playing the character.  I told the player the little voice inside his head was instructing him to capture my GM PC and kill him.  So, the player did, quite eagerly I might add.  He never tried to struggle against this instruction even once.  I wonder why?  Anyway, it became clear the player was going to be successful in killing my GM-PC, so I paniced and arbitrarily pulled some crap out so I could kill his character before he killed mine.  Yeah, dick move, because I intentionally set him up to just declare his character dead.  Everyone was rightfully pissed with me for that one.

However, the funniest one is another Roger story.

Some backstory, I had this strange double pronged knife.  It was something I had found.  It was probably from the forties or something.  It was pretty wicked looking, and it had some rust on it to make it look especially nasty, because the rust was on it in just such a way that made it look like it was still stained with blood from a recent murder.

Anyway, we were having game night as usual.  As usual, Roger was being himself.  I forget what was happening in the game.  I think Roger said something about demonic sacrifice.  Whatever he said, it was the trigger for what we did next.

I told everyone else in the group "it is time."  We hadn't planned any of this beforehand.  It was purely spontaneous.  It's kind of scary how coordinated we were.  They grabbed Roger and hurled him down to the floor, holding him down while he screamed in confusion.  I turned and brought the evil looking knife out of it's hidey hole.

As I turned around I held my arms out and chanted stuff like "almighty satan, we do give this virgin sacrifice unto you..." blah, blah, blah.  This scared Roger even more, and he was screaming bloody murder and struggling for his life.  But everyone else managed to keep him held down while I kept chanting.  Then, I said something like "Amen Satan" and looked down at him as crazily as I could.  He was yelling, "Oh god, oh god, please don't kill me." or some shit like that.  I acted like I was going to stab him, and he let out a blood curdling girly scream worthy of a slasher movie.

That was finally what did it for me.  I started laughing and couldn't stop.  Neither could anyone else as they let go of Roger.  Roger was paralyzed for a moment, still recovering from fear.  He said something like "You guys are assholes" and fled.  We probably kept laughing about it for at least an hour.

I guess it wasn't quite bad enough a gaming experience, because Roger was back to play next week.

What did Roger do to earn so much spite?

Quote from: Imp;757383I don't think I've ever said "no, you don't do that" but I have, in rare cases of real balls-out ruin-the-session idiocy, where an ordinary "are you sure" sly grin wasn't working, gone with "do you want to fucking die? That will kill you. You'll die."

See, I won't stop Players from having their characters commit to actions that will kill them. A big part of my games is "stupidity kills". After having to deal with a lot of that from open table games, I've stopped trying to prevent one Player from doing stupid shit that kills the party - to me it is the party's job to keep idiots in check.

Now I'm talking stupid here, not ignorance. Not knowing setting or rule nuances that will hurt them is not the Players fault. Defying any kind of common sense is the Player's fault.

For example, had a party of three low levels observe an entire orc tribe on the march. Instead of just letting them pass and escaping with the information, one Player decides that they attack and charges. End result, TPK due to second hand stupidity.

Quote from: jeff37923;757396Now I'm talking stupid here, not ignorance. Not knowing setting or rule nuances that will hurt them is not the Players fault. Defying any kind of common sense is the Player's fault.

I think that is an important qualifier. I want to make sure the Player has all the information he needs so that his bad choices are all on him, not on my faulty presentation.

Quote from: Simlasa;757407I think that is an important qualifier. I want to make sure the Player has all the information he needs so that his bad choices are all on him, not on my faulty presentation.

QFT!

And I had no idea posts require 4 characters until now  (I will nonetheless try not to abuse QFTing)

Quote from: jeff37923;757396See, I won't stop Players from having their characters commit to actions that will kill them. A big part of my games is "stupidity kills". After having to deal with a lot of that from open table games, I've stopped trying to prevent one Player from doing stupid shit that kills the party - to me it is the party's job to keep idiots in check.

Well like I said it's a very rare thing for me and I'm happy to let characters die out of ordinary dumbness. It's more the "I drive the wagon off the bridge into the lava/ I press the History Eraser Button" type of thing that drives me to the limit. Charging the orc tribe would rate the raised eyebrow treatment.

Quote from: Nexus;757394What did Roger do to earn so much spite?

Short version?  He was a liar and a klepto.  He also liked blaming other people whenever he got caught.  Despite none of us having anything to do with Roger's shenanigans, none of us could enter local shops without being viewed as criminals, because Roger had gotten caught and had spun a tale that we were Fagin and he was just the innocent Oliver Twist.  All of us had lost things to Roger's theft: RPG stuff, music cassettes, books, money, anything he could get away with stealing.

Does that excuse it?  Oh, hell no.  My actions weren't a direct retribution for any specific thing Roger had ever done.  They were just a vague and uncoordinated response to Roger being Roger.  I was being an asshole.  In other words, I was being a teenager.  

I bet if Roger has told anyone that story, his version of it has him jumping up, beating us all up, and holding the knife to my throat while he says some line from an Arnold movie.  

That reminds me of another dick move I did that I might as well add to this:

I had been running the game for a while and one player had an on again off again relationship with a stereotypical hot girl NPC.  There had been a little delay since the last time this player had been able to game with us, and I had continued subplots while they were gone.

One of those subplots, created purely to satisfy teenage fanservice requirements, was that the hot girlfriend NPC had developed a relationship with another hot girl NPC.  So yeah, two hot girls kissing, a sure fire crowd pleaser.  It was kind of a humorous sub plot.

Anyway, the player finally got back to gaming with us.  The sapphic subplot had not been revealed to him by any of the other players.  I decided to have him find out in the most humorous way possible.  His character would walk around the corner, see his girlfriend kissing the other girl, and comedic hijinks would ensue.

Well, they did, but not in the way I even remotely intended.  Everyone else probably sees what is about to happen, but I certainly didn't.

The player in question went ballistic.  "Do you think I'm gay?  Do you think I have a small dick?"  To be absolutely clear,  he wasn't speaking in character.  He was genuinely pissed at me.  He thought I was accusing him of being homosexual and simultaneously saying he was incapable of satisfying a woman.  He lit into me, violence ensued, and everyone else thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen.

So yeah, a friendship ended like that.  I guess the people who are quick to cry misogyny are basking in satisfaction at how this tale turned out for me.  I really couldn't argue with them.

Regardless, I still laugh when I remember him saying, "Do you think I have a small dick?"

QuoteFor example, had a party of three low levels observe an entire orc tribe on the march. Instead of just letting them pass and escaping with the information, one Player decides that they attack and charges. End result, TPK due to second hand stupidity.

This would get the raised eyebrow from me NOT a TPK. The smart people in the party usually catch a clue muzzle the idiot and we move on.

Quote from: Marleycat;757426This would get the raised eyebrow from me NOT a TPK. The smart people in the party usually catch a clue muzzle the idiot and we move on.

But if the fool charges the orks wattaya gonna do? The other PCs might try running away... but do you pull punches to let them escape?

Since we're talking about orc camps, the people involved still say I'm a dick GM for this one (or they did last time I talked to them a decade ago).  I don't agree, so here goes.

I wanted to run AD&D.  I told everyone I wanted to do a heroic campaign.  The only stipulation I made is that all their PCs had to be good aligned.  This caused quite a bit of grumbling among some of the players, as they claimed this stifled their ability to play.  I held firm and said that was the campaign I wanted to run and if they didn't want to play good characters then they didn't have to play, as I could arrange to run the game on another night.  "Bah!" they replied and made characters anyway.

The opening adventure involved a village under siege from some orcs that had set up operations nearby.  The villagers told the PCs how the orcs were a powerful force.  Very few who had managed to find the orc's camp in the swamp had managed to return alive to bring news of it.  The heroes did some detective work and ventured to the orc camp.

Now, I had dropped hints about the orcs apparently looking for something in the area.  They only raided the village periodically to steal food.  I think I was somewhat heavy handed in my hints that the orcs were up to something and the heroes needed to learn what it was.

When the PCs saw the camp, I described how the orcs had obviously been here for some time and were in the process of fortifying the location.  There were lots of orcs, and I'm pretty sure I said directly that a frontal assault would be pointless.  The PCs discussed things for a while, and then they told me what they were going to do.

"We all charge the camp."

"Really?  There are a lot of orcs."

"Yes.  We'll catch them by surprise."

I sighed and decided to ignore all the snares and traps which I had mapped out which the heroes were about to run through (they chose the path of maximum resistance).  I generously treated it like Lancelot's attack on the castle gate guards in Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail and granted them surprise despite there being no way in hell that made any rational sense.  I suppose those were my mistakes right there, but I at least wanted to have a fight to end my campaign rather than a simple slaughter of characters pinned in traps.

A few combat rounds later, everyone except one character was dead.  His dice were hot as hell, and my dice refused to kill him.  Instead of fleeing, he stood his ground and killed dozens of orcs.  Eventually Boromir died and I had a TPK on my hands.

"Well, that was stupid," I said.

"What do you mean stupid?  You forced us to do that!"

"Huh?"

"We're all good!  We HAD to charge the orcs.  You railroaded us into that!"

That night and for months later, I thought they were trollin' me.  They insisted since I had forced them to be good aligned, that meant they were required to play in a completely non-tactical and non-intelligent manner.  Given the consistency over the years of their declaration that I "intentionally fucked them over," I have to conclude that they genuinely believed and still believe that I forced them to charge the orc camp and commit suicide.

Quote from: Simlasa;757432But if the fool charges the orks wattaya gonna do? The other PCs might try running away... but do you pull punches to let them escape?

I probably would, I see no reason to penalize the whole group for one idiot who has been warned by me multiple times and the group straight up at least once. So idiot boy can just go sit on the couch and start creating a new character and I'll stuff him in there somehow at the end of the session most likely.

Now if they ALL insist on being idiots despite this then they get what they deserve (which is dead, ate, orc dinner). Now of course in 5e it's obvious that large groups of anything are highly dangerous to any level of character so it may be much less of a problem hopefully.

Quote from: Gabriel2;757434"We're all good!  We HAD to charge the orcs.  You railroaded us into that!"

So, by their way of thinking good=stupid and there are no good folks left in the setting because they all perish at a young age in misguided Kamikazi attacks on 'evil doers'?

In our Pathfinder games I had other players insisting My PC HAD to attack a hill giant (who they wanted to kill for no particular reason) because I had 'giants' as my 'Preferred Enemy' (or whatever it's called). We were only 2nd level. I talked to the giant instead... peaceful outcome. GM stepped in to say that 'Preferred Enemy' just meant my PC was good at fighting them... not that he flew into a blind rage whenever he saw one.
Now I've got a reputation for being a 'pacifist' because my PCs don't just attack things without reason.

Quote from: Gabriel2;757434I wanted to run AD&D.  I told everyone I wanted to do a heroic campaign.  

Somewhere in between these statements lies the problem.

"Heroic" in gamer speak means getting away with stupid shit simply because you are heroes. Heroic campaigns need to be run with the understanding that the action is very much akin to pro wrestling. If you don't plan on running a superhero style of game (like 4E), then avoid the H word. :)

In my experience, telling the players that they are in fact heroes, has never done a bit of good. Its a matter of expectations. If you tell the players that they are adventurers, then they will sometimes be heroic.

If you tell the players they are heroes then they will invariably do something stupid.

Quote from: Gabriel2;757434"We're all good!  We HAD to charge the orcs.  You railroaded us into that!"

That night and for months later, I thought they were trollin' me.  They insisted since I had forced them to be good aligned, that meant they were required to play in a completely non-tactical and non-intelligent manner.  Given the consistency over the years of their declaration that I "intentionally fucked them over," I have to conclude that they genuinely believed and still believe that I forced them to charge the orc camp and commit suicide.

There's a fun mechanic in Dungeon World where, when a character "dies", they go to Death's realm to plead for another chance. The most fun part, for you, is that it gives you a chance to ask the characters why exactly they did something so mindblowingly stupid... and then, of course, condemn them to whatever afterlife awaits.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;757439If you tell the players they are heroes then they will invariably do something stupid.

'Heroic' seems to share some territory with 'Pulp' as far as Gamer expectations.

Quote from: Gabriel2;757434Since we're talking about orc camps, the people involved still say I'm a dick GM for this one (or they did last time I talked to them a decade ago).  I don't agree, so here goes.

I wanted to run AD&D.  I told everyone I wanted to do a heroic campaign.  The only stipulation I made is that all their PCs had to be good aligned.  This caused quite a bit of grumbling among some of the players, as they claimed this stifled their ability to play.  I held firm and said that was the campaign I wanted to run and if they didn't want to play good characters then they didn't have to play, as I could arrange to run the game on another night.  "Bah!" they replied and made characters anyway.

The opening adventure involved a village under siege from some orcs that had set up operations nearby.  The villagers told the PCs how the orcs were a powerful force.  Very few who had managed to find the orc's camp in the swamp had managed to return alive to bring news of it.  The heroes did some detective work and ventured to the orc camp.

Now, I had dropped hints about the orcs apparently looking for something in the area.  They only raided the village periodically to steal food.  I think I was somewhat heavy handed in my hints that the orcs were up to something and the heroes needed to learn what it was.

When the PCs saw the camp, I described how the orcs had obviously been here for some time and were in the process of fortifying the location.  There were lots of orcs, and I'm pretty sure I said directly that a frontal assault would be pointless.  The PCs discussed things for a while, and then they told me what they were going to do.

"We all charge the camp."

"Really?  There are a lot of orcs."

"Yes.  We'll catch them by surprise."

I sighed and decided to ignore all the snares and traps which I had mapped out which the heroes were about to run through (they chose the path of maximum resistance).  I generously treated it like Lancelot's attack on the castle gate guards in Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail and granted them surprise despite there being no way in hell that made any rational sense.  I suppose those were my mistakes right there, but I at least wanted to have a fight to end my campaign rather than a simple slaughter of characters pinned in traps.

A few combat rounds later, everyone except one character was dead.  His dice were hot as hell, and my dice refused to kill him.  Instead of fleeing, he stood his ground and killed dozens of orcs.  Eventually Boromir died and I had a TPK on my hands.

"Well, that was stupid," I said.

"What do you mean stupid?  You forced us to do that!"

"Huh?"

"We're all good!  We HAD to charge the orcs.  You railroaded us into that!"

That night and for months later, I thought they were trollin' me.  They insisted since I had forced them to be good aligned, that meant they were required to play in a completely non-tactical and non-intelligent manner.  Given the consistency over the years of their declaration that I "intentionally fucked them over," I have to conclude that they genuinely believed and still believe that I forced them to charge the orc camp and commit suicide.

Were they 'cleverly' punishing you for forcing them to be good aligned?

Otherwise, they are idiots.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;757439Somewhere in between these statements lies the problem.

"Heroic" in gamer speak means getting away with stupid shit simply because you are heroes. Heroic campaigns need to be run with the understanding that the action is very much akin to pro wrestling. If you don't plan on running a superhero style of game (like 4E), then avoid the H word. :)

In my experience, telling the players that they are in fact heroes, has never done a bit of good. Its a matter of expectations. If you tell the players that they are adventurers, then they will sometimes be heroic.

If you tell the players they are heroes then they will invariably do something stupid.

I have to agree.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;757439Somewhere in between these statements lies the problem.

"Heroic" in gamer speak means getting away with stupid shit simply because you are heroes. Heroic campaigns need to be run with the understanding that the action is very much akin to pro wrestling. If you don't plan on running a superhero style of game (like 4E), then avoid the H word. :)

In my experience, telling the players that they are in fact heroes, has never done a bit of good. Its a matter of expectations. If you tell the players that they are adventurers, then they will sometimes be heroic.

If you tell the players they are heroes then they will invariably do something stupid.

That's why I generally prefer the term "do-gooders."

Quote from: Brander;757390Sorry, I don't buy it.  You and I may draw different lines at where meta begins and ends, but this strikes me as "it has to be perfect or it sucks" and I'm firmly in the "perfect is the enemy of best" camp.  The GM telling players things only the players know is exactly the rules of every TTRPG I've ever read.  I'm agreeing you should TRY to do it the way you suggest, but that's it's no gaming sin to keep the game moving by occasionally blurting out "That would be suicidal in case my hints didn't tell you."  Nothing wrong with a TPK because a party failed when they did know things, but it's certainly a greater break in the game to have everyone make new characters when they didn't understand the hints (and it's usually obvious to the GM, who is also allowed a mistake now and again).

We just disagree.  If the integrity of the setting is more important then "wasting" a chargen session because a jackass caused a TPK, then so be it.  Everyone dies, Sauron gets the ring.  Ok, so make up new guys and join the resistance.

Believe me, you only have to do that once for players to take the hint and next time the characters will police themselves.

Hm. "Heroic" = "get away with stupid shit."

I never thought of it that way at all.

But some folks may hear the former and think of the latter. That makes sense.

Recalculating...

Quote from: CRKrueger;757472We just disagree.  If the integrity of the setting is more important then "wasting" a chargen session because a jackass caused a TPK, then so be it.  Everyone dies, Sauron gets the ring.  Ok, so make up new guys and join the resistance.

Believe me, you only have to do that once for players to take the hint and next time the characters will police themselves.

If it were WEG Star Wars I would be more inclined to let them suicide.

As it was actually Pathfinder where character generation takes days (and for the 12 year old great gnashing of teeth), I took their free will away.

It wasn't a Paladin by the way, but a Cavalier.   It's a bit like a Fighter riding a Druid's Animal Companion.  Death probably was the only risk.

I think the problem was ignorance more than anything.  They didn't realize that the odds were truly insurmountable.

Why did I not have the lair be empty?  Because that feels like illusionism to me.  I 'felt' like the owlbear was defending a nearby lair.  When they went to explore it, I put up what might have been read as a gigantic "dead end" sign, but they didn't take it that way.  Then I told them, but for whatever reason they thought I wasn't being honest.

Had I let them die it would have been my fault anyway, at least in a forum thread like this.   Half the folks will always say you did it wrong.

As for the "don't put stuff you don't want the party to kill" concept...  how is that different from the gray fog?

Quote from: jeff37923;757396See, I won't stop Players from having their characters commit to actions that will kill them. A big part of my games is "stupidity kills". After having to deal with a lot of that from open table games, I've stopped trying to prevent one Player from doing stupid shit that kills the party - to me it is the party's job to keep idiots in check.

Now I'm talking stupid here, not ignorance. Not knowing setting or rule nuances that will hurt them is not the Players fault. Defying any kind of common sense is the Player's fault.

I assume that there is always a chance of ignorance and miscommunication, hence I always check and clarify. If they still want to continue then yes, naturally consequences continue.

I also don't rely on party dynamics to control idiots, and there's a very good reason why. There are always trollish mo-fos whose fun is spoiling another's fun. Sometimes they can rein it in and be fun people and productive players; other times they are carrying over childish troll games from previously in the FLGS week that you may not know about. Otherwise good people, but occasionally pull shit they think is funny and don't mind what they think is harmless game shitting. Like the show Jackass among omega males.

That and joking shit talkers who kid continuously and don't clue in when they are kidding.

And since a lot of tables assume no PvP, people don't feel open to communally censor as they'd like. So as GM, I set the tone, as it is my responsibility. I say PvP is allowed, though not necessarily encouraged. Actions have consequences, especially stupid ones. And no one is obligated to march together with stupid into trouble. And on my part I oblige myself to clarify when necessary, especially with what would be obvious. I also am obliged to confirm declarations — which means I double check people on their goofy humor, which is useful because a lot of people are really piss poor with comedic timing.

If that doesn't work for some, fine. But clarification and confirmation has been useful to me. Sometimes that means as short as a raised eyebrow, other times it's more explanatory.

I expect tons of immersion breaking moments during play, from bathroom breaks, combat mechanics, goofy humor, to business/emergency calls, et al. Clarification and confirmation is just a small addition to the already large list of accepted breaks from character.

Quote from: estar;757193I am involved in Scouting right now because of my youngest son. I attended a leadership training and they were talking about tool safety. There was a part where they were talking about policing what the kids bring in. It seemed rather haphazard to me. So I explained how we did it at the boffer larps, (all combat gear needs to past inspection before an event) It was like a revelation to them. I figure Scouting would of thought of that before a bunch of LARPers.

Yep, same with my LARP: a marshal had to inspect every weapon and every shield at the start of every event.  For my own events, I ran up a bunch of "Passed Weapon" stickers in day-glo yellow, and every weapon had to sport one or sit in the owner's car.

And yeah ... you'd think.  Scouting should involve a half hour before every camping trip where the Scoutmaster and assistants very visibly go over the gear of every Scout to ensure it's in good shape.  If nothing else, it'd be a good object lesson.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757472We just disagree.  If the integrity of the setting is more important then "wasting" a chargen session because a jackass caused a TPK, then so be it.  Everyone dies, Sauron gets the ring.  Ok, so make up new guys and join the resistance.

Believe me, you only have to do that once for players to take the hint and next time the characters will police themselves.

No, they won't. Seen it. It just means they've discovered a new toy to light their friends' hair on fire. Oh, they may tone it down for a bit, but like fishing they are waiting for the next big bite.

In life assume petty asshole games. Call people on it openly and state that's not what you're interested in and watch it calm down. They either were innocent of it and ignorant of expectations, or guilty as sin and called on the carpet. In-game punishment for out-of-game bad behavior does. not. work.

Quote from: Scott Anderson;757289A powerful referee tool: "Are you SURE you want to do that?"  Followed by silence and a little grin.

My own signal -- which, given that my players are pretty smart, I rarely have to use -- is to lean back in my chair, stretch out, steeple my fingers, and touch the tips to my lips.  When the room quiets down (and it does as soon as people notice the gesture), that's when I drawl "Is that really what your character is doing?"

Mind you, in my case, the meaning is more along the lines of "I don't think you've quite realized how suicidally stupid your plan of action is, and you ought to have," rather than "You're all going to die."

Quote from: Gabriel2;757434They insisted since I had forced them to be good aligned, that meant they were required to play in a completely non-tactical and non-intelligent manner.  Given the consistency over the years of their declaration that I "intentionally fucked them over," I have to conclude that they genuinely believed and still believe that I forced them to charge the orc camp and commit suicide.

Exploderwizard came close, but I don't think he quite nailed it.

I'm minded of the forum thread where I was sneering at how standard D&D play seemed to deviate so far from fantasy tropes in books and film it wasn't funny.  A poster retorted "Are you just now figuring out that Dungeon Fantasy is its own genre and has been for decades?"  He was, of course, right.

Your players could, quite defensibly, state that there are certain behaviors that (in their experience) D&D groups always follow ... especially given that so many gamers are wedded to the principle that The Way My Gang Plays Is How The Game Is Played Everywhere By Right-Thinking Gamers.  They might, to the degree it occurred to them, tell you that if they hadn't taken on the orcs, they would've expected to be harshly punished: either through you jeering that they were cowards, up through nailing them with penalties for playing their alignment wrong.

Where you screwed up isn't in how you ran that session.  You screwed up in giving your players buzzwords you didn't define.  "Heroic?"  I know what heroic means to me ... what does it mean to you?  "Good alignment?"  Quite aside from that I hate alignment with a hot poisonous hate, always have, and categorically refuse to play in any campaign that employs it, what does that mean to you?  What behaviors do you expect?  What consequences do you anticipate if we don't play that way?

Obviously you and those players never had the conversation, and obviously both you and they haven't yet understood that you had wildly differing expectations.

Quote from: jeff37923;757396Not knowing setting or rule nuances that will hurt them is not the Players fault. Defying any kind of common sense is the Player's fault.

That bit me on the ass once, as a player. Deadlands, first time, never read it before, never played before, know nothing of the setting.

We create characters, and I elect to play a Veteran of the Weird West, which allowed me to turn my gambler into a Huckster and cast spells. I also got an addiction to opium, so...

We start with our first module, the vampire train TPK factory one. We're in a town and the GM tells us we see a kind of slightly spooky train in the distance. We warily open the station, and it disgorges hundreds of super-powered vamps, which eat the entire party except me and the GM's brother (playing a Harrowed, so already more powerful than any other character).

I lose a limb and flee, along with the Harrowed. He's also a blessed, and tries to heal my limb but fails, taking a lethal wound to the gut and his Manitou takes over.

Yeah. TPK.

The GM literally yells at me for not having done something at the station, given that I chose to play a Veteran of the Weird West. I should have known what was going to happen and the TPK was all my fault.

My response was "How was I supposed to know that 'mildly spooky' equates to 'rolling vampire death train that eats whole towns'? My character may have known that, but how was I supposed to?"

My lesson, for my own DM'ing: don't assume the players have all the facts. Especially when they're about to do something suicidal. Spoon feed it to them, if necessary.

OTOH, pure stupidity you just let go. It'll be a learning experience.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757485If it were WEG Star Wars I would be more inclined to let them suicide.

As it was actually Pathfinder where character generation takes days (and for the 12 year old great gnashing of teeth), I took their free will away.

Herein lies one of the great faults in 3.X. Chargen when done correctly takes hours and a pile of PDFs as tall as a Great Dane.

Btw, not edition warring here. I like 3.X for what it is. But it's not a game friendly to TPKs.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757361Hmm this is a fine line.  Letting someone know setting information their character has but the player has forgotten or failed to consider is one thing, and should be done lightly.

Pausing to let the player know the action is unwise...is unwise.  The great thing about RPGs is a player can play more then one character.  If someone has gone into "Big damn Hero" mode, it's best to let them reap the whirlwind and learn the nature of the setting's reality.

In the example of the trout, or something less absurd but equally stupid, I think it's essential that you don't pause the game state.  If someone is being that stupid, they need a harsh lesson.  Of course, dealing with adults, here, if it's a kid, you may want to evaluate how you proceed as the best way to show them the nature of consequences.

Amen.

A PC charging unbeatable odds and dying looses the PC. The DM intervening and prevening the action looses the entire verisimilitude of the setting IMHO YOMV etc etc

Quote from: Simlasa;757407I think that is an important qualifier. I want to make sure the Player has all the information he needs so that his bad choices are all on him, not on my faulty presentation.

Entirely true and your job as GM is to present the entirity of the world. NPCs are useful as they provide for a seemless was for the GM to replicate the internal monologue.

Not sure if this has been covered many times before, but:
A gm has to be careful they don't make too many assumptions.
People interpret the same data differently.
As a gm, I clarify setting information and details the characters would know when I think the players are drawing a conclusion that is flat out wrong.

But, only if I think the information I provided as gm is not being interpreted correctly. perhaps I gave bad info; it happens.

I don't warn player that a dragon will kill them; I make sure they know dragons are deadly.

It's far from an exact science though.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;757549That bit me on the ass once, as a player. Deadlands, first time, never read it before, never played before, know nothing of the setting.

We create characters, and I elect to play a Veteran of the Weird West, which allowed me to turn my gambler into a Huckster and cast spells. I also got an addiction to opium, so...

We start with our first module, the vampire train TPK factory one. We're in a town and the GM tells us we see a kind of slightly spooky train in the distance. We warily open the station, and it disgorges hundreds of super-powered vamps, which eat the entire party except me and the GM's brother (playing a Harrowed, so already more powerful than any other character).

I lose a limb and flee, along with the Harrowed. He's also a blessed, and tries to heal my limb but fails, taking a lethal wound to the gut and his Manitou takes over.

Yeah. TPK.

The GM literally yells at me for not having done something at the station, given that I chose to play a Veteran of the Weird West. I should have known what was going to happen and the TPK was all my fault.

My response was "How was I supposed to know that 'mildly spooky' equates to 'rolling vampire death train that eats whole towns'? My character may have known that, but how was I supposed to?"

My lesson, for my own DM'ing: don't assume the players have all the facts. Especially when they're about to do something suicidal. Spoon feed it to them, if necessary.

OTOH, pure stupidity you just let go. It'll be a learning experience.

Yeah, to me this falls under the heading of GM not relating setting nuance to the Players. What the Player does not know, the Player cannot react well to.

I'm talking about the guy who decides at the start of the Star Wars game, during character creation, loudly announces to the rest of the party of  Rebels that he is creating an Imperial Spy who will turn in the rest of the party for a reward once enough evidence is gathered. I just said that PvP is allowed and the problem was solved.

Quote from: Marleycat;757426This would get the raised eyebrow from me NOT a TPK. The smart people in the party usually catch a clue muzzle the idiot and we move on.

I've seen a lot of Players not try to police their own because they are afraid of pissing the friend off who is about to do something stupid when they do. I think it plays right into the Geek Social Fallacies.

Quote from: Opaopajr;757534No, they won't. Seen it. It just means they've discovered a new toy to light their friends' hair on fire. Oh, they may tone it down for a bit, but like fishing they are waiting for the next big bite.

In life assume petty asshole games. Call people on it openly and state that's not what you're interested in and watch it calm down. They either were innocent of it and ignorant of expectations, or guilty as sin and called on the carpet. In-game punishment for out-of-game bad behavior does. not. work.

Who the hell said anything about in-game punishment for out-of-game behavior?  I'm talking about in-game punishment for in-game stupidity.  I'm not talking about players OOC stopping a character because the player is being a stupid jackass.  I'm talking about a character doing something to stop another character from doing something stupid.

Either the player is an adult or not.  If they're an asshole, they're probably not gonna play more then once.  If the problem is a "Big Damn Hero" mentality, then the death of their character is probably going to spark a discussion, which will probably become heated, then they either adapt to the table or don't.  I don't care which.   Experience tells me the worthwhile players will adapt, the useless ones will leave and I don't have to hold anyone's hand or sacrifice my world's integrity.

If anything is using in-game means to deal with out-of-game behavior, it's pausing the game state for cheats and hints.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;757549That bit me on the ass once, as a player. Deadlands, first time, never read it before, never played before, know nothing of the setting.

We create characters, and I elect to play a Veteran of the Weird West, which allowed me to turn my gambler into a Huckster and cast spells. I also got an addiction to opium, so...

We start with our first module, the vampire train TPK factory one. We're in a town and the GM tells us we see a kind of slightly spooky train in the distance. We warily open the station, and it disgorges hundreds of super-powered vamps, which eat the entire party except me and the GM's brother (playing a Harrowed, so already more powerful than any other character).

I lose a limb and flee, along with the Harrowed. He's also a blessed, and tries to heal my limb but fails, taking a lethal wound to the gut and his Manitou takes over.

Yeah. TPK.

The GM literally yells at me for not having done something at the station, given that I chose to play a Veteran of the Weird West. I should have known what was going to happen and the TPK was all my fault.

My response was "How was I supposed to know that 'mildly spooky' equates to 'rolling vampire death train that eats whole towns'? My character may have known that, but how was I supposed to?"

My lesson, for my own DM'ing: don't assume the players have all the facts. Especially when they're about to do something suicidal. Spoon feed it to them, if necessary.

OTOH, pure stupidity you just let go. It'll be a learning experience.

Ok that GM was a total and complete idiot, not to mention wrong about the rules.  If he wanted to make Veteran of the Weird West tell you something about the train, then he should have described the train, then make it clear you had a specific feeling about the train, and/or had the Harrowed have the Manitou react to the Train.

There's nothing about Veteran of the Weird West that would have you equate 'mildly spooky' to 'rolling vampire death train that eats whole towns'?

A shitsucker GM is a shitsucker GM.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757745Who the hell said anything about in-game punishment for out-of-game behavior?  I'm talking about in-game punishment for in-game stupidity.  I'm not talking about players OOC stopping a character because the player is being a stupid jackass.  I'm talking about a character doing something to stop another character from doing something stupid.

Either the player is an adult or not.  If they're an asshole, they're probably not gonna play more then once.  If the problem is a "Big Damn Hero" mentality, then the death of their character is probably going to spark a discussion, which will probably become heated, then they either adapt to the table or don't.  I don't care which.   Experience tells me the worthwhile players will adapt, the useless ones will leave and I don't have to hold anyone's hand or sacrifice my world's integrity.

If anything is using in-game means to deal with out-of-game behavior, it's pausing the game state for cheats and hints.

Maturity is a finite reserve apparently; not everyone shares the same amount and quality, and everybody seems to have their lapses. I find relying on personal maturity to stop ignorant and/or trollish behavior about as useful to stop the flood of Monty Python and Simpsons quotes. I am talking about clarification because it stops BOTH player confusion and petty OOC games. Since I have no interest in splicing the two at my table through using IC "guess what I'm thinking" consequences, it is far easier for me to assume my players are 'confused' and then clarify and confirm.

And it is in no way "cheats or hints" to people who are genuinely ignorant of the contextual state. Not everyone is as active a listener, or gifted with such critical thinking, so I have no problem giving them more time to think before they act. That it also shuts down a lot of asshole behavior, flagging you're in no mood for your other players or your campaign to be jerked around, is absolute gravy.

Trying to get people on the same page is what I feel is the table's responsibility, including me the GM. Laissez faire only works so far.

Quote from: Opaopajr;757756Trying to get people on the same page is what I feel is the table's responsibility, including me the GM. Laissez faire only works so far.

Yep.  Just like the other tools, "consequences" is not always the best route.  No one tool is, for a job as complex as Game Mastery.

Quote from: Opaopajr;757756"guess what I'm thinking" consequences

Total and complete strawman.  One owlbear almost tears a party a new one, it's "guess the DM's thinking" to consider that maybe going into it's lair you might find another one or more and that might not be the best idea since the party is messed up?  That's called not being a total idiot.

Quote from: Opaopajr;757756it is far easier for me to assume my players are 'confused' and then clarify and confirm.

Who the heck do you play with on a regular basis, whoever rolls into the FLGS on game day?

Quote from: Opaopajr;757756And it is in no way "cheats or hints" to people who are genuinely ignorant of the contextual state.

I believe your own example was something like charge forward and attempt to sodomize the queen with a trout at court.  If someone is actually ignorant of that contextual state, you're GMing in an asylum.

Quote from: Opaopajr;757756That it also shuts down a lot of asshole behavior, flagging you're in no mood for your other players or your campaign to be jerked around, is absolute gravy.

Again, do you mostly play with one-offs?

No gaming is better than bad gaming, just get yourself some adults to regularly play with, christ.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757760Yep.  Just like the other tools, "consequences" is not always the best route.  No one tool is, for a job as complex as Game Mastery.

Best route for what?  Since when does the natural consequences of your own fucking choices count as a tool or a means of punishment or modifying behavior?  Jesus Wept.

Quote from: Bill;757667I don't warn player that a dragon will kill them; I make sure they know dragons are deadly.

An elegant turn of phrase.

The key to settign expectations is to show not talk.

Telling the players a dragon is dangerous is fine I guess... doing it really loudly as they are about to charge a dragon and saying "No you don't do that" is Unforgiveable.

Want to show them a dragon is dangerous. Take the captain of the guard that they just saw take out 4 bandits and you are roleplaying as hte toughest guy on the street and have the dragon bite him in half. The players and the PCs now both know dragons are dangerous. If they choose to charge the dragon then more power to them.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757792...

No gaming is better than bad gaming, just get yourself some adults to regularly play with, christ.

The so-called "adults" you are describing don't exist as far as my experiences go.  At a minimum everyone has bad nights.  From my perspective you are saying:  "No gaming is better than less than perfect gaming."  In 30+ years of gaming/GMing everything from one-shot con games to long-term games at a friends dinner table (in places from Gitmo to Guam)  I've never met players that would fit your criteria consistently.  I play with fallible human beings not super gaming robots.  I'm also willing to overlook/tolerate the quirks of my friends.  The purpose of gaming to me is having fun with new and old friends, not having the perfect gaming session, though I/we still strive for best.

Quote from: jibbajibba;757838...doing it really loudly as they are about to charge a dragon and saying "No you don't do that" is Unforgiveable. ...

Unforgiveable?  Really?  A less than perfect action during a game of make-believe is somehow a mortal sin or something???

Quote from: Brander;757843Unforgiveable?  Really?  A less than perfect action during a game of make-believe is somehow a mortal sin or something???

Nope, hence I raise my eyebrow so the smart or experienced ones understand Johanna is about to drop the hammer....we better rethink this. The thing is gaming isn't about winning it's about fun because in the end the DM can ALWAYS win.

Quote from: Brander;757842The so-called "adults" you are describing don't exist as far as my experiences go.

Sorry to hear that.    

Quote from: Brander;757842At a minimum everyone has bad nights.  From my perspective you are saying:  "No gaming is better than less than perfect gaming."

Nope, surprising I know, but I am using the words I wish to.  I'm saying no gaming is better than bad gaming.  If I have to tell players dragons are deadly, or that they shouldn't goose the Queen of England, or shouldn't tell a Mob Boss to go fuck himself in his own headquarters, then those players are so poor, then that is bad gaming.

A player forgetting something because it's been a long week or it's getting late is one thing.  Charging a platoon of orcs when you're three low level characters isn't even in the same city, let alone ballpark.

Quote from: Brander;757842I've never met players that would fit your criteria consistently.

Since my actual criteria is something very different from the voice in your head, I doubt it, but if you're correct, again, sorry to hear it, sucks to be you.

Quote from: Brander;757842I play with fallible human beings not super gaming robots.

If having the thought cross into your head that "Hmm, since one Owlbear almost killed us all, maybe we want to heal before we risk running into another one by entering its lair." qualifies as a "super gaming robot" to you, then maybe the problem wasn't your players after all.

Quote from: Brander;757842I'm also willing to overlook/tolerate the quirks of my friends.

That's really what this whole show is about, you have friends who just suck as players, but you decided to adjust the game to them because they're friends.  Cool, we all make sacrifices for friends.

Not sure why you can't just man up and admit it though, and had to start this whole bullshit pretense about "so-called players", "gaming robots" and insinuations that I don't play with friends.

I do play with friends and they're not spastic rampaging idiots when they play.  They're not professional gamers, or robots, and they have a lot of fun, they just don't choose to do it by being a Monty Python character on LSD.  Sorry.

Quote from: Marleycat;757845Nope, hence I raise my eyebrow so the smart or experienced ones understand Johanna is about to drop the hammer....we better rethink this. The thing is gaming isn't about winning it's about fun because in the end the DM can ALWAYS win.

Agreed, although absolutely NOONE in this thread ever mentioned the DM winning.  It is about fun, and I have players who like to roleplay, which means God doesn't stop time to tell them they're being idiots.  They find that out the same way we do, by fucking up and learning.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757848Agreed, although absolutely NOONE in this thread ever mentioned the DM winning.  It is about fun, and I have players who like to roleplay, which means God doesn't stop time to tell them they're being idiots.  They find that out the same way we do, by fucking up and learning.

We have different methods for the same end results is all. Not actual disagreement about  the actual issue as far as I see.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757792Total and complete strawman.  One owlbear almost tears a party a new one, it's "guess the DM's thinking" to consider that maybe going into it's lair you might find another one or more and that might not be the best idea since the party is messed up?  That's called not being a total idiot.

Reading comprehension: The GM stopped play because the GM judged that was a breach of paladinhood to willfully engage another high lethality battle with such a crippled party. Considering it is rather reckless and arguably more passionate than logical, thus perhaps chaotic in the GM's eyes, to charge right in knowing what the character would know, it is completely and totally relevant. Surprising people with a stripped class is something that breeds "swine" level of player resentment — and the world can do without another sharing-the-speaking-stick heartbreaker for awhile.

That requires informing the player that his act would be a notable and obvious breach from the character's POV. Thus the player should be informed instead of guessing the defined moral boundaries of his class, as per GM conception. So no, you are absolutely and completely wrong, as you are focused on the combat, not the real clarification and confirmation challenge here, the risk to class status itself.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757792Who the heck do you play with on a regular basis, whoever rolls into the FLGS on game day?

I believe your own example was something like charge forward and attempt to sodomize the queen with a trout at court.  If someone is actually ignorant of that contextual state, you're GMing in an asylum.

Again, do you mostly play with one-offs?

No gaming is better than bad gaming, just get yourself some adults to regularly play with, christ.

I do play in FLGSes, and yes I do accommodate new players who want to join in. Normally I start them off with an NPC to see how they blend with my GM style and their fellow players. That said people in general, even regular people you feel you already know, get into 'moods'.

Further, a lot of 3e/PF-isms (especially RPGA/PFS), with their requisite "I broke the game, hur hur," are a lingering miasma upon the land. You are right, the queen v. trout example should be obviously suicidal and dumb. With a high enough bluff, diplo, WTF 3e/PF-ism, and the manacles of Organized Play, even the dumb and impossible is passed as allowable "wacky, zany hijinks!" as long as your char-op build can survive an audit. The current community environment is like GMing in an asylum; you learn to be selective over time as you never know which ones are the most sane just from looks. The power creep has all gone to everyone's head, as it were.

And I do have regular play — usually what I myself run. I also avoid 3e/PF/4e and its Organized Play like the plague as I have no time for National Lampoon setups and Bay/Bruckheimer plot immunity passed off as clever. Please, do note my sigs, they come from a very bitter heart. That said I have had some success in offering players an alternative, as seeming after so many years people are getting tired of the fighting for center stage limelight on the RPG equivalent of the Gong Show.

Quote from: jibbajibba;757838The key to settign expectations is to show not talk.

Telling the players a dragon is dangerous is fine I guess... doing it really loudly as they are about to charge a dragon and saying "No you don't do that" is Unforgiveable.

I agree, and believe that was the cardinal sin from that owlbear example. Some things are harder to show not tell, however. As a player of In Nomine, where there is a lot of subtle mental tricks, readings, and cues, let alone related stuff on other planes of existence, there comes a point where that handy-dandy nearby NPC just no longer works.

In D&D this is more prevalent during psionic tricks, ESP, Augury, divination in general, alignment, character history or professional knowledge, etc. These are from things hard to show in the Experiential Now; they are pasts not lived by players, skills or social structures not fully understood, effects not visibly obvious, etc. The corporeal world of a setting has actual limits where tell becomes easier.

Have you struggled with the joy of how to show the ecstatic agony of revelatory visions to players, while they are tenuously grasping the concept that their Seventh Seal PCs all start with visions of a kind to their chosen Archangel? LSD nightmares embedded with critical meaning can only go so far in the medium of the spoken word. Something's got to give, and I usually find myself responsible to reach out, as I am the players' conduit to the fictional world.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757795Best route for what?  Since when does the natural consequences of your own fucking choices count as a tool or a means of punishment or modifying behavior?  Jesus Wept.

I know you feel strongly about this topic, but you're overlooking a huge portion of real life.

Example:  I have a job.  I report to a boss who reports to a boss who reports to a VP.  If I fuck up royally, people put pressure on the VP to fire me, which would be a natural consequence for my action.  (And I actually have the opportunity to make tens of thousands of people stop working and have in fact done so at least once.)

Do I get fired?

No, because my boss steps in to shield me from those natural consequences of my own fucking actions.

Why?

Because I provide more value that the harm of a single mistake.

Is Christ still weeping?

Quote from: mcbobbo;757877I know you feel strongly about this topic, but you're overlooking a huge portion of real life.

Example:  I have a job.  I report to a boss who reports to a boss who reports to a VP.  If I fuck up royally, people put pressure on the VP to fire me, which would be a natural consequence for my action.  (And I actually have the opportunity to make tens of thousands of people stop working and have in fact done so at least once.)

Do I get fired?

No, because my boss steps in to shield me from those natural consequences of my own fucking actions.

Why?

Because I provide more value that the harm of a single mistake.

Is Christ still weeping?

Umm, in that case the natural consequence of your action is to have what really happened, your boss probably made sure you knew what mistake you made and kept you on because it made perfect sense to.  Logical and totally IC.  

You're missing the point that in a roleplaying game version of this example You=PC, Boss=NPC, God=GM.  God didn't come out of the sky and say "McBobbo, you sure you want to do that, you could get fired you know?" No.  You fucked up, your boss wanted to keep a good guy despite the office politics, so he kept you.  Not the same thing.

I know it's hard for people to remember we are talking about a Roleplaying game, but since so many seem to be forgetting that the reason we came together socially in this instance was to roleplay, Christ is still weeping that we seem not to be doing it much.  ;)

Quote from: Opaopajr;757869Reading comprehension: The GM stopped play because the GM judged that was a breach of paladinhood to willfully engage another high lethality battle with such a crippled party.

Is that what happened?  Lets read McBobbo, whose campaign that was.

Quote from: McBobboIt wasn't a Paladin by the way, but a Cavalier. It's a bit like a Fighter riding a Druid's Animal Companion. Death probably was the only risk.  I think the problem was ignorance more than anything. They didn't realize that the odds were truly insurmountable.

So...

It seems like the rest of your argument is that player's should have some idea that this a "Paladinhood Breaking Moment".  Well, in many cases I would agree with you, it depends on the player in question.  If it was a new player, I would more lenient then an experienced one, but some actions are clear violations, I'm not going to remind a Paladin that slaying an unarmed woman because she won't tell him where her dead husband hid his coins is a no-no.  Personally I always take the rare Paladin player aside and give them the heads-up before play.

Quote from: Opaopajr;757869I do play in FLGSes, and yes I do accommodate new players who want to join in. Normally I start them off with an NPC to see how they blend with my GM style and their fellow players. That said people in general, even regular people you feel you already know, get into 'moods'.

Further, a lot of 3e/PF-isms (especially RPGA/PFS), with their requisite "I broke the game, hur hur," are a lingering miasma upon the land. You are right, the queen v. trout example should be obviously suicidal and dumb. With a high enough bluff, diplo, WTF 3e/PF-ism, and the manacles of Organized Play, even the dumb and impossible is passed as allowable "wacky, zany hijinks!" as long as your char-op build can survive an audit. The current community environment is like GMing in an asylum; you learn to be selective over time as you never know which ones are the most sane just from looks. The power creep has all gone to everyone's head, as it were.

See here I totally see where you're coming from.  However, the only time I would wade into that sewer would be to try and save the few players I thought were worth something, but just needed a different table to play at.  I never GM at FLGS's, I only play, scouting for players for my campaigns.

Quote from: Opaopajr;757869And I do have regular play — usually what I myself run. I also avoid 3e/PF/4e and its Organized Play like the plague as I have no time for National Lampoon setups and Bay/Bruckheimer plot immunity passed off as clever. Please, do note my sigs, they come from a very bitter heart. That said I have had some success in offering players an alternative, as seeming after so many years people are getting tired of the fighting for center stage limelight on the RPG equivalent of the Gong Show.

I'd rather not GM at all then GM under that situation.  It sucks that you have no other options. :(

I find it works better to find the few players you want to invite to your table at the FLGS and then get them out of that environment and into a different social setting with other players that share your table culture, then you'll have a better chance of showing them a different attitude toward playing.

There's no 'one size fits all' solution.
I've never said, "No you don't!" but I've come close... when it was kids, brothers, arguing with each other and about to go PVP. I've never had to do that with adults... though now that I'm running a game online I can see where the body language/raised eyebrow stuff isn't going to work.
It's nice to have an NPC around to do the Mansplainin' but that's not always an option either... unless it's going to be some Hermit of Warning who suddenly jumps out of the bushes, "Don't you see all the Owlbear poo around here?!!! Don't go in that cave looking like a sack of drowned cats! Come rest up in my cozy hovel till you get another healing surge!" (because Hermits of Warning are rich in meta-knowledge and always use rules-speak)

Quote from: CRKrueger;757895...
I know it's hard for people to remember we are talking about a Roleplaying game, but since so many seem to be forgetting that the reason we came together socially in this instance was to roleplay.  Christ is still weeping that we seem not to be doing it much.  ;)

This is exactly what I'm getting at with my supposed pretensions of "super players."  We are talking about a GM doing something that took up maybe 1% of the total game-time and you are saying it's somehow a total failure and that the players are sucky too because of it.  That's a ridiculous standard, if you are requiring play in the 99%+ level YOU are the ones being pretentious.  Even if it took up 10% of the game time you would be saying that a 90% otherwise good game is indelibly tarnished by it.  Sorry, that's ridiculous to me.

And don't tell me I'm stuffing clothes with straw.  This is all over a GM saying "lets get back to game reality" in a quick and less game-intrusive manner than any supposed in-game solution I've seen here.  The suck here is being willing to waste 100x+ more time on an in-game solution that in the vast majority of cases just pisses off players (yes, that is exactly what most of your proposed solutions do to normal players).  All for and during a leisure activity you presumably do with friends and colleagues you supposedly respect.  Sorry, that's bullshit.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757895You're missing the point that in a roleplaying game version of this example You=PC, Boss=NPC, God=GM.  God didn't come out of the sky and say "McBobbo, you sure you want to do that, you could get fired you know?" No.  You fucked up, your boss wanted to keep a good guy despite the office politics, so he kept you.  Not the same thing.

Comparisons are seldom identical, I agree, but this is how you are missing the point.  The GM isn't 'just' god at my table.  The GM is also boss, when necessary.  It's a leadership thing where I do what I think is right for the game I want to run and if people don't like it there are alternatives.

That's the basis of the analogy.

As for "show don't tell", I drew the outline of the cave and dropped two Large Owlbear tokens and about a dozen Medium token bases (since I don't have a young Owlbear pawn).  There were four of them, level three (though cheesed), and the Encounter Level was somewhere in the area of 12 - "Overpowering".  Hell one Owlbear alone is CR 4.

I felt it was pretty overt.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757903Comparisons are seldom identical, I agree, but this is how you are missing the point.  The GM isn't 'just' god at my table.  The GM is also boss, when necessary.  It's a leadership thing where I do what I think is right for the game I want to run and if people don't like it there are alternatives.

That's the basis of the analogy.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757906As for "show don't tell", I drew the outline of the cave and dropped two Large Owlbear tokens and about a dozen Medium token bases (since I don't have a young Owlbear pawn).  There were four of them, level three (though cheesed), and the Encounter Level was somewhere in the area of 12 - "Overpowering".  Hell one Owlbear alone is CR 4.

I felt it was pretty overt.

It was overt.  You gave them IC all the tools they needed to make the logical and wise choice.  They failed to make that choice, so you decided to save the day by stopping the game and making an OOC correction.

My job as a GM isn't directing, leading or bossing anything.  The players decide what they do, where they go, how they do it, when they do it, and why.  I just provide the world they do it in.  This world is as consistent and verisimilar as I can make it.  It doesn't work against you and it doesn't work for you.  Your successes and failures are your own, only.

All I can say is, try it, you might like it.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757906As for "show don't tell", I drew the outline of the cave and dropped two Large Owlbear tokens and about a dozen Medium token bases (since I don't have a young Owlbear pawn).  There were four of them, level three (though cheesed), and the Encounter Level was somewhere in the area of 12 - "Overpowering".  Hell one Owlbear alone is CR 4.

I felt it was pretty overt.

It's just my preference, but players need not concern themselves with CR and encounter level. Meaning, I would just tell them a huge and truly horrific monstrosity with the features of a bear and owl is there, and it looks savage and deadly"

Quote from: Simlasa;757901There's no 'one size fits all' solution.
I've never said, "No you don't!" but I've come close... when it was kids, brothers, arguing with each other and about to go PVP. I've never had to do that with adults... though now that I'm running a game online I can see where the body language/raised eyebrow stuff isn't going to work.
It's nice to have an NPC around to do the Mansplainin' but that's not always an option either... unless it's going to be some Hermit of Warning who suddenly jumps out of the bushes, "Don't you see all the Owlbear poo around here?!!! Don't go in that cave looking like a sack of drowned cats! Come rest up in my cozy hovel till you get another healing surge!" (because Hermits of Warning are rich in meta-knowledge and always use rules-speak)

I like your Hermits of Warning.

I wish warnings worked all the time, but unfortunately they don't. There are the absolute clueless who just don't ever get it.

Another day, another Star Wars game. In order to hide some data the Players had retrieved from being found by the bad guys, they decided to make their R2 unit (a PC) look damaged and claim its memory was wiped. Jim, who was paying more attention to a game of MtG at the other end of the store suddenly perks up. The conversation went like this:

Jim: The droid needs to look damaged? I pull out my heavy blaster pistol and shoot it.

Me: Are you sure you want to do that?

Jim: Yes! We have to make the droid look damaged.

Me: You remember that a heavy blaster pistol does 5D in damage and an R2 unit only has 1D in Strength to resist damage, right?

(Mike, playing the R2 unit, is looking more angry and scared by the second during this exchange.)

Jim: I'll just wing him. It won't be that bad. Don't worry, Mike.

Mike: Please don't.

A few die rolls later, Mike's R2 unit is blasted junk and Mike's really pissed off. The rest of us aren't too happy either. The damage was done and before the next game, the group had unaminously voted Jim out.

Well, I wouldn't have stopped my players attacking the owlbears. I think I'd have enjoyed running the fight and the likely TPK. I can't say I condemn mcbobbo for warning his group, though; it sounds like something that most players wouldn't mind, and much better than the usual bad-GM approach of fudging the combat rolls so the PCs somehow don't die.

Quote from: S'mon;757927Well, I wouldn't have stopped my players attacking the owlbears

Yeah, neither would I... in that particular example... with visible markers and a map.

Quote from: S'mon;757927I can't say I condemn mcbobbo for warning his group, though; it sounds like something that most players wouldn't mind, and much better than the usual bad-GM approach of fudging the combat rolls so the PCs somehow don't die.

Definitely. As a player I'm not going to mind that sort of intervention occasionally but I HATE feeling like the GM is pulling punches because he is afraid to smack us down or because it will gimp the 'story'.

Quote from: Brander;757902And don't tell me I'm stuffing clothes with straw.

I don't need to you're doing that yourself with such gems as "total failure", "99%+level", and claiming that a GM action I simply disagree with means I claim the entire game is "indelibly tarnished".  Stop listening to the voices in your head, or what you assume I am meaning, and just read, please.  Also, I am not Jibba.

What I find ridiculous is you claiming that the situation where the players...
1. Had a hard fight with a single Owlbear.
2. Aren't healed afterward.
3. Are confronted with... "I drew the outline of the cave and dropped two Large Owlbear tokens and about a dozen Medium token bases (since I don't have a young Owlbear pawn). There were four of them, level three"
4. ...and decide to attack anyway as a 99% situation where only the professional rpg robots would evaluate and consider something other then frontal assault.

This is Bizarro world.  Someone who attacks in the "Owlbear Scenario" isn't thinking either from the PoV of their character, or from a tactical knowledge of the rules, they are operating solely from the "if it is there, we can kill it" mentality.  The only way you readjust that mentality is by playing things straight.  You can say "Dude, seriously, you're out of your mind." 100 times, and the players will still charge forward, knowing that if they are overmatched, you're going to jump in and save them with "Dude, seriously, you're out of your mind."

If you want your players to act like adults, not children, (or as Opa put it, Gong Show Contestants), you have to treat them like adults, cut the apron strings, let the dice fall where they may.

Who cares if one game session is ended and now we have to do chargen again?  What happened, happened.  The important thing is the campaign integrity, which provides much more enjoyment and satisfaction in the long run if everything is earned legitimately.

If you don't do anything more then cons or one-shots fine.
If your players are just never gonna be into anything other then KoDT level antics, fine.
If you never try anything else, you'll never know if they'd like it or not.

Quote from: Brander;757902The suck here is being willing to waste 100x+ more time on an in-game solution that in the vast majority of cases just pisses off players (yes, that is exactly what most of your proposed solutions do to normal players).

Lets try this one more time to see if it gets through.  
If this pisses off players...
1. They have a hard fight with a single Owlbear.
2. Aren't healed afterward.
3. Are confronted with... "I drew the outline of the cave and dropped two Large Owlbear tokens and about a dozen Medium token bases (since I don't have a young Owlbear pawn). There were four PCs, level three"
4. They decide to attack anyway and get killed as a result.
Then yeah, they're lousy players, sorry.  They should go back to playing Skyrim with the cheats enabled.

Quote from: Brander;757902All for and during a leisure activity you presumably do with friends and colleagues you supposedly respect.  Sorry, that's bullshit.

The only bullshit here is you being so bitter for having to deal with players that expect you to bail them out to keep them alive all the time, that you refuse to believe that other people can be friends, have fun, enjoy a game, and have characters stay alive without a GM bailing them out, because they don't act like idiots.

You're right, I'm sure my friends and I are all deluding ourselves.  One of us has a severe case of rationalization and cognitive dissonance.  I wonder who... :hmm:

Quote from: CRKrueger;757907All I can say is, try it, you might like it.

Been there, done that, bought the tshirt and lost it to an ex girlfriend who is now fat with ten kids.

You may feel your way is best, and that's fine, but let's not make presumptions about each other's level of experience.

Quote from: CRKrueger;7579334. They decide to attack anyway and get killed as a result.
Then yeah, they're lousy players, sorry.  They should go back to playing Skyrim with the cheats enabled.

I pride myself on being able to adapt my game for a variety of player skill levels.   It's a skill.  An art.  And there's no one true way of doing it right.

Your opinion sounds like you can only have fun playing a game ran in a single style, even when you can see how that style would result in less fun for anyone who isn't emotional about how elf games are played.

To your point, that TPK may well have sent them back to their video games.  It may have made you happy, but not them, nor I - none of the people actually involved.

So to rephrase,  if you want to avoid a TPK in favor of conducting a fun game, there are tools for that.

My favorite is to kill off an NPC in front of the party, like an important, part of the party GM PC type NPC; that oughta frighten them.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757965I pride myself on being able to adapt my game for a variety of player skill levels.   It's a skill.  An art.  And there's no one true way of doing it right.

Cool.  I pride myself on collecting players that enjoy a more immersive roleplaying experience with a "100% freedom-GM hands off" table and can both handle that and thrive with it.  I don't give two shits about my skill at being Chuck Barris.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757965Your opinion sounds like you can only have fun playing a game ran in a single style, even when you can see how that style would result in less fun for anyone who isn't emotional about how elf games are played.

Nope, I can do gonzo with Paranoia, Gamma World, DCC.  I can do less than perfect characters who do shit wrong, like a group of teenage gangers in Shadowrun (didn't accomplish a damn thing, but was hella fun.)  What I don't like is the GM pulling me OOC, so he can save me from myself.  BTW, you do realize that getting snarky and personal about this disagreement as you just did qualifies you as one of those people, right? ;)

Quote from: mcbobbo;757965To your point, that TPK may well have sent them back to their video games.  It may have made you happy, but not them, nor I - none of the people actually involved.

It may very well have, which could have been the best thing to happen.  Table culture is table culture.  Some players will adjust and stay, others will leave never to return and that's good for them.  I've had more people stay then leave, YMMV.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757965So to rephrase,  if you want to avoid a TPK in favor of conducting a fun game, there are tools for that.

Also realize that for other players, the possibility of a TPK occurring without GM interference,  makes all successes they have more fun then otherwise.

So, this became longer than I expected.
Besides myself on a bad day, the worst gamemaster I ever met was utterly convinced that her role was to "make the players feel as awesome as humanly possible". This translated to cheating whenever any opponent seemed halfway challenging, so that the PCs could not possibly lose ever,  making sure that every asinine plan of the players succeeded and sucking any challenge whatsoever from the game. In her words, a good game was basically an exercise in wish fulfillment. Because, as we all know, everything but instant gratification was "masochistic gaming" in her opinion.

At the same time, she railroaded the hell out of the game. There was a story, that story had to happen no matter what, and on the way, the player characters could defeat whoever faced them - as long as they played along. When I tried to do something that did not fit in the plot (by refusing some sort of extra-powerful gimmick, I didn't want or need, namely the transformation into some sort of half-angel),  the scene turned into some sort of groundhog day scenario, where literally the time stood still until I agreed to the transformation. Apparently, that was "the gods giving me a second chance." That was the point when I started to dread the playing sessions, but still did come out of some sort of responsibility for the other players (and because she literally told me -under tears- that I could not leave the campaign just now, I would "ruin the game for everyone"). I was young and naive, and so I stayed. Big mistake.

She also could not stand any sort of conflict between the characters. As pretty much everything but the interaction with the other players was already a foregone conclusion, the social interaction was pretty much the only part of the game where we had at least a bit freedom of choice and actual consequences to our actions. So, one of the other players and me, we started some sort of friendly rivalry and competition, argued about a few minor issues... while it was pretty obvious that we as players had no argument with each other whatsoever, we just played our characters as people at odds. Deliberately. It was the most fun the campaign ever created, at least for me. In the consequence my character (at this point a demi-angelic harbinger of RRRrrrightousness) was "sanctioned by the heavens" because i was "disturbing the harmony" and that I, as a semi-angelic creature of everything suggar-coated and righteous could not argue with an ally, that would be "anathema to my very being" and, I couldn't disagree. Or at least my character couldn't.

At that point, I was annoyed enough to write a long-winded mail about what I didn't like about the current state of the campaign, what could be better (nothing as radical as "let's make all dice rolls in the open", just a few minor details) and how I felt marginalized by that decision. The other players mostly agreed, but she never responded to it.

What she did though, was inviting all the other players but me to a "serious talk" (the others told me, so I came, but she made clear that they went "behind her back" by inviting me as well), where she read a speech she had prepared beforehand about how awesome the game was, how epic and so on, and how ungrateful our criticism was (especially me, because I was "ungrateful" and "opposed to epic storytelling") and threatened to quit the game, if we wouldn't accept her style, and how much she would "sacrifice" of her time and engagement and so on for this campaign, and that  we would make it unnecessarily complicated and she would feel " like facing a burnout". I suggested that i could run a quick oneshot in her stead for a session or two, so that she could have a little break. She agreed.

Then, during my brief intermission as a gamemaster, I tried to do something different, and we played a very basic, sci-fi dungeon crawl. Not very sophisticated, just exploring (and plundering) a derelict spaceship. That sort of game is not exactly one of my strong points, but I deliberately tried to do something *very* different from her campaign. During character creation, she had a minor hissy fit over the very idea of pregenerated characters (which we then did not use because of her), and then basically refused to participate in the game, was almost completely passive, and later complained how boring the whole game was (it probably wasn't my best game, but she certainly did not contribute to it, either) and, that "the game had no greater  plot" (which as the whole point of the idea), and worst of all, because one of the characters died in a fire fight he started, I was supposedly "a killer GM who likes to see other people suffer." Apparently, it was "one of the worst games she had ever seen."

We relaunched her campaign, it was just crap, I (and the other players) had more fun when I ran the game, the others said so, and so we basically split the group. I left, and the others (all except her) played both with her and with me.
The next week or so, one of the fellow players later me that my character in her campaign then "fell from grace", became some sort of demon and had to be killed by the other PCs before spending the rest of eternity in torment, and she threatened her then boyfriend to leave him if he would continue to participate in my group (which he did).

But honestly: I should be thankful. This was one of the most poignant learning experiences I ever had when it comes on how to run a game. And especially on how not to.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757933I don't need to you're doing that yourself with such gems as "total failure", "99%+level", and claiming that a GM action I simply disagree with means I claim the entire game is "indelibly tarnished".  Stop listening to the voices in your head, or what you assume I am meaning, and just read, please.  Also, I am not Jibba.

No you aren't but you two seemed to be speaking the same language, you are as into "unforgivable" on this topic as Jibba it seems.  Though part of me thinks Jibba might have been hyperbolic.   I somewhat thought you were, until the conversation continued and I realized you appeared not to be.  I'm happy to be wrong on this part.

And don't confuse you going all "no true scotsman" by calling anyone not into your style "sucky" with claiming I'm some kind of straw manufacturer, if anything I'm steelmaning your views by taking them even somewhat legitimately and commenting upon them.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757933...

This is Bizarro world.  Someone who attacks in the "Owlbear Scenario" isn't thinking either from the PoV of their character, or from a tactical knowledge of the rules, they are operating solely from the "if it is there, we can kill it" mentality.  The only way you readjust that mentality is by playing things straight.  You can say "Dude, seriously, you're out of your mind." 100 times, and the players will still charge forward, knowing that if they are overmatched, you're going to jump in and save them with "Dude, seriously, you're out of your mind."

Don't be ridiculous.  I've never had a player continue on the very few occasions I've had to break into the game as the GM.  On the other hand the times I've been in that situation and let it run the players have gotten pissed because whether through their ignorance, experience, misunderstanding, moment of distraction, or any other reason, they thought it was a legitimate thing to do.  Yes, a very few players like to just be stupid and ruin things for everyone, but I find actually talking to them instead of wiping out their characters often (but not always) brings them back into the game as what can be good players from then on.  And if it doesn't then I can tell them not to return, or if they are otherwise a friend (with an admittedly bad habit), do other things with them.  If I'm going to have a TPK I'd rather have a quality hard fought one than a wholesale slaughter that's fun for no one.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757933If you want your players to act like adults, not children, (or as Opa put it, Gong Show Contestants), you have to treat them like adults, cut the apron strings, let the dice fall where they may.

As opposed to treating them like human beings with flaws that we can discuss and work through to see if this is going to be a mutually agreeable situation to continue?  Gods forbid we step out of character and deal with a player like a real person for a few seconds or minutes.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757933Who cares if one game session is ended and now we have to do chargen again?  What happened, happened.  The important thing is the campaign integrity, which provides much more enjoyment and satisfaction in the long run if everything is earned legitimately.

The simple fact that you consider "campaign integrity" a thing to be protected is utterly nuts to me.  Fuck campaign integrity if it's going to ruin an evenings fun.  Hell, fuck campaign integrity.  It's a dumbass concept in the first place.  That sounds like some pretentious World of Darkness storyteller bitching about the poor story you are ruining.  It's a fictional world for playing games in, not a fucking Shakespeare play. Even Shakespeare didn't take his shit that seriously.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757933If you don't do anything more then cons or one-shots fine.
If your players are just never gonna be into anything other then KoDT level antics, fine.
If you never try anything else, you'll never know if they'd like it or not.

I did a decade running con games "semi-professionally" (I was paid in product, but I was paid, though I would have done it for fun).  I ended up getting players showing up year after year to my games.  I've had TPKs and PvP at those games and gotten compliments after.  I met a lot of my long-term players at some of those cons.  Treat the PLAYER like a person and explain things when things seem stupid and 99% of the time you find out that they are indeed acting under a misconception.  That's the new thing I recommend you try.  The vast majority of the time, the only players who act like KotDT are actual young players who don't know any better (though a lot of younger players are surprisingly good in my experience as well).

I didn't get to my view through some artistic integrity bullshit, I came to it from 30+ years of GMing all kinds of people and lots of practice.  Sure I made mistakes, but I try not to make the same ones (like some things you are recommending) twice or more.

Sure some players and GMs just don't work together, but if you are finding yourself regularly not working well with players the problem isn't the players.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757933...
The only bullshit here is you being so bitter for having to deal with players that expect you to bail them out to keep them alive all the time, that you refuse to believe that other people can be friends, have fun, enjoy a game, and have characters stay alive without a GM bailing them out, because they don't act like idiots.

What bitterness, I'm seeing bad recommendations for GMing on a public board and explaining why my experiences are that they are bad  I'm feeling great that I get a chance to share my experiences and views as to why. Not that the recommendations are bad, and they are in fact a good place to start, but very much bad to take it to such an extent as you seem to be describing.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757933You're right, I'm sure my friends and I are all deluding ourselves.  One of us has a severe case of rationalization and cognitive dissonance.  I wonder who... :hmm:

Frankly, I'm still hoping you were being hyperbolic, since I recall you do have opinions in other threads I have enjoyed and/or agreed with.  And despite as vehemently as we disagree here, if you are having fun, then keep on doing whatever works for ya.  If what you are doing works for you and yours, then fine, but it flat out wouldn't for me and mine and it's absolutely NOT because my friends and associates who are players are somehow not up to par overall.

Quote from: jibbajibba;757838The key to settign expectations is to show not talk.

Telling the players a dragon is dangerous is fine I guess... doing it really loudly as they are about to charge a dragon and saying "No you don't do that" is Unforgiveable.

Want to show them a dragon is dangerous. Take the captain of the guard that they just saw take out 4 bandits and you are roleplaying as hte toughest guy on the street and have the dragon bite him in half. The players and the PCs now both know dragons are dangerous. If they choose to charge the dragon then more power to them.

I do a combination of the above. Plus I hand out to each player a little list of "common knowledge" bits that they would know. Not all of which are necessarily true.

If no one locally has ever heard of a dragon nor any news ever reached the area of dragons. (Unlikely, but one campaign started out that way.) then it is up to me to describe the dragon in a very impressive way so the players get the idea that this is not something they want to annoy right now if it isnt just doing a flyby and on its way elsewhere.

Everything is situational. Sometimes just stating upfront before play is the best approach. Sometimes learning in game is the best approach. But it helps to lay down some basic expectations beforehand so the players know your playstyle. And try and get a handle on what the players expect or have experienced before.

Ive had to GM two groups whos only experiences were with the classic "Killer GM" and had to work to get them out of that totally defensive mindset.

Having to deal with the aftermath of a suck DM is no fun either as a DM.

Quote from: Scott Anderson;756922For the three or four of you who haven't read this. It is the most hilarious takedown of an awful GM ever... In about 100 posts

http://irolledazero.blogspot.com/p/properly-ordered-posts.html?m=1

Seems appropriate.

Heh.  I remember when that thread started over at giantitp.com.  Awesome stuff.

Quote from: Scott Anderson;757346That seems to be at the heart of the argument here. Does the referee say "no!" Or does the referee let the players know in some other way that they're putting themselves in stupid danger?

I'm not a big fan of telling players "no" unless what they're doing is outside of the physics of the world.  What I'd probably do here is:

"Okay, let me get this straight.  You guys just barely managed to take out an owlbear and escape alive.  Since then, you've not rested or healed and are still hurting from that fight.  And now you're in front of the owlbear lair, which likely has at least one more owlbear in it.  That's the situation, right?  Okay, good.  So, you're charging in?  Just checking."

Quote from: CRKrueger;757472We just disagree.  If the integrity of the setting is more important then "wasting" a chargen session because a jackass caused a TPK, then so be it.  Everyone dies, Sauron gets the ring.  Ok, so make up new guys and join the resistance.

Fuck yeah.  Sometimes you just LOSE.  The "we always win" attitude needs to die in a fire.

Quote from: Scott Anderson;757481Hm. "Heroic" = "get away with stupid shit."

I'd argue that if you always get away with stupid shit, you're *not* heroic.  Being heroic is about risking for others, for making the sacrifices others won't.  If you *know* you're gonna win, what risks are you taking?  What sacrifices do you make?

Quote from: mcbobbo;757485As it was actually Pathfinder where character generation takes days (and for the 12 year old great gnashing of teeth), I took their free will away.

I think there's a pretty simple solution that suggests itself here, rhymes with "bon't glay Sathfinder."

Quote from: mcbobbo;757485Why did I not have the lair be empty?  Because that feels like illusionism to me.  I 'felt' like the owlbear was defending a nearby lair.  When they went to explore it, I put up what might have been read as a gigantic "dead end" sign, but they didn't take it that way.  Then I told them, but for whatever reason they thought I wasn't being honest.

Well, yeah, if they've been taught that 'encounter = we can kill it', they won't fear.  Playing with some friends that was something I had to learn the other way, that the GM wasn't really going to let us die.  Sucked the fun out of the game, but after a few encounters, I completely stopped having any kind of worry of character death.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757485Had I let them die it would have been my fault anyway, at least in a forum thread like this.   Half the folks will always say you did it wrong.

There's forums where letting the characters die would get you a lot of criticism - I really don't think that's what you'd have to worry about here.

Quote from: mcbobbo;757485As for the "don't put stuff you don't want the party to kill" concept...  how is that different from the gray fog?

Well, I'd say that you shouldn't put stuff in that you're not okay with the party killing.  But, the way I like to run games, it's the party that decides what they will or will not engage, not the GM.  That's not my job, and I don't want it to be.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757900Is that what happened?  Lets read McBobbo, whose campaign that was.


So...

It seems like the rest of your argument is that player's should have some idea that this a "Paladinhood Breaking Moment".  Well, in many cases I would agree with you, it depends on the player in question.  If it was a new player, I would more lenient then an experienced one, but some actions are clear violations, I'm not going to remind a Paladin that slaying an unarmed woman because she won't tell him where her dead husband hid his coins is a no-no.  Personally I always take the rare Paladin player aside and give them the heads-up before play.

I see, mea culpa. Though I am under the impression the cavalier is under similar alignment restrictions. Like I said, I disagree with the handling of the situation, but I do see the need for helping with the unseen and unknown aspects that divide PC and player.

I do talk about alignment and how I judge it beforehand. Just like I similarly talk about the play style expectations (PvP, party cohesion, linearity, etc.). However I am having to learn new skills in a dynamic environment, (edit: as I don't always have the time for new players who drop in covering an NPC, or store disruptions, and so on.)

It's not that I want to promote MY D&D, the Truest of Ways. But I want people to see there are options from Organized Play and its assumptions. It helps rebuild the player pool from what I've seen.

Quote from: CRKrueger;757900See here I totally see where you're coming from.  However, the only time I would wade into that sewer would be to try and save the few players I thought were worth something, but just needed a different table to play at.  I never GM at FLGS's, I only play, scouting for players for my campaigns.

I'd rather not GM at all then GM under that situation.  It sucks that you have no other options. :(

I find it works better to find the few players you want to invite to your table at the FLGS and then get them out of that environment and into a different social setting with other players that share your table culture, then you'll have a better chance of showing them a different attitude toward playing.

Yes, it is challenging, but rewarding in a way, too. I have had more people interrupt and reminisce about their good ol' days with AD&D than with most of the other games I played at a shop. There's a lot of happy 1e/2e memories out there, and I think people do sometimes forget that they too can bust out their old books and play.

It's like the dance floor, someone's gotta break the ice.

I agree that inviting quality players that mesh with your style, and then transporting them to a more controlled location, would be best for GM ease. Less distractions, less raw players, less curbing bad habits, less re-teaching the hobby's freedom, the list goes on. That said, only exposure and openness can re-oxygenate the hobby's lifeblood: more players. Selective insulation fosters better games on average, but someone has to offer a competing voice in the open fora.

It's also like a bar, someone's gotta bring the good-natured fun.

Brander, campaign integrity as I used it has nothing to do with story, plot, or literary railroads (in fact it's pretty funny because I'm about as allergic to story in RPGs as you can get, ask anyone here).  It has to do with the players being free, yes to make their own mistakes.

In the "Owlbear Scenario" if I had a NPC, I'd point out that since one Owlbear tore us a new one, engaging some more might not be the best idea, but I would be doing that roleplaying the NPC, not to give "Hermit Warnings".  But I'm not going to cross that line to go OOC and tell my players they shouldn't do it.  Why?

Because they don't want me to.  Me helping them, for them isn't fun.  Again, we're not talking about a player forgetting character common knowledge, of course you fill in that stuff, but when the player is about to make a bad decision, the way we play is hands off, let it happen.

For my group, who cares if Friday night, June 13th, 2014, we had to make up new characters?  It's one night out of how many?  The tales of that last fight we'll be telling for years even if it's just "Man, remember that time we charged into that Owlbear lair?  Ouch don't remind me, better yet do remind me not to do that again."  If we spend weeks, months, years in this campaign though, then succeeding and eventually retiring the character when we move on is just that much more rewarding for having survived with everything played straight.

Your mileage may and obviously does vary.

Quote from: CRKrueger;758015Brander, campaign integrity as I used it has nothing to do with story, plot, or literary railroads (in fact it's pretty funny because I'm about as allergic to story in RPGs as you can get, ask anyone here).  It has to do with the players being free, yes to make their own mistakes.

In the "Owlbear Scenario" if I had a NPC, I'd point out that since one Owlbear tore us a new one, engaging some more might not be the best idea, but I would be doing that roleplaying the NPC, not to give "Hermit Warnings".  But I'm not going to cross that line to go OOC and tell my players they shouldn't do it.  Why?

Because they don't want me to.  Me helping them, for them isn't fun.  Again, we're not talking about a player forgetting character common knowledge, of course you fill in that stuff, but when the player is about to make a bad decision, the way we play is hands off, let it happen.

For my group, who cares if Friday night, June 13th, 2014, we had to make up new characters?  It's one night out of how many?  The tales of that last fight we'll be telling for years even if it's just "Man, remember that time we charged into that Owlbear lair?  Ouch don't remind me, better yet do remind me not to do that again."  If we spend weeks, months, years in this campaign though, then succeeding and eventually retiring the character when we move on is just that much more rewarding for having survived with everything played straight.

Your mileage may and obviously does vary.

I agree with this; great way to run a game. I would only add that the players might on occasion need some info to make informed decisions if the characters know things the players do not.

Quote from: CRKrueger;758015Brander, campaign integrity as I used it has nothing to do with story, plot, or literary railroads (in fact it's pretty funny because I'm about as allergic to story in RPGs as you can get, ask anyone here).  It has to do with the players being free, yes to make their own mistakes.

Some people value their characters more than others.

I had a player... decent player, actually, just needed some refining. He got too caught up in the moment, and had read too much Mercedes Lackey. He was willing to accept the consequences of his actions. He enjoyed being defeated if it was part of the story.

The rest of the group got tired of also sharing his consequences. After the last, and most outrageous stunt (where his character ignored the consequences and tried to be Arnold Schwartzenhero), I got emails from every single other player in the game requesting his expulsion from the game. They were fed up.

I would have paused and looked at him, and said "Really? You really want to charge into a lair of owlbears, protecting their young? Does anyone want to hide while McMoron here throws away his life?"

Or use analogies. "You're an armoured knight, about to run full tilt into a den of bears. Who are all huge. And supernatural. Defending their young. Is there some cool plan you want to mention right about now?"

Saying "No, you don't" sounds to me like a fed up GM, not a railroading GM. I've been fed up before. My manners wane rapidly when I'm fed up with a misbehaving player.

Quote from: Coffee Zombie;758805Some people value their characters more than others.

I had a player... decent player, actually, just needed some refining. He got too caught up in the moment, and had read too much Mercedes Lackey. He was willing to accept the consequences of his actions. He enjoyed being defeated if it was part of the story.

The rest of the group got tired of also sharing his consequences. After the last, and most outrageous stunt (where his character ignored the consequences and tried to be Arnold Schwartzenhero), I got emails from every single other player in the game requesting his expulsion from the game. They were fed up.

I would have paused and looked at him, and said "Really? You really want to charge into a lair of owlbears, protecting their young? Does anyone want to hide while McMoron here throws away his life?"

Or use analogies. "You're an armoured knight, about to run full tilt into a den of bears. Who are all huge. And supernatural. Defending their young. Is there some cool plan you want to mention right about now?"

Saying "No, you don't" sounds to me like a fed up GM, not a railroading GM. I've been fed up before. My manners wane rapidly when I'm fed up with a misbehaving player.

The way I see it, a misbehaving player at the table is a character in the world putting themselves or other people at risk.  If the players are fed up with dealing with his consequences, then the characters probably are fed up too, why don't the characters take care of it?  Why do the characters do nothing while the players send emails?

Quote from: CRKrueger;758810The way I see it, a misbehaving player at the table is a character in the world putting themselves or other people at risk.  If the players are fed up with dealing with his consequences, then the characters probably are fed up too, why don't the characters take care of it?  Why do the characters do nothing while the players send emails?

Because it's a game! I never try to ruin someone else's fun by just offing them. That's juvenile and way beyond my purview as a player because that issue is pure DM territory. So I email the DM and say handle it in whatever way is appropriate to you.

Quote from: Brander;757989No you aren't but you two seemed to be speaking the same language, you are as into "unforgivable" on this topic as Jibba it seems. Though part of me thinks Jibba might have been hyperbolic. I somewhat thought you were, until the conversation continued and I realized you appeared not to be. I'm happy to be wrong on this part.
<...snip...>
Frankly, I'm still hoping you were being hyperbolic, since I recall you do have opinions in other threads I have enjoyed and/or agreed with.  And despite as vehemently as we disagree here, if you are having fun, then keep on doing whatever works for ya.  If what you are doing works for you and yours, then fine, but it flat out wouldn't for me and mine and it's absolutely NOT because my friends and associates who are players are somehow not up to par overall.

Yeah I am certainly an arse on this point.
Whilst I don't believe in one true way-ness there are I think some basic principles that RPGs need to adhere to and the most important of these is that the DM can't make "out of world" decisions about actions the PCs can take. You can charm a PC with magic and all sort of in game things but you can't say DM to player your PC can't do that or your PC wouldn't do that or any variation of that. If the player says "what chance do I think we would have against these creatures?" then by all means volunteer some info and if you are playing with newbies and they hear about a monster that should be common in setting then by all means describe them, although I would do this as an in play description I can see that some DMs might give them then in game detail.
The other rule is describe the world as the PCs perceive it. Want a monster to be scary then describe it as scary, want the little girl to be vulnerable but with a little touch of spooky then describe her that way. (This is how I use social skills by the way roll for the NPC then roleplay the event to that degree of success).

I don't agree with Krueger about shit players though. If the players feel that it is in character for them to fight an unbeatable foe and die in so doing then to me that is a sign of good roleplayers. Now if they just kill everything
'because" then meh but if they discuss their options and the paladin decides he has no choice but to attack for strong roleplay reasons then excellent but he will still die, well the owlbears will attack to the best of their skill and ability and all rolls with be in the clear so .... the party will probably die.

I never really have set agendas for play so to be the party pursuing a side quest is exactly the same as the party chasing the mcguffin. Sure the world might end as a result but no skin of my nose I can always invent another world.

If for some reason I did have a reason that the party were on rails up to a certain point in the game then I would usually start the PCs at that point and deliver the group formation part in flashback, but from my perspective that would only happen in a con game or similar and in that case the PC backgrounds would all have the why you are here blurb in them.

Yeah, in general if something is an OOC problem rather than a purely IC problem then that's got to be something you deal with OOC. I have never known an OOC problem to resolve itself through IC means; that's just passive-aggressive avoidance of the actual OOC conflict which is causing hard feelings.

It's entirely possible to play a character who is IC is putting themselves or the other PCs at risk whilst at the same time not irritating or ruining the fun of other players at the table. In that case, it really is a purely IC problem. But if players are irritated with this one guy to an extent where they unanimously demand that the DM ditch the player in question, that's got to the point where the OOC integrity of the gaming group itself is on the line.

At the same time, I don't agree that this sort of thing is 100% the DM's responsibility all the time. Obviously a player can't unilaterally declare that someone else has to leave the group, but then again the DM doesn't really have that power either unless the rest of the group broadly agrees with the decision of who has to leave - if a DM tried to kick someone out of the group that all the other players loved gaming with and who hadn't been causing that much of a problem, that DM would find themselves without a group just as rapidly as a player who tried the same. But what you can always do as a player is make it known to the player in question that they've done something that bugs you. That doesn't mean getting argumentative, aggressive or confrontational mid-game, but at the same time saying something along the lines of "Could you please not do that? I really don't have the energy this evening for yet another spontaneous fight against harmless NPCs" could give more self-aware players a prompt to reconsider how their actions are affecting your OOC enjoyment of the game.

As a tangent broadly related to the thread topic: I've never personally seen people on either side of the screen pull the "Either Player X goes or I do" gambit out of the blue, and listening to other people talk about their groups it seems to be a rarity. What seems much more common is that if someone is kicked out of a group it's because a consensus was reached between the rest of the group that the person in question needed to go.

This is sometimes an explicit consensus (like the example of everyone writing to the GM saying "Please make Player X leave"), but it's just as often an unspoken consensus - I vividly remember one session in which a player went off on their own IC and did something silly, pointless, and destructive, and in such a way as to completely undermine everything the rest of the party had been trying to accomplish for the whole 6-hour session. We'd understood the campaign in question to be a broadly co-operative affair with PvP discouraged, and what this player had done a) was obvious enough that we immediately realised that he was responsible and b) was a huge slap in the face to the rest of us. You could feel the mood in the room turn sullen and sour in an instant and it was clear that the player in question couldn't viably play with us any more. (To his credit, he recognised this and agreed that it would be best if he just left.)

The thing which bugged me about the GM's handling of this situation, though, was the fact that he allowed the action in question to go ahead anyway - despite the fact that he'd taken the player to one side to spend half an hour urging him to reconsider, and despite the fact that he knew damn well that if this action went off the rest of us would be completely enraged, would want the responsible player out of the game, and may even have soured on the campaign as a whole if he didn't do some rapid damage control. The icing on the cake is that the GM then turned around and massaged events in order to essentially neutralise the consequences of the PC in question's actions anyway - the PC was duly disappeared, the NPCs in question understood that we didn't approve of the relevant PC's actions and didn't hold them against us, and the awfulness was smoothed over and forgotten about within a few sessions.

It's always pissed me off that, since he was going to whitewash over the events in question anyway, the GM didn't just boot the player, rule that his PC had been caught by the NPCs' guards and prevented from performing the action which he had been attempting to do, and just have the game carry on as normal without subjecting to us to the awful gut punch of seeing 6 hours' work flushed away because of one PC's impatient and itchy trigger finger.

Quote from: CRKrueger;758810The way I see it, a misbehaving player at the table is a character in the world putting themselves or other people at risk.  If the players are fed up with dealing with his consequences, then the characters probably are fed up too, why don't the characters take care of it?  Why do the characters do nothing while the players send emails?

It's never cut and dry. Letting the dice run the game and ignoring that people are involved, on both sides of the screen, is your choice. It's not the default right position. There is merit to what you are saying, and I think a group of mature players would be able to accept it. Mine would, for example (my less advanced player is more advanced now).

I also think a functional, got their crap together kind of group also wouldn't do something so daft either. So when you don't have an A-Group, and you're training up players, sometimes it's helpful to pause game and say "WTF are you planning here!?!?" rather than slaughter the group and waste progress. Especially if it's not fun.

The only, I repeat, only part of the entire "don't go into the owlbears" bit I don't like is that the DM said "No, you don't," as opposed to "Are you seriously going to do something so stupid?"

Quote from: Marleycat;758820Because it's a game! I never try to ruin someone else's fun by just offing them. That's juvenile and way beyond my purview as a player because that issue is pure DM territory. So I email the DM and say handle it in whatever way is appropriate to you.

That is a cop-out. If, as a Player, I know that a guy is going to go off on a Leroy Jenkins style suicide run because that is his idea of fun and it may result in triggering a TPK, I will shoot that PC in the back. Nothing kills a group's fun like having a TPK due to someone's deliberate idiocy.

I prefer Players to police their own.

Quote from: jeff37923;758831That is a cop-out. If, as a Player, I know that a guy is going to go off on a Leroy Jenkins style suicide run because that is his idea of fun and it may result in triggering a TPK, I will shoot that PC in the back. Nothing kills a group's fun like having a TPK due to someone's deliberate idiocy.

I prefer Players to police their own.

I can handle a TPK just fine...as long as I get some chicken.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;758835I can handle a TPK just fine...as long as I get some chicken.

Hell, I would initiate the TPK for a bucket of KFC.

Quote from: jeff37923;758831That is a cop-out. If, as a Player, I know that a guy is going to go off on a Leroy Jenkins style suicide run because that is his idea of fun and it may result in triggering a TPK, I will shoot that PC in the back. Nothing kills a group's fun like having a TPK due to someone's deliberate idiocy.

I prefer Players to police their own.

I was talking as a PLAYER because as one I would just leave if the fool didn't listen to my earlier IC suggestions to rethink things. And then I watch them die.

Quote from: Marleycat;758820Because it's a game! I never try to ruin someone else's fun by just offing them. That's juvenile and way beyond my purview as a player because that issue is pure DM territory. So I email the DM and say handle it in whatever way is appropriate to you.

Do you have to off them?  How about have the character say "Sir Guy, I think based on our last owlbear fight, we're not ready to take on several more, perhaps we should return later." or "Look, Darkshadow, I know you don't like authority, but you know the King's men are about to kill us all if you insult the King, right?"

It is a game, however, it's not a game of Yahtzee, but a "roleplaying game".  Handling IC stuff OOC or through back channels is what I consider juvenile, hamfisted, lame, whatever floats your boat in dismissive criticism terms.

Quote from: jibbajibba;758822I don't agree with Krueger about shit players though. If the players feel that it is in character for them to fight an unbeatable foe and die in so doing then to me that is a sign of good roleplayers. Now if they just kill everything 'because" then meh but if they discuss their options and the paladin decides he has no choice but to attack for strong roleplay reasons then excellent but he will still die, well the owlbears will attack to the best of their skill and ability and all rolls with be in the clear so .... the party will probably die.

You misunderstood me then because I do agree with you.  If the party knows or suspects they are going to die and do it anyway because the characters want to, have to or need to, that's awesome.   In the "Owlbear Incident" though, it seemed pretty clear that a whole group of players couldn't figure out that if one Owlbear=beats our ass, then 2+Owlbears=Death. Something off there.

Quote from: CRKrueger;758971It is a game, however, it's not a game of Yahtzee, but a "roleplaying game".  Handling IC stuff OOC or through back channels is what I consider juvenile, hamfisted, lame, whatever floats your boat in dismissive criticism terms.

Sometimes the only way to reason with a jackass is through a swift punch to the dome. Same with OOC means to silence their stupidity. It's certainly a last resort, but by no means unwarranted in certain cases.

Quote from: CRKrueger;758971Do you have to off them?  How about have the character say "Sir Guy, I think based on our last owlbear fight, we're not ready to take on several more, perhaps we should return later." or "Look, Darkshadow, I know you don't like authority, but you know the King's men are about to kill us all if you insult the King, right?"

It is a game, however, it's not a game of Yahtzee, but a "roleplaying game".  Handling IC stuff OOC or through back channels is what I consider juvenile, hamfisted, lame, whatever floats your boat in dismissive criticism terms.

See my post right above your post. As I said I will as a player try and let them really understand the situation IC but if they ignore me? Fuck them because now it's all DM territory as far as I'm concerned, get it?

I would use OOC discussion up front to discuss the sort of game the players want to play.
I would call someone out ooc if I thought they were deliberately trying to ruin the game for everyone though chances are that would be away from the table in a 1:1 situation.

I vet people pretty carefully before I let them come to my house and allow them to walk round my imagination killing things and taking their stuff.

I have met people at Cons I wouldn't play with normally of course and like all GMs I just use in game tools to make those people more bearable for the rest of the table. Usually through NPC actions or similar, basically have the world react to their actions as "in character" as I can.

I have never nor would I ever call a player out OOC during a scene or over an in character decision in fact it wouldn't even occur to me to do it. If they are about to do something like jump off a cliff I might say "okay it looks about 200 feet but if you reckon you can survive it then sure "

"No, no you didn't" is NOT an all the time tool.  It's almost a nuclear option.  It's my "I am not going to run that game for you" button.  I can only think of a handful of other examples in my career.

But I also use it, or a variant of it, when evil PCs want to revel in gore.

"I kill every townsperson, one at a time with my knife."

"Nope, sorry, you don't. I don't have time enough to spare on a game like that.  Either find another table or get on with the adventure."

Also I would probably never stop an honest TPK even with the doom of charop hell hanging over me.  If they die as heroes trying to finish the adventure, so be it.

Doing something idiotic that winds up wasting my time?  Just seems different to me.

And as for "don't play Pathfinder"...  well, this isn't my first rodeo.  Systems have pros and cons, and I would rather adapt my gaming style than not.

Quote from: mcbobbo;759137"No, no you didn't" is NOT an all the time tool.  It's almost a nuclear option.  It's my "I am not going to run that game for you" button.  I can only think of a handful of other examples in my career.

But I also use it, or a variant of it, when evil PCs want to revel in gore.

"I kill every townsperson, one at a time with my knife."

"Nope, sorry, you don't. I don't have time enough to spare on a game like that.  Either find another table or get on with the adventure."

Also I would probably never stop an honest TPK even with the doom of charop hell hanging over me.  If they die as heroes trying to finish the adventure, so be it.

Doing something idiotic that winds up wasting my time?  Just seems different to me.

And as for "don't play Pathfinder"...  well, this isn't my first rodeo.  Systems have pros and cons, and I would rather adapt my gaming style than not.

I really don't care if they wantto kill everyone slowly.  I would play out some of the victim parts, "The first guy is a middle aged guy greying a the temples and you pull him into teh inn he falls to his knees."Look do whatever you wish to me just let my wife and daughter live, I have money, knowledge information, I will do whatever you ask." He breaks down in tears' etc etc a couple fo those if I think the player can be "touched" if I reckon they are beyond it a simple  "sure okay a couple of hours later they are all dead and you can have done whatever unspeakable stuff you want".

As the GM its my job to play the world.The world doesn't care what the PCs do it just is so if my players spend 3 hours haggling over the price of a spoon with a tinker or 3 hours chopping up nuns and feeding the bits to their pet wargs no effect on me. If the party have different views they will probably split and I will focus on the people that are doing more stuff.