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View Full Version : Who thinks this is a good way to run a game? Like, at all?



Angry Bob
2012-03-23, 10:13 AM
I was conversing with some other D&D players/DMs and the topic came up of "one of my players built an OP wand. It does like 50 damage, reflex save for half."

While I have no reason to doubt it was actually unbalanced for their particular game, the first suggestions were "steal it," "make him fight nothing but rogues with evasion," "steal it and use it on him," and "possess his PC and make the rest of the party kill him." Wtf.

Is it normal for a DM to be expected to lord their power over the players and their characters? Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I've always seen high-powered player characters as an opportunity to get creative with encounters without worrying about accidentally killing them.

tl;dr: What, if anything, does randomly killing player characters solve?

valadil
2012-03-23, 10:17 AM
Some players and GMs treat the game as a sport where the object is to outdo each other while staying within the confines of the rules. I have no interest in this type of game, but there are enough players that do that it must be worthwhile to someone.

Jan Mattys
2012-03-23, 10:20 AM
Games work under a social contract:

"Do not try to break the game, and I will not break you".

If that wand was built under my watch and not in a sneaky, douchebaggy way, I say that's ok.

If that wand is a result of a player trying to sneak past the reasonable boundaries every game has (they are different from game to game, depending on the players, the PCs, the player's skills, the setting, the DM skills, the general mood of the campaign, of the party, and of the players around the table), then you're probably the first to know that I'm not going to like it.

And seriously, I am the DM... you won't like me when I'm angry.

It's not a matter of bullying the players. No, really, I really mean it.
But some players take delight (never understood why) in trying to explore the boundaries that are clearly there for a reason.
Stepping outside them by accident is fine, but behaving like a 5yo eager to see how many cookies he can steal before mom notices... that brings consequences.

prufock
2012-03-23, 11:15 AM
Many people on this forum have problems finding other players who can, as I like to call it, "act like reasonable adults." I'm not sure why this is.

The players should feel comfortable making an effective character. The DM should review these characters to judge if they will be overpowered compared to the rest of the party or simply broken. It shouldn't matter if the characters are overpowered compared to the encounters he had in mind, because those can be easily adjusted by:
- adding hit points, class levels, or racial hit dice to creatures
- increasing save DCs for traps
- increasing the number of creatures in an encounter
- increasing the overall number of encounters
- and so on.

If the DM, after reviewing the characters, feels that one is over/underpowered, he should point this out and let the player make some adjustments. The DM should feel free to make suggestions, but should NOT mandate a specific build.

In that particular instance, there are in-game possibilities:
- wands run out
- an opponent would reasonably target a powerful weapon to either break it, disarm it, or steal it
and out-of-game possibilities:
- your wand is too powerful, it's completely overshadowing the other characters, I'd like you to tone it down somehow.

Arbitrary killing of characters is pointless.

The Glyphstone
2012-03-23, 11:22 AM
Many people on this forum have problems finding other players who can, as I like to call it, "act like reasonable adults." I'm not sure why this is.


The answer to your quandry is 'squeaky wheel syndrome', or whatever you want to call it. You see many people on these forums talking about their problems finding reasonable adults to play with because when people do find good groups, it rarely makes for a good thread or story. Bad groups, on the other hand, are the sort of thing people are naturally inclined to complain about.

dsmiles
2012-03-23, 11:29 AM
Bad groups, on the other hand, are the sort of thing people are naturally inclined to complain about.Much like being overworked and underpaid. But I digress...

Yeah, wands run out. It's never really wise to sink a bunch of your WBL into expendable resources. The wand-guy will learn that eventually.

hobbitkniver
2012-03-23, 12:35 PM
Vengeful DM much? How about, don't let him make it in the first place?

lt_murgen
2012-03-23, 12:53 PM
Vengeful DM much? How about, don't let him make it in the first place?

Yea, that sums up my thoughts as well.

Actually, building several campaign adventures around finding the components for such a wand could be entertaining.

bloodtide
2012-03-23, 01:05 PM
Is it normal for a DM to be expected to lord their power over the players and their characters? Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I've always seen high-powered player characters as an opportunity to get creative with encounters without worrying about accidentally killing them.

tl;dr: What, if anything, does randomly killing player characters solve?

It's normal enough, for like half of the DMs out there.

This is the simple 'escalation' problem that most people have. Everyone can sit down and play the game and everything thing is normal and good. But as soon as someone does something that 'puts them on top', then everyone feels the need to 'one up them and be on top'. It's your wand example: When a Dm sits there and has a monster killed by the power wand, he wants revenge, so he will quickly grab the wand from the player and then use it on their character with a 'ha, take that!'

bloodtide
2012-03-23, 01:06 PM
Is it normal for a DM to be expected to lord their power over the players and their characters? Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I've always seen high-powered player characters as an opportunity to get creative with encounters without worrying about accidentally killing them.

tl;dr: What, if anything, does randomly killing player characters solve?

It's normal enough, for like half of the DMs out there.

This is the simple 'escalation' problem that most people have. Everyone can sit down and play the game and everything thing is normal and good. But as soon as someone does something that 'puts them on top', then everyone feels the need to 'one up them and be on top'. It's your wand example: When a Dm sits there and has a monster killed by the power wand, he wants revenge, so he will quickly grab the wand from the player and then use it on their character with a 'ha, take that!'

Telonius
2012-03-23, 01:08 PM
So the DM has a problem with a Wand doing 50 damage, reflex half; but no problem with a (presumably) 4th-level spell that does 50 damage, reflex half...? I'm guessing he'd have an aneurysm if he ever found out about Metamagic Spell Trigger.

Anyway, randomly killing characters doesn't solve anything. (Randomly killing players ends the game fairly quickly). If the DM needs to have the spine to tell the player "no" when he makes the initial decision (or at worst, call an immediate halt if it becomes clear that the gizmo/spell/feat/PrC/whatever is unbalanced). Random deaths either tell the players, "I'm an arrogant jerk," or "This is a very dangerous campaign." Neither one is good, but the second is self-defeating. The player will think, "Better build a more powerful character next time."

dsmiles
2012-03-23, 01:34 PM
Vengeful DM much? How about, don't let him make it in the first place?Why not let him/her make it? When it runs out of charges, he'll/she'll probably say, "That was dumb, I'll never do THAT again."

If you just say "No," he'll/she'll just complain that you're being unfair.

If you say "No," and offer an axplanation, he'll/she'll say you're being condescending and a know-it-all.

It's a lose-lose situation, let the player succeed or fail on his/her own merits.

nedz
2012-03-23, 06:31 PM
Sounds like the DM made a mistake, possibly when he was distracted in the heat of the moment, we've all done that.
Now though he's going to be punished 50 times over :smallfrown:
Or rather everyone else is going to be punished as the game is spoilt.
There are a number of options, some good, some bad. Here are a few

Say something like "OMG I didn't realise that that was so OP" and nerf it.
Make it not matter - rarely will the situation arise when it can be safely used.
Make everyone the same - place items for the other characters of equivelent power and bump the encounters. (Competative players may walk at this point)
It becomes noteworthy - the player uses it a few times, and he attracts attention. Perhaps someone tries to steal it, the King confiscates it etc.
Use peer pressure - just bump the encounters so that they are harder for everyone.


ED: sp

--Lime--
2012-03-23, 10:16 PM
I had an incredibly powerful item in one game: a staff that could turn into a giant crocodile. It was taken from me as part of a lesson in "sometimes running away is better than fighting". I can't remember the exact circumstances (I think it was targetted in a fight and broken), but having your characters leave bags in their rooms, or enter a place where they aren't allowed magical weaponry, and then having them decide whether to leave with their lives intact or fight their way back to the bags and then out again (for example, they are ambushed or there is a fire or whatever) is not railroading, but it gives a chance of failure. If the item is truly game-breaking, and you want rid of it, it can be burned in the fire, taken by fleeing looters, or just force a retreat in the party and leave the fate of the item unknown.

Morithias
2012-03-23, 10:36 PM
tl;dr: What, if anything, does randomly killing player characters solve?

"Randomly" killing a player does nothing. Killing someone with a fly-by dragon attack that leaves the other players unharmed is nothing.

Killing the overpowered player with a new villain that's five levels higher to show the size of the threat. That gets rid of the gamebreaker and you get to show the level of the new threat, a double win.

Kills shouldn't be "Random" they should still flow from the plot, but as with any kind of writing, killing a PC has it's place. Dumbledore had to die, Goku had to die, and so on and so on. Just don't smite the player with a random bolt of lightning.

Knaight
2012-03-23, 11:49 PM
If you just say "No," he'll/she'll just complain that you're being unfair.

If you say "No," and offer an axplanation, he'll/she'll say you're being condescending and a know-it-all.

It's a lose-lose situation, let the player succeed or fail on his/her own merits.

I'd call both of those reactions unlikely. Moreover, stating "yes", while actually meaning "no" and locking down an option through contrivance after calling it okay is far more obnoxious than either, and a player that would make those complaints and accusations is unlikely to look fondly on it.

Xuc Xac
2012-03-24, 12:27 AM
There are a number of options, some good, some bad. Here are a few

It becomes noteworthy - the player uses it a few times, and he attracts attention. Perhaps someone tries to steal it, the King confiscates it etc.



That was one of the bad options that inspired the thread...



Use peer pressure - just bump the encounters so that they are harder for everyone.

Making things more difficult to punish people for optimizing never works. They just see it as justification for their optimization because non-op characters wouldn't be able to survive all those dangerous encounters. If anything, you should go the other way. Make everything much easier and let the PCs just waltz through everything. They might like it at first but they'll quickly get bored. And if they don't get bored, they will be unhappy when they see how little XP they get for encounters that don't pose a challenge to them. "Congratulations! You cleverly found a way to blow through encounters without breaking a sweat. Unfortunately, breaking a sweat is what earns XP. Expending a charge from a Wand of Solve Problem doesn't teach you anything new after the first one or two times you do it..."

RndmNumGen
2012-03-24, 12:42 AM
"Randomly" killing a player does nothing. Killing someone with a fly-by dragon attack that leaves the other players unharmed is nothing.

Killing the overpowered player with a new villain that's five levels higher to show the size of the threat. That gets rid of the gamebreaker and you get to show the level of the new threat, a double win.

Kills shouldn't be "Random" they should still flow from the plot, but as with any kind of writing, killing a PC has it's place. Dumbledore had to die, Goku had to die, and so on and so on. Just don't smite the player with a random bolt of lightning.

Wait, what? No! DM's shouldn't kill players to showcase their new villain. A campaign is an interactive experience, not DM Story Time. Player deaths should almost never be planned by the DM, and only result from very bad luck or players doing stupid things.

Morithias
2012-03-24, 01:10 AM
Wait, what? No! DM's shouldn't kill players to showcase their new villain. A campaign is an interactive experience, not DM Story Time. Player deaths should almost never be planned by the DM, and only result from very bad luck or players doing stupid things.

To be fair. The two kinda go hand in hand. When is the last time you ever had a PC run from a fight? Just have the villain pop up and challenge him to a 1 vs 1 and kick his ass.

Yora
2012-03-24, 04:50 AM
"possess his PC and make the rest of the party kill him."
Too complicated: "Lightning strikes you, you are dead."

dsmiles
2012-03-24, 05:58 AM
Moreover, stating "yes", while actually meaning "no" and locking down an option through contrivance after calling it okay is far more obnoxious than either, and a player that would make those complaints and accusations is unlikely to look fondly on it.Oh, no. That's not what I meant at all. Wands, much like scrolls and potions are expendable resources. If a character makes a wand at a lower level, he/she's usually sinking a decent portion of their WBL into an expendable item. "Yes" absolutely doesn't mean "No." It means "Yes, but you'll probably regret it later." I'm not about to stop a player from making decisions about his/her own gold and XP. Those resources belong to the player, not me.

lesser_minion
2012-03-24, 06:01 AM
That was one of the bad options that inspired the thread...

In that case, he qualified it well enough that I don't see any problem with it. The DM might not be playing to win, but the vast majority of enemies the PCs come up against should be. It strikes me as being better to avoid playing to win with the "PC lottery" than by shying away from having enemies who 'play dirty'.

If it's clear why it happened (he has enemies, his enemies wish him ill, he has made it known that he depends on a particular item for a lot of his power), then it's fair. Not least because it should be clear enough what's going on that the players have a chance of seeing it coming and preparing for it, possibly even turning it to their advantage.

nedz
2012-03-24, 06:06 AM
Making things more difficult to punish people for optimizing never works. They just see it as justification for their optimization because non-op characters wouldn't be able to survive all those dangerous encounters. If anything, you should go the other way. Make everything much easier and let the PCs just waltz through everything. They might like it at first but they'll quickly get bored. And if they don't get bored, they will be unhappy when they see how little XP they get for encounters that don't pose a challenge to them. "Congratulations! You cleverly found a way to blow through encounters without breaking a sweat. Unfortunately, breaking a sweat is what earns XP. Expending a charge from a Wand of Solve Problem doesn't teach you anything new after the first one or two times you do it..."

IMHO What the thread is actually about is "How should a DM correct a serious balance issue in the party?". If it has got to the point were the DM feels that they cannot create challanging encounters for the party then the game is over and everyone has lost. OK the thread is cast from the point of view of a player, possibly the culprit - I don't know. Its a very difficult problem to resolve. Maybe the title of the thread should be "Who thinks this is good way to play in a game ?" ?
To give a good answer I would need more information, ideally from other players or the DM.

Yora
2012-03-24, 07:03 AM
If you really let a magic item fall into the PCs hands that you don't want them to have, make them lose it. Have an enemy sunder it or make a disarm on a rope bridge.

Need_A_Life
2012-03-24, 08:11 AM
Is it normal for a DM to be expected to lord their power over the players and their characters?More common than one might think.

Hey, I'm not innocent of it, even though I'm not the type of GM to run an antagonistic game. I simply make it clear that people can optimize or not at their leisure and the challenges will match what they choose.

If they want to play people at the very peak of human potential, then great! But they'll face challenges appropriate to that.
If they want to play drunken, illiterate hobos with poor eye-sight and barely any hand-to-eye coordination, I promise I won't pit them against a SWAT team.

I tend to make players aware that munchkining, powergaming and so on won't save their character on its own; as a GM I have literally infinite resources to pit against their character.
I'm looking for an interesting game, looking to give them a challenge and while I control the enemy, I am just as interested in letting them survive, if only because it saves me the bother of finding ways to introduce new characters.


What, if anything, does randomly killing player characters solve?That information is restricted, Citizen. Attempting to access restricted information is treason. Traitors must report for termination. Please report for termination, Citizen ANGR-Y-BOB. Have a nice day!

Jay R
2012-03-24, 10:05 AM
While I have no reason to doubt it was actually unbalanced for their particular game, ...

If you don't even know this, then you certainly don't have anywhere near enough information to form a valid opinion yet. Minimum information I would need before I could even begin second-guessing the DM include:
Level of abilities of the other players,
How the wand was created and allowed,
How the wand is being used,
How the other players feel,
What effect it's having on the game,
The player's reaction to complaints from the DM or other players,
The player's general attitude to having the wand.

Until I know this, then any conclusion I came to would be at least as unfair as anything the DM has done.


Is it normal for a DM to be expected to lord their power over the players and their characters?

"...lord their power over the players" is a loaded phrase. Controlling the world to guarantee a continual flow of challenging encounters that all players can enjoy, up to and including solving problems that have come up and are ruining the game for others is indeed normal; in fact, it's what DM-ing means.

Is that what's happening? I have no idea. And neither do you.


Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I've always seen high-powered player characters as an opportunity to get creative with encounters without worrying about accidentally killing them.

That doesn't apply here. The character isn't more powerful in the sense of being safer from accidental death. His hit points, saves, and AC are the same. He is merely more powerful in dealing damage, not taking it.


tl;dr: What, if anything, does randomly killing player characters solve?

Well, first of all, he isn't randomly doing it; he's targeting a specific PC for a specific reason. We cannot in fairness call that random. What does it serve? It gets rid of that player character, of course. Is that a reasonable goal in this case? I don't know. None of us have enough information to form a fair opinion.

Slipperychicken
2012-03-24, 05:22 PM
The method my first DM used was to warn the players OOC before character creation, and whenever OP things were mentioned, saying something like "I am the DM, I can counter cheese with cheese. I have infinite resources. If you get into an arms race with me, you will lose". We accepted this, in part because he follows the RAW strictly and optimized better than we did, so we knew his claims were credible.

Jayabalard
2012-03-24, 10:02 PM
That was one of the bad options that inspired the thread...Why is having NPC's acting in a realistic, believable way a bad option? Especially when their actions are consistent with their in character knowledge?

Xuc Xac
2012-03-24, 11:33 PM
How do they get that in character knowledge?

In the real world, if someone is robbing liquor stores with grenades then the cops will come after him. If someone is throwing grenades at buzzards in the middle of the desert a hundred miles from any witnesses, then the cops still might like to take those grenades away, but how would they ever know about them?

If the character is just using the wand to slaughter monsters in the wilderness, who is telling the king about it? The party might brag about killing the monsters, but why would they say "we did it with this awesome and easily stolen object that anyone could use if they took it from us while we're sleeping or passed out drunk"?

Dark Herald
2012-03-24, 11:53 PM
that wand is worth about 20,000 gold. that's not really appropriate for a character until 11th or 12th level. But it's a terrible investment regardless. I'd just have the character fight several higher CR monsters or some high level bandits trying to steal the wand. either way, level up and deplete or steal the wand, moderately interesting adventure, problem solved.

Really, this problem seems to have come about from ignoring the wealth by level guidelines, assuming this is dnd 3.5

So it looks like killing characters is an overreaction in this case.

Mr.Moron
2012-03-25, 07:06 AM
It's a wand.
A wand that does hit point damage.
A wand that does hit point damage that allows a save.
A wand that does hit point damage that allows a low save (because it's a wand).
A wand that does hit point damage that allows a low save (because it's a wand) against a save that's very easy to make decent.

How is this thing a problem? Creating scenarios where this thing is useful but not a game winner is pretty easy even even as low as level 3 or so.

lesser_minion
2012-03-25, 08:14 AM
How do they get that in character knowledge?

It doesn't matter. If it makes sense for them to know it, they'll know it, if it doesn't, they won't. What matters is that having enemies try to steal or destroy PC equipment is not automatically a bad idea or somehow unfair.


How is this thing a problem? Creating scenarios where this thing is useful but not a game winner is pretty easy even even as low as level 3 or so.

One group's game breaking move can easily be another group's completely worthless tactic that will get you killed. If it wasn't actually a problem, presumably the original DM wouldn't have complained about it.

Jzadek
2012-03-25, 12:37 PM
Swarm him, it's easy enough. Sooner or later, he's going to run out of charges. Make him fight a lot of enemies, and it will be sooner.

tahu88810
2012-03-25, 12:49 PM
Many people on this forum have problems finding other players who can, as I like to call it, "act like reasonable adults." I'm not sure why this is.


One might posit that when someone has such an issue this often, they themselves may actually be the problem.

tresson
2012-03-25, 08:49 PM
One might posit that when someone has such an issue this often, they themselves may actually be the problem.

So your the blame the victim sorta guy?

OT: The best way to handle this is for the DM, ooc, to man up and admit he made mistake when allowing the wand. Something like, "Okay that wand is turning out to be more powerful then I thought it would be. We're going to need to tone it down a bit."

With that there is no need to steal or break items you've already allowed your players to have. No need to kill a pc because you've made a mistake and hopefully no hard feelings.

Solaris
2012-03-26, 01:11 PM
So your the blame the victim sorta guy?

More like... "The one common link in all of your failed relationships is you."

The Glyphstone
2012-03-26, 01:59 PM
More like... "The one common link in all of your failed relationships is you."

Yeah, but in this case the 'common link' is that all of them are posting here. It's not a case of the same people repeatedly finding bad groups, it's that whenever a story gets posted, it's about a bad group (because those make the best stories).

l)arkzer0
2012-03-26, 02:07 PM
Use hordes over single targets. A wand that does 50 damage wastes a lot of its power on an enemy with 10 HP.

A lot of 'broken' stuff only works under certain conditions, just tailor the enemies. If it's an elemental dungeon it doesn't really matter , themewise, whether you're fight one huge or a dozen tinies.

Frozen_Feet
2012-03-26, 05:19 PM
I half-agree with some of the suggestions seen by the OP, because trolling PCs can be fun. But where they go sour for me is suggesting taking away player agency of his character.

That is entirely needless, and unfun. Having someone try stealing the wand, or try dominating the character and ordering him to kill his party are perfectly viable options, but both should be carried out according to rules, and the rules (usually) gives the player a chance to react. Action and reaction make the game. If played out as proper encounters, events to get rid of a problematic item can make the plot for whole sessions!

If I accidentally give my players something that changes the way they play, I do change the way I challenge them where approriate and logical. If it isn't, I just roll with it. When players are clever with resources they have, they've earned their cake. I don't need to outsmart them just for the heck of it.

If there's an actual rules mistake, that's different. I'll ask for a time-out and replay an event with the proper rules.

Jay R
2012-03-26, 08:04 PM
The problem with an over-powered attack item is that it increases the player's attack without increasing their defense. One effect is to increase the odds of player death. The DM has to send a challenge that can survive a 50 point hit. Such challenges do more damage more quickly.

3rd level players doing 7th level damage wind up facing 5th level challenges. Unless the players always get the first attack, this is deadly.

Power up your defense before you power up your offense, because either way, you are powering up your opposition.