PDA

View Full Version : Is This DM a Control Freak?



Inspectre
2013-10-16, 08:11 PM
Hello Playground - since discussing the Do's and Dont's of DMing seems to be popular around here, I thought I would leave my own topic for discussion.

Now, allow me to preface this by saying that I am not a player in the pbp game described below. A group of my friends are players in this pbp game, however, and I've read through enough of it to get a decent sense of what's happened in it so far. That being said, I admit that my knowledge of the game and its DM is therefore somewhat second-hand. If the consensus is that I haven't provided enough information, I can discretely investigate with my friends and try to get more. I'd rather not post a link to the actual game or anything, as it is on these boards and I don't want to stir up any trouble for anyone. As the title of this thread suggests, I'm simply curious what the rest of the Playground thinks about this DM's style, and if there's any advice I should share with my friends. So, allow me to present several examples of the DM's behavior and you can decide how you feel about them and whether or not it's enough to answer the titular question of this thread.

Exhibit A: The game is a freeform game, and the DM pretty much left character creation open to just about anything provided it was less than a god. However, the game itself started in a prison that the PCs had to break out of, and so they were restrained and imprisoned in various ways that made their powers and abilities curtailed quite a bit. That being said, the DM did say upfront that the game would start with a prison escape so it's not like this was a bait-and-switch, and apparently most of the PCs got out of their restraints fairly early on. However . . .

Exhibit B: While the game is freeform, the DM provides "structure" by guiding the PCs along, which can include what I guess you could call retcons. Things like, if a PC says "I lunge forward and stab the BBEG through the chest with my sword!", the DM will follow that up by posting "you lunge forward, thrusting your sword at the BBEG. He manages to get his shield up just in time, deflecting your attack but causing your blade to slice into his arm instead of his chest!" In addition to that . . .

Exhibit C: Instead of having everyone in your standard adventuring party, the DM has all of the PCs split up, running through their own plot lines. While they will occasionally meet up at an intersection of plot threads, such events tend to be rare. Instead, the DM provides an array of NPCs for each PC to interact with, which are also occasionally shared between different PCs. Obviously this wouldn't work in a RL game, but since it's pbp apparently he can get away with splitting his attention like that, although I don't know whether or not that's actually a good idea to do that. Speaking of NPCs . . .

Exhibit D: Every now and again the DM will write up a post involving only NPCs that have been out of sight of the PCs for a while. Ostensibly this was originally to reveal to the players what the villains were plotting off-camera, but it's since expanded to include various NPCs that the players may or may not be interested in learning more about. Finally . . .

Exhibit E: The DM has seen fit to meddle with PCs' backstories. One could argue that since he's basing the story off of the PCs' backstories, he's simply changing minor details to weave them together into the world. However, it could also be said that he might be taking it too far. As an example - one of my friends mentioned a battle with an evil wizard in her backstory. The wizard was meant to be a one-off villain, just an explanation for why her angel character was down on earth and (some time later) captured and imprisoned by the bad guys running the prison. The DM took this evil wizard and turned him into a body-surfing wizard who fell in love with the angel in ancient times and has been stalking her ever since. This was in the time before what my friend detailed in her backstory, making the minor confrontation that she actually wrote about into just another encounter between her character and her ageless stalker.

I think that's enough examples for now. So, um . . . whaddya think, Playground?

The Glyphstone
2013-10-16, 08:19 PM
My feelings:

A) Prison breaks are classic, and it makes sense that if they're in prison in the first place, they'd be restrained in ways unique to actually restrain them. Not an issue because it appears they got out fast anyways.

B) Also not an issue, by my understanding of freeform. The players are more at fault in this scenario by minor-level godmodding...they should be saying something like "I stab my sword towards the BBEG's chest" rather than auto-declaring that they hit exactly what they were aiming at, or otherwise deciding that they automatically succeed.

C) This only works in PbP, but it works fine if the DM is actually paying equal attention.

D) No opinion, this is a game style. The PCs may or may not care about 'offscreen cutscenes', and it depends on if these offscreen vignettes are taking up more DM time than the actual PCs are. If not, okay.

E) Eeeeh....I don't see this actually changing anything in the backstory as opposed to expanding on a backstory and using it to tie a PC into the game, unless the backstory also included mention that the angel had never been in any fights with anyone else along her history. If the wizard would have been obvious it was him each time, then the DM goofed by not clearing this sort of thing with the angel player beforehand, but it's also fair to say he was legitimately different enough each 'cycle' that she never realized, and so never made the connection.

Hiro Protagonest
2013-10-16, 08:21 PM
Erm, the fourth and fifth are the only ones at all iffy (and it is his job to flesh out NPCs, so as long as there are no strong objections it's fine).

Second example, the player is godmodding. The BBEG is the DM's character, so in a freeform, the DM gets the say of what the results of attacking him are.

Urpriest
2013-10-16, 08:39 PM
I agree that D and E are the only potential issues. D is only an issue if the asides actually are uninteresting to the players or are otherwise poorly crafted. E sounds more like the DM not seeing the "intent" of the backstory element, the players and the DM should talk to clear things up.

Zeb
2013-10-16, 08:40 PM
No

A- said prison break upfront.
B- Perhaps a bad example because that one is simply an accurate representation based on rolls.
C and D- Split up can work well in Pbp, as long as the DM keeps up with the players there is nothing wrong with extra "background" exposition, especially if it keeps the DM attentive and involved.
E- Does the player have a problem with the "enhanced" back story? Because Players and the DM should work to create a collaborative story which might require some adjusting.

So without further evidence No the DM is Not a "Control Freak"

Waxillium Lande
2013-10-16, 08:42 PM
I would say that all of the things you described (except perhaps the 'extraneous NPCs' bit of no. 4) are examples of good DMing. The only bit that could sound controlling at a glance is no. 5, but what you have described there is something that every DM should do. A backstory should be used in game whenever possible- if an evil wizard is mentioned in the character's past, it is much better not to waste him as a one-off encounter.

Tim Proctor
2013-10-16, 08:46 PM
Yeah the DM's actions seem legit to me.

Fiery Diamond
2013-10-16, 09:26 PM
The only one I have any problems with is E. That's not good DMing, and he needs to cut it out. Having the body-surfing wizard decide to be a stalker after that encounter the player wrote up would have been fine, but adding additional things to a backstory that occurs further back is bad. In other words, pre-backstory meddling is bad, but post-backstory additions can work (they just have to be done well).

Also, anyone who has a problem with B has no idea how freeform games are supposed to work. That's GOOD DMing.

A is fine, C is unusual (but if it works, it's fine), and D is fine unless the players are actually getting bored of it.

Jay R
2013-10-16, 09:41 PM
You have left out the only detail that has any value.

Do the players think that they have less control than they should, and that they are not enjoying the game because of it?

That is the only detail needed to answer "Is This DM a Control Freak?" All else is irrelevant.

Inspectre
2013-10-16, 10:08 PM
Thank you everyone for the replies. Since people seem to be agreeing that E might be a little questionable, I thought I would provide a bit more detail on that aspect. Also, the game has been going on for several years now, so I guess they're all enjoying it still? There have been a fairly large number of players cycling in and out of the game over that time, so I'm not sure if he's playing favorites or not though. It's just that some of these practices seem questionable, and since you always hear horror stories about power-mad DMs I thought I would see what others' opinions were for this particular situation.

Anyway, some more detail about Exhibit E. So, as I said the DM has been trying to weave the PCs' backstories both together and into the world's lore. Since each PC is off in their own little corner they tend to only see their part of the gordion knot he's made of everything. I get the sense that he's deliberately split pieces of the plot and handed them out to each person, so each PC sees only one piece and it's only in reading through everyone's storyline that you get the full picture. Now I know this would be bad if he was doing it deliberately to set people up to fail due to lack of information, although it doesn't *seem* that way - generally people get what information they need to continue on their own way, it's just that sometimes things can seem to come out of nowhere since, for example, Player A will see the BBEG walking into town, and a little later Player B who is already in town will turn the corner and surprise! There's the BBEG!

From a non-involved perspective who's read through snippets of the whole thing, it's interesting if rather insane. Anyway, enough of a tangent - we can use the same player of the angel PC as an example again for both this gordion knot storytelling and just how far he's gone with backstory meddling.

So, as mentioned previously, my friend is playing an angel who encountered an evil wizard, they fought, he presumably died, and the angel PC was wounded and eventually stumbled her way into the grips of the prison bad guys. That's all this wizard was in the backstory - just some jerk the angel fought at one point, and the only real detail in there about him was his name and that he was a powerful wizard.

The DM took this guy - just the name and that he was a wizard - and as I said, turned him into this body-surfer mage from the dawn of time who had become obsessed with the angel PC. Not only did he do that, but he created an entire magical kingdom that existed back at the dawn of time, which the angel PC helped build (apparently as said the dawn of time was a blank spot in her backstory so it's not like he changed anything that was there, just added something that presumably she would be interested in doing). The body-surfer was the consort to the queen of this magical kingdom, and his lusting after this angel PC was part of what turned the queen against the gods and started some big war that caused the downfall of the entire kingdom as the wrath of the gods was brought to bear. Then at some later date, the PC's actual background came up, as the body-surfer (in his current body) showed up again to harass the angel.

Now, here is where things get really convoluted. The DM also went and attached two other PCs into the angel PC's backstory. The second PC to be entangled in this mess was playing a half-elf girl with some magical powers. After she escaped from the prison the DM started to reveal that she was not just a half-elf, not just part Fey, but a reincarnation of the daughter that the body-surfer sired with the magical kingdom's queen.

The third PC was a paladin who participated in a crusade against Hell in his backstory, and ended up in the prison after he ran afoul of his Church's corrupt leadership. After he escaped from prison, the paladin eventually learned that the reason the Church's leadership was corrupt was due to the fact that they had been ordered to launch this crusade against Hell by the gods specifically to find the angel PC, whom the gods thought had been captured by demons (while the angel PC was actually in this crazy prison place, not Hell). The leadership eventually got tired of sacrificing all these people to find one angel which wasn't even in Hell, so they become "corrupt" by stopping the Crusade.

Now that I think about it, it doesn't even end there! He went and obliquely tied a fourth PC into this by linking the fourth PC with the fey-girl-reincarnation-thing. Basically, the fey princesses' soul had been reincarnated before the PC, in the form of this fourth PC's girlfriend. So we have the original princess -> fourth guy's girlfriend -> the actual PC.

So, uh . . . yeah. This guy has been doing some pretty heavy duty construction anywhere that the PCs didn't explicitly cover in their backstories, and even twisting those parts as necessary to fit them into this convoluted mess. Um . . . can everyone follow what I just wrote? It's pretty topsy-turvy, I don't know if I'm explaining it all correctly. :smallredface:

Mr Beer
2013-10-17, 12:58 AM
"DM has made every character a real part of his campaign world metaplot"

Sounds pretty cool.

Hyena
2013-10-17, 01:05 AM
Are you kidding? That DM is awesome! Oh, i wish so much I was in your shoes...

Equinox
2013-10-17, 01:06 AM
Exhibit B: While the game is freeform, the DM provides "structure" by guiding the PCs along, which can include what I guess you could call retcons. Things like, if a PC says "I lunge forward and stab the BBEG through the chest with my sword!", the DM will follow that up by posting "you lunge forward, thrusting your sword at the BBEG. He manages to get his shield up just in time, deflecting your attack but causing your blade to slice into his arm instead of his chest!" In addition to that . . .
It's actually considered bad style to resolve an action involving another player's character in PbP, even in freeform. Since the BBEG is effectively the DM's character, the player should have only described his lunge, not its effect. The DM was right to put him in his place.


Exhibit C: Instead of having everyone in your standard adventuring party, the DM has all of the PCs split up, running through their own plot lines. While they will occasionally meet up at an intersection of plot threads, such events tend to be rare. Instead, the DM provides an array of NPCs for each PC to interact with, which are also occasionally shared between different PCs. Obviously this wouldn't work in a RL game, but since it's pbp apparently he can get away with splitting his attention like that, although I don't know whether or not that's actually a good idea to do that. Speaking of NPCs . . .
If it works, it's cool.


Exhibit D: Every now and again the DM will write up a post involving only NPCs that have been out of sight of the PCs for a while. Ostensibly this was originally to reveal to the players what the villains were plotting off-camera, but it's since expanded to include various NPCs that the players may or may not be interested in learning more about.
Meh. Sounds like an armchair novelist. But it doesn't seem to hurt anyone in this case.


Exhibit E: The DM has seen fit to meddle with PCs' backstories. One could argue that since he's basing the story off of the PCs' backstories, he's simply changing minor details to weave them together into the world. However, it could also be said that he might be taking it too far. As an example - one of my friends mentioned a battle with an evil wizard in her backstory. The wizard was meant to be a one-off villain, just an explanation for why her angel character was down on earth and (some time later) captured and imprisoned by the bad guys running the prison. The DM took this evil wizard and turned him into a body-surfing wizard who fell in love with the angel in ancient times and has been stalking her ever since. This was in the time before what my friend detailed in her backstory, making the minor confrontation that she actually wrote about into just another encounter between her character and her ageless stalker.
Doesn't sound too bad. Too often, DMs require a backstory, and don't bother to read it, let alone act on it.

Overall, doesn't seem bad from what I can see.

Forrestfire
2013-10-17, 01:29 AM
"DM has made every character a real part of his campaign world metaplot"

Sounds pretty cool.

That's pretty much what I saw as well.

I'd say that it's probably a better idea to make sure that sort of thing is alright with the players beforehand, but honestly? I expect a good DM to do stuff like that. When I write a backstory, I add in possible plot hooks, things that might come up, important people to meet or have kidnapped, villains to empower, hometowns to doom, etc...

I might be the strange one though, I'm not sure.

Taelas
2013-10-17, 01:48 AM
The only thing I disagree with is the DM messing with the angel character's backstory -- I assume that was done without the player's consent?

Weaving players' backgrounds into your game is fantastic DMing but not at the expense of the player's control over their own character's backstory. (I don't see the wizard being a body-surfing stalker as a problem; that's simply expanding on things the player put in themselves.)

My point is, a player should not sit down to a session and discover that the DM decided that long ago they did something which caused whatever they are facing now. That's just not kosher. If you want to do something like that, you need to get the OK from the player first.

But the rest is cool.

Themrys
2013-10-17, 05:04 AM
Exhibit E: The DM has seen fit to meddle with PCs' backstories. One could argue that since he's basing the story off of the PCs' backstories, he's simply changing minor details to weave them together into the world. However, it could also be said that he might be taking it too far. As an example - one of my friends mentioned a battle with an evil wizard in her backstory. The wizard was meant to be a one-off villain, just an explanation for why her angel character was down on earth and (some time later) captured and imprisoned by the bad guys running the prison. The DM took this evil wizard and turned him into a body-surfing wizard who fell in love with the angel in ancient times and has been stalking her ever since. This was in the time before what my friend detailed in her backstory, making the minor confrontation that she actually wrote about into just another encounter between her character and her ageless stalker.


I think it's okay to turn a one-off villain into a recurring villain. However, I think the problem here is that the DM decided the evil wizard "fell in love" with the angel ... depending on how it's handled it can come across as "The guy you casted as villain in your backstory isn't actually evil, he's just in luuurve!"
Such unfortunate implications need to be handled carefully, especially since the player could have been stalked in real life and wish no repetition of that experience in roleplaying. (So, even if it was made clear that the villain is still a villain and absolutely evil, and just lusting after the PC, that IS a problem)
If he didn't ask her whether that was okay, than that was not control-freak, but just plain bad behaviour.


Things like retconning a "I kill this NPC", on the other hand, is perfectly okay, as others have pointed out. Even if you don't use dice, the DM plays the NPC, and can demand to have a say in whether they get hit or not. (Playing without dice is not easy, exactly because of that ... it can cause fights over who wins a fight)

SiuiS
2013-10-17, 05:30 AM
Nope.

#B isn't railroading or changing actions, and the player in B is god-missing, a commonly known bad practice. If there is a GM, they arbitrate results. The player stating results? Bad form.

Additionally, the example given isn't a change to a back story. It is an addition to a detail, but no changes were made. The player said "I fought an evil wizard, once, and killed him." The GM added "and he was a body surfer, so he jumped to another body and is in love." That's not a proble. At all.

Hyena
2013-10-17, 07:12 AM
I think it's okay to turn a one-off villain into a recurring villain. However, I think the problem here is that the DM decided the evil wizard "fell in love" with the angel ... depending on how it's handled it can come across as "The guy you casted as villain in your backstory isn't actually evil, he's just in luuurve!"
Such unfortunate implications need to be handled carefully, especially since the player could have been stalked in real life and wish no repetition of that experience in roleplaying. (So, even if it was made clear that the villain is still a villain and absolutely evil, and just lusting after the PC, that IS a problem)
If he didn't ask her whether that was okay, than that was not control-freak, but just plain bad behaviour.
You are right, this does have to be handled carefully. But then again, I have heard about people, who are not instantly gravely offended every time something distantly related to sexuality is mentioned.

Scow2
2013-10-17, 07:23 AM
You are right, this does have to be handled carefully. But then again, I have heard about people, who are not instantly gravely offended every time something distantly related to sexuality is mentioned.Where are these mythic people you speak of?

Lorsa
2013-10-17, 07:29 AM
Where are these mythic people you speak of?

Maybe they live in Kenya? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPtBnhehPOU)

Hyena
2013-10-17, 07:31 AM
Where are these mythic people you speak of?
Well, I've never exactly seen them, but I remember my mother recounting ancient legends about the times, when they walked the earth everywhere, in the plain sight of humans, amazing our precursors with their presence. Don't you believe my mother?

SethoMarkus
2013-10-17, 07:38 AM
Much like the general consensus, D and E are the only points that I see as possible warning signs.

For D, it is only an issue if the Players feel that they are being overshadowed by the NPC sub-plots. If the players are enjoying the added information, that's great. If the players are finding the extra exposition (that their characters would not be aware of) tedious and boring, then the DM should probably tone it down a little bit or focus more on plot-centric happenings.

For E, I don't see any problem with it as such, but that it is balancing on the fine line between weaving a backstory into the plot and ret-conning the backstory. As long as the Player doesn't have an issue with the changes, there's no issue period. And from the sounds of it, as long as the Player's character wasn't aware that the evil wizard was the same mage from ye-old-magical-kingdom, I don't see any reason why the Player would have an issue.

Though, I do agree with Themrys and hope that the DM OKed the "stalker" bit with the Player beforehand. That might be a little disturbing, especially since the stalker mage literally stole bodies to get closer to the angel character...

nedz
2013-10-17, 09:47 AM
It's not my style but so what. It all seems fine to me, the DM has taken a lot of work upon himself though.

B may be bad etiquette from the player, but I don't think it's major.

E is just doing a flash-back reveal — which should be cool. Back stories are only ever a snapshot of the past, more would have been boring and so would not have been read. This is just character development via backstory, which may be unusual but that's all.

BWR
2013-10-17, 10:16 AM
Maybe they live in Kenya? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPtBnhehPOU)

Considering the groups I've played with here, I'd have to say these mythic people live in Norway. Forget about Kenya.

Morgarion
2013-10-17, 11:22 AM
I think Exhibit E could go either way. It depends on how much other background the player had provided. If there wasn't much more besides what the OP provided (the angel exists, the wizard appears, picks a fight with the angel, the angel wins but is hurt, gets captured, the end), then it's the players fault for writing such a cursory, shallow backstory. Based on how benign the other Exhibits have been, I'd say Exhibit E is probably not a big deal either, but I'd rather judge it on its own merits.

Urpriest
2013-10-17, 12:39 PM
Did anyone else interpret "body-surfing" in the OP as literally body-surfing in the sense of throwing yourself into a crowd and having them carry you along? The OP made me think the wizard was a lot more of a goofballl than the actual explanation.

SowZ
2013-10-17, 12:43 PM
Did anyone else interpret "body-surfing" in the OP as literally body-surfing in the sense of throwing yourself into a crowd and having them carry you along? The OP made me think the wizard was a lot more of a goofballl than the actual explanation.

I assumed he had found some way to turn people into effective mounts that he slides around on like a sled.

Narren
2013-10-17, 01:28 PM
As for the backstory....did the DM actually change what the PC saw, experienced, and did? Or did he just add elements that the PC may have been unaware of at the time?

The first one would irk me, but I think the second one adds depth and connects you to the world. I've often changed a players perception of their hometown or family based upon what they've told me about them. I know my group and they trust me, so they've always enjoyed the occasional (very occasional, it could get old fast) twist on what they thought they knew.

The Oni
2013-10-17, 01:30 PM
I assumed he had found some way to turn people into effective mounts that he slides around on like a sled.

Surely there's a feat for that.

Scow2
2013-10-17, 02:12 PM
Surely there's a feat for that.Why does there need to be a feat?

Delwugor
2013-10-17, 02:43 PM
Why does there need to be a feat?
Good point, it's a free-form game so there should be a trope.

The Glyphstone
2013-10-17, 02:56 PM
Surely there's a feat for that.

If he's standing up while riding them, then there are two feet for that.

nedz
2013-10-17, 04:44 PM
If he's standing up while riding them, then there are two feet for that.

I just assumed he was a shape-changer; so he can have as many feet as he likes.

scurv
2013-10-17, 05:17 PM
Hello Playground - since discussing the Do's and Dont's of DMing seems to be popular around here, I thought I would leave my own topic for discussion.



Now, allow me to preface this by saying that I am not a player in the pbp game described below. A group of my friends are players in this pbp game, however, and I've read through enough of it to get a decent sense of what's happened in it so far.
Then why do you care?


That being said, I admit that my knowledge of the game and its DM is therefore somewhat second-hand.

So, why is this your concern?


If the consensus is that I haven't provided enough information, I can discretely investigate with my friends and try to get more. I'd rather not post a link to the actual game or anything, as it is on these boards and I don't want to stir up any trouble for anyone.

I think you gave enough details below to find this game if it is on this forum. So again why do you care, And why leave such a trail?



As the title of this thread suggests, I'm simply curious what the rest of the Playground thinks about this DM's style, and if there's any advice I should share with my friends. So, allow me to present several examples of the DM's behavior and you can decide how you feel about them and whether or not it's enough to answer the titular question of this thread.

A laudable goal to look after your friends well being. But I have to ask is that actually a needed thing for you to do?

Exhibit A:
The game is a freeform game, and the DM pretty much left character creation open to just about anything provided it was less than a god. However, the game itself started in a prison that the PCs had to break out of, and so they were restrained and imprisoned in various ways that made their powers and abilities curtailed quite a bit. That being said, the DM did say upfront that the game would start with a prison escape so it's not like this was a bait-and-switch, and apparently most of the PCs got out of their restraints fairly early on. However . . .

Good start, classic and a very good way to set the tone of the campaign

Exhibit B:
While the game is freeform, the DM provides "structure" by guiding the PCs along, which can include what I guess you could call retcons. Things like, if a PC says "I lunge forward and stab the BBEG through the chest with my sword!", the DM will follow that up by posting "you lunge forward, thrusting your sword at the BBEG. He manages to get his shield up just in time, deflecting your attack but causing your blade to slice into his arm instead of his chest!" In addition to that . . .

Normal enough, Players state their intentions and the DM is the one who resolves how it all plays out (although player input from time to time if a civil thing for the dm to accept especially if the actions go for what could be viewed as more then one turn)

Exhibit C:
Instead of having everyone in your standard adventuring party, the DM has all of the PCs split up, running through their own plot lines. While they will occasionally meet up at an intersection of plot threads, such events tend to be rare. Instead, the DM provides an array of NPCs for each PC to interact with, which are also occasionally shared between different PCs. Obviously this wouldn't work in a RL game, but since it's pbp apparently he can get away with splitting his attention like that, although I don't know whether or not that's actually a good idea to do that. Speaking of NPCs . . .

It is a good workaround for people who have different time commitments.It lets the spaz who has 6 hours to manicly post to be able to do so, while tired grandpa who only can stay awake to post once a day can do his deal as well, Each in their own time frame.

Exhibit D:
Every now and again the DM will write up a post involving only NPCs that have been out of sight of the PCs for a while. Ostensibly this was originally to reveal to the players what the villains were plotting off-camera, but it's since expanded to include various NPCs that the players may or may not be interested in learning more about. Finally . . .
Meh, good way to keep notes about what is going on in the world. And who knows that those npc's are all npc's I have seen DM's who have ran two groups and used the actions from one to inspire the campaign of the other. And the DM is entitled to have fun, And if the DM's sense of fun includes laying out some random plot that people may or may not bite on then so be it. Besides that is a way the players can complain less about being clotheslined.

Exhibit E:
The DM has seen fit to meddle with PCs' backstories. One could argue that since he's basing the story off of the PCs' backstories, he's simply changing minor details to weave them together into the world. However, it could also be said that he might be taking it too far. As an example - one of my friends mentioned a battle with an evil wizard in her backstory. The wizard was meant to be a one-off villain, just an explanation for why her angel character was down on earth and (some time later) captured and imprisoned by the bad guys running the prison. The DM took this evil wizard and turned him into a body-surfing wizard who fell in love with the angel in ancient times and has been stalking her ever since. This was in the time before what my friend detailed in her backstory, making the minor confrontation that she actually wrote about into just another encounter between her character and her ageless stalker.

This one i would engage in dialogue with the player. Just to make sure it is not pushing any buttons. I have personally dealt with a stalker/hostile workplace once so I have grounds to relate with. But We have all played and many of us DMed enough to know that anything you introduce into game can take on a life of its own.


I think that's enough examples for now. So, um . . . whaddya think,
I think there is no issues here of significant note, Save perhaps the last one. Although considering your eagerness to return to find evidence of an issue. The loaded title of the post that I do not feel is supported by the evidence you presented, And the trail of breadcrumbs that was left. I am honestly not sure how i feel about the last one. And quite frankly I do not think that you mentioned any issues about that are relevant to the last one. So in that I see no reason to make an undue issue with that DM's campaign. Granted it is true that every DM's will bork something up but quite frankly they got the screen so unless they venture into the land of being a d-bag and unprofessional they tend to get a blanket 'Pass' from me.
Playground?

Lorsa
2013-10-17, 05:54 PM
The DM could be a control freak, or he could not. There's really not enough information to support either claim. One could say he's a Schrödinger-freak.

scurv
2013-10-17, 08:28 PM
The DM could be a control freak, or he could not. There's really not enough information to support either claim. One could say he's a Schrödinger-freak.

Maybe we should define what a Control freak is? Much of this is what i like to call 'false positive reasoning'

For instance lets use two terms, control freak and well organised and prepared leader.

So Just for the sake of argument I am going to assign some traits to both

well organised and prepared leader
*Has done your homework on the subject at hand
*Is ready for several probable outcomes and has the needed materials to contend with them.
*Is attentive to the task at hand, and makes adjustments after consideration
*Although pride may be invested, will maintain composure if things do not go according to plan

control freak
*May or may not have done homework on the task at hand, But arrives to the task with preconceived of notions
*Makes adjustments before studying the task at hand
*Handles and micromanages all aspects of the task at hand
*fuzzy concept of boundaries for what is and is not the task at hand
*Can become highly emotional if the task does not go according to plan.


Now in both cases you will see someone who is exerting control over a task at hand. So if you were to ask 'is this person a control freak' and the only filter that we are looking to see if they exerted control. Then in that case we would get a positive result for ether personalty.

Now if we get into method of control we can begin to make some guesses as to what type of personalty we have. Although from what I have read about the DM in question. And we all know how much fun getting the party together and that first few sessions can be. exerted a significant amount of control, artistic liberty yes, But assuming the worst points have been presented so far. This dm in question has in the first three incidents acting in such a way that presents no appearance of misconduct. the 4th incident seems to be mostly a matter of style, Although if I was a player that would walk into any of the area's those NPC's were at, I would do careful reading of the flavor text to see if there is any potential environmental advantage that I could use.

So so far we are 4 points of the evidence into this and I see no behavior that indicates a control freak, But rather someone who is well organised and prepared.

As we get to the last point we now have an area that if i was to take a read on the situation and interpret it as the DM took the option that yielded the best story. Lets be real if a villain can put a hurt on an angel then he is most likely more then a Mook, So the DM took a few creative liberties, Who cares Thats what we 'pay' DM's to do!!, Actually from what I read so far those who do care indicated approval for the most part. Although a few indicated that the last point was somewhat questionable.

And for whats added in...meh I am not a fan of retcon but if the DM can weave all the players into a master/meta plot for the campaign right in the beginning then so much the better! But as of yet I have not seen anything over and beyond Well organised and prepared If a bit on the creative side.

Exediron
2013-10-18, 12:49 AM
Is the DM a control freak? Based purely on the evidence provided, probably not:

A) Nothing at all wrong with this. It's a bit of a cliche, but that's just because it's a classic. As a rule, if the DM warns people about some element that will be in the game before the game starts, that's the time to complain if you're going to have a problem.
B) Here the DM is clearly maintaining control of the situation, but as others have said that's the right of the DM. I don't know anything about freeform gaming (sort-of like consent description instead of rolling? Something like?), so I can't comment on rather it's proper etiquette or not, but it certainly seems reasonable to me. A real control freak would probably have spent more time on making his control over the situation absolutely clear rather than just moving on. Control freaks don't like having their control threatened.
C) I think keeping the party so separated is a questionable decision, but there's probably reasons for it. Unless the players have asked to be more united and he's refused I don't see control freak.
D) This could be, but it's more likely he just wants to try and communicate some of the neat stuff he has going on behind the scenes. It's frustrating as a DM coming up with all these interesting NPCs, with desires, goals, fears, etc. and knowing the players will probably never know or care about any of those things. So I can understand where he's coming from here.
E) This is the one I have a problem with. In the school of roleplaying thought I belong to, a character and their backstory belong to the player. I don't consider it proper for a DM to change aspects of a character without getting the direct approval of the player, and I don't consider it proper to change their backstory. However, both of these things are considered perfectly acceptable by a large portion of the roleplaying community - maybe even a majority - so I don't think it's grounds to consider the DM abnormal. And it sounds like what he's changed is something the angel character wouldn't have been aware of, so from her point of view it hasn't changed. That's better, because it doesn't imply any change to the character. Although I still don't approve, because the player may very well have had something different in mind.

... Actually, scratch some of that - upon reading the second post I do think the DM is well over the line of good taste. I personally (as a control freak :smallwink:) would be quite unhappy with being told what my character had been up to, even if it was a part of her backstory I hadn't specifically filled in. I don't think it's proper to do that without consulting the player. However, still not a control freak thing - just sloppy DMing, to my way of thinking.

Narren
2013-10-18, 01:07 AM
... Actually, scratch some of that - upon reading the second post I do think the DM is well over the line of good taste. I personally (as a control freak :smallwink:) would be quite unhappy with being told what my character had been up to, even if it was a part of her backstory I hadn't specifically filled in. I don't think it's proper to do that without consulting the player. However, still not a control freak thing - just sloppy DMing, to my way of thinking.

But was he actually altering what happened to the character or what their actions were? Or did he state "hey, that wizard you fought, you didn't know at the time but he's a body surfing whatever"

scurv
2013-10-18, 03:08 AM
Beginning of an adventure is always going to have aspects that are ether sub-par or annoy people. I just sort of accept that as the tax players pay to play. But lets look at it this way. If you have a DM that says "Play what you want as long as it is not a god"
At that point I accapt that one, permission to take a level in mary sue has been given.
Dm is going to have to shape a party that has so far at least an angel, and taking a guess, maybe stuff as diverse as dragons,vampires, cyborgs, the highlander and a timelord. and give them a interlocking problems to resolve in an effort to keep them playing. So at that point I do expect some moderately annoying liberty's to be taken by the DM as far as the aspect of background goes.

And last. We have a single loaded perception to go on for this, And the OP looks more like they were grasping for straws and trying to see what charges were going to stick.

Lorsa
2013-10-18, 03:27 AM
Maybe we should define what a Control freak is? Much of this is what i like to call 'false positive reasoning'.

Wikipedia does it pretty well I think.

A control freak can still appear to be an easygoing, freeform, non-railroady GM becuase that's the kind of game the control freak wants.

Narren
2013-10-18, 04:19 AM
Beginning of an adventure is always going to have aspects that are ether sub-par or annoy people. I just sort of accept that as the tax players pay to play. But lets look at it this way. If you have a DM that says "Play what you want as long as it is not a god"
At that point I accapt that one, permission to take a level in mary sue has been given.
Dm is going to have to shape a party that has so far at least an angel, and taking a guess, maybe stuff as diverse as dragons,vampires, cyborgs, the highlander and a timelord. and give them a interlocking problems to resolve in an effort to keep them playing. So at that point I do expect some moderately annoying liberty's to be taken by the DM as far as the aspect of background goes.

And last. We have a single loaded perception to go on for this, And the OP looks more like they were grasping for straws and trying to see what charges were going to stick.


That's one reason I'll never tell the players to just make random characters without any consultation amongst myself or the group and then try to shoehorn any kind of motivation into them. You just end up with a weird group of strangers that have no reason to even look in the same direction of each other.

I prefer to get with my group and determine what kind of game we're going to play, and what kind of characters will fit in it. Everyone is usually on the same page, so an actual compromise is rarely required. The players will usually find reasons that they work together. Even if it's a simple as them being siblings or old friends.

INDYSTAR188
2013-10-18, 07:08 AM
I think all of the DM's actions cited in OP's post are reasonable and well within his rights. I especially think B is an example of good DMing. It's a situation where you want to encourage the player to describe his actions for everyones benefit but the DM has to walk the player through his/her actions:

PC: "I lunge at the BBEG and stab him through his heart!"
DM: "That sounds pretty epic, lets see if you're able to do it. Roll to hit!"
PC: "Umm.... I got a 19"
DM: "Not quite enough, your sword scrapes off his breast plate."

In the case of E... I'm not entirely sure if this is or isn't control freak type actions. In my game it would be considered good form to expand on a characters backstory to make sure it fits into a storyline the game is going to highlight. However, I can definitely see where that would be overstepping a little bit. You don't want the DM to tell you what your character does/doesn't do so at the same time you probably don't want the DM to tell you what your character DID or DIDN'T do in the past. I think it's an issue of playstyle. In this case I think the best thing to do is for both parties to talk, let the player raise his concercerns and let the DM explain what he's thinking. They can then come to an understanding and hopefully keep playing together.

WeLoveFireballs
2013-10-18, 11:13 AM
Is there any reason to think E wasn't discussed with the player via PM beforehand?

Ravian
2013-10-18, 11:49 AM
All the points seem fine, C is obviously more of a Pbp thing and D is, while something I wouldn't do (too much) is a stylistic choice and not an inherently bad one.

Not sure why everyone seems to have such a problem with E. In my experience many player's sometimes take a light view to backstory because it is so often ignored by a GM in favor of his own plot. This to me is a flaw for a GM, since backgrounds are one of the best way for a player to feel involved in the story. In my opinion, anything in my player's background is free range to be used, so long as it isn't completely overridden. This doesn't seem to be overridden so much as used in a different way than the player expected it to be (if they expected it to be at all). Obviously if the player is upset their background was used like that than that's a cause for concern but I for one would be overjoyed to have such a tidbit of my character's backstory involved so heavily with the plot.

To give an example, a GM I know did a lot of work tying together one of his player's backstory elements to the plot in an impressive way.

It was a Western Campaign, with alot of supernatural elements, and one of the character's was a Saloon Girl whose primary motivation was finding her son, who had been kidnapped by his father, one of her clients, who had abandoned them. She also took a hindrance, fear of water snakes, saying that it came from an encounter with some weird demonic serpent. The two elements were loosely connected at best. So the GM put a spin on it.

The Saloon Girl's son had created the water snake, being essentially a sorcerer with a single spell ingrained into his being. His father, who had been given very minimal description asides from owning a chain of Drugstores, became a wealthy businessman with a fascination for the bizarre, as well as a major villain of the campaign. Suddenly the motivation becomes much more clear and the set-up for an incredible reveal was created.

Inspectre
2013-10-18, 01:21 PM
Thanks for the replies everyone!

Um . . . I do have a confession to make. My interest in posting this thread is that I am the DM in question. :smallredface: I apologize for the deception, but I thought that if I presented myself as a DM asking for advice, that might mollify everyone somewhat, as you usually don't yell at someone who's pointedly asking for help. I wanted the blunt, honest truth of whether or not I was doing something wrong. :smalleek:

It doesn't sound like it, except for the background meddling in Exhibit E, which is a huge relief. My players are all great, and just put up with whatever nonsense I try to pull on them - but I'm acutely aware that I got lucky with the batch that I have. So I'm worried that when the time comes to start up a new game, I'll have learned some bad habits that my players in the current game were willing to tolerate. :smallconfused:

I'll run through the Exhibits I posted, as well as a brief description of my reasoning for why I did them, just so everyone can see my reasoning for why I did what I did.

Exhibit A - This was fairly straightforward - I wanted to run a prison game where a wide variety of fantasy creatures were locked up. It also had the side benefit of allowing me to basically allow the players to be almost anything they wanted, and still give them a reason to be there - even if the character in question most definitely did not.

Exhibit B - I've seen a wide variety of definitions of what freeform is. I know that there are also freeform games where there isn't really a DM at all, although I think those are mostly tavern-like games where people just come in with a character to goof off and interact with each other, rather than following a set story someone has laid out. As such, I wasn't sure if it was common practice to have that sort of give-and-take between player and DM in a freeform game, or if I was the odd one for managing it that way.

Exhibit C - Basically I split everyone up because I didn't want a situation where one person would flake out, and leave the other PCs nearby hanging as to whether they should press on or wait for the missing player to return. Which is a little bit of a laugh given I can only manage to put up a set of replies to all of my players once every 2-4 weeks, but I do still have people just up and disappear without telling everyone. It doesn't help that in the beginning, every time I tried to bring two or more PCs together, one of them would disappear or become busy in real life and thus unable to post. :smallannoyed: A number of players have repeatedly asked to be put together with another PC, though, and I've finally now started to get around to putting them together on a more than one or two scene basis. It's actually lessened my workload - a little.

Exhibit D - As first listed, this basically started as a way to have villain-plotting cut scenes similar to various videogames and movies. It grew out from there as a way to provide information to the players that they normally wouldn't get anywhere else, like what was happening off-camera to various NPCs. It also helped satisfy my armchair novelist tendencies. :smallamused: Generally they're used as a "reward" of sorts, with one being posted roughly every 100 IC posts - so they're spaced out a bit.

Exhibit E - Yeah, I meddled in a lot of PCs backstories, primarily as a way to weave them all together into an actual game world that made some amount of sense (I had gaping amounts of grey space, particularly when first starting the game - basically my own notes were "there's a prison up in the mountains that's a horrible place, and the PCs will be trying to escape from there." Things got more detailed from there, but I tried to pull what background details from everyone's various backstories where I could and . . . stretch them as necessary.

Thinking back specifically to the angel PC, I remember the wizard being a throwaway mention in the backstory, and that the angel herself had been so badly tortured while in the prison that her mind had regressed to that of a child - her body being magical, followed suit and so she was to all appearances and behavior nothing more than a scared young girl (that was explicitly in the PC's backstory). So since she didn't remember anything about her past, I felt like I had been sorta given the okay to put whatever else I wanted in her life history, since she didn't remember any of it anyway, and this was a way for her to occasionally have memory flashbacks and such?

Some of those flashbacks were also played out, with the player having full control over her PC in the past, so it's not like I just completely wrote out an entire history and handed it to her. I'm not entirely sure if I okay'd the stalker aspect of the mage ahead of time or not. I do remember talking with the player about it, but I think I did introduce the idea that they had met before prior to the actual conversation (though I would have certainly tried to steer the relationship if a different direction had the player been very upset about it).

So yeah - I just wanted to hear everyone's honest opinion about what I was doing, and whether from a neutral third-party's perspective if I was following . . . let's call them "DM best practices", or if I've been a doodiehead and it's just that nobody has called me out on it yet. Thanks Playground. :smallsmile:

Mr Beer
2013-10-18, 03:00 PM
Thanks for the replies everyone!

Um . . . I do have a confession to make. My interest in posting this thread is that I am the DM in question. :smallredface: I apologize for the deception, but I thought that if I presented myself as a DM asking for advice, that might mollify everyone somewhat, as you usually don't yell at someone who's pointedly asking for help. I wanted the blunt, honest truth of whether or not I was doing something wrong. :smalleek:

Seems like a pointless lie to me, I give honest feedback when asked, my guess is other posters do too.

scurv
2013-10-18, 04:38 PM
Wikipedia does it pretty well I think.

A control freak can still appear to be an easygoing, freeform, non-railroady GM becuase that's the kind of game the control freak wants.

It is still good practice to define your terms, Especially when emotion is concerned or Emotionally Loaded subjects.

Jay R
2013-10-18, 11:07 PM
You're still asking the wrong people. I urge any DM to occasionally ask the players for an evaluation of the game.

Tim Proctor
2013-10-18, 11:34 PM
You're still asking the wrong people. I urge any DM to occasionally ask the players for an evaluation of the game.
If the player had their email, then they did... nuff said!

Inspectre
2013-10-19, 12:10 AM
You're still asking the wrong people. I urge any DM to occasionally ask the players for an evaluation of the game.

Already done. I don't always put their recommendations into effect but I do talk about them and explain my reasoning. Other times it takes a while to work things out so that a change can be made, but I do listen. Really though I have great players who perhaps put too much faith into my abilities. Several times I've seen a complaint that they have end with a comment to the effect of "But while I don't like this, I'm sure that you know what you're doing." It's reassuring to my worries that I'm not running an enjoyable game, but I am concerned that they may be cutting me too much slack. Hence the desire for a blunt third-party opinion (which may have it's own issues due to a lack of information). I guess I'm just afraid of starting up a new game in the future with the idea of operating just as I've done in my current game, only to find that my players feel I'm doing it all wrong.

scurv
2013-10-19, 12:11 PM
In your opening post Inspectre it looked like an attempt to make issues were there was none, And there was a steady reinforcement of a cordial air,stated intentions that were not quite in sync with actions followed by inclusion implied self promotion and diffusion of responsibility. All classic signs of manipulation. And now you are telling us that you presented under false pretenses to us inorder to get an honest opinion.

I might enjoy your DM style while the charm lasts if I was a player in your campaigns. But it is manipulation and misdirection such as that that some people find highly unnerving and to some quite insulting.

As a side note Can i get a link to this campaign that you are running?

Scow2
2013-10-19, 12:36 PM
In your opening post Inspectre it looked like an attempt to make issues were there was none, And there was a steady reinforcement of a cordial air,stated intentions that were not quite in sync with actions followed by inclusion implied self promotion and diffusion of responsibility. All classic signs of manipulation. And now you are telling us that you presented under false pretenses to us inorder to get an honest opinion.

I might enjoy your DM style while the charm lasts if I was a player in your campaigns. But it is manipulation and misdirection such as that that some people find highly unnerving and to some quite insulting.

As a side note Can i get a link to this campaign that you are running?It wasn't so much deliberate manipulation as much as awareness of expected results, though it probably backfired. He was looking for verification because of personal concerns that he was extending his power too far, and wondering if his players might be having issues they're not comfortable voicing - people tend to defer to authority, and a DM is in a position of authority over the players, even if only in-game theoretically.

Inspectre
2013-10-20, 01:04 AM
What Scow2 said. Also, several days ago when I initially posted this I think I was having some sort of minor self-esteem crisis. Because looking back now, I have to admit that the whole "pretending to be an outsider instead of the DM" was stupid. :smallredface: But at the time I was worried about what people were going to actually say so I felt that I needed a layer of separation.

As a side note response to scurv's request, the links are attached to my signature. They're all for the same game, which is on the third and likely final thread. I will again mention that they are very long and convoluted reads, which in addition to trying to build that nonsensical anonymity that I wanted was why I didn't just link them in the first place and say "could someone read this and tell me whether or not I'm doing a bad job and if so why?" The comment about me being an armchair novelist was spot on, I'm afraid.

For those that don't want to look through my signature and try to figure out which link to follow to get to the beginning, you can use the links below. They're all to the IC threads, so you won't get any of the talks that I did with players OOC. As such I'm not sure how effective reading through the IC threads will be to isolate my mistakes (and there are a few, even if they are not as drastic as I was trying to make them sound in my hysteria fit).

Start -> Escape from Ironheart (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3788993#post3788993)

Middle -> Flight from Ironheart (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102967)

Current -> Return to Ironheart IC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=251737)

Gavran
2013-10-20, 02:19 AM
Holy plot twist batman!

I like it. :P

While the deception makes you look a little insecure, that in no way reflects badly on you as a person. Reading through your lists my thought very much was "I'd like to play with this DM" and knowing it's you only changes the weirdly-accusatory tone of your OP into something much more sensible.

I do agree that if you want to change/create what a PC did in their past, that's something to discuss with the player (but something I as a player would generally be pretty agreeable to), and changing the wizard is not only compelling, but I imagine, creating a useful hook in a backstory that lacked them.

You don't happen to play / have a secret yearning to play 4E, do you? :P

Inspectre
2013-10-20, 06:14 AM
Um . . . what game are we talking about when you say 4E, given there are a few games that have had a fourth version. I'm guessing you mean 4E D&D, in which case I have to respond that I *love* 4E! :smallbiggrin: It has a few warts and issues of its own, but in my mind the fact that gameplay is actually balanced around the whole team working together, along with a few other ideas it had, to be great! I have a couple of ideas about what I'd like to run after Ironheart is over, and a 4E game is one of them. :smallsmile: That won't be for a long time though, given the slow pace that Ironheart generally takes.

Gavran
2013-10-20, 03:03 PM
Ah yes, silly of me to be so vague, but you guessed right anyway. And that's perfectly understandable, given that the game has spanned years.

Nonetheless, you could consider me as the first person to post interest for the future. :P

Sith_Happens
2013-10-20, 09:43 PM
Um . . . I do have a confession to make. My interest in posting this thread is that I am the DM in question. :smallredface:

https://sciencefieldnotebooks.wikispaces.com/file/view/Dramatic-Prairie-Dog.gif/302435062/Dramatic-Prairie-Dog.gif