When does the DM go to far for you? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

jedipotter

2015-01-18, 05:53 PM

So, when does the DM go to far for you?

So your playing some D&D and something happens. Anything really. Not a dice roll, but more the DM ''says X''. So at what point do you accept X as part of the game or reject x as ''the DM going too far''.

Example 1: The DM sets up a simple 'bandit plot' of 'kill the bandits'. Instead, the group tricks the bandits into attacking the town. And in the confusion...the group breaks into the gold draconian mayors house. They find is safe easy enough, break into it with some trouble. And find a bunch of treasure in ''gold coins''. The characters greedly load up all the gold.....only to discover the ''gold coins'' are in fact....gold bugs (awesome little gold colored beetles with metal-like exoskeletons that sleep a lot all curled up to look like a gold coin. But movement and heat wakes them up...and they bite! With poison!)

So there are two obvious calls:

1. The easy to find safe was a trap all along. The mayor is street smart and clever.

2. The DM just made it up so our character would not get any gold after our clever plan!

Example 2 The group is inside the Kings Castle. And player Zeno tries more of his ''goofy stuff''. As his character, Zoot, is a rogue, he starts stealing everything he can grab. The other player characters frown and say thing like ''come on don't make the king mad'' and such. Then Zoot goes to grab and pocket a Golden Candlestick.....and the candlestick hops away! While the rest of the group and the king talk in the very next room, Zoot frantically chases the hopping candlestick around the other room...attempting to be quiet. After a couple rounds, the candlestick attacks Zoot! It's a short fight, and Zoot is eventually left on the floor ''dying''( at -2 hps). The candlestick then hops back up on the shelf. A couple rounds later the group finds Zoot on the floor and heals him up.

1. Well, Zoot must have trigger some sort of anti thief ward, or something? And when Zoot says ''It was the candlestick, with the candlestick in the sideroom'', everyone thinks maybe ''animated object''?

2. The DM is nuts! This game sucks! All sorts of crazy talk!

So what makes one call vs. the other?

And lets not wade into ''trust''. Lets just say your not going to game with a DM you don't trust in the first place. So you ''trust'' the DM. So what else, other then ''trust'', do you base your call on? At what point do you go from ''the DM is using the game rules'' even if you don't know the details to ''the DM is just free forming things'' and ''outside the rules''?

ZamielVanWeber

2015-01-18, 06:06 PM

Given that dragons are known to keep horde scarabs so my OOC knowledge would assuage my wrath. But why would a mayor keep a safe full of them, even an aurak? I would be suspicious.

An animated object would be a bit context dependent, but it sounds so funny I would let it slide.

Pinkie Pyro

2015-01-18, 06:08 PM

A: was it funny?

B: was there any indication of something like this happening, or in retrospect, was it really obvious?

If the answer to both is no, then for something like this, I'd say he's just bull****ting.

Threadnaught

2015-01-18, 06:14 PM

In the first case, either the DM is punishing the players, or the mayor, isn't just a mayor, he has power of some sort and is paranoid enough to not keep his money in the obviously well protected place, but keeps it somewhere less obvious and potentially even more well protected.

The second case a permanencied candlestick to deter thieves is an interesting idea, it's even cooler than Horde and Gem Scarabs, though the Scarabs are best kept for piles of treasure and for someone immune to their abilities to be the owner of the pile.

Not enough context on the first one, have the PCs met the mayor? What is he/she like? Are they allied with any powerful people?

Details, I require them for a proper response.

nedz

2015-01-18, 06:21 PM

I think that it depends upon how common these situations are. It doesn't even depend on that really: does player led plot ever work ? is the real issue.

JoshuaZ

2015-01-18, 07:18 PM

Did players get to make perception checks or the equivalent in system to notice that they weren't normal coins? If not, that's not ok. If he did and they just failed the checks until it was too late, that seems fine to me.

Knaight

2015-01-18, 07:25 PM

Both of those situations sound like they would usually be fine, and if we're assuming a DM I already trust, all's well. Without those assumptions, the demeanor is the general tell. If the DM was completely straight faced for either, they seem like decisions made in advance. If they're getting frustrated at the players going off of their plot and then those happen, both look a little questionable, though neither is remotely a problem on its own.

nedz

2015-01-18, 07:44 PM

OldTrees1

2015-01-18, 07:59 PM

Well this question isn't about when the DM goes from RAW(RAW can be bad) to freeform(freeform can be good). It is about whether it makes you less trusting(less trusting of honesty and/or less trusting of taste).

Example 1:
I just threw my DM for a loop with the creative solution to the bandit encounter. So my DM is scrambling to create content as I am going on my looting plan. Thus I am expecting my DM to make more errors and end up with less creative content(the consequences of improv vs preparation).

I end up encountering something I did not expect in foresight and it continues to confuse me in 20/20 hindsight.

Why would a lowly mayor put an expensive one shot trap there? It would take a very wealthly mayor to spend money on a prank like this. And a prank is what it would be for such a wealthy mayor since they could long ago afford security I could not pass.

Therefore I would conclude that this was probably invented on the spot. Metagaming assumed. Motive unknown. Increased scrutiny for future incidents. At best it was a improv mayor's prank in poor taste. More likely it was the DM metagaming with poor taste.(aka #2)

Example 2:
Again, this was probably an unexpected PC action but from a pattern of behavior. It is almost inconceivable that the DM placed an animated candlestick there before we arrived. However it is much more believable that the DM created a list of possible deterring consequences for the PC's pattern of behavior. Metagaming assumed. Motive assumed to be harmless humor. (aka an unlisted choice)

General answer:
I use my intellectual empathy skill to try to simulate what the DM was thinking. Then I form an opinion based on my models and how confident I am of each model. Then I bias towards giving the benefit of the doubt when models are tied/close.

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-18, 08:14 PM

1. Does it make sense? A trapped safe makes sense. A trapped safe with no air holes, food, water or gold bug poop does not.

2. Is it consistent? Are animated objects frequent enough for the king to have one? Does he allow mages to exist and practice magic to make said items? Do other nobles have the resources to buy such? Could the party, given enough time, resources, etc. also acquire this ware? If not, does the reason make sense?

3. Does this **** always happen? If every plan goes badly due to this stuff, I'd get mighty suspicious if suddenly every peasant is a level 20 monk and every noble has millions of magical traps. Doubly so if nothing ever goes right.

4. Are skill checks allowed? Could Zoot have used detect magic on the candle stick? Could people have made an awareness check to figure out the coins don't look right before the murder? Or does the DM assume people like to stick their limbs into strange piles of coins without caution?

Aka-chan

2015-01-18, 08:16 PM

In Example 1, it seems entirely reasonable to me that a gold dragon, a creature whose Int could easily top 30, would trap their hoard. Heck, if I see a blatantly obvious safe sitting right out in the open, I'm going to assume it's trapped.

In Example 2, I think my first assumption on seeing the rogue knocked out would be that some assassin or other bad guy has snuck into the palace, and that we should warn the guards and/or take other steps to protect the king. As for the candlestick thing, it does seem like a cool anti-thief measure (although again, IC I might wonder whether someone has animated it without the King's knowledge in hopes that it would attack him.)

P.F.

2015-01-18, 08:42 PM

So, when does the DM go to far for you? ... at what point do you accept X as part of the game or reject x as ''the DM going too far''.

You have no ability to reject x. Your choices are

1. Accept every part of the game as the DM explains it or chooses not to explain it,

2. Reject the game entirely and walk away, or

3. Throw a temper-tantrum and then select form the remaining options above.

2. The DM just made it up so our character would not get any gold after our clever plan!

Mwahahahaha! Your plan was not so clever after all!

''the DM is just free forming things'' and ''outside the rules''?

Ham sandwich. Mu. Emptiness. The question is invalid. That's why it's called Rule 0.

martixy

2015-01-18, 10:43 PM

Basically it's all about "Can you explain it?"
Otherwise known as the power of "retconning".
It is a great power and when used wisely can lead to all sorts of fun, memorable and awesome moments.

The first one can probably be very easily explained in a myriad ways.
The second one does sound like complete bull****, unless you consider the following situation:
He was in the queen's quarters and the jealous king has long since suspected that an unscrupulous, but very slippery noble has been sneaking in to have his way with the queen while he's away on matters of state.
Or if the king is good, perhaps this is a ploy by some noble(s) to discredit him by portraying him as more heavy-handed and not as noble as he would be otherwise viewed. Maybe he's too popular for a direct assassination attempt or it doesn't fit in the plans of the power-hungry elite in other ways, but a mishap like this is certain to cast him in less favourable light.

Naturally, you can explain all that post-factum, and it will be just as valid.

P.S. Of course, if he breaks consistency feel free to rant. A freak accident or two can be fun and entertaining. If the DM starts to regularly pull stuff out of his аss, for no apparent story reason, then you need to sit down and talk(or yell at each other). You are after all numerically superior as far as discussions IRL are concerned.

NeoPhoenix0

2015-01-18, 11:18 PM

It all depends on context and that one very factor that you decided to eliminate for the sake of discussion, "trust".

you gave some examples but those examples don't really matter. What does matter is the context of those examples. Does the DM regularly try to screw the party over? Did the DM have them roll relevant checks, or in the case of a DM that doesn't ask for rolls did he give them the opportunity to do so? This one also requires the DM to be consistent on whether or not he asks players to roll checks or if he never asks but has them volunteer the rolls. Not being consistent is being unfair to the players. These situations could be fun quirky things even if they just made up at the last minute but there has to be some consistency and the players need to have an opportunity to not fail.

All this adds up to the one five letter word that you don't want us to talk about here, "trust". In the end your judgement on whether a situation is stupid or fair, comes down to whether you think your DM is trying to force plot, consequences or other things on you without giving you a chance or you believe your DM gives you a chance and you missed it. It doesn't even matter if your DM is the type to try and kill the party off as long the player perceives how he tries to do it as fair, and not as some sort of brat that effectively said "rocks fall, everyone dies."

To sum it, "trust" and a big part of that trust, "consistency"

Edit: cause even if we assume the player trusts the DM, it is still a matter of the DM retaining that trust.

Grod_The_Giant

2015-01-18, 11:23 PM

It all depends on context and that one very factor that you decided to eliminate for the sake of discussion, "trust".

you gave some examples but those examples don't really matter. What does matter is the context of those examples. Does the DM regularly try to screw the party over? Did the DM have them roll relevant checks, or in the case of a DM that doesn't ask for rolls did he give them the opportunity to do so? This one also requires the DM to be consistent on whether or not he asks players to roll checks or if he never asks but has them volunteer the rolls. Not being consistent is being unfair to the players. These situations could be fun quirky things even if they just made up at the last minute but there has to be some consistency and the players need to have an opportunity to not fail.

All this adds up to the one four letter word that you don't want us to talk about here, "trust". In the end your judgement on whether a situation is stupid or fair, comes down to whether you think your DM is trying to force plot, consequences or other things on you without giving you a chance or you believe your DM gives you a chance and you missed it. It doesn't even matter if your DM is the type to try and kill the party off as long the player perceives how he tries to do it as fair, and not as some sort of brat that effectively said "rocks fall, everyone dies."

To sum it, "trust" and a big part of that trust, "consistency"

Edit: cause even if we assume the player trusts the DM, it is still a matter of the DM retaining that trust.
This. Listen to NeoPhoenix0, for they speak great wisdom here.

zergling.exe

2015-01-18, 11:39 PM

All this adds up to the one four letter word that you don't want us to talk about here, "trust".

Trust actually has 5 letters. :smalltongue:

1. T
2. r
3. u
4. s
5. t

I would also agree with more details being helpful to determining this. Does the town have a lot of wealth for the mayor to be able to afford this? Does something similar happen every time you don't do things the 'planned' way?

NeoPhoenix0

2015-01-18, 11:41 PM

Trust actually has 5 letters. :smalltongue:

1. T
2. r
3. u
4. s
5. t

I would also agree with more details being helpful to determining this. Does the town have a lot of wealth for the mayor to be able to afford this? Does something similar happen every time you don't do things the 'planned' way?

dang, my friend is right, learning calculus really can make you bad at simple math, even counting.

Knaight

2015-01-19, 12:05 AM

Some DMs can sell you a tell either way :smallamused:

Far fewer than think they can, and the ones with the skill I've found are the same ones who really dislike railroading.

jedipotter

2015-01-19, 12:36 AM

I would also agree with more details being helpful to determining this. Does the town have a lot of wealth for the mayor to be able to afford this? Does something similar happen every time you don't do things the 'planned' way?

Well, see, I'm asking for the players point of view. And the players will never have the ''huge detailed report'' on anything.

And does it happen ''all the time''? I'd say yes. Though for the safe, they only found and opened the one in the study. They never even went upstairs to the bedroom and found the real safe. But it was there....

icefractal

2015-01-19, 01:41 AM

3. Does this **** always happen? If every plan goes badly due to this stuff, I'd get mighty suspicious if suddenly every peasant is a level 20 monk and every noble has millions of magical traps. Doubly so if nothing ever goes right.This would be the majority of it, for me. Most patterns of problematic DM behavior are only apparent when you look at a decent sample of situations.

It's entirely plausible that the mayor could have run across a nest of gold bugs (or an underling did) and decided they'd make a nice trap for would-be thieves. It's also entirely plausible that a king would have some of their possessions animated to prevent thefts. So by itself, neither one of those would make me raise an eyebrow. It's only if those kind of situations start showing up more often than is likely that I start questioning the legitimacy.

And by "legitimate", I mean whether the DM decided things ahead of time or made them up on the spot. The latter's an ok way to play, if everyone's on board with it. But since you're asking in the first place, I'm assuming you're talking about a campaign where "DM as impartial referee" is the assumption.

icefractal

2015-01-19, 01:47 AM

You have no ability to reject x. Your choices are

1. Accept every part of the game as the DM explains it or chooses not to explain it,

2. Reject the game entirely and walk away, or

3. Throw a temper-tantrum and then select form the remaining options above.C'mon now. Maybe in some platonic viking-hat world, but in any game I've played or even observed, the DM is a member of the social group, and like the rest, able to be influenced by the group's opinion.

If the DM does something the group finds unacceptable, they call him on it, and he changes it, how does that fit into your 'only allowable options'?

Not that matters even generally need to come to that sort of direct confrontation. A few pointed comments about things tends to clue people in and get things resolved most of the time.

enderlord99

2015-01-19, 02:06 AM

Personally, I think a DM can. technically, do whatever they want... but there's a huge difference between "can" and "should."

I'm not sure if this is relevant to the discussion (I just skimmed briefly) but it probably should be.

Yahzi

2015-01-19, 05:17 AM

Example 1:
As DM I would make an INT roll. Did the mayor think to set a trap for the bandits? OK then, he did. So I think that one is fair. DMs can't think of everything in advance, but they can roll for the NPC's intelligence to have thought of it.

Example 2
No, that's too far. I would have let the player steal until someone caught him, and then had the King hang the entire party. And even if he succeeded in getting away with the pilfering, the next time they saw the king would be the last.

Knaight

2015-01-19, 05:32 AM

Well, see, I'm asking for the players point of view. And the players will never have the ''huge detailed report'' on anything.

An approximation of the wealth of a town is the sort of thing that you can get just by walking through the town for a while. If there are fairly few people out, markets are largely empty, buildings are dilapidated, etc. it's probably not doing so well. If there's a bustling city with lots of large, clean, well maintained buildings and a thriving marketplace, it's probably pretty rich. A player will have some degree of understanding here if the town got any more description than "a town".

snailgosh

2015-01-19, 05:36 AM

Spore

2015-01-19, 06:11 AM

1. You get enough gold coins that you can carry. 50 GP = 1 lb. How quick and how much can you shovel the gold into your bag(s) (of holding) until the guards show up? How much gold has a mayor anyway? In exchange you are wanted criminals and are especially hated in a whole part of the country. Worth it, right? Riiiiiight?

2. You just stole an invaluable candle stick from the king. Sadly the royal seal is printed on it so it either deflates its price on the black market for being "hot" or you remove the marking and damage the candle stick.

Basically if the DM screws you out of ways to react/discover to his arbitrary (and in my opinion extremely silly and out of place) traps you should talk to him. You want ways to react to stuff like that. You want your campaign to be more sandboxy instead of following a beaten mainstory path. If he is not willing or unable to provide this, you can either change your expectations or leave. If he is, then have fun.

I've had a group like that. We were supposed to tackle an abandoned Wizard's tower to grab the riches inside. But instead the Wizard and the Rogue decided it would be funnier if they broke into a random peasant's house and drink their coffee (we were 13 at the time). After the DM stated repeatedly that a peasant's hut doesn't contain anything valuable or interesting, we eventually left for the tower. The adventure was not mandatory but the thing the DM prepared.

The DM should be prepared for the style of game you want. If he isn't you get stuff like that.

Marlowe

2015-01-19, 06:38 AM

Should example 1 be more about "When is it acceptable to rip off plot devices from turn-of-the-millennium sci-fi shows filmed in Australia and featuring lots of people wearing leather?"

BWR

2015-01-19, 07:47 AM

The OP's options are poor choices. There are options other than those two, degrees that are ignored.
Like others have said, it is to a great degree dependent on trust but most importantly, does it make sense in the game?
Both of these are quite improbable in games I have run or played and would be nothing but the DM trying to screw over the players - just like that one cook we berated who turned out to be a 36th level fighter. If you don't want the PCs doing stupid stuff, find better, more sensible consequences for their actions than suddenly 'it's a stupid trap' or 'animated object trolls you'.
Still, if this sort of thing is a common occurence in your game, I guess it does make sense in the game.

prufock

2015-01-19, 08:52 AM

Example 1: (...) the ''gold coins'' are in fact....gold bugs (awesome little gold colored beetles with metal-like exoskeletons that sleep a lot all curled up to look like a gold coin. But movement and heat wakes them up...and they bite! With poison!)
I would do what any adventuring party would do: scoop up as many bugs, live or dead, as I can. There has to be a market for these (particularly the live ones) since the Mayor evidently took the time and effort to stock them in a safe as a nonsensical trap.

Example 2 (...)the candlestick hops away!(...) Zoot frantically chases the hopping candlestick around the other room(...) the candlestick attacks Zoot! It's a short fight, and Zoot is eventually left on the floor ''dying''( at -2 hps). The candlestick then hops back up on the shelf. A couple rounds later the group finds Zoot on the floor and heals him up.
The party mage casts Detect Magic on the candlestick, and others in the hall. If it's the only one, it's strange and probably worth investigating. If not, then it's likely a standard defense here in the castle.

Either way, I figure the DM is improvising. Neither situation makes much sense, but might be worth looking into. The big things here are 1) internal consistency (which can be retconned) and 2) fun.

So what else, other then ''trust'', do you base your call on? At what point do you go from ''the DM is using the game rules'' even if you don't know the details to ''the DM is just free forming things'' and ''outside the rules''?
Wrong question. The rules aren't important. Either situation is within the rules, but even if they weren't it doesn't matter. What matters is: does this make sense in the game and does this make the game better?

Threadnaught

2015-01-19, 09:36 AM

OldTrees1

2015-01-19, 10:48 AM

So the players aren't allowed to know what the mayor's like? They're not allowed to know whether or not he has powerful friends or had a career in adventuring at a younger age, by doing a little investigation?

This is basically the DM screwing with their players toys.

If the players take the time to investigate things, it does slow things down and gives any opposition more time to gather resources, but it also makes the PCs more effective in that, the players are able to keep track of what's happening in the world outside of their characters' line of sight.

ERROR: Misunderstanding detected
JP said the players never have a "huge detailed report" on anything. Eventually PCs will run into a situation where they don't have a lot of context(especially when they are moving faster than the DM is generating content) and they encounter something that could make them suspicious of the DM. This is nothing like the extreme you jumped to.

JP's question is: If you have a DM you trust, what is the line at which you would be more suspicious/less trusting?

Threadnaught

2015-01-19, 11:57 AM

ERROR: Misunderstanding detected

Not really, if the players keep track of stuff their characters encounter ingame, then they should be able to develop a detailed report of their own.
The only way to prevent the players from ever having a detailed report of the game world, is to withhold information.

They could ask around town for 10 hours and discover a whole bunch of people who worked for the mayor, one of whom created the study safe, the second created the bedroom safe and the third sold the Hoard Scarabs.
Players can discover a lot of information about the setting if they're allowed to know the stuff a character who grew up in the world would know, but there are many DMs who create a homebrew setting where nobody is allowed to know anything. Am I calling jedipotter one of these DMs? Nope, I'm confessing to having been one, as I built the setting as we played and the PCs were foreigners both times.

OldTrees1

2015-01-19, 12:12 PM

Not really, if the players keep track of stuff their characters encounter ingame, then they should be able to develop a detailed report of their own.
The only way to prevent the players from ever having a detailed report of the game world, is to withhold information.

They could ask around town for 10 hours and discover a whole bunch of people who worked for the mayor, one of whom created the study safe, the second created the bedroom safe and the third sold the Hoard Scarabs.
Players can discover a lot of information about the setting if they're allowed to know the stuff a character who grew up in the world would know, but there are many DMs who create a homebrew setting where nobody is allowed to know anything. Am I calling jedipotter one of these DMs? Nope, I'm confessing to having been one, as I built the setting as we played and the PCs were foreigners both times.

You have a different definition of "detailed report" than JP is using. In the example the players are forcing the DM to improv by making an unexpected move(aka they asked no leading questions earlier). I know I can't get a "detailed report"(my definition) of details that are not yet created. So while that might qualify as a "detailed report"(your definition), I don't think you should be too firm with that.

Now that that misunderstanding is resolved (I am jumping ahead of myself to save time), do you have an answer to JP's real question or more nitpicks about the examples(since you could always avoid problematic examples by answering the general question like I did)?

Segev

2015-01-19, 12:49 PM

Well, see, I'm asking for the players point of view. And the players will never have the ''huge detailed report'' on anything.

And does it happen ''all the time''? I'd say yes. Though for the safe, they only found and opened the one in the study. They never even went upstairs to the bedroom and found the real safe. But it was there....

If they had searched further, would they have been able to get it? Or would it have been unfortunate that outside events pressed in and drove them away, and the safe was uncrackable (whether defined as such or the DM just set the numbers too high), so they couldn't get it anyway?

Is the animate candlestick something that provides a clue to a deeper plot, a hook for the party to latch on to? Whether it was improv'd or not, whether it was to punish the rogue or not, a "yes" to this can go a long way to saving it. But it's definitely going to take some fleshing out on the DM's part to sell it.

As a pattern of behavior, of the party always finds that they had to do "just one more thing" to get the real treasure, and they somehow just never manage to do it, it means either the DM is guilty of (possibly subconsciously) moving the goalposts, or is guilty of designing encounters that just aren't a good fit for his players. Either way, it leads to a sense that the players can't do anything meaningful, and that trying is worse than not trying.

If it's not a pattern of behavior, if other times, the players succeed at their cool ideas, if they can learn from this misadventure with the gold bugs and look for the real treasure, and know how to check the one they found for being a trap...if the players can figure it out through mechanics and/or proper effort (and they do, at least half the time), then it's not an issue. You win some, you lose some.

It's only when "you lose most" is the more accurate statement, and it always seems to be because the DM was "just one step more clever than you" (particularly if it feels like improv so he just waved your victory into a loss), that it's a problem.

It really is about whether or not the DM always screws you over, or you can fairly often succeed. Particularly when you are "off the rails" for whatever reason.

WesleyVos

2015-01-19, 01:52 PM

To the first example:

Probably a bit too far, without the DM dropping some clues leading up to the safe that it might not be the real thing. There would have to be some buildup to it; you can't just drop something like this on players and expect them not to cry foul, unless you can point to a series of clues that you built into the game that there was something off about the safe or the coins - even if the players didn't notice them.

To the second example:

Regardless of whether it has any significance, it is hilarious. Even if just for the funny, I think it's probably fine. Though there should probably be some sort of explanation as to why the candlestick exists where it did for other than funny reasons, in case the players ask.

jedipotter

2015-01-19, 02:59 PM

An approximation of the wealth of a town is the sort of thing that you can get just by walking through the town for a while.

I don't think this is true. Sure you can tell ''super rich'' or ''super poor'', but anything else is just ''in the middle''.

If the players had found the safe in the upstairs bedroom first, would that have been the one trapped?

No.

Like others have said, it is to a great degree dependent on trust but most importantly, does it make sense in the game?

Guess it depends on who gets to make the call on ''does this make sense''.

Still, if this sort of thing is a common occurence in your game, I guess it does make sense in the game.

Super Common.

Wrong question. The rules aren't important. Either situation is within the rules, but even if they weren't it doesn't matter. What matters is: does this make sense in the game and does this make the game better?

I guess the question is then ''what makes sense?''

So the players aren't allowed to know what the mayor's like? They're not allowed to know whether or not he has powerful friends or had a career in adventuring at a younger age, by doing a little investigation?

The players are allowed to investigate, even encouraged to do so. But that is not the question. Sure if the players take say five hours to deeply investigate everything everywhere about a topic. Now they can make an informed decision. 99% the players can not investigate, they just have to make the decision on the fly.

OldTrees1

2015-01-19, 03:37 PM

Example 1:
I just threw my DM for a loop with the creative solution to the bandit encounter. So my DM is scrambling to create content as I am going on my looting plan. Thus I am expecting my DM to make more errors and end up with less creative content(the consequences of improv vs preparation).

I end up encountering something I did not expect in foresight and it continues to confuse me in 20/20 hindsight.

Why would a lowly mayor put an expensive one shot trap there? It would take a very wealthly mayor to spend money on a prank like this. And a prank is what it would be for such a wealthy mayor since they could long ago afford security I could not pass.

Therefore I would conclude that this was probably invented on the spot. Metagaming assumed. Motive unknown. Increased scrutiny for future incidents. At best it was a improv mayor's prank in poor taste. More likely it was the DM metagaming with poor taste.(aka #2)

If the players had found the safe in the upstairs bedroom first, would that have been the one trapped?
No.

With this non player knowledge, I would amend my opinion. The trap was determined before the safe was selected and had a reason before the safe was selected. Now, based on the information I have right now, I still think the trap was excessive for a mere mayor(and thus question my DM's tastes), but no longer does it look like distasteful metagaming.

However restricted only to player knowledge, like I would be in the example since I am not telepathic, I would be more suspicious than would be warranted from a more informed position. This is the reason to bias towards giving the trusted DM the benefit of the doubt.

jedipotter

2015-01-19, 03:46 PM

Probably a bit too far, without the DM dropping some clues leading up to the safe that it might not be the real thing. There would have to be some buildup to it; you can't just drop something like this on players and expect them not to cry foul, unless you can point to a series of clues that you built into the game that there was something off about the safe or the coins - even if the players didn't notice them.

Keep in mind the Adventure was ''stop the bandits'', not ''rob the mayor''. Character's wander into town and learn about the bandits. They go to the mayor and offer to help. The mayor buys them some supplies and gives them a guide. Then they head off to find the bandit camp. They find it, but don't attack. They then come up with the plan: have the townsfolk hide at a spot and the group will trick the bandits into going to that spot. So it's a bit of back and forth between bandit leader and the towns guard leader. So the characters set up the whole trap, and then say ''we go to town''. And they go right to the mayors house to rob it. And find the safe full of goldbugs. They don't stick around, as there plan B is they run off to rob the bandit leader...

Now, keep in mind, that as DM, I had no idea they were going to rob the mayor or bandit leader. As far as I knew there plan was to capture/kill the bandits at the spot. So it was a surprise when they when to rob the mayor. I did have the mayor and his home stated up (I have lots of fill in the blank write ups of both, so it only took a couple minutes. ) So the goldbugs were in the downstairs safe no matter what. (Though I do lots of improvisation and make stuff up on the spot all the time, but I don't want that to distract from the discussion.)

So there never could have been a build up, as the game never went anywhere near the mayor, his house, or his safe. For most of the game the character's were hardly in town more then a couple minutes. I do love to drop all sorts of hints and tiny bits of information, but it's all more at random.

To the second example:

Regardless of whether it has any significance, it is hilarious. Even if just for the funny, I think it's probably fine. Though there should probably be some sort of explanation as to why the candlestick exists where it did for other than funny reasons, in case the players ask.

It was loads of fun.

nedz

2015-01-19, 03:53 PM

Far fewer than think they can, and the ones with the skill I've found are the same ones who really dislike railroading.

I'm not saying you're wrong but the attributes seem unconnected. I certainly know one guy, whose an occasional DM, who is very good at this skill and quite ambivalent about rail-roading. Though his rail-roads are more of a this is what I have worked out for this week kind rather than this is what your character does type.

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-19, 03:59 PM

I don't think this is true. Sure you can tell ''super rich'' or ''super poor'', but anything else is just ''in the middle''.

...Uh. This seems highly weird. As in, people do this in real life, in this era and probably have been doing this since civilization began. Materials houses are made of, the number of cattle, how fancy tombstones are, what they offer to the gods, and how they dress are just a few examples to throw out there. These indicate relative wealth and a lot more information then just 'dirt farmer' or 'noble'. Add in magic, and a smart party tries to either use detect magic or butter up someone to see how many magic their marks have. Wealth in many societies is status and people spend a LOT of time determining where they stand compared to someone else.

jedipotter

2015-01-19, 04:20 PM

...Uh. This seems highly weird.

See I don't really agree. You can't tell.

But your thinking more ''like America'' but that is common. You equal money with stuff. But what if the society does not put a value on stuff? What is the society has different views? Or what if the value things not so obvious?

Take a rich halfling. He sill lives in a nice little burrow just like even the poor halflings do. He does not go out and buy a mansion and a ton of land''. How about a dwarf that keeps all his cash, and buys almost nothing? The elf that does not even care about money.

You can tell ''rich'' from ''poor'' and even ''good'' from ''bad'', but other then that, places look the same....

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-19, 04:26 PM

See I don't really agree. You can't tell.

But your thinking more ''like America'' but that is common. You equal money with stuff. But what if the society does not put a value on stuff? What is the society has different views? Or what if the value things not so obvious?

Take a rich halfling. He sill lives in a nice little burrow just like even the poor halflings do. He does not go out and buy a mansion and a ton of land''. How about a dwarf that keeps all his cash, and buys almost nothing? The elf that does not even care about money.

You can tell ''rich'' from ''poor'' and even ''good'' from ''bad'', but other then that, places look the same....

If the society doesn't value money, why are the players stealing money and why are they protecting money? Money isn't going to be able to buy anything. Why is the NPC spending tons of resources getting mages to protect something they don't care about?

As for your examples, what does money do? What value does wealth have in these societies if they cannot get stuff? Are they wealthy if they have resources which cannot be spent on anything? Sure, there might be the occasional miser, but most people expect money to do something. Wealth has to have value of some sort. Else it isn't wealth, it's just an odd collection of shiny things.

There would also need to be reasons for a non-stratified society. This is theoretically possible, but the DM should probably establish this beforehand and explain how it works.

HyperDunkBarkly

2015-01-19, 04:31 PM

the bugs would make me suspect railroading but I'd wait for other situations similar and/or threats to kill characters for not getting on the choo choo before I react.

I actually like the candlestick idea. it tells the rogue that they should think about where they're stealing from because it could reflect terribly on the party. if the king puts them all to the sword because of their associate's actions, that player just screwed the group with his carelessness.

SiuiS

2015-01-19, 04:32 PM

Hoard scarabs are a longstanding tradition, actually. If our thief steals a bunch of gold and the gold strips is to the bones, I'll laugh. DM knew his stuff. It's about whether that DM has a reputation of planning or being punitive. If I have reason to believe the trapped gold was a thing before the DM knew we would try to steal it – evenif he hoped we would try to steal it – that's cool. It's changing thigs that's a problem. Of the DM knew there was a safe of gold, and decided afterward that it was trapped, that's a problem. It's a sticky social issue.

JP said the players never have a "huge detailed report" on anything. Eventually PCs will run into a situation where they don't have a lot of context(especially when they are moving faster than the DM is generating content) and they encounter something that could make them suspicious of the DM. This is nothing like the extreme you jumped to.

JP's question is: If you have a DM you trust, what is the line at which you would be more suspicious/less trusting?

That's a good rephrase.

With a DM I trust, that trust exists because of transparency. I give them the benefit of the doubt while it's game-relevant, and they tend to be open about processes afterwards. Sometimes this means years go by before something comes up. Sometimes this means they forget before they can tell me. Sometimes this means Donald from Wisconsin calls me up in the middle of the night and says cryptically, "the gnomes had ultra vision" and hangs up.

I've been a DM for a long time. I've been a DM since back when the culture really did view a player reading the DM's books as a cheating traitor and mutineer. So for me, it's professional conduct. We have the same job, and we trade notes when they're declassified, even if we still consider them all to be trade secrets that not every player is intelligent or mature enough to handle well.

For new DMs who I don't know yet but don't mistrust, it's a matter of establishing reliability. I've taken a lot of bull from one gentleman I walked away from e'ery disagreement saying sure, that's how you run your game. That's cool. We had a paladin fall and break the character because he took a 'chaotic' act that no one else saw as chaotic. We had a PC killed and replaced by a a simulacrum with the original's soul, and the Dm forgot so the player didn't advance for a few levels. There was a lot of stuff like that, but the guy was open about mistakes, clear on his direction, and definitely intent on havig a cohesive world that was geared toward making things fun for everyone. I can respect "I messed up, just roll with it".

Conversely his brother is my go to example of worst possible DM, up to and including tryig to discipline players in game so they'll respect him more personally, or working an ethical vendetta and agenda. Dude didn't own anything, mistakes or disagreements. Put absolutely no thought into his rules decisions other than railroading, use rules as punishments as much as game structure, and others still.

That's not cool. That's past the line.

OldTrees1

2015-01-19, 04:38 PM

That's a good rephrase.

With a DM I trust, that trust exists because of transparency. I give them the benefit of the doubt while it's game-relevant, and they tend to be open about processes afterwards. Sometimes this means years go by before something comes up. Sometimes this means they forget before they can tell me. Sometimes this means Donald from Wisconsin calls me up in the middle of the night and says cryptically, "the gnomes had ultra vision" and hangs up.

Thanks.

That was a really good and detailed answer to the question.

Your relationship with Donald sounds a lot like one I had with a DM in highschool. Although we treated it as a guessing game.

Susano-wo

2015-01-19, 04:56 PM

It all depends on whether it appears to be a matter of ass-pulling or clever design. The scarab example, for instance, does not seem implausible to me, especially in a setting that has a gold dragon[!] as the mayor. Either of these instances alone seem fine to me.

The issue becomes, do out of nowhere consequences(I seem to recall you using random gargoyles in a hypothetical example for people shopping too long) frequently happen when engaging in certain activities(namely not 'following the plot' and doing things the GM did not expect)? If so, I would probably begin to suspect that the GM was just being a jackass, unless I was shown the work(physically or just verbally, such as "hey, you guys checked the wrong safe. didn't you think it was a bit obvious and easy to get into?").

jedipotter

2015-01-19, 06:41 PM

The issue becomes, do out of nowhere consequences(I seem to recall you using random gargoyles in a hypothetical example for people shopping too long) frequently happen when engaging in certain activities(namely not 'following the plot' and doing things the GM did not expect)? If so, I would probably begin to suspect that the GM was just being a jackass, unless I was shown the work(physically or just verbally, such as "hey, you guys checked the wrong safe. didn't you think it was a bit obvious and easy to get into?").

Well, the problem is that ''out of nowhere'' is the same as ''the player characters don't know of it.'' It's utterly impossible to drop hints and clues and such for everything. Unless your running a very, very simple type game where ''only one thing happens''.

Lets take the Gargoyles. They ''come out of nowhere'' when a character spends a lot of time walking around town, shopping and buying things. Or did they?

Set the way back machine for two real years ago(but only a month game time). A human smuggles a gargoyle clan into the city, and has them target ''folks that look rich and/or spending lots of money''. This was a plot hook told to another group of adventures. They ignored it, and picked another plot to follow. But in my world...the plots roll on. So the gargoyles are there, and active when player ''takes too long shopping''.

So, oddly, most people are OK with the ''if it was made up before'' thing. But, also oddly, don't like ''stuff just made up''. Although as a player there is no way to know or tell.

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-19, 06:46 PM

Lets take the Gargoyles. They ''come out of nowhere'' when a character spends a lot of time walking around town, shopping and buying things. Or did they?.

Except...They don't. People probably talked about the new statuary. If they aren't hanging around, then they probably talked about the crime spree. If not, why were these crimes not being reported? What has the guard done all this time about it? Wouldn't people change their behavior if anyone flashing coin got jump mysteriously? Put out a few warnings, maybe?

Was there a perception/spot/awareness check to notice them? To notice being trailed? How does a gargoyle spot someone in a shop? Wouldn't they have to sneak into a position to note who is buying what? They might not be bright, but even animals can figure out not to attack people in peak physical condition or the ones who smell of bat poop.

SiuiS

2015-01-19, 07:10 PM

Well, the problem is that ''out of nowhere'' is the same as ''the player characters don't know of it.''

Aha, actually! No, it is not. The player has more data to work with than just gargoyles; the game engine, the conceits of the game, the DM as an arbiter, as a game designer, as a person, as a storyteller, the history of the campaign, the history of the game, the history of the group, the social dynamics of the individual players.

If gargoyles come out of nowhere ("or did they?", I'll get to in a bit) then I'm factoring in:
How often do surprises happen?
What am I doing when they happen?
How does the DM react;

During set up of the ambush
During the ambush
In the aftermath of the ambush
If the party goes back to shopping
If the party insists on doing a city-wide gargoyle sweep
How does the DM handle this ambush being an unexpected advantage for players?
How does the DM handle players asking about the situation if they're unsure of it's ramifications and meta-ramifications?

I guarantee I am a good enough judge of character to tell the difference between in game constructs and DM ass-pulls. I also understand ass-pulls have to happen some times, but a DM who obfuscates, manipulates, lies and refuses to own them as deliberate actions is a bad person and someone I am calling out as a bad person.

Conversely, a Dm who days 'this is the game you wanted to play, get back on track' has players supporting their rail-road style decisions.

Or did they?

Good question! Let's investigate! We ask the shop keepers about the gargoyles and their history and behavior. We investigate their existence without oversight by the local government, we secure ourselves against future gargoyle incursion and spread word of this local quirk, causing far-reaching ramifications and altering the campaign for in-game decades to come.

Or if we don't, then we have our proof they came out of nowhere. Deferring responsibility for a deliberate choice to punish a non-crime to 'you don't know so you can't be mad' is the sort of behavior abusive relationships are built on. It's not more acceptable at a game table of equals just because a fifty year old book suggests it could be with the right assortment of nerds.

Set the way back machine for two real years ago(but only a month game time). A human smuggles a gargoyle clan into the city, and has them target ''folks that look rich and/or spending lots of money''. This was a plot hook told to another group of adventures. They ignored it, and picked another plot to follow. But in my world...the plots roll on. So the gargoyles are there, and active when player ''takes too long shopping''.

So, oddly, most people are OK with the ''if it was made up before'' thing. But, also oddly, don't like ''stuff just made up''. Although as a player there is no way to know or tell.

This is pretty solid. That's acceptable. The issue you have seems to be that you expect players to use in-character knowledge only, about the character and integrity of the player being the dungeon master. That is, in general, an unacceptable assumption. I am perfectly fine with made up on the spot stuff if the person making it up is a decent human being or other similar sophont. Making things up is not the issue. Bad personal behavior is. And this isn't even bad personal behavior! It's perfectly acceptable behavior which is then defended with very unfortunate choices of conversation.

A lot of the problems like these turn out to be good product, mislabeled, and ten lost to bad blood. It is my job as a professional Game Mistress to handle that. I am here to build a world. I am here to run a universe. I am here to respond to player actions and input. And I am here to hers the cats who sit down to become players.

GM responsibilities include therapist, paychologist and arbiter. That's not just an in-game behavior. That's a job prerequisite, and needs to come from outside the DM seat. The screen does not bestow authority. It signals authority you as DM should already have.

Threadnaught

2015-01-19, 07:30 PM

You have a different definition of "detailed report" than JP is using. In the example the players are forcing the DM to improv by making an unexpected move(aka they asked no leading questions earlier). I know I can't get a "detailed report"(my definition) of details that are not yet created. So while that might qualify as a "detailed report"(your definition), I don't think you should be too firm with that.

Possibly the same definition as I'm referring to stuff the players are allowed to discover about the plot/setting.

The players are allowed to investigate, even encouraged to do so. But that is not the question. Sure if the players take say five hours to deeply investigate everything everywhere about a topic. Now they can make an informed decision. 99% the players can not investigate, they just have to make the decision on the fly.

Players are encouraged to investigate, but 99% of the time they are not allowed to?
Problem. How are they to discover stuff?

Following the plot is not a good answer btw, that's like taking a guided tour. When on such a tour it's impossible to discover anything for yourself as everything you need to see is shown to you and explained. I mean discovery, exploration.

So, oddly, most people are OK with the ''if it was made up before'' thing. But, also oddly, don't like ''stuff just made up''. Although as a player there is no way to know or tell.

See, that's because making up the contents of a safe to include a swarm of Hoard Scarabs, the moment the players decide to open it, is seen as punishing them for little reason.
Having it exist beforehand means the DM isn't actively punishing their players and had already had this particular punishment planned, should the players open the wrong safe.

Thank you for the context jedipotter. Neither of these cases is bad.
Even if the second one was made up on the spot, it's more easily forgivable (I was expecting a patrol) and hilarious for anyone not playing as that specific thief.

Edit:
If gargoyles come out of nowhere ("or did they?", I'll get to in a bit) then I'm factoring in:
How often do surprises happen?
What am I doing when they happen?
How does the DM react;

During set up of the ambush
During the ambush
In the aftermath of the ambush
If the party goes back to shopping
If the party insists on doing a city-wide gargoyle sweep
How does the DM handle this ambush being an unexpected advantage for players?
How does the DM handle players asking about the situation if they're unsure of it's ramifications and meta-ramifications?

That ******* Druid ran a Campaign for me a while ago and there were encounters where enemies seemed to come out of nowhere.
Going through Varna on our my way to Sharn, the party was informed of some bandits attacking travelers. So I'm walking along with the whole party using their weapons as eccentric walking sticks, when suddenly out of nowhere, a Bandit jumps out from the trees and whacks my Druid, whose Wisdom, Spot and Listen modifiers were the highest in the party. I wasn't given the chance to roll Initiative or Spot or Listen, I took HP damage. The character had +14 Spot while the bandits were 1HD nobodies with up to +8 Hide and Move Silently.
Later on, some wolves interrupted the parties' sleep/healing, which we I desperately needed. The wolves again, got in an attack before initiative, it felt like everything I fought had the Dire Tortoise's Lightning Strike. What is this, Advance Wars?

goto124

2015-01-19, 07:51 PM

How would you feel, if you were playing a game in which every time someone 'goes off the rails', the DM puts down the books and says 'look, I spent a year writing this campaign, if you do that I have absolutely nothing to give you, so either you insist and wait another year for me to rewrite everything, or you get back on track'?

In the case of the mayor, had the players succeeded in getting real money, they would have far more wealth than the DM had planned for. They would go and buy equipment that makes them overpowered compared to the monsters that the DM had spent a lot of time statting up, since he expected the PCs to be weaker.

How much can the DM pull things out of his rear before everything breaks down?

Susano-wo

2015-01-19, 07:57 PM

"Lets take the Gargoyles. They ''come out of nowhere'' when a character spends a lot of time walking around town, shopping and buying things. Or did they?"

Yes, yes they did. That's the way you introduced it. You may be able to come up with a BS justification later, but the fact is that you made it up to punish players for an action. You can't play Schrodinger's DM to defend an action. Just because a player may not realize it, doesn't mean that it wasn't made up on the spot. And, through complexities of social interaction, you can start to figure out(often, at least) that these things are being made up to punish you.

Its passive aggressive and violates the integrity of the game. If character behavior [IC] is bothering players[OOC], including the DM, then that needs to be dealt with in an OOC manner. If we can't come to an agreement, then its probably time to not play with each other. To play with a GM, I have to have trust(sorry, you cant avoid the word :smallbiggrin:) that the things that happen in game are the results of coherent world reacting to events in that world(which is not to say that events cant be used to direct things toward a plot, but that you shouldn't use daiblo ex machina to punish players for doing things that you don't want them to do.)

nedz

2015-01-19, 08:08 PM

This is pretty solid. That's acceptable. The issue you have seems to be that you expect players to use in-character knowledge only, about the character and integrity of the player being the dungeon master. That is, in general, an unacceptable assumption. I am perfectly fine with made up on the spot stuff if the person making it up is a decent human being or other similar sophont. Making things up is not the issue. Bad personal behavior is. And this isn't even bad personal behavior! It's perfectly acceptable behavior which is then defended with very unfortunate choices of conversation.

A lot of the problems like these turn out to be good product, mislabeled, and ten lost to bad blood. It is my job as a professional Game Mistress to handle that. I am here to build a world. I am here to run a universe. I am here to respond to player actions and input. And I am here to hers the cats who sit down to become players.

GM responsibilities include therapist, paychologist and arbiter. That's not just an in-game behavior. That's a job prerequisite, and needs to come from outside the DM seat. The screen does not bestow authority. It signals authority you as DM should already have.

I play with two groups mainly. In one group the players all expect to use in-character knowledge only — sometimes too much in fact. In the other group this is also largely true — though they are less strict. In the LARP group I used to play with, player's maintained strict separation between IC and OOC info — they were very keen on verisimilitude and character integrity. So that's close on 100 players I've played with (the LARP group was very large) where this was the accepted norm. Am I missing your point here ?

Susano-wo

2015-01-19, 08:18 PM

The point SiuiS is making, is, I believe, about players, when evaluating DM behavior, are being expected to ignore anything they may know OOC, such as how the DM acted when elements were introduced, or how often and during what types of actions elements are introduced for.

jedipotter

2015-01-19, 11:10 PM

Yes, yes they did. That's the way you introduced it. You may be able to come up with a BS justification later, but the fact is that you made it up to punish players for an action. You can't play Schrodinger's DM to defend an action. Just because a player may not realize it, doesn't mean that it wasn't made up on the spot. And, through complexities of social interaction, you can start to figure out(often, at least) that these things are being made up to punish you.

I'm so a Schrodinger's DM, I'm outside the box! I won't shy away and say I don't do stuff to ''punish players'', I do it all the time. It's a well known fact. Though being the Evil Overlord that I am, I have a perfectly acceptable ''legal mumbo-jumbo'' that can stop any investigation.

Its passive aggressive and violates the integrity of the game. If character behavior [IC] is bothering players[OOC], including the DM, then that needs to be dealt with in an OOC manner. If we can't come to an agreement, then its probably time to not play with each other. To play with a GM, I have to have trust(sorry, you cant avoid the word :smallbiggrin:) that the things that happen in game are the results of coherent world reacting to events in that world(which is not to say that events cant be used to direct things toward a plot, but that you shouldn't use daiblo ex machina to punish players for doing things that you don't want them to do.)

I think handling problem players in the game works so much better. OOC talking just wastes time.

The problem I often run into is most players think of the world in such a ''low view'' state....like ''wow they have to sticks to rub together to make fire! They are Rich!'' But I don't see things that way. I think that things like ''the kitchen pots and pans animate every day and make three meals'' is wondrous, but mundane. But a player encountering that will react with amazement and wonder at the all powerful magic. I try not to laugh as they think animate object/create food/programed spell effect is like an Epic level magic equal to blowing up a planet. And then when they do encounter high level stuff, they just get all weird...

big teej

2015-01-19, 11:26 PM

Given that dragons are known to keep horde scarabs so my OOC knowledge would assuage my wrath. .

not to pull things off topic, but where is this little tidbit of information written down?

as for the topic question.

as the parameters are fairly loosely defined, I shall loosely define my answer.

given the type of situations used as examples:

I would define "the DM has gone to far" the moment I begin to feel he is invalidating my choices.

for example, if I've gone out of my way to have a sky-high AC (depending on level 10 or more points higher than my fellows) and we run into creatures who, with no apparent reason, have no real trouble hitting me.

then I might decide it's time to take a walk.

if I've invested in say... Heavy Fort, and we suddenly and repeatedly encounter things/creatures/peoples that ignore my immunity to critical hits.

then it might be time for me to take a walk.

jedipotter

2015-01-19, 11:43 PM

Players are encouraged to investigate, but 99% of the time they are not allowed to?
Problem. How are they to discover stuff?

It's not ''not allowed too'' it's the time problem. The group can only do one thing, so they can choose to investigate one thing or say adventure.

See, that's because making up the contents of a safe to include a swarm of Hoard Scarabs, the moment the players decide to open it, is seen as punishing them for little reason.
Having it exist beforehand means the DM isn't actively punishing their players and had already had this particular punishment planned, should the players open the wrong safe.

See I don't get this line of reasoning. If I wanted to ''punish players for no reason'', then I could just write Goldbugs on every single pile of loot. And then if I'm in a good mood, ignore it. But if not....goldbugs bite! But still the players won't know either way...or even if i just made it up from scratch. They have nothing to base their reaction on fact-wise.

not to pull things off topic, but where is this little tidbit of information written down?

The Draconomicon

I like Goldbugs, they go back to 1E.

I would define "the DM has gone to far" the moment I begin to feel he is invalidating my choices.

It's just so vague. And once your past 10th level or so....and your in a Super High Collage world like mine, you will always run into foes that are not ''dumb as doorknobs''.

big teej

2015-01-20, 12:17 AM

The Draconomicon

I like Goldbugs, they go back to 1E.

spiffy, haven't gotten my hands on that one yet, sounds deviously fun... meaning I'll probably use it once in a new-book induced high of mania and malevolence, and then shelf it. but I digress.

It's just so vague. And once your past 10th level or so....and your in a Super High Collage world like mine, you will always run into foes that are not ''dumb as doorknobs''.

to be fair, so were your original examples.

I like to think mine were a tad more concrete, but let me try again. (not that I'm sure what a "super high collage world" is... but I digress)

let's keep things simple,

let's say I have purchased Heavy Fortification, this provides a 100% de-facto immunity to critical hits.

to my knowledge, as a player (and someone please correct me on this if I am wrong)

there is nothing short of ganking me while I'm not wearing my armor, that can cause me to suffer a critical hit.

if, having made this investment into my continued survival, we suddenly encounter people with weapons/abilities capable of ignoring Heavy Fortification, with no prior indication that these things exist, I cannot help but feel that the DM is effectively, if not systematically, invalidating my choices. and it's likely time for me to walk.

EDIT: to clarify my original point further. when I feel that the DM is purposefully invalidating my choices.

Psyren

2015-01-20, 12:34 AM

Except...They don't. People probably talked about the new statuary. If they aren't hanging around, then they probably talked about the crime spree. If not, why were these crimes not being reported? What has the guard done all this time about it? Wouldn't people change their behavior if anyone flashing coin got jump mysteriously? Put out a few warnings, maybe?

Was there a perception/spot/awareness check to notice them? To notice being trailed? How does a gargoyle spot someone in a shop? Wouldn't they have to sneak into a position to note who is buying what? They might not be bright, but even animals can figure out not to attack people in peak physical condition or the ones who smell of bat poop.

Honestly, gargoyles being tough to notice in an urban environment (or more accurately, "tough to notice as being creatures rather than statues") is pretty plausible. I'd give that one a pass myself.

And I guess that, aside from the "trust" factor mentioned on page 1, "plausibility" would be one of my yardsticks too. The less of that I had in the given scenario, the more of the former I would need to compensate.

jedipotter

2015-01-20, 12:55 AM

let's say I have purchased Heavy Fortification, this provides a 100% de-facto immunity to critical hits. to my knowledge, as a player (and someone please correct me on this if I am wrong) there is nothing short of ganking me while I'm not wearing my armor, that can cause me to suffer a critical hit. if, having made this investment into my continued survival, we suddenly encounter people with weapons/abilities capable of ignoring Heavy Fortification, with no prior indication that these things exist, I cannot help but feel that the DM is effectively, if not systematically, invalidating my choices. and it's likely time for me to walk.

EDIT: to clarify my original point further. when I feel that the DM is purposefully invalidating my choices.

A lot of DMs and players do the ''Groundhog Day'' world. As the characters go up in levels, the world stays the same. So at 10th level the goblins still have sharp sticks, for example. So then the player can have *whatever* ability and feel great as it works all the time.

But in my game the goblns encountered at 10th level are a bit more advanced...with class levels, templates, magic items and such. And as the power level goes up, a characters whatever is effected.

Honestly, gargoyles being tough to notice in an urban environment (or more accurately, "tough to notice as being creatures rather than statues") is pretty plausible. I'd give that one a pass myself.

Gargoyles are the classic ''hide in the city'' monster...in plain sight, no less.

big teej

2015-01-20, 01:04 AM

jedipotter

2015-01-20, 01:23 AM

you sought clarification on what I meant by a DM invalidating my choices. I do not understand how this reply is meant to interact with my clarification.

Your saying ''if you make X, you expect X to be great forever.'' Lets take the High AC example. If you super over optimize you can have a High AC for your level. And a lot of monsters at that level can not hit you.....with physical attacks anyway.

But there are other ways to hit a character. Touch AC for one. Magic effects. Area effects. Auto hit effects. So...a high AC character can still ''get hit''....a lot.

But it's not ''oh Bob has a high AC, lets only throw monsters at him that can get around the high AC at him'', it's more ''well that is the power level of the game.

Just take 10th level Bob, and lets say the character has an AC of 40. So what CR 8-12 monsters can still effect Bob....behir, destrachan, gorgon, mind flayer, dark naga, oger mage, vrock, rakshasa, beholder....can all still effect Bob with attacks. And Bob did not encounter, say beholders, back when he was 8th level...but now they are ''more common''(as his level as gone up).

So Bob can say ''it's not fair, the DM is getting around my high AC'', when it fact it's just the whole game leveling up.

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-20, 01:28 AM

big teej

2015-01-20, 01:32 AM

I think what Big Teej is saying is that if he has invested in something, it should not be constantly countered. His examples seem to indicate if it happened constantly. Which is a complaint that makes sense if the player characters are rendered incompetent/useless.

the Honest Tiefling has the right of it, and in a far more succinct and efficient telling than I was capable of.

Susano-wo

2015-01-20, 01:36 AM

Ah, the ever ephemeral problem player. Notice, how I said if character behavior is a problem for another player, including the Dm, and your reply changed it to [problem player,] a term that you seem to use for a player not playing the way you want.

You turned it from "we need to find a way that character behavior is acceptable for all players involved, including the GM[collaborative; based on a social group in which everyone's opinions are valued]," to the players need to behave in the ways I have prescribed [authoritative, based on you (the DM) being the authority, and the other peoples opinions on this not mattering]

As far as taking more time, it seems like it would take much less time than the arms race that generally results from this sort of behavior, especially if the player doesn't get the hint that its punishment, and thinks of it in terms of problems to solve.

And an adult, OOC conversation certainly beats the feeling of frustration and bad blood that also generally arise from these sorts of encounters.

But, whatever. You have your opinions, and I have mine. This argument has been hashed out ad nauseum by you and various forum-goers, including myself. I really doubt that anything I say will convince you one way or the other, and I'd be shocked if you managed to make me reverse direction as well. So reply if you wish, and I'll read it, but unless it contains something immensely profound or outrageous, I'm done with this argument

enderlord99

2015-01-20, 03:02 AM

{scrubbed}

icefractal

2015-01-20, 04:31 AM

A lot of DMs and players do the ''Groundhog Day'' world. As the characters go up in levels, the world stays the same. So at 10th level the goblins still have sharp sticks, for example. So then the player can have *whatever* ability and feel great as it works all the time.

But in my game the goblns encountered at 10th level are a bit more advanced...with class levels, templates, magic items and such. And as the power level goes up, a characters whatever is effected. This seems odd to me. Sure, the adventures the PCs go on will tend to feature tougher foes as they get higher level, unless you're running ultra-sandbox. But that's not the same as "since you're 10th level, all goblins in the world are now advanced with class levels", and personally, I wouldn't like it world that worked that way - it makes the leveling pointless, for one thing.

And Bob did not encounter, say beholders, back when he was 8th level...but now they are ''more common''(as his level as gone up).More common in that now Bob is exploring the ruins of DoomTown, whereas before he kept his distance, sure. Or more common in that the party has accomplished enough to have powerful enemies that can send Beholders against them. But more common like "Oh yeah, now that you're 12th level, Beholders are fairly often encountered lurking in farmers' barns, or along trade routes" ... no, that seems weird as hell.

atemu1234

2015-01-20, 08:06 AM

{scrubbed}

prufock

2015-01-20, 08:15 AM

I guess the question is then ''what makes sense?''
Easier to describe "what doesn't make sense." Players have assumptions about the game world through their experience. Things that break those assumptions don't make sense (at least initially). This can be simply due to information gaps, or they can be due to actual lapses of rationale on the DM's part. Additionally, NPCs do things; those things should have some logical basis.

Examples
Gold Coin Bugs: The players have an information gap on this one, but they also have reason to question the motive behind a safe full of gold bugs. Red herrings like this don't have a lot of logic behind them. If the goal is "protect your stuff," it makes much more sense to actually protect your stuff, not protect an otherwise empty safe. What does the gold bug safe accomplish for the mayor that a single well-hidden, trapped safe wouldn't?

Animated Candlestick: If the goal of the castle's defenses are to keep people from stealing stuff, why is there just that one animated candlestick? Why not many? Why not an alarm instead? From the PCs' perspective, this isn't logical, since more defenses or different defenses would be more effective and preventing theft.

Now, if the DM actually has sensible justification for these things, and the players can investigate if they like, those logical gaps can be closed. Maybe the candlestick was animated by a nearby cleric who noticed the PC stealing. Maybe the castle has fallen on hard times and can't afford hundreds of animated items.

goto124

2015-01-20, 08:35 AM

I like to imagine the candlestick is in fact a resident of the castle. Could be a person under Baleful Polymorph, could be a playful shapeshifter, could be... well... just a sentient candlestick. But bascially a person who happens to have the body of a candlestick.

Brookshw

2015-01-20, 10:16 AM

Examples
Gold Coin Bugs: The players have an information gap on this one, but they also have reason to question the motive behind a safe full of gold bugs. Red herrings like this don't have a lot of logic behind them. If the goal is "protect your stuff," it makes much more sense to actually protect your stuff, not protect an otherwise empty safe. What does the gold bug safe accomplish for the mayor that a single well-hidden, trapped safe wouldn't?

Wasn't that an Egyptian thing? Trapped false vaults to knock off would ne thieves and make them think they found the real vault to discourage second visits where they might otherwise find it? Heck, Tomb of Horrors has a false vault.

big teej

2015-01-20, 12:25 PM

Since this is the internet, none of us will change our opinions (right or wrong), so arguing it is moot.

have faith good man!

how many have come to these boards insisting that monks are overpowered and wizards need help? only to be lead to the truth and the broken path of optimization and tier lists?

Threadnaught

2015-01-20, 12:44 PM

See I don't get this line of reasoning. If I wanted to ''punish players for no reason'', then I could just write Goldbugs on every single pile of loot. And then if I'm in a good mood, ignore it. But if not....goldbugs bite! But still the players won't know either way...or even if i just made it up from scratch. They have nothing to base their reaction on fact-wise.

Having a single treasure designed to punish players for not being careful enough, is completely different to lacing every single treasure with a "**** you" device and only disarming the trap occasionally, when the players toys have learned to accept the PCs being in perpetual poverty.

This makes me think, if Vow of Poverty were allowed in such a Campaign, it'd be precisely as broken as a Cleric with DMM Persist and stacking Nightsticks is in a standard game.

{scrubbed}

{scrubbed}

SiuiS

2015-01-20, 02:09 PM

Players are encouraged to investigate, but 99% of the time they are not allowed to?
Problem. How are they to discover stuff?

You're encouraged to investigate but like all good drama, some choices are forced before you reach perfect knowledge.

If a perfectly reasonable statement is getting to you because of word choice, consider that you are reacting to the speaker, not the statement. In cases like this, avoiding these threads where you're certain that patterns will continue would probably be wiser than not.

How would you feel, if you were playing a game in which every time someone 'goes off the rails', the DM puts down the books and says 'look, I spent a year writing this campaign, if you do that I have absolutely nothing to give you, so either you insist and wait another year for me to rewrite everything, or you get back on track'?

An absurd example, because the answer is clear. There is a difference between good faith and bad DM. If the adventure is kill the dragon, turns out dragon was good guy, your ally becomes evil tyrant, you fight him? Then wandering to a different continent to search for rare emeralds is a jerk move on your part. If you're playing a political game and you avoid all politics because no option is completely safe, jerk move on your part.

That is clearly different from the rules and verisimilitude stopping existing when you look the wrong direction.

In the case of the mayor, had the players succeeded in getting real money, they would have far more wealth than the DM had planned for. They would go and buy equipment that makes them overpowered compared to the monsters that the DM had spent a lot of time statting up, since he expected the PCs to be weaker.

How much can the DM pull things out of his rear before everything breaks down?

That's a fallacy actually. It's much, much easier to control wealth when the party has a bunch of gold coins, because gold coins aren't Prime Currency. You can buy all the +1 swords you want with several million gold, for example, but you're not going to buy a +2 sword – they're worth more than mere gold. You can buy and own mansions, get servants, live a life of luxury, but also be tracked down by a dragon who suddenly realizes his money is gone and these upstarts are mysteriously rich.

You can have the market hedge out the party after a while because there's just nothing left to buy they want, until a caravan arrives in a few weeks and sends word back, and gets them more stuff in a few more weeks. You can have tax men nickel and dime them.

But "I'm not prepared as DM to give you treasure" is ridiculous. This is a self-perpetuating problem. Players no longer blow their money on hookers and booze because gold is too hard to come by to actually bother role playing, you need that magic weapon ASAP because there are gargoyles everywhere!

I play with two groups mainly. In one group the players all expect to use in-character knowledge only — sometimes too much in fact. In the other group this is also largely true — though they are less strict. In the LARP group I used to play with, player's maintained strict separation between IC and OOC info — they were very keen on verisimilitude and character integrity. So that's close on 100 players I've played with (the LARP group was very large) where this was the accepted norm. Am I missing your point here ?

Even in a LARP, if a GM is laughing about how he put so-and-sp in his place, he totally deserved it, immediately after doing something for a seemingly legitimate in game reason? That's bad.

If the DM smiles, laughs in your face when you fail "because of something you couldn't have known", and actively enjoys the power trip, that's a clear sign that I'm not going to ignore. "My character doesn't know there is a DM" is not the sort of player/character divide that matters.

A lot of DMs and players do the ''Groundhog Day'' world. As the characters go up in levels, the world stays the same. So at 10th level the goblins still have sharp sticks, for example. So then the player can have *whatever* ability and feel great as it works all the time.

Uh, no?

Standard D&D has two versions. Either goblins are always crap, which means the fifth level goblin tribe will kill second level parties, or everything irrelevant gets ignored and every four levels is a band of magnitude, not a linear advancement.

What you are talking about is groundhogs day, not the reverse. If goblins come up on the random encounter table for an area, they will magically upgrade to be a challenge still despite no goblins in this area ever having had magic items or templates before, because the players shouldn't ever face an easy challenge. That's video game logic. That's groundhogs day.

{scrubbed this, too}

I disagree. My opinion changes relatively frequently. It may be a given that people online don't grow, but I couldn't tell you why. My circle of friends are dynamic and intelligent people who more or less evolve constantly.

I'm weird though, I guess. :-/

Knaight

2015-01-20, 02:35 PM

A lot of DMs and players do the ''Groundhog Day'' world. As the characters go up in levels, the world stays the same. So at 10th level the goblins still have sharp sticks, for example. So then the player can have *whatever* ability and feel great as it works all the time.

But in my game the goblns encountered at 10th level are a bit more advanced...with class levels, templates, magic items and such. And as the power level goes up, a characters whatever is effected.

Gargoyles are the classic ''hide in the city'' monster...in plain sight, no less.

None of this follows. The world not magically scaling to you is not "Groundhog Day", it's the world not magically scaling to you. Every goblin getting magic items because the PCs leveled up is ludicrous. No goblins having magic items (assuming that they generally can) because the PCs haven't leveled up is also ludicrous. Elements of the world taking the knowable power of the PCs into account is one thing, where the goblins with just sharp sticks tend to generally avoid the party decked out in magic items, and the people that can pay said party enough to get them to do things don't use those kind of resources to aim them at some goblins with pointy sticks.

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-20, 02:39 PM

Knaight

2015-01-20, 03:02 PM

Yeah, I don't really know many DMs that go with the whole Oblivion approach to be honest. Usually, the players tackle some baddies in the immediate vicinity, and then branch out from there to find challenges, not the whole thing of goblins chasing me with Daedric weapons. I've honestly never seen that. Is this a common thing I've just never saw? I also don't get why it would make any sense unless actions triggered something in the plot, but that would be a rare case.

I've seen it in exactly two cases. One is JP advocating it right here. The other involved the scaling coming from an arms race that the PCs were involved in, and even then it wasn't scaling to the PCs so much as the arms race getting pushed by one side whenever the other started getting ahead.

Haruki-kun

2015-01-20, 04:24 PM

The Winged Mod: Closed for review.

EDIT: Thread re-opened upon review. Please do not engage in Threadcrapping or Doomsaying, people. If you're going to post just to point out that the thread is heading in a bad direction, or that it's already there, don't.

Auron3991

2015-01-21, 01:31 AM

Depends on how funny it is and how well it builds a story. If it's hilarious or it leads to a good plot thread, I tend to be fine with it. Also heavily depends on how much of a jerk... I mean how creative I've been getting with the rules. If I've been annoying, then I'll let more slide.

What will most likely make me quit is if the DM either forces the game to a crawl by railroading or if they fundamentally change the actions of my character. If I say I'm doing x, then what results had better be a result of attempting x, or I'm likely to quit.

Psyren

2015-01-21, 09:14 AM

None of this follows. The world not magically scaling to you is not "Groundhog Day", it's the world not magically scaling to you. Every goblin getting magic items because the PCs leveled up is ludicrous. No goblins having magic items (assuming that they generally can) because the PCs haven't leveled up is also ludicrous. Elements of the world taking the knowable power of the PCs into account is one thing, where the goblins with just sharp sticks tend to generally avoid the party decked out in magic items, and the people that can pay said party enough to get them to do things don't use those kind of resources to aim them at some goblins with pointy sticks.

I agree with this but will also add that the players shouldn't really be dealing with goblins anymore at 10th level either, unless those goblins have somehow obtained (or been given) the class levels and gear etc. that JP mentioned to become 10th-level threats. This is not totally outlandish - you could have that one goblin chief the players overlooked or failed to kill swear vengeance, take a few levels in badass and become promoted to the Big Bad's Dragon for instance, then rally the remaining clans into a world-class danger. But speaking personally I would use this plot device pretty sparingly simply because there are plenty of other great monsters you can throw at them as they level instead and start attracting new kinds of attention.

For a fantasy example - the early Wheel of Time books have the party encounter the smarmy but relatively harmless peddler Padan Fain, who is secretly evil, but in a very minor sense (toadying to his higher-ups, spying, passing on messages, and ultimately trying to sniff out the protagonists for his master.) After being the Shadow's whipping boy for most of the first book, he ends up merging with an ancient evil and becoming... something... extremely fearsome, utterly insane and with a massive suite of dark powers unlike anything even the Quirky Miniboss Squad have ever seen before, and furthermore ends up manipulating entire organizations to impede the heroes.

So this kind of thing can be done, but again - sparingly. I would not simply scale up a bunch of low-level monsters to match the PCs, much like TES Oblivion has everything and their mother scale with your level such that if you don't munchkin near-perfectly you end up progressively weaker with each one you gain.

Knaight

2015-01-21, 09:16 AM

I agree with this but will also add that the players shouldn't really be dealing with goblins anymore at 10th level either, unless those goblins have somehow obtained (or been given) the class levels and gear etc. that JP mentioned to become 10th-level threats. This is not totally outlandish - you could have that one goblin chief the players overlooked or failed to kill swear vengeance, take a few levels in badass and become promoted to the Big Bad's Dragon for instance, then rally the remaining clans into a world-class danger. But speaking personally I would use this plot device pretty sparingly simply because there are plenty of other great monsters you can throw at them as they level instead and start attracting new kinds of attention.

Like I said, if a bunch of goblins armed with pointy sticks and next to no armor come across the PCs (or even hear of them coming) once they're 10th level and loaded down with magic items, I'd expect them to clear out.

Vhaidara

2015-01-21, 09:27 AM

I agree with this but will also add that the players shouldn't really be dealing with goblins anymore at 10th level either, unless those goblins have somehow obtained (or been given) the class levels and gear etc. that JP mentioned to become 10th-level threats. This is not totally outlandish - you could have that one goblin chief the players overlooked or failed to kill swear vengeance, take a few levels in badass and become promoted to the Big Bad's Dragon for instance, then rally the remaining clans into a world-class danger. But speaking personally I would use this plot device pretty sparingly simply because there are plenty of other great monsters you can throw at them as they level instead and start attracting new kinds of attention.

I actually disagree. This is where you make a non-combat encounter out of it. A group of 10th level adventurers should be able to butcher any group of goblins (if goblins could produce enough high level individuals to threaten them, they would dominate the world). So the challenge is now to make it an encounter that can't be solved by butchering the goblins.

Milo v3

2015-01-21, 09:46 AM

I actually disagree. This is where you make a non-combat encounter out of it. A group of 10th level adventurers should be able to butcher any group of goblins (if goblins could produce enough high level individuals to threaten them, they would dominate the world). So the challenge is now to make it an encounter that can't be solved by butchering the goblins.

How come humans can produce high level individuals but goblins can't? Not like they don't both advance via class level.

Segev

2015-01-21, 10:00 AM

I'm so a Schrodinger's DM, I'm outside the box! I won't shy away and say I don't do stuff to ''punish players'', I do it all the time. It's a well known fact. Though being the Evil Overlord that I am, I have a perfectly acceptable ''legal mumbo-jumbo'' that can stop any investigation.

I think handling problem players in the game works so much better. OOC talking just wastes time. This is the problem. "Problem players" absolutely must be handled OOC. There are two possibilities:

1) They are deliberately causing problems, and should be kicked out.
2) They don't realize there's a problem, so deserve to be informed so they can try to be less problematic.

Resorting to IC punishment only sets up an adversarial relationship. Against type 1, they just view it as more of a game and seek more subtle ways to disrupt your game, finding ways to needle the other players into being "problems" so your punishment hits them and they don't know why. Against type 2, the punishment feels arbitrary and mean, and if they don't know what they did wrong, they might repeat or exacerbate the behavior in attempting to circumvent the punishment, having learned the wrong lesson.

In fact, IC punishment is the fastest way to turn Type 2 in to Type 1. It may explain the preponderance of "problem players" you seem to suffer.

The problem I often run into is most players think of the world in such a ''low view'' state....like ''wow they have to sticks to rub together to make fire! They are Rich!'' But I don't see things that way. I think that things like ''the kitchen pots and pans animate every day and make three meals'' is wondrous, but mundane. But a player encountering that will react with amazement and wonder at the all powerful magic. I try not to laugh as they think animate object/create food/programed spell effect is like an Epic level magic equal to blowing up a planet. And then when they do encounter high level stuff, they just get all weird...

See, the problem here is, again, that you don't talk to the players OOC. The default expectation in D&D in particular and "medieval fantasy" in general is "magic is rare and wondrous, so even if everybody sees it occasionally, it is only used casually by the supremely wealthy and powerful."

If your setting is, as you say, different - if enchanted pottery that cleans itself and magical cooking utensils prepare meals on their own at least as commonly as modern Americans have dishwashers and microwaves - then you should tell your players this. Either by active demonstration early and often (with care given to describing the way other NPCs react to things as normal, and how these common conveniences change the way the setting operates), or by explicitly telling them, OOC, how common these things are.

Remember, their PCs grew up in this world. They would know more about it than do the players. Let them know!

Vhaidara

2015-01-21, 10:05 AM

Remember, their PCs grew up in this world. They would know more about it than do the players. Let them know!

No they didn't. They appeared fully formed with a backstory that tells them absolutely nothing about the world, except for everything that the guy who died last session who was completely unconnected to them knew.

NNescio

2015-01-21, 10:20 AM

I agree with this but will also add that the players shouldn't really be dealing with goblins anymore at 10th level either, unless those goblins have somehow obtained (or been given) the class levels and gear etc. that JP mentioned to become 10th-level threats. This is not totally outlandish - you could have that one goblin chief the players overlooked or failed to kill swear vengeance, take a few levels in badass and become promoted to the Big Bad's Dragon for instance, then rally the remaining clans into a world-class danger. But speaking personally I would use this plot device pretty sparingly simply because there are plenty of other great monsters you can throw at them as they level instead and start attracting new kinds of attention. ...

Bonus points if there's a dwarf paladin in the party.

Knaight

2015-01-21, 10:21 AM

Psyren

2015-01-21, 10:31 AM

How come humans can produce high level individuals but goblins can't? Not like they don't both advance via class level.

^ That.

Bonus points if there's a dwarf paladin in the party.

Heh, totally forgot to make that connection :smallbiggrin:

Vhaidara

2015-01-21, 10:39 AM

How come humans can produce high level individuals but goblins can't? Not like they don't both advance via class level.

Bonus points if there's a dwarf paladin in the party.

That's why. Genocidal dwarf paladins.

NichG

2015-01-21, 10:51 AM

So, when does the DM go to far for you?

So your playing some D&D and something happens. Anything really. Not a dice roll, but more the DM ''says X''. So at what point do you accept X as part of the game or reject x as ''the DM going too far''.

...

So what makes one call vs. the other?

And lets not wade into ''trust''. Lets just say your not going to game with a DM you don't trust in the first place. So you ''trust'' the DM. So what else, other then ''trust'', do you base your call on? At what point do you go from ''the DM is using the game rules'' even if you don't know the details to ''the DM is just free forming things'' and ''outside the rules''?

You say it's not about trust, but it really is. However, if I take you at your word here, that 'I trust this DM', then what does that tell me? If I trust the DM so much that the trust is unquestioning, that says more about the DM than has been provided in your example, and it leads to some weird conclusions.

DMs I trust do things for reasons that involve the game as a whole, not just to embarass a particular player or be punitive. Therefore, the DM must be making a choice in ruling that does not involve these motivations. There should be a chain of not just logic, but also purposefulness behind these choices. I can therefore assume that I can read deeply into them, not just say 'okay, thats a thing that happened, next?'.

The thing is, the long-term DMs I trust don't tend to use gimmicks like the ones in your post - and that's inseparable from the reasons why I trust them (I say 'long-term' specifically because I'll give any new DM the benefit of the doubt for a few games). The reason not to use such gimmicks is that they're one-offs. They don't really do anything other than stroke the DM's ego or embarrass certain players. As stated, they aren't part of a greater sequence of events that communicate something important or create interesting challenges. Instead they're gotchas which, in the long run, won't have any effect on important things in the campaign.

So if I really did trust this DM, and he pulled these, I would immediately assume that either he was trying to hint at some kind of parody that would culminate in 4th-wall-breaking shenanigans, or that the mayor or the king are being set up to be recurring villains and the DM is trying to get particular players in the party to develop an emotional reaction to them so it will be more satisfying to pursue them and take them down.

And if the DM came through with such things and it turned out that he did have a deeper reason to use these gimmicks, then that'd increase my trust in him. But if these end up just being one-offs for cheap laughs, I'd trust him less and would give him less leeway in the future.

A good DM crafts an experience that is enjoyable for those involved. I don't have to dip into philosophy to judge a DM, I just have to ask 'am I enjoying myself?' and 'are the DM's decisions increasing my enjoyment, or decreasing it?'. There is plenty of structure underlying 'things I enjoy' and 'things I don't enjoy' and there one might find some of these philosophy questions, but I don't need to turn that into a checklist to tell whether I'm having fun or not.

Segev

2015-01-21, 11:17 AM

No they didn't. They appeared fully formed with a backstory that tells them absolutely nothing about the world, except for everything that the guy who died last session who was completely unconnected to them knew.

Actually, that could be an interesting conceit on which to run a game. Your character is not from this world, and has been dragged here magically by something. He knows nothing about the world except what he's been told by the review packet (probably a magical slide reel) he saw on his way in.

This could work especially well if each player has agreed ahead of time that they will play an iconic archetype for the Party Of Destined Heroes. The Fighter, the Mage, the Cleric, and the Rogue. How they fulfil that, mechanically, is up to the player, but if they have to replace their character, they must fill that role with the new one, too.

Could play with something like "how do you fit your sign of the zodiac/major arcana archetype/role in The Cabin In The Woods?"

The characters have whatever backstory the players want to give them, but are NOT from the Insertion World. Every character who replaces one that dies actively sees a movie-type sequence of scenes and images which inform him of all the choices their predecessors in the role have made, and allowing them to learn everything they knew (to the limits of their memory of what they witness, as represented by player recall and any relevant skill rolls).

It would be a very stylized campaign, and would have strong reason to treat The PCs As Special as well as for the party to stick together, even in the face of personality conflicts. (And would make spits more meaningful, but harder to deal with; does the PC who left the party to pursue his own agenda keep his role, or is a replacement incoming?)

Knaight

2015-01-21, 12:07 PM

Actually, that could be an interesting conceit on which to run a game. Your character is not from this world, and has been dragged here magically by something. He knows nothing about the world except what he's been told by the review packet (probably a magical slide reel) he saw on his way in.

There's a particular sub-genre where that is actually the case. Absent a character not actually being from that world though, it makes no sense. Even then, absent something like party wide convenient amnesia the characters still have backgrounds that inform their base of knowledge and what they do. Plus, they should know jack-all from someone else from another world getting there first and dying there, outside of some fairly specific circumstances.

Segev

2015-01-21, 12:15 PM

There's a particular sub-genre where that is actually the case. Absent a character not actually being from that world though, it makes no sense. Even then, absent something like party wide convenient amnesia the characters still have backgrounds that inform their base of knowledge and what they do. Plus, they should know jack-all from someone else from another world getting there first and dying there, outside of some fairly specific circumstances.

Obviously. Hence why I went out of my way to spell out how they do, in fact, know that stuff in this hypothetical premise.

I did not deal with their own backgrounds from wherever they came, however; you're right about that. The easiest way to complete the conceit would be to say they're from Earth, our world, in the culture(s) of the players.

Magma Armor0

2015-01-21, 12:27 PM

Knaight

2015-01-21, 12:38 PM

To answer the latest question from the thread: would I lose faith in the dm if i encountered enemies that can overcome my abilities? Only if it becomes the norm. If i play a rogue 1 campaign and suddenly every encounter Is immune to sneak attacks, but next campaign I'm playing a wizard and suddenly there are antimagic fields everywhere? That would frustrate me, because I'd feel specifically targeted by the game itself. I'm fine with enemies leveling up, just as I'm fine with a particularly ingenious trap every so often. But when every enemy has a way of neutralizing me, specifically, with no countermeasures for other common problems,I'd be really really close to walking.

Exactly. To use a non D&D example, if the PCs have a space ship that isn't hugely maneuverable, but has one very large hidden gun on the front only ever coming across ships more maneuverable than them with a better pilot that never go in front of them is sketchy. Some space pirate that they've previously pissed off who has seen them in action coming in for revenge with a new ace pilot, strategic weaponry that specifically exploits their maneuverability, and a battle plan that involves staying away from the hidden rail-gun that belongs on a ship three times as big is totally believable.

As for why I used a non-D&D example, it's to illustrate that this isn't a D&D problem, nor does avoiding it require any D&D specific skills. Even a GM who doesn't really know the system at all should be able to avoid it easily, and it coming up looks particularly sketchy in that light.

Necroticplague

2015-01-21, 12:40 PM

To answer succinctly: when it stops being fun or breaks versimilitude beyond whats expected. Assuming magic was relatively common in this world, 2 makes perfect sense, and I'm fine with that. Seems like a relatively rational way to deal with possible thieves, and a good use of an otherwise-useless object. And a person with brains might actually be able to predict and plan for it. It seems like a part of the world.

1, on the other hand, I have more issues with, because it makes less sense. Yes, having a false safe is fairly reasonable, if one can afford for such. Heck, redundant treasure chambers are an excellent way to hide the real treasure. What doesn't make sense is replacing the gold with bugs. Once a person deals with the bugs, they know the actual safe is somewhere else, and can keep looking for it. If he just left a relative pittance in the safe, behind a trap, that would make sense. The thieves bypass the trap, grab a relatively small amount of gold, then stop, because they think they got it. So the bugs don't particularly make sense, especially as they would need to be maintained like any other living creature (and thus make poor trap material). Or heck, the gold can be somewhat illusory, so that its revealed 1d4 hours later to be worthless. Accomplishes the same goal (PCs don't get gold), but fits in with the world better.

Flickerdart

2015-01-21, 12:42 PM

Exactly. To use a non D&D example, if the PCs have a space ship that isn't hugely maneuverable, but has one very large hidden gun on the front only ever coming across ships more maneuverable than them with a better pilot that never go in front of them is sketchy. Some space pirate that they've previously pissed off who has seen them in action coming in for revenge with a new ace pilot, strategic weaponry that specifically exploits their maneuverability, and a battle plan that involves staying away from the hidden rail-gun that belongs on a ship three times as big is totally believable.

As for why I used a non-D&D example, it's to illustrate that this isn't a D&D problem, nor does avoiding it require any D&D specific skills. Even a GM who doesn't really know the system at all should be able to avoid it easily, and it coming up looks particularly sketchy in that light.
Eh, I could buy that light maneuverable ships hunting other small ships is the standard mode of engagement, and "try to avoid standing in front of them because front-facing weapons are a thing" is something that every pilot knows. Where this really falls apart is when players try to do something on their own initiative (heresy, right?) and aim their railgun at slow freighters, only to have those freighters suddenly backflip out of the way like the ships they've been fighting earlier.

But in such a world, the characters would know that this is the doctrine ahead of time, and conclude that having a turtle with a directional weapon is a waste of money. Not telling the players this would be 100% "DM going too far" for me.

jedipotter

2015-01-21, 02:12 PM

None of this follows. The world not magically scaling to you is not "Groundhog Day", it's the world not magically scaling to you. Every goblin getting magic items because the PCs leveled up is ludicrous. No goblins having magic items (assuming that they generally can) because the PCs haven't leveled up is also ludicrous. Elements of the world taking the knowable power of the PCs into account is one thing, where the goblins with just sharp sticks tend to generally avoid the party decked out in magic items, and the people that can pay said party enough to get them to do things don't use those kind of resources to aim them at some goblins with pointy sticks.

Ludicrous? Well, it's in the core rules. As the PC's level goes up in the game foes then ''suddenly'' have magic items. They have to have magic items to be a challenge. Just all at all the NPC tables.

Though I do the Status Quo world anyway

So if I really did trust this DM, and he pulled these, I would immediately assume that either he was trying to hint at some kind of parody that would culminate in 4th-wall-breaking shenanigans, or that the mayor or the king are being set up to be recurring villains and the DM is trying to get particular players in the party to develop an emotional reaction to them so it will be more satisfying to pursue them and take them down.

Odd, your only two reactions are ''well this will be a goofy TOON game'' or ''metagame thinking''. I wonder why one of your things is not just ''well that happened, lets just keep gaming"?

And if the DM came through with such things and it turned out that he did have a deeper reason to use these gimmicks, then that'd increase my trust in him. But if these end up just being one-offs for cheap laughs, I'd trust him less and would give him less leeway in the future.

The problem here, I bring up yet again is: there is no way for the players to know anything. My game ends, and everyone goes home. The only way for players to know things, would be to end the game, and then hang out and have the DM explain everything in detail(''the animated candlestick is part of a plot where your characters will encounter an evil spellcaster making constructs. But remember your characters don't know that, so please pretend like your characters don't know'')

That would frustrate me, because I'd feel specifically targeted by the game itself. I'm fine with enemies leveling up, just as I'm fine with a particularly ingenious trap every so often. But when every enemy has a way of neutralizing me, specifically, with no countermeasures for other common problems,I'd be really really close to walking.

Guess the answer is for the DM to have most foes ''play dumb'' so players don't feel ''targeted''.

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-21, 02:29 PM

If every enemy knows the PC's weaknesses despite never meeting them, then yeah...You should probably dumb them down a scootch. Just a wee bit. Probably toss in a few less psychic enemies.

I think the biggest red flag a DM could wave is in fact, saying that they punish players in character. That sorta means they don't understand that OoC communication is a helpful tool, or that the players are just here to have fun, or understand the idea that others could do something they might disagree with or be a bit leery of but have perfectly valid reasons for doing what they are doing. I've seen DMs do it to others and guess what, it never ends well and it often turns out that these people are crappy DMs in the long run.

Knaight

2015-01-21, 02:42 PM

Eh, I could buy that light maneuverable ships hunting other small ships is the standard mode of engagement, and "try to avoid standing in front of them because front-facing weapons are a thing" is something that every pilot knows. Where this really falls apart is when players try to do something on their own initiative (heresy, right?) and aim their railgun at slow freighters, only to have those freighters suddenly backflip out of the way like the ships they've been fighting earlier.

Or when it's just ships that are significantly larger than them just so happening to consistently outmaneuver them, even if they aren't going on their own initiative. I figure any setting which has that ship as a design will have it be generally useful, and if it isn't things seem sketchy.

Magma Armor0

2015-01-21, 02:46 PM

Guess the answer is for the DM to have most foes ''play dumb'' so players don't feel ''targeted''.

There's a middle ground between "playing dumb" and "optimized to kill Bob's rogue." That's where the difficulty should lie. No one except a BBEG should have a build tailor-made to counter the party perfectly. Built to counter several basic tacics? Yes. But if all our enemies have immunity to sonic damage JUST BECAUSE I SPECIALIZE IN SONIC DAMAGE, and have no fire resistance (which is a much more common damage type) I will be upset.

Let me put it this way: a typical npc opponent should be designed as though the only thing you knew was the CR of the encounter. BBEGs can be assumed to have done their research on the party. A random encounter? Not so much. They might be prepared for "a wizard," but not "a wizard specializing in sonic damage."

Segev

2015-01-21, 02:49 PM

Or when it's just ships that are significantly larger than them just so happening to consistently outmaneuver them, even if they aren't going on their own initiative. I figure any setting which has that ship as a design will have it be generally useful, and if it isn't things seem sketchy.

Yeah, if they have that big, looming ship with the capital weapon, and never get to face something bigger and less maneuverable, that's probably a problem with the game as it's being run.

On the other hand, if they DELIBERATELY took the biggest ship out there, then they really did it to themselves. Heck, never facing something bigger is a nod to their success at being the biggest thing out there.

However, in that case, designing the ship with one big gun is poor design. Big, unmaneuverable ships LINE themselves with smaller weapons, so they threaten a 360-by-180-degree solid angle. Maneuverability is less an issue for aiming at that point than it is for dodging. Which they probably don't do.

So, if they're in the biggest, slowest thing with a forward-fixed gun, it should be lampshaded that their ship is just an acknowledged awful design. "Nobody flies those! Sure, the gun's impressive, but unless you're blowing up asteroids the size of small moons, it's just never useful."

Anachronity

2015-01-21, 02:56 PM

When you say "gold draconian" mayor do you mean he is a gold dragon or that he just has a gold dragon in his bloodline? I see no reason why a truly lawful good character would ever keep a safe full of potentially lethal gold scarab beetles, even to deter thieves. At worst there might be some nonlethal traps like symbol of stunning or sepia serpent sigil. Obviously if it's just a person with gold dragon heritage then it depends entirely on that person's actual alignment.

The second one sounds unlikely but not impossible for the DM to have premeditated. I would say it's a lot more likely if he knew ahead of time of your party's thieving tendencies when preparing the encounter.

Honestly your party doesn't sound very heroic just from these two incidents, and if you act like this all the time in what is otherwise supposed to be a typical "heroic" game of D&D then your DM has a right to be spiteful.

EDIT: Ah, I thought you were saying that you were the player, and were suspicious of your DM. I would say that as long as you know your players are no-good thieves then it's entirely realistic for you to prepare thief traps that, logically, any wealthy person would employ but, as a single person, you might otherwise have ignored so you could spend your time writing more relevant parts of the campaign. If all your PCs do is loot and pillage then I would strongly encourage you to talk with them about what sort of campaign this should be. If they don't want to play your campaign then you might want to try running the sort of campaign that they seem interested in.

big teej

2015-01-21, 03:13 PM

Though I do the Status Quo world anyway

.

I'm going to nit-pick again, because my curiosity is unsatiated.

earlier you referred to your world as a ... I believe the exact words were "super high collage world"

I'm still wanting a definition on this.

and now I'd like to add a request for how you are defining "the status quo world"

jedipotter

2015-01-21, 03:25 PM

If every enemy knows the PC's weaknesses despite never meeting them, then yeah...You should probably dumb them down a scootch. Just a wee bit. Probably toss in a few less psychic enemies.

It's not just ''weakness'', it's ''common sense''. It's like the foes having missile weapons to shoot at flying invaders. This is not amazing in my mind.

There's a middle ground between "playing dumb" and "optimized to kill Bob's rogue." That's where the difficulty should lie. No one except a BBEG should have a build tailor-made to counter the party perfectly. Built to counter several basic tacics? Yes. But if all our enemies have immunity to sonic damage JUST BECAUSE I SPECIALIZE IN SONIC DAMAGE, and have no fire resistance (which is a much more common damage type) I will be upset.

This has the problem of ''player assumes sonic damage is rare'' and ''using sonic damage will give a character a huge, unfair advantage that I will take advantage of to make a powerful character''. The player is attempting to ''spin'' the game a bit. They are picking the ''rare energy type'', by the book. But, most players won't admit it. They will say they just ''like sounds'' or something, and that it's just ''pure random chance'' that sonic damage is rare, by-the-book.

So what this player wants, if for their character to win every fight very easily with sonic attacks, so they can happy dance in their chair at the table. They just want the DM to put down the d20 and say ''Your character won the fight, again''.

But it's all on the assumption that sonic damage/sonic energy effects are rare in-the-books. It's a player looking thorough the books, assuming the books are the End All, and going ''Ah ha! Something I can Exploit!''

Let me put it this way: a typical npc opponent should be designed as though the only thing you knew was the CR of the encounter. BBEGs can be assumed to have done their research on the party. A random encounter? Not so much. They might be prepared for "a wizard," but not "a wizard specializing in sonic damage."

The problem is, as the game goes up in power....things become more common. For example, the higher level you go, the more chance a character has to running into creatures immune to sneak attack damage.

But I think there is too much focus on ''targeting'' a PC, I don't do that. I'm an Old School DM: if I wanted a character dead I'd just have rocks fall.

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-21, 03:29 PM

It's not just ''weakness'', it's ''common sense''. It's like the foes having missile weapons to shoot at flying invaders. This is not amazing in my mind.

Nor was it what anyone was complaining about. What people WERE complaining about is being invalidated for a majority of combats. Not basic tactics being employed, but very specialized tactics to counter the PCs abilities happening for most of the combats/encounters.

jedipotter

2015-01-21, 03:47 PM

Nor was it what anyone was complaining about. What people WERE complaining about is being invalidated for a majority of combats. Not basic tactics being employed, but very specialized tactics to counter the PCs abilities happening for most of the combats/encounters.

I guess what I see as Advanced Tactics, are what others see as Very Specialized Tactics....

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-21, 03:49 PM

I guess what I see as Advanced Tactics, are what others see as Very Specialized Tactics....

What, including immunity to sonic energy? Immunity to sneak attack?

icefractal

2015-01-21, 04:11 PM

I guess what I see as Advanced Tactics, are what others see as Very Specialized Tactics....If being immune to Sonic is just "advanced tactics" ... then I guess those foes are immune to all types of energy, right? Because how would they know that Sonic was the important one? Funny thing, it's pretty difficult to get universal energy immunity short of being very high level. So I can see why players would be skeptical.

My definition of 'fair' in this context is: If the foes don't have an in-game way to know in advance about the PCs' abilities, the DM should build them as if he didn't know what was written on the character sheets. They can still take precautions, obviously, but those should be made "blind", having as many defenses allocated for things the PCs might be using as for things they actually are using. And their precautions should be suitable to the resources they have. Random road-side bandits with 50K magic items? Questionable.

Again, for an enemy that knows the PCs are coming, has intel on them, and has time to prepare, that's out the window - specialize away. Although even then, it should be within what's plausible. Switching to some better suited gear and prepared spells? Yes. Retroactively switching your Rogue levels to Monk so you can deflect arrows? Not cool.

OldTrees1

2015-01-21, 04:11 PM

I guess what I see as Advanced Tactics, are what others see as Very Specialized Tactics....

I depends on how it is done.

For instance:
In combat measures require information in combat.
Pre combat measures require information before combat.
Pre build measures require information before being built.

An example:
The PCs are obsessed with flying and fire but they are unknown by the kobold tribe they are intent on removing. The first battle the kobolds have no knowledge of the PCs and probably are taken by surprise. The "battle" wraps up before they can adjust their tactics but they sound an alarm. The kobold tribe now knows there is a threat and is unlikely to be caught unawares. The second battle lasts a bit longer. The kobold warriors have nothing at hand to deal with the fire obsession and are ill equipped to deal with flyers. However they break out their ranged weapons and send a messenger with a warning to the tribe. Now the tribe knows the PCs are flying and using fire. The majority of the kobold tribe is not immune to fire and they don't have any specific "anti flying" traps (although they have some traps that could be useful). The kobolds split their resources. Some start working on making an "anti flying" trap area. Some start gathering all the fire resistant kobolds in the tribe and buying some fire resistance gear. Others for squads containing sorcerers that know "fly" and try to draw the PCs towards the traps that are not specifically "anti flying" but are not ineffective either. The third battle is against this last group. The PCs have to deal with flying kobolds(fly cast before the ambush), working traps, and anti-flying mundane gear like nets. This is a tougher fight for the PCs but they manage it. Finally the fourth battle is with flying fire resistant kobolds(buffs cast before the ambush) at one of the specific "anti-flying" traps while other fire resistant kobolds are tossing nets and using ranged weapons.

Notice how the preparation ramped up over time and never exceeded the reasonable logistics for the kobold tribe (all the kobolds suddenly being half red dragon would be exceeding reasonable logistics for example).

Elkad

2015-01-21, 04:22 PM

When he plays mood/theme music.

Segev

2015-01-21, 05:15 PM

It's not just ''weakness'', it's ''common sense''. It's like the foes having missile weapons to shoot at flying invaders. This is not amazing in my mind. The distinction is when every foe's "common sense" tells him to have silver-tipped arrows. Even if werewolves are rare in the setting.

Having them after having faced the PCs and their werewolf party member a time or two, sure. But every encounter being with people prepared that way? Maybe if they're facing fellow adventurers, but that kind of crazy-prepared is expensive and not common for bandits, guards, and patrols of soldiers in areas where werewolves are uncommon.

Similarly, every single guard having See Invisible and a +30 to spot and listen item gets old, fast. Especially if the PCs can't afford comparable +30 to hide and move silently items.

Every guard, prison warden, goblin brigade, and monster coincidentally being immune to the specific energy type the party is optimized to use is similarly beyond "common sense" and into "did they know we, specifically, were coming?"

This has the problem of ''player assumes sonic damage is rare'' and ''using sonic damage will give a character a huge, unfair advantage that I will take advantage of to make a powerful character''. The player is attempting to ''spin'' the game a bit. They are picking the ''rare energy type'', by the book. But, most players won't admit it. They will say they just ''like sounds'' or something, and that it's just ''pure random chance'' that sonic damage is rare, by-the-book.

So what this player wants, if for their character to win every fight very easily with sonic attacks, so they can happy dance in their chair at the table. They just want the DM to put down the d20 and say ''Your character won the fight, again''.

But it's all on the assumption that sonic damage/sonic energy effects are rare in-the-books. It's a player looking thorough the books, assuming the books are the End All, and going ''Ah ha! Something I can Exploit!''First off, simply failing to have resistance or immunity to an energy type doesn't make you lose a fight. It just means the fight is hard against somebody optimized for that kind of damage output.

Secondly, is sonic immunity/resistance MORE common in your setting than other energy types' resistances are? Or is blanket resistance/immunity common? Do the PCs have similar levels of blanket resistance? Or similar levels of resistance to precisely the energy type they're going to face?

Even if I played a fire-focused blaster, I'd feel a bit cheated if everything I faced was resistant to fire. Not everything is! Relatively few things - compared to the number of things out there - are, in fact, even if it's the most common resistance!

The problem is, as the game goes up in power....things become more common. For example, the higher level you go, the more chance a character has to running into creatures immune to sneak attack damage.

But I think there is too much focus on ''targeting'' a PC, I don't do that. I'm an Old School DM: if I wanted a character dead I'd just have rocks fall.

It's "targetting" a PC if it is something that you put in there because you thought, "This will screw with Bob!" or "This will teach him not to [X]!"

It's "targetting" a PC if you build everything to be strong against their specific strengths, and to have powerful abilities that strike at their specific weaknesses.

Are your PCs immune to the kinds of strengths that your monsters have as often as your monsters are immune to the PCs' strengths? If the answer isn't "yes, and maybe a little more often," then you're probably targetting the PCs. Or your players are just plain bad at the game. This implies they're not nearly the "problem players" you make them out to be, as well. Since problem players would likely have Schroedinger's Character'd their builds to be conveniently immune to whatever your attack du jour is.

Knaight

2015-01-21, 08:31 PM

Yeah, if they have that big, looming ship with the capital weapon, and never get to face something bigger and less maneuverable, that's probably a problem with the game as it's being run.
I didn't intend to derail this thread as much as I did with the example, the point was that there's a general, broad, any system GMing skill here, and as such screwing up tends to get a little less slack than anything involving system quirks.

That said, I think I explained the ship poorly here. It's not a big, looming ship with a capital weapon, it's significantly larger than a one person fighter or a drone, and it's packing a capital weapon intended for larger ships than it, along with some laser banks intended for smaller ships than it.

The system uses an exponential scale system, where each point of scale represents a ship 2*sqrt(2) times as massive as the previous ship (I adjusted it so that the ship would double in length every 2 scale, because I'm the sort of person who finds 2*sqrt(2) easier than the default 1.5). The ship in question is scale 3, with a gun that belongs on a scale 4 ship integrated into the hull. Scale 0 represents a one person fighter, a drone would generally be scale -1. There are scale 10 ships that are relatively common and in active use, and a decently sized space station will go above that. Scale 4-5 is not even a slightly big deal.

Now, if I were deliberately trying to thwart the players at every turn with no interest in little details like "setting cohesion", swarms of well piloted small craft are the way to do it. Sure, the scale system means that their damage is crap, and the ship's gunner is seriously good and can pick them off, but there's a limited firing arc. Metagame knowledge thus suggests getting right behind the tail with a swarm of tiny ships is a pretty good way to take that ship down. The easiest way to do it would be to sent a swarm of tiny ships, each of which is armed with one extremely over sized missile (or which just does a suicidal ram).

The players would also be totally right to call BS if I had a habit of doing that. They've gotten into scraps with fighters before, they've also taken shots at ships much larger than them, which is what the Schrodinger's Hummingbird excels at. They've even had enemies come with strategies tailored against them. Nobody called BS on that either, as I'd established some degree of trust by not pulling that nonsense in the rest of the campaign. Plus, they'd had a run-in with this ship before, had insulted its captain over communications, captured the second in command for a bounty under the captain's nose, and had rescued a hostage that said captain had taken. Said captain was also established as a prideful pirate - him coming back wasn't exactly outlandish, which gave some amount of clearance for the new people he'd recruited bringing some very useful skills that most emphatically weren't there during the last fight.

Solaris

2015-01-21, 08:47 PM

Personally, so long as I got experience points and I'm somewhere around the WBL I'm supposed to be... honestly, I wouldn't balk at an animated object guardian or hoard scarabs as a boobytrap. Not everything has to turn out as a complete win for the PCs, and finding piles of gold has a tendency to make the game go wonky.
You find weirder things in dungeons - why wouldn't they be on the surface, too? Just because it's not underground doesn't mean that it can't be as bizarre and magical as the stuff in a dungeon.

When you say "gold draconian" mayor do you mean he is a gold dragon or that he just has a gold dragon in his bloodline? I see no reason why a truly lawful good character would ever keep a safe full of potentially lethal gold scarab beetles, even to deter thieves. At worst there might be some nonlethal traps like symbol of stunning or sepia serpent sigil. Obviously if it's just a person with gold dragon heritage then it depends entirely on that person's actual alignment.

A little from A, a little from B.
The mayor's an aurak draconian (http://dragonlancenexus.com/lexicon/index.php?title=Aurak_Draconian), if I'm not mistaken. And if I'm not... meh, it's always worthwhile to point out Dragonlance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonlance).

goto124

2015-01-21, 09:31 PM

Can I keep the goldbugs? They're so cute!

And the candlestick too!

jedipotter

2015-01-21, 10:30 PM

Can I keep the goldbugs? They're so cute!

And the candlestick too!

Yes, you may keep them all.

NichG

2015-01-21, 10:56 PM

Odd, your only two reactions are ''well this will be a goofy TOON game'' or ''metagame thinking''. I wonder why one of your things is not just ''well that happened, lets just keep gaming"?

Because, as I said, I don't trust DMs that pull that kind of thing. 'Well that happened, just keep gaming" is, IMO, bad DMing, because everything should be connected eventually to things which are meaningful and actionable within the game world. Arbitrariness is bad, hidden depths are good. So, if I trust a DM, I always will assume hidden depths, because if they were an arbitrary DM then, ipso facto, I would not trust them.

For my favorite DMs, the ones I trust, I can assume that any detail they place in the world has a deeper meaning, and - here's the thing - even if it didn't, they'll notice my interest and make there be one.

The problem here, I bring up yet again is: there is no way for the players to know anything. My game ends, and everyone goes home. The only way for players to know things, would be to end the game, and then hang out and have the DM explain everything in detail(''the animated candlestick is part of a plot where your characters will encounter an evil spellcaster making constructs. But remember your characters don't know that, so please pretend like your characters don't know'')

What's on screen is what's real. You could have a very complex and deep set of reasons for things, but unless you as the DM make those things come up on-screen, then they do not exist. So if you have a very deep and compelling reason for something and yet you fail to communicate that to the players, that's a failing on your part as the DM. It means that, effectively, you didn't actually have such a reason. As you say, the players can't know the 'base truth' (more to the point, there is no such thing as a 'base truth'), so if you fail to let them know then that's how you'll be judged. Some players will judge you after one session, others will wait ten sessions and then say 'hey, you never made that candlestick relevant, what gives?'.

For example, one campaign had us in a sort of pocket demiplane where we could sacrifice XP to power up the demiplane and restore it to function. At one point we, in character, learned about the existence of technology (and by extension, video games). I concluded, in character, that there was something very video-gamey, very amusement-park-like about our situation. It turned out that this was in fact the case and there was a reason behind that, and me figuring that out in advance gave us a slight edge.

Before I said something, was it the case? I can't know. Maybe the DM said to himself 'Crap, thats not my intent, but he's right. I'd better change it' or maybe he said 'That's a cool idea, I'll go with it', or maybe he said 'Aha, all according to plan'. But none of that matters - what I perceived as a player was that I could take what happened in the world seriously and think deeply about its meaning, and that that thought could pay off. Even if it was all fake, it was very enjoyable.

Because of this, its perfectly okay to use illusions and lies to convince the players that things are deep. And if you succeed, then you're a better DM for it! Of course, if you do it artlessly and get caught, then its bad. What you have written down behind the screen doesn't matter - its just a methodology for creating consistency in your game and distancing your emotions from the game world, but if you can achieve those things without it then you don't need it.

jedipotter

2015-01-22, 12:37 AM

For my favorite DMs, the ones I trust, I can assume that any detail they place in the world has a deeper meaning, and - here's the thing - even if it didn't, they'll notice my interest and make there be one.

This is a good answer. It does leave me with the ''well guess all players will just be random'' problem though...

What's on screen is what's real. You could have a very complex and deep set of reasons for things, but unless you as the DM make those things come up on-screen, then they do not exist. So if you have a very deep and compelling reason for something and yet you fail to communicate that to the players, that's a failing on your part as the DM. It means that, effectively, you didn't actually have such a reason. As you say, the players can't know the 'base truth' (more to the point, there is no such thing as a 'base truth'), so if you fail to let them know then that's how you'll be judged. Some players will judge you after one session, others will wait ten sessions and then say 'hey, you never made that candlestick relevant, what gives?'.

This might just be play styles. It would seem that most DM's only ''drop'' a couple little things, and then have them pay off almost immediately. And almost always do the ''wrap up'' so ''everyone knows''.

In my game, I drop tons of things of all sizes every couple of minutes. And there are few quick pay offs. And stuff often takes several games to even get close to a ''wrap'', but most won't be ''sure''.

It's like PC's escape down into the sewers from some evil cultists. And encounter some drow with fiendish grafts! They kill all the drow, and continue on with the ''cult adventure''. Three games later they encounter a half fiend sorcerer who is putting fiendish grafts onto evil guardsmen. The group exposes the sorcerer, and kills all the effected guardsmen.

And, humm, the drow they killed in the sewer had fiendish grafts....maybe they got there grafts from the evil sorcerer too? Maybe they were working together? Maybe..... But all the players have are questions, not answers. And the players have thirty other things they can track down at any give time....so they can't investigate everything. A lot is just left ''unknown''.

Grod_The_Giant

2015-01-22, 12:58 AM

This might just be play styles.
It's not. It's a basic fact of gaming: the only things relevant to the game are the ones the player sees. Does that mean that the setting is otherwise static? No. But having an organic setting isn't an end-- it's only desirable insofar as it improves the experience of the players. That's not "player-centric," that's "group-centric:" as NichG noted, if the group doesn't see something, it might as well not exist. Your setting might be sprawling and interconnected, but the group is only ever going to see a little piece of it at a time, and that piece needs to be as consistent as the whole.

jedipotter

2015-01-22, 01:14 AM

It's not. It's a basic fact of gaming: the only things relevant to the game are the ones the player sees. Does that mean that the setting is otherwise static? No. But having an organic setting isn't an end-- it's only desirable insofar as it improves the experience of the players. That's not "player-centric," that's "group-centric:" as NichG noted, if the group doesn't see something, it might as well not exist. Your setting might be sprawling and interconnected, but the group is only ever going to see a little piece of it at a time, and that piece needs to be as consistent as the whole.

I have no problem saying my game is unique.

But, in a round-a-bout way....this does answer my question. Most players are looking for the easy, simple, straightforward, obvious pay offs. Or again, they are playing D&D the same way they watch TV or a movie.

Or in other words, people are applying Chekhov's gun to D&D. That makes perfect sense.....

Now that is an answer!

afroakuma

2015-01-22, 01:18 AM

But, in a round-a-bout way....this does answer my question. Most players are looking for the easy, simple, straightforward, obvious pay offs.

So what you were looking for all along is for people to insult "most players" on your behalf? Because that's not even remotely true. Nor is it what Grod said.

Or in other words, people are applying Chekhov's gun to D&D.

Wrong trope. You're looking for this one, (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfConservationOfDetail) of which Chekhov's anything is a subset.

jedipotter

2015-01-22, 02:05 AM

So what you were looking for all along is for people to insult "most players" on your behalf? Because that's not even remotely true. Nor is it what Grod said.

And how is it not true? Players are expecting a very, very limited game. Again, exactly like a TV show. So if the DM points out anything, it must be important. And the player will nicely expect it to come up, soon, before the end of the game. Again, like watching most TV shows.

I guess that sounds bad to you? Ok? But that is the reason that, for example, Cop Shows/CSI/Whatever shows are popular: they are simple, straightforward ''catch the bad guys'' type shows.

Wrong trope. You're looking for this one, (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfConservationOfDetail) of which Chekhov's anything is a subset.

Eh, potato, potatoe.

But the end result is the same. I think RPGs are a unique form of entertainment. Lots of players think ''well it's just like watching TV/a movie''.

Milo v3

2015-01-22, 02:19 AM

And how is it not true? Players are expecting a very, very limited game. Again, exactly like a TV show. So if the DM points out anything, it must be important. And the player will nicely expect it to come up, soon, before the end of the game. Again, like watching most TV shows.
If the players expect every single thing mentioned to come up latter, then they are either very foolish or your setting is 99% chekov guns and you're being foolish.

afroakuma

2015-01-22, 02:19 AM

And how is it not true?

What evidence do you have to support that your sweeping generalization of an abstract group is true? You're going by nothing more than your own unsupported inference off of what one other person said, purely because it supports the position you have always believed to be true.

If you want to believe that players are the enemy, go ahead, but stop belaboring the rest of us with it like it's a lesson we desperately need to learn so we can play the game better. Most players, and I can only draw on my own experience and those of my peers here, but most players of my acquaintance want a deep and involving play experience that they can really participate in, one that's not laid out on rails with everything highlighted for them. Many players, and this I base on the well-known concept of "railroading" and its common perception as a negative quality, do not want the DM to put up big red arrows saying Go Here Do This, and may even actively ignore the DM's guide indicators when they reek too much of railroading.

D&D is in fact not a TV show, and it is precisely for that reason that players can and should expect that their investment in the activity pay dividends for them, because it is an interactive experience that they contribute directly to. It's part of the DM's responsibility to perceive and respond to that - but of course, that's something you wholeheartedly disbelieve.

Eh, potato, potatoe. But the end result is the same. I think RPGs are a unique form of entertainment. Lots of players think ''well it's just like watching TV/a movie''.

You have it backwards. Your every position on the game, whether you realize it or not (as apparently you do not) is that it's a movie or TV show that you direct and they watch and occasionally say lines from. {scrubbed}

NichG

2015-01-22, 06:44 AM

This is a good answer. It does leave me with the ''well guess all players will just be random'' problem though...

Randomness is generally a sign of boredom I think, sort of a fallback of 'well, this isn't what I want, lets spin the wheel'. It means that something has already not really worked, but the people being random are having a hard time just coming out and saying what they want to be different.

You can use it as a barometer. Put a magic bag in your game that whenever someone reaches into it, they get a random item out based on a d100 roll. Make the good things kinda nice one-use items and the like, and the bad things mostly funny or annoying but not really seriously dangerous (or, you can make them 'ominous' rather than 'dangerous'). After the first hour or so of messing with it, if players go for the bag during game its a sign they either don't know what they want to do next, are stuck on something or they're just bored with what's going on.

This might just be play styles. It would seem that most DM's only ''drop'' a couple little things, and then have them pay off almost immediately. And almost always do the ''wrap up'' so ''everyone knows''.

In my game, I drop tons of things of all sizes every couple of minutes. And there are few quick pay offs. And stuff often takes several games to even get close to a ''wrap'', but most won't be ''sure''.

That's okay, but you have to be prepared to follow through with whatever stuff you drop. If you aren't then it ends up being kind of like the player who wants to steal all the light fixtures - e.g. its random behavior (but this time, on the DM's part).

It's like PC's escape down into the sewers from some evil cultists. And encounter some drow with fiendish grafts! They kill all the drow, and continue on with the ''cult adventure''. Three games later they encounter a half fiend sorcerer who is putting fiendish grafts onto evil guardsmen. The group exposes the sorcerer, and kills all the effected guardsmen.

This is an example of having good follow-through. You provided a hint at a future piece of information, and if the players took it seriously and prepared based on it then their preparation could pay off (e.g. they could predict 'huh, maybe I should get some cold iron and alchemical silver weapons because we might be dealing with fiends!' or whatever).

The mayor and the gold coin bug thing on the other hand is problematic for two reasons. One is that the mayor is already irrelevant by the time you introduce the evidence of his weird insect hobby. Its hard to see how it could be relevant in the future, unless you jump to some very extreme conclusions (like my 'the secret behind the campaign is that its a cartoon' conclusion).

The other problem is that there's a more obvious meta-game conclusion that players can easily make, and so if you don't give them something else to latch on to then that's the one they'll go for. That is to say, 'the DM just wanted to punish us for derailing things' is a lot more likely than the cartoon scenario. The only thing weighing against that conclusion is how much the players trust you, and that's informed by what happened in the past when there were random things like this. If you pulled things like this in the past and they never really went anywhere, players are going to give you less leeway and you have to make the payoffs more immediate to get their trust back. If you pulled things like this in the past and 20 games later suddenly they were the key to the whole mystery, players are more likely to give you leeway to see where you're going with things, because its really cool when someone pulls that kind of thing off.

prufock

2015-01-22, 08:55 AM

In the midst of the OP's unsupported assertions about the imaginary "most players" is this -

It's not just ''weakness'', it's ''common sense''. It's like the foes having missile weapons to shoot at flying invaders. This is not amazing in my mind.
Arrows are a) relatively cheap and b) useful against a wide variety of enemies. Cold iron weapons are a) relatively expensive and b) useful to a narrow range of enemies. If a PC has DR X/cold iron and all of your enemies are suddenly equipped with cold iron weapons despite having no prior knowledge of the PCs' abilities, you are metagaming unfairly.

Here is a quick litmus test to tell if you are using legitimate common sense or metagaming: would your challenge be exactly the same if you had no more knowledge of the PCs' builds and items than the enemies do? The degree to which the challenges would be different is the degree of metagaming. This is easy to test. Tell players you don't want to know what items they buy or feats they take or classes they build. If you are suddenly unable to counter them without inserting things on the fly, you are likely unfairly negating their abilities. This is a matter of degrees. All DMs use metagame knowledge to an extent, as do all players. How poorly you do this depends on 1) frequency and 2) extent.

Nettlekid

2015-01-22, 09:36 AM

The other problem is that there's a more obvious meta-game conclusion that players can easily make, and so if you don't give them something else to latch on to then that's the one they'll go for. That is to say, 'the DM just wanted to punish us for derailing things' is a lot more likely than the cartoon scenario.

This is actually something I wanted to ask about a long while ago before the topic got onto the subject of "how much information is a DM obligated to give vs. how much information should the players beg and sob for?"

I think it's pretty obvious to everyone involved, to the DM, to the players, and to all of us reading in the forum, that the DM did not plan to have bugs in the vault from the very beginning and immediately decided to insert them because they didn't want to the players to make off with tons of gold. Arguably this is a betrayal of trust on the part of the DM, for not playing straight and rewriting/retconning stuff for their own purposes. Which is bad, as has been discussed in this thread.

But I want to ask, are the actions of the players a betrayal of trust as well? The players and the DM both know how the game is played, and while it has huge amounts of flexibility, there are guidelines that a DM will often put up. For example, wealth by level. I think it's entirely reasonable for that same DM to say, OoC "Okay guys, hang on. Yeah, your robbery in progress is going really well. But...come on. I don't want this four-person level 3 party to have 100,000 gold to split between them. That is just entirely too much gold for you to have, and you know it. Can you just not? I don't have any good in-character reason for you not getting it because you've bypassed the traps that exist to keep mundane burglars out, and you're literally standing in front of tons of money that you're really not meant to have." I think that's a reasonable attitude to have, but it sounds weak and limp when voiced like that. If the DM were to simply make that gold inaccessible to the players somehow, such as by turning it all into bugs, is that a terrible solution to that problem?

Necroticplague

2015-01-22, 09:55 AM

ZamielVanWeber

2015-01-22, 10:01 AM

It's still not a good solution because it doesn't make much sense in the world. Not much is wrong with changes if they still make sense. As I mentioned earlier, having the obvious safe be a "dummy" with a relative pittance accomplishes the same goal, while making more sense. As would the gold being an illusion, which is revealed to be leaves 1d4 hours later. Or combine all of these, and the dummy safe is a pittance of fake gold,while the door sends a Message to the gaurd that will cause them to come to get the PCs.

Unless I am mistaken there is an item (Faerie Gold?) that does exactly that, so it is not without precedence. Another option is to simply have the mayor not have much in the way of gold stashed where the PCs can reasonably find it. If the mayor is fantastically wealthy (such as by being a dragon) and is living where that gold is more at risk due to population, he is more likely to spend a relative pittance to put up more serious defenses and, depending on his age category, put up some spells himself.

Grod_The_Giant

2015-01-22, 10:33 AM

IMost players are looking for the easy, simple, straightforward, obvious pay offs. Or again, they are playing D&D the same way they watch TV or a movie.
Yeah, sure, in that they are expecting the world and plot as they are presented to make sense. Imagine paying $10 bucks to watch a movie, only to have it be a jumbled, inconsistent mess. When you complain to your buddy who recommended it, he says "oh, well, I guess it only makes sense if you've seen these other movies and watched this TV show and read these books"-- none of which were clearly part of the same story, and which came out years apart. Would you be upset? Because that's kind of what it sounds like you're doing with your world-- presenting a jumbled mess and saying "oh, I guess it makes senses if you knew these random connections to things I introduced last year."

Look, I'm not saying everything has to be immedietly clear. Mystery are a vital part of any good plot or setting. But a mystery needs a resolution, or else it's just a plot hole. How long it takes to get to that point should depend on how important the mystery is. "How is the BBEG getting his power?" is a main plot, so it can take most of the campaign to solve-- it's the focus of the game, and a lot of game time can be devoted to it. "Where did these gargoyles come from" is, at best, a sidequest (at least as you described the situation), and as such shouldn't take more than a session or two to clear up-- it's a distraction from the main focus of the game, and you don't want to take a lot of time away from said focus. A "what the heck are these monsters doing here" random encounter should have an immedietly obvious answer, because, well, it's a random encounter--it's a fight completely unrelated to the focus of not just the game, but the current session, and hence should take as little time away from that as possible.

And before you go off on "lazy players wanting everything handed to them," remember that gaming time is often a precious resource. Most of us aren't teenagers on summer break anymore-- we've got classes, jobs, even families, as do our friends. When you can only free up a few hours every week or two, or three, or four, you want to get the most out of that time. And as real time between sessions grows, it becomes harder and harder to call back on them. An inconsistent background detail from a month ago isn't going to remain a lingering mystery in my mind until you deign to clear it up-- it's going to get filed as "plot hole" and forgotten about, and when you wave it in my face next month, I'll probably just go "huh?"

NichG

2015-01-22, 11:42 AM

But I want to ask, are the actions of the players a betrayal of trust as well? The players and the DM both know how the game is played, and while it has huge amounts of flexibility, there are guidelines that a DM will often put up. For example, wealth by level. I think it's entirely reasonable for that same DM to say, OoC "Okay guys, hang on. Yeah, your robbery in progress is going really well. But...come on. I don't want this four-person level 3 party to have 100,000 gold to split between them. That is just entirely too much gold for you to have, and you know it. Can you just not? I don't have any good in-character reason for you not getting it because you've bypassed the traps that exist to keep mundane burglars out, and you're literally standing in front of tons of money that you're really not meant to have." I think that's a reasonable attitude to have, but it sounds weak and limp when voiced like that. If the DM were to simply make that gold inaccessible to the players somehow, such as by turning it all into bugs, is that a terrible solution to that problem?

I don't like bringing in concepts like 'betrayal of trust', because I think that kind of thing turns a game into a debate, or an 'issue' on which there's a moral high ground. Whether one or the other side ends up demonstrating that they hold the moral high ground, you've still ended up with a lot of sore feelings on both sides and it tends to kill enthusiasm for the game. (Of course we have no such constraint on this forum since we're not players in the game, but in general telling someone 'I wouldn't enjoy that game' is less likely to make them get defensive than 'your game is wrong')

So rather than focus on the angle 'the players betrayed the DM, so maybe the DM can betray the players', I'd rather focus on the core problem here: the players are about to get far more gold than will make for a fun campaign.

As a DM, you have a lot of options here. Three I'd recommend would be:

1. Take the humble road and explain the situation out of character, and ask the players to give it a pass.

2. The amount of gold is different, and instead there's some valuable and mysterious object which, perhaps, the mayor paid a large chunk of that gold for. You've turned 'destabilizing amount of wealth' into 'potential plot hook' and at the same time if you spin it right you can convince the players you've actually given them something better than massive amounts of gold, if the object turns out to be something cool. I'd call that the 'uptick' approach - you're trying to raise the positive emotions even higher in order to sleight of hand away a mild disappointment.

3. The vault has already been looted, recently, and there's a calling card and the signs of a teleportation effect. This is the 'downtick' approach: you're recognizing that the players will be upset, and you're giving them a concrete outlet for their unhappiness. You've, again, created a plot hook which you can go somewhere interesting with, and you've given the PCs a reason to hate this new villain (stealing from a PC is the only unforgivable crime, after all). It doesn't feel as much like a jerk move because the PCs can actively decide to pursue the thief, especially if you leave a bunch of clues. It's a setback rather than a slap in the face - that gold will belong to the PCs eventually, but you're just stringing things out.

All three of those approaches are the kind of things I'd expect from good or promising DMs. In case #1, the DM recognizes their screwup and admits to it rather than letting it poison the game. That may not speak to skill, but it does build trust. In cases #2 and #3, the DM turns what would have been a problem into an opportunity, and also creates a way in which something coincidental will end up having been crucial, which makes for a good story ("let me tell you about the one time that a petty bandit raid ended up restoring the kingdom of Atlantis and earning me a crown...").

The gold bugs just feel like a dead end, and that commits the sin of not being interesting.

Flickerdart

2015-01-22, 11:56 AM

A 3rd level party gets their hands on 100,000 gold coins. That's a lot of weight, and a very juicy target for basically anybody (remember how much dragons love gold?) so doing anything useful with it is going to be a plot point in and of itself.

RoboEmperor

2015-01-22, 02:29 PM

jedipotter

2015-01-22, 04:15 PM

What evidence do you have to support that your sweeping generalization of an abstract group is true? You're going by nothing more than your own unsupported inference off of what one other person said, purely because it supports the position you have always believed to be true.

I'm one of the Other People, that are Not Like You. I can say things like ''Most Americans like Pizza'', know it to be true and not have to have ''proof''.

If you want to believe that players are the enemy, go ahead, but stop belaboring the rest of us with it like it's a lesson we desperately need to learn so we can play the game better. Most players, and I can only draw on my own experience and those of my peers here, but most players of my acquaintance want a deep and involving play experience that they can really participate in, one that's not laid out on rails with everything highlighted for them.

Plenty of people on the other pages have said ''if something happens that is part of the bigger story/plot, then that is ok...but only if it's part of that.'' They did not want ''random'' things just to ''pop'' up and things left ''unconnected/unsolved/unused''.

Many players, and this I base on the well-known concept of "railroading" and its common perception as a negative quality, do not want the DM to put up big red arrows saying Go Here Do This, and may even actively ignore the DM's guide indicators when they reek too much of railroading.

Players think ''railroading is bad'' the same way everyone thinks ''evil is bad''.

D&D is in fact not a TV show, and it is precisely for that reason that players can and should expect that their investment in the activity pay dividends for them, because it is an interactive experience that they contribute directly to. It's part of the DM's responsibility to perceive and respond to that - but of course, that's something you wholeheartedly disbelieve.

Players seems to expect D&D plots to be exactly like Tv plots: very simple and straightforward.

You have it backwards. Your every position on the game, whether you realize it or not (as apparently you do not) is that it's a movie or TV show that you direct and they watch and occasionally say lines from. The fact that you'd claim the opposite is bafflingly hilarious. Do you read your own posts when you're done with them?

I'm talking about the plot. Act 1: problem happens and characters need to solve it. They find clues, but only the clues that lead them in the right direction. Act 2: The twist. It looked simple, but something did not add up. But look more relevant clues! Act 3: clue 1 plus clue 3 equal answer, and climax. And sure you can throw in a Red Herring to pad the plot a bit, but it does not change anything.

Here is a quick litmus test to tell if you are using legitimate common sense or metagaming: would your challenge be exactly the same if you had no more knowledge of the PCs' builds and items than the enemies do? .

Saddly this does not help much. I have an amazing mind, so I do think of lots of things. But not everyone thinks like me. I think an NPC of at least 10 INT would prepare for common things like ''flying foes'', ''foes immune to fire damage'' and so forth. But a lot of others think bad guys should be more ''silly, dumb and cartoonish''.

OldTrees1

2015-01-22, 04:26 PM

jedipotter

2015-01-22, 04:37 PM

@jedipotter

RPGs are interactive and players only receive information from the DM. As a result the players are expected to make meaningful choices(requires information). The more complex the plot the DM wants to present, the more information is needed to make meaningful choices pertaining to the plot. If you want to provide plots that are more complex than TV plots (a worthy goal most DMs pursue), then you need to give the players more information that a TV show would give the protagonist (which in turn is more than the TV show gives the audience). Yes this means skill checks, detailed descriptions, and background information are your friend.

This comes back to the original problem: My world is full, over flowing with stuff. A typical town has tons and tons and tons and tons of stuff about it.....but only like three of them have anything to do with the current main focus game plot. The rest go with dozens of other things.

The back door of the Stumble Inn is animated and attacks anyone who gets close. This has nothing to do with the werewolf plot though, but is connected to three other plots. But to the players, all they know is ''hey that door came out of nowhere and attacked us!''

And players get two choices:

1.''Eh, it's part of the game lets keep playing''

or

2.''Stupid DM! He just made that door out of nowhere to attack our characters for no reason!

My basic question is why do half of player say one, and the other half say two.....

...And the answer would seem to be ''too many players are caught up in TV style plots''

Vhaidara

2015-01-22, 04:42 PM

1.''Eh, it's part of the game lets keep playing''

or

2.''Stupid DM! He just made that door out of nowhere to attack our characters for no reason!

My basic question is why do half of player say one, and the other half say two.....

...And the answer would seem to be ''too many players are caught up in TV style plots''

Maybe because you're completely wrong? They could decide to instead investigate why the door of a tavern is attacking people. {scrubbed}

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-22, 04:44 PM

GreyBlack

2015-01-22, 04:56 PM

Ham sandwich. Mu. Emptiness. The question is invalid. That's why it's called Rule 0.

.... I love this quote so much.

kardar233

2015-01-22, 04:58 PM

Why does an inn have this door and no warning sign? Do they not like money? Because I could easily see having your backdoor (teehee) start attacking very muscular and very dangerous people as a quick way to being robbed or killed.

In this case, yes, I'd say that the DM is full of something, because it makes no sense even in context. This village have a dangerous door that attack people at random and have failed to do anything about their murderous door.

Exactly. The trick to having these sorts of things in an RPG is context. If the Stumble Inn has an animated back door, there should be other implications to that. Maybe they have a sign out front saying "The Stumble Inn; home of the famous Haunted Door of Misiful!" and it's something that travelers want to see as they go through the town. Maybe nobody goes through the back door because they can't get rid of it, so there's a note on the door before it saying "Don't go through here, the door will attack you."

This helps build the internal consistency of the world and shows the players that they're in a real, living place. However, if you don't show them this, they just have your word to go on as to the detailed nature of the world, because you haven't shown them any of it.

OldTrees1

2015-01-22, 05:00 PM

This comes back to the original problem: My world is full, over flowing with stuff. A typical town has tons and tons and tons and tons of stuff about it.....but only like three of them have anything to do with the current main focus game plot. The rest go with dozens of other things.

The back door of the Stumble Inn is animated and attacks anyone who gets close. This has nothing to do with the werewolf plot though, but is connected to three other plots. But to the players, all they know is ''hey that door came out of nowhere and attacked us!''

And players get two choices:

1.''Eh, it's part of the game lets keep playing''

or

2.''Stupid DM! He just made that door out of nowhere to attack our characters for no reason!

There are more than 2 choices there. For instance "asking the Stumble Inn innkeeper about the door". However let's take a look at the significant differences between #1 and #2 and see what they say about what would cause one or the other.

#2 sounds like either distrust(we believe the DM just put it there just to attack us) or confusion(huh, I cannot imagine a reason and that makes me suspicious that the DM just put it there to attack us). Now we will ignore the distrust part as the OP wants us to assume the players start off trusting the DM. So we have the other part. The players see a detail and can't connect it logically to the plot or the background(the non plot).

Now the player's inability to connect it logically usually implies lacking enough information to see the connection (this goes back to the "ask the innkeeper" option). In the case of plot, the players expect this and seek more information. In the case of background, the players decide if it would be interesting to figure out or not(again assuming they trust the DM to have a logical connection).

Now this brings up another point. When players receive too little information they begin grasping at straws and assuming the Law of Conservation of Detail. This Law is to be avoided because it collapses the difference between plot and background(non plot) details. Even worse is when the players, drowning in lack of information, start assuming the LCD when the DM is not using the LCD. Suddenly the background feature of an animated inn door suddenly becomes the player's best lead on the werewolf case.

Now that I have covered the case of the trusted DM, let me address the difference between the trusted DM and the baseline DM. With the trusted DM players have run into many situations like these and have been satisfied with an eventual logical answer to enough of them that they assume the logical answer exists regardless of whether it does or not. The baseline DM does not have such a good history(usually has no history) with the players. Different players are more/less prone to suspicion when this situations arise. Also the greater the confusion, the greater the tendency towards suspicion. It is important to remember that trust is earned.

My basic question is why do half of player say one, and the other half say two.....

...And the answer would seem to be ''too many players are caught up in TV style plots''
The answer might just be, that your data is collected from the position of a baseline DM and not from the position of a trusted DM. Although it is also possible your data is collected from the position of a trusted DM that restricts information too much.

jedipotter

2015-01-22, 05:44 PM

Maybe because you're completely wrong? They could decide to instead investigate why the door of a tavern is attacking people. {scrubbed}

And again, like I said, players encounter dozens of 'things' and hour. They can not just randomly stop and investigate everything.

Why does an inn have this door and no warning sign? Do they not like money? Because I could easily see having your backdoor (teehee) start attacking very muscular and very dangerous people as a quick way to being robbed or killed.

In this case, yes, I'd say that the DM is full of something, because it makes no sense even in context. This village have a dangerous door that attack people at random and have failed to do anything about their murderous door.

Sure, it seems like a thing out of context when a character just encounters it.....but then so does everything. The ''back door killer'' could have a whole little story, but the players won't just automatically know it. And anything can be explained away.

I don't believe in the world where everyone stops and reacts to every little thing, I like my world to be a bit more like ''no one cares''.

Exactly. The trick to having these sorts of things in an RPG is context. If the Stumble Inn has an animated back door, there should be other implications to that. Maybe they have a sign out front saying "The Stumble Inn; home of the famous Haunted Door of Misiful!" and it's something that travelers want to see as they go through the town. Maybe nobody goes through the back door because they can't get rid of it, so there's a note on the door before it saying "Don't go through here, the door will attack you."

Oh, I do this a lot. Should the characters bother to role play, they might get told about the ''backdoor''. But it's not like every NPC is a Video Game Mouthpiece(''Hail, beware the Stumble Inn's back door''). They will learn random things, and whatever is popular at the moment. Though they could always direct the conversation too, and out right ask about the Stumble Inn.

There are more than 2 choices there. For instance "asking the Stumble Inn innkeeper about the door".

Asking the innkeeper is doing number one, as that is they keep on playing the game and don't let it bother them.

The answer might just be, that your data is collected from the position of a baseline DM and not from the position of a trusted DM. Although it is also possible your data is collected from the position of a trusted DM that restricts information too much.

To new players, I'm a baseline DM, and that is what we are talking about. Anyone that has gamed with me a couple games never goes ''crazy'' over an animated door. It's just the new players.

Vhaidara

2015-01-22, 05:47 PM

And again, like I said, players encounter dozens of 'things' and hour. They can not just randomly stop and investigate everything.

Why can't they? It sounds as though you have a case of self fulfilling prophecy: Players will react in one of two ways because I won't allow them to do otherwise. That means it's you, not the players, who should be watching TV while people who enjoy exploring the world play the RPGs.

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-22, 05:51 PM

See the problem with that approach is that the players expect NPCs in most cases, to act like reasonable human beings. Especially the humans. So, things look a bit fishy when people don't care about murderous inanimate objects running around. Even if its a crazy world with talking magical robots and lizards, people expect some internal consistency. If things fail to meet up to this expectation, players are going to wonder WTF is going on behind the screen and might not come up with a flattering conclusion.

And why wouldn't I investigate the door? If it attacked me, its just as much of a threat to the populace as the dang werewolves from my perspective. Except the werewolves leave occasionally!

jedipotter

2015-01-22, 06:34 PM

Randomness is generally a sign of boredom I think, sort of a fallback of 'well, this isn't what I want, lets spin the wheel'. It means that something has already not really worked, but the people being random are having a hard time just coming out and saying what they want to be different.

Hummm, I see random as fun...

That's okay, but you have to be prepared to follow through with whatever stuff you drop. If you aren't then it ends up being kind of like the player who wants to steal all the light fixtures - e.g. its random behavior (but this time, on the DM's part).

Luckily I'm great at improvisation and I'm crazy prepared. I generally think up at least one thing per day. Killer Door is the door to warehouse C. The door sticks(plus the air pressure), and a lot of people just 'tap' the door, and then walk right into it. You can watch person after person do the 'tap', 'thump' and ''dam door! *SLAM*'' And so the animated door that attacks people was created.

This is an example of having good follow-through. You provided a hint at a future piece of information, and if the players took it seriously and prepared based on it then their preparation could pay off (e.g. they could predict 'huh, maybe I should get some cold iron and alchemical silver weapons because we might be dealing with fiends!' or whatever).

I do sprinkle stuff around a lot, though it works best if the players want to find the stuff.

The mayor and the gold coin bug thing on the other hand is problematic for two reasons. One is that the mayor is already irrelevant by the time you introduce the evidence of his weird insect hobby. Its hard to see how it could be relevant in the future, unless you jump to some very extreme conclusions (like my 'the secret behind the campaign is that its a cartoon' conclusion).

This is more of ''just a trap''. Goldbugs are Hazard type monsters. Dragons use them a lot(they don't bite dragonkind). The mayor as a ''dragon humanoid'' uses them. It's kinda like saying ''bet the dwarf has some ale on him'' or ''bet the elf has a musical instrument''.

The other problem is that there's a more obvious meta-game conclusion that players can easily make, and so if you don't give them something else to latch on to then that's the one they'll go for. That is to say, 'the DM just wanted to punish us for derailing things' is a lot more likely than the cartoon scenario. The only thing weighing against that conclusion is how much the players trust you, and that's informed by what happened in the past when there were random things like this. If you pulled things like this in the past and they never really went anywhere, players are going to give you less leeway and you have to make the payoffs more immediate to get their trust back. If you pulled things like this in the past and 20 games later suddenly they were the key to the whole mystery, players are more likely to give you leeway to see where you're going with things, because its really cool when someone pulls that kind of thing off.

Makes sense.

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-22, 06:52 PM

My way is the hard way. The players must think and reason and decide. They get no ''dice help''

It does seem pretty hard...Since everything is random, people don't react to things and yet players must make some sort of logical sense of this to make decisions and abilities purchased don't mean anything. I assume you tell them that their skills won't later before character creation, yes? I'm actually going to say, a DM doing this is going too far for me, I don't see how I could enjoy an RPing a character in this world. This isn't the type of game for me, I enjoy an engaging story and solving puzzles.

Milo v3

2015-01-22, 06:58 PM

And again, like I said, players encounter dozens of 'things' and hour. They can not just randomly stop and investigate everything.
Then that is your fault, not the players.

Sure, it seems like a thing out of context when a character just encounters it.....but then so does everything. The ''back door killer'' could have a whole little story, but the players won't just automatically know it. And anything can be explained away.
So why don't you let them get the explainations?

I don't believe in the world where everyone stops and reacts to every little thing, I like my world to be a bit more like ''no one cares''.
... but that's not how sentient life works from every example we have on the planet.... Do your settings lack any form of sentient life?

jedipotter

2015-01-22, 07:22 PM

It does seem pretty hard...Since everything is random, people don't react to things and yet players must make some sort of logical sense of this to make decisions and abilities purchased don't mean anything. I assume you tell them that their skills won't later before character creation, yes? I'm actually going to say, a DM doing this is going too far for me, I don't see how I could enjoy an RPing a character in this world. This isn't the type of game for me, I enjoy an engaging story and solving puzzles.

Well....everything is not random. People do react to things. Players do make sense of things.

And, yes, my skills changes are part of my houserules.

I think it's odd that your saying you can only role play when information is given to you by a dice roll.

Your way?: Player: ''My character Zom stands in the street. **Roll** got a 40, DM tell me where a tavern is. DM: ''Zom remembers when he learned everything that the Happy Harpy Tavern is on the corner of main and 3rd."

My way: Player: ''My character Zom walks down main street, does he see any taverns?'' DM: "Yes, the Happy Harpy Tavern is on the corner of main and 3rd."

Then that is your fault, not the players.

Um, what is my fault? That I can't bend time and space and make the game last 72 hours?

So why don't you let them get the explainations?

It's not ''me'', it's ''Time''. If they wanted to say abandon the plot of ''werewolfs and barn beholders'' they are more then welcome to spend the next two hours of game time running all around the town to fully investigate the ''Killer Back Door''.

... but that's not how sentient life works from every example we have on the planet.... Do your settings lack any form of sentient life?

How life works? What? That is not how ''sentient life works''. When a candlestick in the king's castle animates and attacks someone, the whole town of 500 people does not charge over and go ''we must solve this mystery now!''. Same way, people disappear everyday, and all sorts of strange things happen everyday....but the whole world does not react.

Necroticplague

2015-01-22, 07:22 PM

I do sprinkle stuff around a lot, though it works best if the players want to find the stuff.

I don't believe in the world where everyone stops and reacts to every little thing, I like my world to be a bit more like ''no one cares''.
Don't these two contradict? If nobody cares, they don't want to find the stuff, and if they want to find the stuff, their going to react in an attempt to find the stuff.

This is more of ''just a trap''. Goldbugs are Hazard type monsters. Dragons use them a lot(they don't bite dragonkind). The mayor as a ''dragon humanoid'' uses them. It's kinda like saying ''bet the dwarf has some ale on him'' or ''bet the elf has a musical instrument''.

Except that goldbugs make for a crappy security system, and there purpose would be much better served by a lot of other things that make more sense. Is it to stop them from getting gold? The safe bearing a similar enchantment to Faerie Gold would do the same thing, without requiring the upkeep associated with having living things in what would otherwise be an unlivable environment. It is to kill the people who try and loot the safe? A Slay Living trap that targets any non-dragons that open the safe does the same thing, with more efficiency and less maintenance. Is it to distract them? A Message that gets sent to the guard while the safe is empty fulfills the same purpose. And a gold dragon should be smart enough to realize all of these, and thus use the more sensible option. Magic traps aren't detected by Mindsight, Blindsight, blindsense, lifesense, detect thoughts, detect poison, and don't automatically fail against undead, constructs, other dragons trying to steal from him, or those who can emulate the previous 3 long enough to recognize this for what it is.Or anyone with a damaging aura effect. A dragon should be able to know that, and thus pick the more sensible way to defend it.

jedipotter

2015-01-22, 08:18 PM

Don't these two contradict? If nobody cares, they don't want to find the stuff, and if they want to find the stuff, their going to react in an attempt to find the stuff.

Part of the fun of being DM is creating stuff and sprinkling it around. If players ignore it, I don't care.
Though I avoid gaming with pure combat hack and slashers, and other types I don't get along with(like Tome of Battle users).

Except that goldbugs make for a crappy security system,

This is a matter of viewpoint.

I don't have every NPC have super awesome stuff....sometimes it's not so great.

Now to a hard core roll playing min/maxer player that goes by-the-book, sure, goldbugs are crap. Give them a couple minutes and they can make a crazy safe using all sorts of ''interpretations'' and 'vagueness' in the rules. And that is great. But it's not how i game.

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-22, 08:23 PM

I don't have every NPC have super awesome stuff....sometimes it's not so great.

Now to a hard core roll playing min/maxer player that goes by-the-book, sure, goldbugs are crap. Give them a couple minutes and they can make a crazy safe using all sorts of ''interpretations'' and 'vagueness' in the rules. And that is great. But it's not how i game.

What kind of thief really balks at putting their hand into a pile of dead bugs and poop? I'd pretty sure it'd stink to high heaven, but...I think even a non min-maxer would find that dead bugs to be pretty easily surmountable unless all of the enemies had scent. I think what people are asking for is HOW the bugs remained alive. Bugs can be difficult to keep alive, ask anyone who raises them to feed to other animals.

newb

2015-01-22, 08:26 PM

Necroticplague

2015-01-22, 09:01 PM

Part of the fun of being DM is creating stuff and sprinkling it around. If players ignore it, I don't care.
That doesn't really answer my question. Wanting to find all the things and not caring are essentially opposed states, and you can't reasonably expect them to be both. How do you reconcile those?

This is a matter of viewpoint.

I don't have every NPC have super awesome stuff....sometimes it's not so great.

Now to a hard core roll playing min/maxer player that goes by-the-book, sure, goldbugs are crap. Give them a couple minutes and they can make a crazy safe using all sorts of ''interpretations'' and 'vagueness' in the rules. And that is great. But it's not how i game.No, its not a matter of viewpoint. Things that can be relatively easily overcome, and require maintenance, are strictly inferior to things that take more effort to overcome and are entirely self sustaining.

Things that are better than some idiotic bugs are not 'super awesome stuff', nor does it require abusing any rules. Half the freaking school of abjuration is made for this kind of stuff, and the "fake gold" suggestion is just a slight modification of an existing magic item.

Nettlekid

2015-01-22, 09:06 PM

Vhaidara

2015-01-22, 09:08 PM

Necroticplague

2015-01-22, 09:10 PM

We did 2. They either died or got locked.

Ooh, I saw the one that died, do you have a link to the one that got locked?

Nettlekid

2015-01-22, 09:12 PM

Ooh, I saw the one that died, do you have a link to the one that got locked?

Seconded. This I would love to see.
Still, third time's the charm?

Vhaidara

2015-01-22, 09:16 PM

Ooh, I saw the one that died, do you have a link to the one that got locked?

They may have both died. I know the one I was in died, and I heard the other one ended up locked.

OldTrees1

2015-01-22, 09:42 PM

Asking the innkeeper is doing number one, as that is they keep on playing the game and don't let it bother them.

To new players, I'm a baseline DM, and that is what we are talking about. Anyone that has gamed with me a couple games never goes ''crazy'' over an animated door. It's just the new players.

Asking the innkeeper is not necessarily the same as #1 since it was an example of "the door bothered me and causes me to double check the DM" xor "the door did not bother me and causes me to double check the DM".

I thought we were talking about players that trusted their DM. If we are talking about new players, and thus baseline DM, then my advise would be to be less suspicious until they get to know you (since this forum's reaction to you should be an indicator that you are harder than normal to get along with).

Knaight

2015-01-22, 10:13 PM

I think it's odd that your saying you can only role play when information is given to you by a dice roll.

Your way?: Player: ''My character Zom stands in the street. **Roll** got a 40, DM tell me where a tavern is. DM: ''Zom remembers when he learned everything that the Happy Harpy Tavern is on the corner of main and 3rd."

My way: Player: ''My character Zom walks down main street, does he see any taverns?'' DM: "Yes, the Happy Harpy Tavern is on the corner of main and 3rd."

Nobody is saying that they can only role play when information is given to them by a dice roll. What is being said is that information being withheld from them when their character really should know it makes it harder to play the character.

Hazrond

2015-01-22, 10:23 PM

jedipotter

2015-01-22, 11:42 PM

Bugs can be difficult to keep alive, ask anyone who raises them to feed to other animals.

Luckily the Laws of Nature are different in Fantasy.

That doesn't really answer my question. Wanting to find all the things and not caring are essentially opposed states, and you can't reasonably expect them to be both. How do you reconcile those?

Most things are interconnects, things get used eventually....

Things that are better than some idiotic bugs are not 'super awesome stuff', nor does it require abusing any rules. Half the freaking school of abjuration is made for this kind of stuff, and the "fake gold" suggestion is just a slight modification of an existing magic item.

Again goldbugs are creatures, created by dragons to be treasure hazards.

I think these issues can only ever be solved if at some point Jedipotter does a play-by-post game here on GitP

Play-by-post is not the right medium for my style. It would need to be live play by post or real life to get the 'real feel'. {scrubbed}

Asking the innkeeper is not necessarily the same as #1 since it was an example of "the door bothered me and causes me to double check the DM" xor "the door did not bother me and causes me to double check the DM".

Well, I see #1 as the player just keeps playing the game. If they want to find out something, they do it in the game. {scrubbed}

I thought we were talking about players that trusted their DM. If we are talking about new players, and thus baseline DM, then my advise would be to be less suspicious until they get to know you (since this forum's reaction to you should be an indicator that you are harder than normal to get along with).

Well, ''normal people'' just ''trust'' the same way they ''breathe''. So I wanted to avoid the trust thing.

Nobody is saying that they can only role play when information is given to them by a dice roll. What is being said is that information being withheld from them when their character really should know it makes it harder to play the character.

Well, the information is not ''withheld'', it's more ''role play to find out''. It's like saying ''you want your character to get experience points, you need to be in combat.'' or even ''you can't have fun playing the game until you get off your cell phone''.

except this is a blatant and boldfaced lie on your part, you have said yourself before that characters are idiots who know nothing about the world around them and in can not even find the butcher in their hometown

It's not like a character is mind wiped every minute. When a character learns things by role playing, they then know that thing.

big teej

2015-01-23, 12:06 AM

I think these issues can only ever be solved if at some point Jedipotter does a play-by-post game here on GitP and we actually play in it so we can experience his "rich and sprinkled world" personally, so we have actual examples to go off of rather than vague suggestions of "Can you do this?" "No that's a thing because of other reasons and I do all those but never even these things so of course not!" Because this discussion won't go anywhere if neither side has any concrete examples to give where each side has ALL the details available to that side. (As opposed to say, JP saying that his party has access to X information and we can't ask about what they asked.)

I volunteer to play in this game.

also:

We did 2. They either died or got locked.

I can haz links?

@ jedipotter

I have participated in and run several games via skype. provided you trust your players to be honest ab out their die rolls (and if you don't, online rollers exist.... as do webcams)

they tend to work out just fine.

would you be open to running a game in this manner for a small number (say, no more than 4) playgrounders? you could even cherry-pick from any interested parties to find the most suitable players for this exercise.

then we, finally, have a broader common ground for discussion.

but mostly I'm just itching to play dnd.

it's a bit less useful than the pbp idea put forward to have a ... open forum, if you will for the purposes of discussion.

or, instead of a strict, actual play-by-post, you run a series of mini or micro-encounters with a given, select number of players running through them, and you simply adjudicate them the way you would in a real game.

for example, you could even use the micro-encounter of the gold-bug safe.

Jedipotter: okay, so despite the fact you were hired to kill the bandits, you have hired them to attack the town and during the ensuing chaos you have snuck into Mayor's Mansion to Steal All The Things... what do you do?

big teej the Knight: I glare disapprovingly at my dishonorable comrades and chastise them while they ransack the place.

Hypothetical other player1: I look through the house until I find a room that looks like an office.

jedipotter: Okay, you find a room with a small, but ornate desk, a portrait of Mayor on the opposite wall, and bookshelves lining the room. this is the most 'office-like' room you have found so far.

hypothetical other player1: okay, cool, I *happens to check where safe is hidden*.

jedipotter: you find a safe hidden *underneath the desk/behind the painting/whatever*

etc. etc. etc. etc.

You run the encounter through however long it takes for the 2-4 players to resolve/flee/be slain by/ the micro-encounter. then we have a common element to use for discussion, provided *you* have given the experience your stamp of approval "this is how things typically occur/would have occurred in my games irl"

thoughts?

to intricate? :smalltongue:

midnight ideas are the best ideas guys

also, I volunteer for any and all of these experiments/excercizes should they come to fruition.

not because I'm having dnd withdrawals or anything.
honest
:elan:

Nettlekid

2015-01-23, 12:06 AM

I think I can identify the single glaring flaw that keeps coming up as the root to a lot of your issues with the game.

You are entirely unable to distinguish your players from their characters.

Your players are a bunch of people gathered in a room with pieces of paper and imaginations.

Their characters have lived and breathed in your fantasy world every day of their lives.

Your players didn't go to magic college for four years and write a thesis on the manipulation of force involved in the formation of the Magic Missile spell.

Your players' characters did.

For you to ask Dave about the nature of the Magic Missile spell does not make sense, because Dave did not write a thesis on it.

For Professor Staffbeard Ph.D. to ask Dornut Brownbottom, recent Wizard College alum, about the intricacies of his thesis makes perfect sense.

Because Dornut Brownbottom has an Int of 18, he is able to tell Professor Staffbeard about his thesis. He is also able to remember where the bathroom is and what his best friend's name is without notes, because he lived at the college for four years.

Dave does not have an Int of 18. He also did not go to magic college for four years. He would not know where the bathroom is in magic college should it come up.

Do you understand where this is going? Please read my post three times, and tell me if you understand the difference. That you repeatedly ask questions of Dave that Professor Staffbeard should be asking of Dornut. That Dave is allowed not to know the answer to questions that Dornut knows the answer to. And then you, as DM of Dornut's world, can say "Ah yes, Dornut would know that the bathroom is here." No check. No notes. Dornut knows where he can pee. Because Dornut is a wizard. Okay?

Marlowe

2015-01-23, 12:49 AM

OldTrees1

2015-01-23, 12:52 AM

Well, ''normal people'' just ''trust'' the same way they ''breathe''. So I wanted to avoid the trust thing.

Huh? The excess of air quotes makes this sentence confusing on multiple levels.

I honestly believe that if your problems with trust normally come from new players, then you should recognize that you are starting from behind and make a greater effort to earn the trust of the new players (since trust is something earned, not something people breathe).

afroakuma

2015-01-23, 01:06 AM

I think I can identify the single glaring flaw that keeps coming up as the root to a lot of your issues with the game.

Well yeah, I mean, just hit View Profile. Easy to do. :smalltongue:

jedipotter

2015-01-23, 01:21 AM

Huh? The excess of air quotes makes this sentence confusing on multiple levels.

Air quotes can do that....

I honestly believe that if your problems with trust normally come from new players, then you should recognize that you are starting from behind and make a greater effort to earn the trust of the new players (since trust is something earned, not something people breathe).

My views on trust are really not something to talk about.

OldTrees1

2015-01-23, 01:29 AM

My views on trust are really not something to talk about.

Fair enough. However please do take this into consideration:
This forum includes normal people. If normal new players are having trouble trusting you and you are having problems as a result, ...

jedipotter

2015-01-23, 01:51 AM

Fair enough. However please do take this into consideration:
This forum includes normal people. If normal new players are having trouble trusting you and you are having problems as a result, ...

And that is why I asked my question, to get others perspectives.

Necroticplague

2015-01-23, 07:13 AM

Most things are interconnects, things get used eventually....
Huh? That has even less to do with my question than your previous evasion of it. Yes, your world may have a lot of connections. That is unrelated to the question of whether you want the players to actively look for said connections or to not care.

Again goldbugs are creatures, created by dragons to be treasure hazards. Again, even less related to my question. The fact something is made for a specific purpose doesn't necessarily mean that its any good at its purpose. How would a bunch of bugs (living creatures, with all the problems thereof), that react to certain stimuli (thus, can be easily fooled by simply not presenting those stimuli), in any way better than more complete deceptions, or more extensive traps?

And that is why I asked my question, to get others perspectives.
{scrubbed}

OldTrees1

2015-01-23, 10:41 AM

{scrubbed}

Um. You do know being defensive about surface statements is a very easy trap to fall into in internet discussions, right? It is practically the norm for how discussion devolves into debate. Perhaps you wanted to phrase that as advise rather than as an accusation?

Comet

2015-01-23, 11:20 AM

The way to make sure that the players don't think you're being unfair is saying to them "okay, guys, this world is going to have tons of surprising stuff and twists in it, but I swear I'm not just making it up to make things unfair".

If they think you're lying... well, then the situation as a whole is pretty awkward. Playing the game kind of requires that everyone at the table trusts everyone else to be a decent human being and open to honest communication to make the game fun for everyone.

Honest Tiefling

2015-01-23, 01:59 PM

I think it would help if the DM stuck to a few basic rules that make sense and don't contradict each other. Internal consistency in the world is a must, even parody series have it.

kellbyb

2015-01-23, 02:37 PM

{scrubbed}

Renen

2015-01-23, 02:42 PM

It just seems like everyone in this thread are trying to convince the OP that they dont like his style, while he is just so proud of it that he doesnt care. The kicker is that most people in this thread represent the players he could potentially have, and as such this shows how alot of potential players of his would not like large parts of his playstyle.

Renen

2015-01-23, 02:45 PM

Ah right. Was looking for the red post, but must have missed it. Asking my quote to be deleted as it seems to be against the red text ._.

OldTrees1

2015-01-23, 02:55 PM

Ah right. Was looking for the red post, but must have missed it. Asking my quote to be deleted as it seems to be against the red text ._.

There should be an option at the top of the screen when you go to edit your post.

Renen

2015-01-23, 02:58 PM

Yet, but the people that quoted me still have it visible

dascarletm

2015-01-23, 03:01 PM

That doesn't really answer my question. Wanting to find all the things and not caring are essentially opposed states, and you can't reasonably expect them to be both. How do you reconcile those?

No, its not a matter of viewpoint. Things that can be relatively easily overcome, and require maintenance, are strictly inferior to things that take more effort to overcome and are entirely self sustaining.

Things that are better than some idiotic bugs are not 'super awesome stuff', nor does it require abusing any rules. Half the freaking school of abjuration is made for this kind of stuff, and the "fake gold" suggestion is just a slight modification of an existing magic item.

The thing is some people use less efficient methods all the time. The majority of people choose non-optimal paths and in this case it makes perfect sense.

My view on the mayor.

I'm dragon-blooded. These little gold scarabs will not attack me and serve as a defense against my wealth. These are used in ACTUAL DRAGON hordes. That's pretty cool. I'm like totally an actual dragon.:smallamused:

Oh, and jedi, I'd totally play in a game if you want. Depends on the time commitment required of course but I'm sure it would be fun.

Hazrond

2015-01-23, 03:39 PM

i have a theory on jedi based on what i have seen, my theory is that jedipotter is actually not a crazy insane DM, but rather, a normal one like most you see, he instead makes the posts to see how people react and to gauge how people might think of things by putting it in an extreme example, where if it works he uses the non-extreme version. Part of this theory comes from the fact that several times i saw the facade i think he puts up of being That DM Guy™ crack and we see that things are not nearly as insane as he makes them out to be, this all came together when somebody upthread posted about his "surface reasons", i may be wrong (and he will probably say i am, even if i am right) but it seems plausible from my point of view

Edit: i think he may even go as far as to stage a fake campaign on the PbP section of the forums, just so he can mantain his facade, where he uses the crazy stuff he types about but doesnt in reality, all of this so people dont realize that he isnt as bad as he sounds and to keep his reactions from the people of this forum "pure"

dascarletm

2015-01-23, 04:19 PM

Then jedipotter turns out to be M. Night Shyamalan all along.

bum

Bum

BUUM

Karl Aegis

2015-01-23, 05:36 PM

Example 1: The DM sets up a simple 'bandit plot' of 'kill the bandits'. Instead, the group tricks the bandits into attacking the town. In the confusion the group breaks into the gold draconian mayor's house. They find his safe easily enough and break into it with some trouble. They find a bunch of ''gold coins''. The characters greedily load up all the gold only to discover the ''coins'' are, in fact, gold bugs (awesome little gold-colored beetles with metallic exoskeletons that sleep a lot all curled up to look like a gold coin. But movement and heat wakes them up...and they bite! With poison!)

It should be noted that Gold Bugs are from AD&D 2nd Edition's Field Folio (Page 46) and they are rare creatures that only come in groups of 1-20. They have a save-or-die poison attack attached to a 1-4 damage bite attack. A hundred thousand host (enough for 10 swarms) of them is nearly guaranteed to wipe out everything not immune to poison in a gigantic radius, including, but not limited to, townsfolk, bandits, livestock and wild animals. The logistics required to acquire a Doomsday Device like this are unfathomable, due to both rarity and relatively small quantities found compared to more recognizable insects like ants or locust.

It's entirely within reason that a character, tired of living in abject fear of this "Doom Hidden in the Closet", would hatch a plan to disarm their draconian tyrant and free their neighbors by killing them all. Of course, the bandits in the woods, having been smart enough to move away from the draconian dictator but not far enough away to escape the cataclysm you just unleashed, would be caught but the rampaging swarm of vermin. There is also a chance the mayor may die as well, since he wasn't specified as being a dragon and the phrase "Gold Draconian Mayor" could just be someone who crushes their charges with high taxes.

So, by opening the safe and unleashing the gold bugs, they did solve the plot. All the plots. The bandits are dead. The people are no longer under the cruel dictatorship of the mayor and possibly the mayor is dead. Good game, everyone. Time to pick up your character sheets and go home.

The key point, though, is this: The plot could have been resolved without any input from the player. An NPC could have done the same exact thing. There was no reason for the PCs to even be there. The DM could have done everything independent of the player's actions. Maybe your players did just want a short story. But, you could have just picked up a book and read to them. It would have been faster and wouldn't have wasted everyone's time.

jedipotter

2015-01-23, 06:40 PM

i have a theory on jedi based on what i have seen, my theory is

Nah, I just think differently. That is all.

atemu1234

2015-01-23, 07:46 PM

Nah, I just think differently. That is all.

But if you were faking, why would you admit to it now?

Renen

2015-01-23, 08:56 PM

And thinking differently isnt always good. When such a great amount of people disagrees with the thinking process, then that thinking process is either bad, or is simply one that isnt suited for a game where you play with living things that have opinions (since it has been determined that those opinions often differ from this "different" way of thinking)

i have a theory on jedi based on what i have seen, my theory is that jedipotter is actually not a crazy insane DM, but rather, a normal one like most you see, he instead makes the posts to see how people react and to gauge how people might think of things by putting it in an extreme example, where if it works he uses the non-extreme version. Part of this theory comes from the fact that several times i saw the facade i think he puts up of being That DM Guy™ crack and we see that things are not nearly as insane as he makes them out to be, this all came together when somebody upthread posted about his "surface reasons", i may be wrong (and he will probably say i am, even if i am right) but it seems plausible from my point of view

Edit: i think he may even go as far as to stage a fake campaign on the PbP section of the forums, just so he can mantain his facade, where he uses the crazy stuff he types about but doesnt in reality, all of this so people dont realize that he isnt as bad as he sounds and to keep his reactions from the people of this forum "pure"
So... he is trolling the forums?

goto124

2015-01-23, 09:17 PM

Why did we think the mayor was a literal gold dragon again?

Milo v3

2015-01-23, 09:42 PM

Why did we think the mayor was a literal gold dragon again?

I think it was because Hordebugs only ever make sense to be put in a giant dragons horde (mixed with tonnes of other Real Coins) and make literally no sense inside a safe or vault.

Aka-chan

2015-01-23, 11:39 PM

Why did we think the mayor was a literal gold dragon again?

The OP described him as "a gold draconian mayor." I assumed that was altering the species name to make it an adjective, like saying, "the dwarven mayor" or "the elven mayor" instead of "the dwarf mayor" or "the elf mayor."

jedipotter

2015-01-24, 12:44 AM

Why did we think the mayor was a literal gold dragon again?

I said ''draconian'', but that is the word I use for ''dragon humanoid'', basically a human half gold dragon. I did not go into the whole explanation of ''I make half dragon humanoids a full race is my game''.

I think it was because Hordebugs only ever make sense to be put in a giant dragons horde (mixed with tonnes of other Real Coins) and make literally no sense inside a safe or vault.

Well, first off, I happen to like goldbugs, so I use them all the time. DM's prerogative. Play more then one game with me, and espicaly if there is anything dragonic around, there will be goldbugs.

Other then that, goldbugs make as much ''sense'' as any other trap or hazard.

Karl Aegis

2015-01-24, 01:00 AM

I said ''draconian'', but that is the word I use for ''dragon humanoid'', basically a human half gold dragon. I did not go into the whole explanation of ''I make half dragon humanoids a full race is my game''.

Well, first off, I happen to like goldbugs, so I use them all the time. DM's prerogative. Play more then one game with me, and espicaly if there is anything dragonic around, there will be goldbugs.

Other then that, goldbugs make as much ''sense'' as any other trap or hazard.

Goldbugs are rare and have nothing to do with dragons. They also weren't printed in 3rd edition because some circles thought they were, "one of the lamest monsters ever".

The goldbug is a beetle with a flattened, circular body and a golden
shell, the size and shape of a gold piece. It is a very sluggish creature
and spends most of its time asleep, often choosing a pile of gold coins
as its bed. Only a very close examination will distinguish it from the
coins on which it lies. Thus, though it has no treasure of its own, it
inhabits that of others.
When disturbed it inflicts a poisonous bite like that of a large spider,
inflicting 1-4 hit points of damage on the victim who must also save
versus poison or die.

That's all 2nd edition gives us of Goldbugs. I feel like you talking about monsters from another system is causing unnecessary confusion. Are you sure this thread isn't better suited to the 2nd edition subforum instead of the 3rd edition one?

Milo v3

2015-01-24, 01:01 AM

Other then that, goldbugs make as much ''sense'' as any other trap or hazard.

Except for food concerns, needing to remove waste, need to gain new ones periodically, harder to purchase, harder to control compared to a trap, the fact that they only work if they are mixed in with a mass of Real Coins, etc. The alternative of a trap needs no food, produces no waste, doesn't need to be replaced, can be gained really easily, has no chance of loss of control, and can work anywhere.

There is literally no benefit to using horde scarabs in situations aside from the hordes of dragons.

That's all 2nd edition gives us of Goldbugs. I feel like you talking about monsters from another system is causing unnecessary confusion. Are you sure this thread isn't better suited to the 2nd edition subforum instead of the 3rd edition one?
3rd edition has goldbugs. They are called Horde Scarabs I think, and are described in draconomicon since they live in dragon hordes.

jedipotter

2015-01-24, 01:31 AM

Goldbugs are rare and have nothing to do with dragons. They also weren't printed in 3rd edition because some circles thought they were, "one of the lamest monsters ever".

And I don't care what others think of monsters. I like goldbugs. Same way I use Giant Space Hamsters, Dowhar, and Keerpa often.

That's all 2nd edition gives us of Goldbugs. I feel like you talking about monsters from another system is causing unnecessary confusion. Are you sure this thread isn't better suited to the 2nd edition subforum instead of the 3rd edition one?

Well, no, as we play 3.5E D&D.

There is literally no benefit to using horde scarabs in situations aside from the hordes of dragons.

Right, it is ''harder'' to keep a guard dog, then it is to just put a bell on your door too. Still, a lot of people pick the dog over a little bell that goes ding.

And D&D is just full of creatures that are used as guards, traps and so forth. Keeping your treasure in a friendly mimic chest is a good idea.

3rd edition has goldbugs. They are called Horde Scarabs I think, and are described in draconomicon since they live in dragon hordes.

Not the same thing. Your comparing goblins to kobolds.

Milo v3

2015-01-24, 01:40 AM

Right, it is ''harder'' to keep a guard dog, then it is to just put a bell on your door too. Still, a lot of people pick the dog over a little bell that goes ding.
To be an approprate comparison in this case, the guard dog would have to instead be a puppy with eats tonnes, never grows up, and dies every couple of months, while that little bell would have to be able to magically ding at the perfect time, and with a magic ding so magic that it is lethal.

And D&D is just full of creatures that are used as guards, traps and so forth. Keeping your treasure in a friendly mimic chest is a good idea.
And yet the designers of 3.5e were smart enough to realise goldbugs would only possibly be useful in giant piles of gold... Seriously wondering how you haven't reached the same conclusion.

Not the same thing. Your comparing goblins to kobolds.
Um... No? :smallconfused:
The horde scarabs are goldbugs in 3.5e.... It is just that they just gave them a new coat of paint basically.

afroakuma

2015-01-24, 01:42 AM

I said ''draconian'', but that is the word I use for ''dragon humanoid'', basically a human half gold dragon. I did not go into the whole explanation of ''I make half dragon humanoids a full race is my game''.

That's not really helpful when the word has a specific definition within the context of D&D. If you're using it to mean something else, the onus is on you to convey that, not on your audience to allow for the possibility.

jedipotter

2015-01-24, 02:02 AM

To be an approprate comparison in this case, the guard dog would have to instead be a puppy with eats tonnes, never grows up, and dies every couple of months, while that little bell would have to be able to magically ding at the perfect time, and with a magic ding so magic that it is lethal.

Ok, your not making any sense. Lets just say in my game, creatures are often used a guards, traps or hazards. I get that your game does not have guard dogs, but in my game they exist.

And yet the designers of 3.5e were smart enough to realise goldbugs would only possibly be useful in giant piles of gold... Seriously wondering how you haven't reached the same conclusion.

Well, they work just fine even if not in ''huge piles of gold''. A couple of goldbugs on a table work just fine. You don't need ''the Treasure of Smaug''.

Um... No? :smallconfused:
The horde scarabs are goldbugs in 3.5e.... It is just that they just gave them a new coat of paint basically.

They are not even close. Horde scarabs are just someones version of the scarabs in The Mummy. Someone watched that movie and said ''way cool monster!'' and wrote them up.

That's not really helpful when the word has a specific definition within the context of D&D. If you're using it to mean something else, the onus is on you to convey that, not on your audience to allow for the possibility.

I was attempting to avoid like three paragraphs of ''ok, this is this'', when all it would do is confuse and distract people. The question was more ''would a player just accept a NPC, might amazingly, trap their treasure'' The details should not matter.

Karl Aegis

2015-01-24, 02:21 AM

Milo v3

2015-01-24, 02:27 AM

Ok, your not making any sense. Lets just say in my game, creatures are often used a guards, traps or hazards. I get that your game does not have guard dogs, but in my game they exist.
Don't make presumptions about my game from no information. My game does have guard dogs, but the "guard dog" you've selected for this example is horribly inefficient compared to a trap, and harder to accomplish than a trap. So, there is no reason for the individual to go out of their way (because goldbugs would be harder to maintain and collect than simply buying a trap) to use a crap defence.

Well, they work just fine even if not in ''huge piles of gold''. A couple of goldbugs on a table work just fine. You don't need ''the Treasure of Smaug''.
As an actual defence against someone stealing, they would need to be in a sufficient quantity. Goldbugs don't do anything on a table aside from, oh this one coin we picked up a wasn't actually a coin, "meh who cares" we have tonnes of other coins lets check the other rooms.

They are not even close. Horde scarabs are just someones version of the scarabs in The Mummy. Someone watched that movie and said ''way cool monster!'' and wrote them up.
Nope, I mean, just look at the goldbug fluff:

The goldbug is a beetle with a flattened, circular body and a golden
shell, the size and shape of a gold piece. It is a very sluggish creature
and spends most of its time asleep, often choosing a pile of gold coins
as its bed. Only a very close examination will distinguish it from the
coins on which it lies. Thus, though it has no treasure of its own, it
inhabits that of others.
And, yep. Exactly the same as horde scarabs.

The details should not matter.
Details matter.

jedipotter

2015-01-24, 02:29 AM

Your NPC's trap would result in his own death and the death of everyone in the surrounding area. Your NPC isn't immune to the effect of the trap and has no reasonable means of escape. He doesn't have the fortitude save to resist the poison for very long, or else he would have dealt with the bandits personally. Even cleaning the bug poop from the safe is potentially deadly to the NPC. There is absolutely no reason a sane person would have this trap.

Not true. Goldbugs never bite or harm dragonkind. So it's safe for a Spellscale to touch one and even carry it around all the time. And plus, once you set the monsters in the trap, you don't need to touch them again.

Your King in example 2 can't afford to stick candles in his candlestick as well. How is he expecting to pay for the services of the player characters? Dude can't even afford proper guards. Presumably, he has invited complete strangers into his castle if this thread is anything to believe.

What about inviting strangers? Sure the king does not personally know everyone in the kingdom.

Don't make presumptions about my game from no information. My game does have guard dogs, but the "guard dog" you've selected for this example is horribly inefficient compared to a trap, and harder to accomplish than a trap. So, there is no reason for the individual to go out of their way (because goldbugs would be harder to maintain and collect than simply buying a trap) to use a crap defence.

What you say it not true for my game.

As an actual defence against someone stealing, they would need to be in a sufficient quantity. Goldbugs don't do anything on a table aside from, oh this one coin we picked up a wasn't actually a coin, "meh who cares" we have tonnes of other coins lets check the other rooms.

Right, goldbugs just sit on the table and wait for someone to touch them. Then they bite!

Nope, I mean, just look at the goldbug fluff:

And, yep. Exactly the same as horde scarabs.

Yep, same way that elves are identical to humans in every way.

Details matter.

Not so much.

Milo v3

2015-01-24, 02:30 AM

And plus, once you set the monsters in the trap, you don't need to touch them again.

You do realize that things need food right. :smallconfused:

OldTrees1

2015-01-24, 02:35 AM

The details should not matter.Details matter.

When the intent of the thread is a general question, why would the details of a specific instance of the question prevent you from answering the general question? If details of a specific instance did not prevent me from answering the general question, I doubt they truly hinder you.

jedipotter

2015-01-24, 02:39 AM

You do realize that things need food right. :smallconfused:

Not really sure what that has to do with anything. Ok, guard/trap/hazard creatures need food. So, wow, the mayor tosses a rat into the fake safe everyday....not a big deal.

When the intent of the thread is a general question, why would the details of a specific instance of the question prevent you from answering the general question? If details of a specific instance did not prevent me from answering the general question, I doubt they truly hinder you.

The details for the question of ''how do you as a player judge when a DM has gone too far'' don't matter, because the player will never, ever have all of the details.

Unless your playing one of the Open type games where the DM just tells the players everything.....

OldTrees1

2015-01-24, 02:47 AM

The details for the question of ''how do you as a player judge when a DM has gone too far'' don't matter, because the player will never, ever have all of the details.

Unless your playing one of the Open type games where the DM just tells the players everything.....

While I agree with your conclusion(in fact you quoted me stating your conclusion), a better argument is:

The OP wants to know a general answer so that they may apply that information to instances with differing details. Therefore any reliance of specific details makes an answer much less relevant or useful. Therefore we should answer the general question with as little reliance of specific detail as possible. In conclusion, the specific details are irrelevant to the task of answering the OP's question.

jedipotter

2015-01-24, 02:53 AM

While I agree with your conclusion(in fact you quoted me stating your conclusion), a better argument is:

The OP wants to know a general answer so that they may apply that information to instances with differing details. Therefore any reliance of specific details makes an answer much less relevant or useful. Therefore we should answer the general question with as little reliance of specific detail as possible. In conclusion, the specific details are irrelevant to the task of answering the OP's question.

Sounds good to me.

Milo v3

2015-01-24, 03:01 AM

When the intent of the thread is a general question, why would the details of a specific instance of the question prevent you from answering the general question? If details of a specific instance did not prevent me from answering the general question, I doubt they truly hinder you.
"When does the GM go to far" is highly dependant on the circumstances. I'm not stating that lacking the details stops me from answering the question, I'm saying that detail matters so that we have a better understanding of the circumstances, especially when discussing highly subjective topics.

jedipotter

2015-01-24, 03:09 AM

georgie_leech

2015-01-24, 03:09 AM

"When does the GM go to far" is highly dependant on the circumstances. I'm not stating that lacking the details stops me from answering the question, I'm saying that detail matters so that we have a better understanding of the circumstances, especially when discussing highly subjective topics.

It might be better phrased as "When a DM goes to far is dependent on a number of details and circumstances, including previous experiences both in and out of the current campaign, so the general answer is unhelpfully vague: 'it depends.'" I don't think JP is trying to get these specific situations judged so much as using them as illustrations of the sorts of situations they're wondering about.

As to said question, my line is when DM's show a consistent attempt to undermine my choices in such a way to marginalise my characters/myself. The first time I run into goldbugs instead of gold while stealing stuff, fine, depending on context. The third time it comes up in vastly differing situations or characters, much less so. In the example of a high AC character having other defenses to attack, it makes sense for monsters that have other options to attack potentially weaker defenses. Less acceptable would be monsters that target AC no longer appearing anywhere.

jedipotter

2015-01-24, 03:17 AM

As to said question, my line is when DM's show a consistent attempt to undermine my choices in such a way to marginalise my characters/myself.

This is what it comes down too. But it's so vague as to not be much help. So it will always be the ''sink or swim'' approach.

Psyren

2015-01-24, 03:21 AM

As to said question, my line is when DM's show a consistent attempt to undermine my choices in such a way to marginalise my characters/myself. The first time I run into goldbugs instead of gold while stealing stuff, fine, depending on context. The third time it comes up in vastly differing situations or characters, much less so. In the example of a high AC character having other defenses to attack, it makes sense for monsters that have other options to attack potentially weaker defenses. Less acceptable would be monsters that target AC no longer appearing anywhere.

Pretty much this.

This is what it comes down too. But it's so vague as to not be much help. So it will always be the ''sink or swim'' approach.

Well yeah, it is vague. As it should be; this sort of thing is very situational. Even if a bunch of strangers on a message board could codify some kind of golden rule or guideline for you to realize when this sort of thing is starting to be overused, if your players feel differently then it won't make a difference to the price of cheese what we think.

georgie_leech

2015-01-24, 03:24 AM

This is what it comes down too. But it's so vague as to not be much help. So it will always be the ''sink or swim'' approach.

Not really. If a DM makes a consistent effort to undermine my choices, regardless of whether they intend to, it's a problem. If that seems to be happening, I'll talk to the DM, ideally in a mature discussion between two adults.

In other words, "don't be a jerk" may be non-specific, but that doesn't mean it's an unhelpful answer to the question.

Karl Aegis

2015-01-24, 09:05 AM

Some details do matter. In particular if the king had a candle in his animated candlestick.

If he didn't have a candle, then the candlestick doesn't make any sense. Why can the king afford adventurers but not candles? Where is the money going to come from? Can he be trusted?

If there was a candle, then you attacked your player with a phallus until they were beaten, bloodied and bruised. That is rape. That is not okay on any level. The line drawn way before rape. It is a special kind of evil and has no place being anywhere near a player's character.

Necroticplague

2015-01-24, 09:30 AM

Not really sure what that has to do with anything. Ok, guard/trap/hazard creatures need food. So, wow, the mayor tosses a rat into the fake safe everyday....not a big deal. And get a safe modified so that it has air holes (which limits what other traps can be used). And regularly cleaned for waste and food leftovers (like rat skeletons) to keep it remotely effective. And if these bugs attack any non-dragons, than the mayor is significantly less able to delegate these tasks.

Heck, you don't even need a magic trap to come up with something better. It seems like a simple "hand crossbow with a trigger tied to the door and poisoned bolts" would be an improvement.

The details for the question of ''how do you as a player judge when a DM has gone too far'' don't matter, because the player will never, ever have all of the details.
Which is why my rebuffs don't include any details that wouldn't be available to the characters. I'm going simply on 'poisonous bugs were used to protect this false safe', without any knowledge of your love of them, or the history of dragons using such things (as both seem unlikely to be something the characters would know). And from that point of view, it seems impractical as a method of defense, thus questionable. Not a major deal breaker, but certainly something that nudges towards 2, because it breaks versimilitude, thus making it feel more like it was just put there to screw us, instead out of a sense of consistent worldmaking.

Renen

2015-01-24, 12:43 PM

Mayor throws a rat carcass into the safe every day...
Adventurers open it, see a buncha bones and go "Nope!" Close it and leave. But wait... you never described any bones. Hmmm...

Flickerdart

2015-01-24, 12:57 PM

Mayor throws a rat carcass into the safe every day...
Adventurers open it, see a buncha bones and go "Nope!" Close it and leave. But wait... you never described any bones. Hmmm...
That's because the bugs are made to screw over the players, not add any sort of sense or verisimilitude to the world. Thus, by banning both in-character and skill-based ways to learn about the bugs, jedipotter ensures his PCs die in a hilarious fashion without being able to do anything about it. Which sounds strange to you or me, but seems to be the objective of his games.

Psyren

2015-01-24, 01:05 PM

That's because the bugs are made to screw over the players, not add any sort of sense or verisimilitude to the world. Thus, by banning both in-character and skill-based ways to learn about the bugs, jedipotter ensures his PCs die in a hilarious fashion without being able to do anything about it. Which sounds strange to you or me, but seems to be the objective of his games.

I agree with your second sentence but not the first one. In a setting where "adventurers" are relatively common and have been around for centuries, monsters that evolved (or were magically engineered by the spiteful or insane) to target their common habits actually do add verisimilitude to the world. Goldbugs are not too different from things like Mimics and Cloakers in this regard.

But where the GM is possibly/likely being a jerk, is if he/she bans all means of sussing out the trap and/or renders any caution on the part of the PCs pointless.

Renen

2015-01-24, 01:07 PM

I think the point was not that the bugs as species were made to screw players. But that bugs as individual creatures in that specific chest were made to screw over players. But Flicker gets my point.

Jedipotter-style campaing COULD work, but it requires alot of details to offset the fancy style of his. So he would have to think through exactly what the bugs are doing there, who cares for them, if there are any visible effects from that care, etc.

Flickerdart

2015-01-24, 01:11 PM

In a setting where "adventurers" are relatively common and have been around for centuries, monsters that evolved (or were magically engineered by the spiteful or insane) to target their common habits actually do add verisimilitude to the world. Goldbugs are not too different from things like Mimics and Cloakers in this regard.
I have nothing against goldbugs in general, but in this case they are not an encounter, like a mimic or cloaker, where the setup is "a monster surprises you by hiding in plain sight" and then you get to have a fun fight. In this case, they are like cursed magic items where the curse is "make 100,000 saves vs poison" and you have no chance to identify them before using because you don't "use" gold. The PCs have only one reaction - roll up new characters, because the DM decided their treasure killed them.

OldTrees1

2015-01-24, 02:55 PM

"When does the GM go to far" is highly dependant on the circumstances. I'm not stating that lacking the details stops me from answering the question, I'm saying that detail matters so that we have a better understanding of the circumstances, especially when discussing highly subjective topics.

Since neither Example 1 nor Example 2 matter, and since you need apparently need to use details in qualifying clauses of your general answer, what is preventing you from answering via a partitioning of hypothetical general cases?

PS: "When does the GM go to far?" is not the OP's question. The OP's question is either "When playing with a DM you trust and you encounter a suspicious event, what factors make you choose between continuing playing or stopping?" or "When being a new player at a DM's table and you encounter a suspicious event, what factors make you choose between continuing playing or stopping?" (the first general question was identified immediately, the second was discovered through a discussion with the OP both are probably useful to the OP).

jedipotter

2015-01-24, 02:57 PM

Not really. If a DM makes a consistent effort to undermine my choices, regardless of whether they intend to, it's a problem. If that seems to be happening, I'll talk to the DM, ideally in a mature discussion between two adults.

In other words, "don't be a jerk" may be non-specific, but that doesn't mean it's an unhelpful answer to the question.

Does not help at all. The DM is the foe in an RPG, so a player will blame them for everything.

Now, sure, some people will say the DM is not the foe and that challenges and encounters just somehow come out of thin air and the DM just 'runs' them and all. But, ok, the DM is the foe, no matter how you want to spin it. And it's not a jerk move to say give a high CR monster a magic item that is useful in combat. But lots of players can see it that way

And get a safe modified so that it has air holes (which limits what other traps can be used). And regularly cleaned for waste and food leftovers (like rat skeletons) to keep it remotely effective. And if these bugs attack any non-dragons, than the mayor is significantly less able to delegate these tasks. .

Luckily D&D does not have such rules. And this is ''thinking too much'' about tiny details.

And get a safe modified so that it has air holes (which limits what other traps can be used). And regularly cleaned for waste and food leftovers (like rat skeletons) to keep it remotely effective. And if these bugs attack any non-dragons, than the mayor is significantly less able to delegate these tasks.

Heck, you don't even need a magic trap to come up with something better. It seems like a simple "hand crossbow with a trigger tied to the door and poisoned bolts" would be an improvement.

Which is why my rebuffs don't include any details that wouldn't be available to the characters......... but certainly something that nudges towards 2, because it breaks versimilitude, thus making it feel more like it was just put there to screw us, instead out of a sense of consistent worldmaking.

Though this goes right back to ''at random for no reason players will just randomly decide or think things''. And other then stopping the game every five minutes to make sure each and every player is caught up on all the details and comfortable, there is nothing to be done.

After all, the traps, hazards, encounters, problems, enemies and just about everything else in the game was put there to ''screw'' the players. That is how the game works. Again some will tip toe around it and say ''oh the mayor just cast the spell fire trap just as it makes sense''. But it was really done to ''screw'' the characters.

, by banning both in-character and skill-based ways to learn about the bugs, jedipotter ensures his PCs die in a hilarious fashion without being able to do anything about it. Which sounds strange to you or me, but seems to be the objective of his games.

I'd never band in character stuff, but I sure nerf the ''one roll to know everything about the mayor's house'' as I think that is dumb. And sure, one of the objectives of the game is to kill the players, that is why it's fun.

Renen

2015-01-24, 03:05 PM

Does not help at all. The DM is the foe in an RPG, so a player will blame them for everything.

Now, sure, some people will say the DM is not the foe and that challenges and encounters just somehow come out of thin air and the DM just 'runs' them and all. But, ok, the DM is the foe, no matter how you want to spin it. And it's not a jerk move to say give a high CR monster a magic item that is useful in combat. But lots of players can see it that way

Luckily D&D does not have such rules. And this is ''thinking too much'' about tiny details.

Though this goes right back to ''at random for no reason players will just randomly decide or think things''. And other then stopping the game every five minutes to make sure each and every player is caught up on all the details and comfortable, there is nothing to be done.

After all, the traps, hazards, encounters, problems, enemies and just about everything else in the game was put there to ''screw'' the players. That is how the game works. Again some will tip toe around it and say ''oh the mayor just cast the spell fire trap just as it makes sense''. But it was really done to ''screw'' the characters.

I'd never band in character stuff, but I sure nerf the ''one roll to know everything about the mayor's house'' as I think that is dumb. And sure, one of the objectives of the game is to kill the players, that is why it's fun.

Ahh... so Jedipotter has the DM vs Players mentality... that explains sooo much.

Psyren

2015-01-24, 03:08 PM

Does not help at all. The DM is the foe in an RPG, so a player will blame them for everything.

Now, sure, some people will say the DM is not the foe and that challenges and encounters just somehow come out of thin air and the DM just 'runs' them and all. But, ok, the DM is the foe, no matter how you want to spin it. And it's not a jerk move to say give a high CR monster a magic item that is useful in combat. But lots of players can see it that way

"The enemy" is one of a DM's many roles - not the only one by any means. The DM's job is also to be fair, and that often means favorable or at least less-punishing interpretations of rules.

I'd never band in character stuff, but I sure nerf the ''one roll to know everything about the mayor's house'' as I think that is dumb. And sure, one of the objectives of the game is to kill the players, that is why it's fun.

I'd argue that's not an objective at all; rather the objective is to challenge them. This carries the risk of death but it is not something you should be consciously aiming for. If you really consider killing them to be an objective, that's the easiest and least imaginative thing in the world to accomplish - you can wave your hand right after character creation and drop a planet on them if that were really your "objective." And similarly rewarding them 10,000XP for squashing an earthworm is similarly easy. But a true challenge is much more difficult to put together and much more satisfying, whether they win or lose.