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Talakeal
2015-03-24, 04:54 PM
So last year one of my old high school friends mentioned to me that he had started a new gaming group with his cousins. Since then I have been running an occasional game for his group when I was in town. It is a several hour drive so I don't game with them often, just once every couple of months.

The last game I was running for them was a western zombie apocalypse game. The players were a group of bounty hunters on the run from the law and they had holed up in a small fortified frontier town. The town was beset by zombies and under quarantine, and the sheriff had taken the quarantine as an excuse to go mad with power and set up a small scale totalitarian police state. The game was going really well, the players were doing excellent and seemed to be having a lot of fun, but the game ran long and I said I would put it on hold and continue it next time.

Well, next time happened to be this weekend, and it turned out to be a disaster.

Now, keep in mind that he invited me to come visit and chose the time and place for the game, I was not forcing myself onto him.

So as I am driving to me friends house he asks me how long the game has left. I say 2-3 hours, and he says ok, but we should try and make it quick because the group is hoping to finish early and get back to their normal D&D game. I should have taken this as a bad sign and found an excuse to turn around, but I didn't. When I got into town my friend announced that he was too tired and needed to take a nap before the game, so I sat in his living room playing with my iPad for four hours (keep in mind this is after I had woken up early to drive a couple hundred miles to his house). When he finally wakes up we head over to the game several hours late.

During the game session everyone is extremely distracted. They are texting and playing on their phones and watching videos and leaving the room for snacks. Now, I am normally fine with this, I am a pretty lax GM, but are the same time they are complaining that we aren't going to have enough time for their D&D game.

Then they are all joking around the entire time. Every time they state and IC action or speak to an NPC they make at least one joke first.

Eventually the final showdown with the corrupt sheriff and his posse occurs. The party, still joking and being distracted, starts doing really weird things. I had a suspicion they were trying to get themselves killed so they could get back to their D&D game, but I am still trying to stay positive and run the game as straight as I can. They don't synergize any strategy, they don't focus fire, they waste their resources on trivial things, and one person actually runs away and hides in a corner instead of fighting. They do some really bizarre stuff, like the wimpy little intellectual character decides to stand in front of the big burly tough guy "tank" character and soak up fire for him.

Considering their tactics they actually do really well and end up winning, albeit with most of their resources expended. In the aftermath of the battle a group of heavily armed bounty hunters who had been tracking their party fight their way into the town and tell the PCs to surrender.

Now, from an OOC perspective they can do whatever they want, this isn't a railroad. They can fight, run, surrender, or do whatever else they want. This is NOT a heavy handed force the players to be captured plot, and I indeed when I ran this adventure for my previous group they decided to stand and fight and took down the bounty hunters with little problem.

The players though, decide that they don't have enough resources left to kill the bounty hunters, and so surrendering isn't an option. Each one decides to go for a different crazy last move path. One character grabs a bag of dynamite, pretends to surrender to the bounty hunters, and then sets himself on fire to blow everyone up. One decides to blow a hole in the wall of the town and let the zombie horde in (keep in mind that there are numerous civilians as well as the other PCs still in the town). One decides to commit sepeku (literally). One decides to just jump over the wall into the mass of zombies and run for it.

So we have three PCs dead by their own hand and one suicidally running through the zombies. The town is in chaos and most of the NPCs will soon join them. The guy who was running asks me if he survived. I tell him that it is unlikely as he is by himself and wounded vs. a horde of zombies (note that if the whole party had chosen this route they could have fought their way through), but it was up to him as the rest of the game was dead and would need to make new characters if we continued this anyway, maybe he survived, maybe he got eaten, maybe rocks fell and everyone died. I then break face for the first time and say "Epic end to the game. Sure glad I drove 200 miles for this."

So I pack up my stuff and tell them they can get back to their D&D game, but they decide it is too late and that they just want to call it a night.

On the drive back to my friend's house he calls me a killer DM. I, flabbergasted, respond that they killed themselves and that I did everything in my power to keep them alive. I then said that I don't understand what went wrong, the last session went to well, but tonight it seemed like everyone was just acting completely at random with no regard to their own characters (or their party or the NPCs) safety and joking about everything.

Then, my friend gave me a big speech about how the problem was with my perspective. I am used to gaming with a bunch of wierdos and crazy people. He then made reference to the many gaming horror stories that I have previously told him (and which anyone who has been following my posts on this forum will probably be aware of). He told me that I just wasn't used to gaming with NORMAL people and didn't know how to handle it. That unlike my friends they are all well adjusted and have careers and families, and that this is how NORMAL people act during a game, and that I am just not used to dealing with people who are more socially adjusted than myself.

I just sat there in silence. When we got back to his house I told him that if that was what normal people were like at the gaming table than I was glad to be such a freak. His response was "Well, don't worry about. I am pretty sure NO ONE wants you to game with us ever again."

I then decided that I didn't really want to visit anymore and decided to just drive back that night instead of staying with him. Not sure if I will be talking to him in the future.


So, that's my story. Not really sure what to think about, and I don't really have a question for the forum. I just needed to share this story with someone. Anyone have any comments or thoughts on the situation?

Beta Centauri
2015-03-24, 05:00 PM
In future, when the players seem distracted and as if they'd rather be doing something else, don't power through. Take a break and ask how it's going and whether they'd like to do something else. If so, just do that. They'll be more engaged with it and less likely to goof around.

The way your story reads, you strung them out way past the point where they were interested, which sounds like just after the end of the first session. I'm not sure why you didn't end the game after the fight with the corrupt sheriff, or why you thought confronting this group with bounty hunters ordering them to surrender was a good idea.

Talakeal
2015-03-24, 05:15 PM
In future, when the players seem distracted and as if they'd rather be doing something else, don't power through. Take a break and ask how it's going and whether they'd like to do something else. If so, just do that. They'll be more engaged with it and less likely to goof around.

The way your story reads, you strung them out way past the point where they were interested, which sounds like just after the end of the first session. I'm not sure why you didn't end the game after the fight with the corrupt sheriff, or why you thought confronting this group with bounty hunters ordering them to surrender was a good idea.

They seemed really focused during the previous session. I had just driven for several hours (and then sat around waiting for several more) to the game, and it seems like a huge waste to spend all that time (and gas) to come all the way out there and not play.



Now, as for the second part, I had already designed this adventure before running it, and as I said the previous group fought and killed the bounty hunters relatively easily. I did not just pull an unbeatable grudge monster out of my butt. I could have changed the ending, but I was (foolishly in retrospect) considering the possibility of turning this into an ongoing campaign, and I wanted to end it on some sort of dramatic note with a clear direction for the future, which if it had just ended at that point it wouldn't. Also, if the players had lost the fight with the sheriff the bounty hunters serve as an easy out from the situation.

If you are saying that I should never have enemies ask the players to surrender, I guess that is a lesson in reading your players. Most people like having choices. In retrospect maybe they thought it was a railroad type situation and where actively trying to derail it rather than an option.

Beta Centauri
2015-03-24, 05:34 PM
They seemed really focused during the previous session. I had just driven for several hours (and then sat around waiting for several more) to the game, and it seems like a huge waste to spend all that time (and gas) to come all the way out there and not play. I'm not saying don't play, I'm saying play what the players want to play. They didn't want to play this, despite how the previous session went. Playing what the players don't want to play is always a waste of time.


Now, as for the second part, I had already designed this adventure before running it, and as I said the previous group fought and killed the bounty hunters relatively easily. I did not just pull an unbeatable grudge monster out of my butt. I could have changed the ending, but I was (foolishly in retrospect) considering the possibility of turning this into an ongoing campaign, and I wanted to end it on some sort of dramatic note with a clear direction for the future, which if it had just ended at that point it wouldn't. It just seems like you had a lot of stuff preplanned and weren't able to adjust to the situation. You mention reading your players, and they seemed to be giving you a lot of clear signals. There needed to be some more communication. Maybe they wouldn't have been honest, or maybe they would have realized that they were sending the wrong message or something, but there needed to be a "Hey, do you guys really want to be playing this, because it seems like you don't." and maybe some "If you're not into this, I can go another way with it."

I'm not sure why you thought it would be ongoing. Didn't your friend say they wanted to finish and get back to their regular game?


Also, if the players had lost the fight with the sheriff the bounty hunters serve as an easy out from the situation. I don't think they wanted an out.


If you are saying that I should never have enemies ask the players to surrender, I guess that is a lesson in reading your players. Most people like having choices. In retrospect maybe they thought it was a railroad type situation and where actively trying to derail it rather than an option. Yeah, "surrender" isn't really much of a choice. A lot of people are going to see "surrender" as "we have to fight" because surrender, to a lot of people, seems like not very much fun: like death, only they can't just make a new character. You offered it to these players and they saw their choices as "surrender" (no), "initiate an unwinnable battle" (no), or "go out on their own terms." They really only had one choice.

All your assumptions about how they should fight and what they should choose to do are what resulted in you powering through when you should have stopped or paused, and resulted in them thinking of you as a killer GM. They could have been more mature as well, and the stuff about "normal people" was not very classy (though I can understand the sentiment), but in terms of what you could have done, I think it's: communicated more, been more flexible, and focused on ending the game quickly.

Thrudd
2015-03-24, 06:20 PM
That just seems really weird and rude of them. I mean, it sounds like they didn't really want to play and just joked/sabotaged the game to get it over with. They shouldn't have bothered calling you out there if they didn't want to finish the game.

I don't think that is how "normal" people react, by doing weird stuff and trying to kill off their characters when they don't feel like playing. They would say they don't feel like playing. If they felt obligated to play, you'd think they would also feel obligated to continue in a respectful way.

Sorry that this sort of thing happens.

Kane0
2015-03-24, 06:30 PM
Soldier on being a freak, I say. Normal people can be too politically correct to tell you not to go all that way because they don't really feel like playing.

Maglubiyet
2015-03-24, 06:30 PM
I'm sorry it was so bad for you. I know it's hard, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. Sometimes what works one time doesn't another. I've had similar experiences that have made me very sensitive to the mood of the group. If I think people are too distracted or disinterested I'll just call the game or take a break to get food, watch a show, or work on characters. Sometimes focusing on something else can break a spell, sometimes not.

What causes this? Who knows? Maybe RL player stresses, personality conflicts, fatigue, fatty foods, the weather, gamma rays, a full moon. Whatever it is, I want people to remember the game as a positive experience. It's worth it for me to call it off than to have it go sour.

Sometimes players don't even recognize that they're being distracted until you say, "why don't we continue this another time". Then they'll suddenly put away their devices and become more attentive, "no no, let's do this now!"

Thrawn4
2015-03-24, 07:58 PM
Well, it is difficult to judge the situation as we only have your point of view, but sometimes people are just in a different mood and enjoy different things, without there being anyone to blame. The fact that they wanted to get over with it is a huge warning sign, but of course it is also easier to see in retrospect. Still, it's a bummer, and I can understand that you are not happy about it.

Your friend, however, was quite rude. Calling someone less adjusted in this context is more than inappropriate, especially amongst friends. If they want to joke around all the time they are welcome to do so, but enjoying a different play style is not a sign of being socially inept.

I would also like to say that NPCs demanding surrender is not railroading but perfectly reasonable for them. After all, it's a saver way than fighting.

Lord Raziere
2015-03-24, 08:29 PM
There is no such thing as normal. If you think your not weird, your just aware of yourself enough. I would not game with anyone who declares others "freaks" and "weirdoes" just because they roleplay differently.

All of humanity are weirdoes. Some of us just can't seem to stand someone else's flavor of weirdness.

REVISIONIST
2015-03-24, 08:39 PM
The way NORMAL people play (and I consider myself normal) and act is to have a bit of respect for the person who put out their time and energy to provide some entertainment in the form of a game.
It might have been family game night or DnD, but it makes no matter. Poker, charades, roleplaying...
you may not have hosted the get together, but the least they could do is respect your input.
I hope you find a better or have a better group to game with in the future.

Grinner
2015-03-24, 08:46 PM
@OP: Taking a broad view of popular media, I'd say normal people don't play Dungeons & Dragons. You're all a bunch of grown men pretending to be elves, fairies, and gnomes. For fun. The word "normal" shouldn't even cross your minds.

Then again, my aunt's favorite saying is "The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."

themaque
2015-03-24, 09:15 PM
I don't think it's normal to have someone drive 200 miles and then blow them off, no. It struck me, from your perspective, as being rude. Sure some people just prefer a light beer and pretzel kinda game, but this is just not cool.

You are right, you should have taken an early hint that they where not interested, but I can be pretty oblivious myself when I'm excited about something.

mephnick
2015-03-24, 09:23 PM
I game with all kinds of people. Athletes, stoners, engineers, mill and construction workers, tradesmen, horticulturalists, lawyers, programmers, businessmen/women, chefs, single, married, married with kids, gay, straight, various ages. I'm a trades guy with a good job and a wife and kid. I'm sure at least some of us would be considered "normal" by "normal" people.

None of us would pull any of that stuff.

Karl Aegis
2015-03-24, 09:37 PM
Normal people know how to be polite. Your friend has extremely low standards for normal.

1337 b4k4
2015-03-24, 09:43 PM
So, that's my story. Not really sure what to think about, and I don't really have a question for the forum. I just needed to share this story with someone. Anyone have any comments or thoughts on the situation?

I have to mostly agree with Beta, the take away lesson here is don't waste your time (or your players) playing something they don't want to play. It ends in frustration both for you and the players. That isn't to say you did anything "wrong" per se, but that you misread the situation and pushed yourself and your players beyond where you should have. Sometimes your players aren't in the mood to game, or to take the game seriously. And it's not always a matter of them "being rude" or even not liking your game, sometimes everyone is just in a weird mood. On those days it's best to do something else. And sure it sucks when you have very limited time, and rare opportunities to game, but it's all part of the gaming experience especially if you're irregularly joining an otherwise regular group. I have some friends that I manage to get together with maybe twice a year to game, and drive hours to do that. Sometimes we get an awesome full on blasting game going and other times we barely eke out a single battle. It is what it is and you take the good with the bad.

As to the specifics of this, again I agree with Beta, given that they didn't seem interested in playing or taking it seriously, wrapping it up after the sheriff would have been for the best. It would have felt a natural stopping point and let them walk away feeling like big damn heroes rather than feeling like the DM was out to kill them. By your own admission, at this point in addition to not being into it IRL, the players were also out of resources and capability IC. When the bounty hunter's showed up, especially if they hadn't been encountered before, it probably looked to them like "grudgey DM is pissed that we killed his BBEG and is going to kill us no matter what we do". At that point, it is actually rather common for "normal" gamers to start taking increasingly suicidal and disruptive actions in game. The mindset is basically if there's no way to win, they're at least going to take the game down with them.

I would suggest not cutting off all communication with your friend quite yet. In fact, I'd give yourself a day or two to calm down and get a change to view this with a detached eye and ask about what you could or should have done differently and what you missed. I'm not sure that immediately after a dissatisfying game and a ~10-12 hour day (3-4 hours to drive, 4 hours couch camping and another 2-4 hours of gaming) is the best time to get perspective on what went wrong. Emotions are high and nerves are frayed. A few days distance might let you look at everything with a clearer head and even if it ends with not gaming with them anymore, it might give you some future insight into handling something like this before it all goes south.


There is no such thing as normal. If you think your not weird, your just aware of yourself enough. I would not game with anyone who declares others "freaks" and "weirdoes" just because they roleplay differently.

All of humanity are weirdoes. Some of us just can't seem to stand someone else's flavor of weirdness.

In general I agree with you, but if we take Talakeal's stories at their face value (the ones outside of this thread included), then the people Talakeal plays with are often weirder than even most gamers are. The fact is, Talakeal either has the worst luck or the worst judgement in people when it comes to gaming and at best those groups could be described as "amusingly dysfunctional".

Talakeal
2015-03-24, 10:01 PM
I sort of simplified the narrative for the sake of telling the story as more post was more about my friend's after game lecture than the events of the game itself.

For some more elaboration, the bounty hunters actually showed up during the battle with the sheriff and turned it into a four way brawl between the PCs, the Sheriff and his deputies, the Bounty Hunters, and the Zombie Horde, with the townsfolk caught in the middle. I had it set up to be sort of the big showpiece capstone battle for the campaign.

As it turned out the PCs killed the sheriff, the zombies killed the militia, and the deputies killed the zombies. If, at that point, the players had decided to take any course of action together (sneak away, fight, surrender, negotiate, etc.) the game would have been over and we could have moved on to D&D.

Instead each PC decided to go off on their own crazy plan without communicating or coordinating with me or with one another. As a result we ended up with a TPK and the town overrun by zombies, which in retrospect I think was what the players had been going for all along.

I am still not sure why though.

As I said, the last few session went extremely well and I was considering turning this from a one off adventure into a long term campaign. Up until my friend told me that no one wanted me to come back I thought they were just having an off night and that I was being overly sensitive or misreading their actions as disinterest / distaste in the game.

Sith_Happens
2015-03-24, 10:25 PM
During the game session everyone is extremely distracted. They are texting and playing on their phones and watching videos and leaving the room for snacks. Now, I am normally fine with this, I am a pretty lax GM, but are the same time they are complaining that we aren't going to have enough time for their D&D game.

Then they are all joking around the entire time. Every time they state and IC action or speak to an NPC they make at least one joke first.

Eventually the final showdown with the corrupt sheriff and his posse occurs. The party, still joking and being distracted, starts doing really weird things. I had a suspicion they were trying to get themselves killed so they could get back to their D&D game, but I am still trying to stay positive and run the game as straight as I can. They don't synergize any strategy, they don't focus fire, they waste their resources on trivial things, and one person actually runs away and hides in a corner instead of fighting. They do some really bizarre stuff, like the wimpy little intellectual character decides to stand in front of the big burly tough guy "tank" character and soak up fire for him.

Considering their tactics they actually do really well and end up winning, albeit with most of their resources expended. In the aftermath of the battle a group of heavily armed bounty hunters who had been tracking their party fight their way into the town and tell the PCs to surrender.

Now, from an OOC perspective they can do whatever they want, this isn't a railroad. They can fight, run, surrender, or do whatever else they want. This is NOT a heavy handed force the players to be captured plot, and I indeed when I ran this adventure for my previous group they decided to stand and fight and took down the bounty hunters with little problem.

The players though, decide that they don't have enough resources left to kill the bounty hunters, and so surrendering isn't an option. Each one decides to go for a different crazy last move path. One character grabs a bag of dynamite, pretends to surrender to the bounty hunters, and then sets himself on fire to blow everyone up. One decides to blow a hole in the wall of the town and let the zombie horde in (keep in mind that there are numerous civilians as well as the other PCs still in the town). One decides to commit sepeku (literally). One decides to just jump over the wall into the mass of zombies and run for it.

From my experience this is in fact what a typical RPG group is like, yes.:smalltongue:


On the drive back to my friend's house he calls me a killer DM. I, flabbergasted, respond that they killed themselves and that I did everything in my power to keep them alive. I then said that I don't understand what went wrong, the last session went to well, but tonight it seemed like everyone was just acting completely at random with no regard to their own characters (or their party or the NPCs) safety and joking about everything.

Then, my friend gave me a big speech about how the problem was with my perspective. I am used to gaming with a bunch of wierdos and crazy people. He then made reference to the many gaming horror stories that I have previously told him (and which anyone who has been following my posts on this forum will probably be aware of). He told me that I just wasn't used to gaming with NORMAL people and didn't know how to handle it. That unlike my friends they are all well adjusted and have careers and families, and that this is how NORMAL people act during a game, and that I am just not used to dealing with people who are more socially adjusted than myself.

I just sat there in silence. When we got back to his house I told him that if that was what normal people were like at the gaming table than I was glad to be such a freak. His response was "Well, don't worry about. I am pretty sure NO ONE wants you to game with us ever again."

...This, on the other hand, is not.:smallyuk:


Anyone have any comments or thoughts on the situation?

http://cdn.meme.am/images/300x/6668228.jpg

1337 b4k4
2015-03-24, 10:33 PM
For some more elaboration, the bounty hunters actually showed up during the battle with the sheriff and turned it into a four way brawl between the PCs, the Sheriff and his deputies, the Bounty Hunters, and the Zombie Horde, with the townsfolk caught in the middle. I had it set up to be sort of the big showpiece capstone battle for the campaign.

With the full admission that I don't even know what system you were playing nor at what power level to say how survivable this would have been, if a DM had thrown something that big at me for a one off campaign, I would probably have assumed they were going for the TPK/Epic Rocks Fall/Big Damn Heroes with Sacrifices outcome and probably would have taken wild actions too. A one shot and a campaign session have different unspoken rules, and one of those tends to be that a one shot can be deadlier, and players can take more risks (and use more of their limited resources) because it's not going to have long term effects.


Instead each PC decided to go off on their own crazy plan without communicating or coordinating with me or with one another. As a result we ended up with a TPK and the town overrun by zombies, which in retrospect I think was what the players had been going for all along.

I am still not sure why though.

And this is where for future games, you should pause and ask them. Seriously there's nothing wrong as a DM with pausing the game and saying "Ok folks, what's the plan here because at the rate you're going, you're all aiming to be pushing daisies in a few rounds." Sometimes miscommunication happens, you think things are going one way (and think you're conveying that to the players) and the players think it's going another way. When things start to go off the rail, it's usually a good time to pause things and figure out what's going on. Maybe they feel like they're being put in a no win situation, maybe they're feeling like they're being railroaded. Maybe they're just having an off day, or maybe they think zombies and bounty hunters and tyrannical sheriffs is a slapstick setup rather than a serious premise. Communication is always the key, and sometimes it's easy to get cut off from the rest of the table behind the DM screen and dealing with all you have to handle to run the game.


Up until my friend told me that no one wanted me to come back I thought they were just having an off night and that I was being overly sensitive or misreading their actions as disinterest / distaste in the game.

Like I said, I'd give it a couple days and open up communication again. It still could have been an off night, and just as you might have been misreading them, they might have been misreading you.

Solaris
2015-03-24, 10:49 PM
On the drive back to my friend's house he calls me a killer DM. I, flabbergasted, respond that they killed themselves and that I did everything in my power to keep them alive. I then said that I don't understand what went wrong, the last session went to well, but tonight it seemed like everyone was just acting completely at random with no regard to their own characters (or their party or the NPCs) safety and joking about everything.

Then, my friend gave me a big speech about how the problem was with my perspective. I am used to gaming with a bunch of wierdos and crazy people. He then made reference to the many gaming horror stories that I have previously told him (and which anyone who has been following my posts on this forum will probably be aware of). He told me that I just wasn't used to gaming with NORMAL people and didn't know how to handle it. That unlike my friends they are all well adjusted and have careers and families, and that this is how NORMAL people act during a game, and that I am just not used to dealing with people who are more socially adjusted than myself.

I just sat there in silence. When we got back to his house I told him that if that was what normal people were like at the gaming table than I was glad to be such a freak. His response was "Well, don't worry about. I am pretty sure NO ONE wants you to game with us ever again."

I then decided that I didn't really want to visit anymore and decided to just drive back that night instead of staying with him. Not sure if I will be talking to him in the future.


So, that's my story. Not really sure what to think about, and I don't really have a question for the forum. I just needed to share this story with someone. Anyone have any comments or thoughts on the situation?

I think you had a different impression of your relationship with this person than he did. Regardless of how the gaming session went, that's a pretty damn condescending, rude, and excessively offensive (as in it's attacking you rather than the problem) sort of thing to say. I'm a fairly well-adjusted, socially skilled gamer with a career and a family. When I game, I game; I may joke some, but not to the point of excess, and I don't act like my every decision is determined by twitchplay. While I won't comment on running a game the players aren't interested in (it reflects as much on the players as it does on the GM), I will comment on this: Your 'friend' crossed the line with that self-righteous, arrogant, condescending font of bull****. If you feel angry, hurt, and upset about what he said to you, you're justified.

The Glyphstone
2015-03-24, 10:53 PM
This only serves to strengthen my theory that you are actually a resident of some sort of strange parallel dimension where everyone in the gaming community is bugnuts crazy, Talakeal, if this is the baseline of 'normal' for your world.

Solaris
2015-03-24, 10:56 PM
This only serves to strengthen my theory that you are actually a resident of some sort of strange parallel dimension where everyone in the gaming community is bugnuts crazy, Talakeal, if this is the baseline of 'normal' for your world.

Not just the gaming community - remember, his 'friend' is claiming that these are normal, well-adjusted, socially skilled people.

Talakeal doesn't just have bugnuts crazy gamers. Everyone in Takworld is loonie.

Talakeal
2015-03-24, 10:59 PM
This only serves to strengthen my theory that you are actually a resident of some sort of strange parallel dimension where everyone in the gaming community is bugnuts crazy, Talakeal, if this is the baseline of 'normal' for your world.

You know, that was kind of his point; that I am so used to bad gaming that it has distorted my perspective and can no longer recognize good gaming when I see it.

He has heard most of my past gaming horror stories, and as a result he was using them as ammunition to look extra smug and self righteous.

Lord Raziere
2015-03-24, 11:04 PM
Not just the gaming community - remember, his 'friend' is claiming that these are normal, well-adjusted, socially skilled people.

Talakeal doesn't just have bugnuts crazy gamers. Everyone in Takworld is loonie.

your assuming that this friend has an accurate view about what well-adjusted and socially skilled means in Takworld....

remember: if something is wrong with the brain, how can you trust the brain? I'd take what his friend says about what is "normal" with a grain of salt.

Seerow
2015-03-24, 11:08 PM
I think the point being seriously overlooked here by a number of people is that Talakeal was invited to run the game, and got up early to drive several hours to do so. Saying "Oh well they just weren't wanting to play that day, should have done something else" is bat**** insane given that context. If they didn't want to play, why invite him? Why waste the time and gas to have him drive all the way out there for something you just want to get out of the way so you can get on with playing D&D instead?

Not to mention the whole weirdness of showing up to the session you're supposed to be running several hours late so your friend who invited you can... take a nap? And this is the friend who is worried about how much time this one shot is going to take away from his D&D session. Early on it's implied 2-3 hours is cutting it close in how much time he wants to give up, and then that same amount of time is wasted literally sleeping through session time?


It honestly sounds like the group had no interest in playing this zombie game at all, but felt obligated to invite Talakeal back anyway. And then tried to make him look like the bad guy for actually doing it.

Thrudd
2015-03-24, 11:27 PM
I think the point being seriously overlooked here by a number of people is that Talakeal was invited to run the game, and got up early to drive several hours to do so. Saying "Oh well they just weren't wanting to play that day, should have done something else" is bat**** insane given that context. If they didn't want to play, why invite him? Why waste the time and gas to have him drive all the way out there for something you just want to get out of the way so you can get on with playing D&D instead?

Not to mention the whole weirdness of showing up to the session you're supposed to be running several hours late so your friend who invited you can... take a nap? And this is the friend who is worried about how much time this one shot is going to take away from his D&D session. Early on it's implied 2-3 hours is cutting it close in how much time he wants to give up, and then that same amount of time is wasted literally sleeping through session time?


It honestly sounds like the group had no interest in playing this zombie game at all, but felt obligated to invite Talakeal back anyway. And then tried to make him look like the bad guy for actually doing it.

Yes, very rude overall, none of it makes sense. There was no reason to even ask him to come all the way out there, knowing they didn't even want to play, and then to act the way he did and talk to him like that after....the whole situation is messed up.
It's like he purposefully wasted your time and tried to make you look bad. he could have at least let you know that the game would be starting a few hours later than scheduled so you didn't have to leave so early.

Is your friend normally the DM for the group? It occurs to me that part of the problem they might have had was that they, too, had to wait four hours for the game to start and had distracted themselves with other things and not in a gaming mood by the time he got around to getting the two of you over there. His whole speech is really just covering his own insecurities and failings, as someine who would do that sort of thing (take a nap and show up four hours late), is not a good or dependable DM or player himself, and it would not be surprising if he pulled that kind of thing on the group before. You just had the misfortune of trying to run a game when they were all supremely annoyed, probably because of him.

1337 b4k4
2015-03-25, 12:12 AM
I think the point being seriously overlooked here by a number of people is that Talakeal was invited to run the game, and got up early to drive several hours to do so. Saying "Oh well they just weren't wanting to play that day, should have done something else" is bat**** insane given that context. If they didn't want to play, why invite him? Why waste the time and gas to have him drive all the way out there for something you just want to get out of the way so you can get on with playing D&D instead?

Not to mention the whole weirdness of showing up to the session you're supposed to be running several hours late so your friend who invited you can... take a nap? And this is the friend who is worried about how much time this one shot is going to take away from his D&D session. Early on it's implied 2-3 hours is cutting it close in how much time he wants to give up, and then that same amount of time is wasted literally sleeping through session time?


It honestly sounds like the group had no interest in playing this zombie game at all, but felt obligated to invite Talakeal back anyway. And then tried to make him look like the bad guy for actually doing it.

Well, Talakeal's "friend" invited him, we have no insight as to how much or little the group was involved in that process (or if they even knew he was coming). And as Thrudd pointed out, it's possible the gaming mood was lost by the start time being late, again because of Talakeal's "friend". But I'll be honest, there are plenty of times my groups have gotten together, perfectly intending on gaming and by the time we all arrive, the mood is lost, that includes the twice a year group. It happens. It sucks, but it happens. Ultimately, as I said, none of Talakeal's groups could be called "normal" by most definitions. And frankly, calling him out just to make him look bad is middle school level prank and pretty excessive for something where they could have just not ever called him back. So either this is just another dysfunctional group and Talakeal continues his bad luck streak, or there was some serious miscommunication somewhere. I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt, and so until proven otherwise, I'd suggest Talakeal approach this as a miscommunication issue.

Mr.Moron
2015-03-25, 04:13 AM
This only serves to strengthen my theory that you are actually a resident of some sort of strange parallel dimension where everyone in the gaming community is bugnuts crazy, Talakeal, if this is the baseline of 'normal' for your world.

This is about my feelings as well. As presented nothing any of the players did in this game seems remotely close to reasonable, let alone normal. Doubly so for the friend in this story.

It's so awful I can't imagine how anyone would even think to consider they might have been the ones at fault. It makes me think there might be more to the story just because if there isn't this surely should have been bound for one of those long running "Worst player ever?" type threads, rather than this one.

Jornophelanthas
2015-03-25, 06:31 AM
It occurs to me that part of the problem they might have had was that they, too, had to wait four hours for the game to start and had distracted themselves with other things and not in a gaming mood by the time he got around to getting the two of you over there. His whole speech is really just covering his own insecurities and failings, as someine who would do that sort of thing (take a nap and show up four hours late), is not a good or dependable DM or player himself, and it would not be surprising if he pulled that kind of thing on the group before. You just had the misfortune of trying to run a game when they were all supremely annoyed, probably because of him.

I support the above argument.

In fact, I believe the "friend" above has actually sabotaged Talakeal from the start, and he never wanted the game to conclude. Below are my guesses of what could have happened, based on a single account of the game. (I could well be wrong.)

- I am guessing the "friend" was the one who invited Talakeal on behalf of his gaming friends, even though he didn't really want to himself. (He was just picked because he knew Talakeal longest.)
- The "friend" admitted he did not want to spend more than 2-3 hours on this western zombie game, and then proceeds to sleep for 4 hours.
- The "friend" also mentioned that the other players wanted to play their regular D&D game after the zombie game concluded. His nap made that impossible, but he proceeded to sleep anyway.
- Because Talakeal and the "friend" arrived four hours late at the comic store, the other players had already been bored and annoyed for four hours.
- After the zombie game ended, there was no more time for the D&D campaign, because it was already so late.
- I am guessing that afterwards, the "friend" blamed Talakeal for everything: the four-hour delay, the boredom, and the fact that the D&D game had to be canceled. Oh, and he also said that he didn't enjoy the zombie game. He probably found the others in agreement on all those points.
- Finally, the "friend" proceeds to call Talakeal and tells him the game was bad, that Talakeal is crazy, and that "nobody wants Talakeal to play with them again". Note that him saying "everybody says so" does not necessarily mean that he actually talked about it with anyone, he could just be inflating his own opinion.

Short version:
The "friend" did not want Talakeal to come over, but somehow could not get out of it. He then proceeded to make Talakeal look bad to the other players, and made sure that Talakeal would not be coming back in the future.

What could Talakeal have done differently?
- If Talakeal had turned back after the first phone call (in which the "friend" informed him of only wanting a 2-3 hour game), the "friend" would have told the other players that Talakeal had blown them off and is a jerk.
- If Talakeal had chosen not to wait for 4 hours during the nap, and gone home, see above.
- If Talakeal had gone ahead to the comic store while the "friend" napped, he could have apologized on behalf of the "friend", and the group could have done something else to pass the time. The "friend" would have been furious, but the other gamers would not blame Talakeal.
- Upon arriving 4 hours late, Talakeal could have made it very clear that it was not his own fault, but rather the "friend"'s sleep-deprivedness. Apologies would have to be made. Talakeal should also have checked with the other players if they were still up for any game at all.
- During the game with all the distractions, Talakeal could have asked the players if anything was wrong, and if they were in the right mood for this game, and then proposed to do something else if nobody was enjoying themselves.
- During the phonecall after the game had ended, Talakeal could have told the "friend" that he was being unfair, and told the "friend" that he was to blame for the fiasco, and he knew it. And probably hung up if the rant continued after that. ("I don't have to listen to this. Bye. [click]")

At this stage, there is probably nothing that can be done. The situation has already played itself out. The gaming group is a lost cause, at least for Talakeal.
There is only one thing that Talakeal can still do, and that is to contact the "friend" one more time, to calmly explain that he felt the "friend" was entirely unfair, that taking a four-hour nap during game time while the other players were already waiting was what ruined the game, and that blaming that on Talakeal is not what friends do. If the "friend" apologises, then at least the friendship can be salvaged (and it probably wasn't even intentional, just carelessness). If not, I would advise to exclude the "friend" from any future games and to cut off all contact.

Solaris
2015-03-25, 08:46 AM
You know, that was kind of his point; that I am so used to bad gaming that it has distorted my perspective and can no longer recognize good gaming when I see it.

He has heard most of my past gaming horror stories, and as a result he was using them as ammunition to look extra smug and self righteous.

The problem is, he's one of them. He can be smug and self-righteous all he wants, that doesn't change the fact that he's one of those socially maladjusted, bizarro-world players himself.

He's a tomato who hasn't yet looked in the mirror (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TomatoInTheMirror).


your assuming that this friend has an accurate view about what well-adjusted and socially skilled means in Takworld....

remember: if something is wrong with the brain, how can you trust the brain? I'd take what his friend says about what is "normal" with a grain of salt.

Considering all of Talakeal's other stories...

GungHo
2015-03-25, 08:55 AM
I can't tell if people are using "friend" (in quotes) to imply that this person is not a friend or to imply that they're rolling for disbelief of said person existing. Either way, I've decided that New Mexico is a rip in reality and have removed it from my bucket list. This is further reinforced by the one time I decided to drive from Orange, TX to El Paso and realized that the hills had eyes right around Ft. Stockton.

Angelmaker
2015-03-25, 09:00 AM
What a load of BS. "Normal poeple" my ass.

The only gamers i have ever met who partook in some sort of suicidal, game disrupting behaviour ever were the weirdos. I can really see some potential in the actions of the guy that sacrificed himself with the TNT, as in "I am not going back to jail. Ill take em down.". Really think thats cool.

But the rest? Outright weird.

By his definition psychopathical behaviour is the new normal. No well adjusted, caring individual would commit seppuku or blow up a town wall after fighting that hard to save the town. It just makes NO SENSE AT ALL.

Dont know what went wrong there, but thanks for sharing. Was a good read. Just sorry ti hear it went wrong.

Amphetryon
2015-03-25, 09:15 AM
As noted up-thread, the POV of another person who was present at this game might be illuminating.

What seems like a reasonable course of action from behind the GM screen may well appear to be Character suicide, or even a TPK, from the POV of the Players.

If, in your experience, Players making jokes and otherwise talking out of Character at times is atypical, bad gaming behavior at the gaming table, I can only say that my personal experiences since I first started in the hobby would qualify as exclusively atypical and bad gaming behavior, by that metric.

Gravitron5000
2015-03-25, 10:09 AM
He has heard most of my past gaming horror stories, and as a result he was using them as ammunition to look extra smug and self righteous.

Instead, he made himself the subject of your newest horror story.

1337 b4k4
2015-03-25, 10:41 AM
I can't tell if people are using "friend" (in quotes) to imply that this person is not a friend or to imply that they're rolling for disbelief of said person existing.

Despite my generally optimistic outlook, I use the quotes because IME, friends don't invite you from hours away to come game and then go take a nap for 4 hours. Regardless of whether miscommunication took place or not, it's clear that this "friend" at least doesn't seem to value Talakeal's time. Inviting someone from out of town and then intentionally and purposefully abandoning them to their own devices to nap (especially when you could have been napping while they were driving from out of town) is a bit of a **** move.

DontEatRawHagis
2015-03-25, 11:30 AM
I'll have to agree that the people I game with can be a bit distracted in game, but have fun. I mean I make a reference to TV SHOWS and MOVIES every session. One of my groups is filled with "socially normal" people and another I would say a bit abnormal.

I mean we are all social, it's just one group has about 4 socially awkward people as opposed to 2.

Freaks is a strong word, but after playing in organized play events I can say my friends are mild by comparison to some people. I used to try to use my DND games to help people get out of their shells and be social, but it was tough.

One of my previous players is a stone's throw away from getting a restraining order from a friend of mine. and I wish I could have helped him understand "she's just not into him".

SowZ
2015-03-25, 11:41 AM
Jeez. I once again sympathize with your inability to find reasonable gamers. If you lived in like, Raton or something, I'd say your free to come up to Colorado if you ever want a normal session.

Question. When was the last time you had a game group that you felt comfortable in without such bizarre players? I must admit, I don't know if I'd have the endurance to keep up with the hobby consistently if I'd had so many strange gaming experiences.

1337 b4k4
2015-03-25, 11:52 AM
So another point in the "miscommunication" column. Talakeal, in this thread, you say your friend accused you of being a killer DM. In the high lethality thread, you say he accused you of not being "hard core" enough for not punishing the players more. Generally speaking these two statements are at odds with one another. Can you clarify at all how your friend was holding the simultaneous position that you're a killer DM and your not punishing enough?

Tengu_temp
2015-03-25, 11:52 AM
I didn't know there are tabletop RPG players who use the "excuse me for having a life" excuse. I thought it's just MMO and FPS gamers. Using this phrase is a surefire sign of telling an *******, in any case.



Question. When was the last time you had a game group that you felt comfortable in without such bizarre players? I must admit, I don't know if I'd have the endurance to keep up with the hobby consistently if I'd had so many strange gaming experiences.

Honestly, with how often Talakeal has horror stories to tell us, sometimes I get the feeling he's just making all of it up. But if that's true then he must have pretty rich imagination.
Either that, or he's the unluckiest gamer on Earth. At least in terms of frequency; That Lanky Bugger still wins in terms of intensity, considering he got stabbed over a game.

SowZ
2015-03-25, 11:59 AM
So another point in the "miscommunication" column. Talakeal, in this thread, you say your friend accused you of being a killer DM. In the high lethality thread, you say he accused you of not being "hard core" enough for not punishing the players more. Generally speaking these two statements are at odds with one another. Can you clarify at all how your friend was holding the simultaneous position that you're a killer DM and your not punishing enough?

Are you positive they are the same people?

Solaris
2015-03-25, 12:01 PM
I didn't know there are tabletop RPG players who use the "excuse me for having a life" excuse. I thought it's just MMO and FPS gamers. Using this phrase is a surefire sign of telling an *******, in any case.

I've encountered it only once, with my previous DM who was upset I called him out on several socially maladjusted behaviors both he and his friend engaged in while under my roof.
I don't game with *******s; I don't game with him anymore.

Talakeal's pretty much the patron saint of "No gaming is better than bad gaming".

Talakeal
2015-03-25, 12:14 PM
Now that I think of it, this isn't the first time something like this has happened. The first time I ran a game for his group one of his cousins played with us, and couldn't take anything seriously. Like, at all. As in not a single thing he said the entire session wasn't a joke, and after the game when he gave his character sheet back I saw that he had written jokes all over it. I felt that he had crossed the line from laughing with me to laughing at me, and I felt like he was being disrespectful.* Having him at the table kind of felt like when I used to play at the rec room at school and members of the football team would come over and join in the game, but they weren't actually interested, they were just there to troll us and make fun us.

He got a new job and didn't show up to anymore sessions. After one game I told my friend something along the lines of:

"I am sorry to say it, but I am actually kind of glad your cousin couldn't make it. I seriously considered not even showing up again because of the way he made me feel." He asked me for some explanation and I told him the above.

His response was "Ah, I see what's going on here. So he didn't do anything wrong, he is just a normal person and a great guy, but because you have been traumatized by jocks in the past you are now hyper sensitive to anyone who makes light of your games."


*: Note that I am absolutely not the type of person who feels "disrespected". I have a visual disorder which means I don't look people in the eyes, and have been yelled at for not "respecting" people my whole life, and frankly I think the whole concept is kind of ridiculous. This is just about the only time in my entire life when I have felt disrespected.


So another point in the "miscommunication" column. Talakeal, in this thread, you say your friend accused you of being a killer DM. In the high lethality thread, you say he accused you of not being "hard core" enough for not punishing the players more. Generally speaking these two statements are at odds with one another. Can you clarify at all how your friend was holding the simultaneous position that you're a killer DM and your not punishing enough?

On the drive to the game he was giving me a lecture about how soft I was and how he had learned that you needed to be a hard ass and kill their characters to get them to respect the game.

On the drive home he said something to the effect of "See, you are a killer DM. All that stuff you said earlier was just a bunch of BS."


As noted up-thread, the POV of another person who was present at this game might be illuminating.

What seems like a reasonable course of action from behind the GM screen may well appear to be Character suicide, or even a TPK, from the POV of the Players.

If, in your experience, Players making jokes and otherwise talking out of Character at times is atypical, bad gaming behavior at the gaming table, I can only say that my personal experiences since I first started in the hobby would qualify as exclusively atypical and bad gaming behavior, by that metric.

Joking is fine, and being distracted with cell phones and youtube is tolerable. The problem in this case is that they were giving me pressure to hurry up and get the game over with so they could play D&D but still spent more than half their time making jokes which caused the game to draw out excessively.


I support the above argument.

In fact, I believe the "friend" above has actually sabotaged Talakeal from the start, and he never wanted the game to conclude. Below are my guesses of what could have happened, based on a single account of the game. (I could well be wrong.)

- I am guessing the "friend" was the one who invited Talakeal on behalf of his gaming friends, even though he didn't really want to himself. (He was just picked because he knew Talakeal longest.)
- The "friend" admitted he did not want to spend more than 2-3 hours on this western zombie game, and then proceeds to sleep for 4 hours.
- The "friend" also mentioned that the other players wanted to play their regular D&D game after the zombie game concluded. His nap made that impossible, but he proceeded to sleep anyway.
- Because Talakeal and the "friend" arrived four hours late at the comic store, the other players had already been bored and annoyed for four hours.
- After the zombie game ended, there was no more time for the D&D campaign, because it was already so late.
- I am guessing that afterwards, the "friend" blamed Talakeal for everything: the four-hour delay, the boredom, and the fact that the D&D game had to be canceled. Oh, and he also said that he didn't enjoy the zombie game. He probably found the others in agreement on all those points.
- Finally, the "friend" proceeds to call Talakeal and tells him the game was bad, that Talakeal is crazy, and that "nobody wants Talakeal to play with them again". Note that him saying "everybody says so" does not necessarily mean that he actually talked about it with anyone, he could just be inflating his own opinion.

Short version:
The "friend" did not want Talakeal to come over, but somehow could not get out of it. He then proceeded to make Talakeal look bad to the other players, and made sure that Talakeal would not be coming back in the future.

What could Talakeal have done differently?
- If Talakeal had turned back after the first phone call (in which the "friend" informed him of only wanting a 2-3 hour game), the "friend" would have told the other players that Talakeal had blown them off and is a jerk.
- If Talakeal had chosen not to wait for 4 hours during the nap, and gone home, see above.
- If Talakeal had gone ahead to the comic store while the "friend" napped, he could have apologized on behalf of the "friend", and the group could have done something else to pass the time. The "friend" would have been furious, but the other gamers would not blame Talakeal.
- Upon arriving 4 hours late, Talakeal could have made it very clear that it was not his own fault, but rather the "friend"'s sleep-deprivedness. Apologies would have to be made. Talakeal should also have checked with the other players if they were still up for any game at all.
- During the game with all the distractions, Talakeal could have asked the players if anything was wrong, and if they were in the right mood for this game, and then proposed to do something else if nobody was enjoying themselves.
- During the phonecall after the game had ended, Talakeal could have told the "friend" that he was being unfair, and told the "friend" that he was to blame for the fiasco, and he knew it. And probably hung up if the rant continued after that. ("I don't have to listen to this. Bye. [click]")

At this stage, there is probably nothing that can be done. The situation has already played itself out. The gaming group is a lost cause, at least for Talakeal.
There is only one thing that Talakeal can still do, and that is to contact the "friend" one more time, to calmly explain that he felt the "friend" was entirely unfair, that taking a four-hour nap during game time while the other players were already waiting was what ruined the game, and that blaming that on Talakeal is not what friends do. If the "friend" apologises, then at least the friendship can be salvaged (and it probably wasn't even intentional, just carelessness). If not, I would advise to exclude the "friend" from any future games and to cut off all contact.

It wasn't at a comic store, it was at his sister's house. The other players are all part of his extended family and I don't know any of them except through him, so me going by myself would have been pretty awkward.

The last game session seemed to go so well though, and they all told me they were having fun, that it never occurred to me that they just didn't like the game.

Although, honestly, I think when we have such a limited time to play and such a long commute I am probably not on the top of my game, and it does feel a little more like "business" rather than "fun."


I didn't know there are tabletop RPG players who use the "excuse me for having a life" excuse. I thought it's just MMO and FPS gamers. Using this phrase is a surefire sign of telling an *******, in any case.



Honestly, with how often Talakeal has horror stories to tell us, sometimes I get the feeling he's just making all of it up. But if that's true then he must have pretty rich imagination.
Either that, or he's the unluckiest gamer on Earth. At least in terms of frequency; That Lanky Bugger still wins in terms of intensity, considering he got stabbed over a game.

As I have said before, sometimes I wish I was making it up, but I am not. I am seriously passionate about the hobby and don't have a lot else going on in my life, so I put up with a lot more than most people. And even with all the crap I still enjoy myself more often than not. This session was one of the nots.

Also, Lanky Bugger wasn't really stabbed over gaming, it was more of an adultery / relationship issue that just happened to be set at the gaming table. Frankly, imo, although I recognize that no one ever deserves to be stabbed, if that story is accurate he had it coming just about as much as anyone could. Although I understand there is some debate over whether the third story was even his, and his first two stories certainly rank right up there with anything I have ever experienced.

Jornophelanthas
2015-03-25, 01:23 PM
Now this isn't the first time something like this has happened. The first time I ran a game for his group one of his cousins played with us, and couldn't take anything seriously. Like, at all. As in not a single thing he said the entire session wasn't a joke, and after the game when he gave his character sheet back I saw that he had written jokes all over it. I felt that he had crossed the line from laughing with me to laughing at me, and I felt like he was being disrespectful.*

He got a new job and didn't show up to anymore sessions. After one game I told my friend something along the lines of:

"I am sorry to say it, but I am actually kind of glad your cousin couldn't make it. I seriously considered not even showing up again because of the way he made me feel." He asked me for some explanation and I said the above + "Having him at the table kind of felt like when I used to play at the rec room at school and members of the football team would come over and join in the game, but they weren't actually interested, they were just there to troll us and make fun us."

His response was "Ah, I see what's going on here. So he didn't do anything wrong, he is just a normal person and a great guy, but because you have been traumatized by jocks in the past you are now hyper sensitive to anyone who makes light of your games."

I think this anecdote illustrates a lot about the "friend". He misunderstands your explanation because he jumps to conclusions about you, and he does not take your concerns seriously as a result. His reasoning apparently goes that being "normal" implies being right. And since his cousin is such "a normal guy", and you apparently are not, the cousin cannot be at fault.
Which is also why he places the blame for the failed game session squarely on you: the other players (including himself) are all "normal", so they can do no wrong. His obvious conclusion: you haven't been "normal" enough for everyone's tastes.

Has this "friend" shown other signs of feeling superior to you in the past? In your way of describing him, he comes across as a very patronizing person, who considers the friendship to be his special favour to you. (Which could be why believes he owes you little respect - after all, he finds it perfectly acceptable to keep you waiting for four hours while he went to sleep.)

Sith_Happens
2015-03-25, 03:38 PM
"I am sorry to say it, but I am actually kind of glad your cousin couldn't make it. I seriously considered not even showing up again because of the way he made me feel." He asked me for some explanation and I told him the above.

His response was "Ah, I see what's going on here. So he didn't do anything wrong, he is just a normal person and a great guy, but because you have been traumatized by jocks in the past you are now hyper sensitive to anyone who makes light of your games."

Wow. That is legitimately one of the most dismissive and condescending things I have ever heard or read in my life.

Maglubiyet
2015-03-25, 04:34 PM
You deserve better friends than this, Talakeal. The fact that he's so dismissive of your point of view, because he sees himself as "normal" and you apparently as not, says volumes about his feelings about your relationship.

Friendship is give and take, not just someone using another person. You drove 400 miles round trip to run a game for him and his extended family. You waited for four hours while he took a nap. What has he done for you that makes him worth the sacrifice?

D+1
2015-03-25, 06:31 PM
The first job of everyone playing the game, the point of the exercise, is to enjoy it. If you're not having fun why are you there? If you're not having fun, try to do something constructive about it. Don’t be disruptive in the name of finding something to do, but don’t expect someone else to come along and inflict fun upon you either. Your participation is a desired, even necessary component and you're not here just to be passively entertained. The worst thing a player can do is to do nothing.

Communicate! Even though you may think it's very obvious the DM might not know you aren't having fun unless you say something. DM's also don’t have to put up with not enjoying the experience either. Nobody can force you to run a game, and if players are unappreciative of the sacrifices a DM makes they don’t deserve to be rewarded with the fruit of your efforts. If you have a problem then say so. You can read online every week about another campaign blowing up (or about to) which can ALWAYS be traced to the fact that nobody spoke up before it festered into a truly destructive problem.0

If the characters ignore in-game or out-of-game warnings about dangers to their characters then the DM is then justified in applying what he actually knows to be lethal force in an encounter. Still doesn't mean he should, but it can’t really be held against him if he does. It also means that players are doing themselves no favors by never retreating or backing down and always pushing mindlessly for victory in a fight, because this leaves the DM with no options except mindlessly pushing back.

Assist the host and/or DM in getting others to respect the Table Rules as well as yourself. Be on time. Many people have limited hours to devote to the game so don't waste it for them. If you will be late or can't make the game let people know. Bring the things you need to bring (dice, character sheets, players handbook, etc.) and be ready to play when you arrive without wasting time.

Communication flows both ways and the DM does not need to act as though players should be forbidden to ever know what goes on in a DM's mind or behind the DM shield. When a DM makes rulings there is no reason not to freely explain why he rules as he does unless there is in-game information involved that PC's should not be privy to.

- All the above are taken whole or in part from my "D&D Manifesto" http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/manifesto.htm

While acknowledging that someone else's side of the story might be different, regarding the events related in this thread I'd add the following: If you need to drive hundreds of miles to get to the game which YOU are going to be running you need to be able to recognize red flags like, "We also want to reserve time for our regular D&D game today, so wrap it up quick." Um... No. If you want me to drive hundreds of miles then ALL participants will be ready willing and able to participate, ON TIME, and if you want to reserve time for playing another game entirely in addition to me being there to run MY game, then SET THAT TIME. I'll abide by it, or you can realize that as a group you need to just bite that bullet and reschedule one or the other of the games.

If I don't have direct communication avenues to all the players I cannot and will not be held responsible, by any or all of you, for what happens when I rely on "friend" to escort me to the game, but he decides to sleep for 4 hours (which is extraordinarily rude if "friend" doesn't first communicate to other participants that the game start will be delayed and WHY it is delayed. If players also want to dump the game FOR WHATEVER REASON (whether it's that they're just not into the zombie apocalypse thing tonight, or they'd just rather be sure that they can get their regular D&D game in) then it is rude and disrespectful to subvert and undermine it with pressures of, "Let's get this over with so we can do what we REALLY want to do." After all, I had to make a significant commitment of time, effort, MONEY in order to be here BY INVITATION. I get to have fun here too, even if I'm running the game, and that means that you don't get to slag the game I showed up to run just because you've got a hot date in mind with another PC. As noted in the manifesto, your participation is a necessary component, as is your willingness to NOT be disruptive.

If "friend" was your only avenue of communication to the other players, but he now says, "Nobody wants to play in YOUR reindeer games anymore," what choice do you have? Write off that game and those players for good. Is your friend still your friend, or was he ever really your friend? I'll get back to that in a sec - because there is still more than one side to be seen...

"Surrender, or else..." What did you expect to happen? Knuckle under and crawl? Hardly the first option players and their hero characters are likely to choose (nor the second, third, fourth...). Fight it out? What evidence did they get that such a choice would succeed? Even if it was just an honest oversight not to consider the PC's possible alternative choices beforehand and what THEIR perspective would be, it's still your job as DM to roll with that punch and somehow make it work. You say it wasn't a railroad - and yet when you faced them with that scenario did you make it LOOK and FEEL as if there were actually decent choices to be made, and not just opting for mad-lemming mode? Even if they were itching to just get it over with, they should have had options that SEEMED like they would be good to choose. And you were told bluntly that you should wrap it up quick so they could get to that other game. What did you then do to accommodate that request? Would the fight against the bounty hunters been a quick and successful end? Did the appearance of the bounty hunters really need to be played out at all, especially given your time pressures? Those are DM decisions that you have to take responsibility for.

And it's one thing to be fairly lax about slagging the game with disruption and inattention when all things are equal - but all things are NOT equal. You're now put out for having wasted time, effort and money to go and run a game for this group - why weren't you put out at the time sufficient to tell them to either shi... fish or cut bait? Yeah, it's rude and so on for players to do this sort of thing - but you acknowledge that it happens. If you choose to tolerate it then you can't go crying about it later. If they're doing weird and stupid things do you REALLY expect it to just stop suddenly and become a night of championship gaming? No, you either accept that the game is a write-off tonight or you stop the game and give them a reality check. "PEOPLE! This is not going well. Do we want to just call this one done? Do we want to put it on the back burner to maybe finish it off some other time - or even expand it? What's going on? Whatever THIS is that you're all doing... it's not working for me. If you tell me you're having a grand ol' time right now we'll keep going but that's not what it seems like from MY chair..."

FAILURE to communicate kills yet ANOTHER D&D game.

And then we come back to Mr. Friend. He says you're a pushover DM. You're also a killer DM. Your game tonight ended badly so you're clearly awful and it's certain nobody likes you, everybody hates you, may as well just go eat worms. Yet, if you're so awful in your friend's opinion why was he inviting you to DM?

Your friend seems to bear much responsibility. The other players bear much responsibility. But the OP sure seems to bear his fair share of responsibility.

Solaris
2015-03-25, 06:59 PM
Also, Lanky Bugger wasn't really stabbed over gaming, it was more of an adultery / relationship issue that just happened to be set at the gaming table. Frankly, imo, although I recognize that no one ever deserves to be stabbed, if that story is accurate he had it coming just about as much as anyone could. Although I understand there is some debate over whether the third story was even his, and his first two stories certainly rank right up there with anything I have ever experienced.

I'm more of the opinion that his stabbity ex was excessively, even psychotically, jealous. I had a similar situation (minus stabbing) arise wherein my sister-in-law pitched a fit because my brother jokingly asked if an NPC who had gone missing was hot (as in, he ain't got time for the fugglies). My sister-in-law will react violently to even the slightest perception of infidelity, whether it be based in reality or in her own overactive imagination. Lanky Bugger got stabbed not over adultery, but because his girlfriend didn't like him having flirty female friends (and, you know, she was psycho). A female player running a female character flirting with a male NPC isn't adultery, and neither is a female friend being affectionate with her male friend.
That's rather besides the point of the thread, though.

Oh, and your "friend's" use of the word normal is... nonstandard. For one thing, he seems to think of it as a good thing and a desirable trait. He may be right about its definition, though, as describing a selfish jerk who tramples all over the work and enjoyment of others, but that could just be my cynicism showing itself again.

Talakeal
2015-03-25, 07:31 PM
The first job of everyone playing the game, the point of the exercise, is to enjoy it. If you're not having fun why are you there? If you're not having fun, try to do something constructive about it. Don’t be disruptive in the name of finding something to do, but don’t expect someone else to come along and inflict fun upon you either. Your participation is a desired, even necessary component and you're not here just to be passively entertained. The worst thing a player can do is to do nothing.

Communicate! Even though you may think it's very obvious the DM might not know you aren't having fun unless you say something. DM's also don’t have to put up with not enjoying the experience either. Nobody can force you to run a game, and if players are unappreciative of the sacrifices a DM makes they don’t deserve to be rewarded with the fruit of your efforts. If you have a problem then say so. You can read online every week about another campaign blowing up (or about to) which can ALWAYS be traced to the fact that nobody spoke up before it festered into a truly destructive problem.0

If the characters ignore in-game or out-of-game warnings about dangers to their characters then the DM is then justified in applying what he actually knows to be lethal force in an encounter. Still doesn't mean he should, but it can’t really be held against him if he does. It also means that players are doing themselves no favors by never retreating or backing down and always pushing mindlessly for victory in a fight, because this leaves the DM with no options except mindlessly pushing back.

Assist the host and/or DM in getting others to respect the Table Rules as well as yourself. Be on time. Many people have limited hours to devote to the game so don't waste it for them. If you will be late or can't make the game let people know. Bring the things you need to bring (dice, character sheets, players handbook, etc.) and be ready to play when you arrive without wasting time.

Communication flows both ways and the DM does not need to act as though players should be forbidden to ever know what goes on in a DM's mind or behind the DM shield. When a DM makes rulings there is no reason not to freely explain why he rules as he does unless there is in-game information involved that PC's should not be privy to.

- All the above are taken whole or in part from my "D&D Manifesto" http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/manifesto.htm

While acknowledging that someone else's side of the story might be different, regarding the events related in this thread I'd add the following: If you need to drive hundreds of miles to get to the game which YOU are going to be running you need to be able to recognize red flags like, "We also want to reserve time for our regular D&D game today, so wrap it up quick." Um... No. If you want me to drive hundreds of miles then ALL participants will be ready willing and able to participate, ON TIME, and if you want to reserve time for playing another game entirely in addition to me being there to run MY game, then SET THAT TIME. I'll abide by it, or you can realize that as a group you need to just bite that bullet and reschedule one or the other of the games.

If I don't have direct communication avenues to all the players I cannot and will not be held responsible, by any or all of you, for what happens when I rely on "friend" to escort me to the game, but he decides to sleep for 4 hours (which is extraordinarily rude if "friend" doesn't first communicate to other participants that the game start will be delayed and WHY it is delayed. If players also want to dump the game FOR WHATEVER REASON (whether it's that they're just not into the zombie apocalypse thing tonight, or they'd just rather be sure that they can get their regular D&D game in) then it is rude and disrespectful to subvert and undermine it with pressures of, "Let's get this over with so we can do what we REALLY want to do." After all, I had to make a significant commitment of time, effort, MONEY in order to be here BY INVITATION. I get to have fun here too, even if I'm running the game, and that means that you don't get to slag the game I showed up to run just because you've got a hot date in mind with another PC. As noted in the manifesto, your participation is a necessary component, as is your willingness to NOT be disruptive.

If "friend" was your only avenue of communication to the other players, but he now says, "Nobody wants to play in YOUR reindeer games anymore," what choice do you have? Write off that game and those players for good. Is your friend still your friend, or was he ever really your friend? I'll get back to that in a sec - because there is still more than one side to be seen...

"Surrender, or else..." What did you expect to happen? Knuckle under and crawl? Hardly the first option players and their hero characters are likely to choose (nor the second, third, fourth...). Fight it out? What evidence did they get that such a choice would succeed? Even if it was just an honest oversight not to consider the PC's possible alternative choices beforehand and what THEIR perspective would be, it's still your job as DM to roll with that punch and somehow make it work. You say it wasn't a railroad - and yet when you faced them with that scenario did you make it LOOK and FEEL as if there were actually decent choices to be made, and not just opting for mad-lemming mode? Even if they were itching to just get it over with, they should have had options that SEEMED like they would be good to choose. And you were told bluntly that you should wrap it up quick so they could get to that other game. What did you then do to accommodate that request? Would the fight against the bounty hunters been a quick and successful end? Did the appearance of the bounty hunters really need to be played out at all, especially given your time pressures? Those are DM decisions that you have to take responsibility for.

And it's one thing to be fairly lax about slagging the game with disruption and inattention when all things are equal - but all things are NOT equal. You're now put out for having wasted time, effort and money to go and run a game for this group - why weren't you put out at the time sufficient to tell them to either shi... fish or cut bait? Yeah, it's rude and so on for players to do this sort of thing - but you acknowledge that it happens. If you choose to tolerate it then you can't go crying about it later. If they're doing weird and stupid things do you REALLY expect it to just stop suddenly and become a night of championship gaming? No, you either accept that the game is a write-off tonight or you stop the game and give them a reality check. "PEOPLE! This is not going well. Do we want to just call this one done? Do we want to put it on the back burner to maybe finish it off some other time - or even expand it? What's going on? Whatever THIS is that you're all doing... it's not working for me. If you tell me you're having a grand ol' time right now we'll keep going but that's not what it seems like from MY chair..."

FAILURE to communicate kills yet ANOTHER D&D game.

And then we come back to Mr. Friend. He says you're a pushover DM. You're also a killer DM. Your game tonight ended badly so you're clearly awful and it's certain nobody likes you, everybody hates you, may as well just go eat worms. Yet, if you're so awful in your friend's opinion why was he inviting you to DM?

Your friend seems to bear much responsibility. The other players bear much responsibility. But the OP sure seems to bear his fair share of responsibility.



Ok, first off, even if I was the absolute worst DM in the world, what my "friend" said to me after the game was completely uncalled for. He went into the realm of personal attacks and one of the meanest things anyone has ever said to me and I really can't see how I bear the responsibility for that no matter how bad my game was.

But you know what, looking back over the threads I have started in the last year, about half of them were started because this friend has started DMing and now thinks he is god's gift to gaming and handing out judgments from on high. I think I just need to stop taking what he says so seriously, or better yet just stop listening to him altogether.


Now as for the game itself, I wasn't sure they weren't having fun, I don't know these people too well, maybe they were just in a goofy mood. I was told that we were short on time, and I had invested a lot of time and energy in coming out there and preparing for the game, so I didn't feel like stopping the game then and there, and I was a bit too shy to rock the boat with a long conversation about how they are doing it wrong when the problem might have all been in my head.

As for the encounter itself, the bounty hunters were always meant to be the "end boss" of the game, the players new they were coming from the start, and they showed up during the previous fight with the sheriff, not after. Maybe I could have come up with an alternative if given a lot of time to think about alternate resolutions in hindsight, but at the moment I didn't see any, especially when I was told I needed to wrap the game up quickly so they could get back to D&D.

They weren't unbeatable, I ran the exact same adventure for a previous group and they stomped the bounty hunters flat. The only reason it looked like a no win situation is that during the previous fight the players started acting wacky. As I said one guy ran and hid in the corner, the delicate unarmored guy purposefully used himself as a human shield to protect the big tanky guy, the wounded guy jumped into the fiercest fighting, and one guy blew all of his resources on something utterly trivial and irrelevant.

Furthermore, I know player's don't like to surrender, but it isn't completely unreasonable to think it a possibility. I seen plenty of successful "jail break" scenarios from both sides of the screen, and ransom is a fairly common penalty to defeat without death even if it isn't "fun" too lose*. And if they did surrender they wouldn't face prison or execution, but rather a trial by combat, which I would have thought would have made for a fun adventure in the future.

As I said, I was really impressed by this group in the previous session and they told me they were all having a ton of fun, so I was fully hoping up until the last 5 minutes of suicide and insanity that they would want to turn this into an ongoing campaign in the future.

But I am curious how you would handle that situation; if the players did something really stupid right before the "final boss" of an adventure and then went ahead to fight the boss, what would you do? Just have the enemy go *poof* or drop dead of a heart attack rather than fight? If offering surrender and fighting are both now out of the question, I can't really see what's left. The players weren't even willing to negotiate with them.

*Although as the classic Twilight Zone episode pointed out, it is far more fun than a scenario where you always win.


I'm more of the opinion that his stabbity ex was excessively, even psychotically, jealous. I had a similar situation (minus stabbing) arise wherein my sister-in-law pitched a fit because my brother jokingly asked if an NPC who had gone missing was hot (as in, he ain't got time for the fugglies). My sister-in-law will react violently to even the slightest perception of infidelity, whether it be based in reality or in her own overactive imagination. Lanky Bugger got stabbed not over adultery, but because his girlfriend didn't like him having flirty female friends (and, you know, she was psycho). A female player running a female character flirting with a male NPC isn't adultery, and neither is a female friend being affectionate with her male friend.
That's rather besides the point of the thread, though.

Oh, and your "friend's" use of the word normal is... nonstandard. For one thing, he seems to think of it as a good thing and a desirable trait. He may be right about its definition, though, as describing a selfish jerk who tramples all over the work and enjoyment of others, but that could just be my cynicism showing itself again.

Yeah, normal and well adjusted aren't always the same thing.

Ok, just reread Lanky's story. Yeah, he was definitely in the wrong there. Now, I don't ever think it is ok to stab someone, but I would probably do the exact same thing in that situation, his behavior was totally unacceptable. And maybe I am old fashioned, but I consider a superficial stab wound in the heat of the moment to be less offensive than beating a woman who is half your size into unconsciousness while she is trying to apologize.

1337 b4k4
2015-03-25, 07:54 PM
But you know what, looking back over the threads I have started in the last year, about half of them were started because this friend has started DMing and now thinks he is god's gift to gaming and handing out judgments from on high. I think I just need to stop taking what he says so seriously, or better yet just stop listening to him altogether.

Seriously? Your threads are almost word for word "how not to game" examples. If this is the same guy that's been inspiring all your most recent threads, then yes, their concept of "normal" is suspect at best and downright fatally wrong at worst. Let me put it to you this way, I wouldn't take any player you've described in any of your threads to know "normal" gaming from a hole in the wall. Your luck with gaming groups is legendary for how awful it's been.

I'm revising my previous advice. Cut off all contact from this one and all your other problematic gamers. You really need a fresh start. Have you considered just going to pickup/encounters games at your FLGS and identifying players you think are cool and recruiting a new group from scratch? It's extra work, but at least the encounters scenarios would let you get a look at how the players behave without making them your DM or DMing for them.

NichG
2015-03-25, 08:00 PM
Ok, first off, even if I was the absolute worst DM in the world, what my "friend" said to me after the game was completely uncalled for. He went into the realm of personal attacks and I really can't see how I bear the responsibility for that no matter how bad my game was.

But you know what, looking back over the threads I have started in the last year, about half of them were started because this friend has started DMing and now thinks he is god's gift to gaming and handing out judgments from on high. I think I just need to stop taking what he says so seriously, or better yet just stop listening to him altogether.

Yes, pretty much this.



Now as for the game itself, I wasn't sure they weren't having fun, I don't know these people too well, maybe they were just in a goofy mood. I was told that we were short on time, and I had invested a lot of time and energy in coming out there and preparing for the game, so I didn't feel like stopping the game then and there, and I was a bit too shy to rock the boat with a long conversation about how they are doing it wrong when the problem might have all been in my head.


In a broader sense, it feels like you don't necessarily have problems picking up on hints or patterns of behavior that are off (which is what the normal admonition to 'communicate!' is about). The issue seems more like, even once you notice something going wrong, you don't adjust your actions or expectations on the fly to try to resolve it. E.g. as other posters mentioned, you saw that the game was going significantly worse than the previous session, but you felt like you had to just push through - run everything as you had previously planned. Whereas in retrospect in this situation, it seems that if you had just drove 200 miles and done nothing, then went home, you'd actually be better off than having had run game.

So in such a situation where things are trending in a bad direction you should think, based on your conclusions and your analysis, 'what can I change about this interaction, even if it feels awkward or uncomfortable when I imagine it?'.

Regardless of your friend being a jerk, this kind of behavior among gamers is actually pretty normal. Most people are not self-aware or mature enough to not only pinpoint the source of their dis-satisfaction but also to take measures to really address it. Many gamers who aren't having fun won't take the step to think 'what can I do OOC to improve things?' - they'll be entirely focused IC when it comes to 'productive' actions, and the frustration will just generally start spilling over into misbehavior OOC. "I'm finding the game unpleasant, so rather than make contact with that unpleasant situation that I can't do anything about, I'll just joke with my friends and ignore the game."

So the DM has to be the one who is willing to do the awkward or unpleasant thing to really address the situation and get around the avoidance behavior.


Furthermore, I know player's don't like to surrender, but it isn't completely unreasonable to think it a possibility. I seen plenty of successful "jail break" scenarios from both sides of the screen, and ransom is a fairly common penalty to defeat without death even if it isn't "fun" too lose*. And if they did surrender they wouldn't face prison or execution, but rather a trial by combat, which I would have thought would have made for a fun adventure in the future.

Its a basic DM truism that whatever you have in your head doesn't change what the players perceive. You can see that 'surrender is a possible choice, or the fight can be won, or ...', but they can't read your mind. You have learn to recognize the 'victory or death' sentiment brewing and be willing to change course, or stick to gaming that doesn't get so close to particular problem scenarios like surrender.


But I am curious how you would handle that situation; if the players did something really stupid right before the "final boss" of an adventure and then went ahead to fight the boss, what would you do? Just have the enemy go *poof* or drop dead of a heart attack rather than fight? If offering surrender and fighting are both now out of the question, I can't really see what's left. The players weren't even willing to negotiate with them.

Stop the game and discuss what's going on. 'Hey guys, do you realize that you have one round left before your death becomes inevitable, and all you need to prevent it is to ignore the tank and push the lever that stops the doomsday device.', 'Hey guys, you do realize that these guys are the last boss. They're talking themselves up as invincible, but even with your resources depleted this is a fight you can win.', etc.

aspekt
2015-03-25, 08:15 PM
This whole perspective that the GM is the only adult in the room capable of expressing their preferences is a bit odd.

If the players were bored, then as puportedly well-adjusted adults with real life responsibilities, they are perfectly capable of expressing that.

If they can't, then I would call into question the claims to being responsible adults.

I find this burden of GMs being the only adult in the room even stranger coming from forum regulars who decry lack of agency being given to players in certain game systems and play styles. Frankly, it strikes me as hypocritical to cry foul over player agency in a game and then to refuse players that agency in real life when it likely counts the most.

Kalmageddon
2015-03-25, 08:32 PM
My opinion is that either Talakeal is for whatever reason omitting some pretty heavy background stuff with all these people, things that might explain why he's being treated this way, for example, or that these people are some of the worst friends and rudest people I've ever heard of, to the point I struggle to make sense of their actions. It sounds like one moment they are friendly and plesant enough to make you want to game with them, the next they go full troll-mode and try to insult you the worst way the can.
This just doesn't add up.

1337 b4k4
2015-03-25, 08:37 PM
This whole perspective that the GM is the only adult in the room capable of expressing their preferences is a bit odd.

If the players were bored, then as puportedly well-adjusted adults with real life responsibilities, they are perfectly capable of expressing that.

If they can't, then I would call into question the claims to being responsible adults.

I find this burden of GMs being the only adult in the room even stranger coming from forum regulars who decry lack of agency being given to players in certain game systems and play styles. Frankly, it strikes me as hypocritical to cry foul over player agency in a game and then to refuse players that agency in real life when it likely counts the most.

I don't think anyone has suggested the players don't have their own faults in this, but Talakeal specifically asked about how other GMs would have handled it, and things that he could have done differently. It does us no good to say that the players should have done X Y or Z because that's in the past, and Talakeal can't control anyone else but himself.

Talakeal
2015-03-25, 08:39 PM
My opinion is that either Talakeal is for whatever reason omitting some pretty heavy background stuff with all these people, things that might explain why he's being treated this way, for example, or that these people are some of the worst friends and rudest people I've ever heard of, to the point I struggle to make sense of their actions. It sounds like one moment they are friendly and plesant enough to make you want to game with them, the next they go full troll-mode and try to insult you the worst way the can.
This just doesn't add up.

Aside from my one friend I hardly know these people. I have only met them 4 times before, and the previous time I saw them everyone seemed to be happy and friendly and having fun.

Now, my friend, who is the one I really take issue with because of his tirade after the game, may have some long term baggage that he is holding up from something that may or may not have happened years ago, but I haven't had much contact with him recently and can't recall any of it being negative.

Sith_Happens
2015-03-25, 08:59 PM
But you know what, looking back over the threads I have started in the last year, about half of them were started because this friend has started DMing and now thinks he is god's gift to gaming and handing out judgments from on high. I think I just need to stop taking what he says so seriously, or better yet just stop listening to him altogether.

So there IS a connection!

Solaris
2015-03-25, 09:06 PM
Ok, first off, even if I was the absolute worst DM in the world, what my "friend" said to me after the game was completely uncalled for. He went into the realm of personal attacks and one of the meanest things anyone has ever said to me and I really can't see how I bear the responsibility for that no matter how bad my game was.

I'd agree completely with this statement, except the absolute worst DM in the world encompasses people like Byron Hall and Chief Circle.


But you know what, looking back over the threads I have started in the last year, about half of them were started because this friend has started DMing and now thinks he is god's gift to gaming and handing out judgments from on high. I think I just need to stop taking what he says so seriously, or better yet just stop listening to him altogether.

This one, on the other hand, I agree to without reservation.
Look, I'm not going to sharpshoot your performance as a DM by trying to read in between the lines. I wasn't there, I have only your account, and frankly you didn't ask for us to call out all your mistakes. There's not enough to go by, and it's unwanted to begin with (for the record, though, I don't see too much trouble with how you ran things). One person's misery is another person's delight, when it comes to gaming.
What I can say is this: This decision is long overdue, and if you're right about him being the genesis of a lot of your problems I'm glad you made it.
It provides important data on the Takworld theory.


Ok, just reread Lanky's story. Yeah, he was definitely in the wrong there. Now, I don't ever think it is ok to stab someone, but I would probably do the exact same thing in that situation, his behavior was totally unacceptable.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on that part; I don't want to totally derail your thread and I recall how the actual thread turned into a hate-fest on Lanky.


And maybe I am old fashioned, but I consider a superficial stab wound in the heat of the moment to be less offensive than beating a woman who is half your size into unconsciousness while she is trying to apologize.

This part, on the other hand, but only because it's touching on certain things I find particularly troublesome.

That is old-fashioned in the sexist sort of way, if you're giving the female assailant the benefit of 'the heat of the moment' while not giving it to the guy who leaped to TLB's defense. There isn't a whole lot of time to sit, analyze, and think, and the guy did just see her stab someone. For all he knew, it was a lot more serious than a superficial stab.

Chivalrous courtesy and gentlemanly conduct do not protect ladies who stab people because of emotional issues; if you stab someone because you're upset, you ain't a lady. You're a psychopath who needs to realize that your emotions do not have a greater value than other people's health and wellbeing. Get mad at and yell at them? Sure. Stab them? No.

The fact that she's half his size? She should have thought about that before attacking his friend. The guy who delivered the roundhouse kick didn't beat her into unconsciousness, he only struck her the one time. Her being smaller than him is why the ideas of chivalry, gentlemanly conduct, and ladylike conduct developed, to reinforce that males shouldn't attack females and engendering in women that they shouldn't be picking fights (particularly with men) on account of the differences between the sexes. Being small and weak isn't a moral defense against retaliation when you're the aggressor.

In short? "Don't hit girls" only applies when the girl didn't hit you (or your buddy) first. It kinda works like the D&D sanctuary spell.

Lord Raziere
2015-03-25, 09:06 PM
So there IS a connection!

see Talakeal? take your "friend"'s advice with a grain of salt, at best. but really, cut off contact. no gaming > bad gaming. this is not my opinion, this is wisdom passed down to me from the elders of the roleplaying community who have experienced their own horror stories. you can try to find good gaming yes, but never settle for bad gaming, it only causes pain.

Excession
2015-03-25, 09:47 PM
As for the encounter itself, the bounty hunters were always meant to be the "end boss" of the game, the players new they were coming from the start, and they showed up during the previous fight with the sheriff, not after. Maybe I could have come up with an alternative if given a lot of time to think about alternate resolutions in hindsight, but at the moment I didn't see any, especially when I was told I needed to wrap the game up quickly so they could get back to D&D.

Sorry for perhaps nit-picking over details...

Were you playing out all of the bounty hunters' actions in combat? Watching NPCs fight other NPCs, in detail, is something that players can find really boring. In DMing, as in life, nobody wants to watch you play with yourself.

With hindsight engaged, my idea for an alternative resolution would be for the bounty hunters to realise that they're in the middle of a small scale zombie apocalypse, and fighting with other non-zombies is just going to expend resources they need to fight the real threat. Have them open with "How about we all kill these zombies, then we'll pretend we never saw each other?". I would give the players a chance to come up with this or another plan first though.

Talakeal
2015-03-25, 09:52 PM
Sorry for perhaps nit-picking over details...

Were you playing out all of the bounty hunters' actions in combat? Watching NPCs fight other NPCs, in detail, is something that players can find really boring. In DMing, as in life, nobody wants to watch you play with yourself.

With hindsight engaged, my idea for an alternative resolution would be for the bounty hunters to realise that they're in the middle of a small scale zombie apocalypse, and fighting with other non-zombies is just going to expend resources they need to fight the real threat. Have them open with "How about we all kill these zombies, then we'll pretend we never saw each other?". I would give the players a chance to come up with this or another plan first though.

Actually, that is more or less what happened. The players killed the sheriff then ran and hid and didn't come out until all of the zombies (and most of the town) were dead. Then they started talking to the bounty hunters, stopped talking half way through, and then proceeded to do random stuff.

I didn't roll any dice for NPC on NPC combat, no.

Gritmonger
2015-03-25, 09:59 PM
Aside from my one friend I hardly know these people. I have only met them 4 times before, and the previous time I saw them everyone seemed to be happy and friendly and having fun.

Now, my friend, who is the one I really take issue with because of his tirade after the game, may have some long term baggage that he is holding up from something that may or may not have happened years ago, but I haven't had much contact with him recently and can't recall any of it being negative.

Ever think that after game one, they might have had enough fun that he felt threatened, lambasted your gaming style as an "experienced GM" and then primed the pump for a bad time just to, by process of elimination, show how good he was?

SiuiS
2015-03-25, 10:06 PM
What a load of BS. "Normal poeple" my ass.

The only gamers i have ever met who partook in some sort of suicidal, game disrupting behaviour ever were the weirdos. I can really see some potential in the actions of the guy that sacrificed himself with the TNT, as in "I am not going back to jail. Ill take em down.". Really think thats cool.

But the rest? Outright weird.

By his definition psychopathical behaviour is the new normal. No well adjusted, caring individual would commit seppuku or blow up a town wall after fighting that hard to save the town. It just makes NO SENSE AT ALL.

Dont know what went wrong there, but thanks for sharing. Was a good read. Just sorry ti hear it went wrong.


But it's all just toons right? Lol aaaaaaaaay!


This is obviously a beer and pretzels "roll to see if I do her!" Kind of group. That's fine. And to those groups, people who view gaming as a time commitment and want everyone to being their game face are weird; it's only a game right? Y so srs, just relax and jeez stop being uptight it's not like you had to come here, jeez.

I disagree, entirely. I am an adult. My time is worth more than that. My time is worth more than minimum wage, which means my time is worth more than any other entertainment for the same value. If I drove two hundred miles (eight gallons of petrol!) and burnt six hours watching kindergarteners play make-believe really, really badly, and then insult me for doing so? You can bet your ass there are some issues there.

Galen
2015-03-26, 12:53 AM
I didn't know there are tabletop RPG players who use the "excuse me for having a life" excuse. I thought it's just MMO and FPS gamers. Using this phrase is a surefire sign of telling an *******, in any case.
I've met a lot of people who spend, let's say, 5 hours a week on fantasy gaming, and if you tell them you spend, let's say, 10 hours a week on fantasy gaming, they will look down at you like you are an inferior species. Because they, you see, have a life. They only game 5 hours a week, and clearly that makes them superior to you. (at the same time, they will look condescendingly upon the 'scrub' who only games 3 hours a week).

That's how those people think:
- Anyone who spends less time than me on <this game>, is a scrub and a noob.
- Anyone who spends more time than me on <this game>, is a no-life basement dwelling nerd.

Jornophelanthas
2015-03-26, 09:31 AM
Wait, so Talakeal has a long history with the "friend"?

Please do not tell me that the "friend" is the same person who etched his name in Talakeal's parent's antique wooden table when they were teenagers, and justified this by claiming that it was Talakeal's well-deserved punishment for not entertaining him enough?

Feddlefew
2015-03-26, 10:24 AM
Wait, so Talakeal has a long history with the "friend"?

Please do not tell me that the "friend" is the same person who etched his name in Talakeal's parent's antique wooden table when they were teenagers, and justified this by claiming that it was Talakeal's well-deserved punishment for not entertaining him enough?

what :smalleek:

Did this come up on a previous thread that I missed or something? Because that's just- That'd get you thrown out on the curb...

The Glyphstone
2015-03-26, 10:57 AM
Or the same guy who responded to the offer of sanctuary in a desert goddess's oasis temple by trying to rape+murder all the priestesses and burn everything to the ground because he 'would never submit to tyrannical authority'?

comicshorse
2015-03-26, 11:08 AM
I always feel so much better about my P.C.s after reading Tak's stuff :smallcool:

Mr.Moron
2015-03-26, 11:08 AM
Or the same guy who responded to the offer of sanctuary in a desert goddess's oasis temple by trying to rape+murder all the priestesses and burn everything to the ground because he 'would never submit to tyrannical authority'?

That's the most insane neackbeardy thing I've heard in a while. Surely there must be more to that story. I can't imagine a player like that not outing themselves by like halfway through character creation.

The Glyphstone
2015-03-26, 11:32 AM
That's the most insane neackbeardy thing I've heard in a while. Surely there must be more to that story. I can't imagine a player like that not outing themselves by like halfway through character creation.

There probably is, but the only bit I remember of the expanded story was that the rest of the group gleefully and cheerfully joined in.

Broken Twin
2015-03-26, 11:54 AM
In relation to the OP, pushing to complete the game when the players were clearly uninterested probably wasn't the best choice of action, for either side's enjoyment. But regardless of that, the way your so-called-friend acted is appalling. If the way he acted in this story is in any way close to his normal behavior, I'd drop him like a bad habit. He's a self righteous jerk with entitlement issues and no respect for other people.

Talakeal
2015-03-26, 12:04 PM
what :smalleek:

Did this come up on a previous thread that I missed or something? Because that's just- That'd get you thrown out on the curb...

No, that was someone else. Someone who has actually really grown up in the last couple years from being the worst gamer ever to one of the better ones actually.

Now, the last few months I have tried to leave my old group as two of the people have descended into madness and violence (and decided to start a family so they dont have much time). One of the groups is great, one is the group in question here which was previously good. But was a long commute, and one is run by the worst. dm this side of chief circle.

Now, most of my recent threads are a response to me telling the guy in the OP about crazy behavior from my old group or crazy DMing in my current group and he makes some sweeping statement about the nature of gaming and acts like I am blind for. Not seeing it, and then I come here for a second Opinion.


Or the same guy who responded to the offer of sanctuary in a desert goddess's oasis temple by trying to rape+murder all the priestesses and burn everything to the ground because he 'would never submit to tyrannical authority'?

He is one of the two PCs involved in that incident, cant remember if he was the instigator thiugh. He was the one who mocked the survivor ruthlessly though.

I dont game with him much anymore (and probably never will again) but he is not usually an actively bad gamer, he just gets distracted really easilly and acts out when he is bored. He is the Phoenix Form guy from the worst gamer thread, but that story is really more funny that actively hurtful.


Probably the worst thing he ever did is go to the bathroom while I was taking the monsters turn. One of the monsters crit him (not nearly enough damage to kill his character or anything) and I informed him when he came back. He told me that wasnt fair as he was out of the room and I needed to reroll. I told him him I wasnt going to reroll, and everyone at the table told him they saw the dice fair and square. He said "the odds of rolling a natural twenty are five percent. The odds of you guys all lying to me to make me look bad are a hell of a lot higher than that. Which one do you think I believe?" And then he stormed out of the house and never came back to that particular campaign.

Mr.Moron
2015-03-26, 12:18 PM
There probably is, but the only bit I remember of the expanded story was that the rest of the group gleefully and cheerfully joined in.

I'd probably react with:

"The whole world suddenly darkens. As you look up, the sky is a black sheet. A circle of glowing runes appear where the clouds should be. It seems massive, framing the whole sky. A portal to a great tunnel opens inside of it.It seems infinitely deep, attempting to look down it leaves you disoriented and confused. After a minute there is a great sounding of trumpets and flying figures emerge from the portal. Winged Dogs, of all breeds in a rainbow of colors. You are powerless as they overwhelm you - pulling your limbs from your body. You somehow remain alive as great purple greyhounds rip your heads from your shoulders and begin to ascend to the portal with them in tow. As the portal grows closer, television static fills our vision and you hear the screaming of a goat."

End Session.

aspekt
2015-03-26, 12:35 PM
I'd probably react with:

"The whole world suddenly darkens. As you look up, the sky is a black sheet. A circle of glowing runes appear where the clouds should be. It seems massive, framing the whole sky. A portal to a great tunnel opens inside of it.It seems infinitely deep, attempting to look down it leaves you disoriented and confused. After a minute there is a great sounding of trumpets and flying figures emerge from the portal. Winged Dogs, of all breeds in a rainbow of colors. You are powerless as they overwhelm you - pulling your limbs from your body. You somehow remain alive as great purple greyhounds rip your heads from your shoulders and begin to ascend to the portal with them in tow. As the portal grows closer, television static fills our vision and you hear the screaming of a goat."

End Session.

I reserve the right to use the screaming goat in any future games I may run.

aspekt
2015-03-26, 12:46 PM
Honestly Tal I really do sympathize, but for my own reasons.

I really think though you just need to cast cone of cold shoulder on that whole scene and...

http://i.imgur.com/JmB102a.jpg

Zyzzyva
2015-03-26, 12:54 PM
Probably the worst thing he ever did is go to the bathroom while I was taking the monsters turn. One of the monsters crit him (not nearly enough damage to kill his character or anything) and I informed him when he came back. He told me that wasnt fair as he was out of the room and I needed to reroll. I told him him I wasnt going to reroll, and everyone at the table told him they saw the dice fair and square. He said "the odds of rolling a natural twenty are five percent. The odds of you guys all lying to me to make me look bad are a hell of a lot higher than that. Which one do you think I believe?" And then he stormed out of the house and never came back to that particular campaign.

That's, uh, that's a thing. :smalleek:

I still haven't quite decided if you're a performance artist, the unluckiest player ever, or a refugee from Chief Circle's dimension, but your stories continue to entertain.

aspekt
2015-03-26, 12:59 PM
That's, uh, that's a thing. :smalleek:

I still haven't quite decided if you're a performance artist, the unluckiest player ever, or a refugee from Chief Circle's dimension, but your stories continue to entertain.

Now see that last paragraph there is downright insightful and funny. ^.^

Segev
2015-03-26, 01:03 PM
Talakeal, have you ever considered online gaming instead of or in addition to IRL?

Galen
2015-03-26, 02:42 PM
He said "the odds of rolling a natural twenty are five percent. The odds of you guys all lying to me to make me look bad are a hell of a lot higher than that. Which one do you think I believe?" While I sympathize with Talakeal's plight, I can't help but admire the sound use of Bayesian probability here.

Kalmageddon
2015-03-26, 02:50 PM
Talakeal, have you ever considered online gaming instead of or in addition to IRL?

I've never found online gaming to be better or played by better players than IRL gaming.
Although admittedly it's easier to avoid real life consequences in an online campaign.

Segev
2015-03-26, 03:00 PM
While I sympathize with Talakeal's plight, I can't help but admire the sound use of Bayesian probability here.If he believes that the odds of everybody ganging up to "make him look bad" are higher than 5%, then he's definitely hanging out with the wrong people. I wouldn't hang out with a group where [P(this person is out to get me)]^N > 0.05, N<=4.

That implies that those individuals are mean enough to me as a general rule that I should not be there.

And the fact that he stormed off doesn't show he exercised that judgment; he had to beleive this a priori, which means he chose to hang out with a group he believed to want to make him look bad that badly, before the situation where they (by his hypothesis) tried to make him look bad even arose.

The simpler explanation is that he was throwing a hissy fit and blaming everybody else.


I've never found online gaming to be better or played by better players than IRL gaming.
Although admittedly it's easier to avoid real life consequences in an online campaign.

Perhaps not, but if Talekeal's problem stems from the pool of available individuals, then online gaming might offer him a larger, less tainted pool.

Solaris
2015-03-26, 05:58 PM
Perhaps not, but if Talekeal's problem stems from the pool of available individuals, then online gaming might offer him a larger, less tainted pool.

... If for no other reason than he seems able to access our world through the internet, and thus can evade the gamer population of Bizarro-World.

Kid Jake
2015-03-26, 06:03 PM
... If for no other reason than he seems able to access our world through the internet, and thus can evade the gamer population of Bizarro-World.

Of course there's also the chance that he'll create a stable rift that allows others to pass through.

Zyzzyva
2015-03-26, 06:47 PM
Of course there's also the chance that he'll create a stable rift that allows others to pass through.

"I'm sorry, Talekeal, but for the safety of Earth-2015 we're going to have to ask you to never come back to GitP ever again. The risk of contamination is just too high. Our thoughts and prayers are with you, back in the desolate, post-apocalyptic, zombie terrible-RPGer-infested world you call home."

1337 b4k4
2015-03-26, 06:58 PM
I think its not a zombie world, I think there's a were-jerk running loose. If he shoots the original with a silver d4 it should return the others to normal

Tengu_temp
2015-03-26, 09:00 PM
That's the most insane neackbeardy thing I've heard in a while. Surely there must be more to that story. I can't imagine a player like that not outing themselves by like halfway through character creation.

I think it's less neckbeard and more "rebellious 14-year old who thinks any authorities are The Man and pure evil". Which is a phrase that describes a lot of Talakeal's players, in approach if not literally.


I've never found online gaming to be better or played by better players than IRL gaming.
Although admittedly it's easier to avoid real life consequences in an online campaign.

This depends entirely on the people you're playing with. I know my online games have been on average much more enjoyable than IRL ones.

Talakeal
2015-03-26, 09:36 PM
That's the most insane neackbeardy thing I've heard in a while. Surely there must be more to that story. I can't imagine a player like that not outing themselves by like halfway through character creation.

It happened back in '02, so my memory might be a little fuzzy. We were about 20 at the time fyi.

Basically, half the continent is an inhospitable Wasteland, and the players needed to cross it to retrieve an artifact from some ruins at the Wasteland's heart.

They were in bad shape when they came across a verdant oasis in the middle of the desert.

They entered and set up camp. In their dreams they receives a vision from a fertility goddess who said that this place was sacred to her and they were welcome to stay her so long as they did nothing to defile it. She appeared in an image similar to a stone age Venus figure, a nude and impossibly curvaceous woman, and apparently that offended the player's puritan sensibilities and he got mouthy and said "I am not about to listen to some harlot. Leave me be you worthless slut!" The Goddess, being wise and mature simply dismissed his insults like you would a rude child who doesn't know any better. This made him really mad, and he decided he wanted a reaction.

So the next day after they were ready to leave he convinced another player to burn the place down; now it was defended by awakened animals, who defended their home. The two players fought them, but the third refrained, refusing to take in this senseless slaughter / blasphemy.

The player who helped him burn the place down was killed in the battle, but he survived. He then turned on the other player (and the quest) and said he refused to participate any further or aid a coward, and then turned back home. He asked if he survived, and I said probably not, but I didn't have anything planned so I just rolled random encounters for the return journey. He almost made it before coming across a Hydra. He managed to cut off several heads before it took him down, and then he went on a tirade about how hydras are stupid unrealistic monsters and it was unfair that it didn't die as soon as it lost the first head.

Then the third player completed the quest and I adjusted the difficulty of future encounters for a 1 person party because I didn't want to kill him for something he didn't have any part in and end the campaign along with it. He managed to survive, but the whole time the players of the two dead PCs mercilessly taunted him with names like "GM's Pet, Bubble Boy, Goody Two Shoes, and Unflinching Coward."

After the quest I let them make new characters. The player in question made an assassin, murdered the surviving player in his sleep, and then left that campaign for good.

Lord Raziere
2015-03-26, 10:41 PM
It happened back in '02, so my memory might be a little fuzzy. We were about 20 at the time fyi.

Basically, half the continent is an inhospitable Wasteland, and the players needed to cross it to retrieve an artifact from some ruins at the Wasteland's heart.

They were in bad shape when they came across a verdant oasis in the middle of the desert.

They entered and set up camp. In their dreams they receives a vision from a fertility goddess who said that this place was sacred to her and they were welcome to stay her so long as they did nothing to defile it. She appeared in an image similar to a stone age Venus figure, a nude and impossibly curvaceous woman, and apparently that offended the player's puritan sensibilities and he got mouthy and said "I am not about to listen to some harlot. Leave me be you worthless slut!" The Goddess, being wise and mature simply dismissed his insults like you would a rude child who doesn't know any better. This made him really mad, and he decided he wanted a reaction.


Well.

Thats his problem right there:

When an impossibly beautiful, nude woman kindly invites you to her divinely magical oasis in the middle of a desert that covers half the continent, and has wisdom and maturity...You Say Yes.

Gritmonger
2015-03-26, 10:48 PM
Well.

Thats his problem right there:

When an impossibly beautiful, nude woman kindly invites you to her divinely magical oasis in the middle of a desert that covers half the continent, and has wisdom and maturity...You Say Yes.

Suffice to say, this person is hardly the arbiter of normal.

Guran
2015-03-27, 06:50 AM
I'm sorry that this "friend" acted in such a way to you. He is not being a friend at all, he is being a total *insert random term for a very unpleasant person here*. Being a DM myself, I know how much effort it takes to put an entertaining session together and how frustrating it is if people do not even attempt to take it serious. When talking about "normal" people, I do expect some form of respect. I would classify the party as very rude to say the least.

Kalmageddon
2015-03-27, 07:35 AM
It happened back in '02, so my memory might be a little fuzzy. We were about 20 at the time fyi.

Basically, half the continent is an inhospitable Wasteland, and the players needed to cross it to retrieve an artifact from some ruins at the Wasteland's heart.

They were in bad shape when they came across a verdant oasis in the middle of the desert.

They entered and set up camp. In their dreams they receives a vision from a fertility goddess who said that this place was sacred to her and they were welcome to stay her so long as they did nothing to defile it. She appeared in an image similar to a stone age Venus figure, a nude and impossibly curvaceous woman, and apparently that offended the player's puritan sensibilities and he got mouthy and said "I am not about to listen to some harlot. Leave me be you worthless slut!" The Goddess, being wise and mature simply dismissed his insults like you would a rude child who doesn't know any better. This made him really mad, and he decided he wanted a reaction.

So the next day after they were ready to leave he convinced another player to burn the place down; now it was defended by awakened animals, who defended their home. The two players fought them, but the third refrained, refusing to take in this senseless slaughter / blasphemy.

The player who helped him burn the place down was killed in the battle, but he survived. He then turned on the other player (and the quest) and said he refused to participate any further or aid a coward, and then turned back home. He asked if he survived, and I said probably not, but I didn't have anything planned so I just rolled random encounters for the return journey. He almost made it before coming across a Hydra. He managed to cut off several heads before it took him down, and then he went on a tirade about how hydras are stupid unrealistic monsters and it was unfair that it didn't die as soon as it lost the first head.

Then the third player completed the quest and I adjusted the difficulty of future encounters for a 1 person party because I didn't want to kill him for something he didn't have any part in and end the campaign along with it. He managed to survive, but the whole time the players of the two dead PCs mercilessly taunted him with names like "GM's Pet, Bubble Boy, Goody Two Shoes, and Unflinching Coward."

After the quest I let them make new characters. The player in question made an assassin, murdered the surviving player in his sleep, and then left that campaign for good.
Should I be worried that I know a couple of players that act exactly like this? :smalleek:

comicshorse
2015-03-27, 08:04 AM
It happened back in '02, so my memory might be a little fuzzy. We were about 20 at the time fyi.

Basically, half the continent is an inhospitable Wasteland, and the players needed to cross it to retrieve an artifact from some ruins at the Wasteland's heart.

They were in bad shape when they came across a verdant oasis in the middle of the desert.

They entered and set up camp. In their dreams they receives a vision from a fertility goddess who said that this place was sacred to her and they were welcome to stay her so long as they did nothing to defile it. She appeared in an image similar to a stone age Venus figure, a nude and impossibly curvaceous woman, and apparently that offended the player's puritan sensibilities and he got mouthy and said "I am not about to listen to some harlot. Leave me be you worthless slut!" The Goddess, being wise and mature simply dismissed his insults like you would a rude child who doesn't know any better. This made him really mad, and he decided he wanted a reaction.

So the next day after they were ready to leave he convinced another player to burn the place down; now it was defended by awakened animals, who defended their home. The two players fought them, but the third refrained, refusing to take in this senseless slaughter / blasphemy.

The player who helped him burn the place down was killed in the battle, but he survived. He then turned on the other player (and the quest) and said he refused to participate any further or aid a coward, and then turned back home. He asked if he survived, and I said probably not, but I didn't have anything planned so I just rolled random encounters for the return journey. He almost made it before coming across a Hydra. He managed to cut off several heads before it took him down, and then he went on a tirade about how hydras are stupid unrealistic monsters and it was unfair that it didn't die as soon as it lost the first head.



I remember the thread on this situation, I also remember the (too me) surprising number of people who argued that the two P.C.s who died shouldn't have

Zyzzyva
2015-03-27, 08:45 AM
I remember the thread on this situation, I also remember the (too me) surprising number of people who argued that the two P.C.s who died shouldn't have

:smalleek: Link?

goto124
2015-03-27, 08:50 AM
I wonder if the player talked to the DM about how his puritan sensibilities were offended.

Burning the place down was not an appropriate reaction though.

comicshorse
2015-03-27, 09:03 AM
:smalleek: Link?

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?197135-Should-GMs-protect-characters-from-the-consequences-of-what-they-start

Sith_Happens
2015-03-27, 01:17 PM
I'd probably react with:

"The whole world suddenly darkens. As you look up, the sky is a black sheet. A circle of glowing runes appear where the clouds should be. It seems massive, framing the whole sky. A portal to a great tunnel opens inside of it.It seems infinitely deep, attempting to look down it leaves you disoriented and confused. After a minute there is a great sounding of trumpets and flying figures emerge from the portal. Winged Dogs, of all breeds in a rainbow of colors. You are powerless as they overwhelm you - pulling your limbs from your body. You somehow remain alive as great purple greyhounds rip your heads from your shoulders and begin to ascend to the portal with them in tow. As the portal grows closer, television static fills our vision and you hear the screaming of a goat."

End Session.

Is this a reference to something or did you come up with it whole cloth?


Of course there's also the chance that he'll create a stable rift that allows others to pass through.

Perfect, that gives us something to fire the nukes through.

Talakeal
2015-03-27, 01:42 PM
Ok, question for those people who think I could have done something different to give the scenario a better outcome:

If I write down a play by play transcript of how the last encounter in the game went down (as best as I can from memory), would you give me some advice and point out mistakes, or would that just kill the thread with a TLDR?

Mr.Moron
2015-03-27, 01:47 PM
Is this a reference to something or did you come up with it whole cloth?


It's something I came up with quite some time ago. If it bears a similarity to something it's coincidental.

I actually used it in a game one time (in a non-canonical fashion) mostly as way of telling one of my buddies to cut his bull crap. It was well received actually.

Lord Torath
2015-03-27, 02:12 PM
Ok, question for those people who think I could have done something different to give the scenario a better outcome:

If I write down a play by play transcript of how the last encounter in the game went down (as best as I can from memory), would you give me some advice and point out mistakes, or would that just kill the thread with a TLDR?I can't promise I'll have any good advice, but I can certainly promise to read it, enjoy it, and shake my head at their stupidity! :smallwink: I mean, it's very rare when someone on this board tells anyone else not to share details from a gaming session..

Talakeal
2015-03-27, 03:43 PM
I can't promise I'll have any good advice, but I can certainly promise to read it, enjoy it, and shake my head at their stupidity! :smallwink: I mean, it's very rare when someone on this board tells anyone else not to share details from a gaming session..

Yeah, but typically the longer a post is the fewer people actually read or respond to it, and when I go to a lot of effort writing out a detailed story it often kills a thread as a result.

Anyway, here is how the session went, as best as I can recall:

Now, we get there late, we are planning on playing for a couple of hours to finish the game then switch to D&D. Everyone is slow getting started, sharing internet videos and getting snacks.

We are playing my homebrew system, which is an "old school"ish traditional RPG with a gothic horror setting. This particular campaign is a western with a few horror and fantasy elements. You don't need to know the game's rules for this story though, so if it helps you to imagine D&D go ahead. The only thing you need to know if each player has a few rerolls to spend each session.


The party is:

A sharpshooter.
A scientist.
A knight.
And a priest (think more inspirational than magical, playing more like D&Ds bard than their faith healer style cleric).


In a previous session the party was hired to rescue a kidnapped princess. Instead they decided to side with the kidnappers and killed the princesses fiancé when he came looking for her. They then fled the law and went to hide out on the frontier, which was currently suffering from an outbreak of a plague that caused the dead to rise as zombies.

They take shelter in a small fortified town. The sheriff runs it like a police state and the party tries to help the town. They are trying to develop a cure, but have to break the law and violate quarantine procedures to do so.

After a late night of sneaking out to hunt zombies they finally have a breakthrough and think they have a working cure. They sneak back into the town and sleep late. When they awake they see that the townpeople have gathered in the village square. The sheriff has found out one of the townspeople (the whore from my previous thread about RPing sexuality fyi) has been helping people sneak out of town and is giving him a public "trial" to be followed by an execution.


Now, the towns layout:

It is surrounded by a heavy wooden palisade with a narrow rampart. The walls are high and covered in barbed wire and have a watch tower at each corner. There is only one gate.
A river runs through the middle of town. It is located in an alligator infested ravine with a single wooden bridge over it.
There are a dozen or so buildings in town, most built on stilts. The players are staying in the basement of a building near the back of town, one of the older concrete houses.
There is a guard in each watch tower, two manning the door, and four next to the sheriff. They are all busy watching the trial.
The sheriff has a shotgun and a large pet alligator.

The people of the town have semi domesticated alligators as they have a taste for rancid meat but are themselves cold blooded and thus immune to the zombie virus, making them the ideal security sytem if a zombie tries to swim into town through the water supply or somehow climbs over the walls.

I tell the players that they can hear lots of moans and growls from outside the walls. It seems that there is a very large mob of them outside and something seems to be getting them agitated.

Ok, so the sharpshooter hides near their hostel in the back of town while everyone else goes into the crowd. They try and reason with the sheriff (making OOC jokes the whole time). They start to turn the town's people against him, which makes him panic and order them arrested. The sharpshooter then fires at the sheriff. He barely misses, and I say that he shoots the sheriff right in the star on his chest, causing the star to explode. The townspeople think it was not a miss but a very impressive warning shot.

Guards move towards the party.

Player Turn 1:
Sharpshooter hides. He uses all of his rerolls to make sure no one sees him.
Priest attacks and wounds a guard.
Knight attacks and wounds a guard.
Professor holds up the cure, and announces he will smash it if they don't back off. The Sheriff tells them to arrest him anyway, and several of the guards tell him shove it and throw down their weapons.

Enemy Turn 1:
The remaining guards attack, inflict minor injuries.

End of Turn 1:
The players hear distant hoof beats and a lot of screaming zombies outside the front gate.

Player Turn 2:
Sharpshooter sneaks towards the back wall.
Priest attacks and misses.
Knight attacks a different guard and wounds him.
Professor says he wasn't bluffing and smashes the cure.

Enemy Turn 2:
Guards attack, inflicting minor damage.
Sheriff fires his shotgun and hits the priest, wounding him fairly badly.

End of Turn two the players hear loud pounding on the main gate.

Player Turn 3:
Sharpshooter fires from hiding at the guard in the back corner guard tower and kills him.
Priest and Knight attack and wound different guards.
Professor tosses a hand grenade at the sheriff's platform, wounding him and several guards as well as the alligator.

Enemy Turn 3:
Sheriff takes cover behind the gallows platform.
Guards continue to attack.
The sheriff's pet alligator charges at the professor who just threw a grenade at it.
The other tower guard in the back notices the sharpshooter and fires a crossbow at him for minor damage.

End of turn three the pounding gets more frantic.

Player Turn 4:
Sharpshooter kills other tower guard then climbs into the watchtower.
Knight attacks alligator.
The professor tosses another grenade and misses anyone.
The priest decides to get between the alligator and the knight or the priest and tries to provoke it. He rolls poorly, but spends all of his rerolls turning it into a success.

Enemy Turn 4:
Alligator bites the priest and disables him.
Professor continues to run.
Sharpshooter hides.
Knight attacks and wounds the alligator.

End of turn 4 the players hear a loud voice call out "We demand you open this gate in the name of the law!"

Player turn 5:
Knight runs to main gate and opens it.
Professor attempts to treat the priests wounds.
Sharpshooter climbs down from the guard tower.

Enemy Turn 5:
Sheriff shoots knight.
Alligator bites knight, disabling him.
Guards shoot and miss professor and priest.

At the end of the turn the gate is now open. Five heavily armed men ride into town being chased by a mob of 10-20 zombies.

Player Turn 6:
Priest runs to the back of town.
Professor blows up the bridge in the middle of town after crossing it.
Sharpshooter helps the whore jump across the ravine.
Knight rolls to act while disabled and shut the door. He rolls a 3. He rerolls it to 3. He rerolls it to a 3. Repeat until he is out of rerolls despite me telling him to use a different dice that one is probably weighted. After he is out of rerolls and has rolled nothing above a three, I tell him I am giving him a bonus reroll but only if he uses a different dice. He does and succeeds, closing the door. The sharpshooter player gets mad at me for "playing favorites".

Enemy Turn 6:
Two guards who were chasing the professor slip and fall into the ravine where they are injured and either drown or are eaten by gators.
Remaining guards attack zombies.
Sheriff slips away in the confusion and climbs onto the ramparts.
The mounted men (the bounty hunters) attack zombies.
Townsfolk run in panic.

Player Turn 7:
Knight is injured and out of rerolls in the middle of a zombie horde.
Priest, sharpshooter, and whore climb back onto the ramparts.
Professor hides in his lab.

Enemy Turn 7:
Zombies kill remaining guards and go after random townsfolk. (I don't roll this out, just going by probably actions)
Bounty hunters kill some zombies.
Sheriff confronts sharpshooter on ramparts and gives a short speech about how he has ruined everything and destroyed his town and how he is going to make him pay.

Player Turn 8:
Sharpshooter draws on sheriff, rolls an initiative test to go first, shoots at him, and barely misses.
Priest says "Hey, can I use my inspire confidence ability to give him a hit bonus?"
I, being a lenient DM, say "sure, go ahead." He does and I retroactively say the sharpshooter hits. Sharpshooter rolls maximum damage and sends the sheriffs carcass flying from the ramparts.

Enemy Turn 8+:
Bounty hunters finish off the zombies.

Post Battle:
Sharpshooter stays on the walls and attempts to lasso the sheriffs shotgun from where it fell.
Priest goes back down to the town, puts a plank over the ravine and crosses and treats the knights wounds.
Professor goes back to his lab.

The bounty hunters finish the zombies and start to gather the wounded and the dead.
Knight approaches and their leader asks "Are you Sir XXX?" Knight says that he is.
Bounty Hunter says "Well, then, I regret to inform you that you are under arrest for kidnapping, regicide, and high treason."
Knight says "Oh." Then the player clams up and doesn't speak anymore.
Priest talks for a moment and says "You got the wrong guys."
The bounty hunter says "You killed a prince. There was a major investigation, and we had numerous eye witnesses. A group like yours tends to stand out, we are sure we have the right guys."

Professor rigs a suicide vest from his remaining grenades then runs out and says "I want to surrender!" He then gets the bounty hunters around him and blows himself up. He uses all of his rerolls not to ensure he survives, but to hurt the bounty hunters.

I ask him if he is sure this is what he wants to do, he says yes.

Professor is killed. One bounty hunter evades the explosion. One bounty hunter dies. The other three are badly wounded.

Knight then responds by committing seppuku. Again I ask if that is what he wants to do, and he says yes.

Sharpshooter then runs along the ramparts to the main gate and wedges it open. Once again I ask if that is what he wants to do, and he says yes.

Zombies rush into the town and attack the remaining civilians as well as the injured priest and bounty hunters.

Sharpshooter jumps over the wall and tries to make a run for it. He asks if he survives. I say (and this is where I lost my temper for a moment) "Probably not, you are wounded and low on ammo and alone in a zombie infested wilderness. But sure, whatever you survive, I just don't care anymore. Maybe considering that the other PCs are now all dead anyway, maybe I should just say rocks fall and everyone dies, game over. Glad I drove 200 miles for this ending."

I immediately regain my composure and try and be as polite and friendly as I can and help clean up the board. Everyone then starts bitching about how late it is and that they probably shouldn't start D&D at this point. I pack up, try and be polite and thank everyone for their hospitality and say goodbye. Then on the drive home my friend (who was playing the sharpshooter btw) gives me the speech from my OP.




Ok, so there is the whole story. Now, can someone tell me at what point I went wrong and what I should have done differently?


Now, if the players surrendered or were defeated in this encounter they would have been taken prisoner and forced to stand trial by combat. I was going to use it to segue into an arena combat adventure which I think these guys would have really liked. But this was NOT a no win situation. The encounter was "balanced" for their party, and I have ran this same adventure before for another group who managed to kill the bounty hunters and the sheriff without too much trouble and then went on to secure the town and take over the bounty hunter's unfinished jobs to launch a pretty cool bounty hunting campaign.

Note that that group didn't help the bandits in the first place but instead helped the Princess escape from them and then took her with them rather than forcing her into an arranged marriage, and in this case the bounty hunters were hired to bring her back to the prince.

Mr.Moron
2015-03-27, 04:20 PM
It seems like there may have been a lot of NPCs involved and that may have left relatively little time for each player to play but I don't know how fast NPCs resolve actions in the system you're using. I probably wouldn't have split the guards reaction to the cure.

It's just... a really, really complicated scene. You've got a public execution going, a showdown withe guards, a zombie invasion AND bounty hunters. I can see it feeling a bit haphazard at bit like piling on challenges for the sake of piling on challenges. However, it wasn't really egregious and depending on the system it could have even been reasonable.

All things considered things seem to be pretty OK up until the suicide vest. Which was kind of random but I can get the appeal. Post suicide vest it seems like the sacrifice could have given the rest of the players a bit of advantage. The sudden and coordinated ragequit seems odd. I mean even given my impression being off and the session being terrible, they must have talked about doing something like this ahead of time. At least as written it feels all too sudden and deliberate to just happen organically out of frustration.

Maglubiyet
2015-03-27, 04:44 PM
The overlapping action is a bit confusing -- the team never got to savor their victory over the despotic sheriff. I probably would've let them have their finale with the PC's triumphantly presenting the cure to the townsfolk. And THEN have the bounty hunters bust in. Leave it as a cliffhanger.

But that's a minor point of style, nothing that should cause that kind of ragequit. Maybe they thought they were hopelessly outgunned since they were wounded and down on resources. What were the bounty hunters armed with?

Talakeal
2015-03-27, 04:47 PM
It seems like there may have been a lot of NPCs involved and that may have left relatively little time for each player to play but I don't know how fast NPCs resolve actions in the system you're using. I probably wouldn't have split the guards reaction to the cure.


Not long, maybe 1-2 minutes per enemy turn? It is a fairly simple 1d20 per action test, and I rolled the guards dice several at a time.


The overlapping action is a bit confusing -- the team never got to savor their victory over the despotic sheriff. I probably would've let them have their finale with the PC's triumphantly presenting the cure to the townsfolk. And THEN have the bounty hunters bust in. Leave it as a cliffhanger.

But that's a minor point of style, nothing that should cause that kind of ragequit. Maybe they thought they were hopelessly outgunned since they were wounded and down on resources. What were the bounty hunters armed with?

Swords, lances, shields, and heavy armor. They were part of a knightly order that did not use ranged weapons.

Lord Torath
2015-03-27, 04:55 PM
The overlapping action is a bit confusing -- the team never got to savor their victory over the despotic sheriff. I probably would've let them have their finale with the PC's triumphantly presenting the cure to the townsfolk. And THEN have the bounty hunters bust in. Leave it as a cliffhanger.

But that's a minor point of style, nothing that should cause that kind of ragequit. Maybe they thought they were hopelessly outgunned since they were wounded and down on resources. What were the bounty hunters armed with?Plus, the cure was already smashed to the ground by the professor at that point. Perhaps if you'd had a few more of the guards defect, the Prof might not have smashed the vial. He might have anyway, though.

I think your best bet might have been to ask to postpone your game when you saw they all wanted to play D&D, and ask if they'd let you control an NPC or something for the night. Though it's hard to give up on your game when you've driven 200 miles to run it, and have to drive another 200 to get home. "Guys, why don't we skip my game for now, since you're all so eager to play some D&D? Maybe I can run an NPC, and we can finish of the Fantastic Western game next month." Again, much easier to suggest on my part, than to want to go through with on your part.

Really, your "friend" was a jerk. :smallannoyed:

Vertharrad
2015-03-27, 05:04 PM
The overlapping action is a bit confusing -- the team never got to savor their victory over the despotic sheriff. I probably would've let them have their finale with the PC's triumphantly presenting the cure to the townsfolk. And THEN have the bounty hunters bust in. Leave it as a cliffhanger.

But that's a minor point of style, nothing that should cause that kind of ragequit. Maybe they thought they were hopelessly outgunned since they were wounded and down on resources. What were the bounty hunters armed with?

Uuummmmm...what cure???


Professor holds up the cure, and announces he will smash it if they don't back off. The Sheriff tells them to arrest him anyway, and several of the guards tell him shove it and throw down their weapons...Professor says he wasn't bluffing and smashes the cure.

This cure that got destroyed?

I agree this seemed to be too organized to have just come from out of nowhere. Personally Talakeal you should have called the game when time restraints were mentioned. That's already a bad sign and would've had my BS o meter going balistic.

Maglubiyet
2015-03-27, 05:08 PM
Plus, the cure was already smashed to the ground by the professor at that point.

Yeah, it's danged peculiar. I suppose they had already shown their true colors back when they murdered the prince -- they were volatile and didn't like following rules. Though somehow they managed to hold it together long enough to find a cure under hostile situations. Maybe their blood sugar was plummeting.

The non-verbal body language of the players might have given something away, but nothing here suggests anything more than PC psychopaths run amok. Probably because they were so "normal".

BootStrapTommy
2015-03-27, 05:17 PM
Then, my friend gave me a big speech about how the problem was with my perspective. I am used to gaming with a bunch of wierdos and crazy people. He then made reference to the many gaming horror stories that I have previously told him (and which anyone who has been following my posts on this forum will probably be aware of). He told me that I just wasn't used to gaming with NORMAL people and didn't know how to handle it. That unlike my friends they are all well adjusted and have careers and families, and that this is how NORMAL people act during a game, and that I am just not used to dealing with people who are more socially adjusted than myself. If there was ever proof that you actually live in another dimension and post through a portal in space-time, I think this is it. :smallconfused:

You should probably let him know his group has just become another gaming horror story for you to share.

I feels for ya, bruh. Feels for ya. :smallsigh:

Karl Aegis
2015-03-27, 06:28 PM
The problem with theoretical advice is it only means something if the people you are having problems with are rational human beings. This does not seem to be the case. Nothing we can say can change the fact that logic and reason is irrelevant in this situation.

Thrudd
2015-03-27, 06:44 PM
Did you ever have the chance to ask the two players that had their characters suicide why they chose to do that, what their justification was?
Is it possible that they felt justified in-character for taking those actions, maybe tempered by the idea that they thought it was a one shot and this was the end anyway? Or was it really they were just tired of playing and wanted to get it over with.

I don't see much in-game reason in their actions from the description. The only criticism I'd have based on your retelling would be losing your temper at the end. You could have taken the chance with the escaping character to say "we'll see if he can survive, if we decide to run this game again" or something similar, and avoided insulting the group.

Talakeal
2015-03-27, 07:14 PM
Did you ever have the chance to ask the two players that had their characters suicide why they chose to do that, what their justification was?
Is it possible that they felt justified in-character for taking those actions, maybe tempered by the idea that they thought it was a one shot and this was the end anyway? Or was it really they were just tired of playing and wanted to get it over with.

I don't see much in-game reason in their actions from the description. The only criticism I'd have based on your retelling would be losing your temper at the end. You could have taken the chance with the escaping character to say "we'll see if he can survive, if we decide to run this game again" or something similar, and avoided insulting the group.

Clearly, but by that point the poop had already hit the fan.

Also note that they started doing weird things before the actual suicide. The sharpshooter isnt like a rogue, he gained no benefit from hiding aside from getting his allies beaten up and not contributing for several turns, and the priest taking hits for the night was just bizarre on every level.

Mr.Moron
2015-03-27, 07:23 PM
Clearly, but by that point the poop had already hit the fan.

Also note that they started doing weird things before the actual suicide. The sharpshooter isnt like a rogue, he gained no benefit from hiding aside from getting his allies beaten up and not contributing for several turns, and the priest taking hits for the night was just bizarre on every level.

I dunno. It sounded pretty natural when I read the story. He may not have "Rogue" like mechanical benefits, but sneaking around to line up your ranged shots and get away from a melee seems be an idea that flows naturally even if the system doesn't explicitly support it well.

Unless he's a known CharOP type I don't think he can be blamed for that. It's a tactically sound move in the narrative sense even if it might not be tactically sound by game mechanics. A lot of people tend do what seems intuitive IC, rather than parse through the best way to get the best numbers out of the system.

Talakeal
2015-03-27, 08:00 PM
I dunno. It sounded pretty natural when I read the story. He may not have "Rogue" like mechanical benefits, but sneaking around to line up your ranged shots and get away from a melee seems be an idea that flows naturally even if the system doesn't explicitly support it well.

Unless he's a known CharOP type I don't think he can be blamed for that. It's a tactically sound move in the narrative sense even if it might not be tactically sound by game mechanics. A lot of people tend do what seems intuitive IC, rather than parse through the best way to get the best numbers out of the system.

Maybe so, but his allies were engaged in a life or death battle at the time, and this is a player who in the past has shown an extremely disdainful attitude towards people who make poor tactical decisions for the sake of RP.

Jornophelanthas
2015-03-27, 08:15 PM
The write-up of the game, while entertaining, does not actually help in giving insight into how you could have done things differently. The players seemed distracted, but were making some effort at playing the game to varying degrees, although this evaporated near the end.

I have a new interpretation of the "friend's" behavior. I believe he may have been in a distinctly non-gaming mood (due to lack of sleep perhaps), and was attempting to get let off the hook by you, by getting you to not play the game without him actually asking you (because that would have embarrassed him). He probably considered every rudeness to be "dropping hints", which you continued to ignore. ("A normal person would not have put up with waiting four hours while I took a nap. They would have just gone home.")
The last phonecall was possibly him turning spiteful after a long day of playing a game that he had been trying to avoid all day - and in his eyes you wouldn't give him the opening to bow out. Which, according to him, would make you a bad DM.

What you could have done differently is not play the session at all:

1. During the first phone conversation on the way over, when time constraints and the regular D&D were mentioned, you could have proposed they play that instead, and ask if they had room for you at the gaming table. Or turned around and gone home if you were not in the mood for that.
This phone call was possibly even an attempt by the friend (without quotes this time) to get you to offer to not come over, because he wasn't in the mood for gaming that day. He probably would have told you to not come over if you had not already left, and he may not have wanted to ask you to turn around and go back home - because that would have embarrassed him at that point. He may have expected you to pick up on this cue, and offer to turn around yourself, which would have allowed him to save face. (He may even believe that this is what a "normal" person would have done, and felt increasing resentment at you not offering him this way out of the appointment.)

2. When the "friend" decided to go to bed for four hours, you certainly should have voiced your discontent, putting your foot down if necessary. The very least he could have offered you was to allow you to go ahead to meet the other players, so the rest of you could have done something together while waiting for him - regardless of whether you would be interested in that.
In the situation as it happened, you could also have told him that he had two options: either play now, or you go home ("No pressure. I can see this is a bad time. It would be a pity if we don't play today, but I would understand. However, me waiting for you to wake up is not an option for me.")
It is possible he may have even counted on you to either bargain with him, or just go home, and he was rather disgruntled that you were willing to wait for him for hours.

3. As mentioned above, upon meeting all the other players, you could have given them the offer of playing the regular D&D game instead, with you playing a one-shot guest character or a recurring NPC. Or at least stated that there was probably only enough time for one game, and let them choose which they would have preferred. Or - if nobody is really in the mood for roleplaying - asked if they wanted to game at all, and do some other fun activity together. (Hey, you were there anyway.)

If this is indeed the way things went, the friendship could potentially be saved - if you are willing to put up with a friend who can get downright rude if you fail to respond appropriately to his innuendo. Although he probably would insist that you owe him an apology for being inconsiderate, while he would likely not own up to his own rudeness (except possibly some things he let slip during the last phonecall).

---

P.S. The mention of the sharpshooter player accusing you of "playing favorites" had me correctly guess that this was the "friend", even before you confirmed it. He was probably sufficiently mollified by the killing shot on the sheriff, though.

Kalmageddon
2015-03-27, 08:20 PM
Ok, since plenty of people are focusing of finding out what was wrong with the players, I'll try to approach the issue from the opposite angle and try to find out what could have been wrong in that session and in your behaviour to result in your players acting like this, starting from the assumption that these people are normal and reasonable, because while it's fun considering the opposite, Occam razor seems like a good tool right now.

First of all, they weren't eager to play. In fact, if I understood your story correctly, they wanted to move on to a D&D game of which you weren't even going to be a part of, even after you took a 200 miles trip to get there and play. This alone is a pretty big social clue that these people don't like you and were explicitly trying to make you feel unwelcome.
Consequently this makes me think they might have felt forced into playing this game again for whatever reason. Maybe you were too eager to continue and insisted a bit too much while ignoring possibile clues about their lack of interest?
What I'm saying is, if someone drives 200 miles to come and play a game at my house, I'm certanly not going to start another game without including him, if only as a special guest for that session.
These people did not want you there and you probably had already recieved plenty of clues about this, because it's very rare that somebody feeling that way about somebody else wouldn't let this transpire one way or the other. This, at least is hypotesis number 1.

Now, let's consider the session itself. The way you recounted it, it doesn't sound that bad right until the very end. However, I have to wonder: what would it take for me to act like your players did?
Luckly, I have acted like this in the past so I have the answer: extreme railroading and/or unreasonably powerful npcs that make me feel like the spotlight is being stolen from the PCs. Also, generally slow moving sessions or a DM that seems to be way too interested in the game than in the players themselves.
All these thing will destroy my suspension of disbelief about the game and make me do stupid things IC as a way to entratain myself with what I consider a failed game that I will probably never play again.
Is it possibile that your DMing style conveys one or more of these things to your players?
Also, you mentioned the system is a homebrew. By itself, there's nothing bad about it, but did the players know the system well enough? Did they like the system? Did they want to play it, or was it something that they might have felt like it was forced upon them?

Conclusion: these players got fed up with you even before the game started for whatever reason. Maybe the system wasn't to their liking and they either weren't clear about it or you didn't notice. Or maybe you sort of "self-invited" to their house, or commited some other kind of social faux pas that offended them?
Yes, I'm shifting the blame on you, but mostly just to offer another perspective on the matter, because otherwise you'll just end up with a whole bunch of pats on your back and people telling you that you constantly game with crazy people, which sounds implausible. There must be something you are missing from the picture that explains why people are consistently acting up with you.
It might not be your fault, but it might not be complete malice on their part.
Hopefully this was helpful. If not, feel free to ignore it.

Talakeal
2015-03-27, 08:31 PM
P.S. The mention of the sharpshooter player accusing you of "playing favorites" had me correctly guess that this was the "friend", even before you confirmed it. He was probably sufficiently mollified by the killing shot on the sheriff, though.

Actually quite the opposite. He told me later that by letting the bard go first after he had already declared his own action cheated him out of his rightful death, and after that point he lost all interest in hthe game because his character was already dead in his mind.

Karl Aegis
2015-03-27, 10:07 PM
Did the professor guy even know what the objective of the game was? It really seemed like he wanted to wreck the town and kill things. There was only one bridge between the two sides of the village, so he stranded half the village on one side with no way to get across. The village couldn't get the supplies to fix the problem with the ongoing plague. Your group killed everyone in the town that were capable of defending the town from the zombies. For some reason, when presented with a get-out-of-jail-free card in the bounty hunters escorting them out of town unharmed by the zombies, he chooses to sabotage the rest of the party's chances of leaving the town alive.

Yeah, your knight player should have been ashamed of himself. He really screwed things up.

Your sharpshooter turned into an NPC by his own choice. I don't even know why anyone would do that rather that roleplay.

You can probably errata the priest so his ability works the way you described it working in the game, possibly using a reroll-like resource.

Madfellow
2015-03-27, 10:44 PM
Anyway, here is how the session went, as best as I can recall:

Player Turn 1:
Sharpshooter hides. He uses all of his rerolls to make sure no one sees him.
Priest attacks and wounds a guard.
Knight attacks and wounds a guard.
Professor holds up the cure, and announces he will smash it if they don't back off. The Sheriff tells them to arrest him anyway, and several of the guards tell him shove it and throw down their weapons.

Enemy Turn 1:
The remaining guards attack, inflict minor injuries.

End of Turn 1:
The players hear distant hoof beats and a lot of screaming zombies outside the front gate.

Player Turn 2:
Sharpshooter sneaks towards the back wall.
Priest attacks and misses.
Knight attacks a different guard and wounds him.
Professor says he wasn't bluffing and smashes the cure.

Enemy Turn 2:
Guards attack, inflicting minor damage.
Sheriff fires his shotgun and hits the priest, wounding him fairly badly.

End of Turn two the players hear loud pounding on the main gate.

Player Turn 3:
Sharpshooter fires from hiding at the guard in the back corner guard tower and kills him.
Priest and Knight attack and wound different guards.
Professor tosses a hand grenade at the sheriff's platform, wounding him and several guards as well as the alligator.

Enemy Turn 3:
Sheriff takes cover behind the gallows platform.
Guards continue to attack.
The sheriff's pet alligator charges at the professor who just threw a grenade at it.
The other tower guard in the back notices the sharpshooter and fires a crossbow at him for minor damage.

End of turn three the pounding gets more frantic.

Player Turn 4:
Sharpshooter kills other tower guard then climbs into the watchtower.
Knight attacks alligator.
The professor tosses another grenade and misses anyone.
The priest decides to get between the alligator and the knight or the priest and tries to provoke it. He rolls poorly, but spends all of his rerolls turning it into a success.

Enemy Turn 4:
Alligator bites the priest and disables him.
Professor continues to run.
Sharpshooter hides.
Knight attacks and wounds the alligator.

End of turn 4 the players hear a loud voice call out "We demand you open this gate in the name of the law!"

Player turn 5:
Knight runs to main gate and opens it.
Professor attempts to treat the priests wounds.
Sharpshooter climbs down from the guard tower.

Enemy Turn 5:
Sheriff shoots knight.
Alligator bites knight, disabling him.
Guards shoot and miss professor and priest.

At the end of the turn the gate is now open. Five heavily armed men ride into town being chased by a mob of 10-20 zombies.

Player Turn 6:
Priest runs to the back of town.
Professor blows up the bridge in the middle of town after crossing it.
Sharpshooter helps the whore jump across the ravine.
Knight rolls to act while disabled and shut the door. He rolls a 3. He rerolls it to 3. He rerolls it to a 3. Repeat until he is out of rerolls despite me telling him to use a different dice that one is probably weighted. After he is out of rerolls and has rolled nothing above a three, I tell him I am giving him a bonus reroll but only if he uses a different dice. He does and succeeds, closing the door. The sharpshooter player gets mad at me for "playing favorites".

Enemy Turn 6:
Two guards who were chasing the professor slip and fall into the ravine where they are injured and either drown or are eaten by gators.
Remaining guards attack zombies.
Sheriff slips away in the confusion and climbs onto the ramparts.
The mounted men (the bounty hunters) attack zombies.
Townsfolk run in panic.

Player Turn 7:
Knight is injured and out of rerolls in the middle of a zombie horde.
Priest, sharpshooter, and whore climb back onto the ramparts.
Professor hides in his lab.

Enemy Turn 7:
Zombies kill remaining guards and go after random townsfolk. (I don't roll this out, just going by probably actions)
Bounty hunters kill some zombies.
Sheriff confronts sharpshooter on ramparts and gives a short speech about how he has ruined everything and destroyed his town and how he is going to make him pay.

Player Turn 8:
Sharpshooter draws on sheriff, rolls an initiative test to go first, shoots at him, and barely misses.
Priest says "Hey, can I use my inspire confidence ability to give him a hit bonus?"
I, being a lenient DM, say "sure, go ahead." He does and I retroactively say the sharpshooter hits. Sharpshooter rolls maximum damage and sends the sheriffs carcass flying from the ramparts.

Enemy Turn 8+:
Bounty hunters finish off the zombies.

Post Battle:
Sharpshooter stays on the walls and attempts to lasso the sheriffs shotgun from where it fell.
Priest goes back down to the town, puts a plank over the ravine and crosses and treats the knights wounds.
Professor goes back to his lab.

The bounty hunters finish the zombies and start to gather the wounded and the dead.
Knight approaches and their leader asks "Are you Sir XXX?" Knight says that he is.
Bounty Hunter says "Well, then, I regret to inform you that you are under arrest for kidnapping, regicide, and high treason."
Knight says "Oh." Then the player clams up and doesn't speak anymore.
Priest talks for a moment and says "You got the wrong guys."
The bounty hunter says "You killed a prince. There was a major investigation, and we had numerous eye witnesses. A group like yours tends to stand out, we are sure we have the right guys."

Professor rigs a suicide vest from his remaining grenades then runs out and says "I want to surrender!" He then gets the bounty hunters around him and blows himself up. He uses all of his rerolls not to ensure he survives, but to hurt the bounty hunters.

I ask him if he is sure this is what he wants to do, he says yes.

Professor is killed. One bounty hunter evades the explosion. One bounty hunter dies. The other three are badly wounded.

See, up to this point it actually doesn't sound bad. The bounty hunters are blown to hell and at this point the party can just finish them off. They win.


Knight then responds by committing seppuku.

Which is why this part makes no sense in my mind.

The only thing that might is that he figures, "The Professor is dead, and our only cure is smashed. We lost." And he decides to rage-quit. If he figured this was just a oneshot that wasn't fun anymore and just wanted to get it over with, it might be understandable.

Regarding the original post, though, I'm not sure the 2-3 hour time constraint was the red flag here. The red flag in my mind is when Mr. "Friend" said he wanted to take a nap before the game. And it seems odd to me that you'd just let him sleep for 4 hours without first arguing the point or waking him up after the first 20 minutes or so.

Coidzor
2015-03-27, 11:36 PM
This only serves to strengthen my theory that you are actually a resident of some sort of strange parallel dimension where everyone in the gaming community is bugnuts crazy, Talakeal, if this is the baseline of 'normal' for your world.

Although in an interesting twist, some of them are apparently able to recognize that other such entities are cray-cray. A most novel development in a most morbid field of inquiry.


One of my previous players is a stone's throw away from getting a restraining order from a friend of mine. and I wish I could have helped him understand "she's just not into him".

If he can't understand "She's just not into you, stop harassing her or you'll get a restraining order against you," that's pretty bad, yeah.


He is one of the two PCs involved in that incident, cant remember if he was the instigator thiugh. He was the one who mocked the survivor ruthlessly though.

Fool you once, shame on them.

Fool you twice, man, why you letting them fool you twice?


I'd probably react with:

"The whole world suddenly darkens. As you look up, the sky is a black sheet. A circle of glowing runes appear where the clouds should be. It seems massive, framing the whole sky. A portal to a great tunnel opens inside of it.It seems infinitely deep, attempting to look down it leaves you disoriented and confused. After a minute there is a great sounding of trumpets and flying figures emerge from the portal. Winged Dogs, of all breeds in a rainbow of colors. You are powerless as they overwhelm you - pulling your limbs from your body. You somehow remain alive as great purple greyhounds rip your heads from your shoulders and begin to ascend to the portal with them in tow. As the portal grows closer, television static fills our vision and you hear the screaming of a goat."

End Session.

Winged dogs, eh? Any particular reason why those came to mind?


It's something I came up with quite some time ago. If it bears a similarity to something it's coincidental.

I actually used it in a game one time (in a non-canonical fashion) mostly as way of telling one of my buddies to cut his bull crap. It was well received actually.

'Sgood! :smallbiggrin:


If he believes that the odds of everybody ganging up to "make him look bad" are higher than 5%, then he's definitely hanging out with the wrong people. I wouldn't hang out with a group where [P(this person is out to get me)]^N > 0.05, N<=4.

That implies that those individuals are mean enough to me as a general rule that I should not be there.

And the fact that he stormed off doesn't show he exercised that judgment; he had to beleive this a priori, which means he chose to hang out with a group he believed to want to make him look bad that badly, before the situation where they (by his hypothesis) tried to make him look bad even arose.

The simpler explanation is that he was throwing a hissy fit and blaming everybody else.

On the other hand... Talakeal's repeatedly played with this chucklefairy and we've got a documented and baffling series of horror stories about Tala's players and DMs.


I think it's less neckbeard and more "rebellious 14-year old who thinks any authorities are The Man and pure evil". Which is a phrase that describes a lot of Talakeal's players, in approach if not literally.

Isn't part of the issue with neckbeards that they never mentally left the state of being 14 year old boys?


After the quest I let them make new characters. The player in question made an assassin, murdered the surviving player in his sleep, and then left that campaign for good.

I'm just confused how 20 year old Talakeal didn't see that coming a mile away. :smallconfused:


Should I be worried that I know a couple of players that act exactly like this? :smalleek:

Yes. That's just plain poor sportsmanship.


Ok, so there is the whole story. Now, can someone tell me at what point I went wrong and what I should have done differently?

It's not so much that what you did was overtly wrong, per se, but once you found out that the rest of those involved wanted a quick wrap up, you really should have just truncated things so that the showdown with the Sheriff was the finale sans bounty hunters. As has been said, IIRC. Their inclusion didn't really add anything to the finale and just made it busier and even more distracted than it already was.

So, yeah, no bounty hunters, immediately cut to epilogue upon taking down the Sheriff. Just because you initially planned for bounty hunters and you ran bounty hunters for some completely different group of people doesn't mean you had to bounty hunter it up here. If everyone had been acting in good faith that would have been that.

I believe everyone's already sufficiently gone on about addressing the constant joking and lack of interest on the part of the players by pausing for a moment and talking to them OOC.

Cazero
2015-03-28, 04:21 AM
It's not so much that what you did was overtly wrong, per se, but once you found out that the rest of those involved wanted a quick wrap up, you really should have just truncated things so that the showdown with the Sheriff was the finale sans bounty hunters. As has been said, IIRC. Their inclusion didn't really add anything to the finale and just made it busier and even more distracted than it already was.

So, yeah, no bounty hunters, immediately cut to epilogue upon taking down the Sheriff. Just because you initially planned for bounty hunters and you ran bounty hunters for some completely different group of people doesn't mean you had to bounty hunter it up here. If everyone had been acting in good faith that would have been that.

I believe everyone's already sufficiently gone on about addressing the constant joking and lack of interest on the part of the players by pausing for a moment and talking to them OOC.

Agreeing with this. In addition to big warning signs of spotlight stealing NPC (mostly because of the timing), your bounty hunters sound like a big cliffhanger. And a cliffhanger can only work when everyone really wants to know what happens next, ergo when the 'this game is the start of a campaign' thing is already agreed upon. I can understand your players choosing to drop off the cliff. The way they did it still looks like a jerk move.

Vertharrad
2015-03-28, 05:02 AM
Wait you guys are annoyed about the bounty hunters that are there to apprehend the noble/monarch killin fools??? The time restraint is usually the first and most important clang to go off...if they liked his campaign they'd play it and wait to do DnD when he's gone. Even if that means waiting a few days or a week. They apparently had issues with that but didn't have the decency to open their mouth and make it known. Time restraints usually mean you don't have the gall to cut one thing or another and instead want to make it another persons fault, take responsibility and make decisions. So no their stupid actions weren't warranted. As for the cure destroying professor...he did warn the authorities and they ignored it. Not smart to do when a zombiepocalypse is staring you in the face.

Talakeal even if you had gotten to the game part without responding to time restraint or nap time you should've stopped the game once it got to raised eyebrow stage and asked if they had something better to do than destroy what you worked on for their benefit...put the ball in their court. Communication does happen both ways and sometimes it's the GM's responsibility to repair problems if they don't head them off.

comicshorse
2015-03-28, 07:49 AM
[QUOTE=Kalmageddon;19025633

Conclusion: these players got fed up with you even before the game started for whatever reason. [/QUOTE]

Well being kept waiting four hours while Tak's friend had a nap could easily do that as I presume they didn't know who kept them waiting and would assume it was the guy who lived hours drive away not the guy who lived nearby

Talakeal
2015-03-28, 12:08 PM
Ok, a couple of things here:

First, I am not sure exactly how much of my friends "nap time" was planned in advance. We normally don't start until the evening, and while we started quite a bit later than usual it was not the whole four hours, I wasn't present at the planning stage.

Second, the players always SEEMED to be having fun up until the end, and they told me they enjoyed the game, so I had no reason to expect they didn't want to play anymore. I am not sure if I "forced" myself on the group or not, I said I was interested in coming out and running another game at some point in the next few months, and then a few days later my friend called me back and said they had decided on a date.

Now, about the bounty hunters:

The players started acting weird before they showed up, but not weird enough that I was going to see a big red flag and hit the abort button.
They serve as a vital step in the adventure because without them it doesn't really have a resolution; their entrance into the town is what attacks the zombie horde. If the players choose to either not attack the sheriff, or attack the sheriff and fail ending up captured, the game won't go anywhere. They will just stay holed up in this small town indefinitely, maybe locked in jail to boot.
Furthermore they serve as the hook into the next mission. Whether or not the players kill them, surrender to them, or run away, they are the impetus for the next quest. Now sure, I could have changed it to something else, but I don't really think that would change much in the outcome and would seem less organic. And as I said, I ran this same adventure for a previous group and they had no problems dealing with the bounty hunters in or out of character.


Agreeing with this. In addition to big warning signs of spotlight stealing NPC (mostly because of the timing), your bounty hunters sound like a big cliffhanger. And a cliffhanger can only work when everyone really wants to know what happens next, ergo when the 'this game is the start of a campaign' thing is already agreed upon. I can understand your players choosing to drop off the cliff. The way they did it still looks like a jerk move.

They don't really steal a spotlight; in fact they create more problems than they solve.

They aren't really interested in the town, they won't work on a cure or depose the sheriff. They just want their men, and if the PCs are already captured they will cut a deal with the sheriff to get the PCs out of his hair. Likewise the zombie horde only broke into the village in the end because they were following the bounty hunters. In this case they only (partially) clean up their own mess, they don't save anyone.

Now, I suppose if the players had wanted to go that route they could have teamed up with them temporarily to cleanse the area of evil, but that would be on the PCs head's rather than the NPCs. Individually the bounty hunters were weaker than the individual PCs, albeit less injured (atleast until the suicide bombing).

Coidzor
2015-03-29, 03:57 AM
Wait you guys are annoyed about the bounty hunters that are there to apprehend the noble/monarch killin fools??? The time restraint is usually the first and most important clang to go off...if they liked his campaign they'd play it and wait to do DnD when he's gone. Even if that means waiting a few days or a week. They apparently had issues with that but didn't have the decency to open their mouth and make it known. Time restraints usually mean you don't have the gall to cut one thing or another and instead want to make it another persons fault, take responsibility and make decisions. So no their stupid actions weren't warranted.

Where did I say that their reactions were warranted? :smallconfused:

Knowing what he did going into the situation, though, cutting the bounty hunters and actually cutting things short as asked would have been the most damage control that Talakeal could have done in that situation. They just don't fit in with a wrap up, no matter how you slice it.

Certainly going in the opposite direction and purposefully elongating things would have been acting in bad faith before he knew they weren't acting in good faith. :smallconfused:


As for the cure destroying professor...he did warn the authorities and they ignored it. Not smart to do when a zombiepocalypse is staring you in the face.

And that aspect of things is on Talakeal rather than the players.


Talakeal even if you had gotten to the game part without responding to time restraint or nap time you should've stopped the game once it got to raised eyebrow stage and asked if they had something better to do than destroy what you worked on for their benefit...put the ball in their court. Communication does happen both ways and sometimes it's the GM's responsibility to repair problems if they don't head them off.

Communication is good, yeah.


Now, about the bounty hunters:

The players started acting weird before they showed up, but not weird enough that I was going to see a big red flag and hit the abort button.
They serve as a vital step in the adventure because without them it doesn't really have a resolution; their entrance into the town is what attacks the zombie horde. If the players choose to either not attack the sheriff, or attack the sheriff and fail ending up captured, the game won't go anywhere. They will just stay holed up in this small town indefinitely, maybe locked in jail to boot.
Furthermore they serve as the hook into the next mission. Whether or not the players kill them, surrender to them, or run away, they are the impetus for the next quest. Now sure, I could have changed it to something else, but I don't really think that would change much in the outcome and would seem less organic. And as I said, I ran this same adventure for a previous group and they had no problems dealing with the bounty hunters in or out of character.

Horse puckey. They're an additional step and you could have wrapped things up by having them triumph over the sheriff and use the knowledge they'd gained to recreate the cure after X amount of time.

Your players did choose to attack the sheriff though, so the potential of the bounty hunters to act as a catalyst is irrelevant to what happened.

What next mission? You didn't even know if there was going to be a next session, and the odds of that being on the table were significantly lessened as soon as you found out that they wanted to get to an early conclusion and wrap things up quickly.

It's much more organic to be able to change things on the fly than stiffly and doggedly sticking to a pre-established script despite seeing that the situation and needs of you and the players have changed.

Did your previous group ask you to wrap things up quickly? If not, it wasn't the same situation at all, so you can't really hold them up as vindication for your decision.


They don't really steal a spotlight; in fact they create more problems than they cause.

Did you mean they create more problems than they solve?

They're not being called out for stealing the spotlight because people see them as solving problems though.


They aren't really interested in the town, they won't work on a cure or depose the sheriff. They just want their men, and if the PCs are already captured they will cut a deal with the sheriff to get the PCs out of his hair. Likewise the zombie horde only broke into the village in the end because they were following the bounty hunters. In this case they only (partially) clean up their own mess, they don't save anyone.

You're talking about this like this is a module set in stone and you're just a robot who enacts it rather than, y'know, the guy who came up with this in the first place and had free reign to modify it to suit your needs and the desires of the players both in advance and on the fly and here and now in light of feedback from others.

kyoryu
2015-03-29, 01:25 PM
So, it seems to me a number of things are going on here.

1) They're just not that into you, but they were willing to give you some time.

2) They don't like railroading. The fact that they went along with the kidnappers really suggests that.

Okay, so what happens? They're getting to the end of the time slot. They've got a cure for the plague that's screwing up the town, and they're about to get arrested. They're probably thinking "railroad fight" and to avoid it threaten to destroy the cure.

So, what would the sheriff do in this situation? He wants the zombies to stop. The crime that's been committed is breaking curfew, but a cure would obviate the need for that entirely. If *I* were the sheriff, stopping the zombies would be my number one goal, and so I'd certainly be negotiating with someone that claimed they had a cure.

The sheriff instead ignores the one thing that could solve his biggest problem, and gets involved in a fight. This screams railroad to players, regardless of whether it was intended as one or not.

So after this I start to see various forms of "checking out" behavior. This is what happens when players stop thinking that their decisions matter. I mean, they wanted to create the cure as a solution to the problem, did a lot of stuff to do so, and that *still* didn't change how things went down. Doing crazier and crazier things in that case is a common reaction.

So, they get through that, and are thinking "whew, we're done! Okay, cool." But they're not.

It's not a surprise that they start getting even crazier after that. They feel like they're stuck on the train and there's nothing they can do about it, so they'll do anything to get off of it.

I'm not really excusing their behavior. I'm trying to *explain* it. There's a difference.

Here's what I'd do if I were you. I'd call up the friend, and try to find out what happened from everyone else's perspective. Say "I'm sorry, I was kinda being a jerk. I'm not really sure what went wrong, can you tell me what it looked like from your perspective? Even if not with you and your group, I'd like to know so I can do better in the future." Be sincere. Try to take it as a learning experience.

And then *listen* to what they say. You will almost certainly disagree with some or many of the points. That's okay. Undersatnd that what's being said is being said for *a reason*. Even if you disagree with it, understand that reason. If things were misinterpreted, think about how you can be more clear in how you relate things. If people really didn't like railroading and your game was more railroady, think about being more explicit about that in the future, or tailoring your game to the group more.

Talakeal
2015-03-29, 01:26 PM
You can probably errata the priest so his ability works the way you described it working in the game, possibly using a reroll-like resource.

The system works so the players can take their turns in any order they want. There is no mechanical reason why he couldn't have used his ability first, other than he didn't think about it, and I am not so much a hard-ass that I am not going to let players use their abilities when they are supposed to use them, especially new players.



And that aspect of things is on Talakeal rather than the players.

Well, here is the thing; they had no reason to believe he actually had a cure vs. just bluffing, and even if he did have a cure the Sheriff (and some of his deputies) actually liked the situation as it because it gave them power and authority and wouldn't have wanted a cure, though they wouldn't have said that publicly. I had him roll a charisma check against each guard, and about half of them did go for it, which is, I imagine, better than you would get if you tried a similar stunt to avoid arrest in real life.




Did you mean they create more problems than they solve?


Yes, yes I did. I will edit the typo out, thanks.


You're talking about this like this is a module set in stone and you're just a robot who enacts it rather than, y'know, the guy who came up with this in the first place and had free reign to modify it to suit your needs and the desires of the players both in advance and on the fly and here and now in light of feedback from others.

Well, even a purchased actual module isn't set in stone. I feel the ending is necessary for a dramatic climax in the adventure as a whole, and I am saying that I had run it for a previous group without any problems*. I have never had great luck with modifying an adventure on the fly, I know some DMs are great at improve, but I have never been one of them. By the time when they had showed up the players just seemed a little distracted and had made one or two odd tactical decisions, which wasn't enough to raise enough red flags in my mind to want to do an emergency reality edit. In hindsight when they started getting suicidal sure, but by that point it was too late.



Horse puckey. They're an additional step and you could have wrapped things up by having them triumph over the sheriff and use the knowledge they'd gained to recreate the cure after X amount of time.

Your players did choose to attack the sheriff though, so the potential of the bounty hunters to act as a catalyst is irrelevant to what happened.

What next mission? You didn't even know if there was going to be a next session, and the odds of that being on the table were significantly lessened as soon as you found out that they wanted to get to an early conclusion and wrap things up quickly.

It's much more organic to be able to change things on the fly than stiffly and doggedly sticking to a pre-established script despite seeing that the situation and needs of you and the players have changed.

Did your previous group ask you to wrap things up quickly? If not, it wasn't the same situation at all, so you can't really hold them up as vindication for your decision.


Might I ask which part you are calling BS on? Because nothing you are saying is directly contradicting anything I am saying.

I was just explaining how they fit into the adventure, not saying that I shouldn't have cut things short as is. Are you saying that the encounter is fundamentally flawed and that if I was running for a group that was really into it and not under time constraints I should have done something differently here? Because all I am saying is I don't think it was the emergence of the bounty hunters that set them off and made the game go bad, rather something was already wrong and this just made it worse for some reason I am not quite clear on.

I am saying I didn't take the hint that I should cut things short until it was too late to do so.

I told them it would take 2-3 hours to resolve the session. They said OK, and the session took 2-3 hours. Indeed it only took that long because they were so easily distracted during the game.

I was a bit put off that they wanted to play D&D afterwards, but in my mind at the time, cutting the session short would have been like pouting and being overly sensitive and cutting off my nose to spite my face. I had just driven (and waited) for many hours. They didn't say they didn't want to play at all, just that they didn't want the game to take up the whole evening, and if I had said "You know what, just forget it, just play D&D" then I am both looking like the immature jerk and have wasted all that time, gas, and effort for nothing.

As I said previously, this was not the first game I had run for them. No one ever said it was a one shot (in fact it was already the follow up to a previous game, the one in which they had killed the prince in the first place). I was looking forward to turning it into a full campaign in the future as in previous sessions they had seemed really into it and I had heard (second hand) that they were having a lot of fun. I guess that was just a lie to spare my feelings, but again that is only apparent in hindsight.

Now, I could have ended the mission there with the Sheriff's death. But then what do the players do? Just stay holed up in the town forever and become players in small town politics? (Note that could actually be fun for some groups, not this one, they like action and get bored very quickly without it). I needed to have something happen to the town to shake them off their complacency. Now, if it comes at the end of the adventure when they are beaten down it can actually cause stress, if it happens at the start of an adventure they will just throw everything they have into killing whatever the problem is, which will leave them really beaten up going into the adventure or feeling that I threw an overpowering encounter at them.

*Unless you consider a villain that the players actually hate to be a problem, because they really disliked the sheriff, almost to the point where they were getting mad OOC. But that doesn't appear to be a problem with this group.


So, it seems to me a number of things are going on here.

1) They're just not that into you, but they were willing to give you some time.

2) They don't like railroading. The fact that they went along with the kidnappers really suggests that.

Okay, so what happens? They're getting to the end of the time slot. They've got a cure for the plague that's screwing up the town, and they're about to get arrested. They're probably thinking "railroad fight" and to avoid it threaten to destroy the cure.

So, what would the sheriff do in this situation? He wants the zombies to stop. The crime that's been committed is breaking curfew, but a cure would obviate the need for that entirely. If *I* were the sheriff, stopping the zombies would be my number one goal, and so I'd certainly be negotiating with someone that claimed they had a cure.

The sheriff instead ignores the one thing that could solve his biggest problem, and gets involved in a fight. This screams railroad to players, regardless of whether it was intended as one or not.

So after this I start to see various forms of "checking out" behavior. This is what happens when players stop thinking that their decisions matter. I mean, they wanted to create the cure as a solution to the problem, did a lot of stuff to do so, and that *still* didn't change how things went down. Doing crazier and crazier things in that case is a common reaction.

So, they get through that, and are thinking "whew, we're done! Okay, cool." But they're not.

It's not a surprise that they start getting even crazier after that. They feel like they're stuck on the train and there's nothing they can do about it, so they'll do anything to get off of it.

I'm not really excusing their behavior. I'm trying to *explain* it. There's a difference.

Here's what I'd do if I were you. I'd call up the friend, and try to find out what happened from everyone else's perspective. Say "I'm sorry, I was kinda being a jerk. I'm not really sure what went wrong, can you tell me what it looked like from your perspective? Even if not with you and your group, I'd like to know so I can do better in the future." Be sincere. Try to take it as a learning experience.

And then *listen* to what they say. You will almost certainly disagree with some or many of the points. That's okay. Undersatnd that what's being said is being said for *a reason*. Even if you disagree with it, understand that reason. If things were misinterpreted, think about how you can be more clear in how you relate things. If people really didn't like railroading and your game was more railroady, think about being more explicit about that in the future, or tailoring your game to the group more.

Very insightful post, thank you.

However, I actually think the problem with this group is not enough railroading. I have watched them play D&D, and they are on the narrowest tracks ever, just being led by the nose from one encounter to another. I don't really railroad, and this confuses them. I think a lot of their random actions are simply because they are confused and not used to thinking on their own without the DM giving them a clear message about what they should be doing. Heck, I imagine that their normal DM would have just said "NO. You can't do that!" When they started acting crazy.

Second, the sheriff DID want the zombie outbreak to continue. Before he was just some small town lawman, now he is the most powerful and important man it town, and everyone lives or dies on his whims. Fear is a dictator's best friend, and nothing helps put fear in a population like an incessant enemy that is right outside and can't be reasoned with. Some of his deputies feel the same way, some don't, which is why I rolled for each of them separately. Heck, the players actually found evidence that the sheriff was the one who allowed the outbreak to start in the first place, so it couldn't have come as too big a surprise to them.

Third, I tried to talk to my friend about it. He just gave me this lecture about how they are all normal upstanding people and if I don't like them it is because I am weird and wrong. I could try talking to him again, but I really think I am just in for more of the same.

Jornophelanthas
2015-03-30, 06:30 AM
Third, I tried to talk to my friend about it. He just gave me this lecture about how they are all normal upstanding people and if I don't like them it is because I am weird and wrong. I could try talking to him again, but I really think I am just in for more of the same.

That was still in the heat of the moment, within a few hours after the game ended. Everyone was still frustrated, so a constructive conversation was not very likely at that moment. But now that everyone has calmed down and moved on, a better conversation could be had.

There is the possibility, though, that the "friend" is not quite articulate or reflective enough to offer much insight. This is not so much a question of willingness to provide his insight, but the profoundness of his insights. (e.g. he could go: "We're just normal guys who want, you know, a normal game. So you should have prepared a normal game. What do you mean you don't know what that means? Normal is just normal. If you don't even know what normal is, you must be a freak.") You probably know him long enough to know what to expect in this regard.

Also, to avoid any angry rants, you should phrase the request like Kyoryu suggested, rather than displaying anger or annoyance right from the start.

NichG
2015-03-30, 06:34 AM
Forget about blame and fault and expectations and things like that. The only useful thing is to ask 'what could I have done differently?' and 'in the future, how can I figure that out in time to actually act differently before things go wrong rather than after?'

Whether the players were justified or not isn't relevant, because the outcome is the same - they misbehave and you're all miserable. So saying 'they were wrong' or 'they were unreasonable' isn't thinking that productively moves you towards being able to prevent this type of situation in the future. You have to take their behavior pattern as the given and then figure out what can be productively done about the situation.

1337 b4k4
2015-03-30, 11:50 AM
Now, I could have ended the mission there with the Sheriff's death. But then what do the players do? Just stay holed up in the town forever and become players in small town politics? (Note that could actually be fun for some groups, not this one, they like action and get bored very quickly without it). I needed to have something happen to the town to shake them off their complacency.

This is a bad way to approach things. Your games should as much as practically possible, end on a high note, not where the story ends organically, especially if people are tired, you're already in over time or people aren't having fun at the moment. Believe me I know that this goes against every grain in your body as a DM, but 99% of the time, you'd be better off stopping the game even right in the middle of things than slogging out the the logical end of the story. In this case, you didn't necessarily need to end the mission there, but you did need to end the game there. It would have given both you and the players time to re-evaluate things before continuing next session (if there was a next session) and if there wasn't a next session, it would have been a reasonably high note to end on regardless of what happens to the PCs after.

kyoryu
2015-03-30, 12:28 PM
That was still in the heat of the moment, within a few hours after the game ended. Everyone was still frustrated, so a constructive conversation was not very likely at that moment. But now that everyone has calmed down and moved on, a better conversation could be had.

There is the possibility, though, that the "friend" is not quite articulate or reflective enough to offer much insight. This is not so much a question of willingness to provide his insight, but the profoundness of his insights. (e.g. he could go: "We're just normal guys who want, you know, a normal game. So you should have prepared a normal game. What do you mean you don't know what that means? Normal is just normal. If you don't even know what normal is, you must be a freak.") You probably know him long enough to know what to expect in this regard.

Also, to avoid any angry rants, you should phrase the request like Kyoryu suggested, rather than displaying anger or annoyance right from the start.

This is good advice.

The goal of this conversation should be to get information on *your* behavior and how it was perceived by others. To do so, the best thing to do is start with a conciliatory tone, and make it super clear that you're looking for their view of what happened, and *specifically* where they think *you* screwed up.

I mean, don't get me wrong. They probably contributed to the situation, too, but you can't do anything about that. You can only improve yourself.

Don't defend yourself. Don't explain your actions. Just *listen*. If you do feel you need to explain, it should sound something like "Oh, geeze, I'm so sorry. That's totally not what I intended to do, and I didn't realize it could be taken that way. I'm so sorry about that!"

If you turn this into a conversation about *them*, it will turn ugly, and quickly. When people feel they're being listened to, they generally don't get ugly. And just remember, what they're saying is their perception. You probably have a different perception. They probably saw a lot of intent that isn't what you meant to do. That's not a defense, and that's not a reason not to listen. It's *the* reason to listen, because it will help you figure out how to communicate your intent so that people will understand it better and prevent some of these breakdowns in the future.

NichG
2015-03-30, 01:19 PM
I'm not convinced that getting information from the players will really help things here. I think that Talakeal's analysis earlier in the thread is pretty accurate. When you add in that there's an individual involved who is basically being abusive and is amplifying things into accusations, I don't think you'd actually get much in the way of new information, and especially if that friend is involved its likely to just become more emotionally charged.

johnbragg
2015-03-30, 01:38 PM
You know, that was kind of his point; that I am so used to bad gaming that it has distorted my perspective and can no longer recognize good gaming when I see it.

He has heard most of my past gaming horror stories, and as a result he was using them as ammunition to look extra smug and self righteous.

Late to the party, but "Good gaming" does not involve sleeping through the first 2-3 hours of the session, when you're the GM's ride to the gaming table. And the same goes for "normal gaming."

The Glyphstone
2015-03-31, 03:04 AM
Third, I tried to talk to my friend about it. He just gave me this lecture about how they are all normal upstanding people and if I don't like them it is because I am weird and wrong. I could try talking to him again, but I really think I am just in for more of the same.

...he's using your stories as contrast against his 'normal' gaming? Hasn't he noticed that he is the principal character in several of said horror stories?

Angelmaker
2015-03-31, 03:50 AM
I am sorry, but I will have to just join the side of the argument, that wants to pat you on the back.

You allowed for player agency, so any action they took was on them and yielded results ( the threat with the cure and also the other not so smart actions ), you encouraged teamwork by being a bit more lenient than most DM's ( the inspiration roll ) and you proivded interesting elements in your story upon which to react and interact with.

If a player says "he is not interested in the game anymore because to him his character is already dead" then I have to ask myself, what kind of argument is that? I would be pretty happy if anyother player came around with the solution to a problem which could have costed my character his life! And instead of being a hardass about it, I 'd rather be grateful for the last minute save.

Same with the merceneries: If I am given the chance of fighting and even winning against encountrs which are really quite plot relevant, than that is pretty awesome gaming design and the total opposite of railroading.

Being low on resources, because you yourself (players ) turned a regular, winneable encounter into some kind of weird cluster**** ( the guards posted at the gates could probably have easily taken care of opening the gates for the "the law" ) by going absolutely against their character's specialty ( supporter taking hits, strikers not raining death and fire from above ) and then complaining about this very fact by committing seppuku... I dont know what to say anymore.

And evn if you are outmatched to the point of resistance being futile, it would still be a MUCH more believable course of action to surrender and play it from there. Unless you are known as a "captured, sentenced, executed" kind of DM I dont see why commiting seppuku "is more normal" than trying to play the game.

Untill we hear from a story from the other side of the table, i dont have any useful input. Several other's gave more insightful advice, but I just can't understand what happened there. To me it looked like a regular session with tough and winneable encounters. It seems to me the problem is neither you, nor Your DM'ing style, but rather something that happens between context.

GungHo
2015-03-31, 09:06 AM
...he's using your stories as contrast against his 'normal' gaming? Hasn't he noticed that he is the principal character in several of said horror stories?

The insane believe they are quite rational. It's everyone else that's crazy. The frightening part is apparently this guy has built up a cult of personality who is willing to go along with him.

kyoryu
2015-03-31, 12:19 PM
And evn if you are outmatched to the point of resistance being futile, it would still be a MUCH more believable course of action to surrender and play it from there. Unless you are known as a "captured, sentenced, executed" kind of DM I dont see why commiting seppuku "is more normal" than trying to play the game.

That's the action of someone that's frustrated and fed up with the game and doesn't care any more.

Figuring out how he got in that state is the interesting bit.

Solaris
2015-03-31, 01:57 PM
The insane believe they are quite rational. It's everyone else that's crazy.

Not always. Worrying about your sanity can be one of the signs that you're losing it.


The frightening part is apparently this guy has built up a cult of personality who is willing to go along with him.

I'm not so sure that it's a cult of personality. For all we know, he's the only one in the group who thought it was really miserable, and we know he's the one who accused Talakeal of being aberrant; I don't see something demonstrating any sort of devotion on behalf of the other players.

johnbragg
2015-03-31, 02:01 PM
That's the action of someone that's frustrated and fed up with the game and doesn't care any more.

Figuring out how he got in that state is the interesting bit.

I'm guessing that waiting 3-4 hours for the session to start, and then having a GM who was probably a little grim and irritated (because he was justifiably pissed about having to wait hours while someone NAPPED after driving 200 miles) was probably a factor.

Talakeal
2015-03-31, 02:02 PM
I am sorry, but I will have to just join the side of the argument, that wants to pat you on the back.

You allowed for player agency, so any action they took was on them and yielded results ( the threat with the cure and also the other not so smart actions ), you encouraged teamwork by being a bit more lenient than most DM's ( the inspiration roll ) and you proivded interesting elements in your story upon which to react and interact with.

If a player says "he is not interested in the game anymore because to him his character is already dead" then I have to ask myself, what kind of argument is that? I would be pretty happy if anyother player came around with the solution to a problem which could have costed my character his life! And instead of being a hardass about it, I 'd rather be grateful for the last minute save.

Same with the merceneries: If I am given the chance of fighting and even winning against encountrs which are really quite plot relevant, than that is pretty awesome gaming design and the total opposite of railroading.

Being low on resources, because you yourself (players ) turned a regular, winneable encounter into some kind of weird cluster**** ( the guards posted at the gates could probably have easily taken care of opening the gates for the "the law" ) by going absolutely against their character's specialty ( supporter taking hits, strikers not raining death and fire from above ) and then complaining about this very fact by committing seppuku... I dont know what to say anymore.

And evn if you are outmatched to the point of resistance being futile, it would still be a MUCH more believable course of action to surrender and play it from there. Unless you are known as a "captured, sentenced, executed" kind of DM I dont see why commiting seppuku "is more normal" than trying to play the game.

Untill we hear from a story from the other side of the table, i dont have any useful input. Several other's gave more insightful advice, but I just can't understand what happened there. To me it looked like a regular session with tough and winneable encounters. It seems to me the problem is neither you, nor Your DM'ing style, but rather something that happens between context.

That's rather how I felt to. Not very helpful in seeing the other side, but thank you for the vote of confidence.


...he's using your stories as contrast against his 'normal' gaming? Hasn't he noticed that he is the principal character in several of said horror stories?

Well, he is probably specifically talking about my current DM with his weird habit of trying to constantly redefine reality. Also, he was one of two big problem players in my old group, and both of them fully realized the others faults and constantly mock the other about them to this day.


The insane believe they are quite rational. It's everyone else that's crazy. The frightening part is apparently this guy has built up a cult of personality who is willing to go along with him.

Cults of personality are weird. My current DM has no idea how the game works, but he speaks about himself as if he was the lord of all RPGs with encyclopedic mastery of every game and has (almost certainly made up) stories about how he is well known and respected by almost every major figure in the RPG industry and the nerd community as a whole. I see him as a blowhard and borderline pathological liar, but the rest of the group seems to buy his stories hook line and sinker and is constantly fawning over him, throwing compliments his way, and defending him when I call him on an obvious lie.

Sith_Happens
2015-03-31, 03:23 PM
Also, he was one of two big problem players in my old group, and both of them fully realized the others faults and constantly mock the other about them to this day.

To each other's faces or only behind each other's backs? Because if the former that's something I have to hear about.:smallamused:


Cults of personality are weird. My current DM has no idea how the game works, but he speaks about himself as if he was the lord of all RPGs with encyclopedic mastery of every game and has (almost certainly made up) stories about how he is well known and respected by almost every major figure in the RPG industry and the nerd community as a whole. I see him as a blowhard and borderline pathological liar, but the rest of the group seems to buy his stories hook line and sinker and is constantly fawning over him, throwing compliments his way, and defending him when I call him on an obvious lie.

I take it then that you didn't ever take my repeated advice from the "Atlas Shrugged in D&D" thread to discreetly pull the other players aside and let them know the game they're currently in is extremely unrepresentative of most of the ones they'll likely be in in the future?

Talakeal
2015-03-31, 03:58 PM
To each other's faces or only behind each other's backs? Because if the former that's something I have to hear about.:smallamused:



I take it then that you didn't ever take my repeated advice from the "Atlas Shrugged in D&D" thread to discreetly pull the other players aside and let them know the game they're currently in is extremely unrepresentative of most of the ones they'll likely be in in the future?

Both. There is one famous white wolf game where one of them was playing a vampire who thought he was a super hero and the other a changeling who remained invisible and never talked to anybody. Both of them mercilessly mocked one another's characters over the course of the game both in and out of character. Eventually it devolved into PvP and the end of the game.



No, I still haven't had an opportunity to talk to the other players aside from them, and I am not really comfortable rocking the boat anyway.

One of them is also a germaphobe and has decided that because I game barefoot that he doesn't want to have anything to do with me or touch anything that I have ever touched, so I really no longer give a damn about what they think.

Maglubiyet
2015-03-31, 04:03 PM
One of them is also a germaphobe and has decided that because I game barefoot that he doesn't want to have anything to do with me or touch anything that I have ever touched

Uh...why do you game barefoot? I missed that little detail earlier.

Talakeal
2015-03-31, 04:14 PM
Uh...why do you game barefoot? I missed that little detail earlier.

I just don't like wearing shoes, never have, never will. When I am relaxing I normally take my shoes off and have never had a problem with it before. This is the first guy who ever mentioned it, and I don't think it is that unusual; in my (good) gaming group there were three other players who took their shoes off before the game and no one seemed to even notice (except me because I this other guy has made me self conscious about it).

Maglubiyet
2015-03-31, 04:36 PM
I just don't like wearing shoes, never have, never will. When I am relaxing I normally take my shoes off and have never had a problem with it before. This is the first guy who ever mentioned it, and I don't think it is that unusual; in my (good) gaming group there were three other players who took their shoes off before the game and no one seemed to even notice (except me because I this other guy has made me self conscious about it).

I'm not a big fan of wearing shoes myself. I usually leave them on with company though, especially if I'm not on my home turf -- some people seem touchy about it and I don't like to make people feel uncomfortable.

Plus, you never know when you might need to beat a hasty retreat and/or kick your way to freedom. I saw Die Hard, I know what can happen...

D+1
2015-03-31, 05:02 PM
I saw Die Hard, I know what can happen...You need to jump off the roof of Nakatomi Plaza tied to a firehose? Not sure how that relates...

Solaris
2015-03-31, 05:11 PM
You need to jump off the roof of Nakatomi Plaza tied to a firehose? Not sure how that relates...

You mean you don't do that to get out of chipping in for pizza?
Weird.

Eisenheim
2015-03-31, 05:35 PM
It seems like you were treated ****tily by a group of people, one of whom is now trying to make you feel bad for being upset about the ****ty treatment.

I am genuinely very sorry that you have had so much bad luck in the people you find to pursue this wonderful hobby we all so enjoy with.

Have you ever considered moving across the country and severing all contact with everyone you know because they are all insane jerks?

Eisenheim
2015-03-31, 05:36 PM
It seems like you were treated ****tily by a group of people, one of whom is now trying to make you feel bad for being upset about the ****ty treatment.

I am genuinely very sorry that you have had so much bad luck in the people you find to pursue this wonderful hobby we all so enjoy with.

Have you ever considered moving across the country and severing all contact with everyone you know because they are all insane jerks?

Broken Twin
2015-03-31, 07:16 PM
In regards to the shoes thing... are we talking about in a store, or in a house? Because I could totally understand them wanting you to keep them on in a store. In a house... shoes should be off anyway. I don't want people trekking their muddy footwear all across my clean floors, and I'd assume they'd feel the same way about me in their dwelling. Different cultural mores?

Hell, one of the guys I used to play with would strip down to his shorts when he came over. We'd joke with him about it, but none of us cared. Granted, he's a longtime friend, so it wouldn't have the same weird vibe you'd get if we were playing with strangers.

Sith_Happens
2015-03-31, 11:22 PM
Hell, one of the guys I used to play with would strip down to his shorts when he came over. We'd joke with him about it, but none of us cared. Granted, he's a longtime friend, so it wouldn't have the same weird vibe you'd get if we were playing with strangers.

http://media.animevice.com/uploads/1/18983/438219-fg133.jpg

Angelmaker
2015-04-01, 01:11 AM
Have you ever considered moving across the country and severing all contact with everyone you know because they are all insane jerks?

I am calling dibs on talakeal! There, I said it first. :D

Broken Twin
2015-04-01, 03:49 PM
@Sith_Happens: Haha, pretty much.

The Grue
2015-04-01, 04:49 PM
The problem is, he's one of them. He can be smug and self-righteous all he wants, that doesn't change the fact that he's one of those socially maladjusted, bizarro-world players himself.

He's a tomato who hasn't yet looked in the mirror (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TomatoInTheMirror).



Considering all of Talakeal's other stories...

I definitely agree that there's a Tomato in the Mirror here. But I don't think it's Tak's friend.

SowZ
2015-04-02, 12:43 AM
I definitely agree that there's a Tomato in the Mirror here. But I don't think it's Tak's friend.

I highly doubt you would remain unfrustrated if you went through the same scenario as Tak.

asphias
2015-04-02, 06:05 AM
Have you heard from the players other then your friend that they disliked your DMing? Because it wouldnt surprise me if your friend spoke only for himself while claiming to know what the others thought.
also, would it be a possibility to contact one of those players?
If you were able to call or email them, you could ask how they felt about the session and if there was anything you couldve done different according to them.
It could give some insights we cannot give, and if not, no harm done i suppose?

Alberic Strein
2015-04-02, 09:06 AM
I am entertained, but this is most definitely NOT what I came for.

When one reads "This is how normal people game" by Talakeal you expect the guy to finally have had one, ONE, normal play session.

Nope.

Seriously you've got a car, drive it to the nearest port and come to Europe where the weather is fair, the women/men (whatever rocks your boat) fairer and the beers fairer still.

We still got loonies mind you, but I managed to game for a while without encountering anything of that magnitude.

You've got a lot of cookies coming.

Sliver
2015-04-02, 10:33 AM
When one reads "This is how normal people game" by Talakeal you expect the guy to finally have had one, ONE, normal play session.

Why would he post a story about a good or... I want to use the word normal, but this thread has tainted it... Decent, perhaps? Anyway, why post about it?

There's no fun in that. It would ruin the illusion. I rather believe that someone out there is filled with innocence and faith that he'll find a good gaming group, only to be constantly kicked like a puppy, never understanding how things turned out so bad, rising up and trying again, only to repeat the same experience as his soul is slowly crushed into dark sand, while some unseen hands slowly mold him into a bitter, soulless, sand-puppy golem that will bring doom to all gaming by turning everybody into "Normals".

Because it makes me feel better about myself.

Note: I'm quite far from Talakeal so you guys are all doomed before I am. If the rift doesn't open here first, anyway...

Talakeal
2015-04-02, 01:14 PM
I am entertained, but this is most definitely NOT what I came for.

When one reads "This is how normal people game" by Talakeal you expect the guy to finally have had one, ONE, normal play session.

Nope.

Seriously you've got a car, drive it to the nearest port and come to Europe where the weather is fair, the women/men (whatever rocks your boat) fairer and the beers fairer still.

We still got loonies mind you, but I managed to game for a while without encountering anything of that magnitude.

You've got a lot of cookies coming.

To be fair, I have found a decent gaming group. Since coming to NM I have found three new groups. One very good and one very bad, and then the group which is the subject of the OP. Of course, until this last session I would have agreed that it is a fairly normal, if bland and inexperianced, group.

Also, of my group back in CA then main problem player has really grown up in the last couple of years and is now fairly easy to deal with. Of course, two of the other players have since descended into full blown madness...

Coidzor
2015-04-02, 02:51 PM
In regards to the shoes thing... are we talking about in a store, or in a house? Because I could totally understand them wanting you to keep them on in a store. In a house... shoes should be off anyway. I don't want people trekking their muddy footwear all across my clean floors, and I'd assume they'd feel the same way about me in their dwelling. Different cultural mores?

Yeah, differing cultural mores. Generally you check with the host before taking off your shoes unless there's some clear indications to take off yer darn shoes.

Much like how you check with those around you before stripping, generally.


Hell, one of the guys I used to play with would strip down to his shorts when he came over. We'd joke with him about it, but none of us cared. Granted, he's a longtime friend, so it wouldn't have the same weird vibe you'd get if we were playing with strangers.

So did he just start doing that one day after you'd become friends or had he always done that but you just overlooked it long enough to not care and become better friends or what? :smallconfused:

Or was he just trying to seduce one of you by showing off the bod? :smallcool:


I definitely agree that there's a Tomato in the Mirror here. But I don't think it's Tak's friend.


I highly doubt you would remain unfrustrated if you went through the same scenario as Tak.

As far as I'm concerned, they're all tomatoes. And there's probably a bit of turkey involved. And if you've got turkey and tomato, then it'd be a downright travesty not to have some mayo. Possibly some honeyed ham, though I find that's a very personal choice. Gotta have some lettuce with all of that, regardless, though.

Hmm, I think it's lunch time.


Also, he was one of two big problem players in my old group, and both of them fully realized the others faults and constantly mock the other about them to this day.

And yet you willingly went over to his house after driving for like, 4 hours or something. For some reason that you either haven't shared or I managed to miss in this morass.


Cults of personality are weird. My current DM has no idea how the game works, but he speaks about himself as if he was the lord of all RPGs with encyclopedic mastery of every game and has (almost certainly made up) stories about how he is well known and respected by almost every major figure in the RPG industry and the nerd community as a whole. I see him as a blowhard and borderline pathological liar, but the rest of the group seems to buy his stories hook line and sinker and is constantly fawning over him, throwing compliments his way, and defending him when I call him on an obvious lie.

And yet you still hang around instead of leaving them to their depravity.

Talakeal
2015-04-02, 04:03 PM
And yet you willingly went over to his house after driving for like, 4 hours or something. For some reason that you either haven't shared or I managed to miss in this morass.



Not sure what you are trying to say here. It seems like you are saying that simply because one friend thinks that another friend has faults I should cut off all contact with both of them?


And yet you still hang around instead of leaving them to their depravity.

I explained this in another thread. I did actually leave his game for a while, but because we are both players in another, far better, game I can't simply cut off all contact with him, and whenever I see him he begs me to come back, and I simply don't have a hard enough heart (or head) to ignore him.


Yeah, differing cultural mores. Generally you check with the host before taking off your shoes unless there's some clear indications to take off yer darn shoes.

The host doesn't have a problem with it, it is one of the other players.

I borrowed one of his dice one time and he went on a rant about how he couldn't bring himself to touch his dice again (even after washing it in alcohol five times) and had to throw it away because he couldn't look at it without thinking of my disgusting feet. Now he periodically reminds me (unbidden mind you, its not like I am touching his stuff or asking to) not to come near him or his stuff ever again unless I promise to thoroughly wash my hands first, keep my shoes on, and promise never to touch my disgusting feet again. I think he has some serious issues.

Coidzor
2015-04-02, 04:48 PM
Not sure what you are trying to say here. It seems like you are saying that simply because one friend thinks that another friend has faults I should cut off all contact with both of them?

My understanding is that this chucklehead has been consistently one of your terribad, horrorstory players who has gone past even the most generous of X-strike rules.

And then, of all things, he gets fed up with you instead of what should have happened, which was you dumping him like the sack of albatross bricks he is.


I explained this in another thread. I did actually leave his game for a while, but because we are both players in another, far better, game I can't simply cut off all contact with him, and whenever I see him he begs me to come back, and I simply don't have a hard enough heart (or head) to ignore him.

Get one. It'll serve you well in the long run to be able to channel Picard and draw the line (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tleSnj4OD0g).


The host doesn't have a problem with it, it is one of the other players.

That was more to do with the cultural mores anyway. *shrug* People that can't express themselves.


I borrowed one of his dice one time and he went on a rant about how he couldn't bring himself to touch his dice again (even after washing it in alcohol five times) and had to throw it away because he couldn't look at it without thinking of my disgusting feet. Now he periodically reminds me (unbidden mind you, its not like I am touching his stuff or asking to) not to come near him or his stuff ever again unless I promise to thoroughly wash my hands first, keep my shoes on, and promise never to touch my disgusting feet again. I think he has some serious issues.

That should've been your first clue to avoid this group of whackjobs.

SowZ
2015-04-02, 06:06 PM
Yeah, differing cultural mores. Generally you check with the host before taking off your shoes unless there's some clear indications to take off yer darn shoes.

Much like how you check with those around you before stripping, generally.



So did he just start doing that one day after you'd become friends or had he always done that but you just overlooked it long enough to not care and become better friends or what? :smallconfused:

Or was he just trying to seduce one of you by showing off the bod? :smallcool:





As far as I'm concerned, they're all tomatoes. And there's probably a bit of turkey involved. And if you've got turkey and tomato, then it'd be a downright travesty not to have some mayo. Possibly some honeyed ham, though I find that's a very personal choice. Gotta have some lettuce with all of that, regardless, though.

Hmm, I think it's lunch time.



And yet you willingly went over to his house after driving for like, 4 hours or something. For some reason that you either haven't shared or I managed to miss in this morass.



And yet you still hang around instead of leaving them to their depravity.

It's like Joaquin Phoenix not believing Philip Seymour Hoffman's bull but sticking around for years anyway. There's a sort of irresistible magnetism some people have.

I'm just joshing, of course. When you have intertwining friend groups the dynamics can get complicated. Could you just explain to him that your life has got more busy and you probably won't be able to manage more than once every few months?

icefractal
2015-04-02, 06:56 PM
I was looking at the more detailed write-up, and it seems like main issue is that for whatever reason, the players absolutely didn't want to have that last fight against the Sheriff, but were too polite / socially inept to just say that. Maybe they were really wanting to start the D&D game (exacerbated by the host's poorly timed nap), maybe they hate the combat system you were using, maybe they felt it was unfair for some reason. But in any case, playing out that combat appealed to them about as much as getting slapped in the face with a dead fish.

So right off the bat, the professor tries to cancel the whole combat with his ultimatum. And the other players act kind of pointlessly, because they're waiting to see if that will work. And once they realize it didn't work and they have to do this fight they dread, they start acting up and doing stupid things out of frustration.

From that perspective, why they reacted so extremely to the bounty hunters is obvious - they thought the horrible, horrible (from their perspective) fight was over and done with, and then you pull out even more enemies. So at that point they're like "**** this", and try to end things as quickly as possible by any means they can.

Which isn't to say they're not jerks as well. It's obnoxious as hell to invite someone from 200 miles away and then not even give them the entirety of a single game night. And IDK what was up with that bizarre nap. But AFAICT, having a big fight at all was where you went wrong, as far as what these players wanted.

Amphetryon
2015-04-02, 07:02 PM
I was looking at the more detailed write-up, and it seems like main issue is that for whatever reason, the players absolutely didn't want to have that last fight against the Sheriff, but were too polite / socially inept to just say that. Maybe they were really wanting to start the D&D game (exacerbated by the host's poorly timed nap), maybe they hate the combat system you were using, maybe they felt it was unfair for some reason. But in any case, playing out that combat appealed to them about as much as getting slapped in the face with a dead fish.

So right off the bat, the professor tries to cancel the whole combat with his ultimatum. And the other players act kind of pointlessly, because they're waiting to see if that will work. And once they realize it didn't work and they have to do this fight they dread, they start acting up and doing stupid things out of frustration.

From that perspective, why they reacted so extremely to the bounty hunters is obvious - they thought the horrible, horrible (from their perspective) fight was over and done with, and then you pull out even more enemies. So at that point they're like "**** this", and try to end things as quickly as possible by any means they can.

Which isn't to say they're not jerks as well. It's obnoxious as hell to invite someone from 200 miles away and then not even give them the entirety of a single game night. And IDK what was up with that bizarre nap. But AFAICT, having a big fight at all was where you went wrong, as far as what these players wanted.

100% conjecture, here, but it's remotely possible - based on my own experience - that the one who laid down for a nap didn't set an alarm properly, or turned it off without waking up sufficiently, or even assumed (but did not state the assumption) that Talakeal or one of the others would wake him much sooner than what ended up being the case. I've known some very sound sleepers.

Broken Twin
2015-04-03, 08:49 AM
Yeah, differing cultural mores. Generally you check with the host before taking off your shoes unless there's some clear indications to take off yer darn shoes.

Much like how you check with those around you before stripping, generally.

Ah. Around here, shoes are left at the door. Trekking the outdoors all over your host's floor would be considered incredibly rude. You would only leave your shoes on if the host said it was okay.


So did he just start doing that one day after you'd become friends or had he always done that but you just overlooked it long enough to not care and become better friends or what? :smallconfused:

Or was he just trying to seduce one of you by showing off the bod? :smallcool:


I was the new guy to the group, and he was already at that stage when I met him. It was at a mutual friend's house, who I later moved in with for a couple of years. I honestly didn't mind, because 1) I was frequently just in shorts myself, 2) it wasn't hurting anyone, and 3) he wasn't that bad looking shirtless. I could speculate as to WHY he did it, but honestly, I think he was just more comfortable that way. He was predominately straight, so I doubt he was doing it to titillate. Sadly. :smallsigh:

Talakeal
2015-04-05, 02:39 PM
Why is everyone abbreviating my name as Tak? I don't really mind, but surely Tal would be the logical shortening?

Karl Aegis
2015-04-05, 04:07 PM
Normal people don't use logic in an effective manner, though.

themaque
2015-04-05, 04:18 PM
Why is everyone abbreviating my name as Tak? I don't really mind, but surely Tal would be the logical shortening?

Huh, It's the part of your name that stands out in our minds. Why do people abreviet William into Bill?

Solaris
2015-04-05, 04:51 PM
You are surprised at a bit of illogical behavior?

kyoryu
2015-04-05, 06:49 PM
Why is everyone abbreviating my name as Tak? I don't really mind, but surely Tal would be the logical shortening?

This is how normal people abbreviate.

:smallbiggrin:

SiuiS
2015-04-05, 10:04 PM
Why is everyone abbreviating my name as Tak? I don't really mind, but surely Tal would be the logical shortening?

Because L and K are right next to each other and most word format programs recognize tak But not tal as a legitimate word.


Normal people don't use logic in an effective manner, though.

Double entendre'd!