PDA

View Full Version : (Second) Worst Gaming Session Ever



Lupy
2008-03-24, 05:12 PM
Well, after a terrible session I thought, "I wonder if this happens to other people?", I think it must, but how often is it for similar reasons?

Here's what happened today:

Two new players come, and they both seem like their into it. They picked out miniatures while I helped make their characters, a scoundrel and a soldier. The players finally got going after picking minis (everyone always wants to be the Mandolorian!!) and disaster immediately struck. :smallfrown:

You are.... the guildmaster gives you two choices, join us or die for your crimes....
"Join, Join, Join, Die"
Die?
"Yeah."
"No, man, say join."

Well, he did join, and then when they went to rescue a fellow guildmember from a rival guild, he shot everything in sight. Then later on he clotheslined a character with a knife, then later he threw the Jedi out a window, another character climbs down to help him, and gets shot. The cops show up and he blows them up with thermal detonators. Then the Jedi calls ceasefire and they go to Naboo... And he takes hostages and holds up th entire docking area of Theed... The session ended when I got fed up and said "Lets go play Wii."


Do other people also have trouble with immature players?



Sorry, the mini was a Manodolorian, he was human, poorly worded.

nobodylovesyou4
2008-03-24, 05:16 PM
immature? this isnt immature. this is a complete lack of respect for you, the other players, the dm, and rpg's in general. this guy obviously has no idea that youre NOT supposed to kill everyone else. invite him back for one more game, and if he does it again, boot him for good. thats just ridiculous.

Keld Denar
2008-03-24, 05:16 PM
Compare to this:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23784&highlight=worst

I'm sure it wasn't that bad...

nobodylovesyou4
2008-03-24, 05:18 PM
yeah, yeah, lankybuggers problem blah blah blah. weve all heard that story before, and bringing it up isnt even relevant in most situations because no situation ever gets that bad. its like comparing a double homicide to the holocaust: absolutely NO comparison.

Zincorium
2008-03-24, 05:20 PM
Were you the DM? If so, you've now learned some important lessons about offering choices (change 'join us or die' to 'join us or we open the airlock you're inhabiting' next time and push the button if they screw around), and why the rigorous enforcement of sensible weapons laws should be done (seriously, thermal detonators are about as illegal, unobtainable, and so on that can be found in the star wars universe).

Part of the problem (DM or not) is that you're not clearly expressing the opinion that this is not the way things are done. You obviously think so from your post. The biggest weapon the DM has is to look someone straight in the eye and say 'if that's how you're gonna be, the campaign is going to end'.

Explosive decompression is the 'rocks fall, everyone dies' of sci-fi.

KillianHawkeye
2008-03-24, 05:21 PM
If you are the GM, sometimes you just need to stop and say "Are you crazy? Why would your character ever do that?" Get your other players to back you up. Tell your players not to play psychopaths, and when you have someone who can't tell if they're acting crazy or not, don't be afraid to let them know.

The GM doesn't have to automatically go along with whatever your players say without calling for some justification or explaination. And if you don't like it, just interrupt them with the power of GM fiat. You'd be surprised how easily random objects in a Star Wars game spontaneously explode if you want them to. :smallwink:

Belial_the_Leveler
2008-03-24, 05:33 PM
Immature? This isnt immature. This is perfect roleplaying for an evil mandalorian. Maybe even a chaotic neutral mandalorian with authority problems. The problems started with this:

You are.... the guildmaster gives you two choices, join us or die for your crimes....
This is an ultimatum that, if I read the OP right, was given right at the start of the session to new characters.
Question 1: Why base the story on an ultimatum of the "do or die" sort? The majority of players don't like getting railroaded like that.
Question 2: Isn't it expected that a mandalorian-who are mercenaries, soldiers and free people above all else-will react violently to many situations, especially when being pressed into service?

Demented
2008-03-24, 05:37 PM
"I shoot him."

"No. No you don't. Any person with such a blatant disregard for life and self preservation wouldn't have survived to see his ninth birthday, before which his parents would have personally strangled him to death out of fear for their own lives. If you want to play a loud and unconsoleable infant being held in a Baby Backpack by one of the other players' characters out of pity for an anonymous orphan, be my guest, but otherwise you aren't going to be shooting anything this session even if the alternative is getting your gonads yanked out by a feral droideka."

Jimp
2008-03-24, 05:39 PM
Every time I have seen the 'join us or die' line used the players have revolted. I tried it once in probably my second ever game DMing and it ended in disaster. I have not used it since but have played in games where other DMs have tried it and every time at least one of the players completely revolted.

nobodylovesyou4
2008-03-24, 05:44 PM
one way to make "join or die" not railroaded is if they choose to NOT join, the BBEG throws them in the prison to execute later, than offer them chance to escape. i dunno, just throwing things out here.

Reel On, Love
2008-03-24, 05:44 PM
Immature? This isnt immature. This is perfect roleplaying for an evil mandalorian. Maybe even a chaotic neutral mandalorian with authority problems.

I'd say that roleplaying a Chaotic Neutral With Authority Problems anything is pretty immature unless done carefully.

Moff Chumley
2008-03-24, 05:47 PM
Roleplaying or no, heaping dark side points on him couldn't hurt. In you post, thats at least eight points, assuming each group mentioned consists of two people. All of these were not in self defense or for a good cause (Anyone who argues is wrong. :tongue: ) It strongly recommends turning fully evil characters into GM characters in the handbook. I don't know what his character's wisdom is, but once his Dark Side score reaches his Wisdom, I urge you to make roll a new character.

Edit: There are ninjas about... :eek:

Belial_the_Leveler
2008-03-24, 05:51 PM
"I shoot him."

"No. No you don't. Any person with such a blatant disregard for life and self preservation wouldn't have survived to see his ninth birthday, before which his parents would have personally strangled him to death out of fear for their own lives. If you want to play a loud and unconsoleable infant being held in a Baby Backpack by one of the other players' characters out of pity for an anonymous orphan, be my guest, but otherwise you aren't going to be shooting anything this session even if the alternative is getting your gonads yanked out by a feral droideka."

Oh, right. Then Bobba Fett-and Jango Fett-couldn't have existed, could they? And thus, neither the clone army, right? Here goes the entire Star Wars storyline. :smallamused:


People that disrespect authorities, have a blatant disregard for life and kill others that oppose them do exist-and they're more than a few too. Ever heard of hired guns? Assasins? Mandalorian hunters? Dark Jedi? Medieval thieves/backstabbers? Blackguards? Necromancers? Demon-worshippers? Vanilla serial killers in modern times?

SadisticFishing
2008-03-24, 05:51 PM
Wow, I'm actually thoroughly impressed at how well he planned everything. Either a completely immature ass with no respect for anyone else at the table, or a Mandalorian. I guess we'll never know which.

Lord Tataraus
2008-03-24, 05:58 PM
I think the main problem did start with the "Join or Die" scenario in the beginning. Personally, if there is any constraining plot at the beginning of a game I warn the players ahead of time and gage reactions to see if I go through with it. Always, allow for either option to be taken that is my rule of thumb, I almost never stop my players from taking any course. There is only one point where I have truly railroaded but I had a very valid reason, the campaign was not moving forward at all and the players never caught the hints, but I quickly came up with an in world excuse and it worked out.

I would also say you need to talk to this player. He wants to play a type of character that goes against the campaigns theme. It never works because of the conflict. What you need to do is find out if he is capable of playing a more reasonable character, if not, he is probably too immature for your group.

Moff Chumley
2008-03-24, 06:00 PM
I think the point that people are trying to make is, whether or not he's roleplaying or not, he's being a disruptive arse. Jango and Bobba, if memory serves, did not murder everyone they saw. This character is.

RandomNPC
2008-03-24, 06:05 PM
the only time i allow something like that is if they are put up to it by another character, not another player, it's got to be in game.

most recently a character had to prove they wanted to join the group, so they employed thier "property re-distribution" skills to gain a few gold. for getting caught the man held onto his things, and the character threatened him with a crossbow. The man said a few words and tossed him A coin pouch, not the one he went for. it just happened to be fire trapped and have a decent contact poison on it.

in your case the only thing to do would be kill the character for the choice, but thats the players fault for openly saying they'd rather die.


also:

join or die: only ever happened once in my game, right whe they get to the BBEG. he gives the monolauge, but it wasn't a destroy you all, it was a "you destroyed my liutenants, will you take thier places?" speach. they promply said no and began pummeling the lich (and large red dragon) to death.

good thing too, i didn't have the join him option figured out.

Lupy
2008-03-24, 06:08 PM
Immature? This isnt immature. This is perfect roleplaying for an evil mandalorian. Maybe even a chaotic neutral mandalorian with authority problems. The problems started with this:

This is an ultimatum that, if I read the OP right, was given right at the start of the session to new characters.
Question 1: Why base the story on an ultimatum of the "do or die" sort? The majority of players don't like getting railroaded like that.
Question 2: Isn't it expected that a mandalorian-who are mercenaries, soldiers and free people above all else-will react violently to many situations, especially when being pressed into service?

Well, sorry about the madolorian confusion, but the other characters all said "join" and, he didnt take the time to listen what his "crimes" were, or what the guild wanted him for.

Thanks everyone, this is my first session GMing wiht anyone but my best friend and brother, so I wasn't expecting a chaotic evil assasin, and even when he said, "I wanna be some kind of assasin", I thought, "Well, it is a kind of merecnary theme, so he should fit."

I did ask him if he really wanted to clothesline the scoundrel with a vibroblade at the doorway over a balster and he looked down at me (I was the shortest person there) and said "Yes, I do". He threw the Jedi out a window and shot the medic character who tried to help him, then used a thermal detonator to kill the police who came to see what had happened after he killed 20 bystanders in the room with frag grenades (and the Scoundrel who was threatened into service). When the Jedi made it back up with the medic he wanted to shoot them, but the Scoundrel said no. So I think he was being disrespectful, but it probably came from immaturity.

(Oh, and it was my house too)

turkishproverb
2008-03-24, 06:10 PM
"I shoot him."

"No. No you don't. Any person with such a blatant disregard for life and self preservation wouldn't have survived to see his ninth birthday, before which his parents would have personally strangled him to death out of fear for their own lives. If you want to play a loud and unconsoleable infant being held in a Baby Backpack by one of the other players' characters out of pity for an anonymous orphan, be my guest, but otherwise you aren't going to be shooting anything this session even if the alternative is getting your gonads yanked out by a feral droideka."

lol. Now that is funny.

Moff Chumley
2008-03-24, 06:16 PM
Pft, you have more patience than me. He would've been booted out of my house the second he tried to kill another player. That is just disrespectful, pointless and petty. He may have been in character, but it always offends me when people tarnish RPGs by acting like idiotic babies. That is just so disgustingly immature...

wodan46
2008-03-24, 08:46 PM
You should have checked and prohibited the player from playing a Belkar, and if you didn't like his characters actions, you could simply warn him of the consequences, then start having reality screw the character over if the player persists.

Once the game began, he was technically acting in character. And doing so in a hilarious manner. Its one thing to play a pyscho and attack your party and random bystanders, its another to actually kill most of them.

For future reference, could you clarify what kind of roleplaying game you were trying to run before Belkar ran off with it? Why did you decide to add 2 more people anyway?

do you run anyway? Why did you decide to have 2 people randomly join the group?

FlyMolo
2008-03-24, 09:12 PM
One of my players is playing a Belkar. More of a Richard, from Looking For Group, really. My group is silly. Can be fun, sometimes.

Kompera
2008-03-24, 10:11 PM
Well, after a terrible session I thought, "I wonder if this happens to other people?", I think it must, but how often is it for similar reasons?

This doesn't happen to anyone else, unless they let it. You let it happen to you.

No matter how puerile a player decides to act, the Game Master is the one responsible for running the game. If you want your game to play a certain way, with no inter-party conflict and the players being the 'good guys', you have to set the ground rules at the start, and enforce them throughout play as necessary. And it shouldn't be necessary after you've explained things.

If you failed to explain your game and set the ground rules, you invite the consequences. Even then, as you saw this player getting worked up to mass murder, you could have stopped it. Instead, all you say you did was "ask him if he really wanted to clothesline the scoundrel with a vibroblade at the doorway over a balster". And when he said ""Yes, I do", you again failed to reign him in. He may have been the agent, but it is you who ruined the game for yourself and the other players. The Captain is always responsible if the ship is run aground, even if he's asleep at the time. You were asleep, too.

Next time you Game Master a game, try to Game Master it. Add the word "No" to your vocabulary, it'll go better next time.

Chronicled
2008-03-24, 10:35 PM
yeah, yeah, lankybuggers problem blah blah blah. weve all heard that story before, and bringing it up isnt even relevant in most situations because no situation ever gets that bad. its like comparing a double homicide to the holocaust: absolutely NO comparison.

There are many people who haven't read lankybugger's story yet, and my guess is that many of them would enjoy it if they knew about it. Also, just because his situation was exponentially worse than most problematic sessions doesn't mean that it's irrelevant to this one.

Lord Tataraus
2008-03-24, 10:41 PM
This doesn't happen to anyone else, unless they let it. You let it happen to you.

No matter how puerile a player decides to act, the Game Master is the one responsible for running the game. If you want your game to play a certain way, with no inter-party conflict and the players being the 'good guys', you have to set the ground rules at the start, and enforce them throughout play as necessary. And it shouldn't be necessary after you've explained things.

If you failed to explain your game and set the ground rules, you invite the consequences. Even then, as you saw this player getting worked up to mass murder, you could have stopped it. Instead, all you say you did was "ask him if he really wanted to clothesline the scoundrel with a vibroblade at the doorway over a balster". And when he said ""Yes, I do", you again failed to reign him in. He may have been the agent, but it is you who ruined the game for yourself and the other players. The Captain is always responsible if the ship is run aground, even if he's asleep at the time. You were asleep, too.

Next time you Game Master a game, try to Game Master it. Add the word "No" to your vocabulary, it'll go better next time.

Lord Tataraus approves this message.
http://www.luv2help.com/m_videos/thumbs/stamp.jpg

drengnikrafe
2008-03-24, 10:47 PM
I don't know about a session where someone was an awful player, but I did have a session that was almost a total waste of time. We met, one day, and 3 or 4 hours later, almost everyone was finished with their character sheets. We were starting at first level... with a point buy system... That one kind of hurt. I didn't know any better, though, it was my first session ever.

FoE
2008-03-24, 11:35 PM
About the worst gaming session I've ever had ... well, that's a toss-up between four choices (though one sort of might not count, because I still had a lot of fun it). Ironically, they all involve Rifts.

1) The first one was where we were playing this mutant ogre-things in a Rifts game. The guy who was DM'ing, Steve, was doing it for the second time. Anyways, it was kind of a dumb quest (this incredibly powerful character says, "Go kill this other guy who I could easily off myself for no apparent reason"), but because we were these loathsome mutants, me and the other player couldn't help hamming it up. When our "employer" told us to get out of his ... wizard's castle or something, I walked up to him to give him a good look at my deformities and said in a gurgling voice, "Is there something wrong? Do we repulse you with our grotesque appearance?" Later, I tried to kill another monster with my vomit, so you can guess how I played the game. We laughed a lot, but I feel kind of bad for ruining this guy's quest, even though it was schlocky.

2) Same GM, but different players, and it was just a low-level quest. There was this jackass in the group named "Chad" who was playing a farmer who needed to go into adventuring after the crops dried up. The dungeon was boring — it was your average dungeon-crawl, offering up a variety of enemies who were absolutely no challenge, except of course for the Big Boss, whose modus operandi was to have adventurers "challenge him to see who was the better warrior." Apparently, he sacrificed a few dozen henchmen for ****s and giggles. :smallsigh:

But what really killed it was Chad, who kept "accidentally" hitting me in battle and repeatedly sang the phrase "I'm a poor, poor farmer" over and over and over and over. Where the hell he got that, I Finally, I grew tired of it, and I tried to kill him in-game. The GM, Steve, just had his character "disappear" until the end, when he re-appeared in time for me to try one last time to kill him. I failed. :smallfrown:

3) Different GM. Also Rifts, but set in post-apocalyptic Toronto. The problem with this GM is that he was one of those guys who likes to "wing" everything, even the adventure. It was fine at first, until the "last day" of the adventure, where a routine encounter with some gremlin-things resulted suddenly in an army of tens of thousands of these ****ers suddenly materializing along the street! Did I mention they could pretty well kill us in one shot?

So what did we do? We hid in the subway and called for reinforcements. And then we waited as they duked it out. And waited. And waited. A couple of times we got an opportunity to poke our heads up and snipe a few gremlins, but basically we just sat back and watched as this huge battle raged around us. AND THIS WENT ON FOR THREE HOURS. I did my best to have the game "cut to the chase" by taking out the leader, but the ****ing dice wouldn't agree with me, and for some reason the GM just wanted to play this miserable thing out.

4) My good friend (who I don't speak with anymore) GM'ed this game, which was basically a massive ass pull. The conceit was: four guys meet on the road and decide to adventure together. Go to bar. Go talk to bartender. Get quest, which was to recover a holy symbol from some evil church ... for some reason.

Anyways, we slogged through a bunch of ridiculously-weak henchmen to reach the Big Bad. We were to run through a corridor of fire to fight the nearly-invincible demon, and only one of us (the DMPC) couldn't be harmed by the flames. And guess what? He was working for the Big Bad. (The lesson here? Never trust DMPCs, for they are out to screw you.) So basically the point was just to kill us off in a big meatgrinder at the end. Considering how long it took to reach that point, I wish the GM had just said, "Rocks fall, everybody dies" at the onset and saved me seven hours.

But yeah, it doesn't compare to that story where the DM got arrested.

sonofzeal
2008-03-24, 11:55 PM
3) Different GM. Also Rifts, but set in post-apocalyptic Toronto.
Speaking as a Torontonian here..... can I join your gaming group? :smallbiggrin: I believe that's the most awesome setting I've ever heard, even if that session was a total waste.

Icewalker
2008-03-25, 12:16 AM
My comment on 'join or die' situations: make it subtle.

You can do something like put the players in a situation where they are hanging out with their foes, and their foes think they are allies. The players are not strong enough to take on this group of enemies.

If they reveal themselves as who they really are, they will all die. If they work with them, they can wait until a chance to backstab the enemies or escape. Don't bring up this last part and it is getting the characters into an interesting situation, instead of railroading. And yet, railroading at the same time. :smallbiggrin:

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-03-25, 12:25 AM
That doesn't even qualify. My session last Saturday involved party combat using a fish. That was the first 30 minutes. Then there was the character who attempted to stab mine in the back 3 times, (I tripped, honest), the person who had to leave halfway through the session, and the utter n00b at roleplaying. I would have enjoyed your session. :smallmad:

Xuincherguixe
2008-03-25, 12:58 AM
Was it immature? Yeah probably. But so is Railroading.

I think the appropriate thing to do would be to find some way in which his destructive impulses could be channeled in such a way that it fits the story. For instance, another guild offers him some money if they kill the one they're in (something tells me it's not a GM with a lot of imagination).

It's important to consider the players when making up the game. The bad ass archaeologist needs boulders to chase after him. The nun needs a bus and a ruler. The violent sociopath needs to have a chance to do his unspeakable work. The Naive Defender of Justice needs evil to smite. (Those last two kind of resolve themselves, though it works best if the Naive one merely has to deal with the Fallout of the first characters actions).


If that was a reaction to railroading, it was a bad one. A better one would be to arm a thermal detonator, hold it in his mouth, and charge with a big grin at something at random, and leave the table.

And, in the future, run your own game without railroading so you can appreciate just how hard it actually is to pull off so you can appreciate why it's done, and encourage the rest of the players. (Hey, just because something is hard doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. A thing being hard is often enough of a reason to do something :P)

MeklorIlavator
2008-03-25, 12:59 AM
Worst Game session I've ever had? Easy. I was starting my group out on Red Hand of Doom, but to get in character and provide a hook, I had them to a quick one shot first(off the wizards web site, it was my first time Dming). My only restrictions were I had to read what you wanted first(if non-core), that the character you made, you kept, no Evil, and finally that you had to play alignment.

My first hint of trouble was when the Druid said"Okay, I'll be CN, but play CE." Well, at least he kept his word. See, in the module there is a chance to free a prisoner/unwilling ally of the Bad Guys who then helps you, but he'll only switch sides once the Trolls that guard him are dead. Well, they take out the trolls and the prisoner switches sides, and the PC's win. Then the now, everyone's running a bit low at this point, and then the Druid starts attacking the creature. The rest of the party, not wanting to antagonize it, beats the druid unconscious, and then leave him in the city jail, so one PC get to make a new character. Then, because its about 5 o'clock, I go to sleep, saying that we'll continue on to the main adventure in a bit.

When I wake up, I find out that only one guy(a duskblade) has retained his character, and that he got all the gold meant to be split among the party from the previous encounter, thus completely breaking WBL. Also, though I didn't know it at the time, the Druid-guy rolled up a psychic warrior, but pretty much had the same gear as the duskblade, raising the question of how he was able to afford it. Finnaly, the other two had made a knight(previously a Dragon Shaman) and a Psion(previously a Bard). Keep in mind that I hadn't read either the Knight class or the psionic book at all, but they apparently had gotten my consent while I was asleep. They pretty much blew through everything up to the first major boos encounter, partially because none of us really understood all the rules(a previous Dm had a rule that we were still using of 2 standard actions per turn), partially because I was still sleep deprived from the night before(I've sworn never to do that again), and mostly because we didn't know what we were doing. This one experience has ruined my entire group(except me) to RHoD. Note that it there was effectively a revolt each time I tried to put my foot down on either psionics, the new characters, or the whole wbl thing.

drengnikrafe
2008-03-25, 01:17 AM
Ahh, I remembered a truely awful story (which is better then my other one, I promise).
Our DM decided that "Hey, all your 1st level PCs can have a few thousand gold worth of items for no particular reason!" Well, a half hour of picking the perfect collection of items later, he decides to inform us that... he was just kidding. "Get rid of all your items and thoughts, I was just kidding."
I don't play with that DM anymore. Ever.

Triaxx
2008-03-25, 07:36 AM
Why was that a bad session? It looks like he was having fun. And the resulting battle would have taught him more than just ending the game.

Anyway, an intelligent player, when given 'Join or die' should always pick 'I'm going to kill you'.

kjones
2008-03-25, 08:01 AM
Sure, that player may have been having fun, but I can assure you, nobody else was. Including the GM, who gets to have fun as well.

Khanderas
2008-03-25, 08:51 AM
Compare to this:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23784&highlight=worst

I'm sure it wasn't that bad...
Ahh. so thats why lankybuggers thread got reanimated.

Lord Tataraus
2008-03-25, 08:52 AM
So we're telling stories know? Alright, nobodylovesyou might have to expand a bit but here it goes.

So this one guy in our group just got Sandstorm and wanted to run a game, it sounded ok so we started to setup in the weeks prior. We find out that this will be a gestalt game. Red flags went up at this point, I do not like gestalt and I didn't really have faith that this guy could pull it off. Though I was desperate to play (I mostly DM) so after I couldn't convince him otherwise and the others wanted to try it out we went about making the characters. I had a shifter rogue/druid (with racial sub levels on the druid). Nothing too powerful, it seemed like a fun character. We start off in an arena as enslaved gladiators, but would be let go if we won the battle. It seemed kind of lame, but oh well. Skip ahead a bit and we are free to move about the city and it seems a powerful fortune teller or some had come to town, naturally we investigated. It turned out that he offered to draw cards for us from a Deck of Many Things for a small fee. The kicker is that we didn't have the DMG on hand for some reason so the DM just gave us whatever he wanted (though he made an OOC show of it). I got an extra spell slot and the others got other ridiculus things. This is where another guy in the group got pissed off, this was just too much. We continued playing and after awhile found out that "Your in a desert, there is no city for miles and miles, you can only leave by taking this quest." We called BS, but he didn't stand down and we played on...then we met the DMPC, I was pissed off and hated this guy, but the group grudgingly accepted him. Then we go out into the desert, met some nomadic tribe and it ends up that I need to steal something from this drow temple. So, I sneak in and there is an alarm...the lunch bell, every single drow went to lunch. Needless to say I stole everything I could carry (Bag of Holding ftw). However, the nomads demanded to take everything. He knew my character, the way I RPed it, would never allow such a thing, I did the work, I deserve the profit, I even offered some maps and things, but no, everything. At this point I ditched them and tried to run quoting my insanely high shifter move speed and decent survival skill +druid spells to survive the desert, but no, he pull some BS magic and made it so I could move at all. That was the crappiest game ever for me.

Lupy
2008-03-25, 09:27 AM
Was it immature? Yeah probably. But so is Railroading.

I think the appropriate thing to do would be to find some way in which his destructive impulses could be channeled in such a way that it fits the story. For instance, another guild offers him some money if they kill the one they're in (something tells me it's not a GM with a lot of imagination).


Well, since I didn't know if he was really coming until the day before, I took my current idea and changed it a bit, and got a mercenary sort of theme. But when we sat down it took 45 minutes to make three characters (no one else wants to buy a book, or learn the feat list :smallsigh: ), and I was thinking "Finally". Okay, blah blah blah. You arrive in the guildmaster's audience chamber and... pillars... guards in red uniforms with rifles... "Oooo, can we shoot them, take their stuff, and blow up the pillars???" "The guildmaster glares over at the gun brandashing assasin...."

It was not anywhere near as good an idea as my other main campaign, but I wanted to make it more high-action, because I didn't want to throw espinage at people who have never roleplayed before.

Also, I invited these two people because they were interested in roleplaying, and because their 'rents don't hate roleplaying. I was hoping to get my group up to 4 people so that the party would be more balanced (Why was charisma the dump stat for both of my originals??) and so ths=at I coud hang out with more of my friends. Well, I realise now I should have said no, but until the clothesline event I thought "Ok, he'll catch on." and when the Jedi player said "Ok, this is bogus, Player x knock it off." I figured that was enough, since neither of the other three had any problems being heros or anti-heros. And how do you give Belkar a place in the group when the entire rest of the group is actively trying to kill him for revenge? Or when he craftily kills the 40 police troopers meant to teach him a lesson in relying on his team (they were going to rescue him), but no. He stole grenades from the other soldier, and threatened the scoundrel into decieving the guild-guards that the Jedi had tried to kill him before he fell out the window. Shor of duex ex machina what could I do? His int stat was far above the rest, and his dex was enough to back up his threats... So even though it was my fault, it was also alot of playing his playing like it was Morrowind and ignoring if nayone else was having fun.

Lord Tataraus
2008-03-25, 09:47 AM
Ah, that's a lot better explanation. So, if I'm reading this correctly, his threats at the start of the game led to the Join or Die? And he managed to kill off those who would have otherwise put him to justice? Well, there isn't much you can do other than talk to him and in game, fiat something that lets some of them get alive and take him out, maybe shot him as he throws the detonator? I'm not too familiar with Star Wars, its D20 right? I guess its kind of hard to kill someone then, could the Jedi have sent someone out to bring him in? They would've had an easier time.

Fitz
2008-03-25, 09:52 AM
ok a lot of players react to railroading, but glossing over that for the moment, there is a time and place for Dues ex machina, and this sounds like it!

i am just thankful my players are generally not like this, (though i keep threatening them with the ancient blue dragon miniature , that generally gets a laugh ;-)

Fitz

Konig
2008-03-25, 10:33 AM
My story - nothing tragic, but still pretty bad.

Game played over AIM, core only. It's mostly people I've gamed with online before. The one guy said he wanted to DM, so I gathered a group of interested people & got us set up. In retrospect, he was a pretty terrible player, so I don't know why I expected more from him as a DM.

We've got me - a druid, a paladin, sorcerer and monk. Game began with us thrown into a prison cell, and left to rot. Expecting there to be something to help us find an escape route, we search the cell, discovering nothing besides the door, locked and a small window up out of reach. Three of us standing on one another's shoulders apparently isn't enough to reach it - don't ask.

So we do our introductions and after a good while, a mysterious figure unlocks our cell door & can't be seen once we step outside. We set out to explore what turns out to be a dungeon - a very badly designed dungeon.

Have you ever played a game where the DM was like a text adventure? I could've sworn this guy was a turing program, an example of play was more or less:

"We walk down the corridor. Raina (my druid) keeps her distance from the elf, eying him warily."
"You find a door."
"[The monk] checks for traps." (We had no rogue, were 1st level, and he took the job)
"You find no traps."
"We open the door, I stand clear of it in case [our monk] failed to find any traps."
"You discover another corridor."
"We walk warily down the length of the stone hallway."
"You find a door."
Rinse. Repeat. For hours.
I got the inkling he had drawn up a dungeon beforehand, forgotten to add any features besides an occassional locked door & maybe three special rooms in the entire place. In almost 2 hours of navigating this dungeon of vaguely interconnected hallways & doors, we found... 3 dire rats to fight.
One giant statue with gems for eyes. We took one look at it & said, "Pass."
The final 'boss' and his menagerie, detailed below.So little happened that the DM fell asleep on his keyboard. We roleplayed a little to just keep our interest going, he woke up & led us on for the final section of the dungeon.

The dungeon 'ended' with us finding two doors. Behind one was a stable of slaves, beaten and tortured, behind the other was the 'mad sheriff'. We open the door and the boss swivels in his chair (how? I do not know), a wickedly gleaming weapon lying a few feet to his left. He starts a monologue, but the description of dried froth around his mouth & the general situation leads us to one conclusion. We kick the door in, take one second to survey the situation, and attack him. (Keep in mind that we're champing at the bit for some excitement at this point). Attack him while he's still sitting down and eviscerate him before he even gets a turn. Free the slaves, collect the loot (Amulet of bull's strength 1/day & a +1 keen longsword? We're 1st level, wtf?)

We continued on, moving from the Illogical Prison to a village just beyond it. We see an ettin fleeing from a mob of villagers, X feet away. Party wizard casts ray of enfeeblement on it. Rolls a 19 for his touch attack. DM tells him 'you miss', followed by 'I don't care about AC or any of that. Rule zero'. Which is finally enough to make all of us walk away from the table, so to speak.

He wasn't an inexperienced DM, he just had a terrible lack of imagination. No imagination to add anything as simple as a pile of rubble to a corridor, and no imagination for being flexible when we tried to intervene on the attack vs. the Ettin (He needed the ettin as a character in the follow adventure, but why didn't he just have it pass it's saving throw? Or just let it run away regardless?). We could've played along a bit more, but you gotta understand that the game was stretching on for more than three hours with absolutely nothing happening. We got to roleplay some, but since the DM quit, never got to take the characters & their interactions anywhere. 3.5 hours of my life wasted.

Number 6
2008-03-25, 02:41 PM
Pft, you have more patience than me. He would've been booted out of my house the second he tried to kill another player. That is just disrespectful, pointless and petty. He may have been in character, but it always offends me when people tarnish RPGs by acting like idiotic babies. That is just so disgustingly immature...


True, but remember, a lot of people don't know any better. Most beginner RPG groups act like this guy. A few years back I sat in on a Shadowrun game and they all acted like this guy, and we're talking 24+ year olds, all.

Number 6
2008-03-25, 02:50 PM
Was it immature? Yeah probably. But so is Railroading.

Railroading is a loaded term. I have seen some GMs that railroad players. But, more often, I've seen it used by whiney players who didn't get to do everything they wanted.

A GM can't just make up everything as he goes. He has to plan an adventure. While the players get to choose what actions they take, they have to take part in the adventure he or she planned. This is not railroading, it's campaign background.

Number 6
2008-03-25, 02:52 PM
yeah, yeah, lankybuggers problem blah blah blah. weve all heard that story before, and bringing it up isnt even relevant in most situations because no situation ever gets that bad. its like comparing a double homicide to the holocaust: absolutely NO comparison.

In a bad mood today, I see.

FoE
2008-03-25, 07:48 PM
I think the only time where players can cry foul about "railroading" is if the GM is forcing them into situations that their characters wouldn't give two ****s about, or some guy is forcing them to do something that he could do himself but more easily.

If you want an open playground where you can roam around as you please, go play Grand Theft Auto or World of Warcraft. But in D&D, directionless wandering gets old pretty fast.

FoE
2008-03-25, 07:50 PM
The dungeon 'ended' with us finding two doors. Behind one was a stable of slaves, beaten and tortured, behind the other was the 'mad sheriff'. We open the door and the boss swivels in his chair (how? I do not know), a wickedly gleaming weapon lying a few feet to his left. He starts a monologue, but the description of dried froth around his mouth & the general situation leads us to one conclusion. We kick the door in, take one second to survey the situation, and attack him. (Keep in mind that we're champing at the bit for some excitement at this point). Attack him while he's still sitting down and eviscerate him before he even gets a turn.

"You sly dog, you caught me monologuing!" :smallamused:

Aurick
2008-03-25, 07:54 PM
Sounds like he did what any good player would do as you randomly forced him and a bunch of arbitrary characters into a guild. Of what you described you left the plot open so the Rambo guy could have been an assassain from the other guild, or a sicotic, so basically you forced him in a way he didnt want to go and got burned.

Raum
2008-03-25, 08:14 PM
I think the only time where players can cry foul about "railroading" is if the GM is forcing them into situations that their characters wouldn't give two ****s about, or some guy is forcing them to do something that he could do himself but more easily.

If you want an open playground where you can roam around as you please, go play Grand Theft Auto or World of Warcraft. But in D&D, directionless wandering gets old pretty fast.Following one or more character goals != 'directionless wandering'. Gary Gygax had applicable comments...

Just a thought, now back to your regularly scheduled thread...

Lupy
2008-03-25, 08:16 PM
Ah, that's a lot better explanation. So, if I'm reading this correctly, his threats at the start of the game led to the Join or Die? And he managed to kill off those who would have otherwise put him to justice? Well, there isn't much you can do other than talk to him and in game, fiat something that lets some of them get alive and take him out, maybe shot him as he throws the detonator? I'm not too familiar with Star Wars, its D20 right? I guess its kind of hard to kill someone then, could the Jedi have sent someone out to bring him in? They would've had an easier time.

Well, 1 hit kills are tough to do in SWRPG Saga. The Cops also lost initative and he took an AoO because they thought a rougue Jedi was in the room and were unprepared to face a madman with a thermal detonator and 2000 credits worth of frag grenades... The Jedi was running up the stairs (In a fair fight he would easily take down the rougue, he had rifle prof. and a sporting rifle as well as his lightsaber), however the explosion and the fact one of the soldiers was at -something hp downstairs slowed him down. After lunch I had no interest in continuing so we played Super Smash Brothers Brawl... much more his style.