A terrible idea to use pride against players

[Silus]

Issue resolved, was a case of "wow this sounds like a great idea but is really really bad on paper oh god why did I think this was anywhere close to a good idea?".

SEMI-RELATED BUT NEW TOPIC: Would you use your player's sense of pride and challenge-taking/seeking natures against them to manipulate them down the path you, as the DM, would find ideal?

Example: Commenting on how it's "typical" that your players would rather kill the kidnapped princess instead of rescue her because it's the "easy" route and that, offhandedly, you don't think they'd be able to even rescue her without mass chaos. Or something of that nature to goad them into proving you wrong and rescuing her.

To clarify to everyone popping into this thread, I am not going through with the spoilered plan. I realize it is stupid and immature and hardly suited for the group at hand. Please stop assuming that I intend to go through with it.

Spoiler

Show

Ok, I'll keep this short as I'm at work typing this.

I'm gearing up for a campaign (Act 2 for those that know about me endless plans) and I want to throw in a 100% optional side quest/campaign. The idea is that amidst the horror and stuff of the Elder Evil World Ending Event, the quest would be far more whimsical an make use of the Ponies For Pathfinder book that I helped kickstart.

Problem though, almost all the players are against Ponies, mostlu on the grounds that they A) just think they are stupid/"gay" or B) that they feel it threatens their masculinity. However, I'm still gonna add it in. The question regards what I plan on doing shoul the players pick up the quest trail: warn them. Over and over and over that while the rewards may be worth it, it may not be a quest they would want to undertake. If they get to the enteance of the quest event thing, I'll make it a point to stress that they, with the exception of one, are IMO not prepped as players to deal with the quest (keeping all mention of ponies absent) and that it's inntheir best interests to turn back.

So with constant warnings throughout that they may regret taking the quest for OOC reasons, are warnings enough, or ought I just scrap the whole thing before I really start working on fleshing the quest out? It's at "outline on a cocktail napkin" stage at the moment and involves turning the PCs into ponies for the duration of the quest.

Edit: To elaborate, the "not prepped as players" stems from that while most of the other players have years of gaming experience on me (they've played for far longer than I have) I don't feel that they have the maturity to put on their big-boy pants and deal with a situation like this that they all but willingly walk onto. I'm honestly expecting protests or thrown objects if they ignore all the warnings.

[hymer]

Am I getting this straight?
The players in general don't want it. You don't think they will enjoy it if they do it anyway. You will want to warn them off it should they go ahead with it.

Why would you create a scenario that the players are unlikely to choose, unlikely to enjoy playing, unlikely even to enjoy finishing, and which you will repeatedly warn them off from if they do try? Are you trying to sink your campaign? Because you think the players are so far beneath you (that mentioned lack of maturity and how they don't enjoy ponies, the bastards)?

The above is to be taken as my gut reaction. In your post, you come across to me as arrogant, manipulative and prone to let OOG issues make you behave passive-aggressively.
I'm sure you're not so bad in reality - it's just the post that gives me a really bad impression.

[SiuiS]

In contrast to Hymer, I don't read this as arrogant or manipulative, but it might be unwise. Setting aside the whole pony thing, I think that basic D&D and pathfinder psychology is that saying "you as a player cannot handle this" is basically a challenge. You are giving them the equivalent of early-access epic armor! That's a pink bikini. And an awesome set of epic weapons! That is a sex toy. You're basically challenging them to humiliate themselves for numerical bonuses.


Don't. Do not do this. Just be clear about the end result being worthwhile numerically but being categorically something they dislike, even if you have to ruin the surprise. The nature of their dislike will only make this worse, much worse; remember that one of the biggest reasons for the hype backlash against pony stuff is "those pony fans are always shoving their likes at me and won't respect that I don't like it". So this will end up worse than humiliating the players, becauE you're specifically playing o. Something they Do Not Want.

It is your call whether you do, in the end, but your espoused methods? They will cause you grief. They will close the doors and bar the gates to any chance of this going over well. Just start inserting the pony stuff slowly and build as they get closer to the quest/end of quest. Then they know what is going on and can make a choice. But telling them they can't handle it, and then suddenly [thing they dislike]? There is no way that won't sink like the titanic. And maybe take your DM cred with it.

[Silus]

Am I getting this straight?
The players in general don't want it. You don't think they will enjoy it if they do it anyway. You will want to warn them off it should they go ahead with it.

Why would you create a scenario that the players are unlikely to choose, unlikely to enjoy playing, unlikely even to enjoy finishing, and which you will repeatedly warn them off from if they do try? Are you trying to sink your campaign? Because you think the players are so far beneath you (that mentioned lack of maturity and how they don't enjoy ponies, the bastards)?

The above is to be taken as my gut reaction. In your post, you come across to me as arrogant, manipulative and prone to let OOG issues make you behave passive-aggressively.
I'm sure you're not so bad in reality - it's just the post that gives me a really bad impression.

Well honestly, I know it's a terrible idea to run this thing for this group, but it's one of those itches I feel that I gotta scratch. And yes, I'm aware of a bitter streak where I tend to retaliate in game for OoG stuff (trying to get reigns on that). My only excuse is that these players have been giving me hell in both my initial campaign and in the ones they run and I feel a little vengance is in order(yes, I know I can be petty and vengeful at times).

Honestly this is one of those idea that seems goo in my head but as I type it up I realize how utterly stupid it is.

.

Aye, I'll see about saving it for another time. Or maybe working it in as a Fey curse or something.

[Slipperychicken]

Just throw in optional MLP pony mounts with 3 good attacks per round (hoof, hoof, bite), a 100ft fly speed with perfect maneuverability, and the ability to cast healing spells.

That'll test their pride.

[Pex]

Punish the players for not liking what you like. Force them to play what they don't want to play. You're the DM. They're only players. What do they count for?

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Hey, I've seen what happens when you get a Unicorn foal familiar, its awesome.

[Scow2]

Aye, I'll see about saving it for another time. Or maybe working it in as a Fey curse or something.

And then send them off to see the Whizzard in his Magical Realm to get the cure, right?

[Silus]

And then send them off to see the Whizzard in his Magical Realm to get the cure, right?

Nah, probably make the cure something annoyingly simple to cure but difficult to actually go about to do.

[Spore]

As someone who enjoyed Powerpuff Girls back in their day because of the smart comedy and clever characters, I would HATE to play this in an RPG. The original doesn't fit. But you could add some personalities from the show into your quest.

JUST.
DON'T.
MAKE.
THEM.
PONIES!

For people claiming that the show MLP is actually smart humor and very fun to watch, you are picking the entirely different reason of why you watched it. You don't watch it for sparkling pony characters, you watch it for the quirky characters and the innocent world.

If I were to translate Powerpuff girls to RPG, I'd make Buttercup a Barbarian and rename her to a nordic wild flower. Blossom would be a Paladin (renamed after types of roses) and Bubbles a bard/charisma char of some sort (renaming her race equivalent and giving her a familiar named Bubbles). Keeping their personalities in tact, but writing them for the game.

It would NOT support or pick up a quest concerning magical speaking ponies. But I could see myself getting quests from a enchantress (that older book pony: Celestia is even a good name for a sorceress) to stop the evil Nightmare cult leader [insert humanoid name here].

[The Oni]

It's not the end of the world. I think every DM gets ideas like this from time to time, it's just most of us have the foresight not to actually use them.

But yes, the Magical Realm comic sprang to mind immediately when I read "turning into ponies."

[Silus]

As someone who enjoyed Powerpuff Girls back in their day because of the smart comedy and clever characters, I would HATE to play this in an RPG. The original doesn't fit. But you could add some personalities from the show into your quest.

JUST.
DON'T.
MAKE.
THEM.
PONIES!

For people claiming that the show MLP is actually smart humor and very fun to watch, you are picking the entirely different reason of why you watched it. You don't watch it for sparkling pony characters, you watch it for the quirky characters and the innocent world.

If I were to translate Powerpuff girls to RPG, I'd make Buttercup a Barbarian and rename her to a nordic wild flower. Blossom would be a Paladin (renamed after types of roses) and Bubbles a bard/charisma char of some sort (renaming her race equivalent and giving her a familiar named Bubbles). Keeping their personalities in tact, but writing them for the game.

It would NOT support or pick up a quest concerning magical speaking ponies. But I could see myself getting quests from a enchantress (that older book pony: Celestia is even a good name for a sorceress) to stop the evil Nightmare cult leader [insert humanoid name here].

Honestly the "turn them into ponies" idea was mostly 'cause they'd slip into a huge pocket-plane and the transformation is to keep everything uniform and not, ya know, crumble under paradox or some such.

But no, seriously, I'm not gonna run this for the group I'm in, it would devolve, at best, into "Kill everything and raze it to the ground" out of spite.

Though, getting off the topic of ponies, I wonder what people's thoughts are on using player's sense of pride and "considering everything to be a challenge" as a way to steer them in the desired direction.

[veti]

Though, getting off the topic of ponies, I wonder what people's thoughts are on using player's sense of pride and "considering everything to be a challenge" as a way to steer them in the desired direction.

Players can satisfy their sense of pride in a number of ways, only one of which is the way you're planning on.

Just so long as you remember that...

[WbtE]

Given the history at this table, I think you have a right to prank these players, but not to punish them. Feel free to lure them in with "table-talk" (saying that you personally don't feel that they could handle the more difficult road, etc), just don't use your license as the adventure designer to do so. There's nothing about a MLP-themed adventure that implies the PCs ought to garner better or worse rewards than they would anywhere else.

And by all means, let the characters walk away in disgust, feeling that they wasted their time on this - and stick the players with an "I knew you couldn't handle it" if this happens.

[QuintonBeck]

Agreeing with the aforementioned sentiments I won't beat a dead horse (dead pony?) about it but on the subject of using player pride to GM advantage, it's actually something I plan to do in my next campaign.
See, I have an event in world that is more or less a big gladiator fight between anyone who wants to come duke it out to the death for cash prizes (I'm surprised there aren't more of those in campaign settings where adventurers exist) and I already have a fair number of the other competitors ready and statted. Now, this is a pure unnecessary side quest that doesn't inherently bear any relevance to the plot (though I'll likely tweak it some when it gets brought up) and I know the mention of it occurring will drive at least one of my players to drop everything and demand the party go there thus I plan to use it whenever I'm in need of time to further develop current plot points or give time for something to happen elsewhere in the world that the heroes could have prevented if they weren't gallivanting off to stab people in an arena. All the GM helpfulness of railroading, none of the bad points since it wasn't you who made them go there.

[Spore]

Players can satisfy their sense of pride in a number of ways, only one of which is the way you're planning on.

Just so long as you remember that...

Seconded. I am a bitter 20-something on the internet. It would be delightful to crush the ponies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their mares.

Kinda like that.

[Thrudd]

Honestly the "turn them into ponies" idea was mostly 'cause they'd slip into a huge pocket-plane and the transformation is to keep everything uniform and not, ya know, crumble under paradox or some such.

But no, seriously, I'm not gonna run this for the group I'm in, it would devolve, at best, into "Kill everything and raze it to the ground" out of spite.

Though, getting off the topic of ponies, I wonder what people's thoughts are on using player's sense of pride and "considering everything to be a challenge" as a way to steer them in the desired direction.

I would suggest not having a "desired direction" to steer them in. Then you don't need to manipulate the players into doing anything, they can do whatever they want. Notice what sort of actions they make when given a choice and plan for that, but make sure you have lots of options available. If you must have ponies to be happy with your game, populate your world with magical talking ponies and let the players encounter them sometimes (generic fantasy does have unicorns and pegasi and polymorphing beings and intelligent animals, so why not magical ponies?). The game should be fun for you just as much as for the players. Just remember if you test your players' patience too often, they aren't going to want to play with you anymore. If you are talking about forcing your players to participate in an all-pony setting which they all hate, there is no point. Find another group of players for your Pony game.

[Pex]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbJNyGbFNRo

[Silus]

I would suggest not having a "desired direction" to steer them in. Then you don't need to manipulate the players into doing anything, they can do whatever they want. Notice what sort of actions they make when given a choice and plan for that, but make sure you have lots of options available. If you must have ponies to be happy with your game, populate your world with magical talking ponies and let the players encounter them sometimes (generic fantasy does have unicorns and pegasi and polymorphing beings and intelligent animals, so why not magical ponies?). The game should be fun for you just as much as for the players. Just remember if you test your players' patience too often, they aren't going to want to play with you anymore. If you are talking about forcing your players to participate in an all-pony setting which they all hate, there is no point. Find another group of players for your Pony game.

Well I figure that I'm gonna save te pony thing for a stand-alone campaign, blend it with D20-Modern (or similar) and make it a Fallout Equestria game to actually for the rampant evil and chaotic shenanigans that seem to run rampant among these players.

And in the actual game I'm running, the only real desired outcome is that the players decide to side with the quasi-deity Queen against the exiled goddess instead of opting to kill the benevolant queen and trying to side with the evil goddess. 'Cause that route currently will net'em a flat "no" at their offered followed by a quickened Mythic Fireball and a Mythic Meteor Storm right atop'em.

[Scow2]

I don't think you understood what I/we meant when we brought up a "Magical Realm". If you're going to run a pony game, run it with pony friends (Or players at most ambivalent on the subject), NOT a group of players that don't like MLP. Otherwise, you're absolutely justifying their hatred of the show. Their response WOULDN'T be to side with the Quasi-Deity Queen against the exiled Evil queen - it would be to bathe the entire world in magma/promethium/arcane napalm.

[Silus]

I don't think you understood what I/we meant when we brought up a "Magical Realm". If you're going to run a pony game, run it with pony friends (Or players at most ambivalent on the subject), NOT a group of players that don't like MLP. Otherwise, you're absolutely justifying their hatred of the show. Their response WOULDN'T be to side with the Quasi-Deity Queen against the exiled Evil queen - it would be to bathe the entire world in magma/promethium/arcane napalm.

Ah, right. ^^;

I doubt I'll run a game for this group after this next one anyway. Too much stress as a new DM and they don't help ease it. I'm not letting the pony game anywhere near them now if I can help it. Honestly I'll probably be too burned out after Act 2 to bother.

[Kalmageddon]

I remember coming across something like this in Borderlands 2.
Spoilers ahead.

There is a quest, a long and difficult one, in which you track down a "cursed" weapon called The Bane. Once you find it it turns out to be an awesome machinegun that just so happens to make annoying sounds while it fires and it also slows you down.
While the slowing down part can be considered a deterrent, with certain character and builds you don't really need to run around much and you can always have another weapon out, switch to Bane, fire away, change and move.
So that's not the issue.

The annoying sounds on the other hand were, to the point where I think most people that got their hands on it never used it, unless they were fine with muting the sound for the whole game.

My point is, that quest pissed me off. I put effort and time in acquiring this weapon and it turns out it's something made to be uncomfortable and annoying to use despite being a good gun. This needless teasing was obviously meant to be humorous and I still found it annoying.
What you are proposing in your campaign is much worse, do the math.

Edit: also, the fact that people that enjoy MLP come up with ideas like this is exactly why people are annoyed at ponies. You need to spill ponies everywhere regardless of context. /endrant

[InQbait]

How about introducing some ponies into the campaign, but also introduce an NPC who passionately hunts and chows down on the ponies right before the Player Character's eyes???
Hopefully the PCs would enjoy that, being pony-haters and all.

[SiuiS]

Punish the players for not liking what you like. Force them to play what they don't want to play. You're the DM. They're only players. What do they count for?

Uh, wasn't this solved? What does it serve to walk up to someone who asked for advice, after they asked for advice, and say they were stupid before they had the advice?

I would suggest not having a "desired direction" to steer them in. Then you don't need to manipulate the players into doing anything, they can do whatever they want.

This can go both ways. It's often fun to have a desired direction, and for the universe to naturally lean that direction, so long as you're willing to lean back and just marvel at how far off mark the players got.

I remember coming across something like this in Borderlands 2.
Spoilers ahead.

There is a quest, a long and difficult one, in which you track down a "cursed" weapon called The Bane. Once you find it it turns out to be an awesome machinegun that just so happens to make annoying sounds while it fires and it also slows you down.
While the slowing down part can be considered a deterrent, with certain character and builds you don't really need to run around much and you can always have another weapon out, switch to Bane, fire away, change and move.
So that's not the issue.

The annoying sounds on the other hand were, to the point where I think most people that got their hands on it never used it, unless they were fine with muting the sound for the whole game.

My point is, that quest pissed me off. I put effort and time in acquiring this weapon and it turns out it's something made to be uncomfortable and annoying to use despite being a good gun. This needless teasing was obviously meant to be humorous and I still found it annoying.
What you are proposing in your campaign is much worse, do the math.

Oh man, or the Miss Moxxxie gun that has a 1 in 10 chance of dropping out of your inventory when you reload? That happened at the worst possible time. Totally ditched it.

Edit: also, the fact that people that enjoy MLP come up with ideas like this is exactly why people are annoyed at ponies. You need to spill ponies everywhere regardless of context. /endrant

You, uh, might wanna take a look at the first couple posts there, sport. Pretty sure there
's a legitimate reason to point to this and say "prejudice", right here.





*






I am reminded of a homebrew modules I found, a long time ago, that had a cutesy funsy candy dimension, that was actually a tragic hell. Children were stolen, and the longer they were exposed to the plane, the closer to creepy pony doll they got... But once they became apony thing (think hambeast marshmallow blob, old school MLP) they kept changing into twisted grotesqueries. It was a darn fine module, too, for 3.5 and I kick myself every so often for not saving it. Think I saw it on the wizards boards.


I also designed a grimdark setting, once upon a time, of the war outside candyland. The roman-esque carebear legions were on the warpath, exterminating the Christian monk analogue ponies, and both sides lived in fear of the angry, cannibalistic and druidic smurfs.

And then the new MLP show came out and nay value in the setting was tanked because people would just think it was about ponies.
Oh well. Shouldn't design long term settings while drinking, anyway.

I don't think you understood what I/we meant when we brought up a "Magical Realm". If you're going to run a pony game, run it with pony friends (Or players at most ambivalent on the subject), NOT a group of players that don't like MLP. Otherwise, you're absolutely justifying their hatred of the show. Their response WOULDN'T be to side with the Quasi-Deity Queen against the exiled Evil queen - it would be to bathe the entire world in magma/promethium/arcane napalm.

Ayup. I've got a standing secret pact with half my friends that the next time a DM decides the plot is going to be some apocalyptic scenario, I'm joining in. The meteor will land. The cult will slay the king. The dread lord will rise. The planets will align and Cthulhu will reign supreme. And I'll be there, toadying my patookus off and toasting the end of it all.

Expect utter annihilation to be the motivation again, why dontcha? Hack.

[Silus]

How about introducing some ponies into the campaign, but also introduce an NPC who passionately hunts and chows down on the ponies right before the Player Character's eyes???
Hopefully the PCs would enjoy that, being pony-haters and all.

Possibly in another campaign set in the same world, but at the moment said world is falling apart with the whole Elder Evil level End of the World event going on. The usual stuff anyway: Meteors from the sky carrying hordes of monsters, constant eclipse, random portals to other worlds opening up, etc.

I think, instead of ponies for this campaign, I'll go with just straight up Fey of the "**** your pants as a player" quality. And trust me, it's well justified to run'em through the wringer as much as I can. Gotta remember, these are the kinds of players that, to a newbie DM struggling to put up with their shenanigans and keep the plot rolling, will ask things like "Detect Evil?" when their character does not have the ability in an attempt to simply catch the DM off guard and get info.

Swear to God if that kinda stuff happens again I'm tearing their sheet up in front of them and telling them to re-roll a Paladin since they like Detect Evil so much. And Lawful Good will be ENFORCED SO HARD.

[InQbait]

Lol sounds like crazy fun

[The Oni]

It doesn't sound like you have the best relationship with your players, if you don't mind me saying so. I'm not saying you need to be bestest-best-friends with everyone sitting across the table but the whole thing seems more than a bit adversarial.

[Silus]

It doesn't sound like you have the best relationship with your players, if you don't mind me saying so. I'm not saying you need to be bestest-best-friends with everyone sitting across the table but the whole thing seems more than a bit adversarial.

When they're not being manipulative jerks, they're all right.

Out of a group of five (not including me) I'm actively having issues with two players.

One players either extremely manipulative characters (He's playing a Mind Mage "merchant" (see: Slaver) in Palladium Fantasy) or extremely unlikable characters (Just...Skippy Rotten. I'd much rather NOT going into that).

The other is the host of the game. He's got less overtly jerk'ish tendencies than the first, but he's got his moments. Outside of games, he's chill. In games however...for the first time ever he makes me wanna screw over the party just out of spite to see him struggle to get things together like he made me struggle to get things together when I DMed.

[hymer]

Would you use your player's sense of pride and challenge-taking/seeking natures against them to manipulate them down the path you, as the DM, would find ideal?

No, for two reasons. For one, I rarely railroad. For another, I'd prefer to use something a lot less tenuous than the players' sense of pride. For one thing, they're clever enough (or I'm insufficiently skilled) they may see through it. For another, their points of pride are not identical. But finally, simply asking them to do something specific would deal with the issue with a minimum of fuss. Sort of "Guys, I prepared that dungeon over there for tonight, so if you could sorta head in that direction, that'd be best. No rush, just whenever you're ready." They'd be perfectly fine with that, if only because I say that sort of thing so rarely.

[Avilan the Grey]

Side note:
This might be a bad idea in general, but on the other hand if the players are the types that DO rather kill the hostages instead of saving them, let them, but let them face the logical consequences (like being executed by the King for murdering his daughter)...