Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories Continued (not really)

[Talakeal]

Well, after a long absence from the forums, and gaming in general*, I have finally moved, started my new job, and somewhat gotten my life on track to the point where I can once again start running a regular game.

The game in question is a hex-crawl in a simplified version of my own Heart of Darkness system, but if you just imagine I am talking about E6 D&D you won't be too far off. We have been playing for about a month know and everything has been going fine, but I started to have some issues with one player during the last session and I was wondering if anyone had some advice to head it off before it becomes yet another tale from Bizarro World.


One of the players (Let's call him player A) has a flaw that makes him a compulsive gambler. We were playing with a pool of party wealth for expenses, but one of the other players (Let's call him player B) complained that it wasn't fair that one player was gambling away a good chunk of the party's money. I actually agreed with him, and we switched to individual wealth. The next session Player B, spontaneously and with no prodding, felt sorry for player A not having any money and decided to buy him a very nice and very expensive suit of armor.

During this weeks session the players had a random encounter. Now, 5% of random encounters are considered "deadly", encounters which even at full strength that party has about a fifty / fifty chance of loosing. This was a deadly encounter, and they were not anywhere near full strength. I rolled on the encounter table, and the resulting revenant completely wrecked the party.

Now, I am not playing with permanent character death, both because I am trying to go easy on the new players and because I am trying to play a more story driven game over a tactical combat simulator. When a PC is "killed" they are instead just KO'd until healed. In the case of a TPK, I have the party get scattered and they will then meet up later back in town, each having rolled on a random mishap table.

So, the revenant wiped the group, and I had them roll on the mishap table. Two players rolled minor mishaps that were unimportant, one (player C) rolled a debilitating injury, player A rolled "lose a random item" (which just so happened to be the armor player B bought him last week), and Player B rolled "lose all money currently on your person".


I also have the players draw a random rumor at the end of each session. These rumors provide future adventure hooks as well as allowing the players to make contact with friendly NPCs who can offer services not normally available. The rumor that was drawn was about a mysterious healer with incredible powers. There was about half an hour left in the session so I decided to let the players follow up with it. They found said doctor, and he was able to cure Player C's debilitating injury for a small fee.

Now, this was supposed to be a mysterious figure to provide flavor to the world as well as allowing the PCs a way to get rid of otherwise permanent injuries. It was just a fortunate coincidence that they happened to draw this particular rumor at that point. But, PCs being PCs, a couple of them were really curious, and they began to interrogate the healer about who they were, where they came from, how they developed such miraculous healing powers, and exactly what the limits of his healing ability were; this questioning took up the rest of the session.

After the session Play B came to me and stated that he was very upset about the game. That he alone suffered the punishment for the group wiping (he wasn't wrong... but that wasn't anyone's intention, just how the dice fell) and furthermore that he was being "punished for doing something nice," in buying player A's armor and that he would never do anything like that again. Furthermore, he felt that is was complete bull that I "pulled a ridiculous nonsense NPC out of my butt just to wave away the other players disadvantage, and then added insult to injury by making him sit through a half hour of boring dialogue that he couldn't care less about."

Then he went on to say that he was really upset about not having full control of character creation.

To explain, 3 of the 5 players are new not only to this game, but to tabletop RPGs in general, and so rather than having the PCs create their own characters I gave them all a detailed questionnaire to fill out and then created their characters for them in accordance with their wishes.

Now, I can understand not liking having the GM make your character sheet for you, that is a huge flag off a control freak DM and I would also chafe at the restriction, so I asked him what was wrong with his character and told him he could change it.

His answer was that his character wasn't min-maxxed enough for his liking, and that (he is playing a sorcerer) he wasn't happy with having an 8 in STR and DEX and only a 16 in CHA, he wanted to drop both his STR and DEX down to 3 and raise his CHA and CON to 18.

And I am just like...…. ugh.


Anyone got any advice other than kicking the guy?


Also, based on his feedback I decided to ditch the mishap table and change the result of a TPK to just a flat "Lose half the treasure you have acquired so far in the session," which is a bit less fun and less immersive, but a lot more fair and less punishing imo.





*Apologies if anyone reading this was part of the online game that I left in the lurch. The game was fine, but certain real life conflicts came to a head mid session.

[Darth Ultron]

I guess you can kick out B because he does not like the character you made for him, and you did single him out to be targeted and screwed over. Really, it's all your fault...but if you want to blame the player, then sure, go ahead.

So to break it down:

1.Making the Player Character. Well, this is just about always a bad idea: except for very, very, very new players or a player that asks you to do it for some reason. The blanket unfairness of ''well I'm making a character for Bob and Joe, so I must make one for you too" just makes no sense. Why not let the experienced player make their own character?

2.The Fate worse then Death. This is a big one. Just kill the characters and be done with it. This is really a horrible idea.

And I'm a meat grinder killer DM: at the end of a typical adventure I expect each character to be beaten to with in a HP of death and loose a lot of stuff (think John Mclaine at the end of Die Hard). But my players at least have an out: Character Death. Should things get ''too" bad...likely the character will die: the end. But you take the worst step possible of ''forever life", but add on ''forever horror" too.

3.I believe in the ''overwhelming encounter", but maybe more like 20%. But then I also give the players a chance to avoid or run from such encounters. It really sounds like you did a railroad of ''well I rolled a bad encounter so it must happen: you guys loose".

4.The random stuff sure is annoying, but I get you ''like" it. Though it does not really make sense as to why you like to have ''random surprise stuff" happen that is ''totally out of your control....sort of:

5.Wow, the BIG one. Your....vagueness..about controlling the game. Sure the random stuff is great, and you can go sit with the players AS a player and go ''wow, look at the random thing that happened totally beyond my control!" For a couple seconds....and then you move back over to be GM and just do whatever you want on a whim. And..oddly...''whatever you want on a whim" are a LOT of bad plays.

Lets take the healer. Ok...so it random gets picked..and you go ''wow" as a player. Ok...that part is great. But then your like ''oh, well on a whim using my GM powers I'll just say the healer can help character #3...and screw everyone else." Um...what? Seems like a bad move.

I guess you say ''oh the healer just randomly happened" and you had ''no control" over it.....and, ok, even IF that is true.....well you had control over everything After that, right? So why did you ''suddenly" decide the healer could help only one character? Why did you not decide...well...ANYTHING else?

Ok, lets take the player that ''looses an item". So did they randomly roll for what they loose? Did the player pick? Or did YOU the GM pick? Well...I bet it was you, right? "Suddenly" deciding, yet again, to make a bad movie. And, yet again, saying ''oh the pick of 'lose an item' was random and I had not control over it'.....you know until you DID have control over it.

My basic point here is you add random things you are ''powerless" against to the game...for reasons. And then like a second later you just go back to being an typical all powerful GM. So why even have the pretense of ''random stuff you are powerless to stop"? Your not fooling yourself(right?). I GUESS you could be fooling the players....but why would you even want too? Exactly how is the game enhanced by you pretending things are random?

(ahhh)

Ok, now you might know I'm a very harsh up front unfair killer DM. But..oddly, lets compare:

1.You specifically target your players with things(but pretend they are random)

2.I don't target good players, at all. Yes, very, very, very, very bad things can and often do happen to characters in my games. But it's almost never by ''DM Whim". It's just about always by character actions..IN the game. And players often get a more then fair warning and a chance to at least lessen the effects. Unlike your ''you must pick a random effect and then I will alter the game reality to target you and mess with you"style.

[Talakeal]

Stuff.

Well, I have been away from the forum for a good six months, but its good to see that you haven't changed Darth.


But I will try and respond to you in good faith with a few clarifications:

But, in short, when I say "random" I mean random, the results and what they did were all rolled in the open on tables that I had written up before the campaign even began.

The whole purpose of the healer was so that players would have a way to fix permanent injuries. I am not sure how only one player having such an injury at the time is "screwing" the rest of the party, indeed wouldn't it have been a much worse screw job for me to suddenly say the healer CAN'T help the one injured player?

When I say a RANDOM item I mean a RANDOM item, determined by die roll and with every item listed on the character sheet having an equal chance to be rolled.

Also, not sure where you are getting a "fate worse than death," there is nothing on the mishap table that can't be fixed relatively easily, and if for some reason something did happen to a character that made them too unpleasant to play, there is nothing stopping them from retiring the character.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "But then I also give the players a chance to avoid or run from such encounters. It really sounds like you did a railroad of ''well I rolled a bad encounter so it must happen: you guys loose""? Like, do you have them spot the monster on the horizon before it sees them so they can choose not to go near? How do you "choose not to encounter something?"


As for why I am including so many random elements in the game, its mostly because I am trying out different things. I have been reading a lot of gaming blogs in my year away from gaming, and there have been a lot of interesting ideas that I wanted to try, and a lot of the OSR blogs make a big deal out of having robust random encounter tables and the like.

[Darth Ultron]

The whole purpose of the healer was so that players would have a way to fix permanent injuries. I am not sure how only one player having such an injury at the time is "screwing" the rest of the party, indeed wouldn't it have been a much worse screw job for me to suddenly say the healer CAN'T help the one injured player?

Having a healer guy to fix things that the DM arranged to go wrong...is, well, ok. Some players do like when the DM ''surprise" targets their character ...and then ''surprise" fixes their character.

Still the problem is more the random. You set it up that there is a healer...but then only 'pop' them out of thin air at random. See, it's much better for a DM to improv anything they want out of thin air at random.

I wonder, was there a ''guy that fixes broken or lost stuff" too?

Also, not sure where you are getting a "fate worse than death," there is nothing on the mishap table that can't be fixed relatively easily, and if for some reason something did happen to a character that made them too unpleasant to play, there is nothing stopping them from retiring the character.

To have endless negative things happen to a character is worse then death. Look at it this way: in my game the dragon just kills the characters. In your game they get separated and get some sort of negative hing to happen. Over and over and over and over again. Player Bob in my game is on character #3, but Bob in your game has a wounded, cursed, poisoned, and whatever character as they got ''knocked out" a couple times.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "But then I also give the players a chance to avoid or run from such encounters. It really sounds like you did a railroad of ''well I rolled a bad encounter so it must happen: you guys loose""? Like, do you have them spot the monster on the horizon before it sees them so they can choose not to go near? How do you "choose not to encounter something?"

Yes. For the most part, powerful creatures don't just 'pop' out of thin air. Players in my games will get fair warning that ''Zarl's Blink Dog" is a vicious fighter that killed a fire giant with ''one paw" or they see a half red dragon minotaur with a great hammer and ''get" the idea that they should not fight.

As for why I am including so many random elements in the game, its mostly because I am trying out different things. I have been reading a lot of gaming blogs in my year away from gaming, and there have been a lot of interesting ideas that I wanted to try, and a lot of the OSR blogs make a big deal out of having robust random encounter tables and the like.

Random events and random encounter tables are two different things though.

Still, though, it's the part that comes AFTER the random.

1.Random game. You roll a ''1'', so an obliteration monster shows up. The PCs loose, and get all your bad ''worse then just death'' effects.

2.The DM controlled game. Well, no obliteration monster would ever show up...unless the DM wanted it too. And if the DM did so, characters would likely die.

3.Somewhere in the middle: So, the DM rolls a ''1'' and is ''stuck" with the obliteration monster...but still has control of the game. So the DM makes the monster badly wounded....or distracted...or have a weak spot....or anything else OTHER then ''sorry players you loose and have to take on all these special hardships for your character."

[Quertus]

Welcome back!

OK, let me play DU's advocate here.

T, your system greatly removes agency from the PCs. Oh, look, we rolled a TPK, nothing we can do about that. Oh, look, we rolled various levels of "punishment" for rolling a TPK. Oh, look, we rolled "fix one PC", nothing we can otherwise do to fix his - or anytime else's - conditions. It's "random SoS - the game".

At least, that's what I think DU's advocate should say that DU is trying to get across.

I'll try to post my own opinion later.

[Talakeal]

I wonder, was there a ''guy that fixes broken or lost stuff" too?



To have endless negative things happen to a character is worse then death. Look at it this way: in my game the dragon just kills the characters. In your game they get separated and get some sort of negative hing to happen. Over and over and over and over again. Player Bob in my game is on character #3, but Bob in your game has a wounded, cursed, poisoned, and whatever character as they got ''knocked out" a couple times.."

Yes, the character who fixes broken or lost stuff for a small fee is called a merchant, they are rather common.

If by "over and over and over and over and over again" you mean once in seven sessions, then yes that is correct. But even so, I would much rather play a character that got wounded, cursed, and poisoned than have three different characters killed in the same amount of time and started over the game from scratch three times.

[Talakeal]

Welcome back!

OK, let me play DU's advocate here.

T, your system greatly removes agency from the PCs. Oh, look, we rolled a TPK, nothing we can do about that. Oh, look, we rolled "fix one PC", nothing we can otherwise do to fix his - or anytime else's - conditions. It's "random SoS - the game".

At least, that's what I think DU's advocate should say that DU is trying to get across.

I'll try to post my own opinion later.

Hey Quertus!

To clarify, its not "fix one PC" its an npc who can, for a small cost, fix permanent injuries. It is not a one time thing, now that they know about him they can come back any time any PC suffers a permanent injury. It was just a cooincidence that they happened to discover the npc so soon after one of the PCs suffered a permanent injury.

Honestly I dont have a lot of experiance with wandering monster tables, but isnt encountering a strong enemy at a bad time something that can happen almost universally in games that use random encounters?

[Arbane]

You don't understand - in DU's games, death is the PCs' only escape from suffering.

Honestly I dont have a lot of experiance with wandering monster tables, but isnt encountering a strong enemy at a bad time something that can happen almost universally in games that use random encounters?

Yes. That's when the PCs get reminded that the true God Stat is 'movement speed'.

Semi-seriously, if you're going to put in unfightable encounters, you also need to make sure PCs have a chance to hide, run away, make friends, or beg for their worthless lives.

[Quertus]

Hey Quertus!

To clarify, its not "fix one PC" its an npc who can, for a small cost, fix permanent injuries. It is not a one time thing, now that they know about him they can come back any time any PC suffers a permanent injury. It was just a cooincidence that they happened to discover the npc so soon after one of the PCs suffered a permanent injury.

Honestly I dont have a lot of experiance with wandering monster tables, but isnt encountering a strong enemy at a bad time something that can happen almost universally in games that use random encounters?

Well, as I said, that was what my version of "Google Translate" guessed was the best "DU to Playground Collective" translation.

My Simulationist mindset is glad that the healer doesn't randomly disappear after 1d4+1 encounters.

IME, most random encounters are rather weak, comparatively. The "big" fights are usually planned boss fights - even more so nowadays, where players these days chafe at the notion of a "random", "ignoble" or "dramatically inappropriate" death.

I'm not a fan of modern gaming trends.

IMO, random encounters should be truly random - anything from "cat in a tree" to "rupture in space/time". My players once encountered "the BBEG" as a random encounter.

Semi-seriously, if you're going to put in unfightable encounters, you also need to make sure PCs have a chance to hide, run away, make friends, or beg for their worthless lives.

So, this is more in the direction of my opinion. Kind of.

T, if I read this right, you care about continuity and character death. You've realized that, for your playstyle, death and TPKs are problematic. Thus, you have created your own system that removes them from the equation.

Now, Arbane has presented a perfectly reasonable set of alternatives. Myself, I'm a ****, I say **** that, so long the system gives them options, it's entirely on the players to have a plan; otherwise, the PCs die. If they care about continuity, if death is an issue for them, well, that's on them. (Important takeaway: there are other play styles.)

Anyway, point is, you created alternate consequences other than death, so that you can keep continuity*, and the players don't have to create new characters.

Thing is, for many players, DU is correct - you have, instead, given them a fate worse than death. In fact, this has come up in threads in your absence**.

Barring forced to play a lame, crippled, naked, defiled character is much more torturous to many players than a clean death.

Also, being denied a realistic death, and instead taking on arbitrary "consequences" is much worse for me than a well-deserved, realistic death. (And I'm only in it for the role-playing, and prefer to run a character from level 1-50+, so character retention is kinda important to me - but realism / verisimilitude / world consistency is trump over even that***)

But most of that is seemingly irrelevant. As is - even if it were accurate - my earlier guess at DU's underlying thrust.

Seemingly.

See, the thing is, you've got an upset player. And you've got no idea why. Further, from your description, it feels like the player has no idea why, because, from your description, his stated reasons don't make any sense.

So, there are two possibilities that i can see. OK, three. One, maybe you just can't see what's going on, and your description is all wrong. I don't think that's the case, but it is possible.

Two, you've violated some unspoken and unevaluated assumption and requirement for this player - enforced game balance, actions having just consequences, verisimilitude, character growth and advancement, whatever - and, because they've never had to vocalize this complaint before, they lack the ability to comprehend and express what's actually bothering them.

Or, third, maybe you're in Bizarro world.

Going under the premise that it's probably #2, I figure it's best if I introduce you to as many sacred cows that you might be slaughtering as possible. Because your system is killing quite a few.

Question is, which of these sacred cows actually matters to the player in question?

Corollary: is the player sane, or is what he said actually what's bothering him?

* I keep using that word. It might not mean what I think it means.
** Don't ask me which ones - I'm too senile to remember. You're lucky that I remember that this line of conversation is familiar.
*** I guess that's the kind of questions Smallville asks of its players all the time, no? "Which of these things that you care about, do you care about more in this situation?"

[Kaptin Keen]

I've played with GM made pc's many times. That's not a problem, it sometimes works way better than with players making their own. The question of one player losing all his wealth is silly. It's not gone, it's still out there - he just has to go out and get it back. He should be highly motivated. Don't get mad, get even, sort of thing. Furthermore, if he hadn't bought the armor, he'd just have lost more gold in the encounter.

Now, if one player really doesn't like the character he was handed - just let him make his own. Or sit down and make another one with him.

And maybe just, overall, sit down with the players and explain that nothing is final, roll with the punches and make the best of it.

[Pelle]

The random everything approach is ok with if everyone likes it, and can laugh off and enjoy it when a string of unlucky events transpire. Some players don't find that fun though, and that is quite understandable. Sounds like you didn't get buy-in to that. So if you and the majority of the group like it, just decide if you value the randomness over this player. If not, I would suggest just filtering the outcomes of the rolls a bit to avoid too unenjoyable things from happening. And if you have to do that a lot, there's something wrong with your tables...

[Koo Rehtorb]

Well, everything about this game sounds awful to me. If it's working for everyone else though then stick with it and I imagine this guy will find better things to do with his time soon enough.

[Anonymouswizard]

Okay, my thoughts:

The consequences table should have results that are all roughly equal in level of 'bad thing happen to you', mainly to avoid situations where one player feels singled out for punishment. Also, for classification, I'm assuming that the players get the opportunity to see the table to know that you aren't fudging. But if the other four players are fine with it then there's no two need to change it.

The fact your player expressed a desire for more control over their character is fine, as is your agreement. Their demands are a bit out of line (I'm assuming they have roughly average Constitution), but I'd definitely see nothing wrong with allowing then to drop a few points from Strength and/or Dexterity to raise a couple of other stats, or allowing him to shuffle his spells known (once). Especially as I get the idea that sorcerers in your system are fairly SAD (at list compared to my system where casters care about three stats*) I wouldn't allow him to do it to the extent he wants unless he can tell me a) how a character with such wildly unbalanced stats exists, and b) why on earth a (rather severely) physically disabled person is doing a very physically demanding job.

All in all, I can't actually see anything you've done wrong. Some things that wouldn't fit in my style, but nothing wrong.

My only suggestion is maybe allowing players to rebuild their characters using the system's rules, making sure players have a copy of the 'harm table' they can keep so they know you stent changing it, and potentially retconning the healng so it takes time until the PC is at full capacity, but I'm iffy on that.

Oh, and make sure the PCs have a chance to get their stuff back. 'You dropped your armour/purse to flee better, but still know roughly where it is, and should be able to find it or get a chance to track whoever took it', that sort of thing.

* Empathy determines Spirit Points, Intellect governs casting rolls, and Presence increases the spell's power.

[Talakeal]

The consequences table should have results that are all roughly equal in level of 'bad thing happen to you', mainly to avoid situations where one player feels singled out for punishment. Also, for classification, I'm assuming that the players get the opportunity to see the table to know that you aren't fudging. But if the other four players are fine with it then there's no two need to change it.

The fact your player expressed a desire for more control over their character is fine, as is your agreement. Their demands are a bit out of line (I'm assuming they have roughly average Constitution), but I'd definitely see nothing wrong with allowing then to drop a few points from Strength and/or Dexterity to raise a couple of other stats, or allowing him to shuffle his spells known (once). Especially as I get the idea that sorcerers in your system are fairly SAD (at list compared to my system where casters care about three stats*) I wouldn't allow him to do it to the extent he wants unless he can tell me a) how a character with such wildly unbalanced stats exists, and b) why on earth a (rather severely) physically disabled person is doing a very physically demanding job.

My only suggestion is maybe allowing players to rebuild their characters using the system's rules, making sure players have a copy of the 'harm table' they can keep so they know you stent changing it, and potentially retconning the healng so it takes time until the PC is at full capacity, but I'm iffy on that.

The players can absolutely see the mishap table, I gave every player a printed copy of the campaign rules and it is included.

Likewise the players can absolutely change their characters. The problem is the player in question wants to play a ridiculously min-maxxed character. They are objecting to not being allowed to have a character with the equivalent of stats above 16 or below 8 (which iirc is the default situation in 5E). They are free to raise their stats to 18 over the course of play, just not start with them.

Honestly if I were to approve the proposed change (dropping STR and DEX to 3 to raise CHA and CON to 18) I foresee it only creating future conflict as they will likely get KOed before they even get to act in a lot of combats with such a pitiful initiative and AC painting a giant bullseye on them.

Plus, this is a hex-crawl, having a three strength means that they won't be able to carry their own supplies, thus leeching off someone else and making the group weaker as a whole, and they won't be able to carry any of the treasure they find back to town.

For the record, how I generated stats was I asked them to describe their character in each area with one of the following adjectives: Poor, Ordinary, Good, Exceptional, or Incredible, then for each poor gave them an 8, each ordinary a 10, each good a 12, each exceptional a 14, and each incredible a 16.

Well, everything about this game sounds awful to me. If it's working for everyone else though then stick with it and I imagine this guy will find better things to do with his time soon enough.

Care to elaborate? "Everything is horrible" is a bit too general and hyperbolic to be useful.

Random encounter tables and hex-crawls are a specific style of play, but not an uncommon one.

I agree that the DM handling the mechanics of char-gen is a bit of a red flag, but I told the players they could make whatever changes they wanted, I was just handling the crunch for the newbies.

No player death is a bit unusual, but imo its really just cutting out the illusion. I mostly play White Wolf, where it is really hard to actually die and I can't recall a player death in all the years of playing, and D&D, where death is just a minor setback past low levels as raise dead becomes cheap and plentiful.

Is there something wrong with getting to pick up random rumors? I think its a fun and flavorful way to give the players hints and adventure hooks without railroading so they aren't completely lost, but I guess that it might be immersion breaking to pull text out of an envelope rather than actually playing out conversations with random NPCs (although in the case of the disgruntled player I think that is the last thing he wanted based on his reaction to the conversation with the healer).

I've played with GM made pc's many times. That's not a problem, it sometimes works way better than with players making their own. The question of one player losing all his wealth is silly. It's not gone, it's still out there - he just has to go out and get it back. He should be highly motivated. Don't get mad, get even, sort of thing. Furthermore, if he hadn't bought the armor, he'd just have lost more gold in the encounter.

Now, if one player really doesn't like the character he was handed - just let him make his own. Or sit down and make another one with him.

To clarify, I didn't actually create the characters, I merely handled the mechanical aspects of it based on the players fluff description of the character.

Its not that he doesn't like the character, its just that it isn't min-maxxed enough for him.

[Thinker]

Welcome back. I often enjoyed reading your posts, even if I never spent as much time contributing to the discussion. I hope you are enjoying your new job and your new place!

Darth Ultron can be abrasive, but he's not necessarily wrong. He sees that there were a lot of points where you're absolving yourself of blame because of how the dice landed whereas another GM might have decided that the dice rolls kind of sucked and changed the outcome. Relying on luck of the draw is just fine for some styles of play and your group may even prefer that, but it's definitely not for everyone. That said, here's my advice on the situation.

Compulsive gambler: What do players get out of playing to their character's flaws? Is there an XP bonus, action point granted, or some other benefit? I kind of agree with Player B that using the party's money is crappy and it seems you agreed with that as well. Though, from a GM perspective, I would have let the players sort that out - it seems like an opportunity for drama. I like to play with character bonds that grant XP if they're explored so I'd probably allow a bond where Player B is mistrustful of Player A's use of party resources. It was nice of Player B to give that armor to Player A though.
Random encounter: I think random encounters can be fun, too. I don't like having a giant table of them though where anything can and will happen, especially if there's a plot being driven. My main goals with random encounters are to make the game feel alive by showing the players that there's more going on than what they're worried about and to create tension for the players. To that end, I make my random encounters as a series of related, escalating events. For example, let's say that I was running a game about a group who was searching some ruins for an artifact that can seal away the Darkness, but the surrounding area was well-known to be a hot-bed of goblin activity. I might put together an encounter track like this:

• Encounter 1: The party comes across a raided caravan with evidence of goblin activity, a pair of severely-injured survivors, and a bunch missing hostages.
• Encounter 2: The party finds a sacrificed priest who matches a description of one of the hostages provided by the injured survivors. There is a single goblin desecrating the priest's body and a warg keeping watch.
• Encounter 3: The party comes across a band of goblins with hostages from the ruined caravan. The goblins are mistrustful of the tall-folk and their reaction might be based on how the party handled Encounter 2 - if they let the goblin live, they might be more friendly, but if they attacked and the goblin or warg escaped, maybe the goblins attack on sight!
• Encounter 4: The party stumbles across the local raider chief leading her band of villains to their next encampment. Again, depending on what happened at Encounter 3, there might be hostages here or there might not be; she might be friendly or she might be hostile.

Depending on the size and scope of play, I'll have multiple such lists. One might be for the goblins, another might be for the Knights Who Say Ni on their endless quest for shrubberies. I expect approximately one random encounter per in-game hour or more if the party is being very noisy or careless. When my roll indicates that there is a random encounter, I choose which of my encounter tracks I want to throw at the party. This one might be Encounter 3 for the goblins or I might choose Encounter 2 for the Knights. The point is to make the encounter feel interconnected. The other important part about these encounters is that the players mostly opt-in to dealing with them. They might kill some goblins, but they might not rescue the hostages unless they really care about them. And that's fine. Then, they see that there are stories going on in the world that don't involve them. They might also decide that they want to pursue these random encounters as a side quest. That's fine, too.

This form of random encounter also lends itself to future quests - maybe there was a noble child among the hostages, but now the goblins have been emboldened by their success so there's more of them. Maybe the Knights have found that the local forest is perfect for shrubberies and are setting up shop, much to the dismay of the Duke.

Character Death: I prefer to have character death, but there's nothing wrong with avoiding it. Depending on how you're focusing the game, bringing in new characters can absolutely be disruptive. Nothing wrong with the idea of KO's and scattered parties that regroup back in civilization.

Mishap Table:The mishap table is a bit of a red flag. It doesn't seem well-balanced if two players can ignore its effects while another is debilitated, another loses a valuable item, and one loses all of their cash. That wouldn't seem fair to me, either. Permanent or semi-permanent set-backs feel bad for the players, but cash is only potential power. It seems like you realized that as well by changing it to loss of half of cash, which should be more palatable.

You might need more levers to pull that the players care about than only what are on their character sheets though. You can do this by creating services that they rely on in-town. Your healer would be a perfect example of that. Let's say you can get debilities from regular combat - losing 20 HP results in a punctured lung or something, but the only way to fully recover from that is to seek out the healer. Now, after a TPK, the players discover that the healer has been kidnapped while they were recovering and can't help them until he is found. Or, the blacksmith can't repair their weapons and until the party can find out why he hasn't received any iron shipments in the last month. If you're using some form of stress, you can have the character's vices that are used to deal with that stress unavailable as well.

What happened with your TPK: You gave Player C a way out from his issue before the session ended. That left only two people affected by the TPK. One of those two only lost something that was given to him as a form of charity and, presumably, had other items already and maybe even more coin from whatever adventuring took place. So, maybe a net neutral on the session for four players. Now, you have one player who lost all of his cash, which is potential power. Even though this is entirely determined by the dice, you could have stepped in to stop the dice from crapping on Player B. The job of the GM is not only to interpret dice-rolls and lookup effects on a table. We could just use a computer for that. It is also to act as a referee to ensure that the rules are being fairly applied to everyone and that everyone is having fun.

This is even more true since players are locked into their characters since they've lost some agency. Player B was already probably checked-out by the time the thirty minute dialog with the healer came around since he felt that the game was against him. I can't say I blame him for that. In most games, if we had a TPK, we wouldn't spend thirty minutes talking to an unimportant NPC. We'd spend that time making new characters instead. Even if my new character is broke, so is everyone else's. Plus, I can decide what my new character is and isn't good at.

Character Creation:Character creation is an issue separate from the rest of your discussion. The min-max to absurdity is disruptive to the game and you're right to tell him so. You can put limits on character creation whether you create the character for the player or not. I don't think you should kick him for wanting to reduce his strength and dexterity ridiculously low. Just say no, tell him how he is allowed to adjust his character, and if he's disruptive about it later, consider other ways of dealing with him.

[Segev]

Player B is not being a problem player, inherently. I think I'd feel as annoyed as he does in this situation: he tried to do something nice, and it got ruined. At the same time, he was, himself, ruined. Bad things happened to other players that got fixed, but he's screwed. Player A may actually feel the same way, though Player B would have a hard time commiserating, because Player A's "bad stuff" is a net loss of nothing compared to what would have happened if Player B hadn't bought him that armor. (Admittedly, Player B still would've lost the money for the armor, but...the idea here is the sense that Player B isn't allowed to do anything effective.)

One way to approach this is to suggest that the money Player B lost was taken by something you can make a side quest out of. In pursuing it, Player B can get back his lost wealth, and the party can also get a side quest's worth of loot on top of it (obviously fairly split with Player B, so he gets what he lost back and a fair share of the rest).

You can do something similar with Player A and his lost armor: what caused the loss? Can this be an adventure hook?


Another way to approach it is to simply apologize to Player B, and point out that the RNG hated him. You didn't make this stuff up responsively; the tables just worked out that way. Perhaps point out that there are opportunities to regain what he's lost, too.


One game balance mistake you may have made is if the amount of money Player B lost is less than it cost to have the permanent injury on the other player removed. That makes the permanent injury actively less bad than losing all your money. If "Man, I wish I'd fallen and broken my ankle rather than getting robbed by a pickpocket," is a rational thing to say, there's probably something "off" in your tables.

[Jay R]

You can do something similar with Player A and his lost armor: what caused the loss? Can this be an adventure hook?

How do you "lose" armor? It's strapped on. I suggest that he fell in a lake or river, and had to remove it to avoid drowning. That means that he knows where it is. Voila - plot hook!

[Quertus]

So, to use the hated words, you'll note that you are getting a lot of very Simulationist responses to your very Gamist system.

Do you want the world to feel "real" in that there is a very real reason why that armor and cash were lost? Do you want the players to be able to poke at that very real reason, and get their stuff back, if they put in the effort / have the luck/skills/whatever / whatever? Would you have let the players, had "C" been incapacitated, but a different random event been drawn, seek out a healer in town, because, apparently, he's been there all along?

Or do you want the game to be very "gamey", and, no, the dice randomly dictate your fate, like Chance & Community Chest in Monopoly? Nope, the cash and armor just cease to exist once you draw the "you lose these" cards? Nope, the healer doesn't exist until you draw the "Healer" card?

[Talakeal]

So, to use the hated words, you'll note that you are getting a lot of very Simulationist responses to your very Gamist system.

Do you want the world to feel "real" in that there is a very real reason why that armor and cash were lost? Do you want the players to be able to poke at that very real reason, and get their stuff back, if they put in the effort / have the luck/skills/whatever / whatever? Would you have let the players, had "C" been incapacitated, but a different random event been drawn, seek out a healer in town, because, apparently, he's been there all along?

Or do you want the game to be very "gamey", and, no, the dice randomly dictate your fate, like Chance & Community Chest in Monopoly? Nope, the cash and armor just cease to exist once you draw the "you lose these" cards? Nope, the healer doesn't exist until you draw the "Healer" card?

I agree. Which is wierd because I am normally a pretty hard simulationist.

Its a hex crawl. The healer exists, but he isnt in town. The PCs could have stumbled upon him at any time or, if they actively were searching for such a character, have gotten the location without drawing the rumor card after some sussesful gather information checks.

Character A is an outlaw who is serving character B in exchange for forgiving some hefty gambling debts. My explanation for what happened on the table was that player A was captured by slavers while lost and alone in the wilderness. The slavers kept his armor (it was the only thing he owned of any value) and then sold him at auction. Character B then decided to buy him, but a mysterious robed figure (an adventure hook) kept driving up the price, requring character B to spend nearly all of her cash.

It is possible for them to track down the armor, although doing so probably isnt worth their time, it wasnt some ancient magical artifact or anything, just some very expensive armor bought in town, one of many. Although this is all academic because I decided to make the change to the table retroactive and let him keep his armor after all.

[Quertus]

I agree. Which is wierd because I am normally a pretty hard simulationist.

Its a hex crawl. The healer exists, but he isnt in town. The PCs could have stumbled upon him at any time or, if they actively were searching for such a character, have gotten the location without drawing the rumor card after some sussesful gather information checks.

Character A is an outlaw who is serving character B in exchange for forgiving some hefty gambling debts. My explanation for what happened on the table was that player A was captured by slavers while lost and alone in the wilderness. The slavers kept his armor (it was the only thing he owned of any value) and then sold him at auction. Character B then decided to buy him, but a mysterious robed figure (an adventure hook) kept driving up the price, requring character B to spend nearly all of her cash.

It is possible for them to track down the armor, although doing so probably isnt worth their time, it wasnt some ancient magical artifact or anything, just some very expensive armor bought in town, one of many. Although this is all academic because I decided to make the change to the table retroactive and let him keep his armor after all.

OK, so, next sacred cow (or two (or three)) - the random "bad stuff" table.

Let me hit the dumbest bit first - these consequences aren't under the players' control, at all. For some players, this can be solved by something as simple as letting them roll on the table themselves. Honestly, with sufficient buy-in, that's all it takes. For someone like me, though, there are two larger pain points (one of which ties heavily into a sacred cow).

Now, this is a bit tricky for me to explain. What you've got is...

Random Encounter* ->* Combat* -> TPK ->* random effects*

So, everywhere I've placed a "*", that's a spot of, afaict, no player agency. Everywhere I've placed a "*", that's an illusion of player agency. So, let me break that down.

My guess is, the players have no agency over whether or what type of random encounters they have. If I'm correct, that's the first *.

I'm also guessing that, random encounter rolled, they have no real opportunity not to transition to the fight scene. If I'm correct, that's the second *.

Then, the random encounter is totally overpowered, and, as they're already not at full resources, well, they have full agency, but it is irrelevant. Thus the *. Some might call that harsh, to call their agency an illusion, because they do actually have full agency. Shrug. Limited vocabulary, gotta call it something.

This leads naturally to a TPK. Perfectly Simulationist here.

Now, then the TPK is transformed, regardless of player desires, into something else. That's the third *.

Then, there's a bunch of random outcomes that get rolled for, that they have no agency over. That's the last *.

That last one could be transformed into a *, an illusion of agency, by letting them roll the dice themselves, as I stated above.

IMO, it could be transformed into real agency by a) making the consequences skill-based, or b) giving the players a choice. Personally, I prefer both. For example, "Slavers chase you to a river. You can surrender, <consequence: lose (just one? random? really?) item>, or you can attempt to swim the river. If you attempt to swim the river, <Strength/Swim DC 15, pass -> no consequence; fail -> consequence: lose all items>".

Then, another pain point for me, personally, is, "WTF do slavers have to do with a Revenant encounter?". I prefer for consequences to flow logically from events - the random consequences table... doesn't.

I mean, sure, you try to back-fill the events to cause the consequences, and you may be good at that, but... imagine if "Explore the Dungeon" had you roll a d6, and on a "1", the consequence was, "you die". Now, the GM makes your death seem completely reasonable as you play through the Dungeon, but... would you find that style of play engaging?

I'm not a fan of engineering the past to match the future. I prefer Simulationist cause-and-effect, not effect-and-cause.

It might be clearer if I color-code the sections:

Random Encounter -> Combat -> TPK -> Random Effects

Anyway, my question for the second sacred cow is, do you really mean to be running a game with (apparently) so little player agency? If not, where would you like to add more agency? Or, more importantly - where, if anywhere, do your players most feel the lack of agency?

As I stated above, letting them roll the dice for their random consequence changes that to,

Random Encounter -> Combat -> TPK -> Random Effects

which, for some players, is enough. Others require more/different expressions of player agency.

The other sacred cow that you're butchering... dang, what was it? Ah, right - the fact that the results do not seem equivalent. It's "well, we, as a team, failed, so, therefore, you, Bob, are going to get ****ed".

[Talakeal]

@Quertus:

Random encouner type and frequency is determined by player pace and route.

Then the players get a survival check to determine the severity of the encounter, with high checks allowing for beneficial results.

Then both sides get perception and stealth checks (modified by player pace) to see who gets the drop on who.

And the players can always decide to try and run or parley with the encounter instead of fighting. Although in this particular case its a mounted revenant, so neither of those options are particularly good ones.

The TPK represents the party being routed and scattered, fleeing wildly into the night and then regrouping in town. Player A is a known outlaw, and the town in question is one where slavery is the default punishment for most crimes, so if he is apprehended on his way back into town without any law abiding companions to vouch for him it seems perfectly logical to me that he is going to be treated like any other runaway slave.

Generally I prefer a pretty simulationist game, but in the "downtime" between adventures I tend to go with a much more gamist approach, letting the rules determine what happens and then summarizing it in the fiction. Generally this works as my players tend to get pretty bored when they are away from the action, see for example the part about the player getting mad at the other players talking to the healer for half an hour.

[Pelle]

The players can absolutely see the mishap table, I gave every player a printed copy of the campaign rules and it is included.

Players may not realize that they don't like having a small possibility of getting a bad roll until after they do get that outcome. Before that it can be fun with tension it provides and the relief it gives as long as nothing too bad happens. If at least one player comes to understand after the fact that he don't like the chance of getting an 'uneven punishment', or that other characters may get more lucky results, you can at least consider to change how those rolls are handled. If you involve him in making the procedures it may feel more legitimate when bad outcomes occur.

[geppetto]

I dont have a problem with random event tables or consequences myself. Though as a player or GM i would prefer death to be a possibility on said table.

The consequences should generally be even though. For instance If you can fix your broken bone X by paying 10gp and chatting for 5 minutes then you should be able to find your lost material possessions with a 10gp bribe to find out where they are and a quick 1on1 encounter or fight to get them back.

That way nobody feels too screwed over. I would also let the players roll on the table. Its silly but it will make them feel more in control.

As for min maxer, just no. Tell him a 3 STR and CON makes him severely physically disabled. He would not be able to travel all day, carry his own gear, would be riddles with allergies and constantly sick. I might let him go as low as 6, with the full understanding of what the consequences would be for someone whose weak, frail and sickly in job thats physically demanding, violent and constantly exposes the individual to exposure to bad weather, filth, foreign blood with unknown pathogens and old food.

Perhaps remind him that food poisoning and water born illnesses are very real threats in a world without refrigeration or purified water available. Especially for a person with a compromised immune system.

If he insists maybe let him go with his 3 CON. And then roleplay the joys is sneezing, coughing and the umm "bubble guts" all at once while hes trying to cast. Should be hilarious for everyone else and teach him a lesson.

[Talakeal]

@gepetto

The players DO roll their own dice. I am not sure if
I gave the impression upthread that
I rolled for them, but that is not the case.

Also, its dex he wants to drop, not con, if that makes any difference. But in my experiance trying to pile on additional consequences just leads to player resentment.

[geppetto]

@gepetto

The players DO roll their own dice. I am not sure if
I gave the impression upthread that
I rolled for them, but that is not the case.

Also, its dex he wants to drop, not con, if that makes any difference. But in my experiance trying to pile on additional consequences just leads to player resentment.

Dex can be even more fun. A 3 Dex is basically a toddler or falling down drunk, constantly tipping over. If he doesnt like it? Oh well. Tough. After a little bit of fun at his expense let him change it back to something reasonable. Remind him that handicaps dont really make you handicapable and he cant have his cake and eat it too. If that provokes a tantrum then tell him to grow up or bounce.

Or to be gentle you could just give a game example. I'm not sure about your system but in previous editions a 3 score has the same numeric penalty as being BLIND. So you can remind him that to be fair you will have to enforce penalties just as much of a hindrance to his character as being completely, permanently unable to see would be. And that should bring home the stupidity of what he's asking to do.

You cant accommodate min maxing idiots. They're just trying to pull off a scam that video games have taught them should work. You can train them to be good players, but only by enforcing the sort of realistic consequences that differentiate actual table top rpgs from video games.

[Quertus]

Dex can be even more fun. A 3 Dex is basically a toddler or falling down drunk, constantly tipping over. If he doesnt like it? Oh well. Tough. After a little bit of fun at his expense let him change it back to something reasonable. Remind him that handicaps dont really make you handicapable and he cant have his cake and eat it too. If that provokes a tantrum then tell him to grow up or bounce.

Or to be gentle you could just give a game example. I'm not sure about your system but in previous editions a 3 score has the same numeric penalty as being BLIND. So you can remind him that to be fair you will have to enforce penalties just as much of a hindrance to his character as being completely, permanently unable to see would be. And that should bring home the stupidity of what he's asking to do.

You cant accommodate min maxing idiots. They're just trying to pull off a scam that video games have taught them should work. You can train them to be good players, but only by enforcing the sort of realistic consequences that differentiate actual table top rpgs from video games.

That's OK - with my 18 int, I've invented featherweight padding and gyroscopic balancing systems to compensate for my bad Dex.

Enforcing realistic consequences cuts both ways. Better, IMO, to stick to RAW.

[geppetto]

That's OK - with my 18 int, I've invented featherweight padding and gyroscopic balancing systems to compensate for my bad Dex.

Enforcing realistic consequences cuts both ways. Better, IMO, to stick to RAW.

No you dont. Thats not intelligence, its craft, its up to the GM what if anything you can invent and thats absurd, its not how hand eye coordination works.

I'd be happy to let you try though. Mister fumble fingers can make a dex check for all 10 digits and both hands to see what he slips and chops off with the power tools in his workshop while vainly trying to invent something to make himself less clumsy.

[Quertus]

No you dont. Thats not intelligence, its craft, its up to the GM what if anything you can invent and thats absurd, its not how hand eye coordination works.

I'd be happy to let you try though. Mister fumble fingers can make a dex check for all 10 digits and both hands to see what he slips and chops off with the power tools in his workshop while vainly trying to invent something to make himself less clumsy.

Why do people always assume that inventing things involves crafting it yourself?

[Khedrac]

Why do people always assume that inventing things involves crafting it yourself?

Because a lot of clever ideas can be "invented" by drawing them but won't actually work when made - take a look at a lot of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions.

You can propose a gyroscopic balancing system, but in a world without relatively modern tech making one is probably a lot more difficult that you might think so being able to get a functioning one made is a completely different problem. With pre-industrial technology quite a lot of phyics tricks will work at the small model scale but cannot be made at a size suitable for practical use.

Hence - just coming up with the idea doesn't get you anything built.

[Luccan]

I still agree with Quertus's general point. Making life harder for your player as a punishment for their impudence and daring to question your holy law isn't the way to solve it. Having a 3 Dex sucks, let that be its own punishment if you can't work something else out.