Glass-Cannons, Whinging, and Blame

[Talakeal]

Now that my gaming group has been vaccinated, I am preparing to get back behind the screen again in the coming months. The other night I was discussing potential character concepts when one of the players said that they were going to go without armor because "armor does nothing"*.

This made me face palm, because it brought up one of my longest recurring frustrations as a GM, and the root of many of my horror stories.

To put it bluntly, players don't think about defense when making their characters, but then blame me when something bad happens to them.


Unless they are actually going for a tank / defender build, most players will optimize their offensive potential, without a second thought toward defense. Although some players and games suffer worse than others, this is a problem that transcends systems or groups.

Like, last time I ran 3.5 D&D, I literally had a player spend 64k gold buying a +4 sword (when they already had a +3) without spending the 1k gold to get +1 armor. And I constantly see people asking me permission to drop their constitution score below eight. Oh, and I had a mage with a four strength who would constantly rant and rave about how cheap grappling was because it always worked on them.

And, I mean, it would be fine, its their decision, but the problem is they refuse to learn from it, because they instead have to place blame. Sometimes they blame the rules, or the module, or their fellow PCs, but usually they blame me. Anytime their fragile little glass cannon gets hurt, let alone taken out of action or even killed, its because I am a killer DM who doesn't know how to balance the game. And anytime an enemy exploits one of their glaring weaknesses, its because I have a grudge against them and am "picking on them" for some imagined slight.

It has driven me nuts in the past, and I really want to cut it off at the pass in the future.

So, any advice on getting players to make the connection between their choice to neglect their defenses and bad things happening to their characters?


TLDR: How do I got players to acknowledge the correlations between choices when building /equipping a character and their survival in play?




*: My system uses degrees of success and bounded accuracy, so armor is always going to have, at absolute minimum, a ten percent chance to turn a hit into a miss or a critical hit into a regular hit, and the odds are probably closer to fifty percent.

[Mastikator]

The next time they get hit you straight up tell them it would've been a miss if they had chosen to wear armor.

[Talwar]

In Session Zero, perhaps open with, "Folks, just a reminder - if you build a character with distinct and obvious vulnerabilities, I'm not going to hold back on letting your enemies exploit them. It's up to you, but you're forewarned."

[MrStabby]

Now that my gaming group has been vaccinated, I am preparing to get back behind the screen again in the coming months. The other night I was discussing potential character concepts when one of the players said that they were going to go without armor because "armor does nothing"*.

This made me face palm, because it brought up one of my longest recurring frustrations as a GM, and the root of many of my horror stories.

To put it bluntly, players don't think about defense when making their characters, but then blame me when something bad happens to them.


Unless they are actually going for a tank / defender build, most players will optimize their offensive potential, without a second thought toward defense. Although some players and games suffer worse than others, this is a problem that transcends systems or groups.

Like, last time I ran 3.5 D&D, I literally had a player spend 64k gold buying a +4 sword (when they already had a +3) without spending the 1k gold to get +1 armor. And I constantly see people asking me permission to drop their constitution score below eight. Oh, and I had a mage with a four strength who would constantly rant and rave about how cheap grappling was because it always worked on them.

And, I mean, it would be fine, its their decision, but the problem is they refuse to learn from it, because they instead have to place blame. Sometimes they blame the rules, or the module, or their fellow PCs, but usually they blame me. Anytime their fragile little glass cannon gets hurt, let alone taken out of action or even killed, its because I am a killer DM who doesn't know how to balance the game. And anytime an enemy exploits one of their glaring weaknesses, its because I have a grudge against them and am "picking on them" for some imagined slight.

It has driven me nuts in the past, and I really want to cut it off at the pass in the future.

So, any advice on getting players to make the connection between their choice to neglect their defenses and bad things happening to their characters?


TLDR: How do I got players to acknowledge the correlations between choices when building /equipping a character and their survival in play?




*: My system uses degrees of success and bounded accuracy, so armor is always going to have, at absolute minimum, a ten percent chance to turn a hit into a miss or a critical hit into a regular hit, and the odds are probably closer to fifty percent.

I don't think I have had it quite this bad... but have seen a few things trending in that direction before.

I wouldn't say I see players optimising offence over defence (though that happens a bit as well), but rather that it is the active over the passive which often feels pretty similar. I am not sure there is much to be done other than to keep going and to ensure death has some penalties (time until being raised/time till a new character can join the group).


My personal bugbear is people trying to game the system - mostly 5e. Logic seeming to be "Wisdom save failure results in me not having fun in an encounter. In fact I will really not have a good time at all. Now if I make my wisdom score low enough I will be almost assured to fail any wisdom save so my DM won't throw wisdom saves at the party! To avoid failing wisdom saves, I must dump wisdom!"

[Anonymouswizard]

I've played characters without armour in systems where one hit can take you out of the fight. I've also been the only character in the past actually wearing armour, but they're were religious reasons for that one.

I'm going to agree with making sure the players know that there's always a consequence to making a choice, and that dropping CON or ignoring armour will lead to increased fragility. I partially blame this on 3.X making AC scaling much rarer while granting to hit scaling at least at every other level, which made me question the value of investing in armour. Comparatively a decent way to be wearing armour is my first port of call in games like GURPS or the 40k RPGs, because with a bit of luck armour lets you shrug off lighter weapons. In general I think DR is preferred over hit reduction, even if it isn't better or realistic (it's how my homebrew games treat it, with one exception).

I think that what it comes down to is that what many players want in the moment it's an easy fight with no risk of death, and a tendency to take 'dead opponents can't attack' to extremes and try to make all the enemies dead.

But be upfront, and don't just limit weakness exploitation to combat. Throw the -2 Charisma Barbarian into a situation where she must negotiate with the guards. Have the players have to hack the factory's mainframe whether the Tech Priest is active or a mixture of hamburger and scrap. Try to do it to everybody to make it seem fair, and if they decide the game's too deadly a few sessions in be generous and let them rebuild their characters for more survivability. But yeah, not everybody's response to death is 'I'll roll up an upper class policeman as my next character, some kind of Swot Officer'.

Then my character has the nerve to survive until we picked up the antidote. Never got to play that rich policeman.

[icefractal]

It sounds like your players have a skewed conception of how your game works, but how much of that is unreasonableness vs lack of information, it's hard to say.

1) It sounds like you don't auto-scale the opposition level to the PCs, but do they know this? (If you do scale it, they're kind of right)
2) Are they aware when lack of armor makes the difference? It may be worth mentioning when an attack barely hits and armor would have prevented it.

Since it sounds like you're using a homebrew system, you do have an additional option. If players always trade away too much defense, and this causes whining, why not just limit/remove that trade? Make the minimum defense a generally survivable amount. Of course they'll probably whine about that change as well, but at least it would be done up front.


More tangentially - from what I've heard of your players, it sounds like what they really want is a game where they steamroll most opposition with very little risk. You don't have to run it that way, but I'm not sure they're ever going to switch to enjoying more challenge / worse odds.

[Composer99]

I'ma concur with icefractal's final paragraph - it looks like there might be a discrepancy between the kind of game you want to run and the kind of game your players want to play.

It sounds as if they want to play a game where they need not attend to their defences. Meanwhile, you want to run a game where character builds with such vulnerabilities are unwise.

There's nothing wrong with either their or your preferences, but they do seem to present a significant compatibility problem.

[Quertus]

Once upon a time, I advised you to create the adventure as a module, and keep it in sealed, time-stamped envelopes (or my implementation of encrypted files, each encounter with its own password), created *before the party exists* (or has even been discussed), so that they cannot claim that you are "picking on them" or otherwise cheating.

I continue to maintain that this is a good idea. To this, I will add that having a sample party and running them through your module, and/or having 2 groups going through the module simultaneously, and trying to goad your players into thinking by asking them to try to do better than the other / sample group *may* help encourage their optimizer / min-maxing brains to awaken.

[ecarden]

Lots of good advice. One thing a DM I like a lot does is pre-justify the NPC's action:

Looking around, the massive man see's you standing there, Mage. He's twice your size and can see your robe and wand. He smiles, believing he has a good chance of grappling you and moves to do so.

This also acts as a nice check on if the NPC's action is reasonable based on what they know/see.

[Jason]

Put them up against an NPC or group of them that have effective defenses. Have the NPCs tell them at length why the party is having a hard time beating them. Then stick a discount armor shop in their path.

[AdAstra]

I can definitely see the possibility that your players prefer buttons they can actively press over passive stuff that merely prevents things from happening. After all, for all their value in games, Armor Class and Damage Reduction are exceptionally uninteresting mechanics to actually play out. "You make a thing happen in the world with x" does have serious appeal over "A thing in the world does nothing/less because of x".

Alternatively, your players just don't want a challenge at all, they want to roll big numbers and stomp on things. Or maybe something else more charitable like the above.

Game design-wise it might be good to have some sort of active defense system? Not just a saving throw or anything like that, but a system where you can actively take defensive actions/reactions and said actions open up opportunities to do your own thing. The basic parry/riposte, take cover behind a table then throw the table at the attacker, that sorta thing. The reverse as well, though most systems tend to be much better about that part. Suppressive fire, the usual slew of debuffs

Let em beat the enemy over the head with their defense, or protect themselves behind a wall of blades. Won't necessarily work for all kinds of reasons, sadly, and it's a whole lot of work in all likelihood, but might be a start?

[King of Nowhere]

My players are nothing like that. They are aware of their weaknesses, they try to cover them when reasonably possible, they expect a smart opponent to try to exploit them.
Everyone in-world knows the guy with the big sword is generally weak-willed, after all.

Then i read the name of the op, and everything clicked into place. Talekeal, you opened dozens of threads about how to handle your toxic players. You seem to be a magnet for player toxicity. I would not know how to fix that

I can definitely see the possibility that your players prefer buttons they can actively press over passive stuff that merely prevents things from happening. After all, for all their value in games, Armor Class and Damage Reduction are exceptionally uninteresting mechanics to actually play out. "You make a thing happen in the world with x" does have serious appeal over "A thing in the world does nothing/less because of x".

Actually, defence can be interesting. My monk had a whole play style - jumping in the middle of the enemies, running over a trapped area, trying to bait enemies - that relied specifically on those defences

At some point i took a routine of walking around with a big sign saying "attention to all [big bad] minions: [charname] is here, alone. Come & get me"
I even had the wizard cast light on it to make it more visible.
That's how you do fun things with your passive defences

[Satinavian]

As always with your problems : Get better players.

In a normal group this problem never shows up. Because normal players, even when building suboptimally either want to have those weaknesses or would be willing to correct them when they are obvious. And even if such a problem were to show up, people could just talke about it like the mature adults they suppesedly are and find a solutions.

Your groups however ... I have no clue what could work there. It is difficult to judge them correctly from your comments over the internt. They seem to be a dysfunctional mess.



Personally i would not indulge people building extremely one-sided and expecting that only their strengths and never their weaknesses become relevant. While i might prepare adventures that are of interest to the PCs specifically and might fit their niches, NPCs will always act to the best of their abilities and knowledge and that means always targeting any glaring weakness they become aware of and repeating stuff that works.

[Telwar]

...how? How can they not learn to invest in defense? I learned not to dump Com (Body etc) after not being able to make a Fort save in 3e for like ten tries.

Are they assuming the defender type is going to eat all the attacks, without a mechanic to encourage that?

[Willie the Duck]

Agree that I can't fix Talakeal's continuing nightmare players. However, pertinent to the discussion at large --

1. Both AdAstra and King of Nowhere are right -- defense can be boring, or it can be incredibly intricate (often to the point of being on of the more system-mastery-heavy options). If I am Random Player #34792, being told by my GM something along the lines of 'yes you are supposed to play defensive and yes it can be interesting' probably sounds pretty hollow unless you trive on the builds&strat type of game.
2. Anonymouswizard is also fairly right that D&D, 3e in particular, often makes (the obvious forms of) defense incredibly inefficient -- there are usually multiple ways around it (attacks keying off saves instead of AC; ghost-touch, touch or flat-footed attacks); many opponents to-hits scaling up faster than you can reasonably scale up your AC; hit points being the double-edged sword of needing to both have them and keep them full; there being six other, incredibly hard to defend alternate hit point systems (ability drain/damage) as well. It's frankly unsurprising that the forumite narrative being that the best offense is to destroy your opposition before they get the chance to target you (however, I've found that never works as cleanly IRL as it does in optimization threads).
3. There's a perennial issue in TRPGs that, if your character fails hard enough, you simply end up back at character creation. There are ways around that (starting again back at__th level, you don't die but instead have a persistent wound, not to want to lose character-arc milestones), but it's a continuing issue.
4. icefractal might be onto a playstyle preference issue. I will state that it would be a good idea to sit down with the group and inquire into this. It may well be that the players 'prefer' this playstyle because they see it as the only one viable (given their perceptions of the ruleset being used, or the DM in question, etc.).

[Lacco]

My standard procedure would be:
1. Experiment out of game.
This happened before as few of my players were determined that going all in on offence was the best way to defeat any foe; the game is Riddle of Steel and while the tactic is viable in certain cases, most of the time a skilled foe will trash you if you go for this approach. So what I usually do is take this out of game, prepare a combat arena - a single session of pure combat in arena, you can test tactics, play with any type of opponent/character or test your mettle. Hand them few pregens and let them try what works for the system.

2. Talk to the players.
OOC issue = OOC solution. I ask them what kind of game they expect, explain the system, its limitations and strong sides (e.g. melee is where the action and fun is, archery is fun too, but don't try magic; non-combatants can assist but be careful lest the opponents focus on you). I go over extreme cases and show them rock-paper-scissors (tough & armored foes fall prey to agile, endurance based builds; these are usually kept at bay by fast, light hitters; these are destroyed by armored opponents...) and even discuss what genre/aesthetics/approach do they want (heroic fantasy, epic power fantasy, grim heroism, conanesque larger than life broken heroes or even relatively mundane stuff). We discuss, we find a common understanding.

3. Play the game you all want to play.
They want to go on a power trip and you prefer the rags-to-riches, humble we-may-fail-today-but-at-least-we-keep-our-honor style heroes? Well, that one won't work. Decide on a game together. Provide a set of table rules - clear and understood by all.

4. Try the direct approach.
"You would not like a dagger to your gut, so your character will not like it either. Invest in armor, get a bodyguard or die often."

4. IC encouragement
A player once told me he disliked certain defensive maneuver (counter) because it has a activation cost. So I used it on him, successfully. He learned quickly to use them in right time and place. Another player thought only axes were the way to go. A quick jab of rapier into his character's neck showed him otherwise. A backstab explained the necessity of not letting your guard down even if you are the well armored, tough and nigh invincible party tank. It's a learning curve - there were no hard feelings.

Why there were no hard feelings? Because I explained the player his options, they took an action and understood the consequence. When you're hunting a master assassin in his own lair, full of traps, you don't stand in well-lit doorway, your back to a dark hallway. The player took it well and enjoyed playing a severely wounded barbarian warrior for two sessions.

...

Wait, this is Talakeal's bizarro universe?

Disregard all of the above. Put a pink neon sign saying "Armor Saves Lives" above your GM screen. Give them enemies that stand politely in a row and never attack two at the same time - even better, they politely ask if they may use their abilities. Don't roll any dice, just tell them they won! Hand them a handful of dice to "add a bit of damage" because you feel like you wronged them by even attempting to attack them.

Use the "The enemies are blinded by your sheer awesome!" condition at least once per round.

Also, acknowledge there are people who will grumble even if you hand them flawless victory. Don't budge. Say "I'm sorry, but it's not your turn now. If it's OOC, please save it for the end of the session or write me an e-mail - I don't want to stop the game mid combat." If they persist, just wreck the game. Be the killer GM they want Go nuts! And then tell them they woke up from this strange nightmare...

Or - if you want to really solve it - discuss the issue with them. Not the one about armor - the one about the obvious discrepancy between your preferred playstyle and theirs. Or not

[The Glyphstone]

I think other people have said anything I could offer better, but ultimately it boils down to the fact that our advice will assume the baseline that the players are rational people who act in sane ways. The inhabitants of Bizarro Gaming World do not meet these criteria, as shown by how many times you have posted these threads and how no matter what suggestions you get from us, nothing ever seems to change.

Unless you're willing to do as lacco36 suggests and get very passive aggressive in your 'okay, you want to win everything effortlessly, I'll show you just how unsatisfying that actually is'. Abandon rationality and fight bizarro with bizarro.

[Lacco]

I think other people have said anything I could offer better, but ultimately it boils down to the fact that our advice will assume the baseline that the players are rational people who act in sane ways. The inhabitants of Bizarro Gaming World do not meet these criteria, as shown by how many times you have posted these threads and how no matter what suggestions you get from us, nothing ever seems to change.

Unless you're willing to do as lacco36 suggests and get very passive aggressive in your 'okay, you want to win everything effortlessly, I'll show you just how unsatisfying that actually is'. Abandon rationality and fight bizarro with bizarro.

A disclaimer: I normally try to avoid passive aggressive tactics and "scorched earth" tactics. I advise GMs to really sit and have a constructive, calm and polite talk with the players, to get on a common ground, to ensure nobody feels slighted and to make sure that even if you use some of my above advice, you first think it through and consider your gaming group. The game should provide enjoyment to all parties - including the GM (I purposefully avoid stating "fun", because some things are not fun but might be enjoyable). Most players react well to questions, so ask them. Dig deep, probe their headspace and find the answer that will lead to a better game for all.

However, for the situation at hand - in TBGW - scorched earth it is.

Also: I'd really like to see Talakeal's GMing style in practice. I know there were some games planned on this forum, but it was somewhere around my unplanned hiatus. I'm not saying they are to blame - but if there is something that forces the players to react (even if it's the "recurring frustration") in a certain way, maybe there is a way out.

[Xervous]

Ask them straight up what they expected to be getting into with their character. Ask them what they think the strengths and weaknesses of their build are. To dismantle their flawed understanding you need to get it out into the light where you can address the expectations rather than the emotions that result from their mismatch with reality.

[kyoryu]

Given it's Talakeal's Bizzaro World, it's kind of hard to really diagnose.

I actually agree with Quertus in this case. I think the best scenario is to take the GM out of the equation as much as possible. Run against some known baseline if possible - published adventures, etc.

That's probably not possible for a custom system, but even then you can set some kind of baseline for expectations - monster tables, etc.

If the opponents are a result of the system, they can't say that it's a matter of you picking on them. They can adjust to what is, or not.

Also look at tactics on both sides - are you playing as hyper-deterministic and optimized tactics on the opponent side? Knowing their weaknesses, nova/focus-firing on the weaker members/etc? Maybe don't do that. Also see if the tankier characters are defending the back line, and ensure that the system allows for that.

I do think that looking at the statements with some empathy (note: not necessarily sympathy) would be helpful. Why are they saying what they're saying? What leads to that? Given their imperfect knowledge, what is reasonable and what isn't? What's the core of the issue? Is it a playstyle or culture mismatch? Not understanding the rules? Are you playing the monsters as highly effective, or giving them knowledge they shouldn't have? If you can view the situation from their PoV, vs. "oh, they're terrible players and people", it can help - even if you fundamentally disagree with them.

[Talakeal]

Just a reminder, this is a problem that I have had in numerous game systems with numerous gaming groups in the past. It is not something that is currently an issue, or a problem unique to my current players or rules, but I am trying to prevent it before it comes up.


On a related note, a couple weeks ago on Running the Game, Matt Colville brought up another situation that has been a frequent issue of mine. Players try something, it doesn't work for whatever reason, so they get frustrated and give up and then yell at the Game Master for creating a "railroad". He explains that a rational person would, instead of getting upset and giving up, keep trying different solutions until they found something that worked, but people are rarely rational. And to make them understand the source of their own problems, he suggests that, instead of getting defensive (which will only cause them to dig their heels in deeper and get more adversarial) you ask leading questions until they understand that the only thing stopping their progress was their own mental blocks.

I have no idea if something similar would work here, but I hope so.

The next time they get hit you straight up tell them it would've been a miss if they had chosen to wear armor.

That might work. Or it might backfire.

On a related tangent, I was playing Mordheim this weekend, and one of my units had an ability that doubled their critical range. The other players were bitching about how OP it was, so I started actually pointing out every time it actually came up or didn't make a difference. The other players got really mad, insisting I was only doing it for the sake of starting fights, but after a few games I had incontrovertible evidence that it only came up about once a game, and that everyone else was indeed overreacting.

I could try something similar with my gaming group, but I am pretty sure the interim period would not be pretty.

In Session Zero, perhaps open with, "Folks, just a reminder - if you build a character with distinct and obvious vulnerabilities, I'm not going to hold back on letting your enemies exploit them. It's up to you, but you're forewarned."

Good idea. Will do.

My personal bugbear is people trying to game the system - mostly 5e. Logic seeming to be "Wisdom save failure results in me not having fun in an encounter. In fact I will really not have a good time at all. Now if I make my wisdom score low enough I will be almost assured to fail any wisdom save so my DM won't throw wisdom saves at the party! To avoid failing wisdom saves, I must dump wisdom!"

Never seen that. I have seen the opposite, how enemies just ignore the really well defended guy and go after softer targets, and then the tanky player complains that they don't get to show off how tough they are.

1) It sounds like you don't auto-scale the opposition level to the PCs, but do they know this? (If you do scale it, they're kind of right)
2) Are they aware when lack of armor makes the difference? It may be worth mentioning when an attack barely hits and armor would have prevented it.

More tangentially - from what I've heard of your players, it sounds like what they really want is a game where they steamroll most opposition with very little risk. You don't have to run it that way, but I'm not sure they're ever going to switch to enjoying more challenge / worse odds.

1) It sounds like you don't auto-scale the opposition level to the PCs, but do they know this? (If you do scale it, they're kind of right)

I don't scale it as such, no.

I follow the general CR guidelines for whatever game I am running, although I do err on the side of too easy for new groups and too hard for veteran groups.

Likewise, I play the monsters a little smarter if the PCs are having an easy time and a little dumber if the PCs are struggling.

It sounds like your players have a skewed conception of how your game works, but how much of that is unreasonableness vs lack of information, it's hard to say.

2) Are they aware when lack of armor makes the difference? It may be worth mentioning when an attack barely hits and armor would have prevented it.

The idea, afaict, is in the case the player normally plays "squishy" characters to begin with, and just assumes that because they are hit more often than not, that armor "does nothing" as times when armor saves them from a hit or pressence of armor saves them from a crit are the outliers and thus not factored into their thinking. I think.

But yeah, they understand how the system works, atleast on an intellectual level.

More tangentially - from what I've heard of your players, it sounds like what they really want is a game where they steamroll most opposition with very little risk. You don't have to run it that way, but I'm not sure they're ever going to switch to enjoying more challenge / worse odds.

It does appear that way, yeah.

I often heard it said that players want an easy win today, but the struggle of a lifetime yesterday, or that they want to be John Mclaine from Die Hard; always winning but also beat to hell. This has never been my experience, as they whine about challenge today, and then tell stories about how I screwed them over in the past.

I really would just be happy for them to start to take responsibility for their own decisions.

Once upon a time, I advised you to create the adventure as a module, and keep it in sealed, time-stamped envelopes (or my implementation of encrypted files, each encounter with its own password), created *before the party exists* (or has even been discussed), so that they cannot claim that you are "picking on them" or otherwise cheating.

Its not feasible for me to create an entire campaign world before the game even begins. I don't have that kind of time or motivation, and it would have to come across as pretty rail-roady. I can create a module in advance, but the players can still blame me for targeting their weakness, whatever it is. Likewise, even if they have no weakness, they can still whine that I am attacking them more or whatnot.

I continue to maintain that this is a good idea. To this, I will add that having a sample party and running them through your module, and/or having 2 groups going through the module simultaneously, and trying to goad your players into thinking by asking them to try to do better than the other / sample group *may* help encourage their optimizer / min-maxing brains to awaken.

Do you mean actually running the game for multiple groups? If so, I wish I had that many players. If not, what do you mean?

Also, do you remember back before covid when you suggested I run a campaign diagnostic?

I can definitely see the possibility that your players prefer buttons they can actively press over passive stuff that merely prevents things from happening. After all, for all their value in games, Armor Class and Damage Reduction are exceptionally uninteresting mechanics to actually play out. "You make a thing happen in the world with x" does have serious appeal over "A thing in the world does nothing/less because of x".

Alternatively, your players just don't want a challenge at all, they want to roll big numbers and stomp on things. Or maybe something else more charitable like the above.

Game design-wise it might be good to have some sort of active defense system? Not just a saving throw or anything like that, but a system where you can actively take defensive actions/reactions and said actions open up opportunities to do your own thing. The basic parry/riposte, take cover behind a table then throw the table at the attacker, that sorta thing. The reverse as well, though most systems tend to be much better about that part. Suppressive fire, the usual slew of debuffs

Let em beat the enemy over the head with their defense, or protect themselves behind a wall of blades. Won't necessarily work for all kinds of reasons, sadly, and it's a whole lot of work in all likelihood, but might be a start?

I do have such actions. Of course, players rarely take them.

Then i read the name of the op, and everything clicked into place. Talekeal, you opened dozens of threads about how to handle your toxic players. You seem to be a magnet for player toxicity. I would not know how to fix that.

Yeah. As I said in the OP, this isn't currently a problem, but has been a major component of many of my gaming horror stories in the past.

Also: I'd really like to see Talakeal's GMing style in practice. I know there were some games planned on this forum, but it was somewhere around my unplanned hiatus. I'm not saying they are to blame - but if there is something that forces the players to react (even if it's the "recurring frustration") in a certain way, maybe there is a way out.

I have thought about streaming a game, but I have no idea how to make it work from either a social or technical perspective.

[kyoryu]

I have thought about streaming a game, but I have no idea how to make it work from either a social or technical perspective.

Zoom + OBS or XSplit. Make windows in OBS that just capture from the Zoom window, assuming a purely online game.

In-person is even easier.

[BRC]

In D&D, where Armor makes you harder to hit, there's a bit of a psychological thing going on. You don't remember when then enemy misses, just when they hit. A miss is over in a second, easily forgotten.
(this doesn't really help the constitution question, but).

This won't solve every problem, and especially won't help if none of your players are building survivable tanks, but when narrating combat, don't just brush past every miss. Describe the enemy weapons clashing against shields, or the characters twisting so the spearpoint slides off their armor. Not every time, obviously, but remind the player that they're playing tanky characters, which in turn reminds the rest of the table whose characters are designed to take a hit.

Question. Outside character creation, do the players in question tend to play their characters with caution? Do they take steps to take cover or keep themselves out of the range of hard-hitting melee enemies?


You say you've seen this across multiple systems. Are these players who have played with you before, or players from other GMs. Do they seem aware that they are building a character with a weakness, or do they act like Con is a free dump stat?

(I don't think I've ever encountered ANYBODY who treated Con as a dump stat. The closest was one player who did it for RP reasons, fully aware that she was building a weakness into her character).



But a little bit is that if somebody goes really hard into being a glass cannon, there's no real way to encounter design around it.

[Lacco]

I do think that looking at the statements with some empathy (note: not necessarily sympathy) would be helpful. Why are they saying what they're saying? What leads to that? Given their imperfect knowledge, what is reasonable and what isn't? What's the core of the issue? Is it a playstyle or culture mismatch? Not understanding the rules? Are you playing the monsters as highly effective, or giving them knowledge they shouldn't have? If you can view the situation from their PoV, vs. "oh, they're terrible players and people", it can help - even if you fundamentally disagree with them.

*insert sound of clapping*

I'll have to print this on a sign and put it inside my GM screen. But I'll have to get a GM screen first.

Just a reminder, this is a problem that I have had in numerous game systems with numerous gaming groups in the past. It is not something that is currently an issue, or a problem unique to my current players or rules, but I am trying to prevent it before it comes up.

Multiple game systems.
Multiple gaming groups.

What is the common denominator?

On a related note, a couple weeks ago on Running the Game, Matt Colville brought up another situation that has been a frequent issue of mine. Players try something, it doesn't work for whatever reason, so they get frustrated and give up and then yell at the Game Master for creating a "railroad". He explains that a rational person would, instead of getting upset and giving up, keep trying different solutions until they found something that worked, but people are rarely rational. And to make them understand the source of their own problems, he suggests that, instead of getting defensive (which will only cause them to dig their heels in deeper and get more adversarial) you ask leading questions until they understand that the only thing stopping their progress was their own mental blocks.

I have no idea if something similar would work here, but I hope so.

This is basically the coaching principle - if the coach explained it well. You ask questions to help them solve their issue, but for that to succeed you have to a) find out if they want to solve it b) get them to formulate the final destination (what solution would they be fine with) c) ask questions without knowing the answer.

The last one is really hard to do when you are invested and *know* the answer already.

On a related tangent, I was playing Mordheim this weekend, and one of my units had an ability that doubled their critical range. The other players were bitching about how OP it was, so I started actually pointing out every time it actually came up or didn't make a difference. The other players got really mad, insisting I was only doing it for the sake of starting fights, but after a few games I had incontrovertible evidence that it only came up about once a game, and that everyone else was indeed overreacting.

Sometimes people just need to vent their frustration. And yeah, seems like you chose - unintentionally - a really irritating way to prove your point. What other ways could you show them it came up so little?

Likewise, I play the monsters a little smarter if the PCs are having an easy time and a little dumber if the PCs are struggling.

Why?

I really would just be happy for them to start to take responsibility for their own decisions.

How?

I have thought about streaming a game, but I have no idea how to make it work from either a social or technical perspective.

No need to stream. As kyoryu stated, a small online group would suit. Even pbp or play by chat would be sufficient to see if there are any points on your side that you can work on.

In D&D, where Armor makes you harder to hit, there's a bit of a psychological thing going on. You don't remember when then enemy misses, just when they hit. A miss is over in a second, easily forgotten.
(this doesn't really help the constitution question, but).

But it's a valid point. And something one should keep in mind.

There are systems where armor saves your hide and it's calculated after you get hit - so you can definitely feel the impact.

(I don't think I've ever encountered ANYBODY who treated Con as a dump stat. The closest was one player who did it for RP reasons, fully aware that she was building a weakness into her character).

Yeah, I do that often. But I have Con as dump stat in RL too, so I know what I am getting into, and I tend to play systems where you can avoid getting hit - which makes a lot of difference. It's the active vs. passive defence.

[Talakeal]

Question. Outside character creation, do the players in question tend to play their characters with caution? Do they take steps to take cover or keep themselves out of the range of hard-hitting melee enemies?

You say you've seen this across multiple systems. Are these players who have played with you before, or players from other GMs. Do they seem aware that they are building a character with a weakness, or do they act like Con is a free dump stat?

(I don't think I've ever encountered ANYBODY who treated Con as a dump stat. The closest was one player who did it for RP reasons, fully aware that she was building a weakness into her character).

Sometimes. I have noticed players have a tendency to clump into a ball and not move like a herd of buffalo, and that annoys me sometimes, but overall I would say their tactics are all right. Teamwork is always lacking, but that's a separate issue.

I typically GM for my group, but most of my players are not RPG newbies. Note, however, that this isn't only a problem when I GM. Heck, I have even been guilty of it myself as a player on occasion. I remember one game where I played a monk and dumped con because my AC and saves were great, monks are really MAD, and because the HP as meat style breaks my immersion. It went ok, but then a new player joined the group, and the first fight he announced out presence to the enemies, who dropped a fireball on the group, and when I rolled a 1 on the save it killed me outright. It was my fault for tanking my con, but you better believe I blamed the new player for getting my character killed at the time.

Zoom + OBS or XSplit. Make windows in OBS that just capture from the Zoom window, assuming a purely online game.

In-person is even easier.

I would never run an online game. Just playing in one is a miserable experience, I can't imagine ever running one.

I can't imagine it is easier in person, but I would legitimately love to hear how you suggest doing it, as I really would like to try streaming a game at some point.

The problems are also social, I don't have a home of my own right now, so I game in other people's houses or public spaces, and I would need to get their permission to record anything, as well as dealing with random people or children in the background.

Multiple game systems.
Multiple gaming groups.

What is the common denominator?

Got me. Lot's of stuff. Something specific you are getting at?

There is of course the old de motivational poster answer "You are the common factor in all your failed relationships," which is really a non-answer in an advice thread as people wouldn't be asking a question if they didn't think they could modify their behavior to change it. Unless that's the point?

This is basically the coaching principle - if the coach explained it well. You ask questions to help them solve their issue, but for that to succeed you have to a) find out if they want to solve it b) get them to formulate the final destination (what solution would they be fine with) c) ask questions without knowing the answer.

The last one is really hard to do when you are invested and *know* the answer already.

Sometimes people just need to vent their frustration. And yeah, seems like you chose - unintentionally - a really irritating way to prove your point. What other ways could you show them it came up so little?

Oh I think I was intentionally being irritating. I was more than a little frustrated myself after having spent the entire morning being raked over the coals for how overpowered my warband was.

But I can't think of a better way to illustrate my point as white room discussions of probability just get dismissed. Any advice?

No need to stream. As kyoryu stated, a small online group would suit. Even pbp or play by chat would be sufficient to see if there are any points on your side that you can work on.

Those formats are totally different though. I can't imagine getting much useful data from them.

Why?

Mostly laziness and soft-hardheartedness.

Playing a monster "hard" all the time is mentally exhausting, and it seems mean to stomp someone into the ground when they are already losing. I don't think this is just a GM thing either, as a player I also try harder when things are going hard, even in single player video games.

On the other hand, playing "soft" all the time makes the game a farce, both from a mechanical level and from a setting level; its hard to take a world seriously when its monsters and villains are complete idiots who can be taken out by a group of wandering adventurers without any effort.


Now, we can look into deeper game philosophy here and say its an important psychological mechanic. Its pretty well agreed upon that most people want a challenge, or at least the illusion of it; most sport's fans agree that close games are the best and many video games give you damage resistance when your life is low or damage boosts when your ammunition is low to give the illusion of a close call. I personally don't really know how much I agree with this though, it seems good in principal, but my players pretty universally throw tantrums at anything that isn't a cake walk, hold grudges for years over close calls, and I don't really trust myself to have that tight a grasp on game balance or on player psychology anyway.

How?

Realizing the correlation between their own build choices and their failures is to fold:

1: It reduces the amount of fighting and hostility at the table as people don't need to look for someone to blame and attack every time something bad happens to their character.
2: They can learn from their mistakes and make better decisions in the future.

[kyoryu]

There is of course the old de motivational poster answer "You are the common factor in all your failed relationships," which is really a non-answer in an advice thread as people wouldn't be asking a question if they didn't think they could modify their behavior to change it. Unless that's the point?

I think there's an option - there's something you can do to alleviate these issues that you may be unaware of.

You are noted as having uniquely horrible experiences. An impartial observer would conclude that one of two things is likely:

1) There is something you are doing that is contributing to these problems.
2) There is something you are doing that is both drawing these problematic people to you and driving away less problematic people.

Mostly laziness and soft-hardheartedness.

Playing a monster "hard" all the time is mentally exhausting, and it seems mean to stomp someone into the ground when they are already losing. I don't think this is just a GM thing either, as a player I also try harder when things are going hard, even in single player video games.

On the other hand, playing "soft" all the time makes the game a farce, both from a mechanical level and from a setting level; its hard to take a world seriously when its monsters and villains are complete idiots who can be taken out by a group of wandering adventurers without any effort.


Now, we can look into deeper game philosophy here and say its an important psychological mechanic. Its pretty well agreed upon that most people want a challenge, or at least the illusion of it; most sport's fans agree that close games are the best and many video games give you damage resistance when your life is low or damage boosts when your ammunition is low to give the illusion of a close call. I personally don't really know how much I agree with this though, it seems good in principal, but my players pretty universally throw tantrums at anything that isn't a cake walk, hold grudges for years over close calls, and I don't really trust myself to have that tight a grasp on game balance or on player psychology anyway.

But one of the other things that's important is that players see the results of their actions. You've complained before that the players say it doesn't matter what they do, the results will be the same... but that's kind of what you're saying.

If you've decided that the PCs will lose 90% of their HP, and then play the enemies easier/harder to guarantee that, then from the player POV it looks like what they do doesn't matter. If they play "well", they lose 90% of their HP. If they play "poorly", they lose 90% of their HP. They can't even tell what is good or bad play at that point.

And this leads to a feeling that their actions don't matter. Which leads to a lot of the type of complaints you get.

Note that a similar "it doesn't matter" issue comes about if you don't give players sufficient information to make decisions - "gotchas" and things like that just exacerbate it, especially if you make them super-aware of the consequences. And when doing stuff like that, try to think of what the players do actually know about the situation at hand - not what they "should" be able to guess or infer from clues you've given them.

[Calthropstu]

Past a certain point, armor really does nothing unless you heavily invest in it. I made a sorcerer in pfs that proved this.

His ac was 8. His Con, however, was base 16 with a +4 belt. With massive hp and an 8 ac, I was basically blocking attacks with my face.

I concentrated my abilities towards not being able to be attacked at all. Between dimension door, invisibility, fog cloud, mirror image and major image, I could pretty much attack with impunity without ever being attacked myself.

It frustrated many gms. When they finally would catch me off guard, they couldn't do enough damage to drop me. Meanwhile, the party members who had spent tens of thousands on their ac would get mauled.

[Anonymouswizard]

To be fair to Talakeal, I believe he's basically only played with two groups (maybe three?) not counting the online game from this forum. Talakeal's gaming experience seems to be in two phases, one as a player with a problem group, and then as a GM with a different problem group. At that level 'just plain bad luck' is actually a reasonable explanation, if he could find another few groups I'm sure he'd land in one he's more happy with.

That's not to say he's faultless, but it does make this not being his direct fault more likely.

As a side note, I tend to like systems that tend towards rocket tag because it makes playing enemies optimally less necessary. If death is only a hit or two away then an enemy that can semi-reliably land hits is still a threat. But then again I'll happily run a railroad/all roads lead to Rome style adventure which throws an Unbound Daemonhost at a part of Rank 1 Dark Heresy characters (who never got the idea that maybe they shouldn't run in guns blazing except for the one assassin who'd invested in lots of Stealth*).


* The intended solution to that encounter was 'retreat, find a way to get bigger guns or demolish the building the monster is in'. To their credit they got good enough rolls to kill it before they started taking Critical Damage.

[Talakeal]

To be fair to Talakeal, I believe he's basically only played with two groups (maybe three?) not counting the online game from this forum. Talakeal's gaming experience seems to be in two phases, one as a player with a problem group, and then as a GM with a different problem group. At that level 'just plain bad luck' is actually a reasonable explanation, if he could find another few groups I'm sure he'd land in one he's more happy with.

That's not to say he's faultless, but it does make this not being his direct fault more likely.

A bit more complicated than that.

Con games, one shots, and online games aside, I have been in close to half a dozen gaming groups.

I was taught the game in middle school by a teacher. He was pretty good (although he did a few things that I look back on and cringe), but the group, myself included, was a bunch of immature kids who didn't know how to play well with others.

My high school group was all problem players, some worse than others. We rotated GMs, but I did it most.

My junior college group was a group of immature jackasses like my middle school group, but the GM was an immature jackass like the rest of us, and we were playing the new and completely broken 3E.

My university group was made up of a few players from my highschool group, and a few new problem players. I was the exclusive GM. This is the first group I talked about on this forum.

When I moved to New Mexico I found a new gaming group. It was pretty good, but we alternated GMs every week, with one being by far the best GM I have ever played under and the other being by far the worst.

Now I live in Colorado, as do most of my old friends who couldn't afford California anymore, and I am GMing again (when we aren't in quarantine) from a group that is made up of some of the same high-school friends as I have had in previous groups, as well as some new players. Overall, it has been the most drama free group, but still far from perfect, the new players have issues, and while the old players have grown up a lot, they still fall back into their old ways on occasion.

Past a certain point, armor really does nothing unless you heavily invest in it. I made a sorcerer in pfs that proved this.

His ac was 8. His Con, however, was base 16 with a +4 belt. With massive hp and an 8 ac, I was basically blocking attacks with my face.

I concentrated my abilities towards not being able to be attacked at all. Between dimension door, invisibility, fog cloud, mirror image and major image, I could pretty much attack with impunity without ever being attacked myself.

It frustrated many gms. When they finally would catch me off guard, they couldn't do enough damage to drop me. Meanwhile, the party members who had spent tens of thousands on their ac would get mauled.

That works, until you get into a situation where a strong enemy who can see through illusions.

I don't disagree that playing smarter is usually better than playing harder, but you should probably have numbers to fall back on in case you make a mistake or come into a situation where your tricks don't work. Likewise, not all builds are able to pull that off.

And yeah, miss chance is often more cost effective than AC, but I prefer to have both. Likewise, with the exponential costs of bonuses, I find a little of everything is often the best strategy.

At higher levels d20 often gets to the point where the dice roll doesn't matter. At that point, yeah, armor is meaningless. But through a combination of degrees of success and bounded accuracy that is never the case in my system, each level of armor is guaranteed to reduce damage by at least 10%, unless you are actually fighting one of the few things that outright ignores armor.

I think there's an option - there's something you can do to alleviate these issues that you may be unaware of.

You are noted as having uniquely horrible experiences. An impartial observer would conclude that one of two things is likely:

1) There is something you are doing that is contributing to these problems.
2) There is something you are doing that is both drawing these problematic people to you and driving away less problematic people.

I agree, 1 is the most likely; although contribution is not necessarily direct cause or "fault". It may also be something that I am not doing. However, there are other likely explanations, players in my group teaching bad behaviors to new comers, me being more accepting of players that other groups would (or have) kicked out, or just an emergent tactic when they learn that they can save their characters by bitching.

But one of the other things that's important is that players see the results of their actions. You've complained before that the players say it doesn't matter what they do, the results will be the same... but that's kind of what you're saying.

If you've decided that the PCs will lose 90% of their HP, and then play the enemies easier/harder to guarantee that, then from the player POV it looks like what they do doesn't matter. If they play "well", they lose 90% of their HP. If they play "poorly", they lose 90% of their HP. They can't even tell what is good or bad play at that point.

And this leads to a feeling that their actions don't matter. Which leads to a lot of the type of complaints you get.

Note that a similar "it doesn't matter" issue comes about if you don't give players sufficient information to make decisions - "gotchas" and things like that just exacerbate it, especially if you make them super-aware of the consequences. And when doing stuff like that, try to think of what the players do actually know about the situation at hand - not what they "should" be able to guess or infer from clues you've given them.

I agree with you in principle.

I think you are way overstating the effect though, its typically a very small thing, with a relatively minor effect on the outcome, a few points here and there. The actual difficulty of any one encounter, let alone session, swings wildly.

I honestly think I am a very "dice fall where they may" sort of DM; and I often care about player choice and setting verisimilitude to a fault. I honestly think I would have a lot less problems if I were more willing to fudge the numbers and "let the players win".

Also note that "gotchas" are another consequence of player behavior, the type I think we both agree not to rob the players of. By choosing not to scout, or prepare divination spells, or put points into lore skills they are choosing to go in blind, and just telling them everything up front robs characters who do put resources into information gathering.

[King of Nowhere]

re: AC, that depends. against some big monsters, yes. but AC matters when the opponent has power attack, as well as to stop iteratives. i've never found it useless

i also tend to avoid most sources of miss chance, because i find it a disfunctional mechanic. AC is good; you buff it, your opponent buff his to-hit, there is interaction. but flat miss chance? no interaction there. and some pretty ridiculous results if you stack it.