Getting players to recognize their own agency

[Mechalich]

So one thing this thread has had me thinking about is the combat as sport/combat as war split, because from your description, I don' think your players really want either. I think they want a third option: combat* as performance. Think of it like a concert; the whole point is for people to demonstrate their talent in these areas, and failing doesn't improve the experience. Nobody thinks a concert is enhanced by somebody's guitar breaking halfway through their solo, least of all the guitar player. So when one of your players builds a melee specialist, it's because they find the performance of being really good at melee combat enjoyable, not because they're interested in exploring the consequences of not having a bow in a world containing archers. Kiting them with an archer is, basically, deliberately cutting their strings. It isn't going to ever make the experience more enjoyable or interesting for them, whether that incidence rate is 20%, 10%, or 1%. It's just going to suck. So I suggest not doing that to them.

This is of course a preference of your particular players. For players who want to engage in the game differently, being kited is just fine. Which is to say I'm not saying you did anything wrong in a global setting, just something that didn't work for this particular group of people.

*Or gameplay more generally for out of combat stuff

To expand on the concert example, you need to match the type of band - meaning party composition - to the pieces they play - meaning individual encounters - and those pieces need to add up to a functional set list - meaning the overall campaign plot. If the players just want to jam casually and use their instruments solo, don't throw a set list at them that presumes orchestral coordination.

There have been repeated comments on how this homebrew system favors synergy very highly. I wonder if that impact is the same for NPCs and PCs. If it is, I suspect that contributes to a lot of the sense of unfairness, because a group of NPCs governed by a single GM are almost certainly better at coordinating with themselves rather than a group of disparate players each trying to insure their individual actions are effective.

[RandomPeasant]

Which is more or less what I have been saying all along, that all the “gotcha” talk is just telling DMs not to home brew , but Gloating Swine is the only person who will come right out and say it.

The point, I think, is that you can eventually learn the monsters. The stuff in the Monster Manual may be arbitrary, but it's a finite list of arbitrary things. You will eventually learn that the blue Dragon breaths lightning, and that the spider-centaurs are casters, and what the various Ooze color-coding means. But that doesn't exist for homebrewed monsters (and, to be fair, this also applies to obscure publish monsters). Which means that as DM you have to be very aggressive about hinting at what your homebrew stuff does. Don't wait for players to roll Knowledge, proactively tell them thing their characters should know. Try to avoid homebrew puzzle monsters. It's much easier to deal with a creature with unknown capabilities if those capabilities are basically "fair", rather than in some weird corner that needs a specific strategy to deal with.

[NichG]

So one thing this thread has had me thinking about is the combat as sport/combat as war split, because from your description, I don' think your players really want either. I think they want a third option: combat* as performance. Think of it like a concert; the whole point is for people to demonstrate their talent in these areas, and failing doesn't improve the experience. Nobody thinks a concert is enhanced by somebody's guitar breaking halfway through their solo, least of all the guitar player. So when one of your players builds a melee specialist, it's because they find the performance of being really good at melee combat enjoyable, not because they're interested in exploring the consequences of not having a bow in a world containing archers. Kiting them with an archer is, basically, deliberately cutting their strings. It isn't going to ever make the experience more enjoyable or interesting for them, whether that incidence rate is 20%, 10%, or 1%. It's just going to suck. So I suggest not doing that to them.

This is of course a preference of your particular players. For players who want to engage in the game differently, being kited is just fine. Which is to say I'm not saying you did anything wrong in a global setting, just something that didn't work for this particular group of people.

*Or gameplay more generally for out of combat stuff

I like this a lot. Especially the idea of designing a game around it. 'This defender ability taunts an enemy into rage, doubles the damage that they deal if they choose to attack the user but in exchange granting the user an extra 5*Lv DR against that enemy's attacks. Attacks made against the user of this ability have double the normal environmental damage and knockback effects'. 'This warrior ability modifies an attack sequence to lift both the warrior and target into the air 1ft per point of damage dealt, and leaves them hanging until the end of the warrior's next turn (can be extended). The user of this ability does not suffer falling damage from height gained as part of their attack sequence.' 'This ability proposes a no-interference 1vs1 duel in the middle of a fight. If the target accepts, they and the user remain visible to the outside world but exist in a frozen moment 30ft in radius within the swirl of battle for up to 3 rounds, which happen immediately. If the target refuses, they suffer morale penalties.', 'This ability may be used when you drop an undifferentiated enemy (mob, army, or goon squad) - up to 1d4! (exploding die) other members of the enemy squad explode in sequence, so long as they are within 10ft of each-other', 'for one successful usage per campaign arc, when a villain monologues, roll a full attack worth of damage as if each attack were a crit. If this exceeds the villain's hitpoint total, you ambush them with a sneak attack and they explode before getting three words out; otherwise, they take no damage and sidestep the shot or attack with a sneer'

[OldTrees1]

Which is more or less what I have been saying all along, that all the “gotcha” talk is just telling DMs not to home brew , but Gloating Swine is the only person who will come right out and say it.

Odd. Gloating Swine did not say that either. They said there are some existing monsters that could have a similar effect on your party.

The talk about "gotcha" is saying, if your GM for players as surprise and puzzle adverse as you are Talakeal, then it might be wise to avoid monsters (homebrew or otherwise) that are designed in a way that will provoke these horror stories you have told us about.

Recently I homebrewed a flying two headed snake that creates a hurricane, controls winds, pulls down meteors, sends out electrical pulses, and has a stunning howl. The flying snake was in the middle of the howling hurricane surrounded by a wind wall with shells of electricity emanating out from it. If the PCs had done some recon they would have noticed some meteor strikes nearby. This was Zrin-Hala, the Howling Storm and everything except the name was homebrew. Homebrew does not need to full of "gotcha" moments.

Encounters can have "gotcha" moments. There are many official creatures (like Illithids) that can have the same effect depending on how much the players read the monster manual. My group handles surprise much much much better than your group Talakeal. So I don't need to worry when a "gotcha" moment happens. However you do. Your group was extremely negative every single time.

The advice is not telling you "don't homebrew". The advice is "we don't think your group enjoys your 'gotcha' moments, we suggest you avoid them if you want to avoid the reaction they provoke from your group". I fully expect you will still homebrew monsters. That is one reason Quertus suggested you share the monster stats (homebrew or official) with the group.

[Talakeal]

Odd. Gloating Swine did not say that either. They said there are some existing monsters that could have a similar effect on your party.

The talk about "gotcha" is saying, if your GM for players as surprise and puzzle adverse as you are Talakeal, then it might be wise to avoid monsters (homebrew or otherwise) that are designed in a way that will provoke these horror stories you have told us about.


Encounters can have "gotcha" moments. There are many official creatures (like Illithids) that can have the same effect depending on how much the players read the monster manual. My group handles surprise much much much better than your group Talakeal. So I don't need to worry when a "gotcha" moment happens. However you do. Your group was extremely negative every single time.

The advice is not telling you "don't homebrew". The advice is "we don't think your group enjoys your 'gotcha' moments, we suggest you avoid them if you want to avoid the reaction they provoke from your group". I fully expect you will still homebrew monsters. That is one reason Quertus suggested you share the monster stats (homebrew or official) with the group.

The whole concept of a "gotcha" is a mess. In my mind, a gotcha would be a deliberate subversion, a sort of trap, like a mimic, or a nilbog, or an ear-worm, something that punishes smart play.

A surprise is just a lack of reconnaissance on the part of the players.

A gimmick fight is one where you have a different objective than just killing the other guy or where the rules of the game are skewed. I would say that pretty much anything that can grow stronger if attacked the wrong way, has broad immunities or weaknesses, can be killed in parts, summons adds, mutates over time, has life leech, exists in a magic location, or uses a magic item is probably a gimmick.


I would say the fomorian was a surprise and a gimmick, while a nilbog is both a gotcha and a gimmick. A hydra is a gimmick fight, but probably not a surprise or a gotcha. The avatar of violence could be all three on the first encounter, but once the party fell back and researched it, it should have only fallen into the third.

None of these are puzzles mind you, things with only one solution like a tarrasque that needs to be wished dead or a jabberwocky that can only be killed by a vorpal sword, or any of the 2E artifacts. Although, honestly, these are so vague they aren't really good puzzles either.

Odd. Gloating Swine did not say that either. They said there are some existing monsters that could have a similar effect on your party.

Did you read the same post I read? Because...

Which is fine, if you never use homebrew monsters that mostly resemble normal monsters but are actually different with unexepcted capabilities.

But you do do that. You make super-sneeze ogres and magic unkillable guardians.

Sure doesn't seem to mention any existing monsters to me, even though Ogre-Magi and Aleax would fit those descriptions pretty well.

How long was it real world time between noticing the "vampire" had a reflection and the fight they made harder because they thought it was a vampire? If it was that same game session a half-hour before, the players forgetting is their fault. If it was a week ago last game session, you can't blame them forgetting. If it was that week ago you can just flat out remind them of the incident. It hasn't been a game world week, so the characters should have remembered even though the players haven't. If you feel the need at least ask for an Intelligence check, say DC. A success gives you the excuse to tell them about the reflection. A failure you tell them they know they're forgetting something important about the vampire.

I don't recall, it was a long time ago. But do keep in mind, that the more time passes the more likely I am to let it slip my mind or to recognize the right time to remind them.

The point, I think, is that you can eventually learn the monsters. The stuff in the Monster Manual may be arbitrary, but it's a finite list of arbitrary things. You will eventually learn that the blue Dragon breaths lightning, and that the spider-centaurs are casters, and what the various Ooze color-coding means. But that doesn't exist for homebrewed monsters (and, to be fair, this also applies to obscure publish monsters). Which means that as DM you have to be very aggressive about hinting at what your homebrew stuff does. Don't wait for players to roll Knowledge, proactively tell them thing their characters should know. Try to avoid homebrew puzzle monsters. It's much easier to deal with a creature with unknown capabilities if those capabilities are basically "fair", rather than in some weird corner that needs a specific strategy to deal with.

True. As long as you avoid templates, or feats, or monsters with class levels, or god forbid fight an enemy spellcaster.

But no, I would never use a puzzle monster, let alone homebrew one myself.

There have been repeated comments on how this homebrew system favors synergy very highly. I wonder if that impact is the same for NPCs and PCs. If it is, I suspect that contributes to a lot of the sense of unfairness, because a group of NPCs governed by a single GM are almost certainly better at coordinating with themselves rather than a group of disparate players each trying to insure their individual actions are effective.

Not really, no.

You can really only do that sort of synergy with a large and heavily customized group of humanoids, which most encounters aren't. And a lot of the synergy is involved in non combat stuff that NPCs handwave away off screen anyway.

I have often wondered why people never consider the fact that the players have multiple people working together to come up with solutions could at least partially counteract the face that a single DM is controlling all the characters.

I would just like to point out, I haven't seen a short thread from you about the good times either.

True... but generally I only make a post when I am asking for advice. There have been more than a few where I, for example, ask for advice building an adventure, get half a dozen responses, thank everyone, and then the thread quietly fades away.

Maybe look at my posts on the media sub-forum for more observation based posts

So one thing this thread has had me thinking about is the combat as sport/combat as war split, because from your description, I don' think your players really want either. I think they want a third option: combat* as performance. Think of it like a concert; the whole point is for people to demonstrate their talent in these areas, and failing doesn't improve the experience. Nobody thinks a concert is enhanced by somebody's guitar breaking halfway through their solo, least of all the guitar player. So when one of your players builds a melee specialist, it's because they find the performance of being really good at melee combat enjoyable, not because they're interested in exploring the consequences of not having a bow in a world containing archers. Kiting them with an archer is, basically, deliberately cutting their strings. It isn't going to ever make the experience more enjoyable or interesting for them, whether that incidence rate is 20%, 10%, or 1%. It's just going to suck. So I suggest not doing that to them.

This is of course a preference of your particular players. For players who want to engage in the game differently, being kited is just fine. Which is to say I'm not saying you did anything wrong in a global setting, just something that didn't work for this particular group of people.

That's a very interesting idea.

It'd be good to separate 'what you expect they would want', 'what they actually will do given a choice', and 'what your setting/pacing/GM decisions encourage' here.

If you really don't intend your setting or game events to come with periodically escalating innate difficulty, then it doesn't make sense to tell them 'its a bad idea to take easy missions' because that would imply that you have a reason that you aren't saying as to why they will later be punished for taking it too easy.

You don't have to make the decision for them whether low risk/low reward or high risk low reward or low risk high reward or whatever is desirable. It would be enough to say clearly 'this CR 5 quest comes with a roll off of the CR 5 loot table (or 'comes with rewards appropriate to CR 5'), this CR 9 quest comes with CR 9 rewards, this CR 11 quest comes with CR 7 rewards but also narrative rewards (favors owed, etc), this CR 3 quest comes with CR 7 rewards but there's something that seems off about the posting, etc. Then, see what they do.

That's an interesting idea, but its pretty much an edge case.

Like, for example, I have never seen a DMG which has alternate CR guidelines for parties who donate all of their magic items to charity and adventure in their skivvies, even though that could be a potential game type.

I mean, functionally doing so would be pretty easy, just double the cost to buy or craft items and halve the rate of experience gain; but I have never had a player suggest anything of the sort. Now, increasing the amount of treasure and XP I give out on the other hand, that is something players have asked for (but NEVER just starting at high level, they need the illusion of earning it).

[OldTrees1]

Did you read the same post I read? Because...

It looks like I confused icefractal and Gloating Swine.

Sorry about that.

However even Gloating Swine did not say "Don't homebrew". Please take the time to represent their position fully. They said

"Which is fine, if you never use homebrew monsters that mostly resemble normal monsters but are actually different with unexpected capabilities.

The issue was the subversion, not it being a homebrew.

Yes, they did not mention official monsters in that post, but that should not stop you from seeing their point is mostly about the really long qualifier. Aka their point is about the subversion.

I don't like pasta that is cover in oil from an oil/gasoline refinery. Did I say "I don't like pasta"? No.

The whole concept of a "gotcha" is a mess. In my mind, a gotcha would be a deliberate subversion, a sort of trap, like a mimic, or a nilbog, or an ear-worm, something that punishes smart play.

A surprise is just a lack of reconnaissance on the part of the players.

A gimmick fight is one where you have a different objective than just killing the other guy or where the rules of the game are skewed. I would say that pretty much anything that can grow stronger if attacked the wrong way, has broad immunities or weaknesses, can be killed in parts, summons adds, mutates over time, has life leech, exists in a magic location, or uses a magic item is probably a gimmick.

I would say the fomorian was a surprise and a gimmick, while a nilbog is both a gotcha and a gimmick. A hydra is a gimmick fight, but probably not a surprise or a gotcha. The avatar of violence could be all three on the first encounter, but once the party fell back and researched it, it should have only fallen into the third.

None of these are puzzles mind you, things with only one solution like a tarrasque that needs to be wished dead or a jabberwocky that can only be killed by a vorpal sword, or any of the 2E artifacts. Although, honestly, these are so vague they aren't really good puzzles either.

Classify it however you want. I am focusing on the impact.
What do you call a subversion due to GM failure to communicate (regardless of whether it was intentional or otherwise)?
What do you call a subversion when the players are too paranoid to respond maturely to a unexpected subversion to their disadvantage?
Instead of focusing on what the GM did. Let's focus on what the players are reacting to.

Now since you have such paranoid players, we have been suggesting you avoid provoking this response. Nobody is saying you have to stop homebrewing. Please listen to what people are saying. You can still homebrew and avoid this mistake. You can avoid homebrew and still make this mistake. Please don't misrepresent this advice as "der de der don't home brew".

If this comes across as overly harsh, I apologize. I was/am growing increasingly agitated at you truncating positions and the misunderstandings / miscommunication / unnecessary arguments that happen as a result.

[NichG]

That's an interesting idea, but its pretty much an edge case.

Like, for example, I have never seen a DMG which has alternate CR guidelines for parties who donate all of their magic items to charity and adventure in their skivvies, even though that could be a potential game type.

I mean, functionally doing so would be pretty easy, just double the cost to buy or craft items and halve the rate of experience gain; but I have never had a player suggest anything of the sort. Now, increasing the amount of treasure and XP I give out on the other hand, that is something players have asked for (but NEVER just starting at high level, they need the illusion of earning it).

Um, I think you're missing the point here. The point is not to rebalance the game around the assumption that the players will do something different. The point is to fix the game and let the players choose what they want to do, even if it unbalances the game. You don't need to do anything to the rules, just say 'here's a CR 3 mission, a CR 5 mission, a CR 9 mission, and a CR 13 mission: do what you like'. If they take the CR 3 missions as Lv9 characters, they gain almost no XP but slowly build wealth. If they decide to poke their nose just deeply enough into the CR 13 mission as a Lv5 party to grab a +4 item or two, then flee with their lives and do a bunch of easy CR 2 missions with their cool CR 13 gear, great! That's the game they decided they wanted to play.

[Talakeal]

Um, I think you're missing the point here. The point is not to rebalance the game around the assumption that the players will do something different. The point is to fix the game and let the players choose what they want to do, even if it unbalances the game. You don't need to do anything to the rules, just say 'here's a CR 3 mission, a CR 5 mission, a CR 9 mission, and a CR 13 mission: do what you like'. If they take the CR 3 missions as Lv9 characters, they gain almost no XP but slowly build wealth. If they decide to poke their nose just deeply enough into the CR 13 mission as a Lv5 party to grab a +4 item or two, then flee with their lives and do a bunch of easy CR 2 missions with their cool CR 13 gear, great! That's the game they decided they wanted to play.

The thing is, my system uses a much more simplified system for wealth and experience than D&D.

By RAW, a character who never does anything but clear the rats out of basements will level up just as fast as anyone else, and though their buying power will be very small, they will be a masterful craftsman as the system does not charge for materials and they will be able to devote near 100% of their resources to crafting, allowing them to create things far better than their adventuring ilk.

As to whether that's a problem or not, I don't know, but I feel like it lacks the feel of a guy who only sticks to the easiest jobs because he is extremely lazy / risk averse or whatever.

It looks like I confused icefractal and Gloating Swine.

Sorry about that.

However even Gloating Swine did not say "Don't homebrew". Please take the time to represent their position fully. They said

The issue was the subversion, not it being a homebrew.

Yes, they did not mention official monsters in that post, but that should not stop you from seeing their point is mostly about the really long qualifier. Aka their point is about the subversion.

I don't like pasta that is cover in oil from an oil/gasoline refinery. Did I say "I don't like pasta"? No.



Classify it however you want. I am focusing on the impact.
What do you call a subversion due to GM failure to communicate (regardless of whether it was intentional or otherwise)?
What do you call a subversion when the players are too paranoid to respond maturely to a unexpected subversion to their disadvantage?
Instead of focusing on what the GM did. Let's focus on what the players are reacting to.

Now since you have such paranoid players, we have been suggesting you avoid provoking this response. Nobody is saying you have to stop homebrewing. Please listen to what people are saying. You can still homebrew and avoid this mistake. You can avoid homebrew and still make this mistake. Please don't misrepresent this advice as "der de der don't home brew".

If this comes across as overly harsh, I apologize. I was/am growing increasingly agitated at you truncating positions and the misunderstandings / miscommunication / unnecessary arguments that happen as a result.

Not harsh, no.

Here's the thing though, I am in a unique position because I run mostly homebrew content and have very eccentric players who border on paranoid.

My players don't care about the lore or memorizing monster manuals, they legitimately don't know if I am homebrewing a monster or copying it straight out of the Monster Manual the vast majority of the time. Monsters in my game tend to be a lot more grounded than they are in D&D, where every high level creature has a laundry list of spell like abilities, heck they are significantly more limited than PC spellcasters in my own game.

Like, I opened up my 3.5 MM to a random page. I got Dragon, Gold. Gold Dragons have two breath weapons, one fire one weakening gas, can take on the form of any human or animal, breath water, receive a luck bonus to saves, can detect gems, can bless, can geas, can sunburst, can cast foresight, and cast spells as a 19th level sorcerer with access to 3 cleric domains. Can you imagine someone on the forum getting the advice that they need to somehow foreshadow all of that to the players before facing one? Its absurd, and I have certainly never seen anyone suggest it is necessary.

So all this talk about surprises and gotchas and whatnot just feels like its totally missing the point, and is pretty much a forum complaint rather than something my players actually voice, except that monster abilities are one of the many things they accuse me of fudging when they are pissed off.

It just feels like I get a lot more flak from running homebrew systems and that people think me doing so is what makes my players paranoid, and its kind of disheartening.

[NichG]

The thing is, my system uses a much more simplified system for wealth and experience than D&D.

By RAW, a character who never does anything but clear the rats out of basements will level up just as fast as anyone else, and though their buying power will be very small, they will be a masterful craftsman as the system does not charge for materials and they will be able to devote near 100% of their resources to crafting, allowing them to create things far better than their adventuring ilk.

As to whether that's a problem or not, I don't know, but I feel like it lacks the feel of a guy who only sticks to the easiest jobs because he is extremely lazy / risk averse or whatever.

The question here is determining what your players actually want and expect though, so whether it lacks a particular feel or corresponds to some system design intent on your part doesn't really factor in... Given the very explicit and not at all hidden choice (e.g. these levels are literally posted, and you commit to choosing adversaries that exactly correspond to the posted level, and loot exactly corresponds to the posted level), if the party is Lv X, and has a mission board where they have complete and total freedom to choose what mission to accept over a wide range of levels, what is the level Y of the mission they choose? You have some belief about what Y would be, and maybe if you ask them hypothetically they'd give some answer, but you don't actually know what they would do in game until they actually have the freedom to make that choice.

If they say that they want Y=X, but they always pick the Y=X-5 missions, then that says something.

[OldTrees1]

Not harsh, no.

Here's the thing though, I am in a unique position because I run mostly homebrew content and have very eccentric players who border on paranoid.

My players don't care about the lore or memorizing monster manuals, they legitimately don't know if I am homebrewing a monster or copying it straight out of the Monster Manual the vast majority of the time.

Stop, it really sounds like you are focusing on the "homebrew" and not on the "The forum listened when your players complained to you about 'how the ____ were they supposed to expect the monster could do that!!!!!' when you told us those stories".

Again, I am not trying to be harsh, but if this is you misrepresenting the free advice, AGAIN, then I will be quite frustrated.

Monsters in my game tend to be a lot more grounded than they are in D&D, where every high level creature has a laundry list of spell like abilities, heck they are significantly more limited than PC spellcasters in my own game.

Like, I opened up my 3.5 MM to a random page. I got Dragon, Gold. Gold Dragons have two breath weapons, one fire one weakening gas, can take on the form of any human or animal, breath water, receive a luck bonus to saves, can detect gems, can bless, can geas, can sunburst, can cast foresight, and cast spells as a 19th level sorcerer with access to 3 cleric domains. Can you imagine someone on the forum getting the advice that they need to somehow foreshadow all of that to the players before facing one? Its absurd, and I have certainly never seen anyone suggest it is necessary.

I fail to see how any of this is relevant. The advice is:
1) About the complaints your players had. Some random other group on the forum does not have your players with your complaints
2) About the complaints your players had. They did not complain about it being homebrew vs official. Why would it matter if Gold Dragons were official or homebrew?

This really sounds like you are not listening.

So all this talk about surprises and gotchas and whatnot just feels like its totally missing the point, and is pretty much a forum complaint rather than something my players actually voice, except that monster abilities are one of the many things they accuse me of fudging when they are pissed off.

It just feels like I get a lot more flak from running homebrew systems and that people think me doing so is what makes my players paranoid, and its kind of disheartening.

Yeah, un huh. That feeling is all your fault. You are not hearing what is being said. If you misrepresent advice then of course you will find the advice to be misrepresented.

Your players had a specific complaint. That complaint did not have to do with official vs homebrew. The forum knows you love to homebrew. So the forum translated their complaint and told you what kind of homebrew would trigger the complaint and what kind of homebrew would not trigger the complaint.

You then when and fallaciously claimed the forum was arguing against homebrew.

I find advice works better when you look at it instead of misrepresent it.
I find someone constantly misrepresenting your advice to be very frustrating.
If you are going to keep this up, then I should go away.

[GloatingSwine]

Thank you for being honest. For years I have suspected that the whole “gotcha” thing was just code for saying DMs shouldn’t be allowed to home-brew content, but everyone else always denies it.

That being said, three things:

1: It wasn’t a super anything, let alone an ogre. It was a nerfed fomorian who dealt non-lethal damage.
2: There was no home-brew at all in The game with a vampire, it was a prefab 3.5 module.
3: The issue was t that they didn't catch the clue, they did and meant to act on it, but then forgot all about it and said it was my job to remind them.

I didn't say that DM's shouldn't be allowed to homebrew. Although quite possibly you, with your players, should stay away from homebrew in the way that you seem to like doing it, which is to create unexpected outcomes and surprises.

The reasons for that are twofold but very closely related.

1. You are bad at giving enough information to your players.

2. Your players deal poorly with hidden information.

If you* are going to homebrew things, you need to be exceptionally straightforward with what the things are and can do. And you need to make it absolutely crystal clear what the things are and can do to your players before they start any fights with them. Figure out a way to present that information diagetically and reward your players for seeking it out.

Every time your players go into an encounter, they need to be going in knowing what the encounter is with and everything it can do. Make finding that out part of the game. Remember the three clue rule, don't be hesitant to prompt them with the sort of skills and resources they could be using to find the information until using those becomes second nature.

Your encounters need to include as few surprises as possible, because your players deal badly with them and you generate them inadvertently by presenting information vaguely and poorly because you think it will "ruin" the encounter. It won't, not for your players. It will make them feel like professionals at their trade because they knew what they were going to do and they did it.

(Even if you're not going to homebrew things. Like in this example the players should have, before they started the fight, been abso****inglutely sure they were fighting a doppelganger, and it's on you to put enough information in the game for them to have found that out.)



* And this is not generalised advice to DMs, this is laser focused on you and your group.

[Glorthindel]

The thing about my game is that I structure downtime actions a lot better than D&D, and reward players for having resources left over by letting them use them on downtime projects. So yeah, if the players always walked away with tons of extra resources left after a mission, they would be able to reinvest into crafting, which would improve their gear beyond the curve, which would further push them off the charts and could well create a monte-haul cycle if I am not allowed to adjust encounter difficulty or market prices to compensate, which my players do not want me to do.
I actually ran into a similar problem during the end of my last game; the players bought all the equipment they could to maximize their “one thing” and then just stopped buying anything else, which made them lag in other areas, particularly defenses, which meant they complained that every mission was too hard. And then used up all that saved money to drown the last session in consumables and make it a joke.
The end result was four overly hard missions with bitchy players, and then one overly easy mission which resulted in me being frustrated at the lack of a mechanical “climax”.

Have you considered a change to your wealth system? Seems to me a lot of your problems stems from a 'hoarding wealth' midset. Your players devote every bit of wealth towards their one big thing (even beyond where it will create any returns), and pass on any option that would spend wealth outside of that thing, because they see it as 'costing' them advancement on their one big thing.

Since you already use a 'wealth factor' system rather than counting coins, why not adjust the system to create two wealth pools; the first being like your current use (for long-term multi-adventure projects) and a secondary short-term pool, that is refilled at the conclusion of each adventure, regardless of how much of it was spend prior-to or during the adventure. Since any 'unused' short-term pool is effectively lost, it might encourage expenditure on consumables, hirelings (the things covered by your debts system, so they can purchase a few debts without incurring long-term consequences), or things that aren't part of their one big thing (since the pool gets refilled at the conclusion of each adventure, it isn't "wasting" anything to use it to shore up a weakness). Perhaps even make things spent with the short-term pool vanish after the adventure is completed to prevent them just hoarding consumables instead.

The latest version of WFRP does this (and ties it into its downtime system); and although I don't agree with how that game does it (there is no long-term pool, so the parties wealth gets drained completely prior to every adventure), I can see how the idea in principle might encourage freer spending, and less mindless hoarding.

[Quertus]

So, I'm going to go very meta here. People who hate that, or who hate long rambling posts should skip on past.

-----

Lemme tell you a story about a programmer I really loved working with. I would write really good, solid code. Then he would come along, and replace it with really pretty code that was complete trash. Then I would replace that with really solid code that matched his aesthetic.

I think The Giant had the right idea, picking the single big thing, something that affects the whole forest, and focusing on that. But I keep doing the opposite - I keep picking on the individual points, the trees. I keep doing this because I'm trying to impart a feel, I'm trying to get across, "this is what you want your decision-making to look like". It's more the "every time you try to pick something up with your left hand, I slap it with a ruler" style, rather than the "breaking your left arm and being forced to rely on your right for an extended period of time" style of learning to use your right hand.

And it's not very effective.

There's several posters whom I imagine banging their heads against their desks at how they keep trying to show me a better way to explain myself, but my brain just isn't wired to communicate that way, no matter how hard I try to ask, "how would ______ say this?". And now I'm feeling their pain, being on the opposite side, unable to explain how to look at the problem differently.

And, in that regard, there's a post I can't find (perhaps because it was in another thread) where someone asked Talakeal something to the extent of, "do you want to assign blame, or solve a problem?", that is actually striking directly at the heart of the issue.

The problem with me taking such a focused stance is that, like Talakeal's players, I'm something of a perfectionist¹. And, in this case, with good reason - I believe that, even if Talakeal gets things mostly right, even a single mistake will cause the group to meltdown, and that the results will therefore be indistinguishable to Talakeal from doing it all wrong.

To properly try to condition that, I would need to poke Talakeal every single time that they blow off other posters' concerns, misinterpret something without asking questions, focus on the wrong details… it really would be as hostile an environment as slapping hands with rulers.

So, I guess, going forward, I'm going to try to hit the bigger picture, and just hope that the individual details follow.

¹ "I used to think that I was a perfectionist, but then i realized that that wasn't [/I]quite[/I] right

-----

Talakeal, I am not a trained health professional. But reading

Two of my players are diagnosed with depression

Basically, they don't want to have to be "on" all the time

they freak out if they don't get every single objective

I structure downtime actions a lot better than D&D, and reward players for having resources left over by letting them use them on downtime projects.

I am concerned that your game is… "abusive" is the wrong word… too stressful for your players' mental health. And that their frequent meltdowns are the result of this stress. "What you did wrong right this second" is simply the excuse for letting off all the pressure you are piling on them.

I honestly don't think that your gaming style is healthy for this group. And that nothing will change unless that is fixed. This isn't an issue of your mistakes, or even of your players' maturity, but of the need to deal with all the stress that your game creates.

That's my "big picture" answer.

[Batcathat]

I am concerned that your game is… "abusive" is the wrong word… too stressful for your players' mental health. And that their frequent meltdowns are the result of this stress. "What you did wrong right this second" is simply the excuse for letting off all the pressure you are piling on them.

I honestly don't think that your gaming style is healthy for this group. And that nothing will change unless that is fixed. This isn't an issue of your mistakes, or even of your players' maturity, but of the need to deal with all the stress that your game creates.

A related possibility might be that the meltdowns are indeed a semi-random release of stress, but over other issues or life in general rather than the game. They wouldn't exactly be the first people to blow up over something unrelated due to stress or something like that.

[Quertus]

I am not opposed to Quertus' idea about showing the players my notes afterwards, although I do fear that if the players discover a mistake on my part (likely a math error or forgetting to write something down) it will backfire and only fuel their convictions that I am cheating.

Boxed text is hard. My players have a standing policy of ignoring it, and I am not sure I could find enough people willing to go through it all to make sure it can't be twisted or misinterpreted. But, I can't do boxed text for everything, what all is it needed for? How should I start?

I'm too senile to remember your words - please excuse my misuse of the word "puzzle" below.

So, as I write this, I'm seeing several kinds of encounters, which, as The Giant suggested, engage your players differently.

War Gaming

Monster stats are known up front.

Implementation: hand the stat block to the players at (or before) the start of the encounter.

Video Gaming

Like War Gaming, but Monster behaviors are formulaic, and are known up front.

Implementation: hand the stat block and behavior list to the players at (or before) the start of the encounter.

Video Game Puzzle

Like Video Gaming, where Monster behaviors are formulaic, but the fun is figuring them out.

Implementation: hand the stat block *but not* the behavior list to the players at (or before) the start of the encounter.

Realistic Mindset

The Monster bleeds, we can kill it.

Implementation: have the monster stats to hand to the players after the encounter is over.

Puzzle Monster

The challenge is in figuring out how to fight it. But you want to give clues.

Implementation: write boxed text for all the clues (follow "rule of 3" here, and drop lots of different clues, explaining the scenario from different perspectives). Hand that boxed text off to the Playground, your parents, and as many random 5-year-olds as you can get to hold still looking enough to interrogate. Ensure that everyone in your test pool can come up with *multiple* solutions, just from the boxed text. Designate one of your players to read all boxed text, and have all unlocked boxed text available online.

-----

To build trust with your players, I would encourage limiting yourself, for the next campaign (or until they ask you to add in other tools (which requires explaining this list to them - which, having that conversation is a bloody good thing in and of itself to work on trust issues)) to just "War Gaming" and "Puzzle Monsters" with boxed text.

Unless you have more cool ideas like the Doppelganger pretending to be a Vampire, which doesn't fit neatly into either. But is a perfect example for what I'm about to say.

What I really want you to do is to get into the habit of giving your players as much information as possible, as appropriately as possible. And erring on the side of too much information. And this includes, for now, explicitly telling your players which mode of thought they should be in through the different media of, "you see gnolls in the distance [hands players gnolls data sheet]" vs [hands boxed text to designated player]"the Avatar of Hate was rumored to have been bested by one Bilbo of the Shire" vs "you see strange spider-like creatures in the distance"(no handout; players hopefully have been trained (yes, training them here is a prerequisite) to go hunting for boxed text).

In this dichotomy, "the 'vampire' has a reflection" is boxed text.

So, what do you make into boxed text? Everything that the PCs could learn about any monsters (etc, but let's stick with monsters for now) that you just cannot bring yourself to simply hand the players the monster's stat sheet the moment that they encounter or hear rumor of one.

Hope this helps!

[Quertus]

A related possibility might be that the meltdowns are indeed a semi-random release of stress, but over other issues or life in general rather than the game. They wouldn't exactly be the first people to blow up over something unrelated due to stress or something like that.

This is possible. And unfortunate if true - it means that fixing the primary source of the issues is outside of Talakeal's control.

But it is, at least, a testable hypothesis: before getting locked in to another 2 years of Hell (or, perhaps, the Abyss), Talakeal could run a stand-alone adventure or two, testing out a low difficulty scenario (explicitly telling the players that he is aiming for a lowered resource attrition rate), and seeing how they react.

If the results are positive, then it's a question of rebalancing the downtime engine.

Of course, if the results of the tests say that what the players really want is to balance their own risk/reward choices, then it might not be possible (or might not be necessary?) to reconfigure the downtime engine.

So one thing this thread has had me thinking about is the combat as sport/combat as war split, because from your description, I don' think your players really want either. I think they want a third option: combat* as performance. Think of it like a concert; the whole point is for people to demonstrate their talent in these areas, and failing doesn't improve the experience. Nobody thinks a concert is enhanced by somebody's guitar breaking halfway through their solo, least of all the guitar player. So when one of your players builds a melee specialist, it's because they find the performance of being really good at melee combat enjoyable, not because they're interested in exploring the consequences of not having a bow in a world containing archers. Kiting them with an archer is, basically, deliberately cutting their strings. It isn't going to ever make the experience more enjoyable or interesting for them, whether that incidence rate is 20%, 10%, or 1%. It's just going to suck. So I suggest not doing that to them.

I'm struggling here.

On the one hand, I really like the concept; on the other hand, it doesn't fit at the same layer. It's like "green, purple, and chocolate cake" (new color name notwithstanding).

CaW and CaS are about valid responses to the same encounter - what is fair game, and what is "cheating" for the *players* to do. CaP is focused on what is fair game vs cheating for the *GM* to do.

So, while I can spoof the original "bees" example for CaW and CaS, I cannot do so similarly for CaP, as, afaict, the main question of CaP is whether they would even encounter the bees in the first place.

If they did, would it play out significantly differently than its CaW or CaS counterparts?

[Cluedrew]

CaW and CaS are about valid responses to the same encounter - what is fair game, and what is "cheating" for the *players* to do. CaP is focused on what is fair game vs cheating for the *GM* to do.

No, all four known Combat as X paradigms change how everyone at the table approaches combat GM or not.

Simple example, the GM is expected to make balanced encounters under Combat as Sport, where as in Combat as War if a single combat is unwinnable, well the challenge is figuring that out and then running away.

[Xervous]

Given my observations of casual gamers and the surge of video game features catering to various casual mindsets I do not believe Talakeal has perfectionists. I believe he has completionists. Where the perfectionist seeks and strives for the best outcomes, the modern completionist has been trained to expect they can accomplish everything just by showing up and putting in the time. This meshes with the notion of combat as performance. They’ve already announced what they expect by making a competent adventurer, and their further expectation is that they’re along for the ride.

[KorvinStarmast]

Which is why I am asking for feedback.

Letter is too long. You need to trim the heck out of it.

My intended, super blunt TLDR is: Recognize that your decisions impact the game, and that dice rolls provide uncertainty, so stop losing your mind and blaming me / the other players every time anything doesn't go your way; as long as you can work together as a team everything will come out ok.

That is your closing line. Precede it with three to five salient, related points. Otherwise all that you have written is a rant, which means you are talking at your players not to them.

OOC I am expecting this game to go like my previous games, which means it will last~2 years, and during that time there will be only 1 or 2 character deaths, one or two failed missions, zero TPKs, and the players will be about 20% ahead of the curve when it comes to wealth / reputation / success rate.

I am not sure what some of your words mean, contextually (wealth, reputation, success rate) but I have a metric that you need to consider; are they going to have fun?

To Talakeal: I have a better question: Why send this?

Indeed. In its current form it looks to me like a case of poisoning your own well.

To be kind of blunt, I don't think any open letter that you can pen will resolve this.

I agree, but perhaps for a different reason. If the play group includes some volatile players, then the tools to deal with their occasional explosions or outbursts are a thing that the group needs to discuss during session zero particularly when players new to the group are included.

If I am following, I think you may be misunderstanding what debt means in this context.

TLDR: seems overly complicated to me. Are your previous players used to this already? Have they bought into this?

One last thing: DM meta gaming, with new, never-met-before enemies explicitly targeting a PC weakness, has been called out by a few others with good reason. I'll tell you again, so that you hear it a different way. It's loaded with DM toxicity the way that you describe it.

DM's who do that consistently are in some ways violating the in-world fiction. Some enemies will learn from interacting with the PCs (if the enemies survive) and some will do a bit of recon ahead of time as the PCs grow in reputation (Who are these people? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses) but some foes will not. And NPCs can't read PC stat sheets. DMs can, but in this sense the DM is a meta construct.

As a DM, if you want some of the enemies to not 'go in cold' during their first encounter with the PCs, you need to build an internally consistent, narratively valid premise based on how the PC's play unfolds overtime to underscore which NPCs and monsters do that intel gathering on the PCs and which ones aren't in a position to.

What your letter tells them isn't that.

Lastly: this letter, as I read it, isn't about agency.
It's about being responsible for their own characters
accepting that their choices have consequences
accepting that the dice are fickle
accepting that bad luck/bad rolls will happen so please understand that losing one's cool over bad luck or a bad roll is unfun for the rest of the group.
And you do touch on the importance of teamwork

There.
I said much of what you had to say in a lot fewer words. Granted, those aren't your words, and they are a summary with a lot of the fat cut out, but I'd strongly suggest that if you intend to send a one pager you perform considerable liposuction on your prose.

So one thing this thread has had me thinking about is the combat as sport/combat as war split, because from your description, I don' think your players really want either. I think they want a third option: combat* as performance.

Love your post, thanks!

Given my observations of casual gamers and the surge of video game features catering to various casual mindsets I do not believe Talakeal has perfectionists. I believe he has completionists. Where the perfectionist seeks and strives for the best outcomes, the modern completionist has been trained to expect they can accomplish everything just by showing up and putting in the time. This meshes with the notion of combat as performance. They’ve already announced what they expect by making a competent adventurer, and their further expectation is that they’re along for the ride.

This crystalizes a few things I've seen over the years, but I didn't have the right words for it. I like how you framed that.

[Talakeal]

DM's who do that consistently are in some ways violating the in-world fiction. Some enemies will learn from interacting with the PCs (if the enemies survive) and some will do a bit of recon ahead of time as the PCs grow in reputation (Who are these people? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses) but some foes will not. And NPCs can't read PC stat sheets. DMs can, but in this sense the DM is a meta construct.

Yeah, I should add a few words in there to clarify that I am talking about in character tactics, not metagaming.

As I said up thread, in my last game I had a mage call me a cheater for having an orc decide to grapple him, and another player call me a cheater for having a dragon first engage a melee heavy party from the air, when in my mind those are just common sense on the monster's part. I am trying to increase verisimilitude by having competent warriors and predators make basic observations of their foes and react accordingly.

Lastly: this letter, as I read it, isn't about agency.
It's about being responsible for their own characters
accepting that their choices have consequences
accepting that the dice are fickle
accepting that bad luck/bad rolls will happen so please understand that losing one's cool over bad luck or a bad roll is unfun for the rest of the group.
And you do touch on the importance of teamwork

That is, indeed what I was trying to say, yes. Not sure why so many people are reading it as a boast about how many characters I am going to kill, but that wasn't my goal.

Given my observations of casual gamers and the surge of video game features catering to various casual mindsets I do not believe Talakeal has perfectionists. I believe he has completionists. Where the perfectionist seeks and strives for the best outcomes, the modern completionist has been trained to expect they can accomplish everything just by showing up and putting in the time. This meshes with the notion of combat as performance. They’ve already announced what they expect by making a competent adventurer, and their further expectation is that they’re along for the ride.

Hard disagree.

My players would much rather abandon the mission and return to town leaving half the dungeon unexplored if they think there is even a chance it will cost them more gold to complete the mission than they will recover from it.

To me that reeks of perfection but not completion.

Have you considered a change to your wealth system? Seems to me a lot of your problems stems from a 'hoarding wealth' midset. Your players devote every bit of wealth towards their one big thing (even beyond where it will create any returns), and pass on any option that would spend wealth outside of that thing, because they see it as 'costing' them advancement on their one big thing.

Since you already use a 'wealth factor' system rather than counting coins, why not adjust the system to create two wealth pools; the first being like your current use (for long-term multi-adventure projects) and a secondary short-term pool, that is refilled at the conclusion of each adventure, regardless of how much of it was spend prior-to or during the adventure. Since any 'unused' short-term pool is effectively lost, it might encourage expenditure on consumables, hirelings (the things covered by your debts system, so they can purchase a few debts without incurring long-term consequences), or things that aren't part of their one big thing (since the pool gets refilled at the conclusion of each adventure, it isn't "wasting" anything to use it to shore up a weakness). Perhaps even make things spent with the short-term pool vanish after the adventure is completed to prevent them just hoarding consumables instead.

The latest version of WFRP does this (and ties it into its downtime system); and although I don't agree with how that game does it (there is no long-term pool, so the parties wealth gets drained completely prior to every adventure), I can see how the idea in principle might encourage freer spending, and less mindless hoarding.

Yes.

Players absolutely hated the lack of control and felt that it was unrealistic that they couldn't hoard their money.

I am curious to see how WHFRP handled it.

Stop, it really sounds like you are focusing on the "homebrew" and not on the "The forum listened when your players complained to you about 'how the ____ were they supposed to expect the monster could do that!!!!!' when you told us those stories".

Again, I am not trying to be harsh, but if this is you misrepresenting the free advice, AGAIN, then I will be quite frustrated.

I fail to see how any of this is relevant. The advice is:
1) About the complaints your players had. Some random other group on the forum does not have your players with your complaints
2) About the complaints your players had. They did not complain about it being homebrew vs official. Why would it matter if Gold Dragons were official or homebrew?

This really sounds like you are not listening.

Yeah, un huh. That feeling is all your fault. You are not hearing what is being said. If you misrepresent advice then of course you will find the advice to be misrepresented.

Your players had a specific complaint. That complaint did not have to do with official vs homebrew. The forum knows you love to homebrew. So the forum translated their complaint and told you what kind of homebrew would trigger the complaint and what kind of homebrew would not trigger the complaint.

You then when and fallaciously claimed the forum was arguing against homebrew.

I find advice works better when you look at it instead of misrepresent it.
I find someone constantly misrepresenting your advice to be very frustrating.
If you are going to keep this up, then I should go away.

These conversations are going nowhere.

I have had multiple people telling me that any miscommunication that happens on the forum or at the table is my fault, which is absolutely ridiculous. I am not going to claim that I am great at communication, but even if both people are acting in good faith, miscommunication happens all the time on both people's parts; just watch a news pundit summarize something a politician said if you want to see it in action.

If I misunderstand something, I am "not listening" but if someone else misunderstands something I am "not giving enough information," at least if the person I am talking to is being nice, oftentimes they just accuse me of exaggerating, misleading them, or outright lying.


Like, you said my players had a specific complaint. Which complaint was that?

I have said dozens of times that my players got what I was trying to say, and then either forgot what was said or outright ignored me because they assumed I was trying to trick them. And I have one player, who actively prides himself on not caring about the game's lore, who assumes I am just making up monster abilities on the fly anytime they counter his tactics, even when nothing of the sort is happening (for example, he hears making a saving throw and escaping cooling magma before it hardens as me giving the monster the ability to turn incorporeal and phase through solid rock). That goes way beyond "bad at communication" or "lack of foreshadowing".

[Chauncymancer]

Like, for example, I have never seen a DMG which has alternate CR guidelines for parties who donate all of their magic items to charity and adventure in their skivvies, even though that could be a potential game type.

Book of Exalted Deeds does mention the possibility. I believe Complete Warrior also spent some time discussing an ultra low funds game, but in the form of you not giving them anything to begin with.

Like, I opened up my 3.5 MM to a random page. I got Dragon, Gold. Gold Dragons have two breath weapons, one fire one weakening gas, can take on the form of any human or animal, breath water, receive a luck bonus to saves, can detect gems, can bless, can geas, can sunburst, can cast foresight, and cast spells as a 19th level sorcerer with access to 3 cleric domains. Can you imagine someone on the forum getting the advice that they need to somehow foreshadow all of that to the players before facing one?

If I was running for a group of players who had never experienced a 3.X dragon before, I would definitely think that at least those elements I underlined would need to be foreshadowed ahead of time.

[KorvinStarmast]

As I said up thread, in my last game I had a mage call me a cheater for having an orc decide to grapple him, and another player call me a cheater for having a dragon first engage a melee heavy party from the air, when in my mind those are just common sense on the monster's part. I am trying to increase verisimilitude by having competent warriors and predators make basic observations of their foes and react accordingly.

Most DMs do something similar, with flying creatures. If a player calls me, the GM/DM, a cheater when I have an NPC or monster do something rational, I may

tell them to get a clue,
ask them why they felt it is somehow 'cheating'
point to the door and tell them "I don't get paid to take that from you, good night, come back when you are ready to behave like a decent person"

It really depends on the situation. It also depends on the feedback from the other players.

That is, indeed what I was trying to say, yes. Not sure why so many people are reading it as a boast about how many characters I am going to kill, but that wasn't my goal.

Then I'll, once again, recommend that you go back to this proposed letter, perform the previously suggested liposuction, and say it with a lot fewer words and focus on those points.

Hard disagree.
My players would much rather abandon the mission and return to town leaving half the dungeon unexplored if they think there is even a chance it will cost them more gold to complete the mission than they will recover from it.

This passage illustrates to me that I don't understand a lot of your homebrewed system, and how wealth/points/value is implemented. With that, I wish you best of luck in having a productive conversation with your players next time. And maybe not send the letter at all. Just go over those points in person, again, and listen to their responses.

[Batcathat]

If I was running for a group of players who had never experienced a 3.X dragon before, I would definitely think that at least those elements I underlined would need to be foreshadowed ahead of time.

Personally, I wouldn't necessarily feel like such abilities needed to be foreshadowed but rather that the players won't be completely screwed by their ignorance. A fight turning against the party because they aren't aware that a dragon can cast spells and are forced to flee would be fine by me (whether I was GM or player), the party getting TPK'd under the same circumstances would be understandable grounds to be upset with the GM.

[OldTrees1]

These conversations are going nowhere.

I have had multiple people telling me that any miscommunication that happens on the forum or at the table is my fault, which is absolutely ridiculous. I am not going to claim that I am great at communication, but even if both people are acting in good faith, miscommunication happens all the time on both people's parts; just watch a news pundit summarize something a politician said if you want to see it in action.

If I misunderstand something, I am "not listening" but if someone else misunderstands something I am "not giving enough information," at least if the person I am talking to is being nice, oftentimes they just accuse me of exaggerating, misleading them, or outright lying.


Like, you said my players had a specific complaint. Which complaint was that?

I have said dozens of times that my players got what I was trying to say, and then either forgot what was said or outright ignored me because they assumed I was trying to trick them. And I have one player, who actively prides himself on not caring about the game's lore, who assumes I am just making up monster abilities on the fly anytime they counter his tactics, even when nothing of the sort is happening (for example, he hears making a saving throw and escaping cooling magma before it hardens as me giving the monster the ability to turn incorporeal and phase through solid rock). That goes way beyond "bad at communication" or "lack of foreshadowing".

Talakeal,
If someone says "Subject Verb Object when Condition" and you decide they said "Subject Verb Object". That is an unforced error on your part.

If someone corrects your misrepresentation and says they said "Subject Verb Object when Condition" with an emphasis on the qualifier being the significant factor, and you insist they only mean "Subject Verb Object". Then you are doubling down on an unforced error.

Yes miscommunication can happen, however a good faith response would be to listen to the correction rather than double down on the unforced error.

Your player had a specific criticism about you "making up the big nose gust of wind ability" and several other examples where they objected to what appeared to be a sudden railroading fudged ability. With the added information from your account the forum learned that the giant already had that ability, but the PC had no way of knowing about it. So the forum suggested you avoid causing this problem in the future.

You decided "oh the forum really just hates homebrew". This is clearly false and unrelated. However despite numerous corrections trying to clear up the miscommunication, you continue to insist this false narrative.


You are right. This is getting nowhere. I like Pasta. I don't like Pasta covered in Tar. Therefore Talakeal will claim I made a contradiction and actually don't like Pasta. Maybe things will be better in the future. Goodbye for now.

[Talakeal]

Talakeal,
If someone says "Subject Verb Object when Condition" and you decide they said "Subject Verb Object". That is an unforced error on your part.

If someone corrects your misrepresentation and says they said "Subject Verb Object when Condition" with an emphasis on the qualifier being the significant factor, and you insist they only mean "Subject Verb Object". Then you are doubling down on an unforced error.

Yes miscommunication can happen, however a good faith response would be to listen to the correction rather than double down on the unforced error.

Your player had a specific criticism about you "making up the big nose gust of wind ability" and several other examples where they objected to what appeared to be a sudden railroading fudged ability. With the added information from your account the forum learned that the giant already had that ability, but the PC had no way of knowing about it. So the forum suggested you avoid causing this problem in the future.

You decided "oh the forum really just hates homebrew". This is clearly false and unrelated. However despite numerous corrections trying to clear up the miscommunication, you continue to insist this false narrative.


You are right. This is getting nowhere. I like Pasta. I don't like Pasta covered in Tar. Therefore Talakeal will claim I made a contradiction and actually don't like Pasta. Maybe things will be better in the future. Goodbye for now.

I am sorry if I am coming across as unreasonable. I am in a really stressful place in my life right now, and starting a new campaign and having people dog-piling me about miscommunications in three concurrent threads it not helping.

I am not saying people really mean that they hate home-brew, what I am saying is that I feel people have un-examined biases against homebrew that is coloring their advice. Like, if I bring a girl home who is a member of a group my mother doesn't like, she will find all sorts of reasons why she doesn't like the girl as a person, but I will suspect all of these complaints are subconsciously colored by her prejudice.

But yeah, fighting about who was at fault in two year old stories and minutia of internet communication is just getting me stressed out and not helping, but I still value your feedback on the whole.



Although I really, really, do not like this new trend my players are showing of taking something I have said in the past, telling it to a third party in a grossly distorted manner to make me look like a hypocrite or a liar, and then laughing at me. If this continues, I may well actually start giving players the boot.

[icefractal]

The thing is, my system uses a much more simplified system for wealth and experience than D&D.

By RAW, a character who never does anything but clear the rats out of basements will level up just as fast as anyone else, and though their buying power will be very small, they will be a masterful craftsman as the system does not charge for materials and they will be able to devote near 100% of their resources to crafting, allowing them to create things far better than their adventuring ilk.

Somewhat tangential, but I find this confusing in the context of something you said earlier.

Previously, you mentioned that the party could seek out primarily "low risk, low reward" missions, but that you wouldn't recommend it because they'd get behind the curve that way and struggle later.

But if they level up just as fast, and can make up for the lesser rewards with greater crafting, that doesn't seem to be true? Do you actually mean you don't recommend it because it's too good an option? With your current players I definitely wouldn't rely on "gentlemen's agreements", but rather change the system if necessary.

[Talakeal]

Somewhat tangential, but I find this confusing in the context of something you said earlier.

Previously, you mentioned that the party could seek out primarily "low risk, low reward" missions, but that you wouldn't recommend it because they'd get behind the curve that way and struggle later.

But if they level up just as fast, and can make up for the lesser rewards with greater crafting, that doesn't seem to be true? Do you actually mean you don't recommend it because it's too good an option? With your current players I definitely wouldn't rely on "gentlemen's agreements", but rather change the system if necessary.

Challenge in the game assumes average wealth by level.

Frequent Easy missions will result in a character with lower wealth than their level would indicate.

From a verisimilitude perspective, it doesn’t make sense that a risk averse un-ambitious adventurer who sticks to low level challenges for his whole career would ever develop the skills to become a high level character or be able to afford the materials to craft high end items.

Most DMs do something similar, with flying creatures. If a player calls me, the GM/DM, a cheater when I have an NPC or monster do something rational, I may

tell them to get a clue,
ask them why they felt it is somehow 'cheating'
point to the door and tell them "I don't get paid to take that from you, good night, come back when you are ready to behave like a decent person"

It really depends on the situation. It also depends on the feedback from the other players.
Then I'll, once again, recommend that you go back to this proposed letter, perform the previously suggested liposuction, and say it with a lot fewer words and focus on those points.
This passage illustrates to me that I don't understand a lot of your homebrewed system, and how wealth/points/value is implemented. With that, I wish you best of luck in having a productive conversation with your players next time. And maybe not send the letter at all. Just go over those points in person, again, and listen to their responses.

Basically, if it looks like the players will need to use potions or other consumables to win out, they will just say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, keep their consumables, and abandon whatever treasure is left in the dungeon.

[KorvinStarmast]

Basically, if it looks like the players will need to use potions or other consumables to win out, they will just say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, keep their consumables, and abandon whatever treasure is left in the dungeon.

Consumables are a curious thing. A lot of parties (to include one where I am a player) seem to have the darnedest time deciding to use a consumable. (Except for healing potions)
Recently, I finally used a bead of force just to remind the other players that we each had one. (We found some in a dragon hoard months ago, and it ended up being one for each party member). I wanted them to see what it could do. None of them really understood what the use was. (Handy as heck if the enemy fails the dex save)

Our dwarf has never blown his horn of valhalla
Our wizard has never, in a year and a half of play, blown his custom horn of 'summoning aid' that the DM custom made for our group.

I could go on, but the hording of consumables is also evident in some of the other groups that I play in.
In other words, you players aren't alone when it comes to their attachment to consumables.

[Quertus]

No, all four known Combat as X paradigms change how everyone at the table approaches combat GM or not.

Simple example, the GM is expected to make balanced encounters under Combat as Sport, where as in Combat as War if a single combat is unwinnable, well the challenge is figuring that out and then running away.

Touché. Indeed, as a CaW GM, I try and make sure that my players know that it's on them to survive - which is a far cry from the obligation to craft sporting encounters. I mistook the map for the territory (in this case, the "bees" example for the whole of the idea).

So… in CaP, is the onus on the GM to make encounters that allow *anyone* to show off, to allow *these characters* to show off, or to follow through on actions in such a way that they can show off? Where "show off" is defined as "showcase what makes their PC who they are".

Which *still* feels like it's hitting at a different angel, like I could add it (or not) as a tag to either a CaW or CaS game, not as a mutually exclusive radio button list. So… am I still lost?

Hard disagree.

My players would much rather abandon the mission and return to town leaving half the dungeon unexplored if they think there is even a chance it will cost them more gold to complete the mission than they will recover from it.

To me that reeks of perfection but not completion.

That sounds casual ("I'm here, pay me") rather than hard core ("driven to be the best of the best"). Much like the original definitions did.

Personally, I wouldn't necessarily feel like such abilities needed to be foreshadowed but rather that the players won't be completely screwed by their ignorance. A fight turning against the party because they aren't aware that a dragon can cast spells and are forced to flee would be fine by me (whether I was GM or player), the party getting TPK'd under the same circumstances would be understandable grounds to be upset with the GM.

There's a fancy word / phrase for this - something like "outcome-based ethics" - where the exact same action is good or bad is based on a roll of the die / what the final outcome turned out to be.

I'm not sure that I would want to judge the GM's actions by how our party faired. Why would you?

I am sorry if I am coming across as unreasonable. I am in a really stressful place in my life right now, and starting a new campaign and having people dog-piling me about miscommunications in three concurrent threads it not helping.

I am not saying people really mean that they hate home-brew, what I am saying is that I feel people have un-examined biases against homebrew that is coloring their advice.

For the record, I'm a fan of homebrew. I mean, I'm a fan of most things done right - and your doppelganger pretending to be a Vampire is an example of you doing something *very* right, IMO, even if it isn't homebrew - but good homebrew is just really cool. Still, I'm not sure homebrew - as awesome as yours sounds to my ears - is necessarily the right answer for your players, *especially* while certain other problems loom large.

Speaking of, "communication" seems a really big problem in many of your stories and some of your threads - and *one* of your 3(?) current threads (this one, in fact) is all about communication (and, IMO, is *astoundingly* rife with miscommunication from the very first post (which you already knew, because your sane player *told you* what your letter communicated before you even made the thread)).

So I think that everyone dog piling on "communication" *should* help. I think advice on communication is very much something that you need to hear. Why isn't it helping?

Challenge in the game assumes average wealth by level.

Frequent Easy missions will result in a character with lower wealth than their level would indicate.

From a verisimilitude perspective, it doesn’t make sense that a risk averse un-ambitious adventurer who sticks to low level challenges for his whole career would ever develop the skills to become a high level character or be able to afford the materials to craft high end items.

I'm not following. If a group sticks to easier missions, 1) they will earn less gold and XP per mission [fair]; 2) they will earn proportionally less gold than XP [property of your system?]; 3) and will therefore 3a) be outfitted poorly for their level, and thus 3b) be weak for their level, and therefore 3c) be Incentivized to *continue* choosing missions easier than their level would indicate.

However, *assuming* that skill is based on level, they *will* develop the skills of a high level character - which is actually much more realistic to level slowly through extended repetition of the basics than to do so quickly by slaying a Dragon.

Basically, if it looks like the players will need to use potions or other consumables to win out, they will just say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, keep their consumables, and abandon whatever treasure is left in the dungeon.

in a realistic game, they're probably right - those extra coins aren't worth their life. And, in your system, even left over spell slots are fungible assets that must be weighed against the value of continuing. And you've just said in your letter that you won't be keeping them unrealistically alive, so now they're even *more* Incentivized to leave things half finished. Their behavior sounds pretty reasonable in such a context.

EDIT:

the hording of consumables is also evident in some of the other groups that I play in.
In other words, you players aren't alone when it comes to their attachment to consumables.

In one game, my Cleric character got 2 custom items: one was a morphic weapon, the other was a very curious Necklace of Prayer Beads. The Necklace had 20 Beads, which a) were each single-use; b) rolled randomly at the time of use for their effect. Yeah, I saved that for a rainy day (the Cleric summoned his deity while the party was fighting *another* deity. Good times.).

IME, in general, outside a Wand of Lesser Vigor in 3e, players will hoard consumables until "the right moment", and be much happier to end the campaign with the consumable unused than to feel that they "wasted" it. Regardless of whether consumables are fungible / purchasable in the system or not.

[Talakeal]

Speaking of, "communication" seems a really big problem in many of your stories and some of your threads - and *one* of your 3(?) current threads (this one, in fact) is all about communication (and, IMO, is *astoundingly* rife with miscommunication from the very first post (which you already knew, because your sane player *told you* what your letter communicated before you even made the thread)).

So I think that everyone dog piling on "communication" *should* help. I think advice on communication is very much something that you need to hear. Why isn't it helping?

Well, I tend to get defensive and shutdown when people start using absolute language trying assign blame or tell someone they are objectively wrong. I find conversations where people acknowledge that mistakes were made and are trying to find a solution without assigning blame or trying to negate the other person much more productive.

I was thinking about that the other day, about how phrasing and trying to assign blame makes issues worse. For example, if my player came to me and said "the game is too hard because you are really good at tactics," I would be a lot more open to that than their current strategy of "the game is too hard because you are really bad at balancing encounters," more or less the same thing, but one gets me in defense mode the other does not.

And, funny story, I showed the player my letter again and asked him what part exactly made him think it was me boasting about killing characters, he reread it and said nothing, he was just reading it in that way because last week, when everyone told me their intention to play evil characters, I mentioned something about how I am not going to pull my punches, and if they can't learn to work as a team they will likely all die together, thus it is in even the selfish evil character's best interest not to betray their party.

I'm not following. If a group sticks to easier missions, 1) they will earn less gold and XP per mission [fair]; 2) they will earn proportionally less gold than XP [property of your system?]; 3) and will therefore 3a) be outfitted poorly for their level, and thus 3b) be weak for their level, and therefore 3c) be Incentivized to *continue* choosing missions easier than their level would indicate.

My system actually gives a flat amount of XP per session. So someone who only does easy (or hard) missions is going to be in a wierd place on the wealth curve compared to their level. Which is not an insurmountable fix, its just not something the printed challenge guidelines assume.

However, *assuming* that skill is based on level, they *will* develop the skills of a high level character - which is actually much more realistic to level slowly through extended repetition of the basics than to do so quickly by slaying a Dragon.

IMO truly great people need to push themselves. People who are content to just be good enough rarely become the top of their fields. Of course, in real life long hours and training and genetics have more to do with that than constantly escalating challenges.

in a realistic game, they're probably right - those extra coins aren't worth their life. And, in your system, even left over spell slots are fungible assets that must be weighed against the value of continuing. And you've just said in your letter that you won't be keeping them unrealistically alive, so now they're even *more* Incentivized to leave things half finished. Their behavior sounds pretty reasonable in such a context.

Fortune favors the bold. It might be safer, but you aren't going to ever change the world by not taking risks, and the experience you get from finishing the mission far outweighs the gold.

But OOC we came to have adventures, and if I prep six hours worth of material and you only want to go do two hours and then go to town, that's a lot of wasted prep-time and unused game time.

And, regardless of logic, it still doesn't speak to a completionist mindset, which was my original point.