Getting players to recognize their own agency

[Quertus]

For sure.

I have always thought that is one of the reasons I have such trouble finding new players, I have to sell myself to them as a DM and as a person as well as sell them on my system. Lots of people like one or two, very few all three.

Yes and no.

Yes, not everyone enjoys being a tester. And some very few people still are gung-ho about official content, even outside sanctioned play.

But you only really need to sell yourself as a GM. Someone who's done that? Sure, I'll help them play test their system.

In these forums, to me, you have sold yourself as a GM on the strength of your encounter design. Which is why I know that, if you lived close by, I'd want to try and join your games. (Granted, from some of these same posts, I fear that I may find the environment too toxic for my tastes, but I don't *know* that, so, while I might not want to sign a 5-year contract, your encounter design definitely makes it worth my while to investigate the group.)

The easy way to sell yourself as a GM is to run games - one-shots at local hobby stores, "game day" events, short adventures, etc. Then you can broach the topic of, "so, I've got this homebrew system I'd like to test…" and/or "I've got a group…".

[Satinavian]

For sure.

I have always thought that is one of the reasons I have such trouble finding new players, I have to sell myself to them as a DM and as a person as well as sell them on my system. Lots of people like one or two, very few all three.

Well, yes.

I would be quite hesitent to trust a GM i don't know who wants to run his special homebrew system i also don't know at a table i don't know as well.


Join groups without Brian and Bob. When you get to know fellow players that share your idea of a good game, tell them you would like to GM a campaign and have a system for it.

Or find players for a new group (without Brian and Bob) with a popular system, run one or two campaign with it for them and when it works well, tell them about your howmbrew system you would like to run.

You might also reconsider to do gaming via sky, dicord, roll20 and the like. You always complained ybout lack of players in your local area and after the pandemic, a significant portion of roleplayers have gotten comfortable with those tools. I know it is not your preferred way, but when you otherwise are stuck with Bob and Brian and whoever those bring along, your cahances for a regular good group are slim.

[Vahnavoi]

The easy way to sell yourself as a GM is to run games - one-shots at local hobby stores, "game day" events, short adventures, etc. Then you can broach the topic of, "so, I've got this homebrew system I'd like to test…" and/or "I've got a group…".

Or you can just skip the middle step and run public playtest at a convention or club.

[Quertus]

Or you can just skip the middle step and run public playtest at a convention or club.

Sure, but… several of my friends have had difficulty "selling themselves" on all those fronts simultaneously, convincing people to take that many leaps of faith simultaneously.

You know, kind of like what Talakeal was describing.

[Talakeal]

So, as I mentioned, when I showed the player my letter again, he was unable to find what he interpreted as a boast about killing characters. He told me that he must have been reading the letter while still mad about what I told the group the previous day was something like "Its fine if you all want to play evil characters, but keep in mind that you need to work together to survive so it is in your own best interest not to betray your own party".


As for the letter itself, I am thinking it would work better if presented as an in character tip sheet to help players learn the game. A lot of people seem to be reading it as overbearing and controlling rather than as helpful, and that might work to change the tone?



Still need to figure out a way to convey that there is uncertainty involved in any dice game and that a weakness you chose coming up in play does not mean I am picking on you, and that people need to be more mature in general.

Honestly, get yourself out of the business of determining difficulty. Especially if you're theoretically giving players agency.

Present a world. Let them choose what to do. If they want to be level 20s beating up kobolds? So be it, but then they get crap rewards and probably no xp. If they want to go fight a dragon at level 1? So be it, but then they get roasted. (Of course, give them sufficient info that they can't claim you were tricking them).

If they know there's a kobold forest, and an orc cave, and an ogre mountain (in increasing order of difficulty, ish), let them decide where they want to go, and what level of risk they are comfortable with. Make sure you deliver them more-or-less what is promised (there can be some encounters of higher difficulty, but they should be telegraphed or avoidable). And then let them make and live with their decisions.

My players have explicitly told me they do not want this.

And, as I mentioned in the other thread, nobody really likes sandbox style play as it requires a ton of work upfront on everyone's part and the lack of a pacing mechanic screws with game balance in all sorts of ways.

You might also reconsider to do gaming via sky, discord, roll20 and the like. You always complained about lack of players in your local area and after the pandemic, a significant portion of role-players have gotten comfortable with those tools. I know it is not your preferred way, but when you otherwise are stuck with Bob and Brian and whoever those bring along, your chances for a regular good group are slim.

I am in an online game right now. Playing online is still terrible.

Also, its not just about home-brew systems, its honestly really hard to find players for anything that isn't D&D or Pathfinder, even really popular systems like World of Darkness.

Heck, in my current group the DM wanted to try doing a Call of Cthulhu one shot and half the players walked over it.

Or you can just skip the middle step and run public playtest at a convention or club.

I have ran several one shots at conventions, but it doesn't really serve much of a purpose.

The game is still to far away from publication to generate hype, but too far along in development for a casual four hour playtest to reveal many issues, and one-shots don't really scratch my itch for running a game for fun.

[NichG]

So, as I mentioned, when I showed the player my letter again, he was unable to find what he interpreted as a boast about killing characters. He told me that he must have been reading the letter while still mad about what I told the group the previous day was something like "Its fine if you all want to play evil characters, but keep in mind that you need to work together to survive so it is in your own best interest not to betray your own party".

As for the letter itself, I am thinking it would work better if presented as an in character tip sheet to help players learn the game. A lot of people seem to be reading it as overbearing and controlling rather than as helpful, and that might work to change the tone?


Still need to figure out a way to convey that there is uncertainty involved in any dice game and that a weakness you chose coming up in play does not mean I am picking on you, and that people need to be more mature in general.

Is there a particular reason you're wedded to the original text of the letter such that rather than change the text you'd rather just wrap it differently? You made a thread to get the forum to workshop this with you and you've received a lot of feedback on how to change it. In particular, the advice that the short paragraph of intro you gave motivating the letter makes for a much better letter than the exhaustive list reminding players of all the ways that they might fail or suffer or screw up.

[Talakeal]

Is there a particular reason you're wedded to the original text of the letter such that rather than change the text you'd rather just wrap it differently? You made a thread to get the forum to workshop this with you and you've received a lot of feedback on how to change it. In particular, the advice that the short paragraph of intro you gave motivating the letter makes for a much better letter than the exhaustive list reminding players of all the ways that they might fail or suffer or screw up.

Not wedded to the text at all, in fact I have given up on the letter entirely and am looking for better ways to convey the information.

This is still one of those cases where I feel like I am living in the regular world and you guys are in Bizarro world though, that the idea of presenting hints and advice comes across as reminding people of all the ways they might fail.

[NichG]

Not wedded to the text at all, in fact I have given up on the letter entirely and am looking for better ways to convey the information.

This is still one of those cases where I feel like I am living in the regular world and you guys are in Bizarro world though, that the idea of presenting hints and advice comes across as reminding people of all the ways they might fail.

You used terms like 'ruthless', said you expected all resources to be used up, 'if you blame me we'll be on edge and it will make it worse next time', etc, so it's more than just hints and advice. Similarly there's a lot of 'if you screw up it's your fault' woven in.

E.g. you said 'if you pick a weakness, expect for it to matter' which is 'I'm gonna get ya!' rather than something more neutral like 'the campaign I intend to run contains enemies who think tactically including selective targeting and focus fire, poison-users, things which have mental attacks and domination effects, grapplers, etc. So you might want to be aware and plan for it.'

[The Glyphstone]

That does sound good. Maybe with an addendum along the lines of outright stating, "Well rounded defenses are better than one trick ponies or glass cannons. While I won't deliberately single your weaknesses out, I will used varied enemies with different types of attacks, and eventually someone will throw rock to your scissors." Its not vindictive GMing, just the inevitability of averages.

[NichG]

That does sound good. Maybe with an addendum along the lines of outright stating, "Well rounded defenses are better than one trick ponies or glass cannons. While I won't deliberately single your weaknesses out, I will used varied enemies with different types of attacks, and eventually someone will throw rock to your scissors." Its not vindictive GMing, just the inevitability of averages.

I tried to avoid active or overly predictive speech there, or expressing preference about a player's choice of style of play or build, because that could come across as condescending with this group. Also its dangerous if indeed the correct kind of glass cannon or one trick pony actually ends up being a more optimal choice (or even just if a particular player/style pulls it off), then it sounds like trying to dissuade players from running characters the GM doesn't want to deal with rather than actually being honest and direct information about the campaign contents being provided.

[Quertus]

Not wedded to the text at all, in fact I have given up on the letter entirely and am looking for better ways to convey the information.

This is still one of those cases where I feel like I am living in the regular world and you guys are in Bizarro world though, that the idea of presenting hints and advice comes across as reminding people of all the ways they might fail.

Really?

Your character is yours to build, but understand that in doing so you are making decisions which have consequences.

Overly specializing means you excel in one area, but may be useless and bored when that area isn’t relevant.

Likewise, a character who foregoes defense for offense may find themselves incapacitated too often to make use of their strengths, while one who foregoes offense for more defense might simply be ignored in favor of softer targets and contributing little.

If you have a low strength, expect to be tripped or grappled; if you have no ranged weapon, expect to be kited; if you have no armor, expect to take a lot of damage, if you have low fortitude expect poison to be a problem, and if you have low resolve expect to fall prey to mind control or magic when it shows up.

That looks like… around a dozen ways to fail. And no positive hints.

But that's nowhere *near* the biggest problem with the letter.

Others have given you numerous very reasonable breakdowns of your letter. You really haven't indicated that you've taken them to heart.

Back in 2019, it was your post that preceded me making my spoof of the origin of CaW vs CaS. So you probably have a good notion of what frequencies I communicate on.

I've avoided doing so thus far, but… would you *like* me to dissect your letter? Spoof it? Make suggestions about what you seem to be after, and how to get it?

I don't think that any of these responses is… likely to add to your happiness. But that letter was *really bad*. To the point where I think most people are being *kind* in their depictions of it.

So, if there's a technique that I'm capable of, to help explain to you why i think that it's so bad, that you're willing to listen to, let me know. Otherwise, I'll continue ignoring the letter as much as possible. But

Not wedded to the text at all, in fact I have given up on the letter entirely and am looking for better ways to convey the information.

This is still one of those cases where I feel like I am living in the regular world and you guys are in Bizarro world though, that the idea of presenting hints and advice comes across as reminding people of all the ways they might fail.

I'm not sure if you're ready to hear what would be *good* to communicate until you understand what was *bad* about your previous attempt.

Or maybe that's just the limits of *my* skill at communication. But I know that *I* cannot explain to you what would be good without impressing upon you why it was good and properly explaining just how bad other ideas are any more than I could ever succeed to explain that the origin of CaW vs CaS was biased without going full spoof on its proponents.

So, your call. Would you *like* me to roast your letter? Or should I stick to advice for testing, like my "5-point plan"?

How can I best help you here?

[Talakeal]

Really?

I think I failed to get across what I was saying to NichG as strongly as I meant.

I have completely deleted the original letter and have started writing something from the ground up that is going to be phrased as in character tips rather than an OOC lecture.

That looks like… around a dozen ways to fail. And no positive hints.

Again, that part is not about failure or success, but rather how one looks at the game.

There are plenty of positive words in there like "excel" and "strengths".

The idea I am trying to get across is that decisions you make will not be good or bad in the long run, but merely ways to express your character. Some choices might be situationally better or worse, but they will even out in the end.

For example; high fortitude guy is great this week fighting the poisonous spiders, and high will save is great next week when fighting the illithids. But in the end, they both excelled in one session and failed in the other, and both made the choice of "high fort" vs "high will" matter and illustrated the character that you chose to play.

But that's nowhere *near* the biggest problem with the letter.

Others have given you numerous very reasonable breakdowns of your letter. You really haven't indicated that you've taken them to heart.

I've avoided doing so thus far, but… would you *like* me to dissect your letter? Spoof it? Make suggestions about what you seem to be after, and how to get it?

I don't think that any of these responses is… likely to add to your happiness. But that letter was *really bad*. To the point where I think most people are being *kind* in their depictions of it.

So, if there's a technique that I'm capable of, to help explain to you why i think that it's so bad, that you're willing to listen to, let me know. Otherwise, I'll continue ignoring the letter as much as possible. But


I'm not sure if you're ready to hear what would be *good* to communicate until you understand what was *bad* about your previous attempt.

Or maybe that's just the limits of *my* skill at communication. But I know that *I* cannot explain to you what would be good without impressing upon you why it was good and properly explaining just how bad other ideas are any more than I could ever succeed to explain that the origin of CaW vs CaS was biased without going full spoof on its proponents.

So, your call. Would you *like* me to roast your letter? Or should I stick to advice for testing, like my "5-point plan"?

How can I best help you here?

If you like, but I am really not seeing these reasonable breakdowns.

I am seeing plenty of ways that people going into it with a bias could interpret certain phrases out of context, but nothing really reasonable.

For example, a lot of people saying I will make encounters to target characters, even though I explicitly say I will use a wide variety of encounters, some of which will end up playing into your strengths and others your weaknesses. Likewise, people say that I am going to meta-game, even though I explicitly say that enemies will only use the abilities that are at their disposal or when they show up (although I guess one could stretch "smart" to mean metagaming if they were being really uncharitable).

But, as I already said, I am not going to use the initial letter anymore, so going over the specific wording to point out fault would just be an argument over linguistic deconstruction.

That does sound good. Maybe with an addendum along the lines of outright stating, "Well rounded defenses are better than one trick ponies or glass cannons. While I won't deliberately single your weaknesses out, I will used varied enemies with different types of attacks, and eventually someone will throw rock to your scissors." Its not vindictive GMing, just the inevitability of averages.

Yes, that is a very close reading to what I was trying to say.

But, its actually a bit harsher; because well rounded defenses are not "better" than one trick ponies or glass cannons, they are just different.

The main thrust is that there are no right or wrong choices, just various good and bad aspects which will all come up sometimes and be irrelevant other times and even out in the end; thus allowing you to play the character you chose by having the characteristics you selected actually matter and determine what they succeed at and what they fail at.

You used terms like 'ruthless', said you expected all resources to be used up, 'if you blame me we'll be on edge and it will make it worse next time', etc, so it's more than just hints and advice. Similarly there's a lot of 'if you screw up it's your fault' woven in.

E.g. you said 'if you pick a weakness, expect for it to matter' which is 'I'm gonna get ya!'

I agree ruthless was probably a bad word.

As for the rest, I didn't say that. I said things like, but all lot of that is objectively not what I said, and the rest is clearly not what I meant when taken as part of the letter as a whole.

[NichG]

I agree ruthless was probably a bad word.

As for the rest, I didn't say that. I said things like, but all lot of that is objectively not what I said, and the rest is clearly not what I meant when taken as part of the letter as a whole.

You literally wrote:

I know it’s frustrating to lose, and if something bad happens to your character I know most people’s first instinct is to find something or someone to blame and then lash out at it, but understand that when you do that you are going to put everyone else on edge, which will make the next instance that much more severe.

'Which will make the next instance that much more severe' directly says there will be consequences if a player lashes out, and suggests that those will be in-game consequences of the form of more bad stuff happening to the character.

The 'if you pick a weakness, expect it to matter' -> 'I'm gonna get ya!' was all of this stuff:

Likewise, I tend to play enemies smart, and they will tend to use whatever methods are at their disposal to target your weaknesses. If you have a low strength, expect to be tripped or grappled; if you have no ranged weapon, expect to be kited; if you have no armor, expect to take a lot of damage, if you have low fortitude expect poison to be a problem, and if you have low resolve expect to fall prey to mind control or magic when it shows up.

[Talakeal]

'Which will make the next instance that much more severe' directly says there will be consequences if a player lashes out, and suggests that those will be in-game consequences of the form of more bad stuff happening to the character.

Oh wow. Yeah, I hadn't even considered someone reading it that way. Dear god that sounds bad.*

What I meant was that if anyone (including myself) gets mad at anyone else (including myself) that puts the entire table on edge, which means that the next time someone (including myself) gets frustrated, they are going to be more likely to lash out them-self.

Do note though, in your paraphrase you explicitly use the words "if YOU blame ME [emphasis mine]," which I did not. I tried to make it very clear that this applies to the entire table, and it is no more acceptable to lash out at your fellow players than it is to lash out at the GM, and vice versa. Although, looking at it again, I suppose I could have said "when something bad happens to someone's character" rather than "your character" to make it even more neutral.


*: So I checked with my player and asked if that was how he read it, and his response was "No, I took it to mean the atmosphere at the table will get tenser and tenser until everyone is mad, but I can see how NichG thought that even if it is a bit of a stretch." But yeah, if that is how the forum hive mind read it, I can see how they would feel about the tone. Honestly, if that's the case I think you guys are being polite to a fault by not just flat out trying to verbally slap some sense into me; I would never game with someone so vindictive that they felt the best way to resolve an issue is to double down on it as punishment.

[The Glyphstone]

Yes, that is a very close reading to what I was trying to say.

But, its actually a bit harsher; because well rounded defenses are not "better" than one trick ponies or glass cannons, they are just different.

The main thrust is that there are no right or wrong choices, just various good and bad aspects which will all come up sometimes and be irrelevant other times and even out in the end; thus allowing you to play the character you chose by having the characteristics you selected actually matter and determine what they succeed at and what they fail

Leave off the first sentence entirely then. Keep the bit about eventually rolling scissors, then soften it with a reminder line along the lines of 'but you will throw scissors to their paper just as often, so everyone's character will get to shine at some point in what they choose to be good at". Or similar, but call out that high fort vs high will sort of idea , a carrot to soften the stick by specifically drawing attention to the times when they will be awesome. Its human nature to remember bad experiences more strongly, so look to pre empt that instinct by highlighting the good ones.

[KorvinStarmast]

Not wedded to the text at all, in fact I have given up on the letter entirely and am looking for better ways to convey the information.

Suggested step 1.
Go back to my reply on the key points you want to raise; less is more.
From a public speaking/presentation perspective, you have 3 to 5 points you want to make. Pick the most important 3, 4 or 5 and then Stop there.
Points appear to be:

1. Players are responsible for their own characters
2. Choices have consequences
3. Accept that the dice are fickle
4. Losing one's cool over bad luck or a bad roll is unfun for the rest of the group.
5. The importance of teamwork and making the most of the synergy of working together.

[Talakeal]

This may be worthy of a new thread, but I have a follow up question:

Some of the responses to my letter seemed to indicate that I was overstepping my bounds by asking that all players create characters who are motivated to stick with their party and complete the adventure. Is this really too much to ask?

In my last campaign, it was like pulling teeth just to get the PCs to spend each session doing the following:

1: Go to the dungeon.
2: Kill monsters.
3: Talk to NPCs and try and recruit allies.
4: Use skills to overcome obstacles.
5: Collect treasure.
6: Return to town once the dungeon is explored or you are out of resources.

I promised the PCs that if they did the following nothing bad would ever happen to their characters. But even such a simple gameplay loop caused no end of trouble.


For an even more extreme example, back when we first started gaming everyone would make their characters in isolation, and then we would, as a group, agonize for hours about a possible way that all of these disparate characters could be motivated to join the party, let alone go on the adventure the DM wanted to run, and even though everyone wanted to game, most of the time it will fall apart after the first session due to lack of compatible motivations amongst the characters.



On a related note, I was talking about how people who calibrate their type and level of specialization with the size of the group will keep everyone from getting bored, and people were acting like this was a conscious decision on my part to punish players for the wrong character rather than a natural outcome of the game.

To illustrate in super simplified way:

If you have a party where:
One guy has a high charisma and agility, and average scores in the other six attributes.
One guy has a high dexterity and endurance, and average scores in the other six attributes.
One guy has a high intelligence and perception, and average scores in the other six attributes.
One guy has an extreme strength and low scores in the other seven attributes.
And one guy has an above average score in all eight attributes.

Does it make sense that the latter two people will, on average over time, only have the spotlight half as often as the first three?

[Batcathat]

Some of the responses to my letter seemed to indicate that I was overstepping my bounds by asking that all players create characters who are motivated to stick with their party and complete the adventure. Is this really too much to ask?

I would say it's a fairly reasonable request (not to mention kind of a necessity for the game to work at all) but the GM should also be flexible. For example, if I'm playing a heroic knight I'm expecting the GM to supply a different kind of plot hook than if I'm playing an amoral rogue.

[Quertus]

Some of the responses to my letter seemed to indicate that I was overstepping my bounds by asking that all players create characters who are motivated to stick with their party and complete the adventure. Is this really too much to ask?

Talakeal, *most* of your letter was completely out of line (or, with the way it was worded, it could be read that way). But this one request, I've got your back on. This response

I would say it's a fairly reasonable request (not to mention kind of a necessity for the game to work at all) but the GM should also be flexible. For example, if I'm playing a heroic knight I'm expecting the GM to supply a different kind of plot hook than if I'm playing an amoral rogue.

pretty well has it covered.

For "normal", cooperative play, you all but *have* to make such a request. However, that doesn't justify the GM asking the noble Paladin to assassinate the good and just ruler of the land. Nor does it give players the right to play their characters as ****s, under the "protection" of "but you have to work with me".

If your group looks at this request of "build characters who can work together", and responds with anything but, "well, duh", then they probably need some remedial cooperation training. Unless, that is, they respond with, "how" or "what's the adventure premise", which just indicates that they're smarter / less overconfident than most.

As for earlier things… I'm glad you understand how bad what you wrote *could* be. You have quite a (seemingly unintentional) talent for unclear communication. That's *great* for some things (like, say, prophecies in a game where I'm a player), but *terrible* for your group.

This is no small part of why I suggested my "5-point plan", which focuses on communication and clear feedback. Senility willing, I'll copy it into this thread when I get a chance, since it probably belongs here.

But a recent thread had made me wonder whether focusing on "stress" wouldn't be a good path forward. Senility willing, I'll post more on that, as well.

[Talakeal]

As for earlier things… I'm glad you understand how bad what you wrote *could* be. You have quite a (seemingly unintentional) talent for unclear communication. That's *great* for some things (like, say, prophecies in a game where I'm a player), but *terrible* for your group.

Here's the thing though, bad communication is far from a universal, and in my experience has a lot more with the context and attitude the reader brings to it than actual trouble communicating on anyone's fault.

Like, we used to have a game in the schoolyard where one person would pretend to be a genie and other people would make wishes, and the genie would try and twist them, and nobody ever found an un-twistable wish. Likewise, my Dad tells me that in the first day of Law School the professor would ask them to write a simple law which couldn't be misinterpreted to prove just how impossible it is.

In my experience it is virtually impossible to say something that can't be misinterpreted, and often times people's preconceived notions are more important than what is said. For example, I have shown the letter to five people irl, one of them thought it was about killing PCs, three of them read it as intended, one of them couldn't make it out at all, and none of them have read NichG's particularly horrifying interpretation about threatening punishment.

Likewise, the story about the avatar of violence doesn't involve poor communication per se, it was about two players going into the situation assuming I was trying to trick them rather than taking my statement at face value, and then blaming me for meta-tricking them by not trying to trick them.

Edit:

Talakeal, *most* of your letter was completely out of line (or, with the way it was worded, it could be read that way). But this one request, I've got your back on. This responsepretty well has it covered.

Ok, wait. Can you explain this claim to me with some specifics?

I mean, sure, any wording can be twisted; but how is asking guests to be mature and not throw tantrums when things don't do their way and explaining basic facts about the difficulty curve of my game to set realistic expectations completely out of line?

Also, people are making it out like its super long, but the main body is only eight bullet points, each explained in 1-3 sentences, and easily fits on half a printed page.

[SanguisAevum]

Seven pages of feedback and advice that you don’t really seem to have taken on board. I’ll make it easy for you.

Speaking as a DM with 30 years of experience.

Ready?

You have one job as a DM. Create a setting and a story that is fun and engaging for your players.

Forget all this nonsense about warning players, setting boundaries, threatening (yes, it comes across as threatening) NPC competence, etc etc.

I read how you view your role as DM and all I can think is… jeez… it would be hell to play in a game run like this.

Stop taking yourself so seriously, and run a fun game that both you and your players can enjoy.

[Talakeal]

Seven pages of feedback and advice that you don’t really seem to have taken on board. I’ll make it easy for you.

Speaking as a DM with 30 years of experience.

Ready?

You have one job as a DM. Create a setting and a story that is fun and engaging for your players.

Forget all this nonsense about warning players, setting boundaries, threatening (yes, it comes across as threatening) NPC competence, etc etc.

I read how you view your role as DM and all I can think is… jeez… it would be hell to play in a game run like this.

Stop taking yourself so seriously, and run a fun game that both you and your players can enjoy.

I am gonna need a little bit more detail here. You don't actually seem to be conveying anything here except for vague disapproval.

Could you please explain what part is hell and what you would do differently? What is your definition of a "fun game"? What are you saying my "role as the DM" is?

Like, pretend I am a new DM, just setting out, and I run a published module as written straight out of the book, and the players start screaming, swearing, and throwing models at me or one another the first time they fail a dice roll. How should I respond?

Literally nothing in here is about setting or story.

Are you saying that talking to players about their issues is the problem? Is it that I don't fudge everything so the players can't fail to make it more fun? Is it that I don't intentionally play NPCs extra stupid so the PCs feel like the only competent people in the world? What is it man?

[Talakeal]

Ok, so here's the thing, as most of you know, I have been in a lot of bad games over the years.

Recently, four things happened that have made me decide things have to change.

1: Upon getting hit with a critical, a player threw a model at me. I lost my temper and threw one of my own models back at him, missed, and it hit a wall and broke.

2: Upon recruiting a new player into the group, one of the old players told him not to play with me because I would kill his character and then get mad at him for being dead, despite the fact that not only has she never lost a character in a game I run, but there have been zero PC fatalities for about five years before her ever even joining the group.

3: A player who always plays mages with minimum strength told me that grappling should only be allowed for PCs and that he considers any DM who uses grapple rules to be a cheater.

4: I was playing a board game with one of my players where I explained him the rules wrong (it was a game I haven't played in 5+ years and he didn't want to read the rulebook himself) and, when he found out, called me a cheater and then started getting super obnoxious and competitive so that everyone else quit, at which point he started yelling and, not wanting to lose my temper, I told him to stop, and he told me that he would not stop until we all acknowledged that he was the superior gamer and that we were intentionally trying to cheat him because we were afraid of his skills and new that was the only way we could win. At that point I told him to leave my house, and he started bellowing about how I had invited him over and could not rescind the hospitality he was due, and which point I told him that if he didn't either leave or calm down I would call the cops, he continued, and so I made good on my threat and had him removed from my house by the police and cut all ties with him.


These four things really showed me that there is something toxic in the core of my gaming group that goes beyond "poor communication" or even "being a bad GM"*. I think most of it boils down to, something between immaturity and paranoia, where everyone constantly thinks everyone else is out to get them and blames every failure on someone else, and is getting increasingly hostile and aggressive about it. And I legitimately don't know what to do.

This letter was an attempt to neutrally explain the situation without laying blame, but is being read as threatening, which is the exact opposite of the impression I am trying to get across.




*Also note that even though I am usually the GM, we do rotate on occasion, and it doesn't matter who is DMing or what game we are playing, similar conflicts still arise.

[NichG]

The correct decision is 'don't invite those players back'. We're way in the weeds of the decision tree because you've systematically rejected most of the good choices and we're into 'well, what if we want to make 5 bad choices, how do we salvage it from there?' It's DM-ing on hard mode. The minimum bar of communication skill to pull it off is not 'not overtly bad', its 'I want to get this scientific paper past referee #2, who happens to be a direct competitor working on the same stuff who is more senior to me, and whom I've just scooped by rushing to publish even if it means I haven't had a chance to dot all my i's and cross all my t's and so there's lots of stuff that can be attacked and I wouldn't have an answer to'

[icefractal]

*Also note that even though I am usually the GM, we do rotate on occasion, and it doesn't matter who is DMing or what game we are playing, similar conflicts still arise.

Interesting, I didn't know that. I guess on the plus side it means they don't have it out for you in particular, but on the minus side they sound seriously toxic.

Thing is - I don't know what advice to give you about handling it, because my personal approach would be "Pause the game as soon as someone starts throwing a tantrum, boot them temporarily if they won't stop. If they reach the point of throwing things at me then permanently uninvite them." As would most people's here, I think. So if you're trying to keep playing with toxic people and detoxify them via a letter, you're entering fairly uncharted territory.

[False God]

This may be worthy of a new thread, but I have a follow up question:

Some of the responses to my letter seemed to indicate that I was overstepping my bounds by asking that all players create characters who are motivated to stick with their party and complete the adventure. Is this really too much to ask?

In my last campaign, it was like pulling teeth just to get the PCs to spend each session doing the following:

1: Go to the dungeon.
2: Kill monsters.
3: Talk to NPCs and try and recruit allies.
4: Use skills to overcome obstacles.
5: Collect treasure.
6: Return to town once the dungeon is explored or you are out of resources.

I promised the PCs that if they did the following nothing bad would ever happen to their characters. But even such a simple gameplay loop caused no end of trouble.

It continues to beg the question, "What do your players want to do?"
Which parts of that equation are they interested in? Which ones do they enjoy (not the same as interested in, seriously)?

For an even more extreme example, back when we first started gaming everyone would make their characters in isolation, and then we would, as a group, agonize for hours about a possible way that all of these disparate characters could be motivated to join the party, let alone go on the adventure the DM wanted to run, and even though everyone wanted to game, most of the time it will fall apart after the first session due to lack of compatible motivations amongst the characters.

I don't even allow my experienced, well-fitting players to make their characters in isolation. Maybe they don't have to write them down right now, but I expect the group to discuss what they're interested in playing and how that will interact before those characters ever hit the game.

Further, I no longer let my players decide if they are "interested" in joining the party. Either they are A: already known to each other and willing to work together, or B: placed into the party via means beyond their in-game control (my favorite is: they're all broke and at a fantasy job fair for adventurers and all get paired up by the coordinator).

I'm far less tolerant with my group than you and I like them and they like me.

[Quertus]

The 5-point plan

Point 0 - the background

This is based on Talakeal a) saying that he wants to run a normal, linear adventure at full normal challenge; b) asking about my "testing" advice (which involves running short adventures with particular sets of changes, to see how the group responds / what feedback we get / where/if things still break).

It's also written in the first person, as an "I promise" letter.

Point 1 - two modes

Encounters in the game will have two modes: white box, and black box. In white box mode, when you first encounter or hear about a creature, I will hand you their stat block, and dealing with them is a simple war game; in black box, I will not - they are puzzle monsters that you must learn about in game, through research, experimentation, etc. The doppelganger pretending to be a Vampire and the Avatar of Hate are two examples of monsters that would receive black box treatment.

Point 2 - text boxes

To the extent possible, I will only communicate to you about black box items through text boxes. Text boxes are text that is pre-written before the campaign begins, and verified to be less ambiguous than previous "cannot be killed by violence" hints. Text boxes will be read by one of you, and, once unlocked, will be available online.

All black box encounters will be pre-verified to be not just understandable, but to suggest *multiple* solutions to [my non-gaming parents / random 5-year-olds / the sources of this advice / whatever].

Point 3 - sealed envelope module

Whether while box or black box, all encounters will, to the extent possible, be statted out before the party even exists. Thus, they will not be tailored to the party. The entire adventure will live in a sealed envelope, and you will be able to review both a) the contents of this envelope after the campaign, and b) the stats of any encounter after the encounter is over, to confirm that all encounters match what I presented and I'm not pulling anything.

Point 4 - active disconnect checking
Whenever you attempt to take an action that I do not understand *why* you would take, I will ask you to explain your reasoning. If your reasoning is based on something your character would know better than to attempt (wait until night to navigate by the stars when this world has no stars, for example), I will correct this misunderstanding.

I encourage you to run your plans by me early, so that I can correct such misunderstandings early. As I am new at this, I encourage you to do the same for one another, and ask, "why" if any of your fellow players takes an action you don't understand, or that seems to run contrary to your agreed-upon plans, at least until I get used to it.

Point 5 - etc

This space left blank for additions.

Like…

In the past, I have modified monster tactics, making them fight harder when they were losing, or going easier on the party when you were struggling. I will no longer do so.

Going forward, monsters will behave with consistent levels of strategy and effort, to give you the agency to have your plans, your successes and failures, actually have meaning.

Expected value

What do you hope to learn from this? If you could line up scenario design/reaction/lesson that's great but I'm pretty sure they will just fixate on the greatest obstacle and rally against it.

Hmmm… I guess that this question was directed at me?

If so, allow me to start by not answering your question, and answering a different set of questions instead.

How would I go about handling them rallying against the largest obstacles to their success? By removing all such obstacles. How would I do that? With my suggested "demigods of adventure" plan, to test just how close to death / failure / dishonor / second place the players actually feel comfortable walking when given the choice. (EDIT: And what their complaints look like under such circumstances)

Does my "5-point" suggested course of action solve this particular issue? Does it remove all obstacles? No. Talakeal has indicated that they want to run a "fair" game, with no unusual rules (read: "fully challenging"; see also the letter that "the sane player" interpreted with a "killer GM" response); removing all challenge would be counterproductive to their current goals. Although the players complain about difficulty often enough that *I* would prioritize testing changes to difficulty, I'll respect Talakeal's wishes to not do so this time around. So I've dropped that objective for the moment.

Does my 5-point plan "line up scenario design/reaction/lesson"? No, that's not the point.

OK, then, if that's not the point, what is? The point… well, that's complicated. So complicated, in fact, that I'll probably miss some details if I try to explain it. But here goes.

So, afaict, the biggest, longest running problem is that Talakeal games in Bizarro World. We can't give Talakeal advice (beyond "kick those players, find a new group"), because his players' actions are so nonsensical. Except… their reactions to anything where we have definitive, concrete proof of what, exactly, they're responding to? Their response to modules, and to Talakeal's "I'm a killer GM" letter are not Bizarro World - they're actually quite reasonable. So the first goal is to remove any ambiguity about what the players are responding to, even removing the tone of Talakeal's delivery by using handouts and others reading the text, to see how much Bizarro World still remains. Anywhere where there's still Bizarro World logic? That's somewhere where we need to investigate further. Anywhere where they consistently respond sanely? "Bizarro World" problem solved.

Another big problem is puzzles. There's a big disconnect between Talakeal's belief that "a big nose" is sufficient to make the sneeze Ogre "obvious in retrospect" and the player's stance of, "you just made that up"; a big disconnect between "cannot be killed by violence" translating to "cannot be killed" vs "must be killed by nonviolent means". When Talakeal presents his clues¹ to his evil overlord mandated 5-year-old advisor substitute², *they* see multiple valid solutions to the puzzle. So, the 5-point plan tests ways to remedy this as well, by providing all "boxed text" in a centralized location for review by the players. This gives us a chance to review the text before the players see it to fix the wording to reduce such ambiguity, allows the players to focus on the relevant details, and solves the (misguided, IMO) complaint of "the GM should take notes for us", all in one fell swoop.

The dichotomy of white box and puzzle monsters helps the players know when it is time to focus, helps draw their attention.

The drastic change in style clearly communicates that Talakeal is taking the issue seriously, and both buys [word] and invites feedback.

The "printed encounter stats by the end of every encounter" and "module in a sealed envelope" (created before the characters were even discussed) clearly show that Talakeal isn't making things up / targeting specific players.

I'm playing a whole orchestra of "testing for improvement" here, with each carefully chosen piece interwoven to be greater than the sum of their individual parts.

If you make many of the players' former complaints obviously false, what will they do? Will they continue to make obviously false claims? Will they complain about something else?

Perhaps we'll get lucky, and actually get to the root of the problem.

Or perhaps we'll get really lucky, and, with these new adjustments, the problems will simply go away.

But, regardless, we'll be getting feedback regarding their response to unambiguously known inputs, making our evaluation of their response much easier.

¹ and *only* those clues, not hours of gaming, or weeks of real life in-between hearing the clues and acting upon them, which biases things somewhat.
² namely, his non-gamer parents

[Satinavian]

Some of the responses to my letter seemed to indicate that I was overstepping my bounds by asking that all players create characters who are motivated to stick with their party and complete the adventure. Is this really too much to ask?

Outside of very special games that is something players should always strife for, yes.

But it is bad as a rule. Because in every case where players don't want to do those things, there are serious underlying problems at the table that have to be solved first. If you ever have a situation in which your players don't want to play your adventure, that is not solved by "But you have to, that is your role as player".

I promised the PCs that if they did the following nothing bad would ever happen to their characters. But even such a simple gameplay loop caused no end of trouble.

And you still can't understand why or tell us the reason.

For an even more extreme example, back when we first started gaming everyone would make their characters in isolation, and then we would, as a group, agonize for hours about a possible way that all of these disparate characters could be motivated to join the party, let alone go on the adventure the DM wanted to run, and even though everyone wanted to game, most of the time it will fall apart after the first session due to lack of compatible motivations amongst the characters.

That is a thing that can happen even in better groups. It is rare and usually result of miscommunication. And indeed, talking a bit about who plays what or what the campaign is about before every one makes their character usually solves it.

If you have a party where:
One guy has a high charisma and agility, and average scores in the other six attributes.
One guy has a high dexterity and endurance, and average scores in the other six attributes.
One guy has a high intelligence and perception, and average scores in the other six attributes.
One guy has an extreme strength and low scores in the other seven attributes.
And one guy has an above average score in all eight attributes.

Does it make sense that the latter two people will, on average over time, only have the spotlight half as often as the first three?

That depends on system, campaign and other things. It is not possible to extrapolate spotlight just from that.

But the ideal would be that the last two people get exactly as much spotlight as the rest. If your system allows to build one-trick-ponies and jack-of-all-trades, then both those concepts should be viable choices and not better or worse than the rest. Of course, it is hard to build a system this way and most fail, but that should very much be the intended goal.

If you want to build the system in a way that the first 4 are just better than the last two, you would be better served removing the last two options. No one needs intentional trap options.

[Morgaln]

Ok, so here's the thing, as most of you know, I have been in a lot of bad games over the years.

Recently, four things happened that have made me decide things have to change.

1: Upon getting hit with a critical, a player threw a model at me. I lost my temper and threw one of my own models back at him, missed, and it hit a wall and broke.

2: Upon recruiting a new player into the group, one of the old players told him not to play with me because I would kill his character and then get mad at him for being dead, despite the fact that not only has she never lost a character in a game I run, but there have been zero PC fatalities for about five years before her ever even joining the group.

3: A player who always plays mages with minimum strength told me that grappling should only be allowed for PCs and that he considers any DM who uses grapple rules to be a cheater.

4: I was playing a board game with one of my players where I explained him the rules wrong (it was a game I haven't played in 5+ years and he didn't want to read the rulebook himself) and, when he found out, called me a cheater and then started getting super obnoxious and competitive so that everyone else quit, at which point he started yelling and, not wanting to lose my temper, I told him to stop, and he told me that he would not stop until we all acknowledged that he was the superior gamer and that we were intentionally trying to cheat him because we were afraid of his skills and new that was the only way we could win. At that point I told him to leave my house, and he started bellowing about how I had invited him over and could not rescind the hospitality he was due, and which point I told him that if he didn't either leave or calm down I would call the cops, he continued, and so I made good on my threat and had him removed from my house by the police and cut all ties with him.


These four things really showed me that there is something toxic in the core of my gaming group that goes beyond "poor communication" or even "being a bad GM"*. I think most of it boils down to, something between immaturity and paranoia, where everyone constantly thinks everyone else is out to get them and blames every failure on someone else, and is getting increasingly hostile and aggressive about it. And I legitimately don't know what to do.

This letter was an attempt to neutrally explain the situation without laying blame, but is being read as threatening, which is the exact opposite of the impression I am trying to get across.




*Also note that even though I am usually the GM, we do rotate on occasion, and it doesn't matter who is DMing or what game we are playing, similar conflicts still arise.

Honestly, what you are trying to do here is asking a bunch of unqualified strangers on the internet to mediate a conflict between you and your players, without the players even being present and able to tell their side of the issues. You won't find the solution here; we don't have a magic button that changes your players into the type of players you want to have. This can only be solved by both parties being involved and finding a compromise. Your letter was basically you throwing your issues at the players and telling them to stop acting like they do without any attempt to address their issues. You're telling them that everything they complain about is wrong, invalid, and not your fault. That might or might not be true, but either way it is not conductive to solving your conflict. Both sides need to feel that they've been heard and understood for that.
You need to sit down with your players and work the situation out with them on an equal basis; and yes, you might need someone neutral to mediate the conflict so it doesn't devolve into more thrown miniatures. But that someone cannot be an internet forum, and it's entirely possible that the issues are too deeply rooted to be solved

[Quertus]

On a related note, I was talking about how people who calibrate their type and level of specialization with the size of the group will keep everyone from getting bored, and people were acting like this was a conscious decision on my part to punish players for the wrong character rather than a natural outcome of the game.

To illustrate in super simplified way:

If you have a party where:
One guy has a high charisma and agility, and average scores in the other six attributes.
One guy has a high dexterity and endurance, and average scores in the other six attributes.
One guy has a high intelligence and perception, and average scores in the other six attributes.
One guy has an extreme strength and low scores in the other seven attributes.
And one guy has an above average score in all eight attributes.

Does it make sense that the latter two people will, on average over time, only have the spotlight half as often as the first three?

Does it make sense? No. Not at all. Because there *really* ought to be more to a character than their stats. And I mean both "other buttons to push", from class / skills / items / contacts / etc, and "have a personality". Spotlight sharing isn't as trivially simple as looking at a few stats - if it were, we wouldn't have meaningful discussions about it.

Further, it's at least somewhat system dependent just how those stats will work out.

But, most importantly, spotlight isn't just yes/no binary. I personally divide it into… huh. Darn senility. I don't remember how I divide it. Probably something like… solo / shine / share / show / something.

1) you have the spotlight 100%; no one else can be seen. Standard procedure in ShadowRun.

2) although the others are still visible on stage, you are clearly the MPV / star of the show.

3) you and everyone else at this level are all equal costars. No-one shines brighter (although some *may* be at a lower level).

4) you're on stage as supporting cast. You contributed.

5) you're not in this scene.

What kind of spotlight distribution those stats will favor in your system, and what distribution your players care about, will affect the answer to your question.

Here's the thing though, bad communication is far from a universal, and in my experience has a lot more with the context and attitude the reader brings to it than actual trouble communicating on anyone's fault.

Yes and no.

If we're discussing encounter building, and I scream, Die, Talakeal, die!, should I be confused if people don't realize I'm talking about polyhedrons of Arangee? (That's dice, folks, but in the singular) Isn't it fair to say that, "use the dice, Luke" would have been clearer, and (unless your name actually is Luke) that there were even clearer ways I could have worded what I meant?

The issue here is, you've got decades of experience telling you that your players misinterpret things that you say, and act explosively immaturely as a result. Responding to that with, "but *anything* can be misinterpreted" is… well, I don't know *what* it is, but I'm quite confident throwing it in the "bad" pile even if I don't know its name.

But you're right. Attitude and preconceived notions are very important here.

Want to change their attitude? Start by *not* adopting a "you're an idiot if you don't understand me" attitude while creating content as *obviously* broken as "cannot be killed by violence" or "die, Talakeal, die!".

(Note that I'm a **** who's all about the proper use of, "you're an idiot if you cannot see this" for *properly built* puzzles. So, if I tell my evil overlord mandated 5-year-old advisor substitute "a) any valid solution will be accepted - there is not just 1 right answer; b) the Avatar of Hate cannot be killed; C) it splits like Hydra heads when attacked dealt enough damage to kill it: d) it cannot leave the temple; e) it is otherwise just a guy; F) it is guarding the McGuffin as the final encounter of the temple dungeon, what do you do?", I expect that they will give me *lots* of solutions. You should try this with your group - in particular, with "the new guy", who *wasn't* around for this debacle, and *preface* it with saying, "I want to try an experiment regarding a new style of communication and encounter-building", and then go on to make sure everyone else knows not to get involved before stating the puzzle. Oh, and make this whole conversation a Text Box. Let us know how this experiment turns out.)

(EDIT: my evil overlord mandated 5-year-old advisor substitute said incapacitate it (paralyze, stun, freeze, subdue, sing him to sleep), taunt him away from the McGuffin, distract him and grab the McGuffin, fly away, negotiate (missed that one in my description, oops), "super tank" / invincible bubble, "lure him away with treats", teleport him (out of the temple if possible?), cut your losses (find a new McGuffin), get other people to get the McGuffin for you, blind him, fill the temple(?), grab the McGuffin and run ("that one's too obvious"))

(Also, my evil overlord mandated 5-year-old advisor substitute displayed great incredulity when I explained the original puzzle, and that the original party died trying to rearrange his furniture / snuggle him to death (like bees!))

Edit:

Ok, wait. Can you explain this claim to me with some specifics?

I mean, sure, any wording can be twisted; but how is asking guests to be mature and not throw tantrums when things don't do their way and explaining basic facts about the difficulty curve of my game to set realistic expectations completely out of line?

But it is bad as a rule. Because in every case where players don't want to do those things, there are serious underlying problems at the table that have to be solved first. If you ever have a situation in which your players don't want to play your adventure, that is not solved by "But you have to, that is your role as player".

That's definitely part of it, yes.

I'm no good at wording these things, but… actually, I haven't found a way to word any explanation of it where I'm not out of line myself (because that's how I explain things - with examples). So, unless I come up with a good roasting spoof of the letter, it's probably best I leave it to the much better expansions of others.

EDIT:

This can only be solved by both parties being involved and finding a compromise. Your letter was basically you throwing your issues at the players and telling them to stop acting like they do without any attempt to address their issues. You're telling them that everything they complain about is wrong, invalid, and not your fault. That might or might not be true, but either way it is not conductive to solving your conflict. Both sides need to feel that they've been heard and understood for that.
You need to sit down with your players and work the situation out with them on an equal basis; and yes, you might need someone neutral to mediate the conflict so it doesn't devolve into more thrown miniatures.

Hey, look, ninjas have explained another big part of what I meant!

If someone spills acid on themselves in chemistry class, and is screaming in pain, I don't respond with, "you had the agency to do whatever you wanted with that acid", and walk away with my hands in my ears saying "lalalala" to (pretend to) not hear their screams.

That was a "lalalala" letter. Rather the opposite of what the table needs, IMO.