D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

pemerton · Oct 16, 2018

Lanefan said:
A deity is not a PC. This makes it either an NPC or a setting element and thus puts it under the control of the DM.

Where do the 5e rules say that the GM has sole authorship rights in respect of non-PC setting elements?

I've posted text that actually implicates the opposite: players can decide that their PCs are or are not affiliated with temples, can decide what their god wants from them, why their god called them into service, who mentored their fighter, who gave the fighter his/her starting gear, etc.

Lanefan said:
You're making a bunch of assumptions here, the biggest of which is that the DM has somehow changed the parameters of this deity between char-gen and now

This isn't true at all. To quote from [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]'s post that you quoted (but appear not to have read closely):

they may have done so under the impression (whether through their reading of the setting materials or what the DM told them) that their choice would engender one style of play experience for their character. The player could then be understandably upset when the DM seems to have conned those expectations. Or the player may have designed their cleric PC with their reading of the deity only to be caught off-guard by the DM's radically different reading of the deity or their arrangement.

It's blindingly obvious that a GM and player might both read a description of a god as a god of justice and mercy and yet that lead to a different play experience, if adjudicated/imposed by the GM, from what the player had anticipated.

pemerton · Oct 16, 2018

billd91 said:
There are all sorts of choices a player may make and actions they may have their PCs do that have a cost to them in the course of a game. Is GM to ignore all of the ones the player happens to want to ignore? Where is the line drawn?

Here's a simple answer - if a player comes into a game saying "I don't want to play a game about X" and the GM then proceeds to make the game about X, that is bad GMing.

billd91 said:
If I have a player who wants to murderhobo his way across the landscape without negative social and legal consequences, but that's not the kind of game I want to run, am I still expected to run that game for him?

I'll leave that between you and that player. I'll also note it has nothing to do with the current discussion about motorcycles and warlock patrons. In the warlock patron discussion, no one is saying that they don't want the player in their game - [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION] and others have repeatedly said the player is welcome to play a fighter, wizard, sorcerer etc. In the motorcycle example, which is from a V:tM game, no one has suggested that whether or not a PC can get from A to B is the main focus of play. (Presumably if no one described his/her PC's motorcycle the issue wouldn't even come up - certainly in the few V:tM sessions I've played the mode of transport didn't seem to matter.)

billd91 said:
That may be a somewhat more extreme example than wanting to keep a motorcycle free and pristine from any and all interference or wanting to take a huge pet dinosaur into any densely packed urban environment, but it's the same sort of topic.

No it's not. Wanting to have a motorcycle that doesn't get stolen isn't a game style thing at all. Wanting to have a warlock whose patron doesn't hose him/her isn't a game style thing at all.

If the player never mentioned the motorcycle, the game woud progress identically but with no cycle theft. Mutatis mutandis if the player played a fighter rather than a warlock.

As far as the ranger's animal companion is concerned, you are the only poster to mention taking a huge dinosaur into a densely packed urban environment - which is an actual contradiction in the fiction. [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] suggested that the ranger's bear not cause any headaches or issues when left hanging around the fringes of the village, or something along those lines.

The bottom line: I think GMs who want to micromanage their players' colour and backstory for PCs are bad GMs full stop. And those who want to micromanage the actual fiction that unfolds in the game - so that a good chunk, or even most, of the players' play experience becomes finding out what the GM has decided the fiction shall become - are GMs whose games I will avoid or walk from. (As per my three examples in my first post in this thread.)

TwoSix · Oct 16, 2018

pemerton said:
Here's a simple answer - if a player comes into a game saying "I don't want to play a game about X" and the GM then proceeds to make the game about X, that is bad GMing.

Eh...I'm a bit leery of going that far. Assuming a table of friends who have been playing a while together, sure. My own groups definitely have that right of refusal, and we also have a group where almost everyone takes a turn DMing. But there are plenty of games where new people are constantly moving in and out, and where the only constant is the DM, their style of play, and maybe a few old hands. In those situations, I definitely feel the onus is on you as a player to adapt to the table if you wish to play.

I mean, I wouldn't feel comfortable going to Lanefan's table, which has been running a continuous game for like 150 years, and saying that I felt the urge to play a protagonist centered game. GM force becomes more useful when the connection of the individual player to the game is more tenuous.

That being said, I don't think I'd last two sessions at Lanefan's table, so it's mostly a moot point.

5ekyu · Oct 16, 2018

pemerton said:
The attitude of the archbishop has nothing to do with WotC. It's the GM in your example who has decided that the archbishop cannot be influenced.

This topic was discussed (in the context of Traveller, but the principle is the same) in this thread at the end of last year. My view is very similar to the one that [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] stated in that thread:

There's a recurring notion in this thread - whether pertaining to NPC attitudes, or players' desires for their PC flavour/backstory etc - that the GM can't enjoy the game unless s/he is deciding what the story is. That is exactly what caused me to leave/end three games as per my first post in this thread.

Does the player of the cleric get told in advance that his/her PC is going to lose his/her class abilities during the course of the campaign?

That was in the context of someone thinking a player is wrecking the game. But no one's offered a reason why a player playing a cleric or warlock whose god/patron is happy with what s/he does, or playing a motorcycle-riding vampire, would wreck the game.

I haven't played very much V:tM, but my impression is that it's not a game of hard-knock scrabbling for the fare for a bus! If my PC's flavour is that I get about on my bike, and yours is that you caught the bus, what difference is that making in play? Is the GM going to say to you "No, you have to sit out this encounter because the bus was late!"?

D&D has almost no rules for "collateral damage" to surrounding objects. I'm not sure about V:tM, but I'd be surpised if it's rules in this respect are significantly richer.

I don't get the interest in suddenly activating such things precisely because a player's PC has a bike parked outside.

Whether an argument with someone at the bar puts the bike at stake would be highly contextual. How does the NPC even know which bike is the PC's? That seems pretty contextual too.

Why? What's wrong with colour?

Why?

A fighter's default core concept, according to the 5e Basic PDF, is a master of deadly combat. Does that mean that a signficant focus of play should be whether or not the fighter loses his/her abilities (eg by being permanently maimed)? That's not been a traditional focus of D&D play. I don't see why a warlock or cleric should be different. To me, all this just smacks of GMs looking for handles to steer the players' play of their PCs.

In the Marvel Heroic RP, Captain America can't lose his shield permanently. The referee can spend a GM side resource to shut down the shield ability; the player can shut it down to gain a player-side resource. If shut down, the player can take an action to recover it; otherwise at the end of the encounter it is recovered automatically.

In the same RPG, the Punisher's Battle Van is (in mechanical terms) an ability that allows the player to step up combat or vehicle-related resources generated by spending player-side resources. The Punisher doesn't lose access to it - although in play certain adverse effects might be narrated as some temporary Battle Van-related setback.

Likewise if it was Fate. Likewise for Captain America in MHRP, as I just explained. I don't know how recovery works in M&M, but does that system really allow Captain America's shield to be stolen so that the player just doesn't have access to it anynmore in the campaign?

There's a traditional mechanic for this in D&D - the reaction roll. On a bad roll, maybe the reason the villager's are unhappy would be the dinosaur. On a good roll, maybe the villagers have heard of this heroic dino-rider and welcome her/him!

That's all uncontentious. What's being discussed in this thread is who gets to decide what counts as directly working againt that ethos/interst?

100% this.

"I haven't played very much V:tM, but my impression is that it's not a game of hard-knock scrabbling for the fare for a bus! If my PC's flavour is that I get about on my bike, and yours is that you caught the bus, what difference is that making in play? Is the GM going to say to you "No, you have to sit out this encounter because the bus was late"

Assuming you dont reakly know VtM is an rpg with a lot of different games that can be run within it.

In one game, the pcs can start as humans, in another as older vamps hundreds of years old with established territories. In one game, they can be members of a well structured principality. In another scrambling for survival on the run in a chaotic region.

You can even run a game ehere they play hunters.

As for what difference it makes for owning your own worry-free vehicle, owning a non-worry free vehicle and being eco-green with no vehicle - the gm i was asking (not sure he was talking VtM exclusively) observed he would be putting into play some consequences for not taking the worry free vehicle on those who chose that route.

I have no reason to doubt they will do that to believe it wont be in keeping with their setting.

5ekyu · Oct 16, 2018

pemerton said:
Where do the 5e rules say that the GM has sole authorship rights in respect of non-PC setting elements?

I've posted text that actually implicates the opposite: players can decide that their PCs are or are not affiliated with temples, can decide what their god wants from them, why their god called them into service, who mentored their fighter, who gave the fighter his/her starting gear, etc.

This isn't true at all. To quote from [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]'s post that you quoted (but appear not to have read closely):

they may have done so under the impression (whether through their reading of the setting materials or what the DM told them) that their choice would engender one style of play experience for their character. The player could then be understandably upset when the DM seems to have conned those expectations. Or the player may have designed their cleric PC with their reading of the deity only to be caught off-guard by the DM's radically different reading of the deity or their arrangement.

It's blindingly obvious that a GM and player might both read a description of a god as a god of justice and mercy and yet that lead to a different play experience, if adjudicated/imposed by the GM, from what the player had anticipated.

Which is why the gm and player should work together on those details such as what the god of battle churchs etc expect.

billd91 · Oct 16, 2018

pemerton said:
Here's a simple answer - if a player comes into a game saying "I don't want to play a game about X" and the GM then proceeds to make the game about X, that is bad GMing.

If the GM says he wants run a game about X, and the player adamantly refuses to budge from his desire for it not to be about it X, is that bad playing? Who's in the right if they can't reach an accord? You and Hussar seem to think that it's the GM's fault, and not in any way the player's. Frankly, I'm sick of players wheedling out of the inconvenient consequences of the things they choose and do in the campaign.

pemerton said:
I'll leave that between you and that player. I'll also note it has nothing to do with the current discussion about motorcycles and warlock patrons. In the warlock patron discussion, no one is saying that they don't want the player in their game - [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION] and others have repeatedly said the player is welcome to play a fighter, wizard, sorcerer etc. In the motorcycle example, which is from a V:tM game, no one has suggested that whether or not a PC can get from A to B is the main focus of play. (Presumably if no one described his/her PC's motorcycle the issue wouldn't even come up - certainly in the few V:tM sessions I've played the mode of transport didn't seem to matter.)

No it's not. Wanting to have a motorcycle that doesn't get stolen isn't a game style thing at all. Wanting to have a warlock whose patron doesn't hose him/her isn't a game style thing at all.

Yeah, actually it is pretty much the same thing - It's a player wanting something the GM doesn't want. It's a player wanting to be free of certain complications that would naturally occur in most campaigns. It's just differences in detail.

pemerton said:
The bottom line: I think GMs who want to micromanage their players' colour and backstory for PCs are bad GMs full stop. And those who want to micromanage the actual fiction that unfolds in the game - so that a good chunk, or even most, of the players' play experience becomes finding out what the GM has decided the fiction shall become - are GMs whose games I will avoid or walk from. (As per my three examples in my first post in this thread.)

Yeah, you've been pretty clear with the badwrongfunist asshattery.

pemerton · Oct 16, 2018

TwoSix said:
pemerton said:

if a player comes into a game saying "I don't want to play a game about X" and the GM then proceeds to make the game about X, that is bad GMing

Click to expand...

Eh...I'm a bit leery of going that far. Assuming a table of friends who have been playing a while together, sure. My own groups definitely have that right of refusal, and we also have a group where almost everyone takes a turn DMing. But there are plenty of games where new people are constantly moving in and out, and where the only constant is the DM, their style of play, and maybe a few old hands. In those situations, I definitely feel the onus is on you as a player to adapt to the table if you wish to play.

I think there are two cases.

If it's a case that the game is already about X, and the player asks to join in - a new player to an existing group, a pick-up game, or whatever - then the player is forewarned.

But if (as in the examples that have been discussed) the X is something that only comes into the game because it's an element of the new player's PC - a motorcycle, dear old dad, the Lord of Battle as divine patron, etc - then I stand by my view. The game was proceeding swimmingly without the GM having anything to say about the Lord of Battle, so why does that have to change? What is wrong with a game where Vlad's motorcycle never gets stolen?

5ekyu said:
In one game, the pcs can start as humans, in another as older vamps hundreds of years old with established territories. In one game, they can be members of a well structured principality. In another scrambling for survival on the run in a chaotic region.

And do you think that the game [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] was describing, where the player just wanted his PC's bike to be an element of character colour that didn't get stolen, was a game of hard-knock scarbbling for survival on the run in a chaotic region?

5ekyu · Oct 16, 2018

pemerton said:
Here's a simple answer - if a player comes into a game saying "I don't want to play a game about X" and the GM then proceeds to make the game about X, that is bad GMing.

I'll leave that between you and that player. I'll also note it has nothing to do with the current discussion about motorcycles and warlock patrons. In the warlock patron discussion, no one is saying that they don't want the player in their game - [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION] and others have repeatedly said the player is welcome to play a fighter, wizard, sorcerer etc. In the motorcycle example, which is from a V:tM game, no one has suggested that whether or not a PC can get from A to B is the main focus of play. (Presumably if no one described his/her PC's motorcycle the issue wouldn't even come up - certainly in the few V:tM sessions I've played the mode of transport didn't seem to matter.)

No it's not. Wanting to have a motorcycle that doesn't get stolen isn't a game style thing at all. Wanting to have a warlock whose patron doesn't hose him/her isn't a game style thing at all.

If the player never mentioned the motorcycle, the game woud progress identically but with no cycle theft. Mutatis mutandis if the player played a fighter rather than a warlock.

As far as the ranger's animal companion is concerned, you are the only poster to mention taking a huge dinosaur into a densely packed urban environment - which is an actual contradiction in the fiction. [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] suggested that the ranger's bear not cause any headaches or issues when left hanging around the fringes of the village, or something along those lines.

The bottom line: I think GMs who want to micromanage their players' colour and backstory for PCs are bad GMs full stop. And those who want to micromanage the actual fiction that unfolds in the game - so that a good chunk, or even most, of the players' play experience becomes finding out what the GM has decided the fiction shall become - are GMs whose games I will avoid or walk from. (As per my three examples in my first post in this thread.)

"Here's a simple answer - if a player comes into a game saying "I don't want to play a game about X" and the GM then proceeds to make the game about X, that is bad GMing."

Or

"Here's a simple answer - if a player comes into a game saying "I don't want to play a game about X" and the GM then proceeds to tell them the game is about X, that is good GMing."

See the little jab in the statement thst is important is that - as i have stated in my "i will say no" case, its not the GM choosing to run the game that way **after** they accepted and knew the player's preference - as you laid it out when you made it "and the GM then..."

But, clearly the catch-22 is in full effect, right?

If the GM implements that feature **after** its bad gming,

If the gm says up front "no, this game is about that so i hsve to say no but we can work on finding other options..." thats not agreeing to work in good faith since the gm already decided that option requested was no.

Seems like the GM just cannot say no without being wrong.

Funny that.

To me its simple, both sides have to be able to say no without being painted as wrong or bad people or dicks or bad gms or there really is not an honest negotiation or collaboration going on. I will take a pass on games where no is not acceptable - well barring the types of role playing that involves safe words at least.

pemerton · Oct 16, 2018

billd91 said:
If the GM says he wants run a game about X, and the player adamantly refuses to budge from his desire for it not to be about it X, is that bad playing?

What does that have to do with any of the examples actually under discussion.

If I as a player say "I want to play a warlock" and the GM - like [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION], according to many posts upthread - is perfectly happy for me to run a fighter instead, then the GM doersn't want to run a game about patron's messing with their warlocks. We're not discussing a game where the GM's pitch is "Let's play a game in which you're warlocks and I get to play your patrons who mess with you." The GM's desire to do that is entirely conditional on the player playing a warlock.

Mutatis mutandis for the motorcycle.

billd91 said:
I'm sick of players wheedling out of the inconvenient consequences of the things they choose and do in the campaign.

<snip>

you've been pretty clear with the badwrongfunist asshattery.

So I'm an asshat but you're just expressing reasonable preferences?

What is the "inconvenient consequences" of playing a warlock rather than a wizard? You're not getting a mechanical advantage. I got my power from Cthulhu is not inherently more powerful fiction than I got my power from reading this ancient tome that I discovered. Mutatis mutandis for clerics.

Why is the player of a warlock obliged to accept GM interference in PC backstory and the player of the character that the player of a fighter is not? How is that improving the RPG experience if the player doesn't want it? How is it hurting the experience of the GM not to do it?

I've never read any of your actual play posts - if you've got them I'm happy to follow some links - but I'm confident that the consequences in the games I run are as hard and engaging as any of those being posted about by you and others on this thread. The idea that a game can't have consequences unless the GM tells the player of the paladin "If you make the wrong choice about the orc babies, it's goodby powers" is silly. And if the idea is that the player first asks the GM what the right answer to the orc babies is, and then loses class powers if s/he does the opposite, combines lame consequences with railroading.

Roger E Moore wrote an article which displays some insight into this aspect of playing paladins way back in a Dragon article nearly 40 years ago (Dragon #51, July 1981):

Not all of the problems Paladin-players encounter in this area of whether killing is right or not are the player’s fault. Sometimes a DM will set up a situation in which, for example, the Lawful Goods have slain all the males of a tribe of Werewolves, and all that’s left are the females and young, who cower in the rocks and refuse to fight. Civilization is hundreds of miles away and no means exists at the moment to render the captives free of lycanthropy. If released, the young will grow up and terrorize the neighborhood again. If they are kept as captives, the party will be severely hampered
and may meet new monsters at any moment.

Killing the captives could well be the only alternative the Paladin is left with, yet if done the DM might say it was evil and remove the player’s alignment and status as a Paladin. A touchy situation, right? The DM should keep well in mind how he or she would react if placed in the same situation in the game, essentially trapped with no way out. It isn’t fair, and the players will know it and resent it. If captives must be slain, it should be done quickly, without torture, and with the assurance that there was no way to avoid it. . . .

One Paladin in our group encountered a Dryad who tried to charm some of the players right after the group had rescued her from being ravished by a bunch of nasty, unwashed orcs. The Paladin punched the Dryad in the nose and she fled.

While the group (and myself, who was the DM) was shocked by this, in retrospect it might have been a little strong but it was right. She had her life and a bloody nose to show for attempting to kidnap party members. By Lawful Good standards she could have done a lot worse. Though I had the Paladin chastised for this, I think now I shouldn’t have and should have let it stand (perhaps I should have congratulated him; he had a Vorpal Sword and might have used it, but that response would have been too strong and not good).

Consequences don't become less interesting or less significant because they are driven by a player's sincere conception of what his/her PC's oath, or allegiance, or pact, or whatever it is requires. In fact, in my experience they become more interesting and more significant, and the game changes from a puzzle-game to a genuine exercise in creating compelling fiction.

5ekyu · Oct 16, 2018

pemerton said:
Where do the 5e rules say that the GM has sole authorship rights in respect of non-PC setting elements?

I've posted text that actually implicates the opposite: players can decide that their PCs are or are not affiliated with temples, can decide what their god wants from them, why their god called them into service, who mentored their fighter, who gave the fighter his/her starting gear, etc.

This isn't true at all. To quote from [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]'s post that you quoted (but appear not to have read closely):

they may have done so under the impression (whether through their reading of the setting materials or what the DM told them) that their choice would engender one style of play experience for their character. The player could then be understandably upset when the DM seems to have conned those expectations. Or the player may have designed their cleric PC with their reading of the deity only to be caught off-guard by the DM's radically different reading of the deity or their arrangement.

It's blindingly obvious that a GM and player might both read a description of a god as a god of justice and mercy and yet that lead to a different play experience, if adjudicated/imposed by the GM, from what the player had anticipated.

"Where do the 5e rules say that the GM has sole authorship rights in respect of non-PC setting elements?"

The rules establish the DM as the authority.

As many have said, if the gm agrees to allow others such authority or agree to accept the suggestions proposed that is fine.

From PHB
Your DM might set the campaign on one of these worlds or on one that he or she created. Because there is so much diversity among the worlds of D&D, you should check with your DM about any house rules that will affect your play of the game. Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world.

D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

pemerton

Legend

pemerton

Legend

TwoSix

Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer

5ekyu

Hero

5ekyu

Hero

billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him)

pemerton

Legend

5ekyu

Hero

pemerton

Legend

5ekyu

Hero

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