How to make Players trust you(The DM/GM)?

I haven't been DMing for very long so I need some help.

My DMing style is very different from that of the others. I try to have battles with one uber-villian where the way to defeat him is not by fighting him one on one. This leaves me with two problems:
1) They try to fight it outright, but get horribly masicured.
2)The get angry at me for having them fight the boss.

I think the main problem is that they don't trust me enough for them to realize that, according to the way I play, no matter how bed things get, there will always be a way out. Any suggestions on how to get this point accross to them, without them getting the sense that "I can do whatever I want because I can always get out of it.? I mean, I have no problem with killing a character, so I don't want them to feel emortal eather.

Try to set up situations where the big bad guy doesn't want to kill the PCs. Maybe he wants to corrupt them, or torture them, or whatever. This is hard to pull off convincingly, though. Maybe you could make the big bad guy a relative of one of the PCs, struggling with his own inner demons, thinking he is doing the right thing and the PCs just "need to see the light".

To be honest, I don't think trust is the issue. While your description is not complete, it sounds a bit like railroading - the PCs must find the one way (your way) of defeating the nasty. This is, IMHO, not the best design strategy. It leaves the PCs feeling like their plans or initiative don't matter. If they don't see your solution, it looks to them like you are trying to kill them - and in a way, you are.

A better strategy would be to design an encounter, and let the players figure out how to deal with it. Don't specify the one way to go about it. Don't make the villain invulnerable to all but one action. Make him tough, but give the PCs many options for defeating the critter. Usually players are not good at finding your single solution, and that is frustrating. They are, however, far better at finding solutions you didn't thik of

I have to agree with Umbran.

The game gives the player characters certain abilities. Wizards get their spells, fighters get their feats, etc, and if you make it so that there is one fairy tale like way to kill the enemy, rather than making it possible by normal means, then you have taken all their powers away, and they will resent you.

You've admitted that you DM a little differently. Maybe you should try a more standard DMing style for a while to build up some trust before trying new things. Trust takes time.

Another thing you can do is simply tell them out of the game "Hey, this encounter isn't too difficult; you can figure it out if you're clever." This might cause them to redouble their efforts, or it might cause more frustration. Remember to give liberal (and I mean VERY liberal) hints whenever you throw a riddle or puzzle of any kind at your players. What seems obvious from your side of the table can be completely confusing to them. But if you're a new DM, I'd avoid complex puzzles. A straightforward fight can still be fun.

I'm sort of guessing what the situation is, as Umbran was. Hope this helps.

Gargoyle said:

The game gives the player characters certain abilities. Wizards get their spells, fighters get their feats, etc, and if you make it so that there is one fairy tale like way to kill the enemy, rather than making it possible by normal means, then you have taken all their powers away, and they will resent you.

Click to expand...

I agree with you guys, but: couldn't you say that they use thier abilities while they figure out the "fairy tale like way to kill the enemy"?

I agree that railroading is a bad idea, but an unbeatable villian can make a good plot point and the driving force behind the campaign.

Your are right, I do have a tendancy to raliroad, but I try my best. What I usually do is put them in an interesting battle ground, like a construction yard, museum, whatever, and let them use the varies thing they find to kill him. I usually (though i have) do not think of how they kill it when I make the battle gound, I just put alot of stuff that I think would be useful in the battle ground, and let them design a way to kill it. That's also a good idea for them to meet up with the villian, give him a little more depth and they could possibly use his mental weaknesses to defeat him.

LostSoul said:

I agree with you guys, but: couldn't you say that they use thier abilities while they figure out the "fairy tale like way to kill the enemy"?

I agree that railroading is a bad idea, but an unbeatable villian can make a good plot point and the driving force behind the campaign.

Click to expand...

Sure, it's a good plot if you're an experienced DM. Just keeping up with the basics of the game is difficult enough though, keeping the plot simple when you're inexperienced is more important.

BTW: the "fairy tale" reference wasn't meant as a slam, it was meant to be descriptive of the common theme in fairy tales where there is often only one way to defeat the otherwise unbeatable villain... sorry if it sounded harsh. I rather like having a "fairy tale" or high fantasy aspect in my game.

I find if you offer them candy, it makes them trust you more..................





what? What?

but only if the candy is sealed in it's original wrapper.



I keep the big bad in the background and have him/her/it send it's henchmen after the players.

Railroading is usually met with lots of curses and "How was I suppossed to figure that out." (Most of my players aren't the thinking kind.) I let them figure out how to deal with big bad while they're dealing with his throwaway underlings in seperate encounters leading up to the big fight. It gives them more time to think and come up with a viable way to deal with the bad guy.

In my last game one of the players dropped a daern's instant fortress ontop of the big bad guy...3 times to make sure. They wrecked it but it was for a good cause and I was not expecting it.
Darn those players.