"Run away! Run away!" ... what if they don't?

[KenNYC]

Intentionally playing badly may in fact be the epitome of great role playing - you're doing what the naive uneducated character would do, rather than what you-the-experienced-player think you should do.


Lanefan

Playing badly to me is just playing badly. I was DMing a year or so back and this friend of a friend decided he was going to play a nutsy, kooky monk who went around making Three Stooges noises and acting all wacky. He thought it was funny and he was "role playing". I had to eventually introduce the 12 lvl Ranger to introduce the adventure, and he decided that role playing meant urinating on the Ranger's foot and setting the forest on fire. All while making the Three Stooges sound. So, is that role playing or just a guy saying "no" and trying to ruin the night? I decided against the Ranger killing his character as to not ruin anyone's time at the table.

People seem to justify anything as "roleplaying" when it really isn't: it is just a player being a chaos agent. Someone earlier said DM's shouldn't tell players how to play. I didn't, I just chose never to play with that person again.

 

[Harzel]

And one more thing to consider: The DMG suggests easy and medium encounters.

Oh? Where does it do that?

 

[Imaculata]

Someone earlier said DM's shouldn't tell players how to play. I didn't, I just chose never to play with that person again.

I think both are bad choices.
I would use a session 0 to establish my expectations as a DM of the group:

-What kind of behavior I expect of them (don't be a chaos agent)
-What theme and style the campaign will be in, and thus what sort of characters would fit that
-That I expect them to work together as a group
-That they are expected to play as 'the heroes', and not go on a random killing spree

Note that this is different from "a DM telling his players how to play". I'm telling them what kind of campaign I want to run, and I'm making sure they are okay with that. If that is not how they want to play the campaign, then maybe I need to run a different campaign with them. But I make sure that we're all in agreement before we actually start playing.

 

[Harzel]

I do expect a level of metagaming as its silly to not expect a player to get better at the game and I hate the whole "how many times do I have to do what I know is wrong before I can do what I know is right" situation.

Only clue my players seem to value for that matter is basic lore, my intonations, and meta-gaming clues ( It's that kind of monster, I know it's bad/fair game/useless...)

Most PCs are at least 20 years old, some much older. Giving the players a few shortcuts to catch up with all the knowledge that the PCs would have needn't be considered metagaming.

I should probably think of some elegant powers and spells meant to evaluate the power or the offensive abilities of a foe.

Consider instead feeding them information by more mundane means. Some things PCs will know on the basis of what they have learned growing up. Other things they can learn from NPCs and observation.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think I agree with that. The game is all about choice. This includes smart choices and dumb choices. I don't believe in such harsh punishment for a mistake, even if it was based on meta-gaming.

Should a dumb choice result in instant death, when the players are high level? Maybe, but preferably not.

Should a dumb choice result in instant death, when the players are low level? Absolutely not.

This is why I had my players encounter a crocodile at first level, as the 'final boss' of their grand escape out of a prison tower. It was an appropriate opponent for their level. A crocodile is not much of a fight at any level, except at level 1, where it 'can' kill you in one attack. If all of the players focus on the croc however, and keep their distance, they should be fine. I first had the crocodile attack an npc, to show what happens when you get too close (I rolled for the damage, and was kind of shocked how much damage the croc did in one attack. It killed the poor npc in one attack). But this was enough to warn my players of the danger that their opponent presented.

Technically the players 'could' have died during this fight, if they had done something monumentally stupid. But I did not throw a demi-Lich at them.

Pet peeve here: in all instances except one of the word "player" in the above quote, it should say "character"!

Grrrrr....

 

[Harzel]

Intentionally playing badly may in fact be the epitome of great role playing - you're doing what the naive uneducated character would do, rather than what you-the-experienced-player think you should do.

Well, I suppose, if you really think your character is naive and uneducated. Personally, I find most "flawed" characters to be implausible and just a self-indulgence on the part of the player. The buffers and concessions that a DM has to use to keep such characters alive are annoyingly immersion-breaking. All of which is quite subjective; some people have great fun with that stuff.

 

[Lanefan]

It's fine to play low level characters as naive greenhorns, but I think it is also fine to assume that most really stupid or foolish characters would be washed out of the adventuring life very early (probably prior to level 1) via death, dismemberment, or ...

I always thought level 1 was supposed to be the start of the adventuring life. Anything prior to that was merely parade-ground training of some sort.

It is possible to reasonably reflect a low mental stat, or incorporate other interesting flaws or foibles without having the character behave in ways that frequently threaten their and/or the party's survival.

Low intellgence, yes. Low wisdom, not so much.

As noted, no 'mind meld' is needed to explain the player having learned things that every PC would already know.

This is about to get into an argument that's raged through here several times before, regarding player knowledge vs. character knowledge.

The simplest answer, if it's something a PC might have heard about during training or whenever but might also never have heard of, is a d20 die roll. The higher (in 3-4-5e) or lower (in 0-1-2e) you roll, the more your PC happens to know about the topic at hand. This is completely disconnected from anything the player might know; on a good roll you can then bend that player knowledge to the task, but on a bad roll you have to grit your real-life teeth and play it as if it's all new to you - which, to the PC, it clearly is.

Lanefan

 

[Harzel]

It's a bit of a Catch-22, isn't it? The DM says, "Well of course you died, you foolishly rushed in to attack a monster that clearly outmatched you." The player retorts, "I don't want to metagame so I didn't memorize the Monster Manual, how was I supposed to know what its CR was?"

Aligning everyone's expectations sometimes requires something that comes poorly to a lot of us: clear, open, direct conversations about how we want the game to run. Does the DM actually expect the players to be able to cite monster CR immediately and make their in-character decisions based on that? Then best to make that explicitly clear. Do the players plan to try and restrict themselves to in-character knowledge and perception? Then the DM really needs to feed them clear information about what the PCs know and perceive in a dangerous situation. It's the clashing expectations where the DM throws in deadly encounters that aren't obviously deadly until the party is engaged and the first PC is making death saves that really cause hurt feelings.

When I restarted DMing a couple of years ago, the idea of players referencing the Monster Manual gave me conniptions. But in the intervening time, I've decided that the players' decisions are a lot more interesting if they are informed, and that is head and shoulders more important than mystery. The Monster Manual is, IMO, an acceptable proxy for the lore that PCs would know. It's definitely not ideal that is comprehensive, and it's kind of lazy on my part, but I still think it's better than leaving players with a dearth of information.

 

[Lanefan]

Playing badly to me is just playing badly. I was DMing a year or so back and this friend of a friend decided he was going to play a nutsy, kooky monk who went around making Three Stooges noises and acting all wacky. He thought it was funny and he was "role playing". I had to eventually introduce the 12 lvl Ranger to introduce the adventure, and he decided that role playing meant urinating on the Ranger's foot and setting the forest on fire. All while making the Three Stooges sound. So, is that role playing or just a guy saying "no" and trying to ruin the night? I decided against the Ranger killing his character as to not ruin anyone's time at the table.

Yeah, that's a bit beyond the pale...and were it me I think I would have had the Ranger whack him (or at the very least arrest him and bring him to justice, if the Ranger was a Lawful type) as revenge for all the trees his forest fire was about to kill. On a broader scale, actions may have consequences; and this must be made clear to all ahead of time.

Never mind that in the games I'm used to Monks can only be Lawful...

People seem to justify anything as "roleplaying" when it really isn't: it is just a player being a chaos agent.

But here we'll disagree. Chaotic players, IME and within reason, are light years more entertaining and gobs more fun than lawful players who insist on planning everything out and won't tolerate disagreement or party arguments/ingfighting or independent PC thoughts and actions.

Someone earlier said DM's shouldn't tell players how to play.

That was me, I think.

I didn't, I just chose never to play with that person again.

Which leaves unanswered an obvious question: were all this person's PCs like this or was this one an exception?

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

I think both are bad choices.
I would use a session 0 to establish my expectations as a DM of the group:

-What kind of behavior I expect of them (don't be a chaos agent)
-What theme and style the campaign will be in, and thus what sort of characters would fit that
-That I expect them to work together as a group
-That they are expected to play as 'the heroes', and not go on a random killing spree

Note that this is different from "a DM telling his players how to play".

No, it's exactly telling players how - and what - to play.

The first and fourth clauses above almost mandate characters to be non-chaotic and non-evil; the third clause implies they're expected to be lawful - leaving LG and LN (and maybe N and NG) as the only playable alignments in your game. And the third clause also directly tells them how to play - they have to work together, no independence, no rash actions.

I'm telling them what kind of campaign I want to run

Nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't mean you'll get what you want.

You design (or choose, if using something pre-fab) the setting etc. and maybe set up some sort of story...but the players, through their PCs, in theory then have the agency to run roughshod over all of it should they so choose. If the adventure hooks don't catch their interest they might flip off your story (with or without even realizing it) and go murderhobo orc-hunting in the southern hills. I see hitting these curveballs and adapting to them as simply part of the DM's job.

Most players IME more or less go along with what the DM has in mind, but not all will, or not all the time; and that's fair enough.

and I'm making sure they are okay with that. If that is not how they want to play the campaign, then maybe I need to run a different campaign with them. But I make sure that we're all in agreement before we actually start playing.

I'll get agreement on rules system, and pretty much stop there. After that, I design the setting for them to bash around in and - if needed - I'll lob in some story hooks and plotlines to go with it.

During a campaign, once in a while I'll go a bit meta as DM and say something like "Hey, I've just picked up this new module - it looks really cool and I'd like to give it a run out. First, have any of you been through it before; and second, do you mind if I run it as the next adventure?" It's rarely if ever they'll say no to this, unless it's something they've already played through at some other time.

Lanefan