If you were the GM, would you accept this behavior?

[the Jester]

I wasn't there myself; I wasn't even a part of that group. But my best friend at the time told me a story years ago (prolly in 1986 or 87) that really weirds me out when I think about it.

There was a game called Twilight 2000 that had come out a couple of months before. I don't know if my friend was in this particular game or just heard about it in turn; but basically, the players went into this city, traded, and left; then told the gm that the city pretty well blew up, because they had left bombs in many of their trade items.

They had all the stuff written down on their character sheets, but they sprang their move on the gm after the fact. How would you respond to this?

 

[Lazarous]

Go 'damn, that must've been some fireworks show' and move on? (Possibly siccing some ninjas on them. Not cause of the bombing; ninjas are just cool like that.)

 

[Mark Hope]

How would you respond to this?

By saying "no".

Alternatively, I might allow it. And then later have all their characters suddenly drop dead due to highly trained attack nanites that a passing starship teleported into their food earlier in the week.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Alternatively, I might allow it. And then later have all their characters suddenly drop dead due to highly trained attack nanites that a passing starship teleported into their food earlier in the week.

Good idea! However, did the starship target the PCs specifically or were more people affected? Maybe everybody in the whole world were killed.

 

[Frostmarrow]

They had all the stuff written down on their character sheets, but they sprang their move on the gm after the fact. How would you respond to this?

I'd allow it and then have a sit-down and discuss the actual role of the DM as an administrator of the game and not an opponent.

 

[Cabled]

You bet

I'd have allowed it, even though from the sounds of it the players were certainly playing with an "us vs. the GM" mindset. But unless all those bombs were nukes (and thus easily spotted..."Why does everything you sell me come with a suitcase, my friends?"), it would be awfully hard to disperse enough bombs through a town to kill everyone, and it's highly unlikely that everyone from that town would be in that town at any given time when it blew up. So, you'll have a few survivors, a few people returning, and someone is bound to be smart enough to put two and two together.

I played in an on-again off-again Twilight 2k campaign probably alost 20 years ago, and it always amazed me how many players fell into the mindset of homicidal maniac when thier characters were actually soldiers no longer recieving orders from the brass. It almost seemed to be a side effect of the mileu that having all that firepower and nobody to answer to was too much to resist.

 

[cattoy]

By telling them that if they don't tell the GM in real-time, it doesn't happen.

Do they honestly think that everyone in the world is a robot, existing purely to provide them with exp or resources when they get killed or cheated?

The townsfolk might have access to bomb-sniffing dogs and other means of detecting these explosives, and unless the GM is informed of their actions, there is no chance of the PCs getting caught in the act.

No boom. Not this time and not ever unless they clean up their act.

 

[KenM]

No, I would not put up with it. The players did not tell the DM they were putting the bombs in until they did it. Therefore the DM did not know it, it did not happen.
A few years ago I was running a 3rd ed game. I told the players the the DM sees all notes between players. Last game the players started toi pass notes between them for 10 minutes. I asked to see the notes, the players refused. I stoped the game right there.

 

[Lazarous]

Do they honestly think that everyone in the world is a figment of imagination, existing purely to provide them with exp or resources when they get killed or cheated?

Fixed your typo. And yeah, i'm pretty sure they think that .

 

[BWP]

they sprang their move on the gm after the fact. How would you respond to this?

In theory, by telling them that if the GM learns about it "after the fact", then it never happened in the first place. They had an interesting shared dream where, for some reason, they believed that they blew the place up ... but it was only a dream.

That's the theory. In reality, I'd never be running a game for players who are that unclear on the concept to begin with.