Is the DM always right?

[Rezzin]

Tray to talk it out and be reasonable. Don't end up like these guys.

Man bound over for trial in hammer attacks
Courts » Motive may have stemmed from 'Dungeons and Dragons' game and jealousy.

Holly hell!

I admit the thread title is off-base. It should be "Is the DM's decisions in game worth arguing over in game." Or something along those lines....

The player just thinks the rule that the DM is the arbiter is lame and will not respect it at the table. Like I said he is the only one who stops the game to challenge rules.

For example - he thought last game that an "effect" of a power could happen at any time, regardless if you rolled or not becasue of some silly wording of "effect" in the PHB. Something along the lines of "effects happen with or without a die roll at times." So by his rationale, and this is verbatim: A bard could use the Song of Discord daily and, without rolling - let the effect happen (enemy makes a melee basic attack against an enemy). I told him simply no, there is a sequence to follow as errated and explained to him in the PHB2 appendix (I think) under "sequence." Again, he thinks he can do these things because it doesn't say he can't - which is mind boggling to me.

If he is challenged he basically sees it as an attack against him and his characters - like we are trying to bring him and his PC's down or something. He even stated something along the lines of why do we always question his actions....well becasue a lot of times they don't make sense. If you even go against one thing he says he is immediately on the defensive and then "it's on." Argument ensues...

I think we are on the right path but the player was proven wrong twice last game and I don't want him to be discouraged with the game as a whole becasue he made a mistake with wording/interpretation. I think it would be beneficial (and I will try and implement this at the next session) to not question his tactics at times and just let it go - for the good of the game.

 

[Ryujin]

Or you could rule and then move on to the next player, leaving him to sputter impotently. While being autocratic can damage the enjoyment of one player, caving in to the ridiculous whims of one player can ruin it for the rest. It's a balancing act.

We have one player who constantly cheats on his dice rolls and damage. He seems to need to be the centre of the action and has been called on doing 50% more damage than he is capable of on numerous occasions, while also getting critical hits on almost 50% of his attacks. We could call him on it and spoil his 'fun', or all of us could just give every creature 'Resist 10 (insert character's name here).' Guess which one we use.

 

[weem]

As a DM (most of the time) I tell my players, I will be wrong - I'm not a rules dude, you guys are (because they are - they like to know the rules inside and out). I tell them to let me know if they feel/know I am wrong and I will change it, or keep it - but once I have made that decision, we move on regardless.

 

[borg286]

I do not wish to detract from the purpose of this thread, but simply to offer a nice idea proposed to me.

If you have a rules lawyer, there's a high chance they are also a power gamer trying to get their way. Ask the power gamer to create 5 characters level X as optimally as possible using whatever RAW he interprets them to be. He'll spend days or weeks building the perfect builds. When he comes to you with them take them and distribute them to the other players and ask him to co-DM with you. This puts him on the recieving end of his cheese, observer of the Glory that he created and then he tries to create encounters where his creations shine or die. This might tone him down while still letting him his builds shine. he then gets to show off his creativity when pure RAW are used. Once he's had the spotlight and then known how hard it is facing his own creations he'll think again arguing a RAW debate to make his character uber.

 

[N0Man]

For example - he thought last game that an "effect" of a power could happen at any time, regardless if you rolled or not becasue of some silly wording of "effect" in the PHB. Something along the lines of "effects happen with or without a die roll at times." So by his rationale, and this is verbatim: A bard could use the Song of Discord daily and, without rolling - let the effect happen (enemy makes a melee basic attack against an enemy). I told him simply no, there is a sequence to follow as errated and explained to him in the PHB2 appendix (I think) under "sequence." Again, he thinks he can do these things because it doesn't say he can't - which is mind boggling to me.

I'm confused by this example, and wonder if I'm misunderstanding you or not.

Are you suggesting that your player wants to use the Song of Discord (during his turn), but not bother rolling to hit, to just use the effect line to have an enemy hit someone as a free action? If that intepretation is correct, then by the actual rules, I would say that this only occurs after you roll the attack (whether you hit or miss).

That said, if the player doesn't want to bother rolling and wants to assume he misses to just use the effect line, then unless he was trying to exploit this in some way, then it doesn't sound like much of an issue and refusing him might mean that maybe you are being a tad too unyielding and controlling as a DM.

However, if he was doing this for a reason like trying to circumvent provoking an opportunity attack for using a ranged attack in melee, I'd definitely call him on it and forbid it.

The context matters, and it's certainly ok for DM's to bend rules to make the game more fun for all the players.

 

[Rezzin]

I'm confused by this example, and wonder if I'm misunderstanding you or not.

Are you suggesting that your player wants to use the Song of Discord (during his turn), but not bother rolling to hit, to just use the effect line to have an enemy hit someone as a free action? If that intepretation is correct, then by the actual rules, I would say that this only occurs after you roll the attack (whether you hit or miss).

That said, if the player doesn't want to bother rolling and wants to assume he misses to just use the effect line, then unless he was trying to exploit this in some way, then it doesn't sound like much of an issue and refusing him might mean that maybe you are being a tad too unyielding and controlling as a DM.

However, if he was doing this for a reason like trying to circumvent provoking an opportunity attack for using a ranged attack in melee, I'd definitely call him on it and forbid it.

The context matters, and it's certainly ok for DM's to bend rules to make the game more fun for all the players.

You are correct on your assumption in your first paragraph. I also totally agree with your second paragraph and see no reason why that would not be ok either. The thing is the player wanted to basically use the effect without even rolling, assuming it happened before the attack. I explained that in some circumstances this does occur with certain powers. But in general you follow the sequence of the power as written.

This brings up a good point to the topic at hand however. Most of the time the arguments are about trivial bs like this where even if the player got his way, things wouldn't be radically different. But....as the game progresses and the powers get more and more prolific there is probably more room for abuse that as a group we would be wise to avoid. In other words, straighten things out now rather than later.

I also want to take the time to thank everyone who has responded in this thread. All of the insight is greatly appreciated.

 

[N0Man]

It's hard to make generalizations, since there might be unknown elements of the story and circumstances. This is obviously making the game less fun for both you and him.

After the last example, I do wonder if maybe some of the stubbornness and desire for control might be occurring on both sides of the table. It's something to consider.

Like I said earlier, what you are described was him wanting to use a power in a way that is *mostly* less powerful than it is written, as if he assumed he was failing the attack. If there is nothing that he specifically gains from this, aside from the convenience of not actually rolling, then maybe you should consider letting it go.

Another option is to ask the table how everyone else feels about that. Let go a little bit of the control and put it on the table. You can present the the rule and ask how they feel about it being bent. This way it doesn't have to be a power struggle between you and him, but rather a group decision.

Certainly there are times where drawing the line and making the final decision is really the job of the DM. For example, automatically assuming you miss with this song can be fine, since there is no benefit from missing, however I would rule that he is still susceptible to an Opportunity Attack, as if he made a ranged attack. On the other hand, I would *not* allow a player to automatically assume that they missed with a Grease spell, since in some situations missing is better than hitting.

My advice: Learn to give up a little control sometimes. Choose your battles. Know that sometimes you will be wrong.

 

[DracoSuave]

For example - he thought last game that an "effect" of a power could happen at any time, regardless if you rolled or not becasue of some silly wording of "effect" in the PHB. Something along the lines of "effects happen with or without a die roll at times." So by his rationale, and this is verbatim: A bard could use the Song of Discord daily and, without rolling - let the effect happen (enemy makes a melee basic attack against an enemy). I told him simply no, there is a sequence to follow as errated and explained to him in the PHB2 appendix (I think) under "sequence." Again, he thinks he can do these things because it doesn't say he can't - which is mind boggling to me.

Your player is trying to use shinanegans. There's players who are good at pouring through every tome and finding the complex interactions and making things work in strange arcane ways....

....and then there's players who are bad at it and conveniently 'forget' how rules work to make their characters do what they want. Make no mistake, often these players are doing it on purpose. I've had players like that, who literally make up stuff on the spot.

You have to remind them that players don't have that right.

At this point, I take the PHB2, toss it in front of him, and I say 'I do not accept rules-lawyering from people who have not read the rules. Until such a time as you have proven you can do this, you are seriously killing my buzz.

The reason I say this, quite honestly, is I do not understand how you came to this conclusion. You must not have read the section that tells you -exactly- how this works. Because if you -had-, the only motivation that you could possibly have for this is to try to use desperate emotional pleas to cheat your way into some benefit.

I am giving you the benefit of the doubt, I believe that you are not trying to cheat, by taking up a desperate argument that you KNOW isn't in the rules, but that you simply don't understand how it works. So you have a choice. Either you can allow me to teach you how it works, or you can read the book, learn how it works, come back, try these shinanegans again, and find out that what you want will be house ruled away from you to this method of resolution anyways. And you'll need me to teach you the rule.'

Simply put, you tell them to re-read the rules, shut down future attempts to apply these shinanegans, and you hint that you're quite aware of his shinanegans, but that you're not officially calling him a damn cheater, so therefore he must simply be a noob.

And hell, if you have my players, they'll get a kick out of it.

 

[fba827]

That said, if the player doesn't want to bother rolling and wants to assume he misses to just use the effect line, then unless he was trying to exploit this in some way, then it doesn't sound like much of an issue and refusing him might mean that maybe you are being a tad too unyielding and controlling as a DM.

Allowing to assume a miss isn't a bad thing - it saves time by one less die roll calculation. However, watch out for exploits.. some that come to mind (one said by N0man already) ...

1) Is there even a valid target in range (otherwise, he may just be getting the effect line 'benefit' without have even had a valid target that could have been hit, whether or not you assume a miss
2) is it a ranged attack? If so, the PC should still be subject to the OA even if you assume he missed the attack roll itself since the OA would have happened regardless

But, yeah, stick to the sequence - that is important

If you need to give a counterargument (in addition to the 'sequence' listing), there are also some powers that have the effect line happen BEFORE the attack (a few rogue powers come to mind where you shift prior to the hit line)

 

[Hjorimir]

I'll add my voice to the "The DM isn't always right, but the DM's word is final" crowd. I do have a couple of rules-lawyer players, but I'm a rules-lawyer myself. Sure, there are times we don't agree, but that's bound to happen. I make rulings based not only one what the rules are, but what is good for the game/campaign.

Players that can't accept that arrangement can go pound sand for all I care. I do my very best to run entertaining campaigns, of which I have three with a total of fifteen different players (and more people who wish they could play, but my games are full and I can't bring myself to run a fourth). I guess I'm doing okay in the player's eyes.

Of course you can do pretty much anything you want as a DM if you have the trust of the players. Ergo earning that trust is truly a wise pursuit as a DM and one I highly endorse.