The Player vs DM attitude

[Verdande]

Want to know how I got the players to stop slaying everything mercilessly and to help them realize that it's not a Me vs Them bloodbath?

I had one of the members of the bandits surrender. In exchange for ratting out his buddies, they not only let him live, but grew to like him. He's now a mostly non-combat NPC (he's a bit cowardly) that cooks food for them and tells them jokes and all of that, all because they took pity on a poor surrendering halfling.

I didn't force them to trust him, and I didn't push his presence on them. If anything, I discouraged it. The bandit was rude and unhelpful at first, but with enough threats of violence he ratted out his buddies. And then one of my players felt bad and offered to give him a couple of silver and cart him back to town.

So the whole thing was in their court. The fact that he's friendly is their fault. Like somebody above me said, if you're trying to force the characters to trust an NPC, they're going to ask why this guy, why right now, and what's going to happen down the line. DMs have a bad habit of pushing a new character into the scene only to take them away.

Think about it in terms of movies. If there's a guy who seems untrustworthy and dishonest, but the main character has them around anyways, you know they're going to betray the party, and the only thing keeping it from happening sooner is the almight Plot Force. If you're doing the same thing with some guy, your players will notice it just like you noticed that Evilgrin McBackstab is going to betray the main characters in the movie approximately 30 seconds after he introduced himself.

 

[ggroy]

Players are trying to avoid a "Lando Calrissian" type situation.

 

[Pbartender]

This,

Mostly, what you need to do is to make sure that the entire campaign world is not hostile to the PCs...

this,

Mostly, what you need to do is to make sure that the entire campaign world is not hostile to the PCs...

and this again...

Mostly, what you need to do is to make sure that the entire campaign world is not hostile to the PCs...

It bears repeating that player characters cannot be heroes without adversity. At the same time, however, adversity is meaningless against a backdrop of adversity.

Betrayals (and every other Rat Bastard DM trick as well) only have significance when used in the rarest of occasions. It should be something that happens as a part of a major plot twist, rather than something that happens every other day. To have the most impact, the betrayal needs to be contrasted with a long history of trust and safety amongst the PCs' allies and acquaintances, and there should be at least a minimal amount of foreshadowing.

 

[LostSoul]

Celebrim, what do you think of the idea of DM as referee?

 

[Celebrim]

Celebrim, what do you think of the idea of DM as referee?

I think the DM is both referee and antagonist and much more. The DM must comfortably wear many hats.

The DM both takes the role of the adversary forces and fairly adjucates the interaction between the protagonist and the antagonist. The DM has the responcibility to play an NPC that is ruthless and cunning as ruthlessly and as cunningly as he can manage. And the DM has to ensure that he maintains nuetrality and doesn't abuse his powers in such a way that it gives 'his side' an unfair advantage. It's inevitable then that the DM be both the antagonist and the referee.

The important thing to keep in mind as the DM is that you are always secretly rooting for the players. You must vicariously thrill at their successes, even when doing so means feigning disappointment. If you ever find yourself really being disappointed when the players 'beat you', then you need to reevaluate your attitude toward the game. The DM simultaneously is doing his best to win AND stacking the deck so he can't actually do so. The DM should only 'win' after prolonged bad luck and folly by the players. Of course, the more experienced and resourceful your players, the narrower of a margin you need to run. I've seen situations where the DM isn't particularly tactically skilled where he has to throw the kitchen sink at the players just to keep up. But the important thing is that you are never throwing enough at your players that the odds of 'success' (whatever that means in context) are in your favor. The party that follows a skillful line of play should always beat you, and that should be your intention all along.

 

[Mark]

The Player vs DM attitude

How do we stop it?

Players need to understand that if it even was a competition, the DM has unlimited resources so it would be no contest. The idea of a Player(s) vs DM/GM/Referee competion is a fiction. The facilitator of such games is the challenge-enabler as well as the conduit to the gameworld. Players who view the relationship otherwise are misdirecting their focus and are likely to be less than fully successful handling the challenges and immersing themsleves in the scenarios. A discussion should be had to these points and if it is determined that one or more players are the root of this problem, the conversation should be repeated with them separately. If it continues, perhaps sterner measures might need to be taken to ensure the rest of the group has fun.

 

[Diamond Cross]

It's when the DM tries to control a my characters completely, especially in favor of his pet characters, that puts me out. I'll never game with such people again.

For example, in a Heroes Unlimited I fairly and randomly actually rolled Invulnerability right in front of him. So he told me I had to take a weakness to a metal. Even though the rules said it was to ANYTHING, he made me do so or I'd have to roll up an entirely new character. So I chose copper.

Then he "created" a robot out of thin air that was armed to the teeth with copper weaponry. Copper claws, copper ammunition for firearms and rockets. This was done in order to keep me in line as a player because he feared I was going to turn my character into a bully because the Marvel Comics character "The Incredible Hulk" is one of my favorite comic book characters and thought I was going to be murderous and anything else like that. I tried to assure him to the best of my ability no I wasn't but nothing I said would convince him otherwise. So I stopped playing with him.

Another DM I used to game with had a philiosphy of giving the players the illusion of control and he could do anything he wanted to the characters in the name of the story, even ignoring or changing rules on the spot. And if you went against the storyline he'd just kill your character on the spot.

So these are the kinds of things that will set me off against a DM. These are just bad DMS and so now I simply will not game with these people.

 

[Doug McCrae]

For example, in a Heroes Unlimited I fairly and randomly actually rolled Invulnerability right in front of him. So he told me I had to take a weakness to a metal. Even though the rules said it was to ANYTHING, he made me do so or I'd have to roll up an entirely new character. So I chose copper.

Then he "created" a robot out of thin air that was armed to the teeth with copper weaponry. Copper claws, copper ammunition for firearms and rockets.

That's comics!

 

[howandwhy99]

I know of two choices. One is to remove the DM role completely and play a collaborative storytelling game. This could include playing a competitive simulation game where the DM selects a series of quantifiable balanced combats and other sub-game system encounters.

The other option is to remove DM choice and make DMs referees, impartial judges who relate back a code behind a screen to different player's attempted actions. This means scripting NPC abilities like tactics in combat as part of this code, but it enables a unchanging challenge the players can recognize and engage with without the DM being an antagonist or fellow competitor / player.

There are benefits and pitfalls to both methods. I'll focus on the pitfalls. Namely, that the first removes suspense and achievement from the game, while the second suffers the very question of whether or not impartiality is possible. Take the game Mastermind. Is it possible to impartially convey color and positioning of 4 pegs behind a screen or is this a game of subjective preference placing one player in a tyrannical, "evil" position over another?

I think both come down to preference of the players. For the OP, gaining the trust of your players will depend a great deal upon each and everyone's own beliefs and desires for the game.

 

[Verdande]

That's comics!

Shoulda picked a squisher metal?