D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

pemerton · Oct 11, 2018

What is the basic role of a player in a fairly traditional but at least moderately story-oriented RPG? To (i) declare actions for one particular character in the setting, who will almost certainly occupy some sort of protagonistic role in the shared fiction, and thereby (ii) realise some sort of conception of said character as well as (iii) finding out what happens to him/her.

A GM who plays the setting in such a way as to defeat a player's approach to (ii) is actively thwarting the players' fulfillment of his/her role. That's the sort of GMing that would cause me to actually leave a game.

If a player's approach to (ii) is a problem for the rest of the group, the solution isn't to stop the player fulfilling that part of his/her role by having the GM take it over. That's bonkers! You don't solve one sort of dysfunction by introducing a different sort of dysfunction. The solution to a social problem of this sort is to talk it out. (In practice, I've tended to find that these things resolve themselves without the need for much explicit talking about it because ordinary social cues do the job of letting people know when they're starting to make things less fun for others.)

Kobold Boots · Oct 11, 2018

pemerton said:
This whole discussion seems permeated by some sort of fear (or at least concern) that letting players establish fiction - about their PC's backgrounds, or relationships, or loyalties, and the like - will somehow break the game. But how? Surely most GMs have ideas for scenarios for a Devotion Paladin other than having to choose whether to foster or slaughter the orc babies?

For me the issue is not letting players establish fiction. In fact, I allow players to roleplay NPCs when I need to establish campaign history that isn't already in stone or when their characters aren't in the scene being played at the moment. I just tell them, "here's your motivation and allegiances. Here's the situation.. go." Sometimes it benefits the group and most of the time my players screw with their characters.

The problem is when players establish fiction that allow themselves game world material advantages (or disadvantages) that aren't codified and balanced in the rules somehow. In those cases the DM has to or at the least should, redirect things that allow game balance to be maintained.

Thanks,
KB

pemerton · Oct 11, 2018

Kobold Boots said:
The problem is when players establish fiction that allow themselves game world material advantages (or disadvantages) that aren't codified and balanced in the rules somehow.

This discussion is about the role of warlock patrons, clerics' gods, paladins' oaths, other sorts of loyalties or relationships, racial and cultural expectations and practices, etc. How do any of those things - which are the things that a number of posters seem to feel shold not be managed by the players lest some sort of bad thing happen - relate to material advantages or disadvantages?

Guest 6801328 · Oct 11, 2018

pemerton said:
I don't see an oath as an "inconvenient bit". I tend to see it as - within the fiction - a source of strength; and within the play of the game, a likely source of compelling fiction. Beyond that, I basically agree with @Hussar's reply to this. We don't assume that the player of a fighter has "no interest in storytelling" because s/he doesn't write into his/her backstory a psychological condition (a la The Manchurian Candidate) that enables the GM to take control of his/her PC; or an oath of loyalty that enables the GM to tell him/her what s/he must do if s/he is not to break the oath.

Wow...I get up in the morning and the thread is three pages longer.

I'll pick this one...among many...to respond to.

1) I only say "inconvenient bits" because the player apparently doesn't want to have to deal with it. I agree that it's a powerful/cool part of the character.

2) I'm not sure how to interpret the player keeping the Oath as part of his character, and yet never wanting it to be actually brought up in-game. "I like asparagus, I just don't want to eat it." ????

3) It's a big leap from "the DM would like to make the Oath an actual part of the game" and the DM "taking control" of the PC or the DM "telling him/her what he/she must do". There's a wide spectrum of possible DM behavior, and assuming only the most extreme one doesn't make your argument compelling.

I'll try to check back in after another half-dozen pages or so...

S'mon · Oct 11, 2018

5ekyu said:
So likely that player wont be upset or fussing about you being a dictator or questioning your own personal "decency" if in game have some folks (pc or npc) react to them being an undead like they would react to a non-pc undead?

Sounds great.

You dont have to tell the other players "hey, your character must accept her as undead regardless of your character's established nature" etc.

I expect she'll love it if NPCs freak out at the sight of her.

As for the PCs, her insistence that she was a Perfectly Normal Human Being was already a running joke when she was a living Yuan-Ti Pureblood. I expect there may be a few cracks now she's an undead Yuan-Ti Pureblood. And my 11 year old son is playing a dragonborn Eldritch Knight, Talaxakan, who recently had a revelation while sitting on the Throne of Yig, converted to Yig-ism (Motto: "Get Yiggy With It!")

and sees himself as Yig's Prophet dedicated to restoring the Yig cult. Yig has already granted him the Channel Divinity power to Rebuke Snakes, including Tuzhna the snake lady Revenant.

Yig is also known to have consumed and absorbed the old Altanian god Seth, boatman of Ra, and is known as Set to the Altani. He's also Zehir-Sett the Ouroboros, the Neo-Nerath deity behind the Cult of the Black Sun, the biggest villain group IMC...

5ekyu · Oct 11, 2018

pemerton said:
Well, what would be for others inside the game is always going to conform to what someone wants - because someone has to make it up. (And presumably they won't make something up that they think is bad.)

I'm not seeing any reason why it shouldn't be the player. I'm the one who made up the Order of the Iron Tower, the Lord of Battle, my family estate of Adir, and maybe other stuff I'm forgetting, for my character in BW. It's the character I want to play - I want to find out what happens to my character, not what the GM thinks would be interesting to happen if s/he were playing my character.

I don't know about the entire race. But the details of the dwarf clan in my 4e game were decided by the player of the dwarf, not by me. The player of the drow worshipper of Corellon invented the Order of the Bat, a drow secret society of Corellon worshippers dedicated to overthrowing Lolth and undoing the sundering of the elves. Another player invented the fallen city of Entekash, sacked by humanoids, from which his player was a refugee.

What [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] said - if it's a problem, talk about it.

If everyone enjoys a game with an assassin cleric of Bahamut - maybe it's a low-grade black comedy - then no one has to talk about anything. But if (as seems to be the implication of SkidAce's question) the play of the character is spoiling the game, then that's a social problem, like any other sort of behaviour that spoils a cooperative leisure activity. Why would I try and resolve a social disagreement by making a move in a game? If someone is talking too loud at the chess club, I don't deal with that problem by trying even harder to checkmate him/her!

There is a difference and a significant one in a game where expressly it is the purview of a player to create whole swaths of non-pc content to support their character and those games like 5e where it is not setup that way - especially if it comes with questioning the decency of the gm if they say no. They are different games and each is fine unless one brings the presumptions of one into a game bring played with rules that say the other.

To be very clear, if the game being played has rules allowing players to unilaterally author lots of setting elements around their pcs, it would be wrong for a gm to step in and dictate (or question the decency of the players) the elements the players were given authorship over by the rules.

Just as in a game like 5e where some classes have explicit obligations etc and the GM has explicit control over NPC and setting (some exceptions noted) the player insisting on authorship beyond that scope would be wrong especially if it brought with it questions of the GM decency or ego of the GM said no.

Just as there is a difference between a game in which the consequences of in game in character actions are expected handled in game and in character as opposed to some out of game player conference. There is a difference between "my character did stuff but I dont want consequences sp call a meeting" and talking too loud at the chess club.

Kobold Boots · Oct 11, 2018

pemerton said:
This discussion is about the role of warlock patrons, clerics' gods, paladins' oaths, other sorts of loyalties or relationships, racial and cultural expectations and practices, etc. How do any of those things - which are the things that a number of posters seem to feel shold not be managed by the players lest some sort of bad thing happen - relate to material advantages or disadvantages?

If every interaction with the patron is managed by the player then it becomes very likely that every interaction will be a positive one. Positive interactions with patrons tend to result in boons which end up having at a minimum flavor advantages and at worst mechanical ones. (I got this awesome thing from my patron, it's a +5 holy avenger, found it under my cot when I woke up this morning)

Really bad example to make a point for the conversation.

Hussar · Oct 11, 2018

Maxperson said:
So what happens if you end up with orc babies that aren't some sort of test? Were you in my game, paladin or no paladin, if you invade an orc village there are going to be orc women and orc babies.

So, the fact that your player has told you, in no uncertain terms, that they are not interested, and that this is unfun for them, doesn't matter? The most important thing is your setting? Setting fidelity?

We simply have different priorities.

Hussar · Oct 11, 2018

Sadras said:
@pemerton and @Hussar If a player selects to play an elf or a dwarf, does the player also have narrative control over the thoughts and actions of the entire tribe, clan or race?

Sorry, but, just to clarify, do you mean that if I Backgrounded the fact that my character was an elf or a dwarf?

Or, do you mean that when I create a dwarf, say, do I get to tell the DM what dwarves in the setting think and do?

S'mon · Oct 11, 2018

Hussar said:
So, the fact that your player has told you, in no uncertain terms, that they are not interested, and that this is unfun for them, doesn't matter? The most important thing is your setting? Setting fidelity?

We simply have different priorities.

I normally handle it by saying "the females & young run away". If the PC wants to hunt them down and massacre them, that's on him. BTW I appreciate dungeon layouts that give the monsters a rear exit! I felt a bit squeamish 6-8 months ago when the Dwarf Forgepriest PC set the orc females & young chamber on fire with burning oil, & barred the door so they'd all burn to death. I guess it said something about his character, anyway!