Why I don't GM by the nose

[JacktheRabbit]

Of course, the event that led up to them getting stuck in the dungeon was that they were on the run from a village that formed a mob. The guy's wife played a barbarian and she refused to give up her weapons to enter the village. The constable said, "Suit yourself, you can't come into the village grounds." She attacks and kills the constable. She, as a player, didn't want to roleplay or comply as she thought that was boring. When the other village militia arrive to provide help, the party kills them too and then the village forms a mob at which they players fled. This killed my whole "You arrive in a village and they need your aid with something" adventure.

I have yet to find a good solution (as a DM) to the wannabe anarchist player who does all the things in game they cannot in real life, nor the suicidal player who doesnt care how long their character lasts since they think character creation is fun.

On the other hand as a player I have solved this problem easily.

Had a similar situation to the bored female barbarian who decides to commit first degree murder. Our situation was the barbarian who didnt want to pay his bar tab at a tavern in a sleepy town. So he killed the tavern owner over a reasonable bill and started to walk out. Playing the party cleric I Held Person the barbarian then crushed his skull with my mace, then paid let the tavern owners wife have the barbarians money.

The player of the barbarian was a second hand friend in the group and a bit shocked. But I said clearly that he had commited murder and paid the price for it. then I said if he had a problem out of character then he shouldnt roleplay as a psychotic idiot in what is supposed to be a heroic campaign of good aligned characters.

 

[Lanefan]

What does 'bask in the fame and fortune' even mean in this context? How much game time can you spend basking in virtual praise, for imaginary acts your avatar didn't actually pretend-accomplish, or spending imaginary wealth on imaginary vices, products, and services? "OK, so your PC is stuffed to the rafters with ale and whores, and owns a Bentley, which is strange because they won't be invented for a few hundred years. Now what?" I've never seen a campaign play out like this.

"Bask in the fame and fortune" = become local heroes, get feted by the local nobility, have cash to buy or commission better gear (magical or otherwise) than they'd otherwise have, and all in all be better prepared for the next adventure.

An example:
A party of 4 characters, let's call them Alpha, Brave, Coward, and Douche. Each goes in to the adventure owning 1000 g.p. worth of gear; the party finds another 6000 g.p. during the adventure. Normally, each PC would end up* with a total of 1000 + (6000 / 4 = 1500) = 2500 g.p. worth of stuff.

But Alpha and Brave, being what they are, both died in the field. Coward and Douche, being what they are, are now going to get back to town with 10000 g.p. worth of stuff - they each had 1000, Alpha and Brave each had 1000, plus the 6000 from the dungeon - and so each now has 5000. They gear themselves up, then go out and recruit two more adventurers - this time called Eager and Foolish - and the process repeats.

* - for discussion purposes and to keep the math simple, I'm ignoring item loss-consumption-etc.

The DM pretty much has to run Coward and Douche, as they have become the party. The game grinds to a halt halfway through the next adventure, however, once Eager and Foolish catch on and start emulating C and D.

So how can Alpha and Brave be rewarded for their risk-taking while Coward and Douche are held back, particularly in a game or system that does not use variable experience points?

Lan-"occasionally, an Alpha-Brave type survives. My PCs are living proof"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

I have yet to find a good solution (as a DM) to the wannabe anarchist player who does all the things in game they cannot in real life, nor the suicidal player who doesnt care how long their character lasts since they think character creation is fun.

Whe the whole game's like that, it's not really a problem.

...supposed to be a heroic campaign of good aligned characters.

Heroic? Good aligned? There's yer first problems, right there...

Lan-"any heroism I may achieve is merely a random side effect of the chaos I create"-efan

 

[Hussar]

No problem with anything you've said here... but I do want to point out that what is true of D&D is not necessarily true of how other games work. There are many games in which you could indeed claim to be a prince or an avatar of a diety, and it would indeed grant you tangible benefits -benefits which are just as supported as the rules for magic swords and hacking through goblins. Likewise, there are games in which you could indeed have some amount of control over NPCs by having hirelings or gaining allies; alternatively, skills such as propaganda, diplomacy, and various other things can be used.

Oh totally. Yes. I certainly didn't want to imply that there were games which didn't provide players with this level of authorial control over the campaign.

Just that D&D isn't one of them.

I'm still rather confused how BOTE can think that the DM doesn't control the game and have all the power.

Player: I jump over the pit.
DM: Roll a check, DC 15
Player: I rolled a 12
DM: You fall in the pit.

At what point did the player have ANY power? The player at no point can declare any action completed. Heck, the DM can arbitrarily jack up the DC to make success impossible.

When does the player get the power to reduce the DC without the DM's say so?

 

[Krensky]

No. Seriously. Stop. Is there any way to make you re-evaluate this fundamentally dysfunctional premise?

You might start by responding to the rest of the paragraph and the argument there in to show me how my understanding is flawed.

As I've said before, I'm fully willing to accept that there are gaming tables at which the GM wields complete and absolute power. (In fact, my original post in this thread relies upon that being true.) Are you in any way capable of accepting that not all gaming tables work like that?

Pretty much all gaming tables the a traditional split of GM and Player responsibility work as I described. The GMs power derives from players choosing to allow the potential of absolute power. The only power they truly retain is to walk away. The most important aspect of a GM's job is to limit his exercise of power. To act as the first among equals rather then a tyrant. Which is an element of my argument you keep leaving out of your quotes.

Because if you are really unwilling or incapable of widening your narrow view of how RPGs can be played, then there's really nothing more to be discussed. I've got better things to do than chatting with a blind man who refuses to believe that other people are capable of sight.

Why does an honest (albeit simple) assessment of power structures at the gaming table make me narrow minded? I'm willing to accept you don't feel the GM has absolute power as long as the players allow it. I'm even willing to entertain counter arguments and adjust my position based on them. Assuming their more then ad hominems and non-sequitors. Heck, I've been doing that despite them.

This, BTW, is not what I wrote (your efforts at increasingly selective quoting notwithstanding).

Selective quoting? Dude, I've pretty much quoted you wholesale in my responses. If you think I cut something critical to your argument out, I apologize. Please show me where I did so I can properly respond.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Player: I jump over the pit.
DM: Roll a check, DC 15
Player: I rolled a 12
DM: You fall in the pit.

At what point did the player have ANY power?

Player: I jump over the pit.

Alternatively:

Player: I am thinking about jumping the pit. How hard does it look to me?
DM: As far as you can tell, about a DC 15.
Player: Would a running jump help? How deep is the pit? Maybe I could find something to use as a pole-vault.....


etc.

 

[Raven Crowking]

At what point did the player have ANY power? The player at no point can declare any action completed. Heck, the DM can arbitrarily jack up the DC to make success impossible.

When does the player get the power to reduce the DC without the DM's say so?

The conclusion (that the player has no power) doesn't follow the evidence (that the player lacks certain specific powers).

"I do not have the power to fly; therefore I have no power. Therefore, I cannot have the power to walk."

 

[BryonD]

Back in the 2E days I had a player announce that he had read a cool article about running dragons and wanted to DM a session for us.

Unsurprisingly, we encounter a dragon almost immediately, but that was ok because we knew we were just doing a one-off fight e the dragon thing anyway....

Round 1 dragon swoops down and grabs the wizard flies up and then smashes the wizard to the ground, killing him (no dice were rolled)

End of round 1, players exert their power: we walked away from the table.




In the end I think the whole debate comes down to less extreme examples of this. I am quite confident that the standard presumption is that the players/characters DO have significant influence and control over the destiny. And the PLAYERS have the power to dictate that they will only play in a game that actually provides rewarding fun.

A ham-fisted DM certainly has, however fleetingly, the authority to completely suck at DMing. So what? Does it really matter? Bad players, on either side of the screen, will ruin a game. This is not news.


Now, I certainly LOVE to go all iron fist on PCs and slap them around mercilessly from time to time. But, the critical additions to that are pre-slappage: establish confidence in the players that a good game is going and post-slappage: allow opportunity for glorious payback with interest. Giving the players a chance to set right an outrageous injustice that they feel has gone against them personally is one of the many ways that RPGs offer great fun. But, in order to reach that goal, the players must first actually suffer an outrageous injustice against them personally (at least vicariously....) Unlimited DM power provides this tool.

But unlimited DM suckage trumps all.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Whe the whole game's like that, it's not really a problem.

Heroic? Good aligned? There's yer first problems, right there...

Lan-"any heroism I may achieve is merely a random side effect of the chaos I create"-efan

If that is how you run every character you play no matter the format or campaign then you would not be welcome at my gaming table.

The campaign at the time was heroic, or at least non-evil, in focus. The player in question was being an ***hole and I happily smacked him down both in and out of game.

 

[kitsune9]

The player of the barbarian was a second hand friend in the group and a bit shocked. But I said clearly that he had commited murder and paid the price for it. then I said if he had a problem out of character then he shouldnt roleplay as a psychotic idiot in what is supposed to be a heroic campaign of good aligned characters.

Awesome way to play it out!

For this group back in the day, they weren't my kind of players. I probably should have obliged them more by having them hunted by more powerful groups of adventuring parties and the Harpers (we were playing Forgotten Realms) given their penchant for chaos and mayhem.

However, the more serious charge of me leaving this group was that they all cheated constantly on the die rolls during the last session I ran for them. One player would grab the die before it finished rolling and say it's a "20". I had frequent arguments about him on it and he didn't relent. The guy who played the halfling rogue was always adding modifiers where his rolls where always up in the upper 20's and when I confronted him about it, he would tell me that his math is good. I wanted to audit his character sheet and he refused and he was prepared to physically fight me over it. His wife was just as bad. So I packed up my stuff and left.