D&D General How to work with players who wont accept any setbacks/defeat?

[tetrasodium]

Problem is younger players grew up playing modern video games that put everything on rails. In video games they wall you off, give you warnings etc. These kinds of players assume if you mentioned it they should go check it out. They probably won't change so with those kinds of players I suggest less information and possibly (even though I hate em) rails. That may be what they are comfortable with and need. once the game in on track you can let them get more powerful before you start slowly removing them.

No I think @jasper is right & it can't be blamed on "modern video games" alone without awarding 5e itself the blame it's due for exacerbating any influence they might apply to such an extreme degree. Back in 2e & even 3.x it was possible for the GM to telegraph danger & get believed, but in 5e things are tuned so far that danger is more of an ignorable bit of set dressing for the PCs. Sure the GM can kill the players off if they ignore it, but doing so will likely require adversarial GMing analogs or being forced to slaughter every PC down to the last meeple while just not bothering to track damage or something.

 

[Velderan]

No it is a sandbox. With quick sand. I am always amaze when I set up a sandbox with the players; and they automatically go most difficult place and act like it was my fault. I said the king's grandmother was a retired adventurer with spit shine boots and mean rep. You the one who got froggy and slapped her.
Or Hey your first level. Try out the village of homlet but beware to north is giants, to the west the Hocus Pocus sisters. This also know as foreshadowing future adventures.
PC, Lets go check out the sisters.
DM, You have vision you will die.
PC, I am a pc.
DM, Your elf gets dropped in the soup pot. Maybe after you escaped the first time; you shouldn't have gone back and tell to sell the rest of group out.
Player, You don't know how to run sandboxes.

I really wonder how many people play Curse of Strahd and have the party go check out Strahd's castle immediately instead of gaining levels and looking for allies to help.

 

[bloodtide]

Problem is younger players grew up playing modern video games that put everything on rails. In video games they wall you off, give you warnings etc. These kinds of players assume if you mentioned it they should go check it out. They probably won't change so with those kinds of players I suggest less information and possibly (even though I hate em) rails. That may be what they are comfortable with and need. once the game in on track you can let them get more powerful before you start slowly removing them.

I find this a problem too. Though with "younger" players counting as anyone born after 1990 or so. Video Games have had a HUGE overwhelming force on all the younger gamers. To them an "RPG" is only straight line "quest" to do a single, direct, easy goal. And nothing like a setback or a drawback exists in video games......nothing like a live RPG.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Aaaaand we're back to D&D being bitter that video games didn't want to go to prom with it.

 

[payn]

This is really tricky. I see a playloop extreme that can form. The players will be paranoid to do anything with their characters until they have exhausted all avenues of research, recon, investigation, etc... They wont have their PC go to the outhouse alone. Was the bandit group a random encounter? Sometimes players have a hard time understanding a random bandit group that got the better of them, from the actual campaign adventure itself. They encountered these bastards, and they must be an intended part of the game to pursue. There is a world of difference between being protagonists of the story, and just being randos in a sandbox sim. I'd try to clear that up.

 

[nevin]

Aaaaand we're back to D&D being bitter that video games didn't want to go to prom with it.

no it's just that younger players that grew up with computers unlike us old cretins from the dark ages try to play DND the way they play thier video games. Most of the younger DM's I've played games with usually pull things straight out of those games. Just like we did and probably do from our books. But books are more open ended and fuller stories. with a few exceptions video games teach you to do everything in order step by step or die. Its not a criticism just an observation. The DM needs to know thier players and reward the type of behavior that they want and make sure they are willing to play that kind of game.

 

[SakanaSensei]

no it's just that younger players that grew up with computers unlike us old cretins from the dark ages try to play DND the way they play thier video games. Most of the younger DM's I've played games with usually pull things straight out of those games. Just like we did and probably do from our books. But books are more open ended and fuller stories. with a few exceptions video games teach you to do everything in order step by step or die. Its not a criticism just an observation. The DM needs to know thier players and reward the type of behavior that they want and make sure they are willing to play that kind of game.

Now hold on a second, I'm a Language Arts teacher and love me some books, but are you honestly trying to say that games like Outer Wilds, Breath of the Wild, or any number of open world games are somehow less linear than words on a page? Where every sentence is read front to back and the order doesn't change? This feels very "in my day we were better at critical thinking and these kids need their hands held or they go crazy!"

 

[Vaalingrade]

Which is why the most talked about video game of the year is a huge open sandbox raved about for its immersive story that just murders the crap out of you every five steps.

Blaming video games is an antiquated and bad rhetorical practice just like blaming anime or Critical Role.

 

[jasper]

Problem is younger players grew up playing modern video games that put everything on rails. In video games they wall you off, give you warnings etc. These kinds of players assume if you mentioned it they should go check it out. They probably won't change so with those kinds of players I suggest less information and possibly (even though I hate em) rails. That may be what they are comfortable with and need. once the game in on track you can let them get more powerful before you start slowly removing them.

Dude. The grandmother slapping story happened in 1E. The elf soup story happened in 2E. So video games are not the source of the problem.
Some people take foreshadowing as hey check this out. Some people just want to tick off the DM by jumping the adventure of the track. With the second don't play with them.

And why is my things in posting before I hit reply?

 

[overgeeked]

Some people just want to tick off the DM by jumping the adventure of the track.

Don’t have a track. Problem solved.