Armour Dilemma: Am I Wrong Here?

[Wayside]

He has, in my opinion, been looking for validation rather than discussion, and has spent considerable time beating people over the head with the fact he didn't do anything wrong according to the letter of the rules.

That comes with being accused of breaking the rules. Fusangite didn't start off with this tact in mind. This seems to be a theme with his detractors: they accuse him of something, he explains how the accusation is false; he is then endlessly flamed for touting his virtues, when he has really only been answering their insults.

He also largely avoided ever answering any questions relating to the inconsistency between first manipulating an otherwise impossible encounter he designed to let the players become aware of it and win, while at the same time insisting that making some ad-hoc adjustments to get certain of the players involved in the combat would break the rules of the game and jeopardise his integrity as a DM...

Questions, you answer. Accusations and insults you reprove. So, how is it they successfully completed this impossible encounter? Let me guess: you're going to say with the Duke's intervention? Because he killed, what, one low-level vamp and 2 minions, or thereabouts?

Perhaps I'm just being overly sensitive...

No, you're just misrepresenting the flow of the thread in favor of, surprise, your own position.

 

[Will]

big deal. It's a trap of his own making but he is trapped none the less. Rules continuity is important to his group, once he starts combat he is stuck. Again I'm sure if he would of known it would be a problem then he would of taken steps before combat started, but when did he realize that they were just going to sit there instead of getting involved? Their like or dislike of sitting is completly based

Er, except that I believe he pointed out early on that moving from 'armor takes whatever time' to actually counting out the rounds was a change in rules continuity.

In other words, he wanted it one way, and didn't give on others.

Also, staying in round play is just... odd. If they run away from an encounter, are they stuck in round play for days? Round play, I'm pretty sure, is meant for direct confrontations.

Another strange thing. He expected metagame discussion to spur the characters to abandon armor (out of the blue, with not even a pretext), but couldn't say 'Look, you won't get involved unless you run now. Can we work on an excuse to get you in there?'

Because that second would be... er. Metagaming or something.

I don't know, it just doesn't add up.

Again, I've made bad decisions in DMing before, and this reminds me of them.

 

[jdavis]

Well, then why ask for others opinions of how they would have done it differently if you are going to just dismiss it by saying that solutions that do not fit within your idea of how the timeline should work "introduce random and arbitary elements into the game"?

Well I guess he is looking for suggestions and that one didn't match his style of play, he didn't say it was a bad suggestion or dismiss it out of hand he just said it didn't fit with his game. I think that is where this will all end at, people who are fine with how he runs the game are fine with it and people who play a different style have suggestions that he change his style. He's big on organization and placement and exact measurements and such. Saying just wing it or just assign a amount of time for looking around instead of measure it out in rounds is different than how he plays. It'd drive me crazy but if that is what they like then it is all good (the story is great though, I am just a wing it type of person when it comes to gaming.)

 

[drnuncheon]

I posted this earlier, but it was something of a side thought. However, I'd really like to see a response from the crowd that says "it's not fair to make the characters fight without all their stuff".

What if it had been the wizard/sorcerer who was complaining? "I don't have all my spell slots. I want to rest for 8 hours to get them back." Would everyone that is in favor of making the action wait for the heavy armor people also make it wait for the casters? Isn't going into combat with a bunch of vampire wizards when you aren't at your full spell resources just as unacceptable as going into the same combat without your armor?

Food for thought.

J

 

[Elvinis75]

Please address this question

I’m so shocked by the lack of consistency. At one moment we are talking about show me one place where I broke the rules. I counter, though quite a ways into the thread as I needed to wait to get to my books, pg. 121. The rules laid out for the time that it takes for people to talk in GT. Out comes the metagame wand and all is forgotten. Rules like the one on page 121 are there for a reason and make sense because the game has reality as its base. Changing the rules arbitrary for some time related rules but not others starts to sound like a child saying because I said so. Just explain to me the logic behind the fact that no time passing when people are talking for 5-10 minutes but 4 minutes of armor time lasts a good portion of the night? Reminds me of a poorly dubbed Japanese film where the dog moves its mouth 23 times follow shortly thereafter but the audio dub “Bark!” In combat you don’t have time to tell a person a whole plan in a round because a round is 6 seconds. That 6 seconds applies to talking, casting spells, putting on armor, walking and would assume chewing gum is a free action. If talking and planning takes no time what about the other things? During the metagame time stop can they cast 15 spells? Can someone address this with a serious reason lacking anger? Though there is a lot of sarcasm and humor above.
Further I thought that metagaming has to do with a character having knowledge that the player does that he really shouldn’t. Why would three characters want to stop the roleplaying session to discuss in bullet time the plan when it is going to sit them out later? I’d say start the clock, tell me about the one armed man with the pointy teeth and help on with this armor while your at it. How long does it take a hasted creature with another hasted creature helping him to get on armor while they are talking?

 

[mmu1]

Questions, you answer. Accusations and insults you reprove. So, how is it they successfully completed this impossible encounter? Let me guess: you're going to say with the Duke's intervention? Because he killed, what, one low-level vamp and 2 minions, or thereabouts?

I don't see what you're basing this on, if you've read the entire thread...

Yes, the encounter, in terms of its basic design, was impossible. The vampires quietly and fairly cleverly put themselves in position to wipe out the guards and turn them into spawn. The players, who weren't on watch, should have learned of the whole thing after the fact. (If you want to go with a popular theme in this thread, the players "made a choice" and "made a mistake", since they knew about the vampire threat.)

However, Fusangite arbitrarily (no value judgement being made here, by the way) introduced an explosion that (from what I've read, automatically) woke the characters up and gave them a chance to participate in the encounter.
He also intentionally had the vampires expend most of their highest level spells, to make the encounter easier for the players.

Which means that the players managed to emerge victorious from an encounter they weren't ready for, and which could have easily been impossible for them to stop in time (or too much to handle) not because the Duke intervened, but because of a pattern of DM decisions designed to steer the encounter to a fairly predictable conclusion.

Which to me, at least, makes justifying not letting some of the players get to the fight in time by claiming reluctance to manipulate events and stray from simply setting up a situation and then letting the dice fall where they may somewhat inconsistent.

How can you, given the fairly elaborate Deus Ex Machina, claim that adjusting the timing in any of the ways people proposed would consitute a violation of the rules of the game?

 

[drnuncheon]

Re: Please address this question

Just explain to me the logic behind the fact that no time passing when people are talking for 5-10 minutes but 4 minutes of armor time lasts a good portion of the night?

Who was talking for 5-10 minutes? Tell us that first, and we might be able to see your point of view.

It's not the PC with the guards. "You've got to let me see the Duke!" "Sorry, but he's in a meeting." "The vampires are attacking!"

It's not the PC with the Duke. "Your Grace, the vampires are attacking the guard tower. Come help."

I mean, what more is there to say?

Apparently it's Vladimir and Estragon sitting under a tree, but since they don't have anything to do with the scenario, it doesn't really matter how many rounds their conversation takes.

J

 

[drnuncheon]

Which to me, at least, makes justifying not letting some of the players get to the fight in time by claiming reluctance to manipulate events and stray from simply setting up a situation and then letting the dice fall where they may somewhat inconsistent.

How much manipulation is too much?

What if one of the players had left the city to go scouting, and was an hour away by the time the attack occurred? Should everything pause until he returns?

What if one of the players decided to teleport across the continent to visit his ailing grandmother? Does the attack stall until he can be contacted and returned?

Somewhere a line has to be drawn. Maybe Fusangite draws it in a different place than you. It's not like he didn't say 'here's where it is', either.

J

 

[Elvinis75]

How much manipulation is too much?

What if one of the players had left the city to go scouting, and was an hour away by the time the attack occurred? Should everything pause until he returns?

What if one of the players decided to teleport across the continent to visit his ailing grandmother? Does the attack stall until he can be contacted and returned?

Somewhere a line has to be drawn. Maybe Fusangite draws it in a different place than you. It's not like he didn't say 'here's where it is', either.

J

I just went back and read this thread again and realized the problem. Metagaming! Metagaming breaks and bends the rules all over the place. Clairsentence(sp) for everyone. Why didn't they just tell the other PCs to retreat? After all people can see things that they are not privi(sp) to why not ESPN hearing too? I really thought that at some point the players talked among themselves about what was going to happen. No offense fusan, the problem isn't the players it is the system. Allowing a little metagaming here and there is different that incouraging it and expecting player to act omniscient(sp), man I can't spell tonight, all the time. Rules out the window because you aren't using the ones that should be governing this conversation. Why are the player limited to only knowing the inner monolog of the other players? I'm sorry for all the sarcasm but there has to be a little basis in the rules for a discussion to take place. How would I fix the situation in the future? Don't allow metagaming as a rule rather something that happens from time to time when players forget who knows what. Without that flaw none of this happens. The scouts leave and never come back. All the more reason for the other to keep putting on their armor. They sit the pine because of the other PCs that aren't doing there jobs right.
Further did it really take all of the other four people to scout?
Metagaming isn't the devil but it is a close cousin.

 

[jdavis]

(whew, long thread)

Well, put me in the camp that boggles at the timing.

First, I, as a player, would _not_ have any reasonable expectation that 'an explosion' would mean 'I better get there in less than 4 minutes.'

I mean... 4 minutes? Takes me longer than that to walk down the street. Sure, I guess I could get further on a griffon or something, but...

The idea that an explosion heralds something so dramatic that I have to be there _right this minute_ seems unwarranted. Yes, it could be Cthulhu waking from a long nap, but it could also be the alchemist street igniting again.

If it were me, I would have sat there, putting on armor, until somebody told me things were more urgent.

Which nobody did.

And, after two hours of sitting there, not playing, I would have been really pissed off at the players who didn't inform my character what was going on, and at the DM for setting up the situation.

I would have had more grace than the bozo did, but as the two other players may have been thinking, I would be reconsidering playing that game again.

They are battle hardened adventurers who are expecting a attack, they hear the sound of the attack and go to where they were expecting the attack. You would of just sat there until somebody came and told you what to do? You would of been mad that the DM didn't expect you to ignore the obvious attack that you were expecting and send somebody to instruct your 12th level character that he needed to go stop the expected attack?

The only time I expect time-critical events like that is an ambush or people attacking where I am, or when we are at watch. And, all things considered, I think I could easily see 'attacking vampires and 100 dead/spawned villagers' vs. 'attacking vampires without armor' as a fairly clear 'choose #2' situation.

Well that isn't how it happens all the time particularly if the characters are supposed to be heroes. "Help, the town is under attack.""nah we'll wait for them here, have fun as a vampire spawn." The city was under imminant attack, the attack was happening whether they showed up or not, they can't expect every battle to come to them. or to wiat on them.

The other thing that would have annoyed the hell out of me, as soon as I figured it out, was that it was clear that the DM was setting the players up. Not the vampires... I'm sure the vampires wouldn't be thinking 'well, it'll take them 4 minutes to put on plate armor...'

Some people view that as making the encounter challenging, Of course the DM is always setting the players up that's his job. He writes adventures to challenge the players and to keep things exciting and interesting. And why wouldn't the vampires of come to the 4 minute conclusion? It sounds pretty reasonable for a extremely inteigent creature to attack in a way and at a time that would give him a advantage over the PCs.

The DM was specifically setting up a situation where they couldn't use their armor. It smacks of a DM domination game, and I would not be happy with it, if I were a player.

I don't see that at all, but that is fine I don't have a problem with the situation, it's just a difference of how we percieve the events.

Er, except that I believe he pointed out early on that moving from 'armor takes whatever time' to actually counting out the rounds was a change in rules continuity.

I guess I missed that, I read that they always used the armor donning rules but that the players were coming up with weak excuses as to why they always had their armor on regardless of the situation.

In other words, he wanted it one way, and didn't give on others.

Actually it seems that he is consistant to a fault.

Also, staying in round play is just... odd. If they run away from an encounter, are they stuck in round play for days? Round play, I'm pretty sure, is meant for direct confrontations.

There was a direct confrontation going on, three characters were fighting, three were donning armor and one was looking for help. Yes he did start the rounds when they left to go to the fight but that seems to be to keep exact track of how much time had went by. Nobody ever said they always played in rounds or implied anything even remotely resembling that.

Another strange thing. He expected metagame discussion to spur the characters to abandon armor (out of the blue, with not even a pretext), but couldn't say 'Look, you won't get involved unless you run now. Can we work on an excuse to get you in there?'

Well we don't know exactly what he said word for word, but it was said that metagame discussions were the norm so this was not out of the blue it was the norm for his game. The pretext was that's how they always play.

Because that second would be... er. Metagaming or something.

It looks pretty consistant to me, people were apparently telling them to get a move on, they just wouldn't let the armor go. We don't know what exactly was said but I'm sure they just didn't sit there silent on the subject.

I don't know, it just doesn't add up.

This is one of the most cut and dried black and white agruements I have ever seen on the boards. Put on the armor or wait 40 rounds, that's it that's all there is A. or B. They chose the 40 rounds.