Armour Dilemma: Am I Wrong Here?

[Norfleet]

A healthy amount of paranoia which has undoubtedly enabled to them survive to 12th level is hardly a bad thing.

Although you, as the DM, thought the encounter was winnable without the armor, ask if the players thought the same thing, when faced with an encounter of a possibly large number of vampires of unknown power level.

If your players survived to 12th level, they've undoubtedly acquired a number of paranoid habits. I know mine certainly do, but this is because they get routinely boiled alive by kobolds.

Maybe you should have dispensed with the subtlety entirely and told them flat out that the encounter was intended specifically to be done without the armor, and that they could win without it. While subtlety is often a good thing, when you push your players like that, sometimes they just don't get it, and the plan flounders. Despite the difficulties, however, the challenge was eventually overcome.

Roll with the punches and move on. Life is like a sandwich. Some days you eat the sandwich, other days, the sandwich eats you.

 

[hong]

Well, the less you let your players rely on you to bend reality in order to make an encounter easier, the more likely they are to think intelligently. This might be more fun in the long run.

Screw thinking intelligently. I think intelligently in my day job for a minimum of 35 hours per week. D&D is all about the violence, bay-bee!

 

[hong]

1. Like it or not, hong, the player is not going to post his point of view here. An online public debate is NOT the way I want to deal with this player.

So basically what you want is validation that you're right and he's wrong? There's a lot of that going around. I wonder if it's that SARS thing.

If you think this guy is being a dickhead, dump him. Simple as that.

 

[hong]

Ask and you shall recieve

I played in Fusangite's campaign at some of the lower levels, and I have to say this player was more than a bit of a crybaby over some pretty odd stuff.

...

I don't know what gaming in particular does to him.

Yeesh. If it had been me, I'd have dumped him ages ago too. Some people just aren't worth DMing for.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

The Rhetorical Side of the Situation

First of all, allow me to say that this is one of the most interesting of these troublesome player dilemmas I've seen in some time. There's crunchy bits, metagame thinking, guest-host relationship ethical questions, and Hong. What more can a thread ask for?

Second, for the Ethical bit, I have to agree that a DnD game is more like a team sport or boardgame session than a dinner party. People are going to be upset when they come to play 'their' game with 'the' rules and can't. So, you're probably not to justified in claiming he violated guest-host relationship and shooting arrows through with mad Odysseus flava. From a within the game standpoint you are near totally in the right.

Third, I was in a situation like this, and what finally calmed the player down in that circumstance was time and explaining to the player that the situation happened the way it did not because of the way I designed the situation as a DM but because of the way the enemy had designed the situation as intelligent villains. I explained that it was never meant to cripple him or the rest of the party just move the story along.

It seems clear that the player does feel you are preventing him from playing the game as he plays it. By explaining to him that this is still his game, just an upsetting part of it that works to reinforce his playing style later, you validate the player's decision to act as he did, and, honestly, that's the one thing that hasn't been considered in this situation.

No offense, Fusangite, but your plan for the vampires was pretty brilliant thinking in their interests, and you should have planned for the event that it had a chance of working based on the good strategy rather than assuming it would fail by bad tactics.

If the players want to be the ones to take the fight to the vampires and not have the fight taken them, that's legitimate. They do seem a little foolish, but they certainly aren't morally defecient*. Just shift the center piece to a fully armored player lead assault on the tower with the new vampires acting as a fresh and interesting challenge.

*I could be wrong there but I've been reading Mary Gentle's excellent Ash books and thus the importance that medieval fighters put on heavy armor is still fresh in my head. When the main character is without it she longs for it as I would a lover who paid all of my bills.

 

[Steverooo]

Here is my problem: although I've GMed for 18 years, my more usual form of entertaining is hosting dinner and house parties. My problem is, assuming I am completely in the wrong and designed an awful adventure, I'm still unused to a social dynamic where someone attacks you for putting on an event they deem insufficient.

...Snip!...

But from my player's behaviour and from some of the comments made on this forum, it seems like gaming has different social rules: social rules which entitle guests to berate their hosts for not giving them an enjoyable enough evening. Do people believe this is the case? And if so, under what conditions is it appropriate or inappropriate for the guest to do so?

I don't believe that anyone here said it was okay for a player to verbally assault you, just that some frustration and anger was understandable. Unlike a dinner party (where the host usually does all the work), in gaming, the players are also creating characters, plans, etc. In many games, I have invested more time and work than my GMs.

Perhaps a better analogy might be a murder-mystery game, where each guest has a role to play... If one guest spends the night in a room alone because his roll isn't needed in the "murder investigation", then he'd probably feel that his preparation to play that part was wasted.

Does that give him the right to verbally abuse the host? No. I don't think anyone would claim it did. Then again, I have no idea who said what to whom, or how abusive it was, so I wouldn't care to judge how out of line your player was. If you really think he was overboard, don't invite him back.

In case you didn't know, though... Roleplayers don't tend to be among the best in handling social skills (so I'm told). Look at anythread here on ENWorld... Can't even discuss whether or not Rangers should have Two-Weapon Fighting without disagreeing disagreeably about it! (Very Big Grin, Duck & Run)

So like I said, I think some anger and frustration is understandable. Not necessarily right, just Human (and even the other races really are - but don't tell them I said that)!

Hopefully, your player will calm down, by next time (if you invite him back... and if he comes).

 

[Steverooo]

Heh!

This has happened in the past. He absented himself from one episode when his character was turned to stone and left the room until the petrification effect was undone. On another occasion, he refused to rejoin the gaming table after becoming dominantly possessed by a ghost. This became especially problematic because when he regained control of his body, after another character banished the ghost, he was in position to impersonate the ghost by continuing to appear to be possessed. Unfortunately, being the only player who had not observed what the ghost had to say nor how the ghost spoke, he was the only person who was unable to pull off said impersonation and thus, an opportunity I had set up for him was lost.

In this context, you're probably wondering what kind of idiot I am to write an episode which does not guarantee his constant involvement and participation. So am I.

Over-worked and under-appreciated, maybe?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

It might be worth it to keep this player around for humor value.

Really. I mean, after all, we all know that Wulf Ratbane wold never have been Wulf Ratbane without the peck.

 

[fusangite]

Thanks everyone for all this feedback, especially people's views on the what type of social interactions RPGs are. As far as I can tell, 39 people have responded to my questions, 27 (70%) taking a basically supportive position for my actions, 6 (15%) supportive of the player's views (if not his actions) and 6 (15%) staking out some clearly neutral territory.

I feel I have learned a few things from this thread and am really appreciative of so many people wading through a mass of details about a campaign with which they are not associated. Much appreciated.

 

[S'mon]

For what it's worth fusangite I also don't think you did anything wrong; and I'd be furious if I ever had players who reacted as yours did. I've never taken the approach which some people advocate (at least since 3e came out) that the campaign world revolves around the PCs. My campaign world existed long before the PCs and will presumably continue to do so long after they're gone. It sounds as if the events in your campaign were logical and reasonable (as well as dramatic and exciting) - as has been said, vampires only come out at night, but ANY intelligent attacker will choose to attack the enemy when they're likeliest to have their pants down/armour off. It sounds as if your players are not treating your campaign world as an objective reality (ie, suspending disbelief for the duration of play) but rather treating it as a playground for their convenience and getting annoyed when it fails to fully conform. *Yech*

Of course, you may somehow have been at fault for allowing this expectation to grow in your players - without more info I couldn't say.