Baiting your players
- Thread starter DonTadow
- Start date
Uller
Adventurer
The problem isn't that you baited your players. The problem is that you did it out of game. You practically gave them advice. Now...we obviously don't have all the details on the context of these clues. What made the characters decide they could trust this clue?
A good example of player baiting is the recent free download that just came out today from WotC: Tomb of Horrors v 3.5. It is full of clues baiting players to do stupid things. Some times it gives the PCs a clue to do something really stupid and then it gives them clues that outright tell them what they should do. It sounds like that is what you were doing. Nothing wrong with that as long as the clues make sense for why they are there (who wants to direct the PCs and why?...you don't have to answer that to us, but you better be able to answer those questions to yourself and eventually to your players).
Also it sounds like your players are feeling like "the DM wants to WIN and make us lose." Be careful. That's the right way to lose your players. You should want them to feel challenged but you should also want them to succeed and have fun.
A good example of player baiting is the recent free download that just came out today from WotC: Tomb of Horrors v 3.5. It is full of clues baiting players to do stupid things. Some times it gives the PCs a clue to do something really stupid and then it gives them clues that outright tell them what they should do. It sounds like that is what you were doing. Nothing wrong with that as long as the clues make sense for why they are there (who wants to direct the PCs and why?...you don't have to answer that to us, but you better be able to answer those questions to yourself and eventually to your players).
Also it sounds like your players are feeling like "the DM wants to WIN and make us lose." Be careful. That's the right way to lose your players. You should want them to feel challenged but you should also want them to succeed and have fun.
LostSoul
Adventurer
I don't bait my players.
I don't think what you did was bad, if you have done that before and have cultivated that style. (Or if you're planning to.) If your players know that you're going to try to mess with them, it's fair game. I think that they deserve that warning, however.
I don't think what you did was bad, if you have done that before and have cultivated that style. (Or if you're planning to.) If your players know that you're going to try to mess with them, it's fair game. I think that they deserve that warning, however.
Jubilee
First Post
One time I was running a scenario where there was a viewing pool in the center of a room where my PCs were fighting some skeletons. Inside the pool was a bone dragon that would come out of it if someone looked in the pool. One PC kept dancing around the pool while fighting the other baddies in the room, and every time I asked if the character looked in the pool. The third time I asked, she looked. 
However, for the most part, in our groups, if either of our two regular GMs suggest a course of action, we don't do it (One of them because it'll probably lead to trouble, and the other because we like messing with his planned scenarios and making him sigh heavily when we got east when he wants us to go west..).
It's hard to say whether you crossed the line. You perhaps should have also given anyone in the party with a physically minded character the opportunity to think that they could just use something as mundane as the run action. Was there a point to the sign about hurrying up except to make them waste the scroll? Why was the sign there? Could they have done something besides use the scroll to fullfill the advice? Did they have any reason to trust the advice? These are the questions I'm interested in knowing the answer to.
/ali
However, for the most part, in our groups, if either of our two regular GMs suggest a course of action, we don't do it (One of them because it'll probably lead to trouble, and the other because we like messing with his planned scenarios and making him sigh heavily when we got east when he wants us to go west..).
It's hard to say whether you crossed the line. You perhaps should have also given anyone in the party with a physically minded character the opportunity to think that they could just use something as mundane as the run action. Was there a point to the sign about hurrying up except to make them waste the scroll? Why was the sign there? Could they have done something besides use the scroll to fullfill the advice? Did they have any reason to trust the advice? These are the questions I'm interested in knowing the answer to.
/ali
ThirdWizard
First Post
Eh, that sounds like the DM metagaming against the PCs. I'm against that. When the DM brings up something like that, in character discussion and thought pretty much takes a backseat to analyzing why the DM is saying something, and metagaming begins. "Why is the DM bringing that up? Can we trust him? Is he just annoyed that we arn't progressing? He screwed us over last time, I don't think we should trust him? But, we've been stuck so long, he might want to just go on? I don't know guys, sounds like a trap to me." And so on. You arn't playing D&D anymore, you're playing poker with the Players trying to tell if the DM is bluffing or not.
wedgeski
Adventurer
Before your clarification ('How can we go faster?', Int check, 'Don't forget that scroll of Haste you found!') I would have said you crossed the line, but not now. You were simply responding fairly to a player's question. If you had shaken your head and said, 'Sorry, you've got to work this one out for yourselves', and *then* they had remembered the scroll, you can bet your d20 that they would have used it for a different but equally metagaming reason: the fact that you didn't draw attention to it must have meant it was important. This is a lose-lose situation for the DM.
Player vs. DM metagaming is part and parcel of the game. Unless your DM is a robot (or a CRPG), you can't get away from it, because the very act of selecting what to describe to the players, and when, provides clues to the players as to what may and may not be important in their surroundings.
Ultimately however the players have to realise they are responsible for their own characters' actions.
Player vs. DM metagaming is part and parcel of the game. Unless your DM is a robot (or a CRPG), you can't get away from it, because the very act of selecting what to describe to the players, and when, provides clues to the players as to what may and may not be important in their surroundings.
Ultimately however the players have to realise they are responsible for their own characters' actions.
Lord Pendragon
First Post
The baiting doesn't bother me. My own DM often gives players the most horrible advice. For example, when the wizard's player doesn't know what to do, the DM will often say, "you could go into the room (filled with monsters)." The wizard did it once and was promptly dropped. He learned his lesson. Though that doesn't stop the DM from suggesting it occasionally.
What would bother me is the puzzle. I can't stand puzzles, especially when the existence of 99% of them doesn't make sense. But that's a whole other ball o' wax, I suppose.
What would bother me is the puzzle. I can't stand puzzles, especially when the existence of 99% of them doesn't make sense. But that's a whole other ball o' wax, I suppose.
jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
DonTadow said:
Depends - what was the sign there for? Did exist only to tempt the PCs into using the haste scroll before they needed it or did it actually serve a real purpose iin the setting? If the former - you were really unjustifiably lame. If the latter, I don't see a problem with it.
I think that it is a valid style of play, but not one that I endorse. I try to work with my players to have fun, rather than deliberately take an adversarial stance. Somebody else in this thread suggested that an adversarial GM/Player paradigm is unavoidable, but they're wrong - not only is it avoidable, but there are entire games built around the idea of avoiding it.
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DonTadow
First Post
The signs were there, written into the module as a part of the description. They were there to bait the players to use the haste sign (says specifically in the adventure). Previous description in the module told the pcs to always look before they leap and a billboard on the in the city gave the only non-cliche advise in the town Use n\little without provacation.jdrakeh said:
