Brinkmanship

[cignus_pfaccari]

I like to threaten to key the DMs' cars.

Now that I'm GMing a Shadowrun game, I threaten their characters with headshots. One of the DMs even cooperated with this by playing the party mage, which gives me an excuse to actually focus fire him.

(Of course, all this is in good fun...I'm still surprised the other DM played the mage...)

Brad

 

[Bullgrit]

I was DMing a D&D game, but the table talk got off on a tangent for a few minutes. (Not a bad thing, with a group of friends.) During the tangential chatting, it came up that I hate having my picture taken. (I really, really hate it. It's almost a phobia.)

Well, of course that meant that everyone at the table had to whip out their cell phones and snap my picture. What the hell makes people do that? I guess it's a good thing I didn't say I hate being punched in the face.

Anyway, I told them to delete the photos. A debate about my reasonableness ensued, but they eventually deleted the pics. Except for one player who said he'd do it later.

We ended up in a stand off, where I refused to continue the game until he deleted the pic. After a couple of minutes of firm ground-standing by me, he deleted the photo. And then we got back to the game.

Yeah, so maybe I have a ridiculous phobia. (I made a two-week series of posts based on it last month on my blog.)

Bullgrit

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Eh, 1st level Bards are squishy. Almost any Sneak Attack is certain to be fatal. As long as rolls happened, it was fair - I'd have just had the thug roll to-hit, with a hit being an automatic critical (and sneak attack, but that's irrelevant: see below).

1st level Bards are indeed squishy and that's what the GM was counting on to convince the Bard's player to leave the bad part of town (and to not draw his sword when it got to that point). And that is where the player's brinkmanship to have his character bull forward even though the GM was plainly advertising his doom.

 

[Verdande]

Maybe it's because I'm terminally unprepared, but I've never so much as planned more than maybe two rooms somewhere before the players get there.

I really feel bad for the DMs who spend hours of their time lovingly detailing complex dungeons only to have them all roll exploration-loving rangers who wouldn't be caught dead in a shack, let alone a dungeon.

 

[On Puget Sound]

Players are cautiously approaching a boarded up farmhouse in ghoul-infested countryside; smoke from the chimney indicates life within. They bang on the door and the farmer pries loose a few boards, peeks out and hurriedly opens up. "Get in, quick, before they come back!" The rest of the party goes in, but the monk wants to wait outside and "keep watch". In the wheatfield. Alone. The farmer tells him he will surely die. The other players remind him of the Prime Directive of D&D, Never Split the Party. Finally even the GM says "you get the feeling the farmer might know something about what's around here; maybe you should listen to him." Nope, gonna hide in the wheatfield alone.

As soon as the door is nailed shut again, 8 ghouls (minions, thankfully) rush him, easily beating his initiative and taking him to 4 HP... 6 hits, 2 misses. One more hit and he'd have been unconscious and eaten. Daily burst attack takes out several of the ghouls, then a jump to the rooftop. Next round he discovers that A) he can't get in through the boarded up windows, and B) ghouls have a climb speed.

I never did figure out what his logic was for wanting to wait outside.

 

[DonTadow]

I was chatting with a colleague the other day about his D&D playing experience. He used to play when he was in his teens and was thinking about joining a game I'm about to start running for friends at work. His story involved a session in which the players simply didn't want to go in the direction the DM had prepared for. The DM desperately tried to persuade the players against their chosen course of action but was met with an emphatic and unanimous, "We're going this way."

The group played in a room with a collapsible table tennis table. When the DM was out of other options, he retreated to a spot beneath the table and threatened to collapse it on himself, unless the players fell into line.

What are your stories of DM/player brinkmanship?

Just a bad DM.

The number one rule to being a DM is not to give the players choice but to make them believe they have absolute choice. Have them go in a specific direction, disguise some npc names, change the description a bit and that road the pcs wanted to go on is secretly the one the dm produced and they don't even know it.

 

[Ranes]

Absolutely. And don't run a game in a room with collapsible furniture.

 

[pemerton]

I've never so much as planned more than maybe two rooms somewhere before the players get there.

I really feel bad for the DMs who spend hours of their time lovingly detailing complex dungeons only to have them all roll exploration-loving rangers who wouldn't be caught dead in a shack, let alone a dungeon.

Players are cautiously approaching a boarded up farmhouse in ghoul-infested countryside

<snip>

the monk wants to wait outside and "keep watch". In the wheatfield. Alone.

<snip>

I never did figure out what his logic was for wanting to wait outside.

It's always interesting to me to see different GMing approaches.

If I design an adventure before I know that PCs my players are going to play, then I give them guidance on the sorts of PCs they will need to play the adventure (eg at the start of my 4e campaign, I told the players that each PC must have a reason in his/her background to be ready and willing to fight goblins).

And if a player wants to have his/her PC wait outside, my default approach would be to work out why (perhaps by asking the player) and to set up and run an encounter which was adapted in an appropriate fashion to the players' decision.

 

[Corathon]

Just a bad DM.

The number one rule to being a DM is not to give the players choice but to make them believe they have absolute choice. Have them go in a specific direction, disguise some npc names, change the description a bit and that road the pcs wanted to go on is secretly the one the dm produced and they don't even know it.

This works fine, until the players figure it out. If its done repeatedly, the players will figure it out. If someone was expecting a sandbox this will disappoint them.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I was chatting with a colleague the other day about his D&D playing experience. He used to play when he was in his teens and was thinking about joining a game I'm about to start running for friends at work. His story involved a session in which the players simply didn't want to go in the direction the DM had prepared for. The DM desperately tried to persuade the players against their chosen course of action but was met with an emphatic and unanimous, "We're going this way."

The group played in a room with a collapsible table tennis table. When the DM was out of other options, he retreated to a spot beneath the table and threatened to collapse it on himself, unless the players fell into line.

What are your stories of DM/player brinkmanship?

Was he 10 years old or something? I can't imagine an adult doing something like this.

And that ain't brinkmanship - that's just being a dick.