Considering engineering a TPK

[Kae'Yoss]

While the advice in your post is sound, I strongly disagree with this assertion. I have, in fact, never seen the aforementioned behaviour in person, and I only read about it online infrequently in horror stories by GMs.

I have been in games where you often just kill, plunder, pillage, that sort of thing - in fact, I'm in one such campaign right now.

But when we play such a campaign, we say it's an evil campaign right from the start. The people I play with are perfectly able to pay the hero type.

Okay, there is/was one guy who always had to be "different": His (CG) cleric was stingy with healing magic, the character he played in a good group was a greedy, power-hungry, trigger-happy megalomaniac, and so on. But he's like that in real life, too. Right now, he's not playing, anyway (only during semester break), but I'm thinking about withdrawing the invitation.

 

[delericho]

Thanks for all the replies!

I think you need to chill out, and lighten up.

Good advice.

Just tell your players that you aren't interested in running the type of game they are going for.

Actually, I don't have a problem running that type of game. It's just that this game isn't that game that's the problem.

See, I'm generally of the view that a thing should be what it is, without apology or distraction. So, horror should be scary*, comedy should be funny, and soap operas shouldn't try to be Shakespeare. As such, the way I would plan, structure and run an 'Evil' campaign is distinctly different from the way I would structure and run an heroic swashbuckler campaign. So, when the group seems to want the one, and I'm trying to run the other, there's a problem. But it's not too much of a problem, I think - we just need to switch tracks.

* This is one of the reasons I no longer run Vampire. I was never able to get the 'personal horror' aspect dark enough to be really satisfying... until I did, and found I wasn't comfortable running the game any more!

Let someone else DM.

Sadly, this is not an option. In the group, there's only one other person with the inclination to run a game. And he's apparently far too busy through work. So, it's me, or no game. Which might also not be too terrible, except that the game is our excuse to get together...

Don't engineer a TPK. Talk to your players.

It's never good to force something on your players they don't feel like playing, and I feel like a TPK isn't a good solution to it. They might think of it as punishment. Rather than killing them all for playing your game wrong, give them a game that fits what they want to play.

Yeah, on reflection, it's pretty clear that that's the way to go. I've emailed the group, and with luck we'll get something sorted out.

Here's the thing, by wiping the party you have done nothing to change the style of play that your group will want to play.

While that's true, I've never been convinced that it's really the DM's place to change the style of play the group wants. I'm more inclined to the view that if the DM and the group can't compromise on the style, then it's probably better if that DM doesn't run games for that group.

Let them play their characters but emphasize the social/political aspect as much as you want. Punish them for not "wasting" ranks on diplomacy or having characters with any natural charm.

I force diplomacy checks for important social situations just for this reason. the player can be as eloquent as he wants but if he's playing a character with a 6 cha and no ranks in diplomacy, that's not how it's going to come out of the character's mouth.

That might have the desired effect in the long term, but in the meantime doesn't it make for a sucky game?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

* This is one of the reasons I no longer run Vampire. I was never able to get the 'personal horror' aspect dark enough to be really satisfying... until I did, and found I wasn't comfortable running the game any more!

I know what you mean. I think letting them have some fun now and than, and going a bit easy on the angst isn't so bad, as long as noone uses the game as an excuse for their killing spree fantasies (i.e. "hey, I'm a vampire, I'm so much more powerful than a mere human, I'll go rob a bank and kill all the cops now")

Sadly, this is not an option. In the group, there's only one other person with the inclination to run a game. And he's apparently far too busy through work. So, it's me, or no game. Which might also not be too terrible, except that the game is our excuse to get together...

Maybe you should all have affairs with each other! That also opens the door to another type of roleplaying....

While that's true, I've never been convinced that it's really the DM's place to change the style of play the group wants. I'm more inclined to the view that if the DM and the group can't compromise on the style, then it's probably better if that DM doesn't run games for that group.

That's true. It's wrong for the DM to enforce his style, but it's also wrong to play a style you really don't like.

That might have the desired effect in the long term, but in the meantime doesn't it make for a sucky game?

It does. It's better to explain stuff like that before. If they insist on building twodimensional characters with no abilities outside combat after that, you can still show them that this way, they won't be able to master every encounter.

 

[Celebrim]

* This is one of the reasons I no longer run Vampire. I was never able to get the 'personal horror' aspect dark enough to be really satisfying... until I did, and found I wasn't comfortable running the game any more!

I know what you mean.

To be honest, my first exposure to the Masq rulebook must have been something like Pat Robertson's first exposure to the AD&D Monster Manual. I was creeped out. This was simply speaking the first game book I'd ever picked up that just felt 'Evil'. I wanted to put the book down and take a long shower. I wanted to warn my friends not to get sucked into this. I thought it was dangerous.

But then I saw the game in play and said, "Oh, well this isn't so bad. It's basically just a super hero game in black clothes with a little bit of extra political drama thrown in. If that's all there is too it, I can put up with that. Silly me for getting creeped out by a mere game."

But after playing the game a few times I found it totally unsatisfying because it didn't seem at all to capture the flavor and artistic direction of the source material. PC's consistantly abused the rules to minimize the amount of monsterousity in the game and the amount of soul searching that the game involved. About as much monster the players were actually interested in was a brooding, sexually frustrated teenager living out 'safe' power fantasies. None of them were really interested in the fact that the game was about monsters or what that might mean. So I started thinking about what I would to do make the game other than a super hero game in disguise and after thinking about it for a while, it wierded me out again and I decided that the game was probably better off as a wierd super hero game played with no more darkness than a brooding, sexually frustrated teenager. That's what made it bearable, even if it did make it shallower than the original text seemed to aim for.

 

[jollyninja]

While that's true, I've never been convinced that it's really the DM's place to change the style of play the group wants. I'm more inclined to the view that if the DM and the group can't compromise on the style, then it's probably better if that DM doesn't run games for that group.



That might have the desired effect in the long term, but in the meantime doesn't it make for a sucky game?

If a group of players does not want to play the style of game I want to run, I'm not putting the effort in to create adventures. I don't really do canned adventures all that often so if I'm not going to enjoy the experience, I'm not going to waste my time. With that said, the games I run tend to be tailored to the characters. All I'm saying is that If the group doesn't have any characters capable of holding their own in the social arena, I'm not going to gloss over that aspect of their lives, people will not hold them up as great heroes if they do not like them, they will give them respect as they deserve but the jerk who saved the villiage is still a jerk.

As for the sucky game, I've found that it tends to come around when the players actually start to spend points on things that will get them through those situations. Having a 6 cha ends up not being all that bad when you have ten ranks in diplomacy.

 

[Nightfall]

Send in a mid level demon to kill them and then start over.

 

[BlakeT]

As has been said, just talk to them and find out exactly what they want out of the game. That'll help everyone in the long run, as too many TPKs can really sink a group and make players care less about the campaign as they never last.

Just my .02.

 

[Teflon Billy]

But then I saw the game in play and said, "Oh, well this isn't so bad. It's basically just a super hero game in black clothes with a little bit of extra political drama thrown in. If that's all there is too it, I can put up with that. Silly me for getting creeped out by a mere game."

That was my experince as well. The rulebook seemd to describe the desired gameplay as a lot of soul-searching, hand wringing, and...as a last desperate resort...killing so that your character could continue his damned existence. There was some politicking, but in the final analysis it was a game of personal horror.

But after playing the game a few times I found it totally unsatisfying because it didn't seem at all to capture the flavor and artistic direction of the source material.

I agree here as well. Our games (and I will admit we played for a long time and I loved the game) was less about exploring inner turmoil and more about groups of Blood-Fueled badasses waging war on one another in the nightclubs, art galleries and sewers of the city.

PC's consistantly abused the rules to minimize the amount of monsterousity in the game and the amount of soul searching that the game involved. About as much monster the players were actually interested in was a brooding, sexually frustrated teenager living out 'safe' power fantasies. None of them were really interested in the fact that the game was about monsters or what that might mean. So I started thinking about what I would to do make the game other than a super hero game in disguise and after thinking about it for a while, it wierded me out again and I decided that the game was probably better off as a wierd super hero game played with no more darkness than a brooding, sexually frustrated teenager. That's what made it bearable, even if it did make it shallower than the original text seemed to aim for.

I reached the same conclusions, but our view of it was almost entirely positive.

I mean, the rules-as-written for Vampire: the Masquerade did an incredible job of not replicating the flavour text that surrounded them. The sheer amount of "Role Playing penalties for mechanical bonuses" was insane...I mean when a clan of Charismatic Rebel Warriors (The Brujah) can reliably kill Members of the poorly thought of money-grubbers (The Ventrue)--and have been able to do so for millenia--why are the latter still in control?

If the charatcers are--by definition--killing machines, why such an RP focus on not killing?

That when you start having to do things like giving most of the "leaders" bodyguards from the more physically powerful clans...despite the fact that they hate politics (The Gangrel) or are universally loathed (the Nosferatu). It was was like Pro wrestling's storylines: look too closely and it all falls apart.

The game really flew when we did away with most of the Published Clan Politcs and started just basing the politics on actual interations with other players/NPCS.

 

[XO]

Different Strokes for Different Folks

Maybe, just maybe, you're not the ideal DM for this group and they're not the ideal group for you (vice versa, versa vice)...

Ever latched on to questionnaires about D&D campaigns? They can usually be googled and surely shed SOME light as to player expectations.

If the overall picture is "Invade the planes to see new and alien vistas" while you had "Low magic, true grit, mano a mano indecently bloody fights between vicious diminutive kobolds and your group" as a vision, ehhhhhhhhh, there is a problem...

 

[werk]

I've been thinking about this, and I believe engineering a TPK because you can't keep people interested in you game is very similar to crashing a risk board because you are losing or taking your ball and going home.

It's really just poor sportsmanship.