Did I overreact?

[Sodalis]

Personally, I think you are overreacting.

you go into a bar that you are unwelcome (as the stares and thrown out would indicate) and order a drink (no matter what iot was).

The DM was just expressing that sentiment to you in th emost blunt manner possible, and not havign acrry on a conversation of "you are not welcome here..." "why?"..."cause you just aint"..."why not?" "Get the heck out of my bar!!"...and so on...

The DM wanted to make it as clear as possible that you aints welcome...and the trhowing out was just for effect.

An example:in Shanghai Noon (Jackie Chan and Owen wilson), John Wayne walks into a bar and asks for directions to Carson city, and he is immediately thrown out. Don't you think that Jackie could have evaded those two thugs and beaten the crap outo f the rest? but the getting thrown out made the movei more intersting, and funny to boot.

 

[Petrosian]

My thoights on cinema and characters...

I love good dramatic or comedic scenes. They are great things.

COMEDY is, however, a thing best derived for main characters (the PCs) by putting them OUT OF THEIR ELEMENT.

If you make fun of a character in what he is good at, then you belittle him and all that he has worked at, for the sake of a yuck.

In the original example a character with good skills and works at points spent on diplomacy, gather info perhaps and generally good social skills walks in expecting to get to make actual use of those NON-COMBAT skills and gets a summary YOU FAIL for comedic purposes. Adding insult to insult he also gets caught by ruffian types (also summarily) and so all his size and dex etc is also nerfed for the scene.

IMO, it is bad form to fiat away for the sake of comedy the character's strengths.

IMO it is good form for comedic purposes to highlight the characters weaknesses.

A much better scene would be to let the character get a few rounds of drinks and some info gathered and have a fight start between two bar guys. The insuing brawl could engulf the halfling and his new found chat buddies and an incredibly comedic scene could result as he tries to avoid getting brawled, moving around at knee level in a barfight, maybe even helping some of his new friends and thus making even firmer social gains. A whole bunch of slapstick yucks to be had when he gets snatched up by the bruiser and is about to be pummeled and HAS A CHANCE TO BE CREATIVE himself.

As opposed to...

they all dont like you.
"but i roll a cha check of ..."
you fail, they all dont like you...
"well ok i..."
you are grabbed by drunken patron...
"but i have an ac of..."
you fail, he has grabbed you and ...
"i have escape artis..."
you fail, he carries you to the door and throws you out.

Don't humiliate your characters/players in their character strengths. highlight their weaknesses for humor and it should go over much better more often than not.

In my game, last session, the barbarian's leg waxing scene had them rolling.

 

[xjp]

The DM did the right thing. The halfing could only expect this kind of treatment when going into a gruff bar and ordering a warm milk. There is no point in turning this into a prolonged die rolling solo encounter. The DM cut to the chase and allowed group play to resume.

 

[hong]

I can't disagree more with the pro-cinematic posters.

By doing this you are making the player an observer, not a participant. Why does it have to be 'cinematic'? Why must everything follow with well that's just the way it's done in movies/books/tv.

I agree. In an RPG, unlike movies or books, the story is created by what the players (and NPCs) do. There's no script that needs to be followed, although there may be overall campaign objectives and guidelines.

In this situation, simply saying the halfling is thrown out is taking away the player's control of the character in a situation of dramatic tension. Much better to at least let the player have a chance to influence events, rather than simply decreeing what happens. If the halfling happens to trash the joint, well, that's the story that will be told, rather than him being turfed into the mud.

What if it had been an encounter in an alleyway with a couple of muggers? Would any reasonable DM say that the halfling automatically gets beaten up and robbed, without any chance for the player to do anything? I doubt it, and the same should apply here. Only if the encounter was completely trivial -- eg, the halfling gets his milk, chats with people, and comes back unharmed -- should it be skimmed over.

(As for leaving the other players in the lurch: that's a complete non sequitur. Nothing stops them from intervening, if they happen to hear the halfling getting into a fight.)

 

[Tsyr]

I'm staunchly on the side of the halfling here.

Not because I agree with the situation, I think he was asking for it. But because of the concept, and what it can lead to.

Wait untill you have the GM do things like that to you that are in a less-than-funny manner. A shadowrun GM I used to play under, for example, had -in the middle of an adventure, not as a plot hook- a van drive up, two armed thugs climb out, chase me down, knock me out, throw me in the van, drive me to a warehouse, beat the crap out of me for a few days, and then drop me back off as a "warning" to the group I was with.

I never got to roll a single die.

I stopped playing under him after that.

And Tom... go easy on him a bit, ne? Do you never do anything in game that doesn't involve every player? Yeesh, it's quite common my games for players to "sit out" for a few minutes while other players do things on their own. Besides, I hardly think you know him enough to suggest that he had been hogging the spotlight (nor do I know him well enough to say he didn't, which is why I didn't use that arguement at all).

 

[Cedric]

My thoughts...

You don't saunter into a bar like that, full of people like that and order a Warm Milk without expecting to provoke a reaction...and you got a reaction.

As for something happening to your character without defense...

As a player, I ask the DM "once" ... do I get a roll to resist? or AC or Reflex save? or anything for this? If he says no, then so be it. I also don't expect to take damage when I land. If I took damage, that's a DM I wouldn't play with.

As a DM...if I want something "scripted" ..as in, that's the way I want it to happen. I won't give the players a roll. But it also won't have any big repurcussions, unless it's a serious part of the plot.

Don't give the players a chance to roll, unless you are prepared for them to succeed or fail.

Likewise, if I place a difficult, narrow, slippery bridge along the only trail to follow in a dungeon...if the players use caution, I won't make them roll. If they just stroll up, glance at it, and start across...I'll make them roll.

Not everything in the game has to come down to chance.

Cedric

 

[Arthur Tealeaf]

But tell me:

Why on earth did your character order warm milk????????

Does he REALLY prefer milk over mead???

If he does, I dunno if he be hard enough to resist bein' thrown to the streets

 

[Rune]

My thoughts...

You don't saunter into a bar like that, full of people like that and order a Warm Milk without expecting to provoke a reaction...and you got a reaction.

Obviously, it's going to provoke that. The player knew that. What he wanted to do was to play off of the reaction. And he felt cheated when he didn't get a chance to do so.

 

[Mistwell]

To all you folks thinking that this Halfling "got what he asked for", I think you are missing the point.

Let's assume the halfling WAS looking to provoke a cinematic bar fight scene by doing something to intentionally anger the patrons of the bar...

It's perfectly within the cinematic bar scene to go forward with a fight, and not just get "thrown out" without putting up a defense. Look at one of the best scenes in the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Here you have a slight woman enter an Inn and do minor things concerning the ordering of food that she apparently thinks will provoke a fight. The other patrons respond to this slight, apparently defenseless woman (much like a short halfling) and attack her. She proceeds to kick their asses in one of the best scenes in the movie.

This scene with the halfling could have gone the "kick out of the bar" way or the "kick their asses" way, and both would have been cinematic, and both entertaining. It should have been up to both the players and the DM to decide how this played out. It should not have simply been decided by the DM. It isn't an interactive game at that point, it's a storytelling hour for the DM.

 

[Zerovoid]

The DM absolutely did not do the right thing. Sure, the halfling is asking to be thrown out with that stunt, but if he had super high diplomacy or intimidate scores, he probably could have gotten them to accept him. Isn't that the whole reason to put points in the skills, because they might be useful?