[DM Issue] - How would you have handled this?

[S'mon]

The player clearly _didn't_ just want to attack whoever 'attacked' him - since they were _all_ going to attack him. It was quite clear that he wished to attack whoever actually managed to _hit_ him.

The problem then is not misinterpretation of the player's wishes by the GM, but rather the player not understanding that his desired action made no sense in terms of the 'readied action' rule.

Therefore a kind GM should explain that there was no point in him readying an action like that, he should have attacked normally, then after surviving foes had attacked him, he could then have chosen to attack whichever ones actually hit him.

That's actually far kinder to the player than misinterpreting him to mean a readied 'I attack whoever attacks me', I think, especially if he had iterative attacks.

 

[Thanee]

On his turn, he readies an action that if "I'm hit by anyone around me" he will attack them first. I put that part in quotes because that is exactly what he said.

My question is, do y'all think I did the right thing? How would you have handled it?

No, you took it too literal, your reasoning, however, that you don't want to have this evolve into a guessing game, is understandable as well. Your players should give clear instructions on what they want. In this case, the error and the intent is very obvious, tho.

I'd have told him of this obvious error in his declaration immediately, so he can correct it.

Bye
Thanee

 

[DragonLancer]

So we're in our weekly session of D20 Modern and I am DM. A character has three enemies around him. On his turn, he readies an action that if "I'm hit by anyone around me" he will attack them first. I put that part in quotes because that is exactly what he said.

Now, the enemies turn comes and they attack. He proceeds to start his readied action to attack them. I tell him he can't because he said that he would attack if they "hit" him not just if they attacked him. He told me I was being too literal and I explained I didn't want to try to interpret what my players wanted because I didn't want to get it wrong and have them be angry with me when they thought they were being screwed over. He disagreed but abided by my ruling and the session went on happily.

My question is, do y'all think I did the right thing? How would you have handled it?

I had a similiar situation in my game a couple weeks ago. The party had been attacked in a desert area by a band of invisible enemies. One of the characters "found" a sinkhole in the desert and was quickly vanishing into it. The character next to him... his player said "I don't care about him, I am just looking for signs of our invisible opponents." He then turned aroudn and said that he was going to grab the other character's hand and pull him out.
I said no, because his statement was saying that he was spending his action on just looking. The player in question disagreed, but the rest of the group agreed with me.

D&D is just a game, but it must have a set of rules, and if that means taking what a player says literally, then so be it. When you start letting people change they say then you may as well throw the game out the window.

I think you did the right thing.

 

[takyris]

I'd have done what this DM did -- figured he wanted to attack the first person who successfully hurt him, even if that's actually a delay, rather than a readied action (in terms of happening just after instead of interrupting). The player phrased things badly, and, with my players, at least, I'd be more likely to assume that he messed up the meaning of "ready" (as opposed to "delay") than I would to assume that he messed up the meaning of the word "hit". My players are big on the distinction between attacking and hitting. We play d20 Modern somtimes, and they often have Agile Riposte -- they're GREAT with people attacking them, and not so great with people hitting them. They tend to use Ready and Delay interchangeably, however, with a common-sense approach as to whether it interrupts or comes after the action in question.

But that's my group.

And sure, asking would have been great. But really, it sounds like things went fine, and no harm was really done.

 

[Janx]

He told me I was being too literal and I explained I didn't want to try to interpret what my players wanted because I didn't want to get it wrong and have them be angry with me when they thought they were being screwed over

Ironically enough, your literal interpretation of his meaning does exactly what you didn't want. By not being lenient, you look like your trying to screw him over. Next time, drop that part of your explanation, as it weakens your argument.

Realize that most people aren't lawyers or programmers. Nor are they expecting to have to write precise instructions for a game. Readying an action means I'm going to sit here and wait until something interesting is about to happen, then I'm going to insert myself back into the initiative stream just before it really starts happening.

In the player's case, it sounds like he meant:
"I attack the first guy who starts to attack me"

But even that statement is inaccurate, because he means to WAIT until someone starts to attack him, then he will attack that guy before the bad guy finishes his attack.

In theory, the player's instruction to the GM would have had to be:
"I ready my action by waiting until someone starts to attack me. When that happens, I will attack him before he does"

To which the GM could counter by throwing a female bad guy, and make use of the fact that the player used male pronouns instead of gender neutral words.

Does this start sounding like it could get very wordy and lawyery very fast?
Good.

Never screw your players that way. Allow for the most probable re-interpretation of what they meant. When in doubt, assume Ready an Action means "I wait until something interesting starts to happen, then I jump in before it really happens." That usually causes less irritation.

Screw them by attacking the guy in the rear, when the rest of the party said they all ran up to grab the treasure.

 

[tonym]

...Never screw your players that way...

Yeh, never screw your Players like that.

If my DM hassled me like that, I'd think he was trying to make me look stupid and inarticulate, and I would....I don't know....I'd do something that would....then...or.....

ACK! See? You made me self-conscious!

Tony M

 

[Altalazar]

I think it is pretty obvious what he really meant - just because the enemy missed doesn't change that he was attacked. I'd have let it slide and pointed out that he should be a little more clear in the future. In addition, I'd be sure to ask for clarification in the future as well.

On something like this, I think it is best to err in the player's favor. That way, at worst, it makes things a little togher for the bad guys. The other way around, it could potentially have led to PCs being badly injured or killed if things had gone badly, and that just ruins a game when you have players then thinking back and partly blaming it on a too-lliteral ruling like that from the DM.

If it were truly totally ambiguous, I could see you making him stick to it literally, but here, it is just too obvious that he meant attacked, not hit. Otherwise it hardly would have made sense - unless for some reason he had a REALLY high AC and was saving his attack for the first opponent who was good enough to actually hit him. But then, he wouldn't have complained about not attacking on the miss.