D&D 5E Dm misadventures. Tales of woe. How long did your worse table arguement last?

[jasper]

from another thread.. warmaster horus said... At that point an hour-long argument is pointless and any player who persists in that is a disruption that the DM should deal with......

Ok, we all know some of us like to argue/debate/ppp um tick off the dm. This is only thread is only for dms who had long arguments at there table.

Time lasted: 2.5 hours.
Players: 3. One newbie who I was trying to teach, two players I picked up from a friends table.
Module/Adventure: Dungeonland an Alice in wonder land homage
When: Call it 1988
Reason for argument:. Should the party go left to encounter 80 yards away or right to the encounter 70 yards.
Results: Newbie still will not play D&D but became my best friend. Never played with the two guys again. Started adding wandering monsters but that is a pill move. Learn to demand a decision after 5 minutes. I still twitch when playing if the group are still discussing plans after 20 minutes. My last home brew group call me on this.

 

[delericho]

Well, if we're talking about a "what should we do next" argument, the longest I've ever seen took a full session - it was one of those situations where the characters were offered two less-than-perfect options and called on to make a choice.

But the outcome of that was a whole lot of good role-play and a good time being had by all, since it was really the culmination of some years of game-play.

The worst RPG-related argument I had took only a few minutes, but led to that group splitting up and refusing to talk to one another for months afterwards. We eventually sorted it out, but it wasn't fun in the meantime.

 

[GameOgre]

Don't give a crap about in character arguments.as long as the players want to.

Out of Character arguments better be short.

Any arguments with the DM over rules ect.....better be shorter still.

So in other words in character ..dont care. Out of Character 1 minute.

 

[delericho]

Started adding wandering monsters but that is a pill move.

How so? If the players are spending an age discussing options, presumably their PCs aren't coming to a decision telepathically. So it's entirely reasonable that monsters will be attracted to the disturbance.

Hell, if the players are really getting heated, I'd award the monsters surprise.

However...

Learn to demand a decision after 5 minutes.

This is probably the better solution. For anything other than campaign-defining moments, it's almost certainly better to get the game moving in some direction than to wait for the players to resolve their differences.

And if one or more players really can't live with the majority vote, they'll have to split the party. That's really not ideal, but is still better than gridlock.

 

[iserith]

My tables rules include acknowledgement of "Yes, and..." for making decisions as a party. Someone comes up with an idea. The next person accepts the idea and adds to it with their own idea in a way that doesn't take away from the original idea. The next person does the same and so on until they're ready to execute. Because there is no debate, just ideas furthering previous ideas, it resolves into a plan very quickly. It means an idea that maybe isn't great initially is made better in a way that doesn't discourage throwing out ideas. As a result, my game (and indeed the games of the DMs in my network of players) moves a lot faster than most games I've seen. We compare our progress in official modules to actual play vodcasts and we are always way ahead of them for the same amount of time spent. I can't recommend it enough.

Prior to learning about this and implementing it, I can remember (vaguely) plenty of times where players would butt heads over one course of action or another, often basing their reasoning on pure speculation and contingencies until everyone was annoyed, including the DM. Often the defense for being argumentative or an obstacle to forward progress was "I'm just doing what my character would do." I'm not up for that anymore. Ain't got the time.

 

[jasper]

Some of my groups were rehash the plan for a long time trying to figure out the best plan. Even if the difference was only going to save 1 hit point of damage. Quote from a player, " I and spouse can just spend 4 hours on planning during the game. And it is okay!".

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[delericho]

My tables rules include acknowledgement of "Yes, and..." for making decisions as a party. Someone comes up with an idea. The next person accepts the idea and adds to it with their own idea in a way that doesn't take away from the original idea...

This is a great convention to adopt. I have in the past had the joys of watching one player immediately jump onto other player's ideas and quickly negating them... which might lead to tactically better play, but made for less enjoyment all around.

 

[iserith]

This is a great convention to adopt. I have in the past had the joys of watching one player immediately jump onto other player's ideas and quickly negating them... which might lead to tactically better play, but made for less enjoyment all around.

Yeah, and in my experience, it doesn't necessarily lead to tactically better play that makes much of a difference as to the outcome. Both plans succeed. The tactical plan is a little more efficient to basically no effect. So whatever time was spent settling on that tactically better idea and however much the players whose ideas were shot down are discouraged from putting forth ideas in the future is not worth a slight uptick in efficiency in my opinion.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

One of my worst, involving both a dick player and a weak, enabling DM, happened back in the '80s. Our party was playing City System in Waterdeep and discovered that one of the players (the dick in question) was actually playing a Drow priestess and causing woe to the party behind their backs. The DM knew this and let it happen. The person who discovered the masquerade was able to capture the Drow and bind her in our townhouse.

We then had a 3-hour argument over what to do. On one side, my player, a gray elf thief, wanted to slit her throat because, well, Drow priestess! On the other was the paladin (yes, one of THOSE paladins) who wanted to turn her in to the authorities and rehabilitate her ("I arrest you on the charge of being a Drow!"). The PC playing the Drow tried to kill herself by Enlarging inside her bounds and strangling but was stopped. The DM offered no good resolution and of course we were young and full of 'what our characters would do' obstinance.

In the end, I wound up unilaterally walking up and slitting her throat with a sneak attack. My character then shook his head and said, "What happened? The last thing I remember was looking into her eyes..."

The paladin player was furious. I told him that since she had attempted suicide previously, my story that she controlled my actions to kill her made good sense and he had little to use to assert that I did it willingly. He persisted and called my character a coward (like calling Marty McFly a chicken...). So we dueled, him a 7th level paladin and me a 5th level thief. I got good rolls and dropped him.

We made up later but that instance showed me how a D&D session can really go wrong. I had been playing for years at that point but had good groups and DMs. Live and learn!