DM overruling a Player's play of his character

[J-Buzz]

"Horan shouts in pained surprise as the rogue scores a sword thrust from the dark"

Sounds to me like the dm is trying to add a little color to the descriptions. No where in that statement does it imply that horan is not tough. The strongest man in the work is going to go "What the F***!" When he is hit from behind. Now if the DM said Horan starts to jump and shout "it hurt it hurts, take it out take it out!!!!" then you might have a point..... So if I was a character and the dm just said that, when it became my turn I say somthing to the effect of "What in the nine hells!!!" to indicate that the blow ment nothing to me, or an appropriate response if I was playing a cowardly or weaker character.

What are the alternatives?

"Horan takes 8 hp damage" <- that would get very boring.

The Fear effect I would call meta gaming, but I understand that it is a fine line and open to interpretation.

 

[wedgeski]

To be honest this is one of those kinds of questions which I have found is best avoided, since, as this thread shows, it can bring up far too many *other* questions of player vs. DM control. In fact there are a number of facets to the game, like this one, that we as a group have learned to avoid like the plague, since even though we're great friends they have the potential to turn into prolonged - and loud - disagreements.

Personally I let the PC in question do whatever he wants as long as it isn't contrary to the RAW. Sometimes the player will metagame deliberately, sometimes subconsciously, sometimes randomly, but y'know, in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter. All you're doing is slowing down the game and draining all the drama/excitement from the moment.

 

[Shadeus]

As for the fear spell effect, I agree with Kamikaze Midget on this one. Whatever the effect (scream or no scream), it should be consistent. I believe they should scream. Being that scared, you aren't thinking about being stealthy or the effect of your fear, you just know you have to get the hell away from where you are at!

As for the latter example...

[rules lawyer]

Speak
In general, speaking is a free action that you can perform even when it isn’t your turn. Speaking more than few sentences is generally beyond the limit of a free action.

The PC can speak or not speak/scream if he wants to. It's entirely up to the player to decide.

[/rules lawyer]

 

[HellHound]

No, I don't call players anymore. We let that kind of thing ride.

However, I *do* call for a second Will save to keep from screaming when running away in fear.

 

[painandgreed]

Fixed that for you.

Clearly this is a situation where the player is metagaming. He'd made a specific point, in reponse to a direct question, on multiple occasions, that his character wasn't the girly-scream type. Fine. The point of the fear effect is that temporarily, higher order thought is not happening. Your lizard brain is working enough to keep you from running into a pit of lava, but that's about it. Tactical considerations are out.

No, you're just being a <something Eric's grandma wouldn't like>.

You have two separate sets of situations and two different reactions. Neither is out of bounds for the character. Maybe I'm missing the part of the spell description that says that characters under the influence of a fear spell become NPCs under the control of the DM, but if it did, I feel we wouldn't be having this conversation. The PCs decision to scream or not to scream using knowledge known by the character seems fine to me. Under the influence of a fear spell, the character becomes "panicked". Characters that are panicked flee (or cower) in a random direction away from the object of their panic. I would still see the decision to either make a loud or silent fleeing as still in the realm of decision made by the reptilian brain that controls such responses and up to the descretion of the player. Just as the reptilian brain keeps a person from fleeing into a pool of lava, it also tells them to eithr yell or not. Yelling out information such as commands or even monster type would not be possible under "panicked" but would be under "frightened". Other DMs may differ, but please don't attempt to be smarmy.

 

[Conaill]

Shadeus already posted the rules on Speaking above. The other one that is relevant is this one:

Panicked: A panicked creature must drop anything it holds and flee at top speed from the source of its fear, as well as any other dangers it encounters, along a random path. It can’t take any other actions.

Altogether, I'd say that if a PC wants to communicate - even if it's just through a voluntary shout to his companions - he has to take a Free Action to "Speak", which he can generally do even when it's not his turn.

On the other hand, when the PC is Panicked, such as when fleeing in terror due to a Fear effect, he can take *no* other actions, including a Free Action to Speak. He might whimper, shout uncontrollably, or remain frozen silent, but that is essentially up to the DM. In this case, the DM was very kind and let the layer choose how his PC would behave in such a situation. If the PC ever gets Panicked again, he should behave exactly the same, without any choice on behalf of the player.

But *unless* the PC is actually Panicked (or in any other condition which would preclude actions, such as Unconscious or Paralysed), the player should be allowed to decide what comes out of the PC's mouth...

 

[Darkness]

Is there ever a situation where a DM could/should overrule a Player's play of his character?

If at all possible, I'd try (and listen to) reason first and, if necessary, resort to dice next.

As for Horan... If his player argued that Horan is so tough that he only screams when he's in grave danger, I'd accept that. (Assuming reasonable stats and that I don't want to use a rule to handle this.) When in doubt, I'd call for a save or something like that. YMMV.

 

[Shining Dragon]

Perhaps the DM should restrict their description of the events to what the character feels instead of what they do.

So instead of "Horan shouts in pained surprise as the rogue scores a sword thrust from the dark" it would be "Horan feels a hot, stabbing paining in his side as the rogue scores a sword thrust from the dark".

It is then up to the Player to take that description and run with it. So you could have:

DM: "Horan feels a hot, stabbing paining in his side as the rogue scores a sword thrust from the dark".

Player: "Horan grits his teeth at the pain and quickly draws his weapon..."


So in relation to the original post, when a Fear effect is affecting the character the DM should describe what the character feels to the Player - perhaps "an overwhelming urge to flee from the horror in front of you, the only thing on your mind is to escape as fast as possible" and out-of-play the DM merely says to the Player that the character must flee due to the Fear effect. From there a DM can let the Player describe the character's actions as the charcter attempts to flee the area.

But with the metagaming inherent in the second situation, when the Player voices the reasoning behind the character's scream, as DM I would immediately veto it with the reason that the Fear they feel is magical in nature and overwhelms their higher reasoning. If the Player instead had reacted to the initial description from the DM with "my character flees in terror, screaming" then I would had let it slide. A character does not have to act in the same manner everytime they were affected by Fear - they just have to act in an appropriate manner.

 

[fusangite]

People change. The idea that someone would, one day, decide to react differently to a stressful situation than he did the day before is the very essence of character development in a narrative. To behave inconsistently is a basic property of being human. Unless the player is playing a robot, inconsistency and change make the character more realistic not less so.

Besides, what about all the times the GM's world works inconsistently because the GM has made an error? Do the players get to over-rule him? Of course not. The GM controls the setting and has every right to make mistakes with it. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. A player can play his character "wrong" but that doesn't somehow nullify his right to play the character.

Now, I'm sure that one could find an extreme situation in which a GM would be reasonable in over-ruling the play of a character but I can't imagine it off hand. I can describe it a bit, though: in such a situation, the other players would probably unanimously support the GM and have already made efforts to stop the play.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

It is the player's character, the player gets to choose. Besides which, it makes perfect sense for the character to scream for help under the fear effect if there is no one around to help him, and to control his screams when they are.

If a DM overruled my character on something like that I would be tempted to get a new DM - it is my character.

I agree 237%.

Moreover, as a DM I do not consider myself the metagaming police. If the metagaming is disrupting to the game, then I might talk to the player about it outside of the game, but I'm not going to analyze every PC action in the game and shout out "a-HA!" whenever something comes up that isn't 100% consistant with previous decisions the character has made. Sure, he's metagaming a bit. But it's not hurting anything, it could have a plausible in-game explanation, and the player is having fun. No reason to get involved at all.