DM'ing is a skill, not an art.

[billd91]

1. The "kind of advantage" there is to take is this: always making sure my character is facing the weakest opponent, or no opponent at all, or always just happening to be elsewhere (exploring pipes? ) when trouble comes, or backing out of the fight and letting the others get hammered, or never going first in the marching order, or...

Trouble is - playing like that may actually reflect a higher level of play skill as long as it's a better portrayal of the character and their strengths. Remember the low-level wizard in 1e/2e. Short on spells, low on hit points. Never going first in the marching order. Squaring off against the weakest opponents because that's what they can handle without draining a party's healing resources.

 

[Varis]

FYI this is how I dealt with the XP issue.
(posted on Australian RPG Dungeon private forum)

"Encounter 1

Skill Challenge

Please not that after referring to the rules, you can not 'take 10' in a skill challenge. I have still provided xp for this because:
1. Innovative idea to look for alternate entrance.
2. Risk taken, (albiet diminshed (with take 10)), still represented a life or death situation if this went bad i.e. If they had failed, it would of been an 'auto kill' (there were at least 2 ways the players could of easily died had they taken the wrong decisions).

Nonetheless, I was strongly leaning towards not awarding xp for the skill challenge. However, I had to also consider that asking to 'take 10' needs could be considered as an 'innovative solution' to the skill challenge (of course, this won't apply in the future), and since I treated as such, the skill challenge xp applies. Therefore,...

Encounter 1

500xp (6th level skill challenge complexity 2) divided by 2
250xp to Salinya and Urgodan each"

 

[Lanefan]

Trouble is - playing like that may actually reflect a higher level of play skill as long as it's a better portrayal of the character and their strengths. Remember the low-level wizard in 1e/2e. Short on spells, low on hit points. Never going first in the marching order. Squaring off against the weakest opponents because that's what they can handle without draining a party's healing resources.

That's fair.

Perhaps I should rephrase.

My concern is the player who intentionally holds their otherwise-capable character back, or sends it elsewhere, and leaves the other characters stuck with the risks; in full knowledge there is no loss of ExP for doing so.

As in: (party consists of Rick the Ranger, Fred the Fighter, Meg the Magician, Ted the Thief, and Chad the Cleric; all are at full health)

Rick returns from scouting: "Guys, there's signs of a Giant in the next valley; we've found the beast at last. Let's get after it." Rest of party agrees.
(party plows into valley; it soon becomes obvious to all a Giant lives here)
Ted: "There it is! Lookout, it's seen us!"
(everyone gets ready for a battle except Fred)
Fred: "Uh, guys, I thought I saw someone following us a while back. Maybe I'll just back off up the trail 100 yards and hide...you know, get the drop on him." (Fred retreats, leaving the other four to deal with the Giant) (DM knows full well there is nobody following; that Fred has no in-character reason to think anyone is, and that Fred's player is making it up)
(a 4-on-1 battle follows, party get hammered; they come out victorious but Ted gets killed. While remaining party are patching themselves up afterwards - in other words, as soon as the risk is over - Fred returns without a scratch on him)
Fred: "Didn't see a thing on the trail. How'd things go here? Where's Ted?"

By the logic being presented, Fred gets full ExP for this battle. (and Ted, I suppose, gets none)

Ridiculous.

Lanefan

 

[Zimri]

That's fair.

Perhaps I should rephrase.

My concern is the player who intentionally holds their otherwise-capable character back, or sends it elsewhere, and leaves the other characters stuck with the risks; in full knowledge there is no loss of ExP for doing so.

As in: (party consists of Rick the Ranger, Fred the Fighter, Meg the Magician, Ted the Thief, and Chad the Cleric; all are at full health)

Rick returns from scouting: "Guys, there's signs of a Giant in the next valley; we've found the beast at last. Let's get after it." Rest of party agrees.
(party plows into valley; it soon becomes obvious to all a Giant lives here)
Ted: "There it is! Lookout, it's seen us!"
(everyone gets ready for a battle except Fred)
Fred: "Uh, guys, I thought I saw someone following us a while back. Maybe I'll just back off up the trail 100 yards and hide...you know, get the drop on him." (Fred retreats, leaving the other four to deal with the Giant) (DM knows full well there is nobody following; that Fred has no in-character reason to think anyone is, and that Fred's player is making it up)
(a 4-on-1 battle follows, party get hammered; they come out victorious but Ted gets killed. While remaining party are patching themselves up afterwards - in other words, as soon as the risk is over - Fred returns without a scratch on him)
Fred: "Didn't see a thing on the trail. How'd things go here? Where's Ted?"

By the logic being presented, Fred gets full ExP for this battle. (and Ted, I suppose, gets none)

Ridiculous.

Lanefan

I type alot of things, some purposefully disingenuous, some playing devil's advocate, some just to foster the continuation of conversation and idea exchange. The following is none of those, it is unadulterated truth about how I feel regarding the quoted post.

I honestly can not say I have ever sat at a gaming table with someone that would play the way Fred the Fighter did in the previous example. Some had "bad ideas" (the monk that wanted to burn a village to stop a plague from spreading) , some who took "role-playing (acting)" way too far. Some who had to "be the best" at everything, and some number fudgers. But they all played to the best of their ability , to entertain everyone, keep things interesting, and for the over all "good" of the party. The playstyle described above is completely unknown to me, and if discovered at our table I am fairly certain the player with it would not be invited back for game time, other socializing sure but not game time.

 

[jbear]

The only problem here, is that for those 3 hours, the other three players proceeded up the mountain road and took on nine orcs. The other two PC's were at least 2 hours away by this time. The two players had to wait out the fight.

yep, splitting a party is a problem. something i really dislike as a DM.

I guess faced with a wide range of no win choices I would do as I said hoping that the other group seeing that no game time has been wasted decide to do something less direct as 'we attack the fortress by ourselves'; ie do reconnaisance etc to gain some kind of surprise advantage when the others get back 2 seconds (of real time) later.

Some people have accused that decision of being railroady. Be it so. I prefer anything over a split party. Do whatever you like, but do it together.

 

[jbear]

The issue here is that in that 6 hour period, the other 3 players walked off and did their own thing,..and ran into orcs, who are stationed in front of the citadel entrance. The players decided to attack.



Please, read the decriptions I provided the players (see previous posts) and consider that they also had to a. Invest significant game world time b. Split the party in do so.

From the facts presented, they can draw their own conclusions.


I didnt 'punish' anybody. Why would I even think like that?
They were given the facts, they made decisions, and took action.


Agreed. The players still have the final say though.



Three factors resulted in my actions not reflecting the above.

a. I was suddenly dealing with 2 groups, so I had to divide my attention to understand the PC actions in game world time. One group of auomatically burnt 6 game world hours had I simply said "You go there, and come back".

b. I was attempting to provide the players with an additional opportuny to turn back early and allow the two group to reunite sooner. The second group (out of the pipe) proceeded up the mountain path. By switching between the two groups, I was hoping that the 2 PC's in the pipe would begin to understand the scope and difficulty of the path they wanted to go down, especially when I described to cramped, slimy pipe going vertical up to the limit of the drows dark vision. But they were adament.

c. Since they 'were' adament, I decided to set up a skill challenge,..they were burning real time anyway, and they were doing a dangerous activity, they might as well earn xp. But they circumvented this process by taking 10 on all the checks. Defeating the point of a skill challenge. I have since read up on this very issue and learnt that you can't do that, but at the time, I wasn't about to waste 'game time' resolving an unknown rule issue (which for all I knew could of taken another fifteen minutes to make an accurate determination). So I allowed it, because they were potentially in a life or death situation, and they at least had the wisdom to be cautious.




I agree.


Except for the last line, for reasons stated above, I agree.
I dont contend I had the ideal solution, only that I did my best in the given circumstance and with the knowledge I possessed.

I wasn't really directing my comments at you varis.

I was talking more in general using the situation to put it into context. I fully sympathise with the difficulty of the situation you found yourself in.

I really don't know how I would have handled it myself. Again with hindsight, I now have an idea of the way I would handle a similar situation. I'm grateful to have read all these opinions and thus found my own, which is positive and useful.

 

[Lanefan]

I honestly can not say I have ever sat at a gaming table with someone that would play the way Fred the Fighter did in the previous example. Some had "bad ideas" (the monk that wanted to burn a village to stop a plague from spreading) , some who took "role-playing (acting)" way too far. Some who had to "be the best" at everything, and some number fudgers. But they all played to the best of their ability , to entertain everyone, keep things interesting, and for the over all "good" of the party. The playstyle described above is completely unknown to me, and if discovered at our table I am fairly certain the player with it would not be invited back for game time, other socializing sure but not game time.

The example I dreamed up was extreme, to make the point. But I can truthfully say that I have both played with and DMed players who would, if given the chance in an ExP-for-all system, consistently do lesser versions of what Fred did: avoid known-to-be-risky situations and hang others out to dry knowing they'd still get full ExP.

Awarding ExP only to those who participate in an encounter only partly fixes the problem - even with that, it still happened - but it's a start. I'm also glad to say none of those players are currently in my game or that which I play in.

Lanefan