Gotcha GMs

[Rhianni32]

I'm really getting tired of seeing all the promotion for that specific website. Several sites keep getting drive by posts with no commentary and discussion.

Case in point. Wtf is a gotcha GM? is it just a jerk or someone trying to hold their players accountable for lack of participation and foresight?

What is the difference between "Well my character would have remembered to buy water before adventuring" vs "Well my character would have remembered to buy extra healing potions before adventuring"

 

[Fanaelialae]

I'm really getting tired of seeing all the promotion for that specific website. Several sites keep getting drive by posts with no commentary and discussion.

Case in point. Wtf is a gotcha GM? is it just a jerk or someone trying to hold their players accountable for lack of participation and foresight?

What is the difference between "Well my character would have remembered to buy water before adventuring" vs "Well my character would have remembered to buy extra healing potions before adventuring"

I think it's less like those two points and more, "well, my character would have remembered to fill his water skins from the well (for free) in the town before we left on our week long journey, given that he's not a complete ninny". There are plenty of things that can be reasonably assumed.

There are also facts that characters in the world would be blatantly aware of that players may not be. Trying to trip your players up because they didn't memorize your world bible (or read your mind) is gotcha DMing.

Think of how annoying it would be if the players were as pedantic about every little action their character did, as some gotcha GMs are. You wouldn't be able to get any gaming done because it would be an endless stream of "breathing, breathing, breathing, potty break, breathing, breathing, breathing..."

 

[gss000]

What is the difference between "Well my character would have remembered to buy water before adventuring" vs "Well my character would have remembered to buy extra healing potions before adventuring"

A big difference because this is D&D/Pathfinder and not Paranoia. I've been playing for decades, and almost all of the time the first only comes up if the players are going into extreme dry climates, while the latter always comes up. I've only known one DM back in the 80s who made his players track food and water. If they did not explicitly say they were eating, they starved. I found in cointless tables that the general consensus, even of it's unspoken, is that you mention buying consumables if they require spending non-insignificant resources (whether time or money), are potentially hard to find, or have dramatic impact on the game. Healing potions almost always fits that bill. Water never does except in extreme pr very special cases.

If it is going to be something you as a GM want to track, great! Just tell the players at the start so everyone is on the same page. Otherwise, you're surprising the players on a typically insignificant minutia and are a gotcha GM, and that's not fun. In my experience, gotcha GMs are just trying to show up the players and not craft something fun for everyone.

 

[CleverNickName]

Wtf is a gotcha GM? is it just a jerk or someone trying to hold their players accountable for lack of participation and foresight?

What is the difference between "Well my character would have remembered to buy water before adventuring" vs "Well my character would have remembered to buy extra healing potions before adventuring"

An easy way to avoid a "gotcha" and maintain a little bit of realism is to require Intelligence checks for remembering stuff. Easy-to-remember, everyday stuff like packing your lunch or grabbing your keys on the way out the door would be DC 10. Harder stuff, like how much flour you have in the pantry or your grandma's recipe for biscuits, would be DC 12 to DC 15. Super-hard stuff to remember, like the entire periodic table or three pages of complicated formulas from a physics textbook, would be DC 20 or higher.

Maybe the Keen Mind or Observant feat would let you remember some of this stuff automatically, or allow you to use your passive Intelligence, or allow you to make the check with Advantage. Maybe not; some really smart people are famously absent-minded.

 

[Deset Gled]

An easy way to avoid a "gotcha" and maintain a little bit of realism is to require Intelligence checks for remembering stuff. Easy-to-remember, everyday stuff like packing your lunch or grabbing your keys on the way out the door would be DC 10. Harder stuff, like how much flour you have in the pantry or your grandma's recipe for biscuits, would be DC 12 to DC 15. Super-hard stuff to remember, like the entire periodic table or three pages of complicated formulas from a physics textbook, would be DC 20 or higher.

Maybe the Keen Mind or Observant feat would let you remember some of this stuff automatically, or allow you to use your passive Intelligence, or allow you to make the check with Advantage. Maybe not; some really smart people are famously absent-minded.

The problem with the "make a check for it" mentality is that the DM is still completely in control, because they can force failure based on the number of checks.

For example, say the DM makes you roll to "remember your basic supplies" before the adventure starts. Lets further suppose you have a 5% chance of failure. That's reasonable.

Now suppose the DM makes you roll separately to remember your weapon, bed roll, food, and water. At a 5% chance of failure each, you know have a ~19% chance of failure (0.95^4). So, a one in 5 chance that you left something critical behind. That's much less reasonable.

Taking it a step further, say the DM makes you roll to remember equipment every time you pack up camp and move to the next one. So if you travel for a week, there is now a 76% chance that you eventually forget something (0.95^(4*7)). Odds are three members of the four man team will end up screwed by forgetting something important. That's ridiculous.

The thesis here is that if a DM wants you to forget equipment, you're going to forget equipment. Making players roll for it still guarantees that it will eventually happen. The DM can't control exactly when, but he can control how often. It makes it a game of statistical gotcha instead of an in-your-face gotcha, but it's still the same issue.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

For example, say the DM makes you roll to "remember your basic supplies" before the adventure starts. Lets further suppose you have a 5% chance of failure. That's reasonable.

Making matters worse, because the math of any D20 system is fundamentally flawed, an "easy" Intelligence check is probably closer to a 50% chance of failure for most people. The super-genius with Intelligence 20 will still be dead by the end of the week, but the average character would be lucky to survive a day.

 

[CleverNickName]

The problem with the "make a check for it" mentality is that the DM is still completely in control, because they can force failure based on the number of checks.

The thesis here is that if a DM wants you to forget equipment, you're going to forget equipment. Making players roll for it still guarantees that it will eventually happen. The DM can't control exactly when, but he can control how often. It makes it a game of statistical gotcha instead of an in-your-face gotcha, but it's still the same issue.

I don't disagree. And if you dig deep enough, the "if the DM wants it to happen it will happen" argument can be applied to just about anything in the game. It's as true as you want it to be.

But that doesn't make it a problem, per se. Lots of gaming groups don't have arguments or hurt feelings about whether or not their character remembers or forgets stuff. If your group does, maybe an Intelligence check will help resolve the matter and keep things moving forward. But if it doesn't, you probably have a deeper issue (Player-DM trust comes to mind.)

 

[CleverNickName]

Making matters worse, because the math of any D20 system is fundamentally flawed, an "easy" Intelligence check is probably closer to a 50% chance of failure for most people. The super-genius with Intelligence 20 will still be dead by the end of the week, but the average character would be lucky to survive a day.

If your near-genius character is dying in a week's time because he keeps forgetting stuff, you probably have bigger issues in the game than his memory. Joking aside, it sounds like you would be better served using passive Intelligence (10 + Int mod) to remember mundane things, no roll required. Actively trying to remember something obscure could require an active check.

In any case: if remembering/forgetting stuff isn't a big part of your game, there's no reason to do any of this. But if it's causing arguments or hurt feelings, maybe this will help.

 

[Fauchard1520]

This DM had a penchant for placing characters in demeaning situations.

Weirdly, I think I can understand where this dude is coming from. Not that I endorse this kind of tom foolery, but when you get a clear idea in your head of a "fun moment," you wind up trying to make it happen.

"Sure," you think to yourself. "It's a little railroady, but the payoff is worth it."

Except it's not.