Group Dynamics: Min/Max vs RPers

[Wyvernhand]

As an English graduate... ouch.

The real question is...what do you do with a BA in English?

 

[Dandu]

I am of the old-school variety DMs who finds ways to take away problem items from the group, usually surreptitiously, but sometimes blatantly. A disintegrate spell targeted at the spiked chain by an optimized sorcerer of your own creation who then cackles as he teleports away (perhaps to harry the party again later) is fair game in my DM's box of tricks.

In my experience, it is better to talk it out and explain your concerns to the player than just destroy his gear and passive aggressively make things difficult when he seeks a replacement without explaining the situation.

In other words; how would you like it if your DM started penalizing you for things he thought were overpowered but which, numerically, aren't even if the fluff is a little dodgy?

 

[airwalkrr]

In my experience, it is better to talk it out and explain your concerns to the player than just destroy his gear and passive aggressively make things difficult when he seeks a replacement without explaining the situation.

In other words; how would you like it if your DM started penalizing you for things he thought were overpowered but which, numerically, aren't even if the fluff is a little dodgy?

I'm an old-school DM and an old-school player. I don't whine when my character dies or loses a magic item or whatever. It's all part of the game and the DM is the one who took all the time to prepare and run the game. If he allowed something to happen that is his decision and I abide by it. I might make an argument in my favor if I feel it is an issue of rules interpretations, but once it becomes clear to me that the rules weren't the things standing in the way, I don't press the issue.

I read an old article by Gary Gygax in the Dragon (or perhaps it was still Tactical Review then) wherein he described a situation in which he had allowed a character to become too powerful because he had attained two vorpal weapons. It quickly became clear that the character was becoming a problem and a mistake was made in the doling of loot. Long story short, the character in question ended up being tricked by a demon and imprisoned in the Abyss (to be rescued later by the player's other character, sans the vorpal swords, which of course the demon had claimed). Perhaps a draconian measure, but sometimes the DM makes a mistake and has to correct it.

There is another story Gary tells in which his own son's character, Melf, lost a valuable magic item through sheer bad luck. I believe it had to do with a failed saving throw. Anyway, the point of the story was, Gary explained to his son that its just a game, and just because you lose a magic item doesn't mean you can't find another to capture your imagination. And besides all that, the game was intentionally designed with ways for PC resources to be whittled away to keep them adventuring for new loot.

I just happen to agree with Gary.

 

[aboyd]

I read an old article by Gary Gygax in the Dragon (or perhaps it was still Tactical Review then) wherein he described a situation in which he had allowed a character to become too powerful because he had attained two vorpal weapons. It quickly became clear that the character was becoming a problem and a mistake was made in the doling of loot. Long story short, the character in question ended up being tricked by a demon and imprisoned in the Abyss (to be rescued later by the player's other character, sans the vorpal swords, which of course the demon had claimed). Perhaps a draconian measure, but sometimes the DM makes a mistake and has to correct it.

Why pursue something even you admit is draconian, when you have other pleasant options? Dandu is advocating for a resolution that isn't draconian and doesn't piss off the player. His solution doesn't end with people leaving the game upset. Why would that be a bad thing? Why would you think that people would prefer something draconian?

I remember these old stories about Gary, partly because I was DMing back then too, and I remember thinking these ideas were pretty insightful at the time. But here's the problem: we were all socially awkward and at an early point in the game's history, and we muddled through years of gaming, trying to learn and make a better game. So while I love Gary and would happily trot out examples from him in many cases, this isn't one. This is from a time when we got it "muddled" as far as I can tell, and there are friendlier, more mature methods of resolving this now.

On a personal level, I want to share an experience that put me on Dandu's side of thinking. A few years ago I was playing a character who was really struggling in the game world. He was a 3.5 edition wizard, built pretty okay. He should have been fine. But the game was starving us of resources. I wanted to animate dead, but no onyx was available. I wanted a few spies for me in various towns, so I took the Leadership feat with that stated goal, only to find that followers were not available. This repeated over & over again -- players would take a feat or try a spell or use a magic item and expect to get the listed result, only to find that it didn't work out. The DM would never say he was gimping things, and would deny it if asked. However, working with the campaign over the course of years, the pattern was clear: if the DM felt something was overpowered or threw a wrench in his plans, things worked only as he deemed, even if it undermined entire character builds.

The DM could have told me up front that he disliked Leadership and would only allow a gimped cohort. If he had, I would have selected something else. Instead, I spent months of real-world time, every other weekend attending the game, trying to make it work. I got more & more frustrated, and put more & more effort into trying to do whatever magical thing the DM needed to unlock the Leadership features. It was only after months of banging my head against the wall that I realized he was gimping it in the game instead of being up front about it. There was no way for me to make it work, and no way to retrain or swap out the feat, because it had been months, and the DM felt it was locked in at that point.

What ended the game? I was below the wealth-by-level guides and so I started hoarding even small loot -- my wagon carried a few redundant magical items, plus mundane junk like chain shirts and bows, because I needed every penny. Level 12 and I was doing search checks on fallen enemies to get a long sword because I still was that poor. On the eve of having enough money to use Planar Binding to hire some otherworldly critters to help me overthrow my nemesis, said nemesis appeared with an army so large I could not hope to defeat it, and they stole my wagon. Why an army would be put together just to steal a wagon, I don't know. Why they would target mine, I don't know. My nemesis had no idea he was my nemesis, so it's not like he was worried about me. My nemesis didn't know that I was going to do Planar Binding, using my loot to bribe the bound creatures to help me. But the army did take the wagon, didn't do anything else (not even fight), and so I lost everything except the gear I was wearing. It had taken literally a couple of real-world years of playing to accumulate that tiny amount of wealth and be on the cusp of actually being effective in the game world, so when I saw that I would have to rebuild from the ground up (another two years!) I was greatly annoyed. As a player I gave up, lost interest, and bowed out of the game.

Ever since then, my mantra has been to be up front with the players as much as I can. If I need to gimp something, I just say it. If I make a mistake, I say so and explain what I want to do to resolve it.

I am playing in a new D&D 3.5 game right now. On Saturday, at 4th level, I won a ring of spell storing. But the DM made it up, custom. He has it set with a big gem in the middle, and 5 small gems around the outside edge. The big gem will store any spell. The 5 small gems will store any spell with the fire descriptor. For those of you who know how to break the game, you probably already know what's wrong here: with no level limit for the spells, the ring can essentially hold 6 9th level spells, which is a storage capacity of 54 levels worth of spells. That's the equivalent of 5 greater rings of spell storing, putting its worth at around 1,000,000 gold. For a 4th level character.

I know it's utterly inappropriate, and have only filled it with Kelgore's Firebolt and a Fireball from a friendly wizard. I'm keeping it roughly level-appropriate all on my own. But if I try for something big, say, a level 7 spell that I manage to convince a friendly wizard to cast for me, and then the DM tells me in the middle of combat that it fizzles out, I'll be pissed. I think undermining an item when you realize it's too awesome is just mean and passive aggressive, as Dandu suggested. However, if the DM says to me, "Holy cow, yeah, I think I got that wrong. I forgot how open-ended I left it, and that item is seriously overpowered for your level. Let's agree on a fix," then I am 100% on board! I know it's overpowered if I want it to be. And I am happy to find a solution that feels fair. But just having it stop working in the middle of a crisis SUCKS. Having it stolen would SUCK, although if I could get it back, that's okay. If it's irretrievably stolen because the DM wants it out of the game, that's right back to sucky, and I'll wish to play with someone more up front than that.

I'd really encourage DMs to be up front. If a mistake is made, try talking to a player in the real world, instead of undermining the character in the game world. Please. Just give it a shot, first.

 

[airwalkrr]

I'm not advocating a complete lack of transparency. In fact, Gary in those articles often described how he explained his actions to the players and they had to shrug and say "yea that was too powerful, so let's get on with the game." I don't think that just because you give an item to a player that it becomes the player's inviolate property though. It's still my game, and if it disrupts game balance, I will find a way to remove it. Guidelines for doing so have been in every version of the DMG to date for this very reason.

Now when these (rare) situations do come up, I won't beat around the bush with the player. I'll take the item away via some means and then explain why I did so, often tossing in an extra piece of treasure specifically with this player in mind to help make up for the loss. I don't tend to balance my games according to the player wealth guidelines in the DMG though. But I'm an experienced enough DM to know that certain challenges aren't going to be appropriate without certain wealth expectations. I tailor my challenges to what I know the group can handle and I think I do a pretty good job of it. Character death is a rare event in my campaigns and usually because the player did something he knew would result in the death of his character ahead of time.

Now when it comes to things like feats and classes, I am very flexible with those things. I always require anything outside the core rules (read: Player's Handbook) be approved ahead of time. But even if I do approve it, sometimes I see it in play and feel it crosses a line. It is for this reason that I allow PCs to retrain abilities, even whole class levels at times, and I'm even more flexible than the 3.5 PH2 is. They can retrain at any time as long as they take a couple weeks of downtime. And since there is generally about two weeks of downtime between each adventure, PCs are never at a loss for time to retrain.

Ultimately I think a player needs to be mature enough to realize when something is unbalancing the game and be willing to accept the DM's judgment. If you quit a game because a DM takes away an item that he gave you as treasure in the first place, that's kind of like spitting in his face. The situation you describe [MENTION=44797]aboyd[/MENTION] sounds pretty unfortunate. Of course I'm sure if you were to ask the DM he would see things a different way. Either way, I don't think what you describe is what I or Gary in his articles are advocating. DMs have to have control of their games. Sometimes that means taking things out of the game. I'm always willing to give something a fair shake and I don't change rules in the middle of the game session. But I will change things from time to time as my campaign evolves and I am not afraid to remove a disruptive item or ability from the game. Its only fair to offer something in return, but a mature player will see it as an opportunity for a new plot or adventure, not a reason to stomp away from the game angry. It is just a game after all. And I think too many players forget that these days.

 

[aboyd]

OK. Well, if that works for you, then that works for you.

I guess I would address my comments then to any other DMs reading this forum. I would simply say that I would be really grateful if DMs would try being up front, direct, and non-draconian, first. Thanks for your consideration.

 

[Dandu]

Agreed.

 

[Wyvernhand]

Remember kids. WWWWD?

I agree.

 

[lordxaviar]

Hey, guys. I have been running a group for a number of years now. My frustrations as a DM and some group dynamics are starting to wear on me, so I need some advice.

I have 2 min/maxxers in the group and RPers who play DnD to be a hero and do cool stuff. The RPers optimize their characters but they are far from min/maxxers.

I read many of the posts, and they had great ideas, but got very complicated of you the DM... I always fall back on world dynamics.. If races dont work or class combinations upset your balance.. Dont allow them!! you are the Dm... its your world, there are many ideas you could come up with to make their powers null and or void in various situations. The game should be fun for you as well as your players, or its no longer a game... its work.

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