D&D General How to work with players who wont accept any setbacks/defeat?

[overgeeked]

Well that escalated quickly.

I'm not trying to make a statement about player agency. I was responding only to @p_johnston, about the one situation they described in their first post. As I understand it, their players will only accept total victory or death, and it's disrupting the game. That's the person, and the situation, that my advice was intended for. @p_johnston said they "try to give players an out or a way to fail forward" and the players aren't responding, so my advice was to gradually and gently adjust their expectations.

It's weird that I have to actually write this last part out, but: I am not trying to lecture anyone. Someone asked for advice, and I gave it, based on my own personal experiences. That's all. I wasn't casting stones at anyone.

No stones from me either. The sports and chess analogy doesn't hold. Sorry if pointing that out bothered you.

 

[payn]

Well that escalated quickly.

I'm not trying to make a statement about player agency. I was responding only to @p_johnston, about the one situation they described in their first post. As I understand it, their players will only accept total victory or death, and it's disrupting the game. That's the person, and the situation, that my advice was intended for. @p_johnston said they "try to give players an out or a way to fail forward" and the players aren't responding, so my advice was to gradually and gently adjust their expectations.

It's weird that I have to actually write this last part out, but: I am not trying to lecture anyone. Someone asked for advice, and I gave it, based on my own personal experiences. That's all. I wasn't casting stones at anyone.

It was just a question. Who you specifically were talking to was not clear by quote or body of posting. The post was rather general which a few of us ended up asking for clarification and/or left comments.

 

[CleverNickName]

I saw a livestream on Twitch a couple years ago that had an interesting way of doing it. I don't remember which live-stream it was, unfortunately...otherwise I'd link it. It sounds like something that Brennan would do on Dimension20, but I don't think that was it.

Anyway.

I don't remember the circumstances...I think he was trying to disarm a trap? Let's say it was a trap; it might have been a death save or a counterspell, I don't remember. Anyway, the player rolled extremely low and everyone at the table groaned. "That's it, we're all dead now," etc. Well, the DM paused a moment, until the clamor quieted down and everyone was listening. "What does that failure look like?" he finally asked the player. "You tried and failed--so tell us what happened next."

"Um..." the player didn't know what to say. "Well I rolled pretty bad, so...I guess it probably exploded then." And the DM took his cue from the player, describing an explosion and calling for save throws. And the game went on.

Maybe try something like that? Ask the players to describe what they think failure looks like, and go from there?

 

[CleverNickName]

It was just a question. Who you specifically were talking to was not clear by quote or body of posting. The post was rather general which a few of us ended up asking for clarification and/or left comments.

Fair enough; I could have been more clear by including a quote of the actual message. Sorry about that.

 

[p_johnston]

Thanks everyone for all the advice. It did help put some things in perspective and a few posts really helped me see it from my players perspective.
So update for anyone who is interested we met on Sunday and spent around 30 minutes chatting before the game. I expressed how I was feeling and gave several example that I gave here (making sure that I gave examples including several different players so that no one person felt singled out). The conclusion my group came to was that were just bad at communicating sometimes and too accommodating. It was pointed out by my players that in most scenarios it's that one person gets a bit in their teeth and everyone else tends to just go along or not clearly voice any objection they might have.
Solution we came to was that whenever any of us notice that happening (me included) or feel uncomfortable that person can say "hey let's pause a minute" stop the game and we'll have a discussion out of game to clarify how everyones feeling and insure everyone is ok with what's going on. Don't know if it's 100% fix but hopefully it turns out well going forward.
Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Li Shenron]

So I've noticed a feature of my group, with some players being worse then others, that as a whole they would rather get their characters killed (up to and including a campaign ending TPK) rather than accept any sort of defeat or setback.

If that's what they want/like from the game, why would I want to take it away from them?