I said "No" when I should have said "Yes".

[Mean DM]

Screw this say yes thing. There is almost nothing worse than the "Harvester" player.

Hey, I killed a monster? Can I harvest its organs and turn them into poison? There's poisonous spikes at the bottom of the pit? Well, I guess I gotta climb down there and get the poison off... Fungus? Is it poisonous fungus? Can I harvest this poisonous gas in a bottle? That scummy water... If I put it on my weapon, would it be poisonous?

I personally love these types of players. I find it enjoyable to let them use their creativity a little bit and then throw a complication at them. Sure, that was a poison fungus, but after production of the poison you find that it is contact poison. I much prefer the "say yes" + complication than a say "no". Match creativity with creativity. Saying yes does not mean that they have the last word.

 

[Henry]

I personally love these types of players. I find it enjoyable to let them use their creativity a little bit and then throw a complication at them. Sure, that was a poison fungus, but after production of the poison you find that it is contact poison. I much prefer the "say yes" + complication than a say "no". Match creativity with creativity. Saying yes does not mean that they have the last word.

I've actually done this before, and the result was far more fun that what the result of saying no would have been.

Case in point: In 2e AD&D, A war cleric venturing in a "Savage Prehistoric Lands" continent wanted to catch and tame a velociraptor. He loaded up with about three animal friendship spells and wanted to sneak off into the jungle to find and tame one. I told him "sure" and ran the situation. Alone (because the rest of the party thought it a stupid idea), he finds the Raptor, and begins casting. The Raptor, of course, finds him.

Round 1: Raptor wins init, hits him, blows his spell.
Round 2: He casts again, Raptor wins init again, blows his spell.
Round 3: Cleric wins init, casts the multi-round spell, Raptor hits him a third time, spoiling the spell, and the Cleric is VERY hurt by now.

ROund 4 & later: THe cleric busts out his Broadsword, fights furiously for several rounds, killing the raptor, hears the rest of the pack in the nearby woods, runs for his life.

He limps back into the fortified town, half-healed up, embarrassed and not saying a word to the rest of the party.

For years after that, the group still talked about that incident. Had he planned it a little better, maybe convinced a couple of the group to go with him, he'd have had a raptor pet; but he tried something, I played it out with its complications, and we had a memorable story!

(Admittedly, I fudged him getting away from the rest of the Raptor hunting pack a bit; had the group been with him, I would have added that complication.)

 

[Walknot]

Nice raptor story. Seems like saying yes can make things more complicated for you as the DM, and your group could suffer if it happens all the time. But you can also put some creativity into your yes, and then it's a good story to tell later.

One thing about 4e is that so many things are shoe-horned into your daily/encounter/utility type slots, and that maintains a balance. So if you have a "harvester" type who is juking for position with found objects / improvised poisons, then you can balance that out using the typical game rules.

You can start slow (your poison only works 10% of the time) but then ramp it up (you can take a feat to increase that, and +1 damage) and finally formalize it (offer a special encounter ability in lieu of one they would otherwise take in their class). You reward their creativity without bogging down or unbalancing the game for the other players.

 

[Korgoth]

Any time a PC messes around with stuff he doesn't fully understand, the DM has an opportunity. Obviously you don't need to squash the PC every time, but in the case of a 'harvester' there's at least a chance that something is going to go wrong.

Maybe the fungus spores interact with some other chemical and it starts growing like kudzu. Maybe a bunch of monster parts and other stuff acts together to generate something else... "Oh, so that's where baby gorgons come from!"

 

[justanobody]

I think you just created spell research for 4th edition.

 

[Shemeska]

I rarely say No. I much prefer "Go right ahead (but you may regret it...)" or "Yes, but are you sure?" Heck, I gave a player some FR netheril era heavy magic that was pretty much a highly unstable wish in liquid form that might or might not have had a use limit. The stuff it was used for, and the stuff that happened when it had a spectacular failure became campaign plot elements in the end.

I did say no to a PC learning spellcasting with ancient Baernaloth though.

 

[Jack Colby]

This past weekend, I was running a certain adventure* that features an encounter with patches of mushrooms as an obstacle. The patches of mushrooms have random detrimental properties when disturbed. After the encounter, a player identified one of the mushroom patches with a successful Dungeoneering check. The player then asked me: "Can I harvest some for later use?” Instead of saying "Yes" and perhaps, "give me another Dungeoneering check", I was seized with an irrational, paranoid fear of player abuse. Instinctively, I said no then rationalized my decision by saying that the properties of the mushrooms only function as a patch and can't be duplicated by harvesting a small amount. To add to the player’s disappointment, I also mentioned that trying to harvest the mushrooms would count as "disturbing" the patch. What a crock of BS! I could have let the player harvest some with a Dungeoneering check and maybe allowed a one-use, cool effect or something. But no, I was a bad DM this time.

So what shall be my penance for this sin? Does anyone else have a bad DM sin to confess?


*too lazy to use spoiler tabs

Actually, your ruling makes more sense than the alternative, and therefore adds richness and believability to the fantasy world. What? Is it cool nowadays to let players succeed at absolutely every idea they want to try? That would get boring fast.

 

[Turtlejay]

My No moment:
Details are sketchy but I was doing a skill challenge where the PC's were trying to interpret a diary, mostly using skills like Arcana, Religion, History, knowledge based skills. My ranger player wanted to use perception to contribute and I said no and made some lame excuse. I could have said yes but I guess was feeling a little. . .cranky.

My Yes moment:
Next session, same player wants to try huting for some dinner for the group, so he and the other rangers (both bow rangers) set out. I whipped up a little wolf encounter with just him and the other ranger, and they brought back a partially eaten deer and some sundry wolf parts.

While the ranger may not have *felt* like I was doing him a favor, above saying, "yes, roll nature, you find a rabbit." I gave him a little attention, and he almost died. But that is what makes 4e fun, right?

Jay

 

[That One Guy]

Portobello Mushroom Sandwich, with basil, tomato, and feta dressing, over a lightly toasted kaiser roll.

I could seriously go for that right now... Feta isn't my cheese of choice, but I wouldn't turn that sandwich down. ...I bet with the right resources I could make you a killer sandwich.

I say yes. I had a DM whose rule was (without cursing this'll be hard to explain)... "I already have the game in motion. Anything you choose to do can [ruin] yourself. It's up to you to un[ruin] yourself." So, yes w/ consequences is one of my favorite table top DMing styles. Another thing I picked up from him were unsolved traps/puzzles. Essentially traps and puzzles that behaved in a certain fashion, but did not have a specific roll or solution to solve. Good times.

Just make sure to say yes in the future. Feel no shame in saying yes, and then letting the natural consequence of their actions transpire - like hunting for pet raptor by oneself.

 

[Neil Bishop]

It also depends on your players. Some are time-wasting spotlight hogs and these sorts of requests are about indulging their inner narcissist at the expense of the other players. Of course, saying yes and then finding a way to kill their character (or even the players) might be the way to go....

Anyway, as DMs we have all made mistakes. I just say sorry, give a free action point the next session and possibly include the opportunity for a do-over.

My favourite "yes" moment was more than 20 years ago when I used to play as oppose to DM. I had a really creative DM run us through the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. I played a druid who had the call lightning spell which required, in 1E at least, the presence of a storm from which to call the bolts.

This DM allowed me to draw half-power bolts from the electricity coursing through the space ship which was quite cool. I also was able to find poisonous plants in the plant level which we then used to slay the froghemoth. Very cool thanks to some good descriptions. Unbalanced? Possibly. But we weren't playing for cattle stations.