If you were the GM, would you accept this behavior?

[ARandomGod]

How would you respond to this?

I would tell them: "You don't know if the city blew up or not, you didn't stick around to check."

And, if they had stuck around... then I'd be forced to say: "Obviously your ploy failed, since you didn't see the city blow up." After all, they couldn't have seen the city blow up, since I didn't describe it happening.

And *then* I would have time to think about if the bombs were caught, if some people escaped and knew about the bombing, or if just something horrible happened one way or another.

Most likely there would have been explosions. Several. And survivors. Some pple have to have escaped. Of course, higher level people are more likely to have escaped!


Hrmmm.. I see someone meantion XP. They certianly wouldn't get XP from that! Well, not unless it were some sort of objective they had.

Heheh. I've had that type of thing happen before. IE the character describing to me what they do, and thinking that means they did is successfully. After the description I roll some dice, apply applicable modifiers, and tell them what *actually* happened. Of course, since this happened with newer players, what they described was some unlikely athletic excursion followed by a series of "successful" attacks. So I rolled a tumble (fail), and rolled an attack (modified by the failed tumble, since the failed attempt to tumble over/through the obsticals was enough in my judgement to leave the character prone), which also failed... and then told them that their follow up imagined attacks will have to wait until the proper time has elapsed.

 

[Henry]

Players don't tell me about it, it didn't happen.

Had players done the above to ME, I would have said, "Cool, but I have to check and see if the bombs were discovered, either during or after sale. If during, we need to retcon a few things, OK?"

Had they answered, "No, that's not OK" I would have said, "Sorry, but if they're discovered while you were trading, then we'll pick up from that point. Now, <roll><roll> where were all of you when Player #1 was selling the bushels of potatoes?"

 

[Lazarous]

I look at an action like this, which they obviously planned in advance and organized, as something that the players really wanted to happen. Rather than retconning or ignoring the bombs being placed, i'd use it as the core of my next series of plot points, since proactive players are a treasure, and you should use their contributions as much as possible.

I would probably point out that this sort of thing would work out better for everyone involved if they kept stuff like this in the open, but i wouldn't mind the occasional surprise as a dm. Keeps you on your toes.

 

[Umbran]

Nor can I recall if ShadowRun had it?

Shadowrun has always included the mechanic of the Perception test, based off character Intelligence, to handle such things.

 

[IcyCool]

Here's a test, how many RPG's from before 2000 had some sort of Search or Spot rule?
AD&D2: yes - Find/Remove Traps
AD&D1: yes - Find/Remove Traps

I'm not sitting on a plethora of RPGs at the moment, but I'm pretty sure FASA's Mechwarrior game didn't have anything (I have the books at home). Nor can I recall if ShadowRun had it? Start a list, include Twilight 2000. I suspect game design didn't help the situation.

Well, Shadowrun has perception checks (for searching and spotting), and a skill governing security systems and the like. Mechwarrior had similar skills. I'm unfamiliar with Twilight 2000.

 

[werk]

I'd allow it and then have a sit-down and discuss the actual role of the DM as an administrator of the game and not an opponent.

Me too.

"While that is fine and well, you must tell me what you are doing or it doesn't happen...that's what I do, I'm reality in this game. Do you want to back up and play it again, or move forward like before?"

If there was opposition, I would ask how they are going to know what happens to their characters when I stop telling them..."Oh yeah, you all were attacked and killed 10 minutes ago by something, but I wanted it to be a surprise! You tell me what you do, I tell you what everything else does, that's how it works."

If more resistance, then they do not know how to play. I'd probably explain to them that, in baseball, you have to swing when you are at the plate. You can't go to the plate, strike out, sit down, drink some water, eat some sunflower seeds, then hit a homer 10 minutes ago...that's not how games work.

 

[Oryan77]

Players: "HA HA! We got you good! We put bombs in our items when we sold them to people in the city! Now the whole city is going to blow up! HA HA NEWB!"

Me: "Rats, I was foiled again! If it wasn't for you kids and that dog of yours....oh you're right, you don't have a dog. Ok, so you gave bombs to all the NPC's when you sold your loot? What a coincidence, those NPC's also hid bombs within the money they paid you. Do you want me to roll damage or should we just call it a TPK?"

 

[I'm A Banana]

Hold up....

The players had bombs in their backpack capable of blowing up a city?

Well, if I, as a DM, gave them bombs, I certainly would expect them to use the explosives. And if I didn't give them bombs, my first question would be: "Eh? Where'd you get those things? They don't exist. Try again."

The players fell, but there seems to be something going unsaid about how the DM is keeping track of his PC's capabilities...

 

[Bardsandsages]

I look at an action like this, which they obviously planned in advance and organized, as something that the players really wanted to happen. Rather than retconning or ignoring the bombs being placed, i'd use it as the core of my next series of plot points, since proactive players are a treasure, and you should use their contributions as much as possible.

I would probably point out that this sort of thing would work out better for everyone involved if they kept stuff like this in the open, but i wouldn't mind the occasional surprise as a dm. Keeps you on your toes.

Tis a fine line between proactive and abusive. As described, these actions were abusive.

Obtaining bombs, in any game system, is not as easy s buying camping gear. You assume certain items are readily available: clothes, rations, tools, basic weapons (swords, etc in fantasy settings, guns in modern). But bombs require that they are either hand-made (which means at some point skill checks should have been made to see if the PC could even make the bomb) or purchased/obtained somehow (which means checks should have been required to see if the players could, in fact, obtain bombs). What they did was the equivelent of saying:

"Oh, by the way, since I just scored that critical hit, I guess I should mention that back in that town I stole a vorpal sword from a wizard. So the NPC's head just came off and he's dead."

 

[harmyn]

....Here's a test, how many RPG's from before 2000 had some sort of Search or Spot rule?
AD&D2: yes - Find/Remove Traps
AD&D1: yes - Find/Remove Traps

I'm not sitting on a plethora of RPGs at the moment, but I'm pretty sure FASA's Mechwarrior game didn't have anything (I have the books at home). Nor can I recall if ShadowRun had it? Start a list, include Twilight 2000. I suspect game design didn't help the situation.

Janx

Well off the top of my head I know there were rules for Spotting/Searching/Noticing Things in the following games:

Star Wars D6 (WEG)
GURPS (Steve Jackson Games)
Call of Cthulu (Chaosium)
Elric (Chaosium?)
World of Darkness (White Wolf)
Paranoia (WEG)
Toon (Steve Jackson Games)
Champions/HERO
Shadowrun (FASA)
Star Trek (FASA)
Noir (forget the publisher, but an indi company)

And I am not 100% certain but I also think that GDW's games all did have some mechanics involved for it, that would include Traveler, Traveler 2300/2300AD, and Twilight 2000.

Also again not completely certain, but I think even World of Synnibar and Rus included such options.

So, the search/spot concept in games was out long ago, as far back as the rpg's of the 80's. Just not a standard feature of all D&D characters until 3.0 came out.