IS Your GM Out To Get You (Serious)

[Reynard]

Of course they can.

All that's needed is to, as far as is practical, design the challenges well ahead of time - as in, before you even know which characters will be facing said challenges.

Then, if-when some characters do encounter said challenges, present them fairly and without modification.

An example: somewhere in the setting there might be a stereotypical Evil Wizard's Tower containing - wait for it - an Evil Wizard. You-as DM know this Evil Wizard is of X level and has Y spells and Z items at his disposal, and that his tower has defenses A, B, and C and also contains other occupants J, K, and L; you know all this because you've made notes and set it up such ahead of time, maybe even as far back as when you were designing the setting before play began.

So now you've got a tower. A neutral-arbiter GM then goes on to present the challenges of that tower as written without regard for the capabilities etc. of whatever characters have decided to tackle said tower, and lets things fall out as they will even if it means the PCs become smears on the pavement or - flip side - the tower turns out to be a pushover for the high-powered group.

What if the PCs have made a name for themselves knocking over wizards' towers?

I don't think you can set a hard rule that the world must be agnostic toward the PCs in order to be "fair" or "neutral." Of course, I don't think most GMs are neutral. Nor do I think that is desirable. I think the GM should be on the side of the PCs.

But that's different than being fair. And you can still be adversarial and be fair.

 

[Lanefan]

What if the PCs have made a name for themselves knocking over wizards' towers?

That doesn't change the pre-planned specifics of the next tower they decide to take on, and IMO nor should it.

Sure, the next Evil Wizard might legitimately-in-the-fiction learn of the PCs' approach and do something about it including shore up defenses or set traps and flee or sit and await his fate; but to me that's night-and-day different than a GM arbitrarily adjusting what the tower has (or hasn't got) going for it based solely on a reading of what the players/PCs can bring to bear against it.

I don't think you can set a hard rule that the world must be agnostic toward the PCs in order to be "fair" or "neutral."

Well, the two options other than "agnostic" are "tilted toward the PCs" (the game is unfairly easy, made so by the GM) or "tilted against the PCs" (the game is unfairly hard, made so by the GM), both of which will inevitably end badly if taken too far and-or too long.

Of course, I don't think most GMs are neutral. Nor do I think that is desirable. I think the GM should be on the side of the PCs.

But that's different than being fair. And you can still be adversarial and be fair.

I don't think it's possible to be truly fair (which both implies and assumes neutrality) and "on the side of the PCs" at the same time.

 

[kigmatzomat]

That's an interesting definition of adversarial. As I said, i don't think it would be a common one. In my experience, most people say killing downed PCs, for example, is adversarial GMing.

Do players kill downed enemies? Yes? Then not adversarial.

Do tigers kill downed foes, then drag the corpses into the brush to eat? Yes.
Is the adversarial? No, it's the Ciiiiiiiiiiircle of Liiiiiiiiiiife. Meat is meat and dead things are meat.

Now....did the GM have 14 dire tigers ambush 3x level-1 PCs? That seems pretty adversarial, unless the GM had previously signaled "here be monsters with big pointy teeth....Look at the bones! Flee you fools!"

 

[Reynard]

That doesn't change the pre-planned specifics of the next tower they decide to take on, and IMO nor should it.

Sure, the next Evil Wizard might legitimately-in-the-fiction learn of the PCs' approach and do something about it including shore up defenses or set traps and flee or sit and await his fate;

These two statements are at odds.

but to me that's night-and-day different than a GM arbitrarily adjusting what the tower has (or hasn't got) going for it based solely on a reading of what the players/PCs can bring to bear against it.

No one suggested that.

Well, the two options other than "agnostic" are "tilted toward the PCs" (the game is unfairly easy, made so by the GM) or "tilted against the PCs" (the game is unfairly hard, made so by the GM), both of which will inevitably end badly if taken too far and-or too long.

I don't think it's possible to be truly fair (which both implies and assumes neutrality) and "on the side of the PCs" at the same time.

Fairness as in "running the game in good faith" does not require neutrality.

 

[Maxperson]

Do players kill downed enemies? Yes? Then not adversarial.

Do tigers kill downed foes, then drag the corpses into the brush to eat? Yes.
Is the adversarial? No, it's the Ciiiiiiiiiiircle of Liiiiiiiiiiife. Meat is meat and dead things are meat.

Now....did the GM have 14 dire tigers ambush 3x level-1 PCs? That seems pretty adversarial, unless the GM had previously signaled "here be monsters with big pointy teeth....Look at the bones! Flee you fools!"

Right. It seems like some folks are trying to define adversarial as meaning, "The players might not like it if you did this," which isn't what adversarial is. Just because they might not like it if the tiger starts chowing down while they are unconscious and dying, doesn't mean that the DM running it that way is being adversarial.

 

[RuinousPowers]

Played in a group with an adversarial DM for about a year. We had TPKs every 3-4 weeks, usually by some custom made monstrosity. We would ask what we should have done to survive, and get answers like, "You shouldn't have taken that adventure. If you had passed on it then a level appropriate adventure was going to be offered next."

Eventually, instead of fighters and magic users, people started making bartenders and merchants. Not that refusing to go on adventures increased life expectancy.

 

[Reynard]

Right. It seems like some folks are trying to define adversarial as meaning, "The players might not like it if you did this," which isn't what adversarial is. Just because they might not like it if the tiger starts chowing down while they are unconscious and dying, doesn't mean that the DM running it that way is being adversarial.

People aren't "trying to define." You have decided on a definition of adversarial that is based on what you personally would think is over some arbitrary line. You seem to think that it must include some sort of personal bias and poor GMing.

 

[Maxperson]

People aren't "trying to define." You have decided on a definition of adversarial that is based on what you personally would think is over some arbitrary line. You seem to think that it must include some sort of personal bias and poor GMing.

Regardless, what I KNOW is that it's not adversarial to have a creature attack a downed PC because it makes in-fiction sense for the creature to do so. If a player doesn't like it and therefore decides that it must be adversarial, that player is wrong. There is no DM vs. Player going on in that situation, so there is no adversarial DMing going on no matter how that player feels.

 

[Retros_x]

I only had a mildly annoying version of antagonistic DM. They were not very rules savy and always decided for rulings that were disadvantagous to the players. Not like out to get us and kill us, but always annoying because I knew my character would've done better if we would've played RAW. Also often I did an action assuming we play RAW, just for them ruling differently. So I based my action on false assumptions - when asking that I could reword or redo, because I thought it would resolve differently they declined. None of these were houserules that were clarified in session zero, but spontaneous rulings by them.

In other regards they were a good GM, thats why I sticked with the campaign until the end, but did quit the group afterwards.