My Players Kicked Me Out of the Room

[Darkness]

My players are all really good at planning. They have good tactics and inventive strategies; it usually leaves me scrambling to catch up.

Harness the creative power of EN World to strike them down.

 

[reanjr]

That's really funny, reanjr. Unfortunate, but funny. That's how you learn, right?

My players are all really good at planning. They have good tactics and inventive strategies; it usually leaves me scrambling to catch up.

Do their plans ever involve setting something on fire? That's usually my old stand by if I can't think of anything else.

Town full of guards, no way to sneak in? No problem, set the poor district on fire. All the guards will have to go take care of the fire and any alarms sounding will probably simply be construed as more fires breaking out.

Doesn't work so well for good characters, but...

 

[swrushing]

Well, certainly, different strokes and all that.

if that happened in my games, i would be concerned. one of the things I am rather pleased with is getting across in words and deeds to my players that they are not playing "against me" or "fighting me" but rather "playing with me" and "fighting against the bad guys, the NPC."

They know that, just as i expect them to keep OOC knowledge OOC, so do I.

I mean, sure, over the years there have been a few odd cases, but they never lasted long in my games, some rarely making it thru the intro sessions/chargen. i remeber at least one who did not even want to tell me what spells he was throwing or preparing.

But, hey, more than one flavor ice cream and so on...

 

[Henry]

My players have never kicked me out, but to be honest I don't think it's occurred to them to do so. I'm not sure they'd know if I'd be offended or not. I wouldn't, but the issue's never come up, and I just use the table-talk to garner even more ideas, anyway.

"Yeah, it'd serve us right if the wraith we just trounced was once the brother of the evil lich we're trying to find, and now he's after our blood or something."

"Shut up, fool! The DM's right over there!!!"

 

[Psion]

You are a real glass is half full kind of guy aren't you? That sounds more like "We can't trust you not to screw us over, so go where you can't hear us" to me, but then I don't know your people or your style, so I could easily be wrong.

Heh... sort of what I was thinking.

I can't think of telling the DM to leave (without the GM laughing and saying "yeah right"). But we had a GM who was just a tib bit of a metagamer, and if the players planned in his presence, he would use the chance to throw a monkey wrench in our plans.

So we would quickly plan while he was going to the restroom or on the way to grab some burgers (the host of the game lived behind a burger king at the time.)

 

[Quasqueton]

Equally, their planning against the bad guys might be more fun all around if they know the GM doesn't know what those plans are; that way they can engage in a fun battle of wits, and see who can outwit the other.

Shouldn't they be trying to outwit the bad guy NPCs? Not the DM.

If games come to a battle of quick wits at the game table, my Players will win everytime against me. To start with, I'll never claim to be a quick genius. But I also have how many NPCs and plots to keep in mind. And there's 4-6 Players and just 1 DM. If the game was a battle between the Players and DM, I'd just pull out the tarrasque and claim checkmate.

Wow, you're harsh. My players kick me out of the room all the time, and we have a very trusting relationship. They just like to see the look on my face when their secret plan catches me totally unawares. That's part of their fun, and I encourage it.

I'd prefer the Players discuss their plans in front of me. One of the things I enjoy about DMing is hearing the Players discuss the game.

But it also lets me make sure there are no misunderstandings about the situation..."No, there were only 3 statues in the room, not 4." "The pit was 20' wide and 10' deep, not 10' wide and 20' deep." "I never said anything about flying monkeys with the BBEG, Johnny said that as a joke."

It also lets me warn about how the rules work..."Your wizard would remember that sleep takes a full round to cast." "They'll be a 20% miss chance fighting in the night darkness."

It lets me think of how the enemies will react to the "surprise" without actually being surprised myself and taking an extra minute to decide.

And yes, it sometimes lets me "double check" my BBEG's plans. If the BBEG is a 24-Intelligence 20th-level wizard with 10 years to plan, I don't think it is fair to him to be defeated because the Players/PCs realized using a common cantrip would unravel his entire scheme because the 12-Intelligence 10th-level DM with maybe 2 hours to plan didn't thoroughly consider every single spell in the book.*

[*NOTE: This does not mean that such loopholes could not exist in a BBEG's plans, but I'd rather that be the DM's choice to have it exist. Not because the DM's baby cut short his prep time with crying. Such a loophole could also exist by design as the "answer" to the BBEG's riddle-like scheme. But not because the DM wrote up the scheme at 11 pm after a tiring day with work and kids.]

Quasqueton

 

[Quasqueton]

"Yeah, it'd serve us right if the wraith we just trounced was once the brother of the evil lich we're trying to find, and now he's after our blood or something."

"Shut up, fool! The DM's right over there!!!"

This is something I promise all my Players (maybe not directly, but it is in my mind): I will never use your own ideas/hints to screw you over in this campaign. [I may use your ideas/hints to screw with you in a future campaign But I get enough of those ideas just reading ENWorld.]

Usually my plots and schemes are too pre-planned for me to throw something new in on the spur of the moment. Plus, it makes me and the Players smile when the Players/PCs say something that actually does turn out to be true without me rigging it to be truth.

Quasqueton

 

[Umbran]

Shouldn't they be trying to outwit the bad guy NPCs? Not the DM.

Yes, but when it comes to tactics, the NPC's abilities are the DM's abilities. The DM may hold himself back some when his NPCs are supposed to be dim, but for the tough tactical challenges, there's no real separating the two.

If games come to a battle of quick wits at the game table, my Players will win everytime against me. To start with, I'll never claim to be a quick genius. But I also have how many NPCs and plots to keep in mind. And there's 4-6 Players and just 1 DM. If the game was a battle between the Players and DM, I'd just pull out the tarrasque and claim checkmate.

Yes, in general, the players can outthink a DM, as they simply have more collective brain-power than the DM does.

However, don't equate "need to outthink the DM" with "battle between players and DM". Those aren't the same thing at all. Needing to outthink the DM does not necessarily force it to become an adversarial relationship.

 

[Mythmere1]

My players like to plan in front of me so they can switch focus if I start giggling uncontrollably.

 

[Psion]

This is something I promise all my Players (maybe not directly, but it is in my mind): I will never use your own ideas/hints to screw you over in this campaign.

What's WRONG with you man!?