D&D General No Fixed Location -- dynamically rearranging items, monsters, and other game elements in the interests of storytelling

[TheCosmicKid]

I cheat all the time. On everything. I'm a dirty, lousy, cheater as a DM.

But no one gives a rat's ass in my games. Reason being is simple... cheating only matters if you care about "winning". And I think worrying about trying to "win" D&D is stupid, and I specifically curate my groups so none of players are at all concerned about "winning". They all want to tell a collective adventure story with thrills and excitement, and it doesn't matter to them very much how it comes about. So if that means I declare the ogre with 59 hit points dead when the fighter one-shots him for 57 HP with a massive crossbow shot... my players are not at all concerned that I cheated and removed those extra two HP from the ogre's total. The story of the one-shot quarrel through the head beats whatever else would have resulted from making the next PC up have to plink off those that two points.

I think you should be cautious in doing this, because following the dice can lead to more unexpected results, and more unexpected often means more memorable. In the final encounter of a 4e campaign I was in, my barbarian reduced Orcus to single-digit hit points with a typical barbarian big damn hurricane of attacks. But then the finishing blow came from the pacifist cleric with the one damaging at-will spell he'd never used, for the first damage he'd ever dealt in the campaign.

 

[Prakriti]

Last year, I ran a group of friends through "The Lost Mines of Phandelver," because everyone wanted to play and I didn't have time to write an adventure of my own. The players all insisted they had never read or played it before, so I figured it would be a fun way to spend 3-4 gaming sessions.

During the first gaming session, it became clear that one person had read the entire thing. Which is fine, I didn't mind as long as he kept it under his hat and didn't spoil it for anyone else. But this was a guy who enjoys knowing stuff that others don't, and likes to make a big show of it. He warned them of the first ambush, warned everyone about the water trap, coached them on what to ask Agatha and predicted what she would say, that sort of thing.

I asked him about this clairvoyance between each gaming session, and he maintained that he had never read or played this adventure before. I didn't believe him, so I moved a few things around and added a couple of monsters to certain places in Wave Echo Cave.

During the game, after his character spent several minutes searching a certain place for a certain thing and not finding it, he accused me of cheating. Then he got really quiet and pouted for the last two gaming sessions, rarely contributing at all except to mumble his attack rolls. Everyone else at the table sensed the tension, and it really squelched their enthusiasm at the table.

I'm still not sure if I made the right call.

I'm pretty sure I know what that "certain thing" was. I was kind of stunned when my own group found it, because it's so well hidden. I almost wondered if my players were meta-gaming, but it was the only example of something like that happening, so I didn't say anything.

Anyway, what else could you have done? The player's behavior was making the game less fun for you, and the DM's enjoyment matters as much as anyone's. You tried to talk to him about it (always a good first recourse), but he didn't cooperate. Putting his denial to the test is fair game, as far as I'm concerned. And it's not your fault that he failed the test, or that he reacted as poorly as he did.

 

[Lanefan]

Having skipped most of the thread, the ideas listed in the OP are things I'll rarely if ever do.

If there's something that it's vital that they find and they miss it: tough. They didn't find it, and life goes on. If chance permits maybe I'll get another adventure out of their error, as they (or another party) has to come back again and finish. If not, so be it.

Flip side: if they get super-lucky and find something without hitting any of the challenges, once again so be it. (I once had a party skip an entire dungeon simply because they got very lucky and found a back entrance that led them - safely - straight to what they were there for; and it couldn't have been via pre-reading as it was a homebrew adventure)

 

[hawkeyefan]

Last year, I ran a group of friends through "The Lost Mines of Phandelver," because everyone wanted to play and I didn't have time to write an adventure of my own. The players all insisted they had never read or played it before, so I figured it would be a fun way to spend 3-4 gaming sessions.

During the first gaming session, it became clear that one person had read the entire thing. Which is fine, I didn't mind as long as he kept it under his hat and didn't spoil it for anyone else. But this was a guy who enjoys knowing stuff that others don't, and likes to make a big show of it. He warned them of the first ambush, warned everyone about the water trap, coached them on what to ask Agatha and predicted what she would say, that sort of thing.

I asked him about this clairvoyance between each gaming session, and he maintained that he had never read or played this adventure before. I didn't believe him, so I moved a few things around and added a couple of monsters to certain places in Wave Echo Cave.

During the game, after his character spent several minutes searching a certain place for a certain thing and not finding it, he accused me of cheating. Then he got really quiet and pouted for the last two gaming sessions, rarely contributing at all except to mumble his attack rolls. Everyone else at the table sensed the tension, and it really squelched their enthusiasm at the table.

I'm still not sure if I made the right call.

Yeah, that’s tough. He clearly knew the adventure, though, or else why else would he accuse you of “cheating”?

It’s a tough call. I think that you have to try and make sure everyone’s having fun. Personally, I’d expect most people to find being surprised to be fun....so changing things up a bit would be the best approach. Seems like it backfired in this case.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don’t think there is a “ban on meta gaming”, not do I think such a ban could conceivably apply to the DM.

I'm not going to hold the DM to lower standards than anyone else, and I'm not going to tolerate meta-gaming when I see it. If you don't care about that sort of thing at your own table, then that's on you, but airing your dirty laundry in public is asking people to call you out on it.

 

[ninjayeti]

I think the cardinal rule of any RPG is: player's choices should matter. If the DM is changing things up so that any choice they make leads to the same outcome it completely undermines that principle.

And while you can get away with this once or twice on the sly, I think it is something that smart players are going to catch on to fairly quickly. I'm sure lots of players wouldn't have an issue with this but it is not the sort of game that would interest me personally. Honestly, if the DM is just going to railroad the party to an encounter with PC X, I'd personally prefer that they were upfront about it rather than pretending to give us a choice of where to go and - what a surprise - PC X just happens to be there.

Moreover psychology 101 says people value the things more if they worked harder to get them. So I don't think it is a bad thing if players occasionally spin their wheels or follow false leads; the short term frustration will mean that the ultimate success is more satisfying. Conversely, if the PCs always seem to get the clue that they need just when they need it it provides immediate gratification at the cost of their victories being less meaningful.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I'm not going to hold the DM to lower standards than anyone else, and I'm not going to tolerate meta-gaming when I see it. If you don't care about that sort of thing at your own table, then that's on you, but airing your dirty laundry in public is asking people to call you out on it.

You say "people", but have you ever noticed that you're consistently the only person, singular, who takes this condemnatory stance whenever the question comes up?

 

[Gradine]

Look, only three things in this life are certain: death, taxes, and Saelorn inexplicably (after all this time) acting shocked and outraged that a fairly common and sensible suite of DM tips, tricks, and in general playstyles are considered valid. You can practically time your clock to the length in time it takes between his very first post in a thread expressing his style as the One And Only True Way To Play D&D, As Established By The Rules* and the thread devolving into an argument about the definition of "metagaming".

As amusing as this argument always is at first, it is almost never worth it and is absolutely never, ever, productive.

The Pope is Catholic, bears crap in the woods, and Saelorn insists anyone who doesn't confirm to his own very specific and inflexible style of play is wrong, a cheater, a bad DM, a bad influence on new players, or the worst possible insult of all, a meta-gamer.

A re-run is still a re-run, even if you haven't seen it before. It ain't gonna end any differently.


*Citation Missing

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Moreover psychology 101 says people value the things more if they worked harder to get them. So I don't think it is a bad thing if players occasionally spin their wheels or follow false leads; the short term frustration will mean that the ultimate success is more satisfying. Conversely, if the PCs always seem to get the clue that they need just when they need it it provides immediate gratification at the cost of their victories being less meaningful.

Depends on the player, and a key part of DMing is understanding your group and what entertains them. One of my players effectively shuts down when sufficiently frustrated, so I try not to trigger that behavior.

 

[Blue]

One of my DMing maxims is nothing is true until it hits the table - in other words comes out at a session. While I usually mean this about big plot points, it's just as true about the small. There's a limited time in a session - I want it to make sure it's dense with fun.

EDIT: This is an important part of the Fail Forward school of DMing as well. If you need to find the secret door for the adventure to continue, then a failed roll doesn't mean you don't find it, it means something like you took too long searching and a patrol came out of it, surprising you. Now you've got an extra encounter, likely the foes are warned - but the adventure doesn't come to a halt.

Or if I plant hooks for a next adventure in the town the players end up in. Instead of picking a specific town and if the players didn't go there there wouldn't be hooks.

It's very easy to both respect player agency and adjust. Because the definition of agency is actions taken "especially such as to produce a particular effect". The players are not actively trying to avoid the adventure hooks - it does not invalidate their choices. Whatever reason they picked to go to that town instead of another are still in play.