Pain-in-the-a** Players

[Shemeska]

I sympathize heartily. It's threads like this that make me praise my current groups names from on high for not pulling these sort of stunts. Of course I've also had 'the gaming group from hell' and 'the stereotypical gaming group from hell' in my past gaming experiences.

You really need a good experience with good players. Heck, if they had whore houses for good players I'd buy you a good time with a half dozen of them for your birthday. Hmm...

 

[Mouseferatu]

Several people have suggested that you've got no real reason to complain, and that you should just give the players what they want.

To which I reply "But what if it's not the sort of game he wants to run?"

The DM isn't God. The game has to be fun for the players, certainly. But the game also has to be fun for the DM (who is not only a player, but is likely putting far more outside time and energy into the game). It's no more fair to make the DM run a game he doesn't want to run than it is to force a player into a campaign he doesn't want to play.

My advice stands. Either inform them that you aren't willing to run a game without certain features, or else refuse to DM--whether that leads to you being a player again, finding a new group, or even not gaming for a little while. Trying to run a game in a style that you don't want to run isn't going to end well for anyone.

 

[Mouseferatu]

That said, I do agree with some of your players points. I hate playing in games where the DM is playing a pet NPC. I've rarely seen it done well.

 

[bloodymage]

What do you do about them? I've a group set in the Forgotten Realms that I originally was a player in and now they want me to DM. Fine - but how do I go about developing the campaign without getting angry at them when they have the following attitudes/statements (past and present.) Right away (before I even take over from the current DM), the demands and caveats and conditions start.

"We want swashbuckling adventures *and* to travel to Kara-Tur and fight samurai and ninja." (Since when did an ocean appear in The Hordelands? We're in Thesk right now - you can either *go west* and have swashbuckling adventures or *go east* to hit Kara-Tur.)

"We don't want you to play your PC as an NPC when you take over as DM because it overshadows the rest of us!" (Ok... so who is gonna be the rogue?)

"We don't need a rogue - just don't send us into places full of traps."

"No desert adventures." (Not my fault they didn't heed my advice to trade their full plate for light armor prior to setting off into the desert when I attempted to run Desert of Desolation a few months ago.)

"You make the encounters too tough." (Not my fault they didn't buy things like tanglefoot bags and alchemist's fire when I ran them through UK2 and they didn't have magic weapons and complained about fighting the perytons instead of using some brains, improvising, adapting and overcoming...)

"You don't make things fair." (I'm not here to spoon-feed you the adventure - think instead of whining - related to the Desert of Desolation module, above, when I refused to concede to their frustrated demand to "Just let us out of this damn maze!!!" It wasn't until, *finally* one of them had the brains to climb up and out of the maze after entering a set of rooms that allow this. God forbid they actually (gasp) draw a map!?!?!)

"We don't want your character because he is evil" (Stated when I, as a PC rather than a DM, used Summon Monster to summon a demon - which we needed to fight what we were fighting.)

"You are a b*****d and this isn't right." (Loud complaints when I refused to give one player any XP for an encounter in which his Paladin of Tyr purposely killed fleeing women and children (granted, they were xvarts, but still), clearly against the whole idea of a Good character - who *at the most* should have only subdued them.)

Any suggestions, other than refusing to DM?

Run HackMaster. Then you can use the HackMaster Smartass Smackdown Table!

 

[MerakSpielman]

Don't you hate it when players don't know how to have fun properly?

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Don't you hate it when players don't know how to have fun properly?

No, but I do hate it when I feel devalued by my players' comments.

 

[Zappo]

All of which is debateable. Alignment tags on spells serve basically two purposes - restricting clerics and druids from casting some of them, and allowing for interactions between spells and effects. Nowhere is it stated that a spell with an [evil] tag is evil. In fact, given that protection from evil is a [good] spell, which is likely to be cast by fiends fighting other fiends, or by evil sorcerors forming pacts with demons, it seems unlikely that such spells affect your karmic balance in any meaningful way.

Yes, it's debatable. I have some arguments to back me up, but that's not the point (and in the end, it'll always be a matter of opinion). It's more reason to say that the character isn't evil because of the demon-summoning.

 

[Destil]

What do you do about them? I've a group set in the Forgotten Realms that I originally was a player in and now they want me to DM. Fine - but how do I go about developing the campaign without getting angry at them when they have the following attitudes/statements (past and present.) Right away (before I even take over from the current DM), the demands and caveats and conditions start.

It's no more the DM's game than the players game. If you can't provide a game that you both enjoy things need to change. Try and find a copy of Piratecat's yearly E-Mail to his gaming group he's posted before, it's an excellent example of how to get player feedback. Though I suspect that your DMing style and their playing styles may simply be too different to work together and everyone to have fun.

We don't want you to play your PC as an NPC when you take over as DM because it overshadows the rest of us!" (Ok... so who is gonna be the rogue?)

"We don't need a rogue - just don't send us into places full of traps."

What's the problem? Why is this even an issue? They don't like traps, don't use them (much). Is your opinion of what the game should be so much higher than the players (and traps being an integral part of that opinion) that it would really matter if you rarely used traps?

Trap's setup for a rogue to remove are one of the most boring parts of the game IMHO. Roll search, roll disable. Or something deadly happens. I toss one in for vermisiltude every now and then and if I have a rogue with a lot of disable and disarm I'll make more (and put them in logical areas so I don't spend too much game time rolling for him to search every empty room), but if I don't I'll focus on the FUN stuff. James Bond style traps that aren't simply "pit trap, 300' falling damage" "okay, drop the rope guys, I'm still alive" but big, messy ordeals with monsters and mobile magic effects and lava and sharks and undead and antimagic cones and crushing walls and such that actually can take up significant amounts of game time. If I have a rogue in the party I either need to make search DCs on the fun ones too high to be easily found, make them too low and let them be bypassed with two die rolls (or take 10/20) or something similar.

"No desert adventures." (Not my fault they didn't heed my advice to trade their full plate for light armor prior to setting off into the desert when I attempted to run Desert of Desolation a few months ago.)

Was this before or after you began the module?

If it's before why are you running a module your players don't have any interest in? How is this going to make the game fun for them?

If it was after... accept it and move on. Avoid running desert modules from now on. Find out what kind of games they do want to run.

"You don't make things fair." (I'm not here to spoon-feed you the adventure - think instead of whining - related to the Desert of Desolation module, above, when I refused to concede to their frustrated demand to "Just let us out of this damn maze!!!" It wasn't until, *finally* one of them had the brains to climb up and out of the maze after entering a set of rooms that allow this. God forbid they actually (gasp) draw a map!?!?!)

Again: why oh why do you focus on things the players don't want to do? I mean, mapping a maze is asinine to me. It's not fun. I'd want to roll a simple int check or something, because running around measuring things on graph paper is not my idea of a good time.

"You are a b*****d and this isn't right." (Loud complaints when I refused to give one player any XP for an encounter in which his Paladin of Tyr purposely killed fleeing women and children (granted, they were xvarts, but still), clearly against the whole idea of a Good character - who *at the most* should have only subdued them.)

This can always be a big issue. It's sometimes vital to work out exactly what your Paladin's code of conduct is before this stuff comes up. The PH is very vague, and Lawfull Good is one hundred times worse. You want to set up a very specific list of things that do and don't violate the code, have a list of priorities, values and dogma and similar. Not doing so just comes down to arguments that can very well disrupt many games. Are xvarts inherently evil or can they be redeemed? While it may not be good to gun them down wholesale(depends on previous answer), it could very well be lawfull and just in the eyes of your paladin or their god. If the DM and the player don't agree on these things then you're bound to have problems.

And again, it's a play-style thing. Some players would look at it as something their paladin would feel ashamed about and role-play it as such, seek atonement, maybe even become some sort of champion of women / children in the future as a sort of penance.

Some players just look it as you trying to screw them (particularly if they don't agree on the ruling in the 1st place).

(I'd also very heavily recommend against not giving XP but rather reduce or remove their granted powers. Long term vs. short term penalties. Granted powers can be recovered through atonement and a role-playing hook, but the XP loss will always be there).

Any suggestions, other than refusing to DM?

Yes:

In my opinion good DMing is something of a contract. You need to make a game both you and the players enjoy. That's the goal. This is the sort of thing I put at the beginning of my initial hand-out or E-mail before starting a new game or adding a player:

I'm going to try and make a game that has things you'll enjoy in it. If you want lots of combat I'll spend my time giving my monster's stats. If you want lots of interaction with NPCs I'll spend time fleshing out interesting NPCs.

Likewise, I'm playing this for fun too. So there will be some of my own bias in what's fun for me to prepare or run in the game (more than anything else I enjoy variety and, I've found, and most players do as well). And also it's not fun for me to spend a week working on a game or get some module and then have you just completely ditch the adventure I had planned just for kicks.

The key to all of this is feedback. If some part of the game isn't fun for you the sooner I know the sooner I can think about it in getting ready to run sessions (and the less likely you are to just want to invalidate hours of prep-work). If I find part of your playing style that doesn’t mesh well with what I want to run, likewise, I'll bring it up if I'm not happy just adapting things.

Above all else, I've found everyone has more fun when everyone's interested in playing the same kind of game (or at least a game where everyone has something they enjoy a lot in most sessions).

 

[diaglo]

ask them what they want to play. get some ideas. sounds like they are more than willing to tell you.

incorporate those ideas.

if you still aren't having fun. pass the reins to someone else.

life is too short to play crappy RPGs.

 

[Mallus]

That said, I do agree with some of your players points. I hate playing in games where the DM is playing a pet NPC. I've rarely seen it done well.

Really, I don't think its that hard to create long term tag-along NPC's. Give them lots of personality and little initiative. Plus a few support abilites that you can deploy when the party needs it --its a great way of re-balancing an encounter on the fly that turns out to be too lethal. DMNPC's should never come up with the winning plan, but they're great to add color, and help out in a pinch.

Re: the topic: The whole point of creating challenging adventures is to increase the amount of fun had by the group, not decrease. If playing the game your style isn't fun for them, and the reverse isn't fun for you, then maybe there isn't a solution.