Punishing your players

[Keeper of Secrets]

The moment a GM takes an attitude that he needs to 'punish' players as if they were unruly children, the game will take an adviserial tone that is likely not the kind of approach you want. It is a game for people who want to enjoy themselves and tell a story as opposed to one person - the GM - showing off how clever he is.

 

[fusangite]

I don't see refusing to suspend the laws of cause and effect as "punishing" anyone. If people do something that gets them killed or severely injured, then that's what happens.

I'm currently running a game with a somewhat Pendragon-like system of measuring character conduct that I think one of my players might have interpreted in this way because it was spelled out in vague ie. non-quantitative terms in the house rules I circulated before the game started.

I think any time you have consequences for actions, there is a chance that people will feel they are being punished. But that's just a sign you have done a poor job of explaining things.

 

[Technik4]

Then again, I have my players paranoid enough that they always act with caution.

So the players are cautious and paranoid to the point they can't play brash, agressive, daring, foolhardy characters? Or you just mete out the 'effect' of that cause? I'm not picking on the poster of that quote, I'm curious whether or not that is just the general consensus.

Technik

 

[Morpheus]

It's punishment enough just having the players roll their dice. Man, do their rolls suck! :\

 

[sniffles]

I don't see refusing to suspend the laws of cause and effect as "punishing" anyone. If people do something that gets them killed or severely injured, then that's what happens.

I guess I should have made clear what I meant by "punishing". I agree that players should suffer the consequences of their actions. But I've heard some GMs referring to creating situations in order to "punish" players for having their PCs do things that the GM thought were stupid. Say for example, the PCs charged into combat when the GM wanted them to negotiate, so the GM had a monster of much higher CR show up and clobber the PCs just to show 'em how dumb they were. That's the sort of thing I don't approve of.

 

[fusangite]

I guess I should have made clear what I meant by "punishing". I agree that players should suffer the consequences of their actions. But I've heard some GMs referring to creating situations in order to "punish" players for having their PCs do things that the GM thought were stupid. Say for example, the PCs charged into combat when the GM wanted them to negotiate, so the GM had a monster of much higher CR show up and clobber the PCs just to show 'em how dumb they were. That's the sort of thing I don't approve of.

Nor do I.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I just think that if the GM is being fair and on the level, often the players' actions will punish themselves. For instance, the other night a player had his character go off alone from the rest of the group (silly option #1), then he charged into a Necromancer's back room (silly option #2), then he saw a small cadre of undead begin to rise up and come for him and did not flee (silly option #3). When the Necromancer and his undead ripped the character to shreds, the player seemed to take this passive-aggressive attitude towards me and felt as if I had somehow punished him. The other players were begging him to flee yet he clearly had some weird deathwish.

I guess in some sense he was 'punished' but punished by his own actions.

 

[punkorange]

I just think that if the GM is being fair and on the level, often the players' actions will punish themselves. For instance, the other night a player had his character go off alone from the rest of the group (silly option #1), then he charged into a Necromancer's back room (silly option #2), then he saw a small cadre of undead begin to rise up and come for him and did not flee (silly option #3). When the Necromancer and his undead ripped the character to shreds, the player seemed to take this passive-aggressive attitude towards me and felt as if I had somehow punished him. The other players were begging him to flee yet he clearly had some weird deathwish.

I guess in some sense he was 'punished' but punished by his own actions.

I had a character like that in my group. The group went into a goblin cave and started fighting, when they heard goblins in the back of the cave shouting to protect the women and children they quit fighting and negotiated with the goblins. They found out they had been there for years and no one had knew about it. After the negotations were over one of the players shot the goblin shaman killing him, then killed the goblin leader. I don't know if he expected the thirty goblins with them to just let it happen or what. The other players in the group blatenly stated they had no part of this and simply watched the goblins kill the player.