Rat Bastardry: Is there an equivalent for players?

[Pillars of Hercules]

How about RBPC?

Great thread!

As far as answering the question of what to call such a player, I vote for simplicity and consistency with the generally accepted "RBDM" moniker. Hence I propose:

RBPC

 

[DM_Matt]

Quasi-RB Player Situation I recall...

DM: (describes a situation where a panther turns into a drow and talks to another drow about some sort of smuggling thing, and the drow calls the other guy Sha Ras.)

Player: "Sha Ras" ... panther....GET THE BLESSED XBOW BOLTS"

DM: $#@%!!!! You're third level! HE was a BBEG...but...but....

 

[Pielorinho]

Player: "Sha Ras" ... panther....GET THE BLESSED XBOW BOLTS"

DM: $#@%!!!! You're third level! HE was a BBEG...but...but....

Huh? I don't get it. Is Sha Ras some famous tiger-spirit guy (dammit, can't remember what they're called), whom the PC wouldn't have known about but whom the player DID know about? If so, that's not rat-bastard playing; that's just sloppy playing, the sign of a player who doesn't understand about firewalling information.

A rat-bastard player challenges the DM, but does it by advancing the story in cool, plausible, unpredicted directions. I think this example fails on the "cool" and "plausible" criteria.

Daniel

 

[Norfleet]

Hey, if it sounds like a Rakshasa, looks like a Rakshasa, and smells like a Rakshasa, maybe it *IS* one. Better safe than sorry, eh?

 

[Piratecat]

Nah. I'm not a big fan of using metagame knowledge to thwart the DM. Especially the whole blessed crossbow bolt; if a player tried to pull that on me, I don't think it would work, because I'd change the monster on the fly. (Unless the player's character already knew about rakshashas, of course.)

Nice job picking up the hints, though.

 

[LostSoul]

Well, as one of the RBDMs, I can at least say what we like on the board.

1) Hookability.

2) Competence.

3) Trust.

4) Roleplaying.

5) Originality.

Yep, I agree.

Don't forget that Rat-Bastard PCs don't always work things out in their favour. Some of the best moment's I've had have been when the PCs have shot themselves in the foot, screwing up their own lives, changing the entire direction of the campaign.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Yeah, the idea of being a Rat-Bastard DM or player isn't to screw the game. The idea is to take the game to a higher level in some way.

I'd be far more impressed by a player who, realizing that it was rakshasa meta-gamewise, acted with only in-character knowledge - even if that means risk to the character's life.

 

[Norfleet]

The Rakshasa was too obvious. I've never, in my entire D&D-playing history, ever used one as a DM, nor encountered one as a player. I don't even remember the stats for one, what its abilities or vulnerabilities are, aside from the fact that it's a standard monster, has magical powers of some sort, and is a cat-person-thing. I figured it out instantly anyway.

This was way too obvious. The fact that the player remembered what exactly it was susceptible to was something in his favor, but a braindead monkey could have identified it. The name wasn't terribly creative.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

OTOH, there's something to be said for a trap that drops the rogue into a pit, where he lands on the spring-loaded plate, throwing him back into the ceiling, where he falls back into the pit, and then piles of rubble land on him as the ceiling caves in.

For bonus points, the floor of the pit then collapses, revealing the way to the next level of the dungeon.

Ooh, ooh, thread hijack. Not exactly RBDM'ing, but multi-layer traps have always been a personal favourite. A particularly memorable one was the 30' long covered spiked pit in a corridor, at the end of which were two pressure plates. The covering on the pit collapsed, depositing unfortunate victims into the pit if more than 300 lbs was placed on it - the idea is to catch more than one victim at a time. The first pressure plate at the end of the pit tilts the section of floor there downwards by 45 degrees, depositing a person climbing out of the pit back into the pit. The second pressure plate releases the massive spiked-iron-ball-on-a-chain from the ceiling ahead, which swings down and hits the person standing on the second pressure plate. As well as doing damage, it has the same effect as a bull rush, throwing the victim back into the pit, or at the very least, pushing them back onto the first pressure plate, which tilts them backwards and deposits them in the pit. The entire trap is mechanical, so works in an antimagic field, preventing people flying, spider climbing, or dimension dooring past it.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar