Realism Headache

[The Edge]

Ive acidentaly seem to have got my two players hooked on realism. I woundny normaly mind, I like to keep my game worlds as consistant as posible, but it seems to have rubbed off on my players a bit to much. Yesterday I found myself working out the gold in a 'dungeon' (a term my players now reject) by totaling up the bug bears and various minions and working out their daily pay and how long they had been employed. This led onto where their leader (a member of a trouble stiring cult) got his money from, how much he would need to maintain his plans and extra costs in new equip etc. Consistency is all well and good, but this is too far.

While playing they continuously made coments on 'how long it would take to dig a pit','they dont have much spare food space','I'd have expected a few slaves'. Afterwards they actually checked up on the bugbear mecenary wages and prety much reverse engineered everything I'd put together, only to then COMPLAIN because they had forgoten to take the leaders saveings into acount properly.

Every encounter is more of a chalenge for me than it is for them. Im glad they dont know much about the various monsters. Has anyone else had a player like this?

 

[Zappo]

I usually smile knowingly and say "That's pretty strange, isn't it?"

It seems to work.

 

[EricNoah]

Break down in tears, sobbing "I'm just a man [or woman]! I'm not God! I don't know everything!"

 

[The Edge]

Break down in tears, sobbing "I'm just a man [or woman]! I'm not God! I don't know everything!"

Add running out of the room and tearing the DMs guide in half (try to, I dont have str score 100) and I think itl work.

 

[der_kluge]

Yea, I'm with Zappo here. If you're trying to create a realistic game, just smile and say "yea, that is odd, isn't it?" and then note it down, and try to include that information somewhere else.

Otherwise, get new players.

 

[Crothian]

Ask them to stop metagaming. There is no way their characters would have such an education of economy in a fantasy setting. When they start complain have some random trolls attack and give them zero XP for it.

 

[Mark Hope]

Absolutely. Players who pull this kind of thing are always up to something. No good, usually. Kill their characters and mock them for the puppets that they are.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Have them repeat after you:
It's only a game, It's only a game, It's only a game, It's only a game, It's only a game, It's only a game, It's only a game, It's only a game, It's only a game, It's only a game, It's only a game, It's only a game, It's only a game

 

[Gothic_Demon]

This led onto where their leader (a member of a trouble stiring cult) got his money from, how much he would need to maintain his plans and extra costs in new equip etc.

I think this is an important one to cover, because it gives your players an opportunity to hurt a BBEG without having to go toe-to-toe with him. My players like this kind of tactic a lot. However, exact figures are not required, just an idea of how much roughly and where from and how often.
As for the bugbears, who says they have an economy? The bugbear tribe might well have all its money under the control of the chieftain because he stole it, and they have no use for it at all other than as eye-candy and status symbols. (How many shopkeepers in your campaign sell equipment and food to bugbears?) Then the bugbears as mercenaries? We all know that the biggest bugbear controls all the others, and they do as they are told.

 

[Dirigible]

Kill the players and bury them. Don't take their stuff; it'll lead the police to you.

Seriously, I'm not one to counsel leaving a group lightly, but these players sound like their deliberatly being jerks. Best solution: tell the Pedant Finder General and say 'Fine. You're the expert on monster economics/architecture/ecology/everything under the sun, you run a campaign'.

And then... give him a taste of his own medicine or not, as is your wont. Whenever you spot a logical flaw, smile knowingly and make a note of it on a piece of paper, and you can later use it as blackmail.

I think this is an important one to cover, because it gives your players an opportunity to hurt a BBEG without having to go toe-to-toe with him. My players like this kind of tactic a lot. However, exact figures are not required, just an idea of how much roughly and where from and how often.

Gothic makes a very good point. The key thing to to be able to improvise, though; there's no way you can predict the PC's will try and find the mountain source of the enemy town's water supply and summon a fiendish otyugh in it ahead of time.