Something humorously unhappy in last night's game.

[RangerWickett]

No offense taken. Yes, it's hard to know how players will react, but it's just surprising when a player works so danged hard to get his character killed.

As for the smiley? Eh, I'm naturally a bit of a flaky individual, prone to overreacting and having unreasonable bursts of emotion, so the smiley is just a small way for me to help encourage myself to be more mellow. Also, it's always good to have people think that you're not trying to offend them, even if you are. But only an idiot like you wouldn't know that.

Yes, the first step of the adventure will be to secure the tavern, since as we know, every good adventure starts in a tavern.

 

[Norfleet]

Well, the usual solution if the players manage to all get killed, but you REALLY want them to live, is to wake them up in the morning.

 

[Angcuru]

...the first step of the adventure will be to secure the tavern, since as we know, every good adventure starts in a tavern.

*Flips open Big Book o' Gaming Rules*
*Flips through pages*
Taking naps...teleport spell...turning undead.... AHA! TAVERNS!
*reads*
...Yep, he's right. Says it right here. It's official.

 

[RangerWickett]

Heh, I did once manage to wrangle a situation kinda like that. They fought a Dragon, and beat it way too easily (the first time I'd ever had a Dragon in D&D; this was like 7 years ago), so because I was disappointed, I decided it'd just been a psychic battle, and the Dragon had been testing them, since the Dragon was allied with mind flayers. I know that was kinda cheap, but it wouldn't do to have them think it was easy to kill Dragons.

And the one other time I managed to have a TPK, it was the first session of the campaign, and I just waved my hand and said they'd all gotten high on magic mushrooms, and now it's time to really play the game. lol

But nah, this game's going well, and the group has been having lots of fun, so once I'm sure they're all willing to keep on playing, I'll plan the Gnome adventure.

 

[Angcuru]

They're all members of the gnomish SWAT team and they have to secure a tavern.

 

[Broken Fang]

Ok..."they'd all gotten high on magic mushrooms", who hasn't used this one before? Anyone...anyone?

Hmm...gnomes with reapeater crossbows, tanglefoot bags, smoke sticks. Illusionist with Sound Burst (ie. flash bang grenade)...this sounds like FUN!

 

[Stahn Li]

I play one of the characters in Wicketts. What I think is funny about all this is that Ted, constantly views the DM as trying to kill his character, and he has to find a way to stay alive. But the way Ted plays it is HIM trying to kill his own character, and the DM trying to find some logical excuse to let him live. Me and the other players watch quitely while Ted goes off and does something stupid. We all think to ourselves, "How can the DM possible spare poor ted!". But then somehow he lives. But after that Ted usually tries the exact damn thing! He claims he is roleplaying his character, but he isn't. Besides you should design a character who isn't so stupid that he has no chance of surving in a dangerous world. Also Ted's character has an high Int and Wis.

Ted is a good guy, and he usually roleplays rather well, in his defense. But this summer he will be in one of my campaigns and I am wondering how I am going to handle him. I'll probably just tell him that when we start he should write up three characters, because if he tries this type of stuff again he will need it!

Stay strong Wickett, I feel your pain.

 

[Erithtotl]

Someone pointed out that you can't always predict what players will do.

But there's another issue. In my campaign, and in campaigns I've played in, I feel it is the DM's responsibility to remind the players of what their characters may or may not know, and also to point out behavior that would be unlikely for their characters. Players vary greatly in their ability to seperate player-feelings/knowledge from character feelings/knowledge. In this case, Ted was acting purely on his own (player's) dislike and knowledge of this general guy. In that situation I would have first warned him, out of character, that what he's doing is not something his character would probably have done. If that didn't work I probably would have taken him aside and tried to ease his consternation.

If none of that worked, then he clearly deserved to have his character killed. As for the rest of the party, it sounds like they did something pretty darn stupid and deserved to get wiped out. Again, though, they may have felt a little railroaded. Players HATE having their characters captured.

 

[Voadam]

When a prisoner jumps his interrogator, don't the guards normally beat the character into submission using grapples and subdual attacks?

 

[Ramien Meltides]

Rangerwickett, perhaps part of the problem is a lack of communication between you and Ted.

I get the impression that Ted, the player, has an intense dislike of this particular NPC Shaaladel. You said your intention was to reward Ted by giving him an opportunity to defeat Shaaladel since he's a bad guy now.

Here's where I think the problem with communication comes in: You set up this Shaaladel as a "good guy" the first time around, which made him difficult to bring to battle for the "good guys". Now, the second time around, he's one of the big 8 bad guys... but the 1st time the PC's meet him, he's a major general in charge of some fairly significant force and the PC's are essentially captured and interrogated.

Basically, Ted's back where he least wants to be... more or less helpless to do anything about this guy Shaaladel. And Shaaladel's worse than he used to be. I can certainly understand why Ted would feel frustrated and angry.

Perhaps you should talk to Ted and explain that your idea is for his character to defeat Shaaladel. You will probably need to give him some assurance that there WILL such an opportunity to fight this guy at some point in the campaign.

It's entirely possible that Ted would have a lot more fun (and play more reasonably in-character) if the NPC who he really hates isn't part of the game. I have to admit from time to time I've encountered an NPC or monster created by the DM who I really can't stand. When this happens, I don't mind defeating them, but I much prefer permenant solutions (i.e. This NPC of monster is killed without hope of resurrection, or the offending creature is removed entirely from the campaign). I'm willing to bet that there are other NPC villains that Ted actually enjoys opposing. What might be best is to find out what Ted would have more fun with... finally getting his chance against Shaaledel, or dealing with someone else altogether.

When folks are enjoying themselves, they're much more likely to behave in a reasonable fashion. This is also true for role-playing. Trying to put myself in Ted's shoes, I can see myself becoming so frustrated that I just want OUT of the situation, even if it means dying, then so be it.