D&D 5E Supplemental books: Why the compulsion to buy and use, but complain about it?

[GMforPowergamers]

It sounds to me that what the game would have been improved by is the DM saying no and then not inviting the player to play. I wasn't there, I don't know, but it doesn't sound to me like poor DMing is the problem here. It sounds like an entitled player trying to take their ball and go home.

My takeaway is that new DMs should be set up to succeed. That means that they should be running groups of players whom they like and trust. If someone is trying to poison that well out of pique, screw 'em, there are more appropriate games for them to play in.

the problem is [MENTION=80916]elf[/MENTION]witch even admits that

As for unclenching in the very first game she DMed she allowed in anything the players asked for. I don't know how more accommodating you can get to not only allow 3.5 WOTC in but third party as well. She trusted the players who were more experienced than her to not do anything that would make it hard for her as a novice DM. She allowed in things she hadn't even read because she trusted her players. And it became a disaster. And when she openly told the players look I cannot handle this some chose to be difficult over it and in the end derailed the game.

this game was a problem if she said yes or if she said no... the yes or no made 9 difference. I propose that when it can make a difference yes is the right answer more often (not always) maybe 70/30... in this case the right answer was find a new player

 

[Hussar]

It sounds to me that what the game would have been improved by is the DM saying no and then not inviting the player to play. I wasn't there, I don't know, but it doesn't sound to me like poor DMing is the problem here. It sounds like an entitled player trying to take their ball and go home.

My takeaway is that new DMs should be set up to succeed. That means that they should be running groups of players whom they like and trust. If someone is trying to poison that well out of pique, screw 'em, there are more appropriate games for them to play in.

I completely agree with this. The problem here isn't a yes/no issue. It's a bad player issue. I actually said this some pages ago, and got told that I was wrong, but, I do think that the solution here would be to find a better player.

What baffles me to some degree is continuing to play with someone who poisons every game where they don't get their way. I mean, if you know this going in, why be shocked? If you know that someone almost always reacts a certain way, why expect it to be any different any other time? After 18 years, that player is not going to change.

I've become just as choosy about who I play with as who I DM with. And, yes, I will quit a game because of other players. My free time is far, far too valuable to waste it on a game i don't enjoy.

 

[Piratecat]

Hussar, this we completely agree on.

 

[Elf Witch]

If the game wasn't improved by the DM saying no, then the question is irrelevant.

It sounds to me that what the game would have been improved by is the DM saying no and then not inviting the player to play. I wasn't there, I don't know, but it doesn't sound to me like poor DMing is the problem here. It sounds like an entitled player trying to take their ball and go home.

My takeaway is that new DMs should be set up to succeed. That means that they should be running groups of players whom they like and trust. If someone is trying to poison that well out of pique, screw 'em, there are more appropriate games for them to play in.

the problem is [MENTION=80916]elf[/MENTION]witch even admits that



this game was a problem if she said yes or if she said no... the yes or no made 9 difference. I propose that when it can make a difference yes is the right answer more often (not always) maybe 70/30... in this case the right answer was find a new player

I completely agree with this. The problem here isn't a yes/no issue. It's a bad player issue. I actually said this some pages ago, and got told that I was wrong, but, I do think that the solution here would be to find a better player.

What baffles me to some degree is continuing to play with someone who poisons every game where they don't get their way. I mean, if you know this going in, why be shocked? If you know that someone almost always reacts a certain way, why expect it to be any different any other time? After 18 years, that player is not going to change.

I've become just as choosy about who I play with as who I DM with. And, yes, I will quit a game because of other players. My free time is far, far too valuable to waste it on a game i don't enjoy.

And the game would not have been improved by saying yes either. What in hindsight would have improved the game was not having K involved. Like I keep saying we have gamed with K for 18 years we have had dozens of games where he was not an issue he has only in 18 years had four issues where his behavior caused issues. The odds are much more in his favor of not causing issues than causing issues.

After Age of Worms the DM looked at what she felt she had done her mistakes she didn't put the blame on anyone but herself. She realized that she was not up to handling a game with the power levels that splatbooks bring into the game. Her entire decision to go core only was to control that power level and if everyone agreed to it then it could avoid the issues of having a character you really enjoy and then having the DM tell you it is an issue. She was not trying micromanage she was trying to make sure that everyone had a good time to the best of her ability. She didn't feel that she had the ability to DM a game with a lot of options. This was her limitation and she was upfront about it.

DMs have different skills that they are good at and they also have weaknesses. Players need to understand that and if that DM weakness is going to impede their ability to have fun then they are not a good fit. This is one reason DM need to have the power to say no. They know what they can do and what they can't and trying to force the DM into things that they are not able to handle or that they don't enjoy is asking for an unhappy frustrated DM and that leads to a game that is not fun to for everyone. Now the players have a choice they can play under the DM or they can not play. No one is saying that they should be forced to play under a DM who can't meet their gaming needs.

DMs need the power to say no in their games and players need the power to say no I don't want to play in this game. Now you can choose to interpreted this as my way or the highway and maybe it is but it is on both sides and both sides are basically saying if you can't do X in the game then I can't play with you. Now I am not saying that discussion and compromise should not be attempted they should.

 

[pemerton]

in my experience, if you have a great DM, this issue doesn't ever come up, because things will be fun regardless. I am not telling you what to do for your game, I am trying to explain why it's an alien perspective, from my experience.

<snip>

I am however suggesting you might want to game with actual friends in person more - make it more of a goal, if this is happening to you a lot. And if you say "I can't" I am going to say "you should try harder to make it happen". Gaming with actual friends is a lot of fun, and it makes these issues better, most of the time.

I game with friends. Overwhelmingly I am the GM.

Because the players are my friends, I take it for granted that they are not trying to wreck the experience when they come up with ideas for mechanical builds, PC backstory, campaign backstory etc. Because I am their friend, I do my best to integrate these ideas into the game. When, based on my familiarity with the mechanics, I think a particular mechanical option might be broken I say so up-front and we talk it through.

My players know, too, that I will pick up on their backstory and run with it, not always in a direction they would expect or that suits their PCs' immediate purposes. Because I am their friend, they trust me to do this in a sensitive, well-intentioned manner. Once or twice I think I've misjudged, but because we're friends we work through it, or around it, or politely ignore it, and the game goes on.

I really enjoy RPGing with my friends, but I don't think it pushes in any particuar direction as to which person at the table should have authority over various aspects of the game. To me, that is about the type of play experience you want. I don't want a game where the players are "along for my (ie the GM's) ride", and that has nothing to do with whether or not the players are my friends. (Though, because they are my friends, it's probably easier to work together to get the sort of game we can all enjoy.)

 

[Hussar]

A comment from [MENTION=6777224]Hard[/MENTION]coreD&Dgirl (I think) from a while ago in this thread went something like this: "Why would a player, who is enjoying the game, sabotage that game"? And I think it's a very valid question and gets to the heart of the issue.

Now, the answer might be, the player is being a jerk. In which case, saying yes or no isn't the issue here. Like in [MENTION=9037]Elf Witch[/MENTION]'s example, it probably would not have mattered if the player had been allowed to take the class he wanted, the game was a likely doomed from the start due to the player having some real life stuff going on that was going to poison the well. But the solution here isn't found in the DM saying yes or no. The solution here is to talk to the player, explain why this behaviour isn't acceptable to the group and finding a way to work around that. It might mean that that player doesn't fit with that group, or it could be the player just needed to be clued into what he was doing. In any case, the solution is going to be found outside of the framework of the game itself.

OTOH, if the player is sabotaging the game, it could possibly be that the player really isn't enjoying the game. Now, again, it might be that that player just doesn't fit. That happens all the time. No harm, no foul. But, it might be as simply of a fix as just letting the player take on some responsibility. It's going to be very different in every case and i'm not sure anyone is qualified to give advice that will work even the majority of the times.

I think it really behooves groups to be honest and a bit self-reflecting. We are spending a HUGE amount of free time playing an RPG. Tens, if not hundreds of hours. It really helps groups to sit down and honestly and openly talk about these kinds of things before starting a game.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I think it really behooves groups to be honest and a bit self-reflecting. We are spending a HUGE amount of free time playing an RPG. Tens, if not hundreds of hours. It really helps groups to sit down and honestly and openly talk about these kinds of things before starting a game.

I agree. Some of the time though interpersonal relationships can put a damper on this sort of self-reflection.

For instance, the last game I started running was mostly because I missed playing with an old friend of mine. So I suggested we start up a game and she was very interested. The problem is that I knew that playing with her pretty much meant playing with her boyfriend. He hates mysteries of any kind. It's extremely frustrating playing with him since every time he doesn't have all the information extremely quickly he gets more and more irritable. I eventually gave up running the game when she suggested she take over(after a couple of times of me blowing up when I got overly frustrated). When I'm only playing with him and not DMing, I can handle it. He's also a little bit more patient when she's DMing.

But it's a similar situation. He gets angry when he feels powerless or cheated by an adventure. I run prewritten adventures and my hands are partially tied due to the railroady nature of some of those adventures. Everyone else at the table was perfectly ok with it.

As an example of what I'm talking about:

There was a magical artifact in an adventure I ran that would cause electricity to jump from person to person. It would do damage until they fell unconscious and then leap to another person. The only way to stop the artifact was to hold it when the electricity jumped to you, which would cause it to jump back into the artifact and be contained.

The player in question said "I make an Arcana check!" I told him the above: You need to be holding the artifact when it jumps into you to contain it.

He said "Alright, who is it jumping into next?" and I said "You don't know, you think it is driven by some kind of force of will, which means it is choosing its targets based on some criteria but you don't know what that is."

He said "Well, that's stupid! I made an Arcana check, I rolled high, I should know! How else am I supposed to know how to solve this?"

I said "Well, you could observe who it jumps into next and try to figure out what they have in common"

He said "It's jumped into 2 people and they don't appear to have anything in common at all. What skill check can I make to figure out what they have in common?"

I said "There isn't a skill check for that. Ask me questions, tell me what your character is looking at or doing and try to figure it out!"

He said "This is stupid! Who writes these crappy adventures? Seriously! We're just supposed to figure things out without them telling us anything at all?!?! What a waste of time!"

Which is when I looked at the time and saw I needed to leave in about 10 minutes so I bashed them over the head with a clue to solve the puzzle and he calmed down.

I understand that this is tangential to the topic in this thread. However, the person in question also hates when I restrict anything at all. He got angry at me when I said I wasn't allowing Kender or Warforged in my Forgotten Realms game. He almost blew a gasket when I suggested that I MIGHT not allow feats. He got really angry when I said I was rolling for stats and although he went along with it, he complained that the game was horrible for the first 3 or 4 sessions because he had the lowest stats in the group and how was he expected to play with such horrible stats. Until I finally let him reroll(since his stats really WERE horrible compared to everyone else).

Though, I had to play with him because I wanted to play with my friend and he came with the package. We were playing at their house and another one of the players was their roommate. Basically, it was accept the deal or the game wouldn't happen. I hadn't really gotten a chance to spend any time with my friend in the past year or two since our 4e game fell apart. So, I sucked it up and dealt with it.

Which is a really long winded way of saying "Just don't play with people like that" is easy to say but there's almost always circumstances that prevent it from being that easy.

 

[Elf Witch]

I game with friends. Overwhelmingly I am the GM.

Because the players are my friends, I take it for granted that they are not trying to wreck the experience when they come up with ideas for mechanical builds, PC backstory, campaign backstory etc. Because I am their friend, I do my best to integrate these ideas into the game. When, based on my familiarity with the mechanics, I think a particular mechanical option might be broken I say so up-front and we talk it through.

My players know, too, that I will pick up on their backstory and run with it, not always in a direction they would expect or that suits their PCs' immediate purposes. Because I am their friend, they trust me to do this in a sensitive, well-intentioned manner. Once or twice I think I've misjudged, but because we're friends we work through it, or around it, or politely ignore it, and the game goes on.

I really enjoy RPGing with my friends, but I don't think it pushes in any particuar direction as to which person at the table should have authority over various aspects of the game. To me, that is about the type of play experience you want. I don't want a game where the players are "along for my (ie the GM's) ride", and that has nothing to do with whether or not the players are my friends. (Though, because they are my friends, it's probably easier to work together to get the sort of game we can all enjoy.)

A comment from [MENTION=6777224]Hard[/MENTION]coreD&Dgirl (I think) from a while ago in this thread went something like this: "Why would a player, who is enjoying the game, sabotage that game"? And I think it's a very valid question and gets to the heart of the issue.

Now, the answer might be, the player is being a jerk. In which case, saying yes or no isn't the issue here. Like in [MENTION=9037]Elf Witch[/MENTION]'s example, it probably would not have mattered if the player had been allowed to take the class he wanted, the game was a likely doomed from the start due to the player having some real life stuff going on that was going to poison the well. But the solution here isn't found in the DM saying yes or no. The solution here is to talk to the player, explain why this behaviour isn't acceptable to the group and finding a way to work around that. It might mean that that player doesn't fit with that group, or it could be the player just needed to be clued into what he was doing. In any case, the solution is going to be found outside of the framework of the game itself.

OTOH, if the player is sabotaging the game, it could possibly be that the player really isn't enjoying the game. Now, again, it might be that that player just doesn't fit. That happens all the time. No harm, no foul. But, it might be as simply of a fix as just letting the player take on some responsibility. It's going to be very different in every case and i'm not sure anyone is qualified to give advice that will work even the majority of the times.

I think it really behooves groups to be honest and a bit self-reflecting. We are spending a HUGE amount of free time playing an RPG. Tens, if not hundreds of hours. It really helps groups to sit down and honestly and openly talk about these kinds of things before starting a game.

pemerton my gaming group is made up as friends and just people I game with. That is just how it is. I have noticed pros and cons which each. With just gaming buddies it is easier to kick them out of a game if they are disruptive. You don't have the whole friendship thing influencing you sometimes it is easier to play with non friends because what happens at the table stays at the table. Of curse the downside is that they may be harder to talk to less likely to cut you slack.

Gaming with friends has its own issues like dealing with a player who is bringing issues into the game. Take K if we kicked him out it would hurt him deeply and it might really hurt our friendship so we have to proceed with caution. Sometimes you have to put up with a friends SO. Our friend girl friend plays now and then and it drives me nuts because in five years she has not bothered to learn the rules. I am grateful she does not play in every game. But when she does I bite the bullet and hide my irritation.

Hussar I know you think you know what is going on at our table but you really don't. Because you are completely wrong that the game would have still had the issues if K had not been told no. In the Pathfinder game he would not have let his home issues effect the game that much. Sure some might bleed through if we were having a rough time which happens in games once and awhile but once he gets that upset about something in a game that is as important as what class you are playing all the annoyances and issues in his life merge into one big pot and he can't tell the difference.

We had a catch 22 let K play what he wants opening up the whole anything goes in the game and causing the DM to be miserable or say no and then K is miserable. If this had been me DMing I would have bit the bullet and kept the game going until K got over his snit which in time he most likely would have. But I was not DMing the DM in this case was not able to do so she felt that she was not good enough to be a DM that it was not worth all the work if people were going to be so unhappy. She told me that in her eyes now DMing is a thankless experience and she would rather just play.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I agree. Some of the time though interpersonal relationships can put a damper on this sort of self-reflection.

especially when it is a friend who takes things in the worst light no matter how you try to suger coat it... there are somethings you just can't do or say...

I can't tell Jimmy or Tony that they do anything wrong... even if we catch them cheating, or if they are ruining other peoples fun (we don't play with them anymore because of this)
I can't tell Ross to make a different character no matter how much he doesn't fit. (Playing a star wars rebel era game, he is a dark jedi with imperial leanings, want to play superheroes he is a mass murderer, want to play D&D he wants sci fi, run sci fi he wants to play with magic)
I can't explain to jon anything... ever,

But it's a similar situation. He gets angry when he feels powerless or cheated by an adventure. I run prewritten adventures and my hands are partially tied due to the railroady nature of some of those adventures. Everyone else at the table was perfectly ok with it.

I hate that excuse... the prewritten adventure needs atleast a bit of adaption and you need to work with your players.

another Mutants and Masterminds example: the Mod said that there were enough people on the bridge in danger that it would take 5-10 minutes to clear it. We had a super speedster with super speed 14, there would have to be almost a million people on the bridge for it to take him 1 minute to clear. When he declaired he would handel the suvilians if we stoped the bad guy the GM said "No the mod says..." game eneded that night

As an example of what I'm talking about:

There was a magical artifact in an adventure I ran that would cause electricity to jump from person to person. It would do damage until they fell unconscious and then leap to another person. The only way to stop the artifact was to hold it when the electricity jumped to you, which would cause it to jump back into the artifact and be contained.

ok, sounds good so far

The player in question said "I make an Arcana check!" I told him the above: You need to be holding the artifact when it jumps into you to contain it.

great...

He said "Alright, who is it jumping into next?" and I said "You don't know, you think it is driven by some kind of force of will, which means it is choosing its targets based on some criteria but you don't know what that is."

He said "Well, that's stupid! I made an Arcana check, I rolled high, I should know! How else am I supposed to know how to solve this?"

bad player... you don't get everything with one check

I said "Well, you could observe who it jumps into next and try to figure out what they have in common"

He said "It's jumped into 2 people and they don't appear to have anything in common at all. What skill check can I make to figure out what they have in common?"

I said "There isn't a skill check for that. Ask me questions, tell me what your character is looking at or doing and try to figure it out!"

wait what?!?!? there is no skill in the entire game that can help you here?!??

He said "This is stupid! Who writes these crappy adventures? Seriously! We're just supposed to figure things out without them telling us anything at all?!?! What a waste of time!"

I would have been more polite, but I agree with your player, if there is a way to figure it out, then there is a way to figure it out, if it is random it is random. why couldn't a high persception or insight or notice, or investigate, or some skill help?

Which is when I looked at the time and saw I needed to leave in about 10 minutes so I bashed them over the head with a clue to solve the puzzle and he calmed down.

wow... yea if you had to even worry about "bashing them over the head" then it needed more clues... this adventure sound like a Pain in the butt

I understand that this is tangential to the topic in this thread. However, the person in question also hates when I restrict anything at all. He got angry at me when I said I wasn't allowing Kender or Warforged in my Forgotten Realms game.

so again, the player wanted to play X and the DM wanted to run Y... so how did the others feel, because it sounds like you didn't all agree to play the same game. He wanted to play D&D as a horrible monster that should never have been written, or a warforged....

He almost blew a gasket when I suggested that I MIGHT not allow feats.

I don't know any PCs who would not be mad at that, however most would be respectful and not 'blow a gasket'

He got really angry when I said I was rolling for stats and although he went along with it, he complained that the game was horrible for the first 3 or 4 sessions because he had the lowest stats in the group and how was he expected to play with such horrible stats. Until I finally let him reroll(since his stats really WERE horrible compared to everyone else).

DANGER DANGER.... BAD DMing to the worst I have heard on these boards in a while... YOU KNEW and AGREED he had "horrible" stats and you made him play them...

I hate rolling for this very reason... I let my players roll if they insist on it (witch they often do) then I make them play with the stats so that everytime someone complains I say "That's why I like point buy"

I rarely if ever hear a story about how much someone loves to play an underdog so much that they like having the worst stats in a game...

I will share one with you though just for the sake of arguments... we had the worst forgotten realms game ever, but it had 2 break out awesome characters. Azrithel was the wizard god with a 19 int starting, and a 17 con, 17 dex, 17 cha... and Moonflower a half drow Ranger with a 14 str, 12 dex 12 con 8 int 12 wis and 6 cha... if anything the ranger was the best thing to come out of that game. The player ran him as a border line mental handy cap who was ugly and a bit rude (imagine an ugly Sheldon from big bang theory who had rain man's brain)

Though, I had to play with him because I wanted to play with my friend and he came with the package. We were playing at their house and another one of the players was their roommate. Basically, it was accept the deal or the game wouldn't happen. I hadn't really gotten a chance to spend any time with my friend in the past year or two since our 4e game fell apart. So, I sucked it up and dealt with it.

a common enough story

Which is a really long winded way of saying "Just don't play with people like that" is easy to say but there's almost always circumstances that prevent it from being that easy.

just like in my 2 groups I can't walk out, without endeing the campaign... you just gotta roll with it sometimes...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

We had a catch 22 let K play what he wants opening up the whole anything goes in the game and causing the DM to be miserable or say no and then K is miserable. If this had been me DMing I would have bit the bullet and kept the game going until K got over his snit which in time he most likely would have. But I was not DMing the DM in this case was not able to do so she felt that she was not good enough to be a DM that it was not worth all the work if people were going to be so unhappy. She told me that in her eyes now DMing is a thankless experience and she would rather just play.

that is why this problem is not really one dealing with this thread at all, there was no right answer, and given 100 different tries you would most likely have the same result in any that kept K playing that game. It was a problem player issue, not a let splat books in or not issue...