(Update) DM Decision: Player mistake- what would you do

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

The Pit trap is a portal to a hell deminsion where there is nothing.

How is it a "hell dimension radiating eveil" if there is nothing there? is there just this one acces to this hell dimension that has never been used before? Who/what created an entire vacant dimension, infused it with evil nothingness and created one portal to only ever be used once?

Stepping on the trap opens the floor (think quick quick quick sand) and sends that person through. The player didn't just ....

snip more of the "how my position is justified and how its "how stupid she was..."

In d and d, you learn to proceed with caution on certain things. I want to make sure I am describing it as i described it in game. Their are

snip more of the same.

Don...

after the first or maybe the second net rant you decided to avail yourself of, this ceased to be about "see how stupid my players is and see how justified I am"

really, that boat sailed a while back.

if this is the third, fourth or seventh such incident, it has long since ceased to be about her errors but yours.

If your presentation is proper and justified and she is just not getting it, IE "its not MY fault", then its your fault for still having her in your game knowing full well that no matter how good and skilled you are she will flub things up this badly. Weren't you paying attention to the earlier rants by that DonTadow feller?

if on the other hand its your presentation in game thats at fault, even partially, then lambasting her in this forum and defending yourself is perhaps "poor form."

if this is indeed the third (or even seventh as someone suggested) "drivien to rant on the net" level incident between you and this gal, then I am sorry to say it doesn't speak of "my idiot player" as much as it speaks of "a Gm who is at fault" regardless of whether that "fault" is "not dealing with the problem player I already know about" or "not dealing with my own Gming errors that keep provoking the problems."

this is not meant to be an attack but hopefully a nudge to see this isn't about "her" anymore. Worrying about "her" or discussing "her" won't solve your problems anymore now than it did the previous X number of rants. to solve this issue, you have to deal with your choices and what you should do differently.

 

[Gilwen]

LOL that's a great trap! Just when you think a player won't do something they do it! In one of my crawls I placed a green glowing ward on a door in the final level. They knew that the dungeon was the lair of a mage who liked to dabble in new forms of magic and travelled the planes in search of new and interesting things. the ward contained a limited area of effect Mortie's Disjunction. The rogue failed his search for traps and declared the door untrapped, the wizard failed their Knoweldge: Arcane check and thought it was decoration but the party had agreed to stay away from it, until the Fighter declared he was kicking in the door and set off the ward! He lost almost everything except for a few low level items The other players faired better but he was paying them back for quite some time!

Gil

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

A recurring dynamic issue between one player and the DM.

The player makes unorthodox (bad?) decisions, perhaps to shake things up, to play a vision of her character, or maybe to annoy the DM.

DM makes adventures with instant death situations, then complains when the above player succumbs to the situation.

DM dislikes player making new characters for fear of "sneaking something in."

Options:

1. DM gives player a "Get out of dying free" card so she never has to make another character. Player enjoys this power and makes even more unorthodox choices, thereby annoying DM even more. DM learns to ignore player or continues to post to EN World ranting.

2. DM talks to player in attempt to understand issues. Expectation management. What do you want from a game, what does she want and can those differing expecations ever reconcile? Possible adjustment of game and/or expectations could lead to a playable game.

3. Player gets the boot.

4. Player and DM get married so they can really annoy each other.

 

[Lamoni]

The first step I'd take would be to talk to the player and ask her something like this...

"I placed that trap and tried to make it very obvious that it was something bad and not to be messed with... Obviously I failed in my attempt, but I was curious how I really made it come across. What was your character's plan or idea behind jumping on it?"

Once you know what she was really thinking, then it is much easier to go from there. It is much too difficult to guess what they were trying to do, make adjustments based on that and then realize that your adjustments had no effect or maybe the opposite effect you were trying for. Let us know what she responds to a question similar to the one I proposed above and then we can see if we can help you brainstorm some ideas.

 

[DonTadow]

How is it a "hell dimension radiating eveil" if there is nothing there? is there just this one acces to this hell dimension that has never been used before? Who/what created an entire vacant dimension, infused it with evil nothingness and created one portal to only ever be used once?



snip more of the "how my position is justified and how its "how stupid she was..."

snip more of the same.

Don...

after the first or maybe the second net rant you decided to avail yourself of, this ceased to be about "see how stupid my players is and see how justified I am"

really, that boat sailed a while back.

if this is the third, fourth or seventh such incident, it has long since ceased to be about her errors but yours.

If your presentation is proper and justified and she is just not getting it, IE "its not MY fault", then its your fault for still having her in your game knowing full well that no matter how good and skilled you are she will flub things up this badly. Weren't you paying attention to the earlier rants by that DonTadow feller?

if on the other hand its your presentation in game thats at fault, even partially, then lambasting her in this forum and defending yourself is perhaps "poor form."

if this is indeed the third (or even seventh as someone suggested) "drivien to rant on the net" level incident between you and this gal, then I am sorry to say it doesn't speak of "my idiot player" as much as it speaks of "a Gm who is at fault" regardless of whether that "fault" is "not dealing with the problem player I already know about" or "not dealing with my own Gming errors that keep provoking the problems."

this is not meant to be an attack but hopefully a nudge to see this isn't about "her" anymore. Worrying about "her" or discussing "her" won't solve your problems anymore now than it did the previous X number of rants. to solve this issue, you have to deal with your choices and what you should do differently.

I always say I"ve only had to boot 2 players and thats because they were making out during the game session. I have a very sympthaitic heart, so I always go on here to make sure and see what others would have thought and done in that situation given the same parameters. She seems to try, but she's like having Gilligan in your campaign.

If it was just me baffled, I'd blow it off, but the whole party was kinda stunned. WE honestly took a brief break to figure this out. Even her husband told her, that doesnt seem wise honey. "her response " I want to see anyway. The Idea of the hell deminsion (and this is inspired from a recent dungeon magazine of an adventure in Maure Castle) is that there are deminsions that are "hells" where there is nothing but endless space. It's based off the theory of personal hells. The reason the thing was summoned in the place, was as the ultimate waste disposal system. If any of the creatures or magic got out of hand thats whereit got dumped. This was not designed as a save or die trap. It was very difficult to die from the trap if searched. It was designed to be deadly in that, its the final level of the dungeon and all bets are off. The party at this point knows to stay together and proceed cautiously.

True, we are only 6 other people but we were all baffled by the situation given what happened. I find myself posting partly to see what others would have done and partly to ask the question of waht to do next. I am curious as to the next step is. Now that her and I have had a series of conversations, I am partially ok with her reasoning (she thought it was a good pentagram and that it was to protect her from the dragon. She did say that in hindsight she would have done those things but didn't think about it. She's written me back (our third conversation about the subject). And explains:

No, actually, I honestly thought a pentagram would be a protection device since that is what they normally are for. I guess I shouldn't have placed that assumption in the game though and tried a decipher script or something first. She jumped in the middle to see if it would deactivate or somehow protect her/and the party from the dragon. I never expected it was an evil pentagram.

There were a number of things I could have done to test my theory before jumping though. I could have deciphered script, traps, etc. It was my bad. I just didn't think of that first thing in my head during the game.

.

Eh, this is my fault though. I don't have the heart to boot a player I don't like if its not causing any other problem other than killing her own characters. She later goes on to say that she's having some problems with her daughter and her mind is not on the game. Even if this was total bull, I still cant bring myself to boot her.

But I don't think I"m going to be rolling up a character with her anytime soon. My thoguht is to limit her choices, restrict her to only core classes from the phb.

 

[billd91]

DonTadow, you've posted, what, 7 rants on this particular player?

Just kick her out of your group and be done with it.

And pit trap? I wouldn't have guessed that.

I wouldn't have guessed it either. I would have guessed some sort of magical summoning, or even some kind of permanent protection from good aura or something like that. Pit? No. Of course, I probably would have searched for a round. But even if I anticipated a trap, I would have expected some kind of glyph or something and might have relied on my own Evasion ability to save me.

On the other hand, if it is an endless pit, the character isn't dead until she dehydrates. Let the other characters figure out what happened to her and see if they can figure out a way to get her out. Then the problem is solved and you don't need to have her roll up another character.

 

[Lamoni]

Well, after hearing this response, I would recommend that you explain a few things to her about how you describe the environment. Tell her that if you say something radiates evil, there will be almost no chance that anything good will come of it. Or maybe provide some general advice... try to use any skills you have before jumping into something. If I was the DM and the rogue said that she wanted to jump in the middle of a trap, I'd ask if they wanted to do a casual search first? Just asking are you sure doesn't really give them any ideas for an alternate course of action.

It seems like she is interested in playing and has some fun... I think you just need to accept that she will always take some extra work as a DM. Trying to help her see how you think as a DM will most likely reduce the amount of 'bad decisions' she makes though.

 

[DonTadow]

I wouldn't have guessed it either. I would have guessed some sort of magical summoning, or even some kind of permanent protection from good aura or something like that. Pit? No. Of course, I probably would have searched for a round. But even if I anticipated a trap, I would have expected some kind of glyph or something and might have relied on my own Evasion ability to save me.

On the other hand, if it is an endless pit, the character isn't dead until she dehydrates. Let the other characters figure out what happened to her and see if they can figure out a way to get her out. Then the problem is solved and you don't need to have her roll up another character.

I'm starting to think more rationally now. The reasoning sounds. She did have to leave the game after the incidident and she said she was worrieda bout a family member and wasn't thinking straight. My ultimate question still is whether to introduce a new character for her or figure out some way of bringing back the old character.

Now, i'm feeling bad for even mentioning it (her daughter was sick). HOwever, the pcs are in a world of trouble of their own now. Their no where near the deminsion of the trap. The entire deminsion was sealed off due to later actions of the pcs.

Can't really think of a good way to bring her back.

Here's whre the pcs are at now. Ok, in the final level, after the pit accident. The PCs find the god made sarcopghus they were looking for. However, they did not question the lich, search his body, serach his lab, search his chambers or search throuhg hte library (I wanted the pcs to have plenty of ways to solving the box) on the final level to determine how to open the sarcophgus. They've opened it the wrong way (20 latches had to be opened in a particualr order, 40 decipher script check (5th way) to figure it out and the mage in the party had been killed twice (human and ghost form). So they opened it and dispelled magic and magical items in the entire world. In the campaign theres a time governing body called the Time Lords, whom have determined that dispelling magic as we know it was not suppose to happen. They managed to find the party members (whom were knocked unconcious from opening the god created sarcophgus) responsible and confiscate them. The pcs are now locked away ala Matrix, in an artificial world created by their memories. This is the time lords way of figuring out what exactly happened. Theyve created a happy, shiney world where hte pcs were heroes 10 years after the present time.

I've already introduced the pcs to the place. The players haavn't figured it out yet, but are becoming suspcious that things are too perfect in this world. I"m already finding it hard to figure out a way to introduce a new character (the mage whom died) without the party being suspcious. It's going to be a problem trying to introduce another player but more of a problem trying to introduce a former character (the pcs have already decided not to believe anything anyone else says in this new world. Which means they might try to kill this players character out of suspcion).

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

I have a very sympthaitic heart,

ran5ting about your players here is not indicative of that.

so I always go on here to make sure and see what others would have thought and done in that situation given the same parameters. She seems to try, but she's like having Gilligan in your campaign.

which means since you know that and you accept the character you need to script and run gilligan appropriate scenarios. I mean gilligan's island would be pretty bad as a show if gilligan kept getting killed because the script put "too subtle for gilligan" death traps in rooms routinely.

If it was just me baffled, I'd blow it off, but the whole party was kinda stunned. WE honestly took a brief break to figure this out. Even her husband told her, that doesnt seem wise honey. "her response " I want to see anyway.

that sounds about right. Sounds like a combo of "more interested in finding cool stuff than playing it safe" and from the response also "but protective circles are protective".

look, the "everything might be deadly so constantly be on guard and if you slip up you might die" is ONE STYLE of fantasy RPg play, not "the way". The comment you made before about how "in dnd you ought to do these things" is indicative of one style and i think we can all agree that is not her style.

sure there are plenty of DND style fantasy adventures where every button should be scanned for magic and traps and curses before you even consider touching it, but there are also other (and even DND style) adventures where more inquisitive, more impulsive characters motivated by novelty are appropriate too. In those the circle on the floor may lead to an endless pit, maybe even an endless pit of waste disposal, but once there (and you just know your kendar is gonna end up there) its not the Gm saying "yup, lotsa 'nuthin" but the Gm saying "and flaoting off in the distance you see a glow. As you move closer you realize its an old man who looks very bored." and from there we see a more "gilligan appropriate" resolution where the "gilligan move" doesn't lead to "lotsa 'nuthin" but to more opportunities for meetings.

Anyone can build a deathtrap that leads nowhere, especially if it doesn't have to make any sense. Its much harder but more rewarding to carry that "what if" further and have it be story/plot/cool inspiring instead of another dead PC moment.

The Idea of the hell deminsion (and this is inspired from a recent dungeon magazine of an adventure in Maure Castle) is that there are deminsions that are "hells" where there is nothing but endless space.

why would there be hells of nothing but empty space?
what did this add to your game?
how was this interesting?
it seems like an in game lot of effort to create a dead end, right?

if it is endless with one or maybe a few entry spots, have others ended up there?
Are they still there?
did they leave anything behind?
do you age and get hungry there or persists in a perpetual ageless torment, trying to find a way out or maybe giving up and going mad?

It's based off the theory of personal hells. The reason the thing was summoned in the place, was as the ultimate waste disposal system.

so, in theory a lot of stuff has been dumped there over time... plot possibilities. Not a dead end unless you the Gm want it to be.

if gilligan had dropped into one of these, don't you bet he would have found something interesting or funny?

If any of the creatures or magic got out of hand thats whereit got dumped.

my mind is awash with how this isn't a dead character in a dead end situation. Many creatures and many out of hand magics got dumped here and left?!?!?!

man, that could be the most interesting prt of the whole adventure. i can see a typical butt dull dungeon crawl being the wrapper for "and here after tyhey get flushed the characters encounter an odd but interesting world of disposed and forgotten magics and from this the real adventure starts.

or it can be a character is dead now lets get back to the dragon killing thing too, i guess.

Hint" having a gilligan can be a blessing, not just a curse.
[/QUOTE]

Eh, this is my fault though. I don't have the heart to boot a player I don't like if its not causing any other problem other than killing her own characters.

if you are not going to toss her for being incompatible with your game then it now falls on you to make your campaign compatable with her characters. She's not there to provide you with "rant fodder."

 

[Raloc]

I don't think I would consider that PC dead yet, TBH. I mean, she's falling endlessly? Well, she have an Immovable Rod? Rope? Grappling hook? Are there protrusions of stone? The character isn't dead until she's at -10 IMO. I'd let the player play out the consequences of her (mistaken, apparently) actions.

This sort of thing came up the other day and made for a memorable session. The party (of 4) had gone through a portal into a large underground city, invisible and silenced. They made it into the main tower of the keep in the city, and ran out of invisibility (all except the elf mage, who left at the halfway point of his invis spell). The other three stayed in the tower to look around, and used disguise self (the wizard and cleric) and invis on the fighter to leave when they were ready. The cleric and fighter took the rope they'd used to get into the tower, and the wizard decided to go look at the floors below. He came to a guard room, with ~5 guards. He was disguised as one of them. He tried to leave the tower (walked *through* the room with the guards, which speak a language none of the PCs know), one of the guards said something to him in a language he doesn't understand (he said, "Why are you away from your post?" since there was one guard at the top floor of the tower, now dead by the PCs) the wizard then tried to keep going, at which point the guard yelled something ("Get back to your post damnit!"), then pointed at the ceiling. However, the wizard tried to leave anyway, because the player *missed* the description of the guard. Entirely my fault for not pointing it out multiple times to a tired player, but still. So he ran out of the tower, now pursued by the guards. They raised an alarm and the gate guards went to shut the gate, at which point the fighter threw a javelin at one of them, making it so the the other gate guard was unable to shut the gate, allowing the wizard to go through (the cleric was still within the walls of the keep, disguised as a priestess of the guards' race). They ran towards the portal, and the wizard ended up getting held by an enemy mage, at which point the fighter (the wizard's in game cousin) grabbed him and managed to make it through the portal. The priestess was 5 rounds behind, along with the guards that had been chasing the wizard and the enemy mage that held the wizard originally. So they ended up having a big fight on the other side of the portal, which was blocked off by them just in time to avoid having to fight multiple extra enemy mages and clerics, as well as at least 3 units of soldiers.

They barely survived, but man was it fun