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

[DonTadow]

Cookies and brownies! And she bakes them?

Wow.

Tell her you made a mistake. What you meant to say was the evil pentagram filled her pockets with candy.

Tony M

And they are always hot and good. Its like she bakes them and brings them knowing that they are the distraction everyone else needs to run shaningans in the group.

Seriously though, I don't discount what srushing says, i have a problem with her as a player and i can't stand her. But its too risky to boot her without losing the husband whose a player favorite. I'm willing to change things in the dungeon, but not to the point where it alienates the other players, several of which whom said she would feel slighted if the player's character came back as it validate her actions.

But, given the circumstances, I am going to let the player play her former character as an npc until (one of the matrix figures) he pcs figure out that they are dreaming, when they will awake and see her body in a chamber next to theirs -2 to constitution and -wisdom, with a serious fear of heights. I also sent her an email letting her know (sympathetically) that it may be better for her to escuse her self from the game and go home and deal wit hher famiily problems as opposed to continuing to play.

 

[tonym]

...I also sent her an email letting her know (sympathetically) that it may be better for her to escuse her self from the game and go home and deal wit hher famiily problems as opposed to continuing to play.

I'm guessing she won't excuse herself. If she's bringing homemade goodies, she's enjoying your game a lot.

-2 Wisdom? Ouch.

Tony M

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

Hi-

In our sunday group, we have a dude that brings baked goods to the gaming table, very nice of him indeed and he's also a great RPG'er.

hmmmmmm baked cookies <homer simpson drool sound effects>


Scott

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

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.

What are you talking about? That show would have been a hundred times better if Gilligan had, each episode, set off an elaborate yet subtle deathtrap that for some reason was present on the island.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Sort of a Kenny situation?

--fje

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Yea.

In fact, NOT doing so just really sounds like bad grapes to me.

If you're going to walk in with this Deus Ex situation where ultra-powerful things are everywhere and all of the PCs are but pawns in the games of extra-super-mega-over-Gods and everything can blast them to splinders or make them Gods or just give them really bad gas with the merest touch, and yet they have to make it through without touching the WRONG super-mega-godhood item...

Why on earth NOT? Getting yanked out of Nowhereville 90210 and slapped into The Matrix is just as unbelievable as getting yanked out of All The Magic Exploded Because We Opened The Box and slapped into The Matrix ... when you're THAT FAR OUT THERE ...

I have to say, man, that if this sort of plotline is indicative of what your games are like, then NO WONDER somebody has problems figuring things out. I'd have probably run screaming into the night after a few sessions. It sounds like you have some meta-conscious super-plot based around a reality entirely of your own imagining and you can use it as you wish and everybody else has to figure out what you're thinking. Gods and super-items and Time Lords and entire dimensions created for the sole purpose of dumping the kitchen leavings. Boot up the TARDIS and have Dr. Who rumble on by and save her.

--fje

I used to have a DM that pulled this type of thing. I played with him for almost a year, took a monk up to level 20, and nobody in the group ever did figure out what the plot was.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Sort of a Kenny situation?

--fje

Yeah, Kenny meets Grimtooth.

edit: ...with coconuts!

 

[swrushing]

It seems to me Swrushing taht you want me to havei nthe campaign that whenever this character does something that would have been dangerious for any other pc that with her instead hilliatarity shall insue?

Actually, i am saying that IF YOU ACCEPT HER as a player knowing her style and how it differs from your... THEN... In short, you see her as a gilligan, your know she will act like a gilligan, then YES, when she does gilligan things, the repercussions ought to be like with gilligan.

What else were you agreeing to when you accepted gilligan?

if thats not something you want to do, thats fine too, but tell her and let her go.

I admit, the character gets on my nerves sometimes and i wish i could boot her from the campaign. And everytime i'm on here i'm complaining about her. but she does add worth to the campaign. She's great at puzzles and mysteries and then theres her husband factor. Plus she irks me greatly but the party only mildly. In business you weight the pluses and minuses. Honestly, her husbands rpging (for the time being)balances her annoyances (she also bakes cookies and brownies). The players whom find her greatly annoying have told me that they'd rather put up with her than loose her husband. In the end its about the players.

Except that youy seem willing to not let it be about the one player.
its Ok for her character to die, for her to not have as much fun, because she doesn't make the decisions you would prefer, the decisions more in line with your play style.

Her decisions are based on her style, on her preferences, and are known to you in advance.

When you accept her and her character in the game, or let me say when *I* accept a player into my game, i am agreeing to work to make that player have as much fun as every other player. if one players wants "develop my backstory" then he gets that. if another just wants "some fun fights and cool stuff" we get some of that too. its not good enough to say "i will make most of the players happy and, well, screw this one guy, I will just keep him around as long as he will stay because he brings the beer." of course, in this case, you keep her around cuz she brings the hubby, if i read this right.

if after a game starts i find out enough to know i wont be meeting this player's expectations, then i let them know and usually try and help them find another game. This happened once years ago when three of seven players told me they thought three combat oriented sessions out of four was "too little combat." I told them "it wont get more combat oriented. You ought to find another game." they did.

i think everyone was happier.

if you are not going to feel obliged to meet her style of play in your game, to commit to making it as fun for her as for everyone else, then you ought to do her the service of saying so and letting her go.

Scripting for the other players enjoyment, putting her into a virtual "second class" category of players, because you want to keep her nhubby playing is, for one worried about fairness, sounding terribly UNFAIR to her.

let me ask you a question.

Would you object to her reading this forum and this thread and seeing what you have to say on the subject?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm, to me the 'bottomless pit that the guys living here throw magic items into and also use as a trap' just sounds dumb, really dumb. Then again, I wear my disbelief suspenders a little tighter than some, so that is a personal bias. (It sounds too much like a 'D&Dism' to me.)

'I jump into the pentagram!' on the other hand sounds equally dumb.

That said - she should have gotten a Reflex save (heck, maybe she did), with success allowing her to stop her jump in the nick of time. Otherwise she would fall, but given that there 'is no bottom' there may well be ways of getting her out, short of 'travels in the fifth dimension!' Falling does not kill, it is the sudden stop at the end.

I also do not understand the other PCs just shrugging and moving on - if they can hear her than my expectation would be to try and save her.

All in all I agree with Swrushing - if neither you nor the other players like her play style than let her go, if the other players like her style and you don't then adapt, otherwise you are using her as the butt - and how would you enjoy it if the situations were reversed?

The Auld Grump

 

[DonTadow]

Actually, i am saying that IF YOU ACCEPT HER as a player knowing her style and how it differs from your... THEN... In short, you see her as a gilligan, your know she will act like a gilligan, then YES, when she does gilligan things, the repercussions ought to be like with gilligan.

What else were you agreeing to when you accepted gilligan?

if thats not something you want to do, thats fine too, but tell her and let her go.



Except that youy seem willing to not let it be about the one player.
its Ok for her character to die, for her to not have as much fun, because she doesn't make the decisions you would prefer, the decisions more in line with your play style.

Her decisions are based on her style, on her preferences, and are known to you in advance.

When you accept her and her character in the game, or let me say when *I* accept a player into my game, i am agreeing to work to make that player have as much fun as every other player. if one players wants "develop my backstory" then he gets that. if another just wants "some fun fights and cool stuff" we get some of that too. its not good enough to say "i will make most of the players happy and, well, screw this one guy, I will just keep him around as long as he will stay because he brings the beer." of course, in this case, you keep her around cuz she brings the hubby, if i read this right.

if after a game starts i find out enough to know i wont be meeting this player's expectations, then i let them know and usually try and help them find another game. This happened once years ago when three of seven players told me they thought three combat oriented sessions out of four was "too little combat." I told them "it wont get more combat oriented. You ought to find another game." they did.

i think everyone was happier.

if you are not going to feel obliged to meet her style of play in your game, to commit to making it as fun for her as for everyone else, then you ought to do her the service of saying so and letting her go.

Scripting for the other players enjoyment, putting her into a virtual "second class" category of players, because you want to keep her nhubby playing is, for one worried about fairness, sounding terribly UNFAIR to her.

let me ask you a question.

Would you object to her reading this forum and this thread and seeing what you have to say on the subject?

Just for simple plot reasons I'd object to any of my players reading this forum.

You seem to be assuming I don't put in elements that fit her playing style , and they are there. But, as others have also stated, I will not change other things in the campaign that fit others playing styles to appease hers. If she keeps going through characters, yes, I will definately be moving her backgrounds to second class character status and they won't play as much a factor in overlaying plots. Why? because its silly to spend my time on a character that is going to find a way to kill itself in two or three weeks.

You also say that I am mad at her because she is not doing what i want her to do. Now, say I have a left, right and up direction and she goes left. Now, if i get mad that she didn't go up as i wanted, it would be fair to say that.

But, she had a multitude of options on that board. This was a huge map. The whole map was predrawn the minute hte pcs were put on the map and I didn't cover up anything. There were plenty of places to go and do. I would think that its not asking for much from a pc if they play their characters cautiously. Or at least as cautious as you've designed the character. Now, if she designed a Gilligan character, it would make more sense. But she's designed a suave investigator, but she plays him like gilligan. I"m not going to tell her how to play her character, but the campaign is what it is, and I"m not going to do anything extra to save a pc. Pcs kill pcs. If she chooses to jump around the board all willy nilly, who am i to stop her. There are consequences for actions. I can't have different consequences for diferent pcs.