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

[BSF]

Or maybe SWRushing meant something different? *shrug* My post still stands either way.

 

[swrushing]

These are the points that SWRushing is trying to make. Either accomodate the play style of each player, or cut the player loose. Or in the least, don't consistently set the player up for failure and then complain about it.

yes. either would be "good Gming" or at least, "acceptable GMing."

 

[DonTadow]

Actually, i consider chaning my style to suit my players to be STRENGTHENING not weakening. i consider it to be more skilled to be able to adapt and react in a way that makes my players happier.

if it does come down to a case where i don't feel i cannot make everyone happy, then i cut the one and run a darn fine game for the 5


not sure what you mean by this.
Do you mean do i have NPCs who react differently to different PCs? Sure.
Do you mean do I choose what I put into a game based on the PCs? Sure.



Well, see this is partly where your attitude plays a role. Your dislike and possibly even contempt for this player and her style leaves you taking this in the worst light. Doing anything other than "letting the trap be an end for her character" is seen by you as handholding a pathetic player.

On the other hand, we you so inclined, you could have started from the get go making that "neat magic disposal I read about the other day" more than just a death trap and when she fell thru you could have acted excited, not "uhh are you suuure" with obvious "this is stupid" overtones.

you could have made, had you ever considered it as GM, the disposal encounter a sort of "kender teaser" where her character heading for the neat thing is a start of something good, not a cross you have to bear.

its your choices, your biases against this girl, your perceptions and your preconceptions that is making this into "handholding" as opposed to taking advantage of her interests and her different approaches to enrich your game.


well, yes to the first part. change the script of the encounters and the setup of the encounters so that it is less dangerous and more interesting. SURVIVAL doesn't have to be the thing at risk in order to be interesting.

or consider this... a piece of logic for you... in this place of yours, does no one ever get drunk or sick or addled by magics gone astray so that its perfectly safe to leave a "step on this and die" thing just laying about without a warning alarm, a safety rail or maybe a command word to open the gap?

Would your world be "too silly for words" if the "really it wasn't a trap but simply a garbage disposal" thingy had had a safety?


No. Why would it need to be deadly for the cautious character?
can't you imagine how to run a game without random deathtraps laying about?


Nope. whichever character tries it, it is an interesting encounter and probably not one when "one false step" or "one impulsive action" is instantly lethal. You do realize those "one false step = instant death" encounters are not necessary to have a good fun game, right?




but apparently they dont mind the favoritism where you run a game guaranteed to have one player wiping out routinely and the other's play styles keeping them fine.

and, obviously, this isn't suggesting making danger unequal, just changing the nature of the danger and its level for everyone.

again, since the disposal wasn't a trap, why didn't it have any sort of safety so that people wandering thru didn't just fall thru? A command word, a guard rail, a warning printed in common saying dont step on the circle or you will die" or even "garbage disposal: proceed with caution" or perhaps a simple perpetual magic mouth spell?

you put a one step and die death trap in.
you made it "attractive" in a way.
your impulsive character found it and... lo and behold, they triggered it.
now you have rant fodder.

There's adifference between you and I. I don't change my style. I pick players whom enjoy playing my style. I might adapt my style and add to my repetoire. I'd rather be an expert in something than a jack of all trades. The most important reason I run my game is because I enjoy it. I enjoy my style and I enjoy my players enjoying my style. Luckily I have a style that is very adapatable and a lot can be added or subtracted at a whim. One thing that is not my style is over the top cartoon antics.

I've already said that cutting the player is not an option, though i agree with swrushign that would be the best solution for me, it is not the best solution for the party because of the previously listed reasons.

You seem to be assuming that I run a death trap filled level every single time, full of pits and death rays. Which is not so. But on the last level of my fortress's I tend to pull out all the stops so to speak. There is a proceedingly difficult curve the levels go to until the final level which usually is the most deadly.

Are you suggesting that I take death away as an option all together for pcs? From what I"m reading, you're suggesting I try things other than death (which I do). The only solution I would have that would satifiy this players style would be to remove death as a consequence all together. I won't say my personal preference on this style, but I will say that I know my players enough to know that they'd hate this type of campaign. Some would almost prefer to die as opposed to other haneious consequences they've endured.

When the majority gets that they want its not called favoritism its called majority rules. The campaign is not anti the sixth player. There is no reason she can not adapt to it, nor a reason why she herself could not quit playying if she was not having fun. What i do is put in stuff the majoirty wants or that is fun for the majority. Now, eveyrone doesnt like the same thing , so i always sprinkelin niche stuff here and there. What I won't do is water down another player's idea of fun.

She enjoys the current style of the game, but every now and then (agani not every session) she does something that baffles me or something that is down right crazy. I have no intention on removing or designing easier encounters at locations or places at places I would have nornmally put a difficult encounter. Like I said earlier, this player found a way to get herself killed in a trap that had 4 or 5 ways of avoiding it. I own grimtooth's wurst traps, and I've ptu some of them in my games. This wasn't one of them. If I were rating it, it would be a 2 skulls. It was too easy to avoid.

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

There's adifference between you and I. I don't change my style.

yup thats definitely a difference between us.

You seem to be assuming that I run a death trap filled level every single time, full of pits and death rays.

nope

Are you suggesting that I take death away as an option all together for pcs?

nope

When the majority gets that they want its not called favoritism its called majority rules.

favoritism is favoring some players over another. that seems to be your gist here.

Like I said earlier, this player found a way to get herself killed in a trap that had 4 or 5 ways of avoiding it.

BTW i may have missed it but did you give her the ref save and she blew it, or did you decide "no ref save for the stupid girl" on the fly?

 

[swrushing]

aaack, hit wrong key and deleted older response...

but anyway...

still seeking answer to this question...

"again, since the disposal wasn't a trap, why didn't it have any sort of safety so that people wandering thru didn't just fall thru? A command word, a guard rail, a warning printed in common saying "dont step on the circle or you will die" or even "garbage disposal: proceed with caution" or perhaps a simple perpetual magic mouth spell?"

 

[Arnwyn]

"again, since the disposal wasn't a trap, why didn't it have any sort of safety so that people wandering thru didn't just fall thru? A command word, a guard rail, a warning printed in common saying "dont step on the circle or you will die" or even "garbage disposal: proceed with caution" or perhaps a simple perpetual magic mouth spell?"

Or maybe: "Owners' knowledge that the disposal exists."

 

[gizmo33]

DonTadow,

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I don't see a problem with a PC getting killed. It's an adventure after all, and when dice rolling has important consequences, then sometimes PCs die. I wouldn't make such a big deal out of "stupid" actions - IMO that's judgemental and not really worth it. IMO if a DM wasn't squeamish about killing PCs, a DM wouldn't worry so much about having to justify it and having opinions about people's intelligence scores.

But the main problem seems to be the reason that you don't like PC death in this case, which is that the player is trouble during the character creation process. I think something like "cheating" was the impression I got.

I could offer advice on how to better police character creation, but I'm not sure what kinds of problems you're having, and it seems somewhat OT since the bulk of the posts here seem to be related to whether/how you should accomodate a "Gilligan" type player. Good luck.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Alternatively, it could be that she realizes you are using the "art" of fudging die rolls (and outcomes) and wants to see just how far you'll go to preserve her character....

....In which case, you should kill her and be done with it.


RC

 

[swrushing]

Or maybe: "Owners' knowledge that the disposal exists."

never any visitors?
never gets drunk?
never considers the possibility of confusion?
doesn't have pets?

etc...

 

[DonTadow]

yup thats definitely a difference between us.

nope

nope

favoritism is favoring some players over another. that seems to be your gist here.


BTW i may have missed it but did you give her the ref save and she blew it, or did you decide "no ref save for the stupid girl" on the fly?

She got a reflex save to avoid it which she rolled a 17 with a dc 22. She got an intelligence check of 7 to determine if her character was smart enough to figure out that something may be up. (secret roll) . If she hadn't have jumped dead in the middle, she would ahve got two reflex saves.

aaack, hit wrong key and deleted older response...

but anyway...

still seeking answer to this question...

"again, since the disposal wasn't a trap, why didn't it have any sort of safety so that people wandering thru didn't just fall thru? A command word, a guard rail, a warning printed in common saying "dont step on the circle or you will die" or even "garbage disposal: proceed with caution" or perhaps a simple perpetual magic mouth spell?"

The pcs retrieved notes on the fotress. Which stated that before the level was sealed, a series of alarms and safteys had been removed as per protocal. That way the artifacts inside would be protected until the danger could be removed. The PCs knew well ahead of time that this last level was a highly secure area.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I don't see a problem with a PC getting killed. It's an adventure after all, and when dice rolling has important consequences, then sometimes PCs die. I wouldn't make such a big deal out of "stupid" actions - IMO that's judgemental and not really worth it. IMO if a DM wasn't squeamish about killing PCs, a DM wouldn't worry so much about having to justify it and having opinions about people's intelligence scores.

But the main problem seems to be the reason that you don't like PC death in this case, which is that the player is trouble during the character creation process. I think something like "cheating" was the impression I got.

I could offer advice on how to better police character creation, but I'm not sure what kinds of problems you're having, and it seems somewhat OT since the bulk of the posts here seem to be related to whether/how you should accomodate a "Gilligan" type player. Good luck.

Again, two pcs (well actually the same pc, two different characters) died already. One in the very same adventure as her. I have no problem allowing pcs to die by their actions.

I do apologize for calling her stupid, as I don't believe she is stupid, but the decisions she made was not one that seemed liek a good one given the circumstances.

During character creation, she tends to read positively about things. For instance, when she built her cleric, i wsn't much on character policing. I use the elements of magic system which allows pcs to create their own spells.

5 games in she did a spell and i asked her the save, she told me, the spell didnt have a save, none of her spells have saves, she designed them so they wouldnt. Her thought was, if she aimed at the ground beneath the baddies then her target was the ground and thus any risidual effect on anyone else was just collateral. When I asked her, why would she think that she could cast 10d6 fireballs and dominates on enemies and they not get a saving throw, she said she must have read the book wrong. When i asked her why didn't she ask me about it, she said "I hoped you wouldn't notice it, I figured it was a bit broken but I didnt think you'd mind."

Fast foreward to the nwe character, in which took two weeks of back and forth dialogue. I told her, the current area only has races 1, 2, 3, A, B and C. She said she wanted race E. Race E is dire evil in the campaign (not to say there aren't good characters of Race E but the only characters of Race E in the world are from an evil organization). In any case I told her know. She then asked to play Races F and G. To which I said, in the area the players are in it is not consistant with the town makeup. She agree to do do race B. When we get to game she has a character sheet for Race F. she also didn't have the classes she said she would have which was rogue 5/ ranger 5. Instead she had rogue 2/ranger 8 but with none of the XP penalities i told her she would have if she decided to high level multiclass her race.

The next problem came with spell selection. She chose the vilante prestige from the complete adventure. Before her, I was pretty lenient on what the pcs could bring in as far as classes. But during the first session, I noticed her character casting a ton of spells, to which I asked, how are you donig this. I understand the vilagnte has 3 or 4 cantrips at best. She said, Well since we use adifferent magic system and the spells were in the normal 3.5 magic system, I assumed that I could get unlimitted spells because the world isn't familiar with how i do my magic.

Won't go any further, but lets say she lost her magic casting capabilities in place of a feat.