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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7656418" data-attributes="member: 4937">I agree only in as much as I don't think it is only an issue of trust and good manners.However, the basic problem we always have in this sort of thread is, simply that I see your following declaration as false contrast:Nothing prevents a player from both wanting a GM to tell them a good story, and expecting to be able to contribute in a significant way to the telling of the story.  In fact, I've never been in a game where I the PC couldn't contribute to the telling of the story in significant ways.  I've heard horror stories about how it happens, but I've never seen it.   I have regularly seen tables where the DM can't entertain the players.And regardless, my observations here I hold would remain true whether we were playing with a group that preferred a more adventure path style where the players rode rails from point to point (but still participated in the telling of the story) or a more sand box approach with proactive players determining the story, even to the point of having brain storming sessions OOC to get ideas for future stories.   Style here doesn't change the observations regarding what is poor play and poor DMing.   We could get side tracked into detailed discussions of how to pull off those different styles well, and none of it would justify a player failing to interact with in game information as in game information, and then questioning the DM over monster placement based on metagame knowledge of favored terrain suggestions in some rule book.And even where that true, this isn't it.  No, but that doesn't mean that the player is being any less of a dick.  If said player really had a 10th level Ranger or whatever, the first move is to establish that the character knows that the manticore's appearance is unusual by whatever means the system allows, probably by beginning with something like, "Do I know what the usual habitat of manticores is?"   And if the DM then says, "Normally they show up in deserts... oh crap, forgot about that." or "Normally they show up in deserts.  It's a bit unusual to be seeing one in the forest.", or, "They aren't specialists.  They can appear in any terrain.", then you have a basis for further play.  If the DM decides he made a mistake and ask for advice in how to fix it, great.  If not, well great.  If you don't like it, take it up with him after the session.   It's not worth provoking a table argument.  Heck, it's not worth testing to see if the DM made a 'mistake' - though again, I pretty much feel that there isn't a way to make a mistake in this.  It's not a hard rule that monsters listed with favored terrain deserts only show up there.  "After close observation, this one has a collar on its neck!  Maybe it escaped from a menagerie!", is another line of play.  And for that matter, deciding that would be an interesting explanation on the spot is not 'covering up'.   I frequently try to tie random encounters to the story in some fashion.  So what that the details were invented 5 seconds ago instead of 5 days ago?  Is there some rule against a DM improvising?You go on and on with a bunch of things I agree about.  I hate 'gotcha' play by a DM.  I've got tons of post about how Nitro Ferguson would be a good DM if he wasn't always trying to surprise his players.   If its reasonable the PC know about the monsters habits, by all means tell the player everything about the monster.  But this isn't the same as 'gotcha' play.   This is a DM that wanted a Manticore in the forest and was made to feel guilty about it because some player quoted utterly irrelevant text from a rulebook and tried to treat that as a hard and fast rule that bound the DM to a contract, when the DM in question hadn't even read the contract.  For me too.  But you sure are spinning now to compare the two.</blockquote>

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