What do you do when your players refuse to succeed?

[Fifth Element]

I'm confused by the thread title. How does rolling badly = refusing to succeed?

 

[Tewligan]

Maybe you should kill the weakest player* - that way, there's one less person sucking up some of the luck.

* - Yes, I meant "player" instead of "character".

 

[S'mon]

When this happened to me I went with the low CR monsters, but I'd still kill the PCs off whenever anything slightly tougher appeared. The best solution seems to be to get new players. :\

Edit: Or a new game system. 3e is so darn unforgiving. You could try Savage Worlds or Star Wars SE or C&C etc for a while.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I know some people on this site have used Mutants & Masterminds for FRP, and found it enjoyable. I bring this up because the system, designed as it was to simulate Superheroic genre gaming, is a tad less lethal than the average D20 spinoff.

 

[amethal]

I never humor players' superstitions, but if you wanted to, here's what you might do: let them roll the enemies' attacks and saves.

I think we all know what's gonna happen if he tries that .....

 

[mmu1]

I'm confused by the thread title. How does rolling badly = refusing to succeed?

Uh... I was being facetious?

 

[Fifth Element]

Uh... I was being facetious?

Uh... so was I?

 

[kensanata]

My players sometimes groan in anguish as I keep rolling between 15 and 20 and they roll between 1 and 4 on a d20. And when they fail their Fort save against the phase spider it does 15 Con damage (2d8)... So these days I try to talk a lot more to my players: What's their fall-back option? How will they react when the parley goes bad? How will they escape when they fail their rolls? I want them to have backup plans available that will work even if they fail a few critical rolls. I also try to spread monsters over time: I know there are 50 Lotus Eaters in the camp, but once alarmed they party can fight on the retreat and I'll find an in-game reason why the reinforcements are too weak for the TPK they have in mind.

As for the dice, I started to play it up as an additional source of entertainment: No, no, you take the ugly dice. Yeah, those! I have my green DM dice right here. Don't touch them!! You're infecting my dice with your dismal luck! What do you expect with pink dice? You deserved it! That leads to a lot of teeth wear but also in some roaring triumph when the archer finally does take down that efreeti or that green dragon with a critical hit.

 

[Engilbrand]

I was in a game where the DM decided to use a fumble chart. If you got a 1, you rolled percentile dice on the chart. One guy consistently got "Drop your weapon." Consistently. It didn't actually matter who ran the character. The player missed and I ran the character. Same thing happened. He eventually got a locked glove so that his sword wouldn't go anywhere. He was happy every time that came up because he had planned for it. In only a few games, he rolled that about 10 or 12 times. It was hilarious.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

This was me when I first started playing AD&D, back in '81.

How the heck did yourself from 1981 get into haakon1's game in 2007?


Anyway....

I recommend swashbuckling cards

http://www.scratchfactory.com/Resources/SwashCards.pdf

They add flair and make up for poor rolling.