When PCs activate their Self Destruct sequence

[Jim Hague]

It would be ****ish if they could take an entire campaign with them, but they can't. The problem might be in how you define "campaign" (as Quas' other poll anticipates). Besides, in two of the examples it was the other players that seemed to have a death-wish.

Regardless though, it's one player and the actions of his character. You can't say that the campaign is ruined unless it's pre-scripted and players are railroaded. If that's the case, then I suggest simply being upfront with the players about it - tell them they can't do such-and-such because it wrecks the campaign (campaign being defined as the story that the DM wants to tell), simple as that.

There's no sense in pretending that players are free to do what they want with their characters when they're really not. I'd bet the players already know that anyway (and that it's a contributing factor to some of this behavior).

I call shennanigans here - one players can ruin an entire campign; doesn't matter who the player is. One person can certainly poison the convivial atmosphere of a group, and they can certainly grind the game to a halt in any of a number of ways, including what Quas has described. Trying to blame the GM for immature players is just plain dumb.

 

[kigmatzomat]

True 'nuff. Immature players are the entire party's responsibility to either eject or induce maturity.

I'm all for kinetically maturing people. I've seen people that need to be matured right upside the head.

 

[gizmo33]

I call shennanigans here

Good, can't wait to see some reasoning.

- one players can ruin an entire campign; doesn't matter who the player is. One person can certainly poison the convivial atmosphere of a group, and they can certainly grind the game to a halt in any of a number of ways, including what Quas has described.

I would agree that a single player can ruin a gaming session. For example, a single player can grab the DMs notes and set fire to them. A single player can insult and threaten other players.

However, that's not what we're talking about. What Quas is apparently talking about is being "forced" to kill PCs. Or something like that. I'm not sure how insulting a lich "poisons the convivial atmosphere" of a group (unless lich=DM). I also don't see how a character who is insulting to a lich is trying to destroy the campaign.

Trying to blame the GM for immature players is just plain dumb.

I'm not blaming him for his players being immature (which is even debateable for some of his examples above). However, immature players don't destroy a campaign. I DMed when I was 10, I believe I was immature at the time, and so was everyone that played with me. Somehow none of my campaigns were destroyed. Hmmm... I wonder how that could be?

Apparently Quas considers his expectations to be identical to the "campaign". When his expectations are not met in certain ways, either by character death, TPK or some other events, he considers the campaign "destroyed". Paradoxically, he is the sole authority on what constitutes the campaign (no opinions of the players are discernable in his assessment of what constitutes a "destroyed campaign") and yet he is apparently unable to get what he wants from his players.

He doesn't stop them from insulting the lich, he doesn't stop them from running off into the dungeon on some tirade. Apparently he believes that the players should be able to do whatever they want with their characters. He lets the dice fall (as I would) but yet the outcome is somehow considered a failure. Why would he continue to DM in a "gamist" style when apparently he is a story-teller DM at heart?

What I was really trying to get across is that Quas' expectations are contributing to his definition of "destroyed campaign" and that I think he should take another look at how his expectations and those of his players are matching up (or not matching up). People that don't do what you want them to do are not immature. (Something that I think a lot of parents should think about.)

Being insulting when you can't be sure of what I'm saying might also be dumb. Please save the insults and just tell me WHY you disagree.

 

[Jim Hague]

I would agree that a single player can ruin a gaming session. For example, a single player can grab the DMs notes and set fire to them. A single player can insult and threaten other players.

And over time, can ruin a campaign. Or poison a work environment. Spoil a club. Any of a number of social activities can be set askew if not outright destroyed by one person, or several, for that matter, who bring a nasty, non-cooperative attitude to the table. You want proof? Pick up some studies on sociology and behavioral psych.

However, that's not what we're talking about. What Quas is apparently talking about is being "forced" to kill PCs. Or something like that. I'm not sure how insulting a lich "poisons the convivial atmosphere" of a group (unless lich=DM). I also don't see how a character who is insulting to a lich is trying to destroy the campaign.

Well, let's see - exploiting an unbalanced advantage and initiating hostilities in a situation that you know the other PCs can't handle, check. He's being a jerk. Being a jerk and hiding behind the classic saw of "'I'm only playing my character!" is fairly typical of folks who're only concerned with their own fun.

I'm not blaming him for his players being immature (which is even debateable for some of his examples above). However, immature players don't destroy a campaign. I DMed when I was 10, I believe I was immature at the time, and so was everyone that played with me. Somehow none of my campaigns were destroyed. Hmmm... I wonder how that could be?

You were all immature, therefore that was the expectation at the table. I doubt that if you took your 10 year-old self and sat him down at a table today the behavior that was accepted back then would be acceptable among a group of deep-immersion roleplayers now; children of that age simply do not possess the emotional maturity of adults. Sadly, it seems, our hobby also attracts those who haven't developed that same emotional maturity as adults.

Google up some information on social contract; it could be educational. Some reading up on management theory in the workplace is also pretty useful, as are the dozens of sites, blogs and other material regarding GMing online.

Apparently Quas considers his expectations to be identical to the "campaign". When his expectations are not met in certain ways, either by character death, TPK or some other events, he considers the campaign "destroyed". Paradoxically, he is the sole authority on what constitutes the campaign (no opinions of the players are discernable in his assessment of what constitutes a "destroyed campaign") and yet he is apparently unable to get what he wants from his players.

People game to have fun. A gaming group, presumably, wants to have fun as a group. When you have a player being selfish and immature, that can spoil a campaign. As for being the "sole authority"...ah, no. While Quas hasn't expressed the opinions of his players, it seems pretty likely they weren't too thrilled by this one player's asinine behavior either.

He doesn't stop them from insulting the lich, he doesn't stop them from running off into the dungeon on some tirade. Apparently he believes that the players should be able to do whatever they want with their characters. He lets the dice fall (as I would) but yet the outcome is somehow considered a failure. Why would he continue to DM in a "gamist" style when apparently he is a story-teller DM at heart?

So which is it - kill the characters or allow free-roam? You're contradicting yourself here. Forge-esque game theory really doesn't have any bearing here, other than to use important-sounding phrases like "gamist" and "simulationist" and "storyteller"; they're without inherent meaning and used out of context.

What I was really trying to get across is that Quas' expectations are contributing to his definition of "destroyed campaign" and that I think he should take another look at how his expectations and those of his players are matching up (or not matching up). People that don't do what you want them to do are not immature. (Something that I think a lot of parents should think about.)

That's a good point - however it's pretty clear from Quas example that the player(s) in question were plainly dissatisfied and acted in an immature manner, essentially throwing a fit when things didn't go their way. It's "acting out" in the worst possible manner, by being selfish and deciding that others' fun isn't as important as theirs. In many cases, that acting out is exacerbated by a GM who isn't willing to assert their authority and ensure that everyone has a good time; they're usually frustrated by the point that things are out of control that they don't act rationally. It's nonetheless incumbent on the players, who're participating in a group activity, to not act like naughty schholchildren.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I had a player once destroy his own character by accident. He was a freaky little character, but fairly well integrated into the group. An illusionist that gave a different name every morning and was prone to "wearing" illusions. Was a big worshipper of one of the gods of illusion and theft, maybe Shar.

He'd aquired an artifact mirror that had a chance of making any illusion cast into it become real (but only last as long as the original spell) but also had a chance of using a wild surge table. Well, one day he accidentally has the wild surge go off and he turns himself into a shadow for a while. Not a bad thing, since it made him mostly immune to attacks.

The party gets in a pinch and he gets the idea of casting an illusion of the mirror into the mirror. I twitch and let him roll. He botches it. He rolls the wild surge. It comes up "catastrophic." So the mirror reflects a mirror, which reflects a mirror into the first mirror, which etc, etc. I use the "opposing spell turning" table to decide the result, letting the player roll the dice: shift to other plane. He rolls the dice on a planar table. Boom! Right to the positive elemental plane. No big right? Wait, he's still a shadow!

So he vanishes silently into the endless white. The other players say, no problem, I'll use a wish. Wait, that only works if you know the person's real name. Clerical bring 'em back? Need some body part. As a wraith there isn't even ash. So they decide to use some high level magics and petition his god for his soul. We pull out the original D&Dg to look up the particular deity's personality. Hmmmm, it seems he is a selfish god who clutches the souls of the dead like the valuable riches they are and never allows them to be resurrected as he is particularly jealous of heroes' souls. (Note: the player picked this god out of the D&Dg on their own)

We scratched our heads. We hemmed, we hawwed. We could come up with no way to resurrect the character without breaking with internal consistency. He was dead, doobie-doobie, dead. The player laughed and laughed as he realized just how dead he was. He really wasn't upset, he was actually proud that he'd actually managed to become a great hero, save the world, etc, etc. and none of his companions knew his real name! That he'd become one of his god's most treasured possessions was just kind of icing on the cake.

So while it isn't necessarily campaign ending, sometimes players will destroy their characters in unexpected fashion that a DM can't ret-con without taking out continuity.

 

[Banshee16]

I had a player in my game about 15 years ago who destroyed the campaign. I had purchased the Ravenloft set, and decided to bring their Dragonlance characters into Ravenloft. One of the players had heard of Ravenloft, and when he saw he looking through the book, he had his character go crazy, and kill the other PCs, then, I believe himself.

After that, I never really played with him again.

Banshee

 

[kigmatzomat]

That wasn't me. But I will *never* play a Ravenloft game. I can't tolerate the setting. In part, I hate the setting b/c it always seems to inspire DMs to change a working campaign into something completely different. If you want to run Ravenloft, tell the players you are going to run a Ravenloft game. But don't say "I'm going to run Dragonlance" and then have the mists sweep them off to Ravenloft.

I also dislike the setting b/c it just feels forced. A campaign setting based on kidnap is just an irritation. I'd actually consider playing a game where the characters were born in Ravenloft but for some reason no GM ever seems to want to run one of those.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'm all for kinetically maturing people. I've seen people that need to be matured right upside the head.

You've been sig'ged!

 

[Agent Oracle]

Seen it? Heck, I DID it! I was playing a monk in a campaign where it was pretty clear that my character concept didn't fit the outside world. (I was being a bit of a loonie, and created a monk who wanted to be the ultimate blacksmith, but the GM was running a very, dead serious campaign, and I wanted to make a new character.)

So, i just started running my monk in a suicidal manner. I stopped asking for healing. charged into be a front line combatant.

Three game sessions later (so... much.... plot... so... little... combat!) I figured out that my natural healing from resting (which i was marking down every day) was more than enough to overcome all damage dealt by the enemies that the GM threw at us. Finally, after a particularly rough day, I was down to 22 hit points (but didn't complain), and had a GMPC turned NPC challenge me to a duel. I set up a 10x10 space for us to fight in (the GM though I was mad). and we started the fight. The GM beat me for initative (I had 23, she had... well, a cat/human/serial killer hybrid) and got in the first blow... a sneak attack for 32 damage.

I smiled and said "well, I'm dead".

She smiled and told me that I was still in the fight. I told her "no, i mean i'm at -10. I'm 'dead'."

She paled, and grabbed my character sheet, and pointed out how I should have a little ver 50 hp remaining. I told her that I hadn't been healed in several days, and didn't ask for any healing. She retconned that my monk had been healed immediately before the fight to full health, and started the fight over again.

Darn it, i really wanted that character to die.

 

[gizmo33]

And over time, can ruin a campaign.

Just wanted to point out that we agree (before I got into disagreeing). What we disagree on is whether or not this is occuring in Quas' game.

You want proof? Pick up some studies on sociology and behavioral psych.

Don't need proof - we already agree - in fact AFAICT you're just restating what I said (and being patronizing in the process). "Studies on sociology" - don't you think there are probably a lot of those? Are they all relevant to the topic?

Being a jerk and hiding behind the classic saw of "'I'm only playing my character!" is fairly typical of folks who're only concerned with their own fun.

Probably - but one of my points was that it was a mistake IMO to continue to DM and play the game. So now not only is the player hiding behind the "I'm playing my character" but possibly the DM is hiding behind the "I'm just DMing" thing instead of stopping the game and solving the problem, where, IMO, it's deserves to be solved.

I doubt that if you took your 10 year-old self and sat him down at a table today the behavior that was accepted back then would be acceptable among a group of deep-immersion roleplayers now;

Well, I certainly wouldn't be surprised by the play-style of 10-year-olds. I think I would have a blast gaming with 10-year-olds (at least once). If I got angry or felt the need to call them immature, IMO you'd be justified in wondering who it was that needed to grow up.

I'm not saying that Quas was naive in this situation, but I AM saying that he probably needs to view this as an issue of expectations.

Viewing this as entirely a situation of immaturity really negates the expectations of the players in the group, which IMO is a mistake. Someone who wants to hack and slash is not immature. Of course there are examples of immaturity on the part of players within Quas' scenarios, but there's also just instances of differing expectations. Since the DM knows his campaign world, and really is in charge of it's direction, IMO it falls much more to the DM to sort these situations out.

Google up some information on social contract; it could be educational.

Google up patronizing, IMO it would be far more relevant and educational. It's not clear in this situation that there's any violation of a "social contract" unless you define social contract to mean "what the DM wants to happen".

Some reading up on management theory in the workplace is also pretty useful,

Now I suspect we have nothing in common philosophically. Management theory is like eating food off of the floor - it's not all bad for you but I wouldn't recommend it.

So which is it - kill the characters or allow free-roam? You're contradicting yourself here.

Only because you don't understand my definitions AFAICT. Allowing free-roam means allowing PCs to get killed. I wouldn't recommend this to Quas though - I think it contradicts his gaming style.

Forge-esque game theory really doesn't have any bearing here, other than to use important-sounding phrases like "gamist" and "simulationist" and "storyteller"; they're without inherent meaning and used out of context.

I'm not quoting anyone in this case, and I was trying to find terms that would capture the differences that I saw in Quas' actions vs. his expectations. I didn't choose the terms to sound important, but just to sum-up differences. Those terms weren't used "out of context", you're just trying to apply a context that you understand to what I was saying - which is mixing up two different issues.

it's pretty clear from Quas example that the player(s) in question were plainly dissatisfied and acted in an immature manner, essentially throwing a fit when things didn't go their way.

I can agree with you that this definitely happened in at least some of what Quas was describing. However, if a player were to threaten another player at my gaming table, I think we'd all stop the game and get things sorted out. Acting immaturely is really beyond the game at that point - and continuing to play, to the point that you "destroy the campaign" IMO is not a good way of handling what IMO is a non-game issue.

DMs in Quas' situation can't control everything that everyone does at their table - but they CAN control their campaigns. They can set expectations, and stop the game when it breaks those table rules. For example - in my game there is no PvP without both parties agreeing. I don't watch PvP, continue to play the game, let it "destroy the campaign" and then wonder afterwards what happened. Well - actually - I did - at one point. But then I starting figuring out things about players expectations and it made these situations a lot better. But IMO you can't solve a problem when you're not asking the right question. And so far, with all due respect to Quas, who was having a problem that I've had in the past, I didn't think he was asking (implicitly) the right question.