When Players don't respect the DM's rules - Help!

[ShinHakkaider]

(since we seem to be trotting out our qualifications...as if it really means anything.)

Keep it civil man, there's no need for snark.

It's been my experience that DMs with a "my way or the highway" attitude usually get shown the highway. That's just a huge attitude throwback to the old "DM is God" dark ages of D&D. (most of the guys I play with hated that even then)

That's you quantifying your statement with your experience.

I was just doing the same.

Relax.

 

[Barak]

It can also play havoc with verisimilitude when a character doesn't fit the milieu.

It's the game master's call what's in and what's out - anyone who doesn't like that can give up a seat at the table or pick up the screen and run a game.

So... If Normand (my PC in Shaman's game) dies, my idea of a dwarven sorcerer.. is out?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I thought the WotC boards were supposed to be worse than this one, but not today. I'm ashamed to see this.

The "problem player" can try to be a DM sometimes too, and can then add as much or as little to the campaign as they want.

New rules make things more complicated for DMs, whether these rules be underpowered, overpowered or neither. Trying to take advantage of a newer DM isn't fair. Forcing a DM to allow something they are uncomfortable with is unfair, too.

 

[Barak]

One problem is the "Core only, anything else, ask me first" policy.

I know, because that used to me my policy. It's a huge pain in the.. err.. neck.

The following is all things that happened to me under said policy.

-Players each give a long list of crap they want you to consider. They then use none/very little of it, meaning you wasted your time.

-Players get stuff from the weirdest places. Sometimes, individually it's ok. But when combined with something else from another player, it's weird/incompatible.

-Players get upset because you approve something from one player, and not from them. Sometimes the things in question are even from the same source.

-Players ask you to look at something, you forget/don't have time, they get upset.. Gah.

Now, we decide from the get-go what's available and what's not. And there's no discussion -afterwards-.

 

[The Shaman]

So... If Normand (my PC in Shaman's game) dies, my idea of a dwarven sorcerer.. is out?

'fraid so - but a dual-wielding drow ranger isn't off the table!



Our game is d20 Modern, set during the Algerian War in the 1950s. All of the player characters are French Foreign Legion paratroopers.

One player approached me about joining the game and indicated that he wanted to play a chaplain character. The concept was interesting, but I said no because the character fit neither the setting nor the adventures, which focus on squad-level counter-insurgency action. The plausibility and verisimilitude of the setting breaks down if it becomes necessary to explain again and again why a chaplain is accompanying these paras on patrols and raids - of the eight adventures that make up the campaign, inclusion of a chaplain character was reasonable in maybe three or four encounters at most.

In this game, the verismilitude of the setting is important to fostering the suspension of disbelief and creating an immersive environment for the players to explore. The chaplain character worked against creating that environment.

I offered a couple of suggestions to the player on characters that could present similar roleplaying and character build opportunities, but in the end the player opted not to participate.

I laid out the groundrules for character development in advance - what books were available, starting level, and whatnot, plus a couple of historical bits to give the players a sense of time and place. By making the characters members of the Foreign Legion, the players had nearly unlimited latitude with respect to race and national origin for their characters. Any Modern base class was available, and supplements including a third-party source for advanced and prestige classes are available as the characters advance. The only requirement on the characters was to invest at least one rank in two different skills to represent their basic training.

In exchange the players needed to make characters that fit the milieu: a squad of paratroopers battling insurgents.

Now, could the advocates of "compromise" explain how this game would be better by allowing a character that didn't fit the setting or the adventures?

 

[Barak]

'fraid so - but a dual-wielding drow ranger isn't off the table!



*snip* (Shaman explaining the game setting)

Of course, your big advantage in this case is that the game is D20 Modern, set in a historically accurate setting, and in a military unit to boost. Someone wants to play a female character? Well, there's documented proof that there were no women in the legion. Obviously, a 12 years old character would be innapropriate as well. You explained well why the chaplain doesn't work.

If one plays D&D, it's not as clear-cut. Most published settings go out of their way to accomodate as many supplements as possible (at least WOTC ones), and said supplements usually justify their existence in published settings as well (book of *whatever*, for example, will state *whatevers*, in FR, can be found *wherever*). Then you have homegrown worlds. Those are a bit easier for the DMs to state a firm no. But in most cases, they aren't 100% developed, so the easy justification isn't there.

And lastly, parties of adventurers, unlike military units, don't usually have firm rules regarding who can join up. That opens up more options, which can be good. But it removes from the DM the "easy out".

 

[Jim Hague]

OK, my advice would be, get the group together and hammer out some common rules. Is it core only, are certain supplements allowed? WHich ones? etc. And then go with that no matter who is DMing. (this is how my own group does it) The inexperienced DM will just have to come up to the challenge. (It's not rocket science...actually the EL/CR thing is an imperfect system whether its core only or wide open)

I disagree though, that its not an ego/control/authority issue. From where I'm sitting, thats exactly what it looks like. The OP said that it all ended up working out, but still had the niggling feeling that he'd been undermined. So never mind that it worked out in the end....it didn't work out HIS way, hence the post.

QUOTE
"However, I feel like I should not have caved. It's not about character stats, it's about this player not respecting me or my rules. I don't want to be unable to keep up with new material, especially new material from books I don't own.

The most awkward part is, the problem player hosts the games, so I don't feel like I can lay down the law as much as I'd like to. If necessary, I can probably see about someone else hosting the game, but I'd prefer not to do so."
UNQUOTE (emphasis mine)

Here you have a guy who would consider switching up the group and dumping one guy because he's not being afforded due respect? Oh yeah...it sounds like an ego thing.

ANyway, I'm just saying that I feel that some sort of group consensus is in order. As I said before, I have no way of knowing if the rest of the group embraced the core-only thing, or just merely went along with it. It could be that the other player was out of line. I don't have the whole story. Was the offending player guilty of wanting special treatment? I don't see that. I see that he just wanted to play the way the group had already established in prior campaigns.

If there's ego here, it's with the problem player. He's the one making demands others find unreasonable. There's nothing wrong with consensus, but when it comes to GMing, the task which takes more effort than simply playing in a lot of cases, the buck stops there. I don't think Elephant should have followed the problem player after his tantrum, nor do I think he should have caved to what's essentially a hissy fit.

 

[LostSoul]

Now, could the advocates of "compromise" explain how this game would be better by allowing a character that didn't fit the setting or the adventures?

It's not like you have to accept the character 100% as he is in order to compromise.

You could say something like, "Dude, I don't know how I'm going to work your guy into the game. I'll have to explain why he's around all the time, and that'll break my suspension of disbelief. It'll be less fun for me."

Then he says, "Well, what if I..." and finishes with by suggesting a change to his character that solves most of your issues. And he also suggests a slight change to the campaign that makes the rest of your issues go away.

 

[Jim Hague]

Heartily agree.

A couple things (a closing argument if you will)

-Remember that this guy (the offending player) is one of the boys. Sometimes even your best buds have bad moments. Sounds like this guy is usually a good guy. Would it be worth it to actually get rid of a pal just to avoid having to allow supplements? Anyway, it sounds like you're on the right track.

-I hate psionics. Really, really do. Didn't ever want to have to deal with them in game. But I had a guy (who's still with us) who bought the psionics book and really wanted to use it. I was torn, but ultimately what decided it for me was the thought that "here's this guy...he works for a living, got a wife and kid. My D&D game is HIS night out. I figure if he wants to drop what little fun-money he has on a shiny new book, he's probably looking forward to using it. So why the heck would I not let him use it?" And it wasn't a game breaker.

As a side note, I learned the psionics rules this way. Still could do without em', but I'm not averse to using them if a player really wants to play a psion either.

I see about half the posters here see it as the DMs game where he has sole say in what rules get used. All I'll say is that I disagree. It's been my experience that DMs with a "my way or the highway" attitude usually get shown the highway. That's just a huge attitude throwback to the old "DM is God" dark ages of D&D. (most of the guys I play with hated that even then)

So you're not ramrodding them into a rule-set when you sit down with the group and say "what should our rules be?" As a group, you'd define the rules, then as the DM (you or any of the others) would apply them. This'd be the ideal solution from my end. This way you eliminate the control issues that are getting in the way of the group's good time.

I love how the otherwise mild anti-authoritarian streak among a lot of gamers explodes into this "Down With the Man!" attitude in these threads. Really, I do. I love the loaded language (like "ramrodded") that gets used, I like the flase emphasis employed to make it seem like the GM/DM is some kind of ogre for wanting a game that's controllable, which is especially important for a new DM...like Elephant, say. This isn't a 'control' issue, nor is Elephant being some sort of iron-fisted dictator.

I've GM'ed for most of my 20 year gaming history, and the lesson I've seen repeated again and again is don't bite off more than you can chew. A first-time/inexperienced DM is perfectly within their rights to lay out the house rules - things like a core-only game, for example. This is neither unreasonable nor dictatorial. Maybe when they pick up the rules better, it's reasonable to introduce extra rules beyond Core. But at the beginning? Get outta town.

Folks like you, Shadowslayer, seem to expect the DM to roll over and blithely accept kitchen-sink games, even though it's pretty well-established that a lot of kitchen-sink games are a PITA to adjudicate, let alone keeping track of the rules that players introduce. Even myself, as an experienced GM, got to 'enjoy' the horror of a kitchen-sink game and what effect broken or untested rules have. It wasn't fun for me, and it was only fun for the powergamers and min-maxers at my table, which left half the group scrambling for an even playing field, which ended up wrecking the campaign.

In the meantime, for Elephant's critics, I direct you here:

http://sean.chittenden.org/humor/www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

Compromise, it's said, is everyone giving up something so nobody's happy. Listening to player wants is one thing; letting them wreck the game and make things difficult for the DM is another entirely. And that, IMO, is what kitchen-sink games do most of the time.

 

[Shadowslayer]

Keep it civil man, there's no need for snark.

That's you quantifying your statement with your experience.

I was just doing the same.

Relax.

Alright, you got me there. My apologies. Sorry about the snark.

Actually, I'm just trying to help give this guy a little different perspective than what's been voiced by most here.

Which means it's the players' turn to make characters that work in the setting that the game master brings to the table, under the rule books approved by the game master.

When it's someone else's turn to sit behind the screen, then the player will have the opportunity to create a different character, perhaps one incorporating material from a wider range of sources.

OK yes, that's what everyone seems to be saying. I get that.

But I'm standing here and now telling you there's different ways of looking at things. That it CAN be a group consensus. It doesn't HAVE to be "the DM laying down the law" I'd even go so far as to say that among friends, you shouldn't have to "lay down the law"

Anyway, all this really doesn't mean anything except in practice. The end result is all that matters.

As I said before, try it my way, brush aside any control issues, have faith in your friends, and I'll guarantee good results and a fun game for all.