When the DM goes crazy

[Quasqueton]

The PCs:

halfling wizard (rogue 1/wizard 6)
human sorcerer (sorcerer 7)
human knife fighter (rogue 1/fighter 6)
dwarf monk [~vampire - not a MM "vampire"] (monk 6 with a hat of disguise to conceal his undeadness)
bugbear fighter ["intelligent zombie"] - NPC bodyguard of the halfling wizard

None of them are Good, and the Neutrals have a lean or slight taint of some Evil. [We didn't plan the campaign to go this way, but it just kind of did, over time and situations.]

The dwarf monk was transformed into a ~vampire by a magic necklace he was wearing when he died in combat. From then on, he needed to feed on the life force (Con drain with a grapple [not a bite]) of living creatures. He got around this by using a bag of tricks which I ruled to satisfy his hunger each night. (I know some here would disagree with that ruling, but let's not get into that, here.)

So after the ill-fated previous adventure, where the dwarf became the ~vampire, the group took up another adventure. But the sorcerer has a real problem with sea travel, so they decided to go to the location by land. So what I expected to take one game session (including ~15 days of travel by ship) ended up taking 5 game sessions (including 60+ days of riding through unmapped wilderness [hills and jungle]).

During this time, the dwarf monk's Player told me he was not liking playing the character anymore. I totally understood -- he didn't really like playing the now completely Evil undead beast. He asked when would be a good time to bring in a new character. We agreed to make the "exchange" when the party reached the town they were travelling to. We figured to have the dwarf monk ~vampire "break down" and go monster. While the party was resting in the town inn (after over two months travelling in the wilderness), the dwarf monk ~vampire would sneak away and starting doing the undead predator thing.

First thing would be him attacking some folks in the common room of the inn. A cleric staying in the common room would turn the ~vampire. This cleric was the Player's new PC. So the rest of the party would come down to investigate after hearing shouting downstairs. They would meet the cleric and hear what happened. They would realize it was their friend, and would [should] take it upon themselves to find him -- to help or to end him.

The Player and I discussed several potential scenarios for handling this character exchange, and this was the one that had the best and most obvious plot hook for the group. We both thought it would make for some good role playing and good action/combat.

So, in this latest game session:
The town is a lone port in the jungle (think South American jungle of the 1500's). Everyone arrives here by ship. But the PCs arrive at the jungle gate. The captain of the guard questions them pretty hard, as it is unheard of for someone to "arrive" by land. The undead bugbear bodyguard is wrapped in a big cloak (to conceal his undeadness), and the human knife fighter has his head wrapped in clothe (normal style for this character). The captain insists they show their faces. The bugbear shows himself, to some disturbance of the guards, but this wouldn't be the only zombie in town (evil town). The human refuses to show his face on religious beliefs (something I didn't expect, but is in character for the character). The halfling wizard hints that he can offer a bribe to get in the town. The captain turns it down flatly, but the sorcerer winks at the halfling.

The captain tells them to wait off the road and he'll get back to them after checking with his bosses. A couple hours later, the sorcerer comes back and says he can let the party in (for the bribe). But the human fighter says he doesn't want to go in. They were only going to be in there for a day or so anyway, to restock food and supplies, so he's willing to just wait outside. This all happens perfectly in character, and although the decision surprised me, there's really nothing wrong with it.

The dwarf monk ~vampire Player and I exchange looks across the table. This turn of events kind of changes the scenario. Oh well, we'll play on.

The party gets three rooms (the halfling wizard and bodyguard in one, the sorcerer in another, the dwarf monk ~vampire in another -- the human fighter usually shares a room with the dwarf) in the inn. That night they hear shouts and cries from the common room downstairs. The sorcerer barracades her door and does not go to investigate. The halfling wizard hesitates a while, but eventually goes to check on what's going on (with the bugbear bodyguard).

The halfling looks down on the scene from the balcony (a man has been attacked, and a cleric [the new PC] says a dwarf vampire attacked them, but he drove him off with a turning). The halfling wizard essentially backs out of the scene and back to his room, and closes the door.

So here I am with one PC not even in the town (unaware of the plot hook), one barricaded in her room (ignoring the plot hook), and the other returned to his room (running away from the plot hook).

I have the "PC-exchanging" Player take over playing the cleric now, and through some questioning of the innkeeper, he goes upstairs to investigate the possiblility that the vampire came from an upstairs room. They find the dwarf's room empty. He tries to question the halfling who came in with the dwarf (as "testified" by the innkeeper). But the halfling says he doesn't know anything about the dwarf being a vampire.

At this point I call for a Bluff check. The halfling's Player claims he's not lying because he really didn't know the dwarf was a vampire. At this point I start steaming over. I say they did know he was a vampire -- they have known for months; they had all the evidence in the world; they had seen him feed, etc. But they all said they didn't know he was a *vampire*. They knew he was some kind of undead, but they didn't know he was a "vampire". Then I exploded with shouting, saying they're splitting hairs now. The term "vampire" had been used many times to describe the dwarf. In fact, they had fought two such goblin creatures in an adventure many game sessions back where they originally got the magic "vampire-making" necklace. But the halfling (and the others two Players) was trying to get around making a Bluff check by being technical over the definition of "vampire".

I lost it. One of my worst DM moments. Between just bad luck/timing, and lack of an adventurous spirit, and now flat out fighting against it, they were completely avoiding an obvious and personal (to all) plot hook.

In their defense, they were afraid they were going to get in trouble with the authorities for bringing the "vampire" into town. The halfling's main motivation was to avoid town-guard complications. I can appreciate this thought. But, DAMN!

We (the monk & cleric Player and myself) couldn't even get the new character introduced to the group. One Player said, in response to my outburst, "Well what do *you* want us to do, Quas? What are we supposed to do?" As if I was trying to railroad them into something.

Oh, geez. I slowly calmed down, and got a grip on myself, and apologized. But my craziness had kind of ruined the mood I had hoped this game session would have - horror of a personal friend going "monster".

We eventually got the game back "on track" (bad term, here) and we continued playing. The new PC cleric helped the group track down and confront the dwarf ~vampire. One would think this would get the new PC *in* the group solid, but no. At the end of the game session (the night after the confrontation and defeat of the dwarf ~vampire), the cleric still has not really been accepted into the group yet.

Now, let me state: I like my Players. They are actually quite a great group. They role play their characters honestly, and they generally know the rules for their characters enough to play without constantly looking through the books. We've had two years of great games. But this is not the first time I've had frustration over getting them to take up plot hooks and run with them to completion.

The dwarf monk ~vampire / new cleric PC Player commented to me later, "Just know that after last night, I'll try to be better at catching your plot hooks." He had been in on my scenario planning from the beginning, so he saw how hard I worked to make this plot hook an absolute bullseye. He then saw how absurdly difficult it became to get the PCs to pick it up.

Is there a moral to this story? I don't know. I just regret the five minutes of madness I had that game session. It was over the top. [sigh and shrug]

Quasqueton

 

[diaglo]

so is the new cleric "good" or "neutral"... since he "turned" the vampire.

the halfling wizard and his bodyguard aren't gonna like his destroying the zombie/bodyguard.

it sounds like a railroad. the best way would've been to let the others in on it sooner.

like before they went to bed. edit: meet the cleric in the common room
and talk with him, the player...

 

[ForceUser]

No plan ever survives contact with players. Learn it, live it, love it.

For instance, in my campaign this past Saturday, I fully expected the party fighter to keep in his possession an intelligent evil greatsword he'd discovered until he could find a way to safely dispose of it. In fact, the entire adventure I had prepped for the night hinged on that "safe" assumption. Instead, he dropped it on the ground in a swamp...and left it there. On the ground. Where any old creature could just come along and pick it up. Big bad super evil sword. An unexpected turn of events, and one which I'd been wholly surprised by, since it was generally out of character (though, to be fair, he'd just survived a terrible tragedy and was being heckled by the party bard to just dump it--so it wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility).

I adjusted, my plan for the night completely shattered, and carried on with what turned out to be a great evening of role-playing. When the new party cleric heard what had happened, he convinced the fighter to go back and retrieve the sword, so off they went. Thinking fast, I decided that the sword--a special purpose weapon intent on arriving at a destination--had mystically called a local hag to carry it home, since it had been abandoned. The new adventure, then, was how the party attempted to track the hag and recover the sword. And guess what? They failed, and many innocent people have died now, cut down by the sword-wielding hag on her trek north! So now the party is worried because there's a hag out there somewhere taking the weapon where it wishes to go, and they're saddened by the tragic loss of life resulting from the fighter's shortsightedness. And the fighter, he feels guilty and wholly responsible for the turn of events (which he is).

All in all, it turned out to be a solid session--but my plan, my cool plan? Gone forever. But now I get to think about outcomes that have resulted, and what's going to happen to that sword now that it's loose upon the world. Pure RBDM glee!

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Heh, one thing I've learned to do is never have a confrontational gate guard, because every time it's happened (whether I was player or GM) we had a character wait outside and a player who twiddled their thumbs for the rest of the session.

As for your main problem, now you may look at me like I'm nuts, but would it have been in the realm of possibility to say something at the beginning of the session like "Okay, <dwarf's player> and I want to set up a scene in town where something weird happens to him and you have to deal with it. You guys okay with that?" Yes, that's metagaming, but weren't you trying to accomplish a metagame goal (swapping out the PCs)?

Call me crazy, but I love metagaming. My players and I do it all the time to set up interesting scenes and situations we'd like to play through. If I turn to them and say "Okay, trust me, I'm going somewhere with this," they won't turtle up just because it's what their character would do. That doesn't mean they start playing their guy wildly out of character, but they might, say, manufacture a reason they had to leave the room even though the character wouldn't want to.

It also helps that they're comfortable with scene framing, and don't feel like it's railroading. I'll put them into a bad situation, but they're fine because they know that how they deal with it is totally up to them. If in your game the players never see the DM's hand, then when they do see it they may go "Uh oh, railroad." But the DM's hand is in there adjusting the situation all the time, and if they know that you're not going to use it to make decisions for them, they won't freeze up when they see it.

I guess the moral of your story to me is that communication is important, and that sometimes providing information to the players is more important than keeping everything strictly in character.

 

[swrushing]

Is there a moral to this story? I don't know. I just regret the five minutes of madness I had that game session. It was over the top. [sigh and shrug]

Quasqueton

Well, one thought and one technique...

Thought is you cannot always hit the ball and sometimes you will strike out. Sooner or later your PCs will just gang aglay and in spite of every effort on your part things spiral strengely. pushing harder just gets things worse.

The technique I use in these casers is the safety valve crisis.

I have one-two shorts, quirky, odd, maybe even bizarre fast unfolding action scenes (a sudden BOOM) i can throw in almost anywhere.

When a session is running akilter and not into a good place, i stop for a moment, take a quick bathroom break, and pull out one of my BOOMs. This will often get things moving away from their akilter course, give everyone some excitement, and hopefully wrap the session so i ca figure out with all the time in the world where things need to go.

Depending on levels, something like "in a flash of light a mage teleports in, wounded and gasping, and attached to his back is some bulbous pulsing buish-orange slug" followed by more mayhem. In a city, an inn, anyone can dart in with pursuit on their heels.

The keys are to make it almost seem like and planned "unexpected" event, and if you do well you can even set up some side quests following it up, but the main goal is to stop the decline right away with a fun and hopefully intriguing scene and give you a break betwixt sessions to get reoriented.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Well, the bluff check issue certainly would have gotten to me too.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I would've told the halfling player "make a bluff check." If they argued, point out a) they checked in with a dwarf, b) their dwarf is missing, and c) you *are* hiding something. A & B mean you are a valid suspect and C is the proof.

Actually, I have the players make ~10 rolls before the game starts. I have copies of their skill lists and make hidden checks for them based on their die rolls. This way I can have their dice impact the role playing by altering the NPCs reactions appropriately but they have no idea if random chance worked in their favor or not.

As far as plot-hooks go, my players pick and choose their plot hooks. Occassionally I resort to plot harpoons. A plot harpoon is basically a railroad-launched plot hook. A string of events outside of player control occur to get the party embroiled in my story. From there they can try to wiggle free or follow the rope back to the source. (I don't run railroaded plots but I'm not above using an unavoidable plot hook.)

In this case I'd have found a way to have the dwarf publicly associated with the party. Perhaps while the cleric was talking to the halfling, have the dwarf noisily sneak into the halfling's room. Or he goes to feed on the sorceror, who doesn't know he's a threat. Nothing likes screams of "Oh crap, Dwarf's a vampire! Help me halfling!" just as the halfling's denying all knowledge.

 

[Henry]

Every session has an off moment -- but the skill to improve at in DM'ing is NOT letting them show, and in being able to collect your thoughts quickly enough to plausibly alter the plan.

Forceuser's example is a fantastic instance of taking a broken egg and making Southwestern Omelettes with Ranch and Toast.

Yesterday, our GM had to alter a Mutants and Masterminds game slightly when we:

1) One of us attacked the local police instead of the enemy;
2) My character accidentally crushed a civilian who was trying to deliver us a means to fight the enemy;
3) None of us could figure out an easy way to Freeze Lake Michigan.

But we still had an awesome session.

 

[NexH]

I have the "PC-exchanging" Player take over playing the cleric now, and through some questioning of the innkeeper, he goes upstairs to investigate the possiblility that the vampire came from an upstairs room. They find the dwarf's room empty. He tries to question the halfling who came in with the dwarf (as "testified" by the innkeeper). But the halfling says he doesn't know anything about the dwarf being a vampire.

At this point I call for a Bluff check. The halfling's Player claims he's not lying because he really didn't know the dwarf was a vampire.

I think it doesn't matter if the halfling was lying or not, you use Bluff to convice someone of something, regardless of its veracity.

 

[nimisgod]

I might differ with others when I say that some railroading doesn't ruin a game. I don't hold a huge aversion to the word, but I would rather not play in a game where I had absolutely no choice in the progression of the plot. But sometimes, you really have no choice and sometimes, the players don't mind. If they don't mind and you don't mind, it's all good (in moderation, of course)

Anyhoo, I think that you were doing a swell job until the blow up. I've had a few moments of that myself, but my players deal with these outbursts relatively well... or are masochistic. It's hard to tell.

If there is a Moral of the Story, it's this: stay kewl-headed and remember why you're playing the game. If you think that you're getting angry, take a break. IMO, oftentimes, it's better to deflate the drama of a situation than risk blowing up in your friends' faces. The nice part about kewling down is that it also gives you time to adjust to the new situation and plan things out.

However, the bluff thing would've pissed me off, too. I would've called on that player, were I the GM. If he didn't roll the check, I would have done it for him.