Would you quit a game if....

[chubbyloremaster]

I wanted so much to see a thread like that in my gaming life. I am so touched Sir, really because you have the courage I didn't had especially today.

I also had a player who said the same thing as you did. I even invented a mechanic for him so as in pulp games he would always survive but it became much worse after that. If you let your player dictate you your game they will want more. Today I ended a long running game due to this player and I feel happy about it.

He was very invested in the character, read all the important books and after months of arguing over stupid rules and problems I decided to give him the reins. He woudl give me the location and some small background and I would designe an adventure from these informations, and it work well with the group. I thought, ALL WENT WELL AT LAST, no worries right? Nope can't do! His small informations became more extensive , more detailed, but even tough I still did it because who cares, player happy, DM happy (I only focus on the story so if the story is good although not directed by me I learned to be happy for what I get from the game).

Today I did something you most DMs probably would consider a benefit for the game. I had a long running lazy flaw which most DMs have. I described monsters and enviorment with absolute definitions e.g. "You see two ghouls they are staring at you with saliva dripping out of their mouths". Thanks to an online DM I decided to cut this and become more narrative, making the monsters more mysterious. The PCs went to a sealed tomb of a Shadow Daemon which was protected by few lesser shadows. They fight the shadows, breach the door to the final chamber and see that the altar is covered with a long cloak. The cloak starts levitate and shapes into a humanoidal black form with wings and horns (it was dark there so i decided to ommit details like claws and ugly facial expression). The main hero of this story a Paladin uses detect evil and he recived information that he senses a strong aura of evil from this fellow. He uses smite evil and charges him. In pathfinder when a paladin smites evil he gets bonus dmg agains evil creatures and he doubles this bonus if enemies are Evil dragons, undead or daemons. SO he asks me whether he is an undead or a deamon so he can calculate the dmg. I refuse to tell him that and I calculate the extra dmg in secret saying that the creature received a horrible wound and the shiny sword pushed him back. He then starts arguing that I just broke rules which were used since the very begining and that he demands his right to know whether he did this bonus DMG or not. He distrusts me so much that he refused to just go with it and I orderd the game to a halt and waited for the reply from the paizo forums. When the helpful DMs and Players on that messageboards agreed to my right to do as I did we returned to the game and ended it quite well on a very pleasant note. After that the arguing continued. I was acused of being a control freak that I don't treat the players as equals and my meddling in the system is of an RPG-idiot. The player wanted to provoke me and intimidate me into doing his biding and to stop any future changes or house rules. He quit the game saying that No one will play with me anymore beside people who want to be my thralls.

I only replied "Go ahead Sir Samuel Adams, make your tea if thats what you want."

I forgave him so many times but this will be the last time as he said it himself.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It wouldn't have mattered if I had a stated character ready to go they were on a small boat and they were the only ones on it so it would have been impossible to add a new character right then and there,

Which is why I said:

All they need to go is level-appropriate gear and DM intro.

3) while I sit out sans PC, I make myself useful by helping the DM run combats. Sometimes I do this when my PC becomes severely incapacitated (stable but in negative HP, turned to stone, etc.).

IOW, I have no expectation of my new PC suddenly appearing mid-adventure like a Romulans Warbird off to starboard.

***

One could argue anything about D&D along those lines; trolls are unkillable since PCs won't necessarily have access to acid or sufficiently damaging fire. One could claim that a creature with high SR is overpowerful since a party may not have any fighters in it. You said "Barring some HRing", but I think D&D 3 RAW and AAW (adventures as written) assumes that you have a cleric with caster level close to that of the party.

1) Equating scarcity of supplies means trolls are "unkillable" with scarcity making Raise Dead unavailable in a timely fashion is a straw man. If the campaign is set any time post stone age, acquiring fire is just a matter of time- at some point, the party will have access to what they need to kill trolls. Until they do, though, trolls ARE essentially unkillable. RD, OTOH, has a built in time limit. If not cast within a certain number of days, it will not work.

2) Creatures with high-SRs ARE powerful if the casters are unprepared and there are few warriors in the group. And the more base casting classes there are, the more likely it is that the casters won't be prepared for high-SR foes because not every base casting class has a spell list or inherent flexibility to cover all the potential weaknesses and immunities as may be found in D&D..

3) Party composition has ZERO to do with HRing or AAW in any edition of the game. Even though 1Ed assumed a mix of the base 4 classes + others, a lot of the games' designs ran campaigns that skewed far from that. The adventure Vecna Lives! has an intro based on one such campaign- all of the PCs were high-level Wizards.

In sum, these 3 points add up to this: if he's running a premade adventure, it's a DM's job to assess whether the encounter as written is too easy or too hard for the party in front of him (in terms of composition AND current condition), and to adjust as needed.

 

[TimA]

On the original topic I would have booted the player right up front for that.

Just TBH he's probably going to die sooner or later, every character does unless the DM protects them. I dont give PC's plot armor or anything of the sort. I think its silly and detracts from the game.

So since this guy was going to walk sooner or later anyway I would figure its much less disruptive to just boot him early before building social ties with the group.

Sometimes its much easier to head these problems off at the pass rather then waiting until they happen.

 

[Chimera]

Without Malice, Irritation or Apology, my answer would be 'no'.

Do you still want to play?

Yes? Ok, let's rock. (Just remember this conversation ends here)

No? Oh well, good luck with your next group. Hope you find something that works for you.

 

[Water Bob]

Like I think Umbran said, you both seem to be reading stuff more negatively than intended.

I mean, I don't respect Water Bob's Illusionist GMing style. I'm more a kill-the-PCs kind of guy; as GM I like the threat to be real. To me, you're both very soft-hearted GMs.

Two points:

1 - Am I knot a kill-the-PCs kind of GM if I am perceived by the players as such? And, isn't the threat just as real if the PCs perceive it to be real and act accordingly?

As I said, my players think me a hard core GM, which I am, in many respects. They haven't seen behind the curtain the what I showed you above.





2 - I don't what I said above in every situation. Sometimes, the threat is very real, and I don't have contingency plans. So, it's pretty much pot luck when I turn on the saftey net and when I turn it off.

 

[Hussar]

It's the God-given, unalienable right of...wait for it...personal taste.

Personal preference gives me that right to say, "Hey, I really don't like the way those guys are doing that. It seems stupid to me, the way they play. I don't respect it, and I'm not going to play that way."

Don't confuse that the way Elf Witch did to mean that I want to enforce my personal preference on everybody else.

In this ultra-ridiculous-PC world, people sometimes forget that it is more than OK, but your right, to have a preference--to think and declare what is right and wrong for yourself. Your own standards do not have to match everyone else's.

Well, your entire premise for this thread is telling a player that he cannot play a certain way in your game. How is that not enforcing your personal preference on someone else. After all, if you weren't the DM, we wouldn't be having this conversation since, as a fellow player, telling someone they couldn't play in a campaign because they had a different play style would be laughed at.

And, throughout this thread, people have been falling over themselves to congratulate you in keeping this self-entitled player down. Since, after all, telling the DM what your playstyle preferences are is apparently self-entitlement.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, your entire premise for this thread is telling a player that he cannot play a certain way in your game. How is that not enforcing your personal preference on someone else.

That is setting up the game's parameters- the DM's job & prerogative. Every DM does it to some degree. Every DM, no matter how permissive, has something he will not allow in a given campaign.

He is not saying he'd raise a fuss if the situation were reversed.

 

[JamesonCourage]

1 - Am I knot a kill-the-PCs kind of GM if I am perceived by the players as such? And, isn't the threat just as real if the PCs perceive it to be real and act accordingly?

It's not the same thing at all. You're denying them certain story arcs (character death, being caught by the undead, etc.) if you save them with things like an amulet that magically becomes useful in "this" scenario.

As I said, my players think me a hard core GM, which I am, in many respects. They haven't seen behind the curtain the what I showed you above.

That's the "illusionism" that S'mon mentioned. It's been talked about at some length on these boards. As always, play what you like

 

[Water Bob]

That is setting up the game's parameters- the DM's job & prerogative. Every DM does it to some degree. Every DM, no matter how permissive, has something he will not allow in a given campaign.

He is not saying he'd raise a fuss if the situation were reversed.

Yep. What he said.

It's not the same thing at all. You're denying them certain story arcs (character death, being caught by the undead, etc.) if you save them with things like an amulet that magically becomes useful in "this" scenario.

If the players never detect me doing that, and they perceive the game as very deadly, then I fail to see the difference from the players point of view.

But, yes, I probably am an "illusionist" DM. I play with a lot of smoke and mirrors.

 

[JamesonCourage]

If the players never detect me doing that, and they perceive the game as very deadly, then I fail to see the difference from the players point of view.

I do. Then again, I'd probably pick up on it. But, by not letting them die as easily, you're essentially exchanging one type of story arc for another. That is, they'll get the "this magic item does this awesome thing!" arc instead of "you lost a member who had to get left behind, or the whole party would have died!" arc.

I personally like both, but I like when it unfolds naturally. That is, the item does that thing, and when it comes up, you get the "awesome magic item!" story arc. Later on, someone might need to be left behind (where they may get to make a dramatic stand, try to divert them, or just RP some cool cowardly actions), giving you the "member left behind!" arc as well.

Essentially, by protecting the players, you're denying story arcs to them. You're okay with them dying in other ways, obviously, but certain things they may like experiencing they'll never get to because of the behind-the-scenes changes you make.

Additionally, I'm not one to lie to my players about gaming style. If my group thinks their lives are on the line because I tell them from a meta standpoint (player to player) that it's the way I play, then I'm going to run the game that way. If I say, "I'm a hardcore GM, so be careful when you make decisions; and remember, every combat is dangerous in this game, and I don't pull punches!" then I mean it. I won't pull punches, and I will kill people without hesitation. I will sympathize with them, but I won't essentially lie to them about my gaming style, getting them to buy into a game that I'm not running.

For me, if a GM told me those things and I noticed him fudging or using some deus ex machina techniques to save us, I'd feel tricked, and disappointed; it's not what I signed up for. We're all adults, there's no reason to essentially mislead me about the type of game I'm playing. I know what I like, so please, just tell me what type of game you're running, so I know whether or not I want to invest myself in it.

That's essentially the difference that you don't see. It's kind of disrespectful to me. Other people expect that, I guess, and it's not. But that's the problem a lot of people have with it.

But, yes, I probably am an "illusionist" DM. I play with a lot of smoke and mirrors.

It sounds like it. So does my brother, and he's a blast to play with (next to me, he's my players' favorite GM). As always, play what you like