You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[Dragoslav]

Aside from being (perhaps dubiously) useful in crossing deserts, giant centipedes are also useful for killing PCs, as I learned from my first session GMing last night.

EDIT: (The following story is from playing Shadows of Esteren, not D&D)

One of my players also threw an interesting curveball my way last night (We were running a game called Shadows of Esteren). They were in a ruined refinery, and one of the PCs had been dragged into a large vat containing a carnivorous mutant plant. Another player's PC had been peering into an adjacent vat out of curiosity. Since the only way to attack the heart of the plant was to get inside the vat by climbing the ladder into it, the player, whose PC is sort of a gadgeteer, decided to fashion a molotov cocktail using some lamp oil, a strip of cloth from her tunic, and her mechanical lighter and then throw it into the vat containing the plant and the other PC.

So there were a couple of problems here. 1) I was only expecting players to fight the monster from within the vat if they were going to fight it at all. 2) I had to adjudicate the DC of arcing an explosive into a nearby vat. 3) There are no rules for non-magical weapons with an area of effect.

In true "roll dice or say yes" fashion, I told the player to make a Craft check to make the molotov cocktail in one round, and then she could throw it on the next. She passed, and on the next turn, she threw it. I put the DC fairly low, since she only had to throw it into the middle of a 16-foot diameter vat and didn't need to arc it since she was on the same level. So then for the damage I just used the damage for a low-level magic spell (the rules for magic are pretty uniform, so it was easy), and since it's a plant I ruled that it didn't get a chance to resist due to its vulnerability to fire. Then I agreed to say that the plant was taking ongoing damage as the fire spread, especially since the plant had so many HP that I didn't think it would matter -- the trapped PC got digested by the plant and everyone ran off, as I had hoped. (it was a dream sequence, so I killed the whole party)

 

[Celebrim]

Hrm, you don't see the irony in this statement?

No, I don't. There is no irony in the statement. It's something I take pride in. I've crafted a game where there is real value in having skills, and where they guy with skills is just as capable of a problem solver and is just as useful to the party as the guy who invests in being able to conjure giant centipedes or the guy who specializes in hitting things with sticks until they stop moving.

Use rope was dropped because it was considered useless, but, in your game, it's used all the time. And you wonder why I'm questioning you about forcing skill checks over and over again until the players jump through enough hoops to make you happy.

No, I don't wonder why you are thinking that. I know why you think that. Clearly you are describing things that actually happened to you, and the potential misuse of skills as mere passive keys to unlocking further progress is a potentially failing of design that I've been trying to address since noting the problem in Call of Cthulhu in the early '90s. Nonetheless, you thinking that use rope is used all the time in my game because I'm making players jump through enough hoops to make me happy, is something that is occuring in your head and has nothing to do with what occurs in my game. Use rope is used in my game all the time because allow success with a use rope check to be meaningful. In other words, it is my goal to make skills as powerful of problem solvers in my game as spells are so that a person who is a 'skill monkey' doesn't feel disadvantaged against a spell caster and feels that the resources he has are useful and worthy. This is entirely a different approach to the use of skills that you are imagining. In my games skills don't merely serve as passive instruments for overcoming arbitrary problems that DMs put in their way, but as a means of active and creative problem solving. Players with 'use rope' respect the skill because they know that I will let them solve problems with it. They know for example, that I'll allow thier ranks in use rope to substitute for their attack bonus when attempting to lasso a target. They know that I'll let them build solutions out of rope, swing across chasms, trips monsters, pull them into pits, or whatever.

This extends to all skills and the entire structure of my rule set. It's why I've added to the skill list things like 'Run', which increases you base movement speed, or 'Porter' which adds to your encumbrance load, or 'Leadership' and 'Tactics' which lets you apply buffs to and remove certain debuffs from your allies even if they have a magical origin, or Hypnotism which lets you counter certain mind effecting spells, or Astrology which lets you emmulate certain spells on a nightly basis, or why I allow 'Heal' to be used to actually restore hit points. It's why uses of Tumble that are 'epic' in the normal rules of the game are ordinary and expected in my game. In short, Use Rope is prized not because it is a cure for being disempowered, but because it is empowering.

You have everything absolutely backwards.

The only reason they think the skill is important is because you're going to beat them around the head and shoulders with the punishment stick if they don't do what you want. "Ha ha, you don't have use rope, you can't tie a knot, you fail."

Which I continue to protest is just a bizarre way to look at an RPG. If you don't have Use Rope, it's true that you aren't a very reliable tier of knots. If you don't have Tumble, it's true that you aren't a very reliable acrobat. If you don't have Bluff, it's true that you aren't a very reliable liar. But it's equally true that if you don't have sufficient BAB, you aren't a very reliable melee combatant. If you don't have a spell list, you aren't a very reliable caster of fireballs. How is it me punishing someone for simply enforcing the rules? Should I allow people with out 3rd level arcane spell slots to cast fireballs? Show I allow people without full BAB to be successful with every attack? Should I allow anyone to succeed automatically at any doubtful proposition? Just because the structure of this particular rules sets treats casting spells, swinging swords, and tieing ropes as mechanically different actions doesn't mean that I should depricate the ability to tie a rope. Disparate mechanics or not, all should should be equally valid expenditures of chargen resources leading to the ability to grab spotlight and have those shining moments of awesome.

All the while you're patting yourself on the back about how true to the simulation you are being. Blech, no thanks. When the simulation only ever reacts in the most negative way possible, then that's not a simulation, it's the DM being a jerk.

What evidence do you have other than your own imagination that the simulation only ever reacts in the most negative way possible? You have never sat at my table. You don't know my rule sets. You don't know the kinds of stories that are created through our play. I keep providing you concrete evidence from my sessions that all your imaginings and slanders are merely that. You accuse me of changing the weather simply to thwart creativity, and I provide you clear evidence that was merely bile on your part. You accuse me of using skills to disempower players. But where do you have evidence of that? What concrete example from play at my table do you have as evidence that skills are disempowering?

So, you completely misread the player, completely fail to understand what the player is signaling to you, and, even after the player has specifically TOLD you that he doesn't want to do something, it's still that player's fault and that player should simply shut up and play whatever you want to play. The fact that the rest of the group wants to get to their destination, and is perfectly happy skipping over the desert journey doesn't matter either. The player has somehow challenged your authority, and you are 100% wrong in your interpretation, but, it's still the player who is at fault?

There is this fundamental assumption that what is going on at any moment in a story is a contest between the players and the DM. You have this assumption even when you are speaking positively about what you consider the right approach to story telling - "I'll get them next time." And that all the players are lined up on one side against their foe the DM and that all players fundamentally want the same things that you do. But all these things you use to describe a RP session have no relationship to what is going on at my table. At my table I have a thespian, who wants to engage in low drama and interparty RP and he doesnt' really care if combat happens or if there is a destination as long as there is an outlet for that experience. And I also have a power gamer, who wants to kill things and take their stuff, and he doesn't really care for mysteries, or storylines, or role-playing as long as he gets regular outlets for spot lighting his character's prowess in combat and getting loot. And I another player at the table who wants the pure vicarious experience of story, who told before the game (because I sent out a list of questions asking players what they wanted) that he wanted me to railroad him through a story - and he said it in those words. And I have new players at the table for whom RP, tactical combat, exploration, intrigue, solving mysteries using detective skills, mass combat, etc. are all new experiences that wow them whenever it takes them to a new place with thoughts like, "I didn't realize you could do that in a game." I have never in thirty years of play had a single consensus amongst the players about what a game was about and what made it fun. The idea that my players would all come to an agreement that a journey through a desert wouldn't be fun, and they'd all have this concensus sight unseen of what is in the desert, is not only baffling to me but so unlikely and so outside of my experience that I just can't relate. It is, like so much of how you view the game, a description from another world. Sure I've had individual players that I know wouldn't really be into that, and I take care to address that problem by not staying in one of mode play for too long but instead trying to provide buffet like oppurtunities for what everyone likes, but that is as far as it gets.

The idea that the player to going force the group to eat only what he eats, much less force the DM to prepare only what that player likes is absurd to me. I have never DMed a group of players from all the diverse players I've DMed that would look at one of their number as being in the right to challenge the DM in that respect and insist on his way and look favorably on that.

Interesting approach to DMing there.

You know I have no idea what you think that my table is like. I can tell you one thing, no one has ever left my table with the sort of chip on my shoulder against DMs that you have. I have no need to defend my DMing abilities or my approach to the game from you. My DMing philosophy is simple. I strive to be the DM I would want as a player, and to treat my players the way I would want to be treated as a DM. I don't get a lot of complaints except from net experts such as yourself.

 

[Celebrim]

I mentioned earlier that I thought we'd eventually need to get into a discussion of what it meant to be creative and surprising to the DM, and I think that time is now.

Has anyone noticed that just about everyone has given as their examples of creativity using a spell in a way that was novel to the table? In other words, someone was saying that turning a monster invisible to escape its gaze attack was surprising and novel to at least the DM, and probably to the player because that particular use was deemed 'creative'. So we have descriptions of things like blowing up all the missiles in a necklace of missiles at the same time as 'creative', even though that's completely old school just like dropping a cavern roof on the monsters head is totally old school. And in general 'creativity' almost always seems to involve using spells.

There are several things going on here and some of them are kinda unique to D&D as a game system. One of them is this tendency to rely on spells as outlets of player creativity. The reason for that is that D&D spells each represent a unique and often vaguely defined mechanic. They are actually little tiny packets of narrative power that let the player grab narrative control and determine on a small scale and in a limited way what happens in the game. Often D&D spells are written in absolute ways - "if you do this, this happens (no save)" - like the story about using a spell to cause the castle gate to simply up and jump out of the way. They are in other words reliable propositions. The player has a reasonable expectation that when a spell is cast, a certain outcome will occur in a way that isn't really true by default of anything else in D&D.

These acts of 'creativity' are written into the game and 'surprising' to DMs because they are numerous and powerful. It's easy for a DM to overlook potential applications and to be shocked by the implications. Often because they are so numerous, they are fairly poorly thought out by the designers in terms of balance of play issues. They allow players to push 'I win' buttons, and they have a tendency to a) cause experienced players to gravitate to spell casting classes and b) make DMs rather leary of the whole Vancian system particularly in high level play. And because they are vague, and because it isn't clear that they are balanced, and because they allow players to grab narrative control reliably in a game that otherwise decidely puts narrative resources in the hands of the DM, they are a major source of table disputes and conflicts.

But I would argue that for the most part, they aren't that 'creative' in that in many cases the 'novel' use that the player puts the spell to is written into the text of the spell and is hopefully anticipated at least by the designer and has probably been a usage independently discovered at many tables by many players. It's not the creativity of the spell use that makes them really attractive to certain types players; it is precisely that they are reliable means of grabbing narrative control and that the real argument here is over the question of narrative control. And it is precisely players that want to take narrative control reliably that feel frustrated when the DM presents any obstacle to that plan for any reason - whether it really is at stake is a backlash against the percieved challenge to the DM's authority or not. The very thing that they like about the spell - reliable narrative control - is threatened, and this must be resisted.

I think Cybit really was on the right track earlier when he said:

Depends on the intent; if it is a cool one-off trick, then I think most people will be OK with it. If it's symptomatic of someone trying to power game the system, I'll either say no, or let them do it, become Standard Operating Procedure...

Now I don't agree with where he took that thought. I don't think that you need to hit back twice as hard as a DM. But the idea here in that quote, that there is something that distinguishes 'good' 'creative' uses of character resources from 'power gaming the system' is I think very important to discussing this topic and understanding each other instead of making this a substitute or proxy for DM vs. player arguments that we are dragging from the tables to the forums. In particular, what I would argue is that what makes it 'power gaming' is the desire some players have to not engage in a 'Yes, and...' dialogue between the players at the table, but to grab narrative control and dictate to the DM. Now sometimes players have symapathetic reasons for wanting to do that, like for example prior experience with DMs that refuse to relinquish narrative control and dictate to the players, but I would argue that sympathetic though thier motives would be you are exchanging one sort of disfunctionality for another.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Example: Facing a Baselisk, I used Dust of Disappearance, on the Baselisk himself. His Gaze attack requires that you be able to see his eyes, after all. Thus began a debate about whether or not there was or should be a Save against that, when the target is unwilling.

I had a thought here--this isn't really very useful.

You make it disappear, it loses it's gaze for one round but gets an advantage in attacking you with it's natural weapons. That dispels the invisibility and he can use the gaze the round thereafter.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Totally agree with this.

It seems you missed my intent with that.

Long story short, all I have seen so far out of your stories is that you feel "The DM is screwing us over" partly because that's also somewhat in line with your "I'll get them next time" DM style so you expect it of everyone. Thinking that the DM is screwing you over in the first place is definitely not contributing to the cooperation needed to create a good story. You have no trust in the DM or the players essentially. Celebrim's players now that even if it might look like he's pushing some checks, those things can still create interesting narratives and deserve to be played out. Those ride checks can certainly make the story more memorable because there can be close calls and even failures. "After a sudden turn Gloin the dwarf managed to stay on the centipede, but Hank the human cleric couldn't keep steady and fell off." And then Gloin says "If a dwarf can keep riding this thing, surely a human can too! Get up lad." And then when Hank reaches up and pulls the dwarf by the beard "NOT THE BEARD!" and they both go down and have a laugh.

Do you think failing at any one part of the game is indicative that that's the way the rest of the game will go? That's nuts. Sometimes the characters need to fail to create an interesting story. I'm reminded of the part in Lord of the Rings where Gimli is all "I have the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox!" and almost immediately the elves have the party surrounded and are saying "We could have shot the dwarf in the dark, his breathing was so loud." In short, the party failed their listen and spot checks against the hide and move silently checks of the elves. It not only progressed the story, but the audience got a chuckle out of it. And I imagine the elves and the fellowship got a chuckle out of it too once they took a step back and looked at the situation.

In short, pretty much everything in D&D can be a fun experience. It's up to the players and DM to not be so uptight as to ruin those experiences. It's a fine line between knowing what will enable memorable and exciting experiences and what will disable them, and both players and DMs have to watch out for that. Sometimes someone might go over the line and make things difficult and frustrating, but the act of getting back on track can also be rewarding in and of itself. Going even further off and into thinking that someone can't be trusted to create memorable experiences and thus should be shut down seems antithetical to really getting the most out of the D&D game.

These surprise moments might be strains on the trust between players and DMs, but they might also be enablers. It's all in how you look at them and react to them.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

I had a thought here--this isn't really very useful.

You make it disappear, it loses it's gaze for one round but gets an advantage in attacking you with it's natural weapons. That dispels the invisibility and he can use the gaze the round thereafter.

Since not everyone seems to have checked in on the item, Dust of Disappearance produces a Greater Invisibility effect. Its effect also can't be countered by magical means like See Invisibility. The item's effect lasts for 2d6 rounds, so minimum of 2 and max of 12, and no one knows how long it'll last. If the party was only worried about the gaze attack but isn't worried about attacking something invisible nor being attacked by something invisible, it's a good tradeoff.

 

[Dozen]

3) There are no rules for non-magical weapons with an area of effect.

There are, for Medium chars, anyway. Splash weapons, they call'em.

 

[TalenOrAvinair]

As a player that has ambushed a DM once or twice (maybe three times), I can tell you that the "useless" item that I've had on my character sheet for 7 levels is about to be used to do something unexpected to help the party is great.

As a GM, my party has taken a relatively simple encounter (open the door, grab the chest, run) and turned it into a two hour rube goldberg machine (use immovable rod as fulcrum for ladder to string rope from curtain rod....... ). The same party has turned the tables on me when they used acid to open a chest, bypassing a whole slew of traps and puzzles.

You win some, you lose some.

 

[Hussar]

I think that the topic which was fun to read until hissy-fits were pitched, should continue. Insults have been slung around and Hussar has clear issues with GMs and provoking it isn't going to get this topic going any further. Act like mature human beings and stop bantering openly about it like children. If you disagree, debate it, if you are going to flail about, take it to PM.

Wow. I get called immature, a problem player and told I would immediately be ejected from Celebrim's table and I'm the one throwing hissy fits.

Look, I take it like this.

If I've got five players at the table and one isn't happy, I'll change what's happening as soon as feasibly possible so that all five are happy. Throwing one player to the dogs so that I can be happy is not good DMing, in my view. Now, that said, if it's the same player every time who's having a problem, then I'll take that player aside and have a discussion. Maybe my campaign/game isn't to his/her taste and it's time to part ways, maybe there's something else going on, whatever. No harm, no foul. I have absolutely no problems with a player telling me that my game is not to their liking. Fair enough.

Having spent a fair bit of time building on the trust of my players, they know that I will do this and they don't abuse it. They know that if they're not liking whatever it is we're doing at the moment, and they are really not enjoying it, all they have to do is say something and we'll move on.

The point of the game is for everyone at the table to have fun.

The fact that Celebrim has taken my single example here and blown it up to me being a problem player who should be ejected from the game, to me, says a lot more about his game than anything else. If you go back to the original post I made, it was a single example from a single game. One episode. Yeah, if DM's start obstructing PC plans regularly, I get annoyed and stop enjoying the game. Note that "regularly" qualifier in there.

So, if making sure that everyone at my table is having a good time makes me a bad DM, I'm perfectly happy, and I'd never, ever want to be a "good" DM. Life is way too short to force players to do things they don't enjoy doing. If the players are perfectly happy playing out all the details of a desert trek, more power to you and go for it. If one of the players steps up and waves the flag of, "Let's get through this as quickly as possible", then listen to your player. At least, that's how I play.

Obviously, Celebrim takes a much more authoritative stance here and that's fine, so long as his players are groovy with it. As the saying goes, play what you like. What flies up my nose though is being told that I'm a bad player for not liking every single thing the DM puts in front of me, and just nodding and smiling and eating it. Sorry, I don't want to play games that I'm not enjoying. I guess that makes me a bad player.

Again, playing games that I'm not enjoying should not be a requirement for being a good player.

-------------
[MENTION=4078]Jack[/MENTION]inthgreen - I hope the above better shows my point of view. I do agree with you 100%. But, the thing is, that trust has to be a two way street. When the player tells you, "Hey, I'm not having fun with this, can we move on?", the first reaction should not be, "Get out of my game you horrible little whiner!"

Sitting at a table with an unknown DM, I'll give them every benefit of the doubt. I honestly will. I will sit for a long time before stepping up and saying anything. But, stepping up and saying something should not be seen as some sort of challenge to the DM's authority but rather an honest attempt to make the game more fun.

IOW, I do not believe that the DM knows best 100% of the time.

 

[Hussar]

Adding a later thought.

Here's an example from the current campaign where I'm a player. We're doing a Dark Sun 4e campaign which I am really enjoying with a great DM. Fantastic stuff. But, recently, there's been a bit of a snag. Some background:

We're trying to steal a powerful artifact from a Sorcerer King that is held in the palace grounds. To get into the palace grounds, we have discovered that we can travel through the labyrinth below the palace and come out in the right spot. Great. So, we gird up our loins and head to the labyrinth. Now, just like my last example, we have a clear goal and the campaign cannot really progress in any meaningful way until we either succeed or fail in that goal - ie. the artifact that we need.

So, we've now spent the last seven sessions in this labyrinth. That's over twenty hours of play for us. And we're not finished yet. The first ten hours were a blast, but, now, ten hours later, I'm finding my enthusiasm waning. Last session, my only comment was, "Are we close to the end of this?", which I hope didn't come out as snarky as it sounds reading it here. Like I said, I love the campaign, love the DM, but this particular scenario is really starting to drag for me.

Now, what should I do? Grit my teeth and push through? Say something? Talk to the other players? According to Celebrim, I'm a whiney, immature player (and according to others) throwing a hissy fit if I bring it up. So, what would the rest of you do? Remember, I've already gritted my teeth through the last three, maybe four sessions.

Just how long should a player just go along to get along?