You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[N'raac]

I don't feel that you really adressed the point I raised upthread - which is, why does the PC being careful rather than rushed mean that we can't resolve it quickly at the table? As I put it earlier, just because it happens in the fiction doesn't mean it has to be played out at the table. (PC urination is the poster child for this, but I would think carefully inspecting the quality of a new horse could also be up there in many games.)

Sure, but for many of us those cool things don't include lengthy narration of desert crossings, or of interviews with prospective mercenaries.

I'm not sure what source material you are referring to. I don't see main character urination in the source material I read or watch, nor do I see lengthy treks described, or interviews with prospective mercenaries, where these are pointless. I do, however, see encounters happen in the desert (or other travel) that the characters neither anticipated nor desired, I see them delayed (and sometimes frustrated by the delay) in getting from Point A to Point B and I see them either acquire a horse with great haste or spend time assessing their choices, as the fiction may demand.

If we simply say "He buys a horse" with no chance of any issue - alll horses are identical - then that takes no time. If we say that the player gets a roll to see whether he avoids a nag or picks a winner, that's a roll, so we add some time at the table. If there is a chance of something going wrong, or a prospect of something going right, I suspect the players want some control over that destiny.

Celebrim noted that he considers NPC's more important than horses, and I agree. With that in mind, I would spend more time hiring recruits than buying a horse. And I continue to agree with Celebrim's take on those mercenaries. They were invested with importance by the players deciding they were important to their success against the Grell, and that mandated giving them more personality, and air time, than some random shopkeeper. If you want to tell me they are unimportant, fine, but they will have no significant role in a battle if they are unimportant, will they?

I discussed this upthread. My take on the centipede example is this: Hussar wants to resolve the desert scene quickly; this requires at least a veneer of verisimiitude; he provides that veneer by having his PC summon the huge centipede.

The GM, by treating this not as it was intended but as a move in the dynamics of resolving the "desert challenge", has either misinterpreted or (in Hussar's view) disregarded what Hussar was trying to do.

I would say misinterpreted (Hussar's assuming the worst of the GM is, in my opinion, a significant contributor to the problem). However, I also do not believe there is any onus on the GM's part to simply acquiesce to Hussar's wishes to write off the desert travel. If the transit was unimportant, then a quick trek on foot and a rapid rise on centipedeback are equivalent - neither merits significant table time. If the transit has meaning, then by all means let's address the manner by which we cross.

As an example, while I see a lot of potential for the characters to fall off the centipede, what will the consequences be? If they are limited to "get up, brush off dust, maybe summon new centipede, get back on and carry on", I see no point playing it out. If there are encounters where this will be relevant, then let's get the details up front - don't tell me when you need to make a Ride check that "Oh, I was tied to the centipede - how can I fall off" but be riding loosely on its back if a creature attacks. Just as Hussar assumes the GM will twist the circumstances, why should the GM assume the players will not try to retcon their actions to their advantage?

I answered this upthread. The colour of a desert setting is very different from the colour of a pastoral setting. But just because I want the colour of a desert setting doesn't mean that I have any interest in resolving the minutiae of a desert trek, especially if what I"m really interested in is the action in City B.

If all you are interested is the action in City B, what difference does it make whether there is a desert or a pastoral setting to pass through, with no difficulties, challenges or time devoted, to get there? If there is a difference between the two, then that difference should impact play. Otherwise, it's not a setting - it's just a backdrop with no substance at all, and it may as well be blank white space with a line every 10 feet.

No. The current setting was, per se, neither here nor there. The player-created fiction based around that setting - relationships between PCs, interpretations of the prophecy - were what were interesting.

That the players interacted with the setting does not change it into something other than a setting. You seem to perceive "setting" as "useless flavour text".

It was the GM's invalidation of all that that, for me, wrecked the campaign (and as I stated upthread, I believe the GM did this precisely to eliminate that player control over the game and reassert his own authority over the fiction).

What is important - what he did or why he did it? Would it be all better if he did it because one of the players said "This whole Prophecy thing is getting stale, and I'm tired of wasting time interacting with all these NPC's - can't we cut scene to something else?" I hope a 100 year fast forward would meet the criteria of "once in a campaign, at most".

Out of curiosity, however, is it your view that the GM should have no control over the game/authority over the fiction, or that it should be equal to that of any other player, or the combined weight of all the players, or what? The GM is also there for leisure, and if it's no fun for the GM, there's no reason for him to stick around either, is there? [Does everyone else get paid for this and I'm just missing itin my games?]

 

[Campbell]

This might just be a matter of play style, but I don't believe anyone (including the GM) has an obligation to be meaningfully engaged. If you want someone to show interest you need to generate that interest. I tell my players if the current situation is falling flat to tell me so. Likewise if a player is pursuing something that bores me to tears I'm going to tell them to step their game up - make me care. The only way to improve play is active communication.

It is give and take, especially if their character is not currently involved. Still, I also believe there's at least somewhat of an obligation to at least be somewhat entertaining to the other participants when they aren't actively involved. I believe in being interesting at all times.

As always, play what you like.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Celebrim noted that he considers NPC's more important than horses, and I agree. With that in mind, I would spend more time hiring recruits than buying a horse. And I continue to agree with Celebrim's take on those mercenaries. They were invested with importance by the players deciding they were important to their success against the Grell, and that mandated giving them more personality, and air time, than some random shopkeeper. If you want to tell me they are unimportant, fine, but they will have no significant role in a battle if they are unimportant, will they?

I wouldn't say that the hirelings are so important that they require a lot of exposition, especially if they only show up once. In a more roleplay-centric game the players might perhaps have the expectation that they should get to know them, but in a more action-oriented game like what was presumed to be, there's little expectation to fully flesh them out because there are bigger fish to fry. There's actually expectation to get on with hiring without the RP so they can move on to more interesting bits such as combat and saving face/getting revenge. An analogy I can think of is red shirts in Star Trek. Yeah, they exist and do help the main characters here and there, but they're throwaway. They're not expected to have much, if any, exposition, especially when the episode is leaning towards action.

So in the grell situation one can assume that at least Hussar found the hireling situation tedious and unnecessary whereas the DM thought it might be interesting. Still no idea about whether the other players thought it was too, but it would be nice to know what they thought since clearly not everyone has the same expectations and tolerances as Hussar and we haven't been given the info on whether the other players were or were not. Aside from the other players though, clearly the DM either didn't give enough information beforehand to get at least Hussar interested in interacting more with the potential hirelings, and/or there was a gross miscalculation if the DM thought he had given enough reason for all the players to at least be alright with the roleplaying and maybe enjoy it once they got into it. As has been said numerous times in the thread, it's a definite miscommunication.

So, how prone does each of us think he is to have a miscommunication? And how would each of us deal with it once it happened? If I had been the DM for Hussar that time, I would hope I would have stopped and asked the entire group "I had hoped you'd interact with these characters a bit more. Clearly at least one of you doesn't want to do that, and because the one that doesn't has been put in charge of doing the hiring, we either need to skip this entirely or have someone else take over the hiring process while that one person is allowed to do something else." And of course if everyone says "It was his idea, he should do it!" and then the guy goes "If I had known it'd be a slog then I wouldn't have made the suggestion." "Is it just this time that you want to pass the roleplay, or should I expect you'll never want to bother with hirelings again?" "Why do you feel that way?" and so on and so forth until a resolution comes up.

There will need to be compromise, and there will need to be communication. And both need to be done calmly and coolly to get anything decently resolved. To that end I don't think anyone should say "You will do this" kind of things, but then again I have an aunt who thinks that she's "asking" when she says "I need you to do something for me" so I suppose I'm quite biased. I would say that going the nuclear option isn't calm or cool though since it pretty much is "blowing up."

 

[Hussar]

I would say misinterpreted (Hussar's assuming the worst of the GM is, in my opinion, a significant contributor to the problem). However, I also do not believe there is any onus on the GM's part to simply acquiesce to Hussar's wishes to write off the desert travel. If the transit was unimportant, then a quick trek on foot and a rapid rise on centipedeback are equivalent - neither merits significant table time. If the transit has meaning, then by all means let's address the manner by which we cross.

But, important to who? To the DM? How can it be important to the other players at the table? They have no reason for interacting with anything in the desert. The desert is being crossed because it happens to be in the way. It doesn't matter to the players if it was a desert, grassland or forest. It's simply space between A and B.

If I want to travel from Chicago to Las Vegas, I must cross a desert. I have no choice. That doesn't mean I have any interest in the desert. It doesn't follow that I want to spend significant time in the desert. I just want to get to Las Vegas. And the other people in my car want to get to Vegas as well.

Are there interesting things in that desert? Oh, sure. I know that. But, I don't care. I want to go to Las Vegas. Why am I being forced to stop every thirty miles to look at something else? The only person who is making us stop is the DM.

There was some noise made about sharing spotlight. It seems to me that the issue isn't players sharing spotlight, it's the DM being totally unwilling to give up the spotlight and let the players drive for a while.

 

[Hussar]

Just as a point about choosing the most punishing interpretation, let's recap shall we?

In the centipede example, Celebrim would force several skill checks that the PC's are virtually guaranteed to fail. N'raac would have elements in the desert that are key to achieving our goals at the city, but without any reason for the players to actually try to search for those keys. After all, there is no way for the players to have known about the desert nomads, nor any prisoners they had beforehand. I'm still rather confused what N'raac would have done with a group with access to teleport or Overland Flight.

In the Grell example, Celebrim would cause the group to fail off screen by having the grell just leave, even though the group is also forced to spend significant table time recruiting assistance in order to defeat the grell.

In the horse buying scenario, the player is forced to spend table time shopping for horses. If the player does not, there is a "chance" that the horse will be lame. I put that in scare quotes, because, IME, any DM who thinks this way is automatically going to have the horse be lame with an aha-gotcha moment.

Have I somehow made a mistake here? Are these not the rulings that Celebrim and N'raac are advocating?
[MENTION=37609]Jameson[/MENTION] Courage - you brought up the idea of players skipping over other player's interesting scenes. IMO, this is not a very high chance, since most players are pretty willing to sit back and let other people have the spotlight. But, in every example in this thread, it's the spotlighted player who wants to skip forward, but the DM who is blocking that. Despite all of Celebrim's and N'raac's protestations, they have not put forward a single reason why another player at the table would want to play through these scenes. We've seen many, many examples of why the DM might want to play through things, but, the other players? Pretty much silence.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Just as a point about choosing the most punishing interpretation, let's recap shall we?

In the centipede example, Celebrim would force several skill checks that the PC's are virtually guaranteed to fail. N'raac would have elements in the desert that are key to achieving our goals at the city, but without any reason for the players to actually try to search for those keys. After all, there is no way for the players to have known about the desert nomads, nor any prisoners they had beforehand. I'm still rather confused what N'raac would have done with a group with access to teleport or Overland Flight.

In the Grell example, Celebrim would cause the group to fail off screen by having the grell just leave, even though the group is also forced to spend significant table time recruiting assistance in order to defeat the grell.

In the horse buying scenario, the player is forced to spend table time shopping for horses. If the player does not, there is a "chance" that the horse will be lame. I put that in scare quotes, because, IME, any DM who thinks this way is automatically going to have the horse be lame with an aha-gotcha moment.

Have I somehow made a mistake here? Are these not the rulings that Celebrim and N'raac are advocating?

I would characterize Celebrim forcing the skill checks as being true to the game but in now way thinking they're there to screw you over. You're the one who pulled up a mount after all, so the checks are therefore expected. If you wanted to entirely ignore the desert, that was definitely not the best choice because there are rules attached that everyone is obligated to play through regardless of whether they fail or succeed. He wasn't doing it because he wanted you to fail. He was doing it because the game demanded those checks based on the situation.

Or did it? I agree that the checks could have been handwaved by simply asking what everyone's Ride modifiers were then saying "Despite falling off the centipede several times and even having to tie someone to the centipede to keep them on, you make it to the city without much problem. You can roleplay the falls if you want." You had complete control of the centipede so it's not like falling off would have been a serious thing to worry about much less enough to keep wasting time on the checks. Or perhaps a few rolls were called for and the DM used those to be the average for the trip. It's a bit like the way Heroes of Battle recommends streamlining large battles: Take the average and deduct troops and such from each side since rolling for all of them just isn't practical.

I think we need to clarify something though: You said there were interesting things in the desert, but you didn't care about them. To wit, you probably didn't think they were interesting if you didn't care about them. So, to you, there's nothing interesting. Maybe later if you cared to learn more about it, but certainly not right now. Does that seem like a reasonable way to state your opinion?

There might have been a way for the characters to know about stuff in the desert though. Knowledge checks are one example that could have been used right then and there in your game. You've never mentioned they were called for though, so it's assumed they didn't happen. Since they didn't happen, either due to the DM not cuing you guys to do it or you guys didn't show the initiative, the other option would have been to give background story before you guys arrived at the desert. Which could very well have been reasonable since the city you want to go to is on the edge of that desert and knowing the area around your point of interest could be valuable. But since you haven't mentioned whether the DM actually gave information out, it's safe to say the players and characters effectively had no reliable information on the desert and thus it's entirely reasonable that they didn't give a damn about it because there was simply no information to care about. Or the DM could have simply said "Once you all figure out where you are, you realize you know X, Y, and Z about this desert."

But keep in mind that just because your experiences are that DMs are out to get people doesn't mean that that experience is true for everyone. It quite demonstrably isn't since there are DMs who know that making players fail for the sake of making them fail is a douchebag move. Celebrim and N'raac, among others, are clearly not the same DMs that screwed you over and definitely don't have the mentality that screwing over the player is a good thing. It's actually rather sad that your experiences have led you to believe that DMs are out to get their players since such DMs have clearly failed their job of making the game work, and I hope it's something you can learn just isn't the case with a lot of them.

Going back to the grell example, I recall you said that the DM wanted the grell there for a very specific reason, so it doesn't seem likely that that DM would have moved it. Could you repeat the circumstances of that though so it's clear? If the grell is there because the DM has a definite reason for it to stick around, then having it move is definitely not in the DM's interests.

As for the horse, it's been clearly stated that having the horse turn out lame isn't a way to go "gotcha!" It's an expected possibility if the player/character hadn't put much time into making sure the horses were suitable. The trouble I see with that is having the possibility of the horse being lame could be more hurtful to the situation than simply saying "you get on a sturdy horse and get where you want to" instead of playing out the simulation. How much would having that possibility add to the game? It doesn't seem like a lot from my end, and it certainly doesn't seem like anything from yours.

 

[Celebrim]

Just as a point about choosing the most punishing interpretation, let's recap shall we?

In the centipede example, Celebrim would force several skill checks that the PC's are virtually guaranteed to fail.

Ok, so you really want to keep bringing me in to this? A DC 15 ride check leading to at most a few spills is virtually gauranteed failure for a party high enough level to be Planeshifting to the Abyss? Really? You think you are fairly recapping my views here, given my page 1 assertion that "In short, I expect none of these issues to present insurmountable problems to a party, but I do expect the journey to go less than smoothly - however much it may beat walking."?

I have covered this example in far more detail than it deserves. But since you want to provide a punishing interpretation of my views, let's recap with the gloves off this time shall we?

You want to keep misrepresenting my position, fine. It's been pretty clear from the beginning that misrepresentation is your thing. I've already done a definitive wall of text analysis to show that even on your own terms, the Centipede scene was you railroading a DM by misrepresenting your character abilities on multiple levels. That you didn't make ride skill checks were the least of the problems here. You're not upset because the DM made you to play it out, because by your account that didn't happen - you were crowing your success in this scene. You weren't actually metagamed against. The DM let you have your way. Because by your own account you railroaded the DM past the scene via distortion of the rules and very likely emotional and possibly physical intimidation of the DM resulting in your 'leaving' or possibly being expelled from the group (you are a bit unclear on that point). Your whole stake in this wasn't that the DM forced you to have encounters, forced you to spend a lot of time in the desert or anything of the sort, because by your own account none of that happened. Your still crowing your 'victory' over the DM on this, and still angry about this whole thing years afterwards because the DM dared challenge your authority - an authority which I repeat was based on nothing less than cheating and your decision to throw the rules of the game out the window in order to get your way. It was you getting your way that was the only thing you really cared about in the scene, because by your own account you don't even remember why you wanted to get across the wasteland in the first place. You had no investment in the plot or anything else except getting your way. You can't get along with DMs because you keep projecting on to them your own unbreakable insistance that you always have it your way. You've repeatedly refused to provide context to this situation, leaving people struggling with hypotheticals that you gleefully treat as straw men, because I'm pretty sure you know that if we had the larger context it would put you in a bad light, and your whole thing from the beginning - that DMs are just bad people that try to crush players fun - would get derailed.

Have I somehow made a mistake here? Am I misconstruing you?

In the Grell example, Celebrim would cause the group to fail off screen by having the grell just leave, even though the group is also forced to spend significant table time recruiting assistance in order to defeat the grell.

Why do I have to keep repeating myself? I've written lengthy posts on this very appeal to the galleries assertion by you before. I don't feel the need to debunk the same dang thing again. I don't need to recap my position, nor do I feel compelled to do anything but laugh at the assertion that my lengthy discussion of all the possibilities of the scene framing around the grell battle could be summed up as "having the grell just leave". You keep grasping on the rope like a drowning man, but it isn't going to pull you out of this.

In the horse buying scenario, the player is forced to spend table time shopping for horses. If the player does not, there is a "chance" that the horse will be lame. I put that in scare quotes, because, IME, any DM who thinks this way is automatically going to have the horse be lame with an aha-gotcha moment.

And again, there is a "chance" that Hussar will get shirty. Mind you, I've pretty firmly squashed the particular innuendo you are throwing around here. I'm basically being quoted here when you talk about "gotcha", because that's the exact word I used to disparage a DM acting unjustly that you are now turning around to slander me as being unjust. What's really going on here is that if the DM assigns a 1 and 6 chance of Hussar failing, and it comes up 1 Hussar gets "shirty" because any situation that challenges Hussar right to success can't be allowed to stand and he goes and finds a different table and spends the next 15 years spreading stories about how he was abused to anyone who will listen.

Have I somehow made a mistake here? Are these not the rulings that Celebrim and N'raac are advocating?

Somehow? I think I'm way past giving you benefit of the doubt that all this miscontruing is a mistake. Let me ask you a question; how many of these groups have you left where they have been happy to see you go?

Despite all of Celebrim's and N'raac's protestations, they have not put forward a single reason why another player at the table would want to play through these scenes. We've seen many, many examples of why the DM might want to play through things, but, the other players?

I wasn't there. I can think of plenty of hypothetical players that would jump on that. We even had one commenter in this thread jump on the "Grell isn't here" bit that probably wouldn't have even been my first choice with the comment like, "Good think I have the Track feat". But what is really more pertinent is the idea that somehow DM's and players have conflicting interests that pervades your analysis of all of this, that somehow the DM and the players can't be wanting the same thing and that the mark of a DM is that he's always conceding, acquiesing, etc. as if it was like bizarre to have players that actually stepped up to challenge, liked raised stakes, wanted to explore, wanted to earn their victories and overcome the odds, etc. Instead of for example, people who cheat and get shirty all the time. I mean, the funny thing is that the stance you are hating on here isn't antagonism, but rather GM as referee stance. You don't want to play by the rules. If the DM isn't ruling everything in your favor every time by the most expedient method, you take your marbles and go home, and you can't seem to get it through your head that most players out there really don't want things just given to them. You are still harping on how you had to play out the hiring process, but noone made you do that. "Ok your all hired", would have got you back at the cave in 5 minutes if that's what you really wanted, but you can't even be honest in this thread about what you really wanted - you have to pretend that the problem was 'pacing'.

I've said time and time again, my overriding DMing philosophy is simple, "Be the DM I would want to have as a player."

 

[Celebrim]

As for the horse, it's been clearly stated that having the horse turn out lame isn't a way to go "gotcha!" It's an expected possibility if the player/character hadn't put much time into making sure the horses were suitable. The trouble I see with that is having the possibility of the horse being lame could be more hurtful to the situation than simply saying "you get on a sturdy horse and get where you want to" instead of playing out the simulation. How much would having that possibility add to the game? It doesn't seem like a lot from my end, and it certainly doesn't seem like anything from yours.

It's been pretty clear I think that no one, not me, not N'raac, not anyone is particularly interested in the possiblity of a below average quality horse. Lots of horses have been purchased in my recent game with no real fuss, and I've never rolled to see if the horse went lame nor have I suggested that I always would. What I have suggested is that the possiblity is open, which gets repeatedly turned into, "If there is a possibility of failure then I will always fail" by some posters. What I have suggested is that occasionally a horse going lame would be part of the challenge of the playing out a scene.

And if it isn't, I've asserted that my own campaign proves it won't come up.

There is a scene in "The Deed of Paksenarrion" where the young mercenary heroinne of the story learns that her mercenary company has been betrayed, and she has to race herself down to the bloody bones in this epic sleepless marathon to return to camp and warn her commander. If we are playing out that scene, then it matters whether the horse goes lame, and suddenly being able to appraise horseflesh is critical to the resolution of the scene and the sort of story we are telling. In that case, we reward the character whose chargen investment makes choosing good horseflesh easy by putting them a step or two along toward victory, whereas failure introduces a complication and the road becomes harder and that belief ("I will never give up."), that loyalty that is really being tested ("I will do anything to protect my comrades in arms.") gets strained.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

It's been pretty clear I think that no one, not me, not N'raac, not anyone is particularly interested in the possiblity of a below average quality horse. Lots of horses have been purchased in my recent game with no real fuss, and I've never rolled to see if the horse went lame nor have I suggested that I always would. What I have suggested is that the possiblity is open, which gets repeatedly turned into, "If there is a possibility of failure then I will always fail" by some posters. What I have suggested is that occasionally a horse going lame would be part of the challenge of the playing out a scene.

And if it isn't, I've asserted that my own campaign proves it won't come up.

There is a scene in "The Deed of Paksenarrion" where the young mercenary heroinne of the story learns that her mercenary company has been betrayed, and she has to race herself down to the bloody bones in this epic sleepless marathon to return to camp and warn her commander. If we are playing out that scene, then it matters whether the horse goes lame, and suddenly being able to appraise horseflesh is critical to the resolution of the scene and the sort of story we are telling. In that case, we reward the character whose chargen investment makes choosing good horseflesh easy by putting them a step or two along toward victory, whereas failure introduces a complication and the road becomes harder and that belief ("I will never give up."), that loyalty that is really being tested ("I will do anything to protect my comrades in arms.") gets strained.

That kind of a scene I agree could add something if the horse being lame was a possibility. It's suspenseful and very much along the lines of survival horror. In regular play though? Yeah, it doesn't really add much and might even detract from the game since it might be nothing more than a nuisance. Hence why you don't typically bother, plus you give the benefit of the doubt to the player anyway (or was the N'raac?).

I think I could have added a bit more description to my second sentence. "It's might be an expected possibility..." Depends on the setting such as above.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
I think we need to clarify something though: You said there were interesting things in the desert, but you didn't care about them. To wit, you probably didn't think they were interesting if you didn't care about them. So, to you, there's nothing interesting. Maybe later if you cared to learn more about it, but certainly not right now. Does that seem like a reasonable way to state your opinion?

Yes, I'd say that's perfectly fair.

There might have been a way for the characters to know about stuff in the desert though. Knowledge checks are one example that could have been used right then and there in your game. You've never mentioned they were called for though, so it's assumed they didn't happen. Since they didn't happen, either due to the DM not cuing you guys to do it or you guys didn't show the initiative, the other option would have been to give background story before you guys arrived at the desert. Which could very well have been reasonable since the city you want to go to is on the edge of that desert and knowing the area around your point of interest could be valuable. But since you haven't mentioned whether the DM actually gave information out, it's safe to say the players and characters effectively had no reliable information on the desert and thus it's entirely reasonable that they didn't give a damn about it because there was simply no information to care about. Or the DM could have simply said "Once you all figure out where you are, you realize you know X, Y, and Z about this desert."

Since our arrival was somewhat unplanned (Plane Shift spell) there really wasn't much of a way to get any information into our hands.

But keep in mind that just because your experiences are that DMs are out to get people doesn't mean that that experience is true for everyone. It quite demonstrably isn't since there are DMs who know that making players fail for the sake of making them fail is a douchebag move. Celebrim and N'raac, among others, are clearly not the same DMs that screwed you over and definitely don't have the mentality that screwing over the player is a good thing. It's actually rather sad that your experiences have led you to believe that DMs are out to get their players since such DMs have clearly failed their job of making the game work, and I hope it's something you can learn just isn't the case with a lot of them.

Going back to the grell example, I recall you said that the DM wanted the grell there for a very specific reason, so it doesn't seem likely that that DM would have moved it. Could you repeat the circumstances of that though so it's clear? If the grell is there because the DM has a definite reason for it to stick around, then having it move is definitely not in the DM's interests.

Well, in that example, what actually happened was that, after about an hour of table play interviewing the NPC's (and it may have been longer), we returned to the grell, killed it and sent the NPC's on their way, exactly as planned.

As for the horse, it's been clearly stated that having the horse turn out lame isn't a way to go "gotcha!" It's an expected possibility if the player/character hadn't put much time into making sure the horses were suitable. The trouble I see with that is having the possibility of the horse being lame could be more hurtful to the situation than simply saying "you get on a sturdy horse and get where you want to" instead of playing out the simulation. How much would having that possibility add to the game? It doesn't seem like a lot from my end, and it certainly doesn't seem like anything from yours.

Does the DM do this for every piece of equipment bought? Do I have to do checks to see if that bow or arrows I bought are not defective in some way? Do I have to interview the armorer in order to buy a suit of chainmail? If I don't, then the DM is inconsistent and I likely won't enjoy this table. If I do, then I know that this is not a game I would enjoy playing. Either way, it's likely only going to come up at a table where I am not going to enjoy the game.