ghettowedge's page

Monk

I'm a DM.

The kind of player that annots me is one who constantly does things "out of the box". As if there aren't enough rules and classes and races and weapons and spells already; No.

-"Oh, can I use this two-handed weapon one-handed?"

-"Oh, can I play a half-dragon-half-treant?"

-"Oh, can I invent a Feat that gives me the ability to Yeoddle?"

_"Oh, Can I buy a lazer gun? A popcorn machine? A PLINKO stick?..."

GOD that's annoying!! NO, YOUR NOT SPECIAL!! lol

If you can't make a neat character with everything that's already in the books, then you're hopeless!!!

Ultradan

I think a better title of this thread would be "Would you drop-kick this DM?"

The OP is reminding me of all the reasons I insist on interviewing players personally before they're invited to the table. My free time is extremely valuable to me. I'd sooner have no players, and no game, rather than spend hours interacting with people I don't particularly like.

You know what, I don't think any good can come of discussing this on our site. Really rather not have the schadenfreude, snark, point-and-laugh, misinformed speculation, snide comments, veiled insults, flags or the rest of it. If you want to talk about this, do it somewhere else.

As the given example, it was not a rules as written discussion that occurred at my gaming table, but how literally one interprets them.

Also, the comment 'The rules were written for a reason. Ignoring them wasn't it.' makes me wonder how antagonistic people get at the gaming table. Whatever happened to being nice and having common sense? I guess I came running to the forums because this player acted oddly at my gaming table; typically a rules discussion is just that; a discussion that occurs after the night's session is completed, typically over milk and my wife's freshly baked cookies. I saw someone else prays with their gaming group; while I'm not that faithful, that sounds more of the level of acceptance I think my gaming group typically has.

If this is the first time your player has thrown a tantrum, I suspect he's upset about something unrelated to gaming. Maybe he's had bad experiences with power-crazy DMs, maybe he really does disagree with your rule 0 ideas. But if it's his first time offense, there's probably something stressful in his life causing him to act up.

Or maybe he's just an obnoxious dweeb.

In answer to your original question, how about "Children break rules, adults follow rules, and leaders make their own rules."

Just because one CAN change a thing, doesn't necessarily mean that one SHOULD change a thing.

My own experience is that those GMs that depend heavily on rule 0 are the ones that are too lazy to actually learn the rules. Yes, there are a lot of rules and it is not 100% possible to know all of them at all times, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't at least make the effort.

Also from my experience, those GMs that rely on rule 0 a lot are also inconsistent even with themselves. One week a rule will work one way and the next it will work another way.

As for the attitude of "its my game" or "if you don't like my way, then hit the road". Great, I'm glad you have players that want to play in your game. I might just say, if you are gaming the same way as when you were 14 years old, then either you matured extremely early or haven't quite got there. Just because people might put up with your ...stuff, doesn't mean your ...stuff doesn't stink. My experience has been, that attitude is unnecessary. Most players are more than willing to have the GM call the rules decisions, so putting it up to vote as a GM has rarely meant the call hasn't gone the way I suggested anyway.

I find it funny how so many GMs have an attitude of "the players should trust in my judgement" but don't seem to have the same attitude towards them, i.e. "players will try to get away with anything to the detriment of the game".

I've had a lot of experience observing this phenomenon, both in-game, at the table, and in real life.

A couple of things could be at play here:
>Too much sugar - honestly this can cause a "flip out"
>Low blood sugar - this can cause a "flip out"
>Player is unhappy with their own life, and when their fantasy world doesn't match their own view of it, this can cause a "flip out"
>High blood pressure - this can cause a "flip out"
>Jealousy - players who "were" the guru-of-the-game years ago, suddenly play at a relatively modern game table i.e. old skool versus new skool - this can cause a "flip out"

The OPs topic is multi-faceted, based on his subsequent posts - he suggests that a) the player might have strong (perhaps extreme) "gamist/simulationist" tendencies and prefers to be in control and has trouble submitting to rule zero b) player has a different game-universe-philosophy than the gm (a fundamental disagreement) c) he also "flips-out" in this case over the economics (see the OPs later post). These are, to me, 3 issues.

What I'm suggesting is that there are a few variables, when combined, that I've observed to cause a "flip out". Here's just a few examples:

Scenario: Mike, a seasoned dungeonmaster since 1977, is a an old-skool DM with a background in zoology. When he runs games he tells players he is absolutely in charge and uses a lot of DM-Fiat ruling and handwaiving, but is games are always fast, flowing, fun, albeit "on-the-tracks". He decides to attend somebody else's Pathfinder Roleplaying game and experiences a low blood sugar moment. He is also on medication for high blood pressure. During the game, he silently surpresses his old skool disagreement with things like "magic shops in town" and the plausable height of the ceiling in a cavern which would prohibit ogres from effectively swinging their great axes. His tension builds, and when the GM decides the players will reach Mulmaster by dusk, he explains that pushing horses that hard for so long on the journey from Maskyr's Eye could kill them. Suddenly, he "flips-out", ranting about horses, and how the GM or the players could never ride a horse that hard/long without hurting them, how they don't understand horses, or somesuch about his vast knowledge of animals. This bothers other players, arguments between "just let it go - the GM says so" and "no, horses can't do that" occurs. Any attempts at this point to discuss GM handwaiving for expediency are not heard. Now, this player cannot seem to reconcile the ambiguity any more. His world view of the game was that the GM was absolute, yet by contrast he entered a gamist-simulationist session where the players were very empowered by the open ruleset of Pathfinder RPG, and while he silently spent the game trying to get along, now his blood pressure, his desire for control, and his lack of the competency with "dealing with ambiguity" has gotten the better of him, and his arrogance is displayed because he is trying to regain some sense of control over his own game views which he cannot reconcile. At this point, he threatens to leave, and regardless of whether he does or not, the social aspect of the game is broken, and the other players, or the GM, really doesn't wish to put up with this kind of crap.

So to answer the OPs question - its pretty existential really - if he's a friend, work with him, talk with him, work it out. If not, and you can move on without him, then you weren't wrong to boot him from the game. Ultimately, and unfortunately, in the scenario above, despite Mike's excellent roleplay ability and years of experience, he simply wasn't compatible with the group, and after displaying these recurring episodes of "flip out" over silly-s*!@ a few times, when he finally threatened to quit, the GM said, "maybe that's for the best."

Context is king here; long term-home-campaigns should be protected from ruin by players, but informal one-off games at hobbystores are probably worth just dealing with the player until the sesion is over. It likely matters how well you know the player, and care. Input from the group is always worth soliciting. Using diplomacy, neutral language, and tact are always valuable, regardless of the situation. How the GM handles these situations matter, because players are watching. Be even handed, but firm, be open minded, but protect the campaign first, the story second, and the player comfort third, although all are important.

Ultimately, as the GM, remember to protect your hobby and sense of fun in playing - its a lot of hard work to run games weekly for example, and you must do what it takes to ensure you don't burn out over "flip out" instances like you describe. In conclusion, awareness that a number of factors can cause "flip out", such as the one you mentioned. Mostly, players are well-intentioned, and some suffer from syndromes or other social deficiencies that are the hubris of their character. I try, whenever possible to look past these things, see the good in players, and accomodate as much as reasonable. But nobody deserves yelling, or shouting, or "flipping out" beacuse its a game, and is meant to be fun.

Edit: post was in bad form.

GM: smarten up! Good GM's either don't fudge rolls or they fudge rolls to prevent long lucky/unlucky streaks that ruin players fun.

Extending a players unlucky streak by fudging rolls...

...shame.

Some of the posts her are quite ridiculous. Guess we play the game wrong and are sackless. Funny stuff...

It isn't that you play the game wrong, it's that you don't play by the rules.

There is no wrongfunbad if everyone is having fun. Clearly that isn't the case at the table.

My attacks are strictly on anyone who has the gall to complain about the rules when they aren't playing by them.

And your table isn't playing anywhere close to by the rules.

I wish we had a split thread option here. It often seems to me we finally get into some of the more interesting debates on page 18 of some long boring edition war thread.

Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:

I just don't think this worked, at least not for most people most of the time. In effect this was 4Es design goal. Maybe not quite as simple as this but really close. MMI is full of monsters that are just not that much more complex than this but the problem is everyone thinks they are complete sleepers.

Except 4E was designed so combats would last longer. I'm good with combats being 3-5 rounds lasting no more than 10 minutes.

Doable and in some systems absolutely excellent. However I have yet to see this work really well in D&D. As I argued above I don't feel older editions that where faster actually managed to do a good job in this department when actually compared to the modern editions and where it worked it tended to do so because the DMs worked at it to basically complicate simplicity.

The reality, in my experience, is that three ogres in a room getting killed - even if its only 25 minutes to kill them is not very interesting...especially when this is the third room you have killed three ogres in tonight. How this was actually fun when I was 14 years old I'm at a loss to explain...but every time its come up for me in the last 10 years (I convert a fair number of old modules) its only been good when it turns into some kind of running battle or some such...and I think it was only exceptionally good even back in 1E when that sort of thing happened. Fundamentally the problem is simple combats are not very much fun so most of the time there needs to be some other element carrying the weight

If combats are supposed to be long engaged processes, you need to have a larger variety of powers to use against the players. In fact, in a perfect world they would have a unique action for every round they are expected to live through.

Straight up this is why the Monster Vault's are really just so excellent. Its in them that I think 4E monster design finally really hit the mark. Here the monsters really are very well designed to do almost exactly what your contending is ideal. Now its not actually ideal - truth is we want some variance - there are good reasons why minions should just get one attack - makes them simple to run and they don't generally live that long...on the other hadn sometimes its good for them to get one or two other elements as well. Maybe a move power to make them trickier to kill or maybe they blow up when killed which makes them interesting to interact with. Depends on what the DM is doing - sometimes dead simple sometimes a little more complex but only once in a blue moon for very specific minions should they be quite complex. Mooks should get a little more but simplicity for the DM to run still rules the roost here while elites need to have a fair number of 'features' and solo's should expect to live 8 rounds or so and be able to do something new and exciting about five times. Some repetition is necessary for a monster in order to give it 'character' show what its 'thing' is all about but the Solo's also need access to at least one 'game changer' something just outrageous and a couple of gotcha's in order to keep them interesting.

In any case I am very happy with the Monster Vault products in terms of really enhancing what I think 4E really does best which is big 'epic' style combats where it might really take a while to play through them...but they are just packed with interesting elements and you balance it out by having fewer combats over all.

I've generally found you still need about three combats in a day for this to work well, this comes down to healing surges...if you want your group to feel desperate in terms of healing surges you need to make sure that the first two combats get them to really use everything but their daily healing powers. This should have half of them running on fumes in terms of surges by the middle of the third combat.

Note though that the first two are still exciting...there is only so much healing a group can use in a fight so there should be at least a few hard choices during these combats. Also try and avoid really healing heavy groups...they burn through their surges like mad and can't make that third fight while at the same time tending to feel 'grindy' in the first two.

I suppose the best answer then is everyone has their own reasons for playing and their own beliefs for pc deaths.

Indeed. Like so many other things in the game, you need to discuss it with each group so that every player is on the same page.

Incidentally, Hasbro is notorious for being hands off amongst multi-group corporations. The idea that they're pushing on WotC for D&D is laughable at best.

Here's something that might blow your mind.

The changes in 4e were made because the developers and many players thought they were good changes.

That's it.

Edit: Also if WotC really wanted to make a blatent naked cash grab, they would've just updated a small handful of rules in 3.5, changed around a few things, and sold it off as a new system OH SNAP!

I'm all for Magic 101 physics. I mean dragons can fly and giants can walk around despite comparative real-world gravity, but a cramped space is a cramped space.

This is something I just don't get. You're completely fine with things in a fantasy game defying gravity, but not a cramped space? What's valid fantasy physics and what isn't? When you have an attitude like yours, you end up needing to houserule every single thing in the universe in order to stay consistent, and don't expect your players to be able to keep track of it all. Why not just, you know, go by the rules and leave it at that? If something imposes a penalty, it imposes a penalty (like squeezing). If it doesn't, it doesn't.

AM GOOD TO HEAR. BARBARIAN ITCH TURN OUT TO BE SWARM OF TEENY PARASITES BARBARIAN HAVE GOOD PERCEPTION; AM SEEING THEM.

BARBARIAN STANDARD SOLUTION OF SMASH WORK. TAKE MANY WEEKS TO RECOVER FROM SMASHING IN SENSITIVE BITS, BUT AM OK NOW.

Greg the GM tells his group, "I'll fudge the rolls when I think the game warrants it to make it more exciting and fun."

At some point, over three sessions the following happen:
Session A: Allen ends up in a bad situation, outnumbered by foes and Greg rolls the attacks and damage and sees Allen's character is going to be toast. Greg fudges the rolls so that Allen character is badly injured, but survives.
Session B: Brenda ends up in a bad situation, much like Allen's character was in but this time Greg doesn't roll nearly as well, and Brenda's character is badly injured but survives as well.
Session C: Clay ends up in a bad situation, much like the other players had done in the past. This time Greg rolls well and doesn't fudge the rolls. Clay's character dies.

What does this tell us about Greg's mindset? Remember that Greg said that he would fudge when it would make things more exciting. Greg decided that the death of Clay's character would make the game more exciting. Greg also decided that the death of both Allen's and Brenda's characters would not have made the game more exciting.

Now I know you think, but he didn't fudge Brenda's situation. That is right, he didn't. Remember he fudges to make this more exciting, thus her death was not going to be more exciting in his view. If it would have been, he would have fudged to make her character die. He didn't, thus he proved that the death of her character wouldn't have increased the excitement in his view. But the death of Clay's character would in his view.

Typical rant/threadcrap

Referring to WotC as "wotci" only serves to degrade the already tenuous credibility of your posts. If you dropped the whole religious nut act, you might find people more receptive to your arguments and opinions.

But when it came to the point where we were supposed to choose a king - Nope. It wasn't the goodly cleric who kept people safe, and whose ingenuity and goodness had won over countless bandits to join and assist our cause with some good diplomatic RP who was chosen, it was the Cav who "made his character to be the king." Did not know it then, but it was decided among them four prior to game that this was a sure thing, based on stat block alone - not RP.

Needless to say, I was disappointed.

I get that you were disappointed that they didn't include you - that was crap.

However, even if you had been part of it, the decision might have been the same: The cavalier makes the best king, so he's king. It's not a competition.

The fact is that the character with the highest charisma makes the best ruler. He might not have roleplayed his character correctly, but then again, not everyone can roleplay high charisma. I won't go into the whole character versus player thing, but many people like it when they don't have to play themselves just because such a character is the best representation of their own abilities.

Plus, what lousy priest would not jump on the chance to become high priest and promote her faith in this heathen land? :P

So, there I was, and when we got to book 5, I could really care less. My characters priorities had shifted from being a political figure to being a wife and mother, the life goals she had set for herself, to produce a free child in a free country who would be free to choose its own path. She and Akrios married, and took their honeymoon in Sarenrae's domain in heaven, where they conceived.

I jumped over the "no roleplay, only kill everything" thing - you're totally different in what you want compared to the party, so maybe it's you who's at fault for staying and expecting they'll change to your whims, and the part where the GM (your husband) went a bit weird with the "good must be stupid to be tested" thing - but please: "Screw the crusade, I'm going to be a housewife"? "We went to heaven to have a child?"

You understand that the first would probably get you thrown out by Sarenrae for giving up, but then allowed in as a lay worshipper by Erastil, and the second is so corny that the rest of the party will basically have to retaliate on a nuclear level with a session where no word is exchanged except "I attack it, I rolled a 9 I hit, I make 17 points of damage" and the like ;-P

To sum up:

/facepalm.

People who don't want to get into heavy roleplay should probably stick to dungeoncrawling with beer and pizza, and avoid Kingmaker...

Heavy roleplayers should stop telling people what they should and shouldn't do or play like being a heavy roleplayer made them arbiter of who is doing it right.

And to Hu5tru - you knew what you were getting into. You were problematic one in that party, it sounds like, by not playing the same game everyone else was - and that fact sounds like it was made clear before the game even started.

Team America.

Yes. No Tinys as of yet, but so far we have minis planned for all of the other categories (and maybe even some bigger stuff...)

I sure would like a gargantuan green dragon...

(Not that I would be upset with other gargantuan dragons, but I'd REAAAAALLY like a gargantuan green!)

I think everyone is missing the point, here. This is an ability that modifies a dice roll, between two NPCs, with no player present. Obviously, it is meant to make your GM go insane role-playing out scenes by himself! :D

Expert horse trainers and riders can have terrible accidents, well outside of combat; Christopher Reeves being a famous example.

I think examples like these are exactly the stumbling block in this discussion. Your opinion of whether a 1 should be an auto-success seems to be based on making the game more realistic (something that I find a ridiculous notion to begin with, but that's a separate issue)- and I argue that no, it does not make the game more realistic.

You mention expert horse trainers and riders still having terrible accidents. First, let me posit one question: What do you consider an "expert" in D&D? Because very, very, very few people in real life have what would equate to a +15 skill modifier in D&D. (Depending on the skill, having a +15 is typically a superhuman feat.) I know that D&D doesn't quite translate to real life (hence making the "realistic" hope even more ridiculous), but I'd say that in order for someone to get a +15 in a particular skill, they either need to be an adventurer (you know, someone who fights monsters and uses magic to become more powerful) or they need to spend literally their entire lives working at a skill.

The point I'm trying to make is that there's a fallacy in trying to compare real-life "experts" to someone who's attained superhuman ailities in D&D. In my opinion, no, someone who is effectively a superhuman (and who is likely using magic in order to attain such skill) should NOT fail every now and then, unless there are extenuating circumstances (in order words, circumstantial modifiers allowing them to get a low enough roll to fail). Someone who has spent literally their entire life (in real life, not D&D) training in a particular skill does NOT fail 5% of the time. I'd be willing to bet Christopher Reeves rode a horse far more than 20 times before his accident. In other words, his accident was NOT a result of rolling a 1.

It's useful for those of us waiting for refunds or news.

Exactly - and we are willing to wait and keep hoping that something will be resolved. Yes, we gripe and complain now and again, but still we hope for some type of news or a resolution.

To Sissyl - here's an idea - why not lock YOURSELF out of this thread and leave the rest of us "whiners" alone? How about that?