How has a dm do you deal with after the fact whining. do you set an ultimatum?
Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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No ultimatums. We talk it out, explaining the logic behind the decision. Of course, we also set expectations before playing, so situations like the OP describe don't happen very often.
In the case of my games, everyone knows that once an encounter is over, it's over. There are no "go backs." If an adjustment is found during combat, I'll typically allow it. Once the encounter's over, though, no retconning.
Assuming they're high enough level to cast Aqueous Orb (e.g.), wouldn't they have enough money to just raise him from the dead? Is he really arguing that much over 5,000 gp or whatever?
it is the exact opposite any other player would of accepted the death like a SIR and he would of made the same call regardless. I think the tendancy is to has a DM "be nice" and fudge sometimes. The way a player acts make it hard to bend the rules in there favor at least in my opinion a very argumentativeness player who say you were fing wrong i made the same stop punishing me. makes it really hard for a DM to throw them a bone has opposed to the nice quiet player who says "yeah that was a terrible plan but an epic death" it your call think you can give me a break i think my math was wrong?
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You are the GM
You say what goes
He is a player
He is responsible for rolling and upkeeping his character including rolls, ranks, feats and math.
If a game is played and events takes place based on actions by the players, then it happens.
Make a general ruling.
If there is a mistake by a player, it needs to be corrected and brought up within the same game session.
Give too much time and players will have too much time to think up a good excuse or reason.
You are the GM, it is your game.
At any time, the player could have re-checked his dex and bonuses during the event. I re-check to make sure if I am going to be suffering massive damage.
Seems this player did not do so and accepted it.
Unfairness is showing favoritism
Unfairness is giving no chance for any player to make his appeal.
This player is just mad that she did not spot the error in time
Now he is whining about his screw up by blaming other instead of his calculator.
Once you give chances to people like him, he will continue to do it again seeing that you can be pushed that far to give.
Others may follow his example.
So do a general ruling of appeals in same game session, stats and actions are on the player's responsibility not yours.
What was he hoping to accomplish with the "plan" I use the word loosely how did he not see it leading to his death?I'm guessing his plan was to escape the grapple while falling and after the aquatic orb dissapeared at 150 ft. activate his eidolon wings (he's a synthesist summoner) and fly back up.
That's an awesome plan and he's awesome for trying. Only way that could have been better is if he had a time bomb strapped to him that would go off immediately after his round ended and he planned to ride the explosion back up to the window he got blown out of.
//Still dead though.
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Definitely this. By deciding to be unfair about it because you find him annoying you merely validate his claims that you're being unfair and justifying his whining.I would normally make a more than fair call if he wasn't such a whiner and calling me unfair.If the fact that he's a whiner is the only reason you're considering not doing what you'd normally do by making a more than fair call then do yourself a favor and ignore the fact that he's a whiner and do what you'd normally do and make a more than fair call.
Otherwise you're singling him out, which is going to make him into a whiner. :P
As opposed to rewarding his whining by giving him the outcome he was whining for?
It's pretty unreasonable to ask the DM to retcon something by email after the session has ended. There's a statute of limitations on these things and now it's passed. The only thing I would consider is giving him one turn before he hits the water to see if he could come up with some way to not take all 20d6.
( Actual questions last paragraph )
So I have a player in my RotR campaign that got grappled by a revenent. He failed his CMB check to escape the grapple. Wizard cast grease on him to get +10 to his CMB check and failed again. Revenent continued to deal damage to the point where he asked the wizard to cast aquitic orb and hurl them both out the window 300 ft to the crashing waves below. Both went hurling out the window and he took the 20d6 falling along with her.
Now that it is all said and done with he has sent me numerous emails complaining that he did his math wrong and wasn't denied his Dex bonus counted the CMB wrong ect ect. He is being a pain in the butt and I would normally make a more than fair call if he wasn't such a whiner and calling me unfair. So now he's claiming that he gets another 3 rounds to break the grapple on the way down 300ft to activate his wings and even out.
Any other member would have accepted an epic hero dieing in an epic way and I wouldn't have to make this decision because they would just reroll.
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1:I assume falling 300 ft. would take about 5 seconds (less than a round) is it true he would get a turn every 60ft like he says?2:Does grease apply +10 to escape artist check only or CMB to escape grapple as well?
3:Would aquatic orb wash away the grease?
4:If he said he failed but later recalled saying he would have just barely made it, would you recall it?
5: Being grappled he loses -4 to dex does that give him -2 to escape grapple?
its his fault he did his math wrong and his fault he said hey throw me out the window i got this...
so no he is dead make a new character at least he had an epic death also if the party can recover the body or afford a true rez there is that.
its not the DMs job to remember your characters every bonus that is you as a players job.
thats like telling a cop its not my fault i ran the red light its my cars for not stopping on its own
It's pretty unreasonable to ask the DM to retcon something by email after the session has ended. There's a statute of limitations on these things and now it's passed. The only thing I would consider is giving him one turn before he hits the water to see if he could come up with some way to not take all 20d6.
maybe flip a coin to see if one cushions the others fall but i'd say no... its 500 feet maybe the coin toss and if he can use his wings to slow the fall if so theese should be high rolls and make him roll with everyone watching his dice
As opposed to rewarding his whining by giving him the outcome he was whining for?If you think player unhappiness is best solved by telling them to nut up and respect mah athoritah! I really hope your face is harder than your gaming tables are because that isn't going to solve the problem.
What it will do is piss off the player and make him conclude(validly) that you are not on his side in the game. As a result hes going to game the ever loving bejesus out of the system and you will come back in a week crying about the currently valid OP ragelancepounce equivalent build he's using in your game ruining your fun. And every time you ask him to take a save or roll an attack is going to be like sitting at a chess game where he won't make a move until he's quintuple checked everything to make sure you don't screw him.
Just say no to bad DMing.
I'd say right to say no to bad DMing and knuckling under when accused of not being fair when, as far as we can, he is being fair - that would be bad DMing.
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As opposed to rewarding his whining by giving him the outcome he was whining for?Definitely this. By deciding to be unfair about it because you find him annoying you merely validate his claims that you're being unfair and justifying his whining.I would normally make a more than fair call if he wasn't such a whiner and calling me unfair.If the fact that he's a whiner is the only reason you're considering not doing what you'd normally do by making a more than fair call then do yourself a favor and ignore the fact that he's a whiner and do what you'd normally do and make a more than fair call.
Otherwise you're singling him out, which is going to make him into a whiner. :P
If what he's whining for is for the gm to stop unfairly singling him out then yeah. Give him that.
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As opposed to rewarding his whining by giving him the outcome he was whining for?If you think player unhappiness is best solved by telling them to nut up and respect mah athoritah! I really hope your face is harder than your gaming tables are because that isn't going to solve the problem.
What it will do is piss off the player and make him conclude(validly) that you are not on his side in the game. As a result hes going to game the ever loving bejesus out of the system and you will come back in a week crying about the currently valid OP ragelancepounce equivalent build he's using in your game ruining your fun. And every time you ask him to take a save or roll an attack is going to be like sitting at a chess game where he won't make a move until he's quintuple checked everything to make sure you don't screw him.
Just say no to bad DMing.
I think if whining leads to getting what you want, you get more whining.
And whining makes the game less fun for the rest of the table. Including the GM.
So if you have a player can't play without whining, rather than reward a behavior that makes the game less fun for you and the rest of the table, let them go and find someone who can.
Well you could reduce the damage because he is falling into water rather than on a hard surface, but falling 300' into water is pretty much like hitting concrete.
One of the things we do in our group is I have a rules committee to advise the DM on rulings so it is not all falling on the DM. Sometimes they will better respect the decision if it is a consensus. Sounds like though he is going to need a raise dead.
As for whining players, usually the person that whines the most in my game is my wife so it is hard to just kick her out of the game! Most of the players know that though so it doesn't get her too far.
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If what he's whining for is for the gm to stop unfairly singling him out then yeah. Give him that.As opposed to rewarding his whining by giving him the outcome he was whining for?Definitely this. By deciding to be unfair about it because you find him annoying you merely validate his claims that you're being unfair and justifying his whining.I would normally make a more than fair call if he wasn't such a whiner and calling me unfair.If the fact that he's a whiner is the only reason you're considering not doing what you'd normally do by making a more than fair call then do yourself a favor and ignore the fact that he's a whiner and do what you'd normally do and make a more than fair call.
Otherwise you're singling him out, which is going to make him into a whiner. :P
And is there any indication that is going on here?
The player was already told by the GM he was pushing table norms and expectations with the build. Then he does something painfully stupid at the table that leads to the logical outcome one might expect from asking a player to throw them out of a window overlooking a 300 ft cliff.
Then, rather than politely say to the GM "Yeah, that was dumb, but I think I messed up the math and I should have gotten another roll" he accuses the GM of being unfair.
When he is the one who messed up. Every step of the way. From the bad math, to the bad plan, the player messed up.
And then tried to blame the GM.
If the guy came to the GM and said "I think I messed up, here is the math, I would completely understand if you say no and I don't want to throw off the flow of the game but..." I'm giving him another roll and possible even sending out an e-mail to the group if he misses it asking for consensus on how to handle it.
But this guy started off asking for rope and when it was given is now demanding more and claiming to be oppressed and treated unfairly.
When he messed up.
Ain't nobody got time for that. There are too many good players who are fun to play with out there to waste time accomodating selfish, entitled players.
There are indications that this dynamic could be in play, yes.
Its not guaranteed which is why I prefaced my opinion with an 'if' that only the OP will know for sure applies or not.
Being a pain in the butt to your gm for a scenario that clearly wasnt handled properly on either side of the scenario isn't 'whining'. How you handle that situation can set precedents that encourage whining no matter which way you go. The point is to go the direction that most consistantly supports your values at the table. If you draw hard lines you might end up with a whiner because he's not getting what he wants. If you dont draw hard lines you might end up with a whiner because whining does get them what they want.
The whiner argument is dead because it can happen no matter which fork in the road you take.
The OP wasnt asking 'how do I stop a whiner?' The request to analyze the scenario is basically asking us to analyze whether he's being fair or not, and (subtext) if the player's accusation that he isnt being fair is valid...
- He starts by referring to himself as a fair dude but the player as a pain in the butt that makes him not want to be fair. Lets get this bias started off right! ^_^
- Is also the kind of guy who says 'oh i don't think i like your character build' despite being a legal build before the game even starts
- Despite the fact that the pcs plan had 3 stages of possible success (break grapple, use wings, cast featherfall) the OP only manages to bring the sentiment 'yeah what a dumb plan.
- After a few forum posts we learn not only was the pc's math wrong, but the gm's math was wrong as well...
So now we have a situation where the gm can choose 'we both messed up our math and it went wrong lets undo it' and 'we both messed up our math so the best way to handle it is you're dead anyway'.
The question 'am i being fair' then boils down to 'do you do what you do because it seems like an unbiased way of looking at things' or did you decide the outcome of the encounter based on the combination of 'he gives me a hard time, i hate his build, i think his plans are stupid and I want his character to die'... The OP isnt giving me a real feel good vibe about 'being more than fair' based purely on the contents of his posts, so if the question is 'is it possible that i'm biased against the player and its creating perhaps a skewed fairness as to the results of his actions or my rulings of their outcomes' creating a 'whiner who is a pain in your butt?'
I say yeah. Its a legitimate concern.
Now, he should have just used his action to take control of the grapple then use the revenant to break the water's surface tension under him. That's what I would have tried in that situation at least.
Imo OP you are handling it well, and despite you and your players antagonism, the two of you were mature enough to deal with this out of game. Having dealt with this kind of thing before in game, I commend both of you on that.
As for the subject of retconning game events, don't be too afraid to change results if not the actual events. Hypothetically say he wasn't entangled and you legitimately denied him the check to live. I'd "Deus Ex Machina" things a little. In this situation, I would probably have(assuming the PC was right) fluffed that he miraculously survived the fall as if he'd burned Hero Points or something.
I think this kind of "retcon" doesn't detract from the verisimilitude of the game, since this shouldn't be happening all the time. And it is way more believable than starting game and saying: "Jonny didn't fall off the cliff last time and died, instead he heroically broke free and flew away."
However I stress that's not what you do in this situation. The player died, by RAW, and that's all she wrote. Just food for thought for future fumbles.
Cept as Grappled conditions says :As an aside he doesn't need to break free to fly away though. Read the Fly skill he can make fly checks to avoid falling damage and nothing about being grappled stops that from happening since fly doesn't require hands.
In fact preventing him from taking those checks is violating the RAW so at the least that option should have been available to him.
Grappled creatures cannot move and take a –4 penalty to Dexterity.
I'd certainly say using the fly skill would be restricted by lack of movement, even if it's a non-action.
Even if he could make the check, between being grappled and entangled, that's a -8 to Dex. Meaning, a -4 to any fly checks. Also, if said player's a Synthesist they may take additional penalties do to size restriction depending on its fly category. Not to mention he would be "carrying" a "heavy load" by grappling with the beast since falling doesn't end the grapple, thus incurring its own skill penalty of -6. That's -10 to a fly check, not counting anything else.
It's likely that the couldn't have made the check, and he couldn't break free since, as it was stated, he was fired out the window out of his turn by the wizard. 300 feet is just not enough time.
Furthermore, even if the player magically succeded on the check, he'd be carrying the Undead on him and is a signifigant distance away from the party.
I can't see how you could spin things to have the player live in this situation, short of a deus ex.
Edit: Grammar
I don't generally retcon anything that happened more than about 1 round ago.
This is the kind of situation where I like having Hero Points. Player does something dumb and falls out of a window? Spend 2 Hero Points and your companions find you soaking wet on the shore at the bottom of the cliff (the Revenant having taken the brunt of the damage) at 1-ConMod HP. Her Points are nice at times like this because they save you from your own buffoonery, but only once/level (since staving off death costs 2 Hero Points and you can only have 3 at any given time).
-Skeld
Exactly. I use hero points in my campaigns. I give the players the ability to fudge the rolls and the rules (albeit in limited quantities.) Wanna do something like dive out of a window and survive? Hope you saved a few Hero Pts! LOL.
Poker rules apply at my table. Call your own hand. If he didnt see it correctly at the time there is no going back. Especially after further turns have been taken or the session in question is over. The exeption to this rule is if the DM messed up in a way that hurts the party and you break a session before combat finishes. In that case and that case only I would reserve the right to " make it right" by the PC's and do some sort of limited reset.
Your PC needs to remember that this is a game, and just like any other game you can make mistakes and lose. When you screw up in chess can you ask you oponent to put the last six moves back because you thought of a better one? If I invade Russia in Risk and die trying can I ask for a " do over"? How is botching the running of you character supposedly different?
I should point out...My DM while having a similiar style to mine as laid out in my post above, also has hero points.
Should we screw up like in the OP and we have a point or two in reserve we can either auto stabalize if the fall didnt kill outright or set at
-1 buying the party time to come find/ fix us.
Well you could reduce the damage because he is falling into water rather than on a hard surface, but falling 300' into water is pretty much like hitting concrete.
He is falling inside an aqueous orb though. I imagine the orb would break the tension.
Ninja'd by Vestrial. But still a valid point.
On the subject of whining, I see both sides. I what should be done perhaps should be to ask the other players if they mind retconning the outcome, in the light of the above point that the orb may have reduced the damage. If they say yes, do it, if they say no, don't.
It's up to the player to ensure that his math is correct, so if he tells you he failed or he tells you "x" number, which isn't high enough to pass, then that's his own fault.
If his character died because he made a mistake, that's not the DM's fault.
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All fair and well, except the get out of jail free card was eatin up when he complained when I said an Aasimar synthesist summoner might overshadow everyone and let him do it anyway.
Way I read this, you had a grudge against the player for "forcing" you to allow him to play an Aasimar synthesist summoner.
You jumped at the first opportunity he gave you to "fairly" kill this character that you did not like.
When he realized later on that he might have a chance at survival, you happily squashed his hopes.
And now you are coming here asking for a validation of the way you handled this "arguing player". And you get it of course since there is a HUGE bias on these boards in favor of the poor misunderstood altruistic overworked GM against the lazy whiny selfish powergaming player.
Next time, do you both a favor and stick to your decision. Making the player pay because YOU accepted something you did not want in your game is NOT fair.
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I would have ruled that an aqeous orb would have absorbed the falling damage.
And i dont think its right to be to critical of the player. In the stress of gammin, I have mede the non-optimal choice.
Was there a better plan available?
That would set a really really horrible precedent though. The whole purpose of Aqueous Orb is to pick people up Katamari style, and carry them off the nearest cliff/into a pit/vat of boiling acid/whatever's handy... and then to just start bouncing up and down for the extra 2d6 a round if that didn't do the trick.
You could argue that it should make 1d6 of the damage non-lethal because you're landing on a yielding surface, but that should already be in here.
This really just seems like one of those cases where someone ends up just hitting the panic button and scrambling to rationalize any crazy Hail Mary angle to avoid having his character die. AKA Something that kills someone's character... although it's weird to start arguing that under these conditions.
All fair and well, except the get out of jail free card was eatin up when he complained when I said an Aasimar synthesist summoner might overshadow everyone and let him do it anyway.Way I read this, you had a grudge against the player for "forcing" you to allow him to play an Aasimar synthesist summoner.
You jumped at the first opportunity he gave you to "fairly" kill this character that you did not like.
When he realized later on that he might have a chance at survival, you happily squashed his hopes.
And now you are coming here asking for a validation of the way you handled this "arguing player". And you get it of course since there is a HUGE bias on these boards in favor of the poor misunderstood altruistic overworked GM against the lazy whiny selfish powergaming player.
Next time, do you both a favor and stick to your decision. Making the player pay because YOU accepted something you did not want in your game is NOT fair.
Wow you people are qucik to jump down a mans throat. a dms job is to make the game fun for every one and see it form both sides. I dotn play in the game but I do know the dm very well we both attend the same work and game together on a differrent night. this PC has pushed the envolope every time. and master trip is a new DM to pathfinder first time and he allowed the player to play a class and race that is a deadly combination. you all know what it is like has a dm having that player that wants to make the uber character and means no harm he if left to his own devices would completely overshadow the party and ruin the fun of the game. it is your jonb has a DM to let your players have fun but make sure every body is playing nice and fairly. I am a power gamer so I am usually that guy who wants the crazy build.
the bottom line is he is not repsonsible for the players bad math. period. and you mentioned killing him "fairly" pshaww what ever if you are going to be the biggest baddest player and constanly foil the BBEGs plans guess what you become a target. has a Dm tacticly your job is to kill every body! and it make sense to take out the tank first.
any ways I know for a fact that this Dm has tried every thing in his power to be accommodating and make it fun. but this player has continually refused to take no for an answer and when asked
"It boils down to. Do you want to crunch numbers all day or do you want to have a fricking(word changed) epic adventure ? "
the player responded by saying he was being persecuted and penalized and using words that I won repeat.
this DM would make the same call no matter what the character.
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You jumped at the first opportunity he gave you to "fairly" kill this character that you did not like.
When he realized later on that he might have a chance at survival, you happily squashed his hopes.
Just because he thought for some reason that he might have a chance at survival doesn't mean he should actually have that chance. I don't like playing with people who think that "creative" solutions should always be rewarded even if they make absolutely no sense. If I wanted that I'd abandon Pathfinder and start playing make-believe with a bunch of 5-year-olds because that's what you end up with.
I think if whining leads to getting what you want, you get more whining.And whining makes the game less fun for the rest of the table. Including the GM.
So if you have a player can't play without whining, rather than reward a behavior that makes the game less fun for you and the rest of the table, let them go and find someone who can.
I think my biggest issue, is the definition of 'whining'.
The OP stated the player emailed him numerous times and a pain in the butt....
What context does this have? We don't really get the 'CONTENT' of these emails to determine if he's actaully WHINING or not.
The fact that he's taken the question to E-MAIL means (to me) that he is NOT making the game less fun for the players at the table...
If there is a CHANCE for the player to come back... then he's really handling it the most UNobtrusive manner possible. The fact that he really wants an answer in time to make a new character(again... assuming that they are playing the next week)
Honestly, nothing here indicates a level of whininess to black mark the player.
Whereas the DM is stating things like 'His get out of jail free card was used by allowing the build'... and 'I would normally make a more than fair call if he wasn't such a whiner'
This DOES indicate a certain level of bias towards the player. it may not be how he INTENDS it to sound... but when I read that it sounds like "I'm not being as fair as I would to someone else... but I hate that character build"
If as a player I knew that the DM WOULD have given a chance to someone else... but not me? I'd complain a bit too.
Why exactly do you think this GM came on here with the express purpose of not giving the player what he wanted? If that was his goal he never would have come onto this board, hell this isn't even a rules debate it's him asking for advice on how to deal with this problem. You seem to be making numerous concessions to make this more favorable for the PC which obviously shows your bias against the GM here. I don't understand why you think that he came onto the board and proceeded to lie about everything that happened in his campaign.
Honestly, it feels like he's asking just to justify the decison he's already made. So he can go back to the Player and say "See... XXX number of other DMs agree with me.'
I'm not seeing a lot of flexibility here, he's already made up his mind ;)
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On the contrary I dont feel like the GM lied about the situation at all..
I feel like he has very clearly illustrated his own bias and when given the choice on how to resolve a situation that was clearly bonged on both sides his way of handling it is.
"we both had trouble handling the math of the situation... how should we handle this that is 'more than fair, because i'm a more than fair guy... Lets see. You die..."
Then Lobolusk arrives and says
- I'm not in the game.
- The gm is a first time gm
- The player is a powergamer who deserves all the bias he gets
- and lets finish with my favorite... The GMs job tacitly is to kill all the players
Its hard not to laugh.