My players always leave their character sheets at my place. I've never asked them to, it just makes the most sense for all involved. However, I also don't have any shenanigans happen to the characters between sessions
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This comes from a friend of mine.
Simply put, the GM was a major Tolkien geek. Like, crazy hardcore. So he went to run a D&D game (not sure which edition, it's been a while) in Middle-Earth.
Halflings had to make a saving throw every so often or become so homesick that they would immediately drop whatever they were doing, no matter how important, to go back home. The difficulty escalated with time.
Dwarves had to make saves in the presence of alcohol to not drink to the point of passing out, and had to make a save to not kill orcs et al on sight, even if it was obviously suicidal.
Since Elves were a wise, ancient race, they had no drawbacks ... and if an elf told you anything, even if it violated your own senses, common sense, logic, or the laws of physics, you had to make a save or believe it, because 'elven wisdom'. If an elf told you the sky was green, and you blew the save, you would think something was wrong with your eyes.
On a personal level ... the masturbatory GMPC was a long-running problem for one guy. At one point, we had 3 level 3 PCs wandering around with this guy ... we ran into a demon (a big one ... Nalfeshnee?), and it predictably and effortlessly flattens the rest of us, and then BIG POWERFUL GMPC walks up and one-punches it.
An older bad stories thread (I found this one in a link from that one)!
Aaaaaaaaaaaand out of time, checking this out more later. :)
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I left that group about five years ago. Since then, I've been in a couple of different groups. My current group I found by advertising online and got really lucky with some good people. Some have left and we've added some new. I introduced my then-fiancé-now-wife to the game. My current group as is have been gaming together for 3-4 years now. Things are going really well, both in terms of gaming and in life in general.
Favorited!
Congratulations on finding a good group and a wife and successfully introducing her to the game. I wish I could do any of those things . . . .
Why was he waving a loaded gun around? Was this a "hey I have a new toy, but I am an idiot who does not know anything about gun safety" thing, or an attempt at real life intimidation?Well bookrat, you win the internet... in the worst way possible. Yeah, that sounds like a winner GM.
My only "terrible GM" story was you're classic "Killer DM" in 2nd Ed (His policy was that you must have at least one back-up PC ready before every game).
My gaming experience with that GM ended when he produced a loaded .45 during a game, and proceeded to wave it around the room. Never went back to that house, didn't want to see "Killer DM" take on a whole new meaning.
The first one. He was simply an idiot.
^The two are not mutually exclusive . . . .
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I'll share my worst GM story. The game is Rolemaster. % dice for attack, open ended rolls - if you roll 96+ you get to roll again and add. It is also a crit based system that allows for instant kills all the time. Tough monsters have a special crit table. A supplement allowed math if your roll is so high you go off the chart.
So we play through the game. I had to ideas to make things within the magic creation system that the GM said "I never thought of that - and you can't buy one, the army has them all"... OK, stifling creativity, but I'm a GM, I understand how dealing with something you hadn't thought about can disrupt the game.
So we get to the final boss of this section of the adventure... about 6 month's real world getting there. I attack - open end on attack roll. Open end again - then I get an 86. Add my attack bonus. Not only do an amazing amount of point damage I get a really nice crit chart to roll on (due to high attack). Roll (all these were open table). Dead bad guy. He asked for updated copies of the character sheets to be brought next session. That makes sense.
We arrive, and tells us he is making all rolls, monster and player rolls. We tell him what spell/skill and he rolls it.
I handed him my character sheet and said "if you want to play my character for me - go ahead" and walked.
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Oh man, I hope my PCs never see this thread.
I'm running them through a novel I'm working on right now. ;)
Ditto. My PCs even ended up in a fight with both the protagonist and the antagonists of my novel.
EDIT: That is, they ended up fighting the protagonist in one event, and later fought the antagonists (and rocked their socks). After fighting the protagonist of the novel, they became good friends (my PCs seem to have a pretty good track record for befriending people that they've been in combat with, actually).EDIT 2: It probably didn't hurt given that one of the PCs had been reading some of the early versions of the novel and recognized the cameo for the fun it was intended for (though to my amusement the other PCs hadn't and still liked the character so yay).
Yeah, I love it when players forge their own way and pick their enemies. You can tell a bad dm by someone that doesn't allow that.
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Yeah, I love it when players forge their own way and pick their enemies. You can tell a bad dm by someone that doesn't allow that.
So pretty much anybody who uses an adventure path is a bad GM. Got it.
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Actually I don't think he is saying anyone who uses a AP is a bad DM. Unless I'm mistaken he is referring to DM who railroad players. Which are not the worst DMs certainly bad ones.
It depends upon how broadly you define 'railroad'. I believe many people have different interpreations.
I'm not sure how the players would 'pick their enemies' unless the DM hasn't planned out anything ahead of time. The players should get to pick how to deal with them - but their enemies are generally already planned out in all but the most sandboxy campaigns.
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For me at least railroading is when the group comes to a fork in a road. The group wants to go left. But no matter the desires of the group the DM either subtle or not so subtle tries to make the players go on the right. Even if they really as a group don't want to go on the left. Allows the players to go to the left yet somehow no matter what the group does they have to go on the right.
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For me at least railroading is when the group comes to a fork in a road. The group wants to go left. But no matter the desires of the group the DM either subtle or not so subtle tries to make the players go on the right. Even if they really as a group don't want to go on the left. Allows the players to go to the left yet somehow no matter what the group does they have to go on the right.
So - too much 'magician's choice'? It can work if done subtley enough.
I'm still not sure what you mean by "fork in a road". That's kinda vague language, and like "railroad" - it can mean different things to different people.
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For me at least railroading is when the group comes to a fork in a road. The group wants to go left. But no matter the desires of the group the DM either subtle or not so subtle tries to make the players go on the right. Even if they really as a group don't want to go on the left. Allows the players to go to the left yet somehow no matter what the group does they have to go on the right.So - too much 'magician's choice'? It can work if done subtley enough.
I'm still not sure what you mean by "fork in a road". That's kinda vague language, and like "railroad" - it can mean different things to different people.
He means this.
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Yeah, I love it when players forge their own way and pick their enemies. You can tell a bad dm by someone that doesn't allow that.So pretty much anybody who uses an adventure path is a bad GM. Got it.
I think that, unlike homebrew games, playing in an AP comes with an implicit social contract to not throw things so badly off the rails that the books the GM paid good money for become useless.
The only time I ever pretended to be sick to get out of something was one time when my friend—we'll call him Jibs—was running a one-shot of his homebrew system. By all accounts, it's improved a lot since that day, but back then it was a mess. Even when focusing my build like a laser, luck was a bigger factor than my character's abilities. We had to calculate how far our characters could jump. Our stats gave us two different modifiers that were applied to different types of roles.
Such a mess.
Anyway, the real problem of that game was this friend he brought. Jibs has a habit of trying to get all of his friends that don't play to play/watch a game, and it's clear that somtimes they're just not suitable for the hobby. This one girl—call her Amy— had never played tabletop before and clearly wasn't taking it seriously.
I'm all for giving players the freedom of choice, but some things are just impossible to roleplay with. How is my character supposed to respond to an elf woman that walks into town wearing nothing but a flack jacket and a belt of grenades—and I mean nothing: no clothes, just the armor on her upper body.
And I'm expected to go investigate this mysterious mist outside of town with her and recover... something, I don't remember. It was all highly improvised.
I wasn't having any fun, so after a point, I started forcing some belches and makign quiet, low groans while the game went on and eventually said that the chicken parm sandwich I'd eaten for lunch was making me ill and couldn't focus on the game, played up some groaning, and went home to get some schoolwork done. I felt bad about being deceptive (and also elaborate I went with it) but I couldn't bear to tell him I thought his game sucked and that his friend was really bothering me.
For me at least railroading is when the group comes to a fork in a road. The group wants to go left. But no matter the desires of the group the DM either subtle or not so subtle tries to make the players go on the right. Even if they really as a group don't want to go on the left. Allows the players to go to the left yet somehow no matter what the group does they have to go on the right.So - too much 'magician's choice'? It can work if done subtley enough.
I'm still not sure what you mean by "fork in a road". That's kinda vague language, and like "railroad" - it can mean different things to different people.
I think he means the sort of "You can go to the paladin's keep for reinforcements or sneak into the enemy camp and take out their leader... but I spent an extra hour making the encounter that happens at the paladin's keep so you're definitely going there" type of roadfork.
I think that, unlike homebrew games, playing in an AP comes with an implicit social contract to not throw things so badly off the rails that the books the GM paid good money for become useless.Yeah, I love it when players forge their own way and pick their enemies. You can tell a bad dm by someone that doesn't allow that.So pretty much anybody who uses an adventure path is a bad GM. Got it.
I am new when it comes to APs (only just started with Iron Gods, but I've read a few others), but they appear to be written in ways that have a pretty clear objective that can have enough options to satisfy quirky players.
Honestly, the GM is probably LESS likely to railroad players because the scenarios are much more fleshed out than the average homebrew game (there are some that have asides, for instance, explaining how things might be different if a previous boss managed to escape combat, the party manages to recruit/coerce/mindslave an NPC into helping them, etc)
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I've had very few bad DMs, and only one I straight-up walked out on.
Basically, it came down to a DM who only knew to say "No." Not just railroading, but to the point that my character was not only ineffective, but completely irrelevant. And in multiple consecutive sessions.
The scenario was in a Star Trek world (not in PF, for the record). We were part of the crew of a larger ship, we were more skilled than most, but not in charge. We had just come across a space station in distress. Specifically, one of those that use centripetal force of its spinning motion to maintain a sort of artificial gravity (this is relevant later). The station is badly damaged, so a mixed team of medic, engineer, security, and command is sent to investigate (AKA the PCs).
After we get on the ship it's clear that shit went all kinds of sideways. Life support barely works, there's a fight for the main control room of the station ongoing, and a lot of people are hurt. Party splits to focus on their specialties, with my character (the engineer) heading to main engineering to get a diagnostic on the situation. I'm actually the only one split off since the medic decides to focus on patients closer to the control room since they're more likely to have seen direct battle damage rather than incidental damage, and it leaves him closer to heal the rest of the party.
Fighting, being faster, makes progress first. The soldier types are doing the 10-minute-shootout routine against the invading aliens near the control room when another ship warps in. The ship immediately begins charging weapons and appears to be ready to target the station, and the invading aliens warp out.
Meanwhile, in engineering.. nothing. Shields are shot, weapons are offline, the opposing ship is sending a jamming signal to prevent us from beaming out, and we can't even exit the ship properly because they only have 2 maintenance suits and most of the airlocks are damaged. Nothing is going to be fixed quickly enough to matter (I asked). So naturally, I improvise.
Before I continue, I want to clarify something here: I'm not just playing your standard Engineering Officer. I'm playing a guy who is MacGuyver and Scotty rolled into one then amped up to 11, but removing any non-engineering offensive solutions. He can make a bomb out of anything, fix a stargate with a toothpick, and defuse a bomb while upside-down through foggy glass. So, naturally, I came up with a plan.
I would use internal transporters (which the DM made clear were NOT blocked) to move all remaining explosive ordinance into the one functional airlock. I would then reorient the station and allow the rotation of the station to provide the necessary inertia, blowing the airlock at the point where the tangent line from the airlock meets with the attacking ship, with a single timed trigger in the pile set to a precalculated countdown.
(Paraphrased dialog below.)
DM: "No."
Me: "What do you mean, like it doesn't work?"
DM: "No, I mean no, you're not allowed to do that."
Me: "Why not?"
DM: "Because it doesn't work, now let's move on to what others are doing."
Me: "My character is an engineer, built to do absolutely nothing else, and I've done nothing else this entire session because it's all been fighting. Why can't I do this? I don't even care if I miss, I just want to say I tried."
DM: "Just no." The DM at this point completely ignores me and turns to another player and starts talking to them. I'm left speechless by the ridiculousness of it all.
Keep in mind that this wasn't the only unexplainable "no" I had been fed in the previous couple sessions, not by a long shot. After a brief moment to gather myself, I gathered my things, stood up, tossed the character sheet in front of the DM, and went home. I didn't say anything, I didn't give any "looks" or anything, I just left. My friends at the table told me later it apparently came as a shock to him.
TL;DR - DM was evidently treating my character like a plot device that would only do what he wanted it to. Since that's not a PC role and he wasn't up for negotiating anything, I left.
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If a GM told me he wanted my character sheet I would just make a copy and take it home. The GM might need a copy to plan adventures around, but it is still my character.A player of mine tends to loose his character sheats, his dog slobbers over them and other stuff has already happened, so I keep a digital copy to print a new sheat from time to time.
Having a copy with the DM, at the host's house, or in digitial form is not a bad idea in general. Sometimes you unexpectedly need to miss a game and it's nice if the group can do more than vaguely approximate the missing character's capabilities.
Oblivious GM
Damn. That sucks. Especially since it sounds like a cool adventure and I want to hear how it would have turned out if he didn't say no.
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I think that, unlike homebrew games, playing in an AP comes with an implicit social contract to not throw things so badly off the rails that the books the GM paid good money for become useless.Yeah, I love it when players forge their own way and pick their enemies. You can tell a bad dm by someone that doesn't allow that.So pretty much anybody who uses an adventure path is a bad GM. Got it.
Can we please extend this to "prepared adventure"? I know some of the Paizo superfans here think that all adventures not written by Paizo are worthless, but pre-written adventures that are not Paizo adventure paths DO exist. And they even predate Paizo's APs by a few good decades.
Can we please extend this to "prepared adventure"? I know some of the Paizo superfans here think that all adventures not written by Paizo are worthless, but pre-written adventures that are not Paizo adventure paths DO exist. And they even predate Paizo's APs by a few good decades.I think that, unlike homebrew games, playing in an AP comes with an implicit social contract to not throw things so badly off the rails that the books the GM paid good money for become useless.Yeah, I love it when players forge their own way and pick their enemies. You can tell a bad dm by someone that doesn't allow that.So pretty much anybody who uses an adventure path is a bad GM. Got it.
I just use AP as shorthand to refer to any pre-written extended campaign, like I use mod/module to refer to shorter pre-published games that only last a few levels. I'm PRETTY sure that's also what the commenter in question had in mind, and was not some deliberate slight against 3PPs.
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I guess that's one of my pet peeves. Modules have existed for a good 30 years before adventure paths, but it seems like almost every poster on this site exclusively uses the term "AP" to refer to any type of pre-written adventure. Even if they're talking about a completely different system, like Call of Cthulhu, etc.
My bad Kthulhu. Big Lemon has my take down cold. You can definitely take it to mean anybody who is using prepared stuff regardless of the publisher.
I know you really enjoy talking about how awful PF and all things PF related are, even on a thread that literally has nothing to do with the subject, but seriously? Nobody even implied your accusations. There's plenty of whine-threads actually dedicated to getting your complaint on.
Besides, I doubt your annoyance extends to non-Paizo generalizations. Do you flip out when someone says DM instead of GM, too?
Not much on-topic here, but I've really enjoyed reading these horror stories...it all makes me feel better about the mediocre and somewhat subpar GMs I've dealt with.
I think when dealing with prepublished materials, there's an unwritten understanding that you stick to the plot...why you can't have the same agreement when dealing with an amateur's writing in a homebrew as opposed to a professional is beyond me. Sandboxing is more work, and you expect that out of the guy writing for fun, but not the guy writing for money?
Don't get me wrong, there's hardcore railroading, but then there's "can we just stick to the plot?" If someone wants to get the hell out of Cheliax (pun intended) in Council of Thieves, and the GM says no, he's just following the AP, but if the same GM wants to keep the party in the kingdom of magekings and eleven rebels he created, well he's a railroading douchebag. Seems a bit of a double standard.
Yeah, I love it when players forge their own way and pick their enemies. You can tell a bad dm by someone that doesn't allow that.So pretty much anybody who uses an adventure path is a bad GM. Got it.
Aren't you defensive?
If you don't like players having choice, don't let them have any. :P
Same, and I have been impressed with side notes in adventures like Runelords where it provides some advice if the party decide to join the bad guys or take a bribe to cease the fight against evil.
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Yeah, I love it when players forge their own way and pick their enemies. You can tell a bad dm by someone that doesn't allow that.So pretty much anybody who uses an adventure path is a bad GM. Got it.I fail to see how running an adventure path removes the players' ability to do what they want to do.
<Edited for clarity>
They don't, but if the players befriend the evil NPCs / monsters and attack the good NPCs, then what's written in the ADVENTURE MODULE will fail to remain relevant for very long.
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I guess that's one of my pet peeves. Modules have existed for a good 30 years before adventure paths, but it seems like almost every poster on this site exclusively uses the term "AP" to refer to any type of pre-written adventure. Even if they're talking about a completely different system, like Call of Cthulhu, etc.
But it's just a to-may-to to-mah-to as far as I see it. AP is a new word with a short acronym people use to refer to the same thing. We do this all the time in language. There's nothing wrong with it.
Contributor
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Yeah, I love it when players forge their own way and pick their enemies. You can tell a bad dm by someone that doesn't allow that.So pretty much anybody who uses an adventure path is a bad GM. Got it.I fail to see how running an adventure path removes the players' ability to do what they want to do.
<Edited for clarity>
They don't, but if the players befriend the evil NPCs / monsters and attack the good NPCs, then what's written in the ADVENTURE MODULE will fail to remain relevant for very long.
Where do you stand on this? I'd like to know. So many of these arguments devolve into extreme and infrequently seen examples.
I don't think DM Under The Bridge meant that any attempt at plot was terrible. I don't think Jerry Wright was talking about players going completely against the grain of an adventure. And I assume you don't expect your players to adhere rigidly to your plan for every encounter of your campaigns.
Can you give an example of a good balance between player agency and GM planning? Something you've seen at your table? I'd appreciate seeing one of your experiences with this sort of scenario.
Thank you. :)
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I think that part of the unwritten agreement between players and GMs that most people adhere to is that, unless the GM makes it clear that he's running a very sandboxy game, that the players at least try to stay somewhat on the path the GM has planned out. This might come from an AP, another commercial adventure, or an adventure the GM has written/prepared himself. I've even a few times seen a GM give up on subtlety and flat out tell the player "You need to go this direction / retrieve this McGuffin / etc". I can't remember having to resort to that myself, but as a player I'd actually prefer that to the GM letting the party wander around aimlessly in ill-defined areas while the plot goes on pause. I'm sorry, but if the GM makes it clear that the adventure is to the north, but some player insists on going south, the problem isn't the GM, it's the player.
Now, like I said, most players adhere to that unwritten rule. I have, however, met a few players who seem intent on doing anything except whatever the GM has got planned. I find them equally infuriating whether I am the GM or another player. My favorite part of the game is actually the exploration, as opposed to the combat or the "social" roleplaying. (Perhaps one of the reasons I like traps so much, and am saddened at how infrequently they are used, and how utterly neutered they are when used, in Pathfinder products. But I digress...). So I'd much rather be out there pursuing the plot than arguing with some jackass who feels the need to go south when everything points towards the adventure being to the north. Yeah, there might be exploring to do in the south, but it's a lot more likely to be generic, uneventful, and less interesting if the GM has to come up with it on the fly as opposed to something that he (or professional writers) prepared in advance.
I guess what I'm saying is that while the players definitely should have agency in HOW they deal with what the GM throws at them; its a lot more fun for EVERYONE if they they do deal with it, instead of ignoring it to go do something random that the GM obviously would have to make up on-the-spot.
That's probably a bit longer than I had originally intended, but I hope it answers your question (that at least seemed to be directed primarily at me).
TL;DR version: Aside from disagreeing with the terminology for the prepared adventure, this is basically what Chengar Qordath said, except using a metric f&$&-ton more words. :P
Yeah, I love it when players forge their own way and pick their enemies. You can tell a bad dm by someone that doesn't allow that.So pretty much anybody who uses an adventure path is a bad GM. Got it.I fail to see how running an adventure path removes the players' ability to do what they want to do.
<Edited for clarity>
They don't, but if the players befriend the evil NPCs / monsters and attack the good NPCs, then what's written in the ADVENTURE MODULE will fail to remain relevant for very long.
Where do you stand on this? I'd like to know. So many of these arguments devolve into extreme and infrequently seen examples.
I don't think DM Under The Bridge meant that any attempt at plot was terrible. I don't think Jerry Wright was talking about players going completely against the grain of an adventure. And I assume you don't expect your players to adhere rigidly to your plan for every encounter of your campaigns.
Can you give an example of a good balance between player agency and GM planning? Something you've seen at your table? I'd appreciate seeing one of your experiences with this sort of scenario.
Thank you. :)
You think correctly. :)
A plot does not mean there is no choice, there is choice in APs, modules, well thought-out home games and most obviously in sandboxes - player choice doesn't have to be confined to only a small type of games.
I think that part of the unwritten agreement between players and GMs that most people adhere to is that, unless the GM makes it clear that he's running a very sandboxy game, that the players at least try to stay somewhat on the path the GM has planned out. This might come from an AP, another commercial adventure, or an adventure the GM has written/prepared himself. I've even a few times seen a GM give up on subtlety and flat out tell the player "You need to go this direction / retrieve this McGuffin / etc". I can't remember having to resort to that myself, but as a player I'd actually prefer that to the GM letting the party wander around aimlessly in ill-defined areas while the plot goes on pause. I'm sorry, but if the GM makes it clear that the adventure is to the north, but some player insists on going south, the problem isn't the GM, it's the player.
Now, like I said, most players adhere to that unwritten rule. I have, however, met a few players who seem intent on doing anything except whatever the GM has got planned. I find them equally infuriating whether I am the GM or another player. My favorite part of the game is actually the exploration, as opposed to the combat or the "social" roleplaying. (Perhaps one of the reasons I like traps so much, and am saddened at how infrequently they are used, and how utterly neutered they are when used, in Pathfinder products. But I digress...). So I'd much rather be out there pursuing the plot than arguing with some jackass who feels the need to go south when everything points towards the adventure being to the north. Yeah, there might be exploring to do in the south, but it's a lot more likely to be generic, uneventful, and less interesting if the GM has to come up with it on the fly as opposed to something that he (or professional writers) prepared in advance.
I guess what I'm saying is that while the players definitely should have agency in HOW they deal with what the GM throws at them; its a lot more fun for EVERYONE if they they do deal with it,...
Mmmmm, this is an old topic of discussion amongst dms. Kthulhu, I think you would get along with a dm I know - he ended an adventure because the players were not responding to cues and not going where he had planned, doing what he had prepared (and he had done a lot of preparation). A dm can take this personally.
I would not end a game over this. It can be baffling and annoying for them to not go where I expected or to skip a dungeon (my group did this 2 sessions ago), but I try to not take it personally or force them to heel (I am strict in dog training, but people aren't dogs and dming isn't the same thing, in my mind). I take a lot of enjoyment from the actions of the players, and how they surprise me. Perhaps I take a long view, and want to see how it goes rather than end a game, but there is also the problem of my pride. If a game becomes more challenging as a dm, if I have to adapt I feel the urge to rise to it, to see what I can do, and if I can roll with the punches of chaos the adventurers throw in my direction.
A related concern is the splitting up of parties. Some dms do not allow it, others hate it, or are troubled by it. I relish in the opportunities it presents, and while it takes a lot of energy and focus, what grand times can be had if a dm shows their skill by running multiple parties at once. Ah, that thrill.
Good luck dms.