Tactics, rules and bad player attitude

[Scott Wilhelm]

Guru-Meditation wrote:

Tell your players that you misapplied a rule

I didn't exactly expect to find myself feeling this way, but I advise against admitting wrongdoing. You are the DM, you are Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Your earlier rules weren't wrong because you are the GM.

You can tell them that since the party found the last couple of encounters too difficult, you will be handling the Perception rules differently. That's fine, but I don't think you should let your group feel TOO empowered.

[Jaunt]

Stating that you misapplied a rule is not "admitting wrongdoing". It's admitting exactly what happened. Any player who bothered to read the book would know anyway. It's not like you have to beg the players' forgiveness. You just tell them the rule said A, you ran it as B, and from now on at your table it will be run as A, but all prior results stand.

Trying to spin the actual rules as a special easy mode for players who whine too much about stealth is a huge jerk move.

[DM_Blake]

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

Guru-Meditation wrote:

Tell your players that you misapplied a rule

I didn't exactly expect to find myself feeling this way, but I advise against admitting wrongdoing. You are the DM, you are Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Your earlier rules weren't wrong because you are the GM.

You can tell them that since the party found the last couple of encounters too difficult, you will be handling the Perception rules differently. That's fine, but I don't think you should let your group feel TOO empowered.

That's just silly.

Chances are some of these players actually know the rule in question. Chances are some of them have been reading this thread, or searching this forum for Perception threads. Pretending I'm just going to do it differently when they probably already know I was wrong just makes me look like a child.

Grown ups admit when they're wrong.

Nobody expects a GM of any age to be perfect. But it's nice when GMs of any age can at least act grown up.

[wraithstrike]

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

Guru-Meditation wrote:

Tell your players that you misapplied a rule

I didn't exactly expect to find myself feeling this way, but I advise against admitting wrongdoing. You are the DM, you are Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Your earlier rules weren't wrong because you are the GM.

You can tell them that since the party found the last couple of encounters too difficult, you will be handling the Perception rules differently. That's fine, but I don't think you should let your group feel TOO empowered.

This is a terrible idea. The GM can be wrong. To say otherwise is nonsense. The GM does have the final say, but that does not stop him from being wrong about how the rules(not house rules) actually work. Trying this on players who also know the rules, and have good real life sense motive is also not going to help your game.

PS: Yes, I am also a GM if it matters.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Further Advice In This Vein:
Throw blocks at them.
Complain to parents of whoever is hosting the game.
Bite yourself and say Jimmy did it.
If your group continues questioning your rulings, do not hesitate to take away Jimmy's stuffed bear. The others look up to Jimmy. Make an example of him.

[Snowblind]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Further Advice In This Vein:

Throw blocks at them.
Complain to parents of whoever is hosting the game.
Bite yourself and say Jimmy did it.
If your group continues questioning your rulings, do not hesitate to take away Jimmy's stuffed bear. The others look up to Jimmy. Make an example of him.

KC, you are an inspiration to GMs everywhere.

And I hate you for it.

[Kobold Catgirl]

TEEEEETEEEEER! LOOK! SNOWBLIND BIIIIT MEEEE!

[Snowblind]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

TEEEEETEEEEER! LOOK! SNOWBLIND BIIIIT MEEEE!

Too bad you aren't my GM.

Also, if I bit you, there would be a lot more blood and screaming. If I need to be the first to resort to violence, I generally aim to be the last.

[DM_Blake]

What is this talk of violence?

Biting a kobold is not violence, any more than it might be considered violence when a human bites a carrot.

[thorin001]

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

Guru-Meditation wrote:

Tell your players that you misapplied a rule

I didn't exactly expect to find myself feeling this way, but I advise against admitting wrongdoing. You are the DM, you are Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Your earlier rules weren't wrong because you are the GM.

You can tell them that since the party found the last couple of encounters too difficult, you will be handling the Perception rules differently. That's fine, but I don't think you should let your group feel TOO empowered.

I think we have found a legitimate example of badwrongfun.

[Balgin]

Chengar Qordath wrote:

Anytime your analysis boils down to "One side of this disagreement is a perfect paragon of pure righteousness, and the other is subhuman scum that is trying to ruin roleplaying games for everyone" you might want to take a second look at how you're evaluating things.

Apparently humour does not translate well over the internet. While the tone of that last paragraph marked with the asterisk was rather tongue in cheek I do echo some of the sentiments behind it (albeit not as extremely as the writing may have implied).

I may have been in a slightly grumpy mood when I wrote my previous post due to having had to deal with one or two particular problem players who try to abuse the system to easy mode everything recently. In my case it was a particular player trying to trivialise travel and distance by abusing rules to create rediculous land speeds, claiming they wouldn't need to stop to eat or sleep and all manner of nonsense just to zip around the map at hyper speeds because they wanted to go off and do something away from the rest of the party. They also wanted a lot of gm care and attention for these things and other players were getting bored. This was not a one off instance. This particular problem player gets on people's nerves most of the time due to being selfish, arrogant, inconsiderate and a loner/attention hog.

They don't play in my games any more. However, the strong conflict of playing styles (in this case the player basically wanted to play a solo game with a gm and an audience of other (frustrated) players) bears strong echoes to what seems to be a conflict of playing styles between the original poster and his players.

[Balgin]

Malag wrote:

@Balgin

Actually, you are wrong completely. I am a softy GM who prefers to cheer on his players while they beat the bad guys down. When I used the term "special snowflakes" I was mostly joking because players all have characters of uncommon races (oread, tiefling, dwarf, half-orc, undine) in Tian Xia setting. Players are actually enjoying the game with widespreaded eyes really. There is not much to say in that regard.

Thanks for the clarification. I was wondering in which particular regard you considered them all to be "special". I did notice the travelling circus (and list of "squishy damage caster" classes). There didn't seem to be much of a solid sturdy party make up so I could see how everything could crumble if their specialist abilities could not be brought to bear. Players of such a highly specialised bunch could easily grumble if things weren't going their way. It's an easy missunderstanding to make.

I still maintain that this does seem to be a conclift of playing styles and/or expectations 'though.

[Malag]

Balgin wrote:

I still maintain that this does seem to be a conclift of playing styles and/or expectations 'though.

To a degree, it is. Most of the players wish to do their own thing so they sometimes get stuck in debates which are often unnecessarily long. I am also pretty sure that one player isn't interested anymore into playing PF that much, so he mostly complies with the group.

[Scott Wilhelm]

wraithstrike wrote:

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

Guru-Meditation wrote:

Tell your players that you misapplied a rule

I didn't exactly expect to find myself feeling this way, but I advise against admitting wrongdoing. You are the DM, you are Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Your earlier rules weren't wrong because you are the GM.

You can tell them that since the party found the last couple of encounters too difficult, you will be handling the Perception rules differently. That's fine, but I don't think you should let your group feel TOO empowered.

This is a terrible idea. The GM can be wrong. To say otherwise is nonsense. The GM does have the final say, but that does not stop him from being wrong about how the rules(not house rules) actually work. Trying this on players who also know the rules, and have good real life sense motive is also not going to help your game.

PS: Yes, I am also a GM if it matters.

Clearly my advice is unpopular, and maybe because it's unpopular, it is bad advice. Or maybe as the one piece of dissenting advice, it's the most important, right or wrong.

Bear in mind, OP, that just because you handled your Perception Checks differently from the RAW, that doesn't mean you misapplied anything. You are the GM, and that means everything.

Also, if you decide to use different rules for Perception or for anything else, you can do that. You can tell the players so or else not, and none of that means you are misapplying anything. You are the GM, and that means everything.

Your descriptions of your players gives me the idea that maybe they whine a lot. And from what you are saying, there is a danger of them starting to push you around, and you shouldn't let that happen. Your goal should be to give your players a good game, and changing your rules to make things easier for them is legit, but don't let them push you around either. Players are like dogs: they want to love you; they want your attention; they need a firm, loving hand; they may not show it, but deep down, they, we, want and need to be put in our place. It might be hard for you and us, but in the end, we'll love you for it.

None of us understands your group's dynamic as well as you do. I don't know for a fact that your players are whiny, stupid dogs that sense weakness need to put in their place. And maybe you were being too hard on them.

I want you to feel empowered to make any decision in good conscience, and I wish you luck with it.

[Cevah]

DM_Blake wrote:

What is this talk of violence?

Biting a kobold is not violence, any more than it might be considered violence when a human bites a carrot.

Biting kobolds might not be in bad taste, but it might taste bad. :-)

---

Players:
You have a party of casters. You always have ranged options. If they don't want to use them, it is their own fault.

The party is traveling in an outdoor setting. Range is the standard first contact, not melee. Encounter distance is > move action.

The party is in hostile territory. Paranoia as SOP is indicated.

GM:
Applying perception rules incorrectly upped the effective CR. Admit mistake and move on.

CR bump for difficult terrain should apply since the enemy bypassed it with potions.

Half snipe/half sneak to next spot: Does not cut CR much because the half not attacking are still causing party difficulty.

Having a clock helped. Small fast attack to cause wasted resources is proper. However, given the rocket-tag that PF favors, 8 rounds is a huge combat, not a small fast one. Three-four rounds would have been better: 1=howl, 2=snip, 3=snipe, 4+=sneak away.

I define a "Special Snowflake" PC as one who insists on their own way or they leave, often with special powers (such as you described). Your players are playing special characters, but are not SSes.

---

The combats are not abusive. The first was too long and mishandled. This built up frustration (=non-fun). The second had a similar element. This set off the frustration as "the trigger". The element of withdraw+stealth is normal. It just happened to be the focus of the frustration.

I do agree that a style mismatch seems likely. So talk to your players about it. Sometimes they need to be hit over the head to get their attention.

/cevah