Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Eliza_Stormwhisper 03-24-05, 04:11 AM	I have two gaming groups: one where I'm a player, one where I'm a DM. The group where I'm a player is an excellent group: a DM who knows what he's doing, and 5 people (including me) who also know what they're doing. I'm not here to talk (er, complain) about that group though. My other group consists of me (the DM), a pessimist, a roll-player, and someone who never pays attention. I'll use codes for them: P = pessimist, RP = roll-player, NPA = guy who never pays attention. Here's an example of what happens with one of our encounters. For future reference, the P plays a fighter/thief, the RP plays a cleric and a fighter, the NPA plays a mage, and the DM plays an archer (fighter specialized in bow). It's a foggy day. We're travelling through the foothills of a mountain range, and I roll a random encounter: 7 hill giants. We're a group of 5 3rd and 4th level characters, so we're bound to get killed if we face them. DM: You're riding slowly through the fog when, about 80 yards in front of you, you spot several hill giants marching in your direction along the path. RP (barely waiting for DM to finish): I run up and attack one! DM: Okay, you'll have to spend a round getting of your horse. RP: What? I'm on a horse? DM: Yes, that's why you'll reach Amgol in 4 days time instead of 20. RP: That's crap! I didn't know we were on horses! NPA: What's going on, now? P: Weren't you paying attention? Lizzy's going to kill us again. DM: Random encounters are just that. What happens, happens. If you don't like random encounters, maybe you shouldn't be travelling through the wilderness. RP: Okay, so I get off my horse. Now what? DM: The giants have moved approximately 90 feet closer. NPA (actually paying attention for once): Can I cast a spell on them? DM: Uh.... sure. What spell? NPA: I want to cast fireball on them. DM: You're a 3rd-level mage. You can't cast fireball yet. It's a 3rd-level spell. NPA: But I'm 3rd level! I can cast... DM (interrupting): Read the book. Your spells are 2/1. NPA (reading rules): Oh, mages suck! Can I change my character? DM (ignoring NPA): Okay, that was that. The giants have spotted you, roll initiative. P: There's nothing I can do against these things! (Initiative is rolled) DM (counts through, giants end up going first on 4): Okay, one of the giants throws a rock at your dwarven fighter, <RP's name>. (rolls attack) Okay, you get hit... RP: How? I have AC -8! DM: Because they rolled high enough, you dolt. (I rolled a 20, which is a crit, too). Okay, you take 14 wounds. RP: How? DM: A critical hit, how else? Make your Con check to stay conscious. RP (rolls a 20, failing Con check): That's such crap! I didn't even get to do anything! DM: Bad things can happen in the wilderness. (Giants finish up, also knocking down RP's cleric, much to his dismay. Fighter/thief goes next). P: I run up and attack one with my swords. DM: You're not in range this round. You can move up to them, but not attack. P: There's nothing I can do here. DM (finishing counting through initiatives): Okay, next round. NPA: What? I never got to go! DM: What'd you roll for initiative? NPA: 3. DM: Okay, so you got distracted on your segment and can't act until 10. It's 10 now, go ahead. NPA: That's so stupid! I rolled a 3! DM (ignoring NPA): Okay, so what are you doing? NPA: Casting shield, I guess. DM: Okay, I believe that takes 3 segments. Doesn't matter though, it's the end of the round. And so on. The party proceeds to all get killed, with my archer running away on sight of them, with the party complaining about her decision to do so. Is there any way to save these idiots? I must also mention that RP argues with every rule that he doesn't like.
Harold DeVor 03-24-05, 04:51 AM	To be honest I'd get rid of the random encounters, simply saying bad things happen in the wilderness is a really bad way of explaining away this encounter.
Eliza_Stormwhisper 03-24-05, 05:05 AM	To be honest I'd get rid of the random encounters, simply saying bad things happen in the wilderness is a really bad way of explaining away this encounter. That is an idea. I do, however, think you're missing the point.
Harold DeVor 03-24-05, 05:09 AM	That is an idea. I do, however, think you're missing the point. What point? That you threw a meaningless, unwinnable encounter at them and are upset they couldn't be bothered to deal with it. If that is the sort thing that happened in a game I was playing I would probably have the same attitude as them.
Eliza_Stormwhisper 03-24-05, 05:13 AM	What point? That you threw a meaningless, unwinnable encounter at them and are upset they couldn't be bothered to deal with it. If that is the sort thing that happened in a game I was playing I would probably have the same attitude as them. It was a random encounter. They know very well that random encounters in my world can range from meaningless to lethal, all depending on the roll. The point is that the encounter itself isn't the point. I'm attempting to deal with their attitudes. They adopt the attitudes I attempted to depict with the example encounter no matter what they're doing. Take the beginning of that situation. It would have been easy enough to simply stop, turn around, go the other way a bit, and move off the path into the fog, letting the hill giants pass. Hill giants' movement rate is 9, and the slowest horse they had moved at 15. The RP is the kind of guy whose immediate reaction to just about anything is "I attack it!"
amethal 03-24-05, 06:22 AM	They know very well that random encounters in my world can .....(be) lethal.....The RP is the kind of guy whose immediate reaction to just about anything is "I attack it!" Now that seems like a problem which contains its own solution....... I'm surprised you only have one pessimist in your party. :) How good are you at describing encounters? On the basis of the information available, we have a combination of a random encounter and players not paying attention. I doubt you described the encounter to them as tersely as you have written it here for our benefit, but possibly you did not make it sound as exciting as you might have done. [One reason I never roll random encounters on the spot is I am quite weak on orally describing situations. I need some time to write down my descriptions in advance to give me an idea of what to say.] On the other hand, if you described the huge shapes lurching towards them through the fog, the noise as their heavy feet land on the ground, the skittishness of the horses, the eerie effect of the fog, the remoteness of the spot they are in, the fact that they are not sure quite what is coming towards them but it looks BIG etc. etc. and they still weren't interested, then you can either a) dedicate your spare time to becoming a master story teller, introduce mood music, scented candles, lighting effects etc. in an attempt to get them to pay attention or b) find some new players or c) try and find a game that your existing players actually WANT to play
Eliza_Stormwhisper 03-24-05, 06:33 AM	(...) a) dedicate your spare time to becoming a master story teller, introduce mood music, scented candles, lighting effects etc. in an attempt to get them to pay attention or b) find some new players or c) try and find a game that your existing players actually WANT to play Well, I like what you have to say. You make some good points, and I apologize for the initial misunderstanding. I'm already a pretty good story teller... however, Mr. RP doesn't care to hear it, he just wants to start rolling his attack rolls. NPA, of course, isn't paying attention. P actually likes the storytelling, but once that's over, he goes back to being ****** off again. That kind of rules out option A, although I like the idea. As for option B, that's a good idea. I followed option B, and ended up in the other campaign that's good, as I briefly mentioned in my initial post. Option C presents a delimma. I'm sure RP and NPA would rather enjoy playing a kick in the door, hack-and-slash game. P would hate it. Also, I wouldn't be interested in running it. As for a deep game, RP doesn't like it, NPA doesn't pay attention, but P likes it. To be honest about P, if he weren't such a pessimist, he'd be a good role-player. I've put up with these guys for years. I'm always trying to find a balance between what each individual wants out of the experience, and what I want out of the experience. We've not been very successful so far. In conclusion, maybe we should just call the whole thing quits. I don't know. Maybe I'll just continue this brutal cycle forever.
Quirriff 03-24-05, 07:08 AM	Most players are stupid at one point or enough, as a DM I sorta have to take control and make them take turns at some points. As a result you have to check if their character sheet is correct and so on and so forth.
amethal 03-24-05, 07:54 AM	I've put up with these guys for years. I'm always trying to find a balance between what each individual wants out of the experience, and what I want out of the experience. We've not been very successful so far. In conclusion, maybe we should just call the whole thing quits. I don't know. Maybe I'll just continue this brutal cycle forever. If you are not having fun, and they are not having fun, AND you have another group anyway, then the answer seems pretty obvious...... Are they friends of yours? Maybe you could arrange to do something else with them on those nights instead of roleplaying. When you explain why you are giving up on the D&D, maybe they will have some ideas of their own. As an aside, one of my players is something of a pessimist, and his attitude seems to attract bad luck on himself. He is one of two rogues in the party (the other is an optimist), and they divide the scouting duty between them. Pessimist rogue always seems to be the scout when the room has a particularly nasty trap or monster in it, but optimist rogue is the scout whenever the room contains interesting NPCs or treasure.
Thorak 03-24-05, 09:27 AM	Run a roleplay-intensive, yet action-packed campaign. Court intrigues and sneaking around trying to not get caught. There'll be rolling, so roll-player will be somewhat appeased, pessimist can stop worrying that everything's going to kill them, and NPA will be completely screwed if he doesn't pay attention. Incidentally, if people don't pay attention, in my group, we have a tradition of the DM not repeating himself. It's one thing if you're asking him to repeat a descriptive detail, but if you ask what somebody just said, then you have two options, ask the other players, or in-character ask the guy to repeat himself. And asking for repeated description uses up IC time too, because your character is taking another glance around. Not much, but if you missed the charging orcs, you'll probably lose initiative automatically. Mixing up the style of the game can kick everyone out of their rut and get them thinking differently. RP-campaigns are great for this, done well, because you have an interesting storyline, remind the players that experience is for overcoming, not killing, challenges, not monsters, and still enough crunchy goodness sneaking around and using spells to manipulate people and the environment, instead of just nuking the beasties, to keep roll-players relatively happy. Just make sure they get good experience and treasure. And if the rollplayer whines about not being able to kill the guard, point out that he gets the same experience for sneaking past unnoticed, and doesn't take the risk of getting hurt. Obviously, though, you'll probably want new characters for this; combat is going to be less significant and it wouldn't be fair to stick Joe Fighter into the situation, where he'll rightly feel pretty useless.
Chewbacca's LightSaber 03-24-05, 10:15 AM	First let me say as soon as the words "several" and "hill giants" came up, whether being assumed or outright stated I would have been the first to suggest hiding or running. And I'm usually the reckless one in any group I play in. Not every encounter in a game or real life is meant to be conquered with direct conflict. Grasshopper, sometimes you must be like the river and flow around the mountain... not over it. Also is your pessimist really a pessimist or are just role playing one really well. Had a player in a game of mine like that. "Oh I'm screwed... oh woe is me" :raincloud . I asked her away from the table if she was having any fun. She said hell yes that it was just her character’s personality. Sure enough, the next character she played was and upbeat perky druid named Sunshine with a pink pony (ala My Little Pony). Way to much sugar. We liked her gloomy goth Ranger better. :D
Drachasor 03-24-05, 10:17 AM	If you want to make them know they need to run away, you really do need to almost tell them. Tell them they know they can get away because the horses are faster, and they are almost certainly outmatched. Otherwise many a PC will go to his death. If they don't know for sure they can't handle something, then they very well might try. Also, you seem to be a bit arbitrary about some things, with a number of house rules thrown in to take control away from the players. The critical hit and unconciousness as well as the initiative change probably weren't the best way to do things. Hmm, are you playing 2nd Ed? -Drachasor
Alluvian 03-24-05, 11:16 AM	Maybe give them all a knowledge (survival) or knowledge (big icky monsters) roll when they see obviously unbeatable things. Put it vs a pretty low DC for obviously nasty things like giants. You are playing second edition I guess, but isn't there a correlary in second edition? Intelligence check or something? The mage should be pretty scholarly and would probably know HGs are nasty. The fighter probably had enough drunken chats to overhear stories of hill giants kicking butt. The pessimist would probably flee in character anyway. Make some rolls behind your DM screen and just BS it. "The mage read a report on these creatures and is aware they are well above the parties ability to fight. Mage, what do you do with this information. Hey, YOU, pay attention!"
Thelandrach 03-24-05, 11:22 AM	It's like a computer program! IF encounters in your world can be lethal AND the player's can't be bothered to get that THEN they're all going to die. You need to change one of the first two conditions, or the THEN statement will keep happening.
weasel fierce 03-24-05, 02:05 PM	If they see an encounter that are obviously beyond their ability to confront, RUN. Idiots dont become heroes.
Capt. Pixel 03-24-05, 02:16 PM	My gosh! - I didn't even finish reading your encounter description. :rolleyes: weasel fierce said it best so far. If the encounter looks too tough, run. It seems to me that you are running a classical game style. You can't be responsible for poor choices on the part of the Players. That, BTW, is the disclaimer that I give to my Players at each and every game. :cool:
J Milburn 03-24-05, 04:00 PM	you think you have it bad? I am guessing that because you are playing what i only reconise as second edition adnd, and that that is older and harder, that you are playing with aldults. Well, i have loved dnd since i was introduced to it about a year and a half ago, and before i discovered how good this site was my only chance of playing it in any bulk was with a secondry group. It is now a bottom group of about 6, but it consits of all the kids on my street who were my friends when i was about 10 been gathered up. There is a rather slow boy who dosent pay attention and only plays a lizard folk happily, a rather enthusiastic but not very good rolepleyer who likes poisons and elves and the self styled leader who is the biggest PG imaginable and only cares about his ability scores. Oh, and a wannabe goth who starts singing a couple of minuites in because hes bored. they are all younger than me and im only 14!! Thorak- i love your repeating rules, im going to use them myself. I had never thought of anything like that as most of my groups dont play that seriously so expect me to repeat alot of things.
weasel fierce 03-25-05, 01:40 AM	singing at a game session ? Thats a first, though it beats some things I have seen people do
Red Fire 03-25-05, 02:06 AM	singing at a game session ? Thats a first, though it beats some things I have seen people do Don't even go into detail. Aiya! sounds like you've all had it rough with stupid people. I haven't played a single session yet, but I'm lucky enough to know the people I'm RPing with. I know that none of them including myself will jump to conclusions and say, "Duhhhhh, I'm gonna attack the LV. 50 Red dragon with my rusted dagger, 'cuz I am so powerful at Lv.1", and then later be squished by the dragon's tail. My character is only a lv.1 shugenja but is smart enough to know time and place for his battles. When he does fight I'll utilize the one word that most dumb RPers neglect or forget...STRATEGY! Am I right or am I right? What you should do Eliza is..start a new story and set your players straight and remind them of what an RPG is supposed to be about. Also remind them to use logic ::coughs:: NPA and P (if they have any) as the story progresses. And most of all tell them to follow the rules or don't play at all, but don't tell them so harshly that they never want to start a new campaign with you.