How do you judge if your GM is being fair to you?
I ask because I've had two recent experiences that I found very interesting. In one game, a D&D Next playtest, a player's character was dropped and the player became rather irate. Obviously this was triggered by his character being taken down, but he framed his complaints in terms of the GM being out to kill the party and of using enemies that were too much for the characters to handle, case in point being the area-effect immobilization used by one monster, which managed to hit every PC. Immobilization makes a target easier to hit in D&D Next, and his was killed while immobilized.
The player argued with the GM for a bit, and then left the game. Fortunately it was an online game. The rest of the party went on to defeat the encounter.
In another game I'm in, 4th Edition D&D this time, again play-by-post, there's a veteran player who is strongly against metagaming. His character was affected by a couple of attacks, including one that inflicted ongoing 10 damage. He posted in the out-of-character thread that he wanted some clarification about the attacks, including verifying the amount of ongoing damage, which he indicated he felt was high.
In a private conversation with him, I asked if this wasn't metagaming on his part. He said that "Asking about the level of difficulty to the GM is not metagaming in the forbidden sense." Yet he knew that the monster had been adjusted to do 10 ongoing rather than 5, a fact he could only verify by looking at the module or the monster manual. He is correct that it has been modified, but by Wizards of the Coast; the online Compendium lists 10 ongoing for the monster. This could be an error, but the creature was updated and the change might have been deliberate.
Both of these players were greatly concerned with fairness, one of them to the point that they would apparently violate their own strictures about metagaming in order to determine whether the game was fair. In neither case was the GM giving any other indication of unfairness or partiality, and both are extremely fair. The two players were both new to the game and don't have the history I have with the GMs.
I'm not one who feels that GMs should never be questioned, but both of these players seemed spurred on by direct threats to their character that they felt were unfair. I'm trying to engage those players directly, but I wanted to see if people here could help me understand what these players might have been expecting. Obviously the one was expecting 5 ongoing damage or less at the level we're playing (no other creatures I can find deal 10 ongoing at 6th level), but I feel like there's more to it. What do you think?
(Also, I don't feel like GMs should be unfair, it's just that I don't think unfairness can be judged by a character being taken out or an encounter being too difficult. I'd have to see something like events being dictated to occur a certain way - fudging basically, which can be both to and against the players' advantage. Neither of these events were fudged.)
How do I judge it?
I tend to optimizie. For some unknown reason this draws the ire of the same sort of DM that is known to show favoritism/punish players. The best example I have is below.* Those sorts of DMs are also generally not subtle. Its usually fairly obvious that things are hitting you every time even though your AC is the highest and missing everyone else, or that everything passes its saving throws no matter what your DC is. Its also fairly obvious that you are getting criticals confirmed against you 1 out of every 4 attacks made instead of the much more likely 1/20 if it confirms. Everything seems to have DR vs the thing you use and everything breaks through your miss chance.
Generally if you feel like the DM is picking on you they probably are. If you ask them about it in a nice way. If they deny it and get upset they absolutely are. If they apologize and take steps to help you feel less picked on they probably aren't. EX 2*
The DM said to build uber optimized level 20 PCs for a hack and slash dungeon crawl. I built a character who was immune to damage, had saves in the 50's and could regulalrly deal 500ish in melee per round (and 0 at range). I mistook what he meant by "Uber Optimized" but to my benefit I did ask what level he meant and he said as high as I wanted, and nothing was off limits. The only other player whose build I remember was a sorcerer 17/some thing with a terrible LA 3. She was a blaster who didn't use metamagic and would turn out 45-50 on average. Nothing I hit ever died. She would routinely kill things in one hit.
Ok, so, on the player side, it comes down to gross improbability. A reasonably canny GM who wants to be unfair should be able to keep a lid on that, though, sprinkling the unfairness here and there. Yep, he got two 20s in a row for his saving throws. That happens. Is the player really going to track how often it happens?
The ugly side of this is that sometimes probability seems improbable. Three 20s in a row CAN happen. If it never did, THAT would be improbable, but no one would make a stink.
The second example is also a question of probablity and misunderstanding it ("Wait, another fire-immune creature?" "Wait, he hit me again?"). The player knows something is wrong, but assumes GM shenanigans. Maybe it's just the normal human instinct to blame others when things don't meet our (often incorrect) expectations.
So to attempt to answer your question, I beleive that you need to look the the majority of players for unfairness of a GM...let me give some give my reasoning.
I cannot really comment on D&D Next.
What I can say is that in my general experience intrepretation with fairness in 4e. seems at times tie into the strengths and weaknesses of a character in any given situation.
In D&D 4e. generally player build characters to do a few things really well in combat situtation. Some monsters or encounters can take away from that. A controller that is designed to take out large groups of minions may find it difficult to battle a solo elite with the same level of effictiveness.
I do beleive that there is a difference between on making a situation a challange and completely shutting down a character or groups abilities.
Judging a GMs fairness is about intrepretation of the situation by the players present. Not just by the questioning player but by the group as a whole.
While in college I had a teacher that would input every question that every student gave on a test. After doing so he would look at the percentages. If more than 70% of the students got the question wrong he would throw out the question. His intrepretation was that if that many people got it incorrect the issues was in how if taught the facts pertaining to that question.
They way I try to run is this: If I have seven people at my table and three or more say "that wasn't cool" then I look at the situation in how I ran it.
I also ask the the question of the players "Why wasn't it cool?" If the answer has to do with poor rolls or team synergy at the time of the encounter then I talk to them about it but don't see it as a failure on my part usually. But I have been wrong before so I take own opinions with a grain of salt.
If the answer has to do with me doing something that could be seen as unfair then I look I ask for suggestions on how to fix the problem.
I didn't directly comment on your examples directly because I was not there to witness them.
I don't accept the premise that the problem here is the fairness of lack thereof on the part of the DM. Here's what I think was going on with those other two players.
One problem is a selfish player who is willing to disrupt the game for everyone else because he didn't get what he wanted (character not dying). A possible solution is to explain the impact his actions had on the other players and also to explain that PC death doesn't have to be the end, etc. and that it's no reflection on him personally.
The other problem appears to be a player who has one set of standards for himself and another set of standards for everyone else, particularly in regards to "metagaming." (I see a lot of "two sets of rules players in D&D - matter of fact, some editions seemed to be designed around it). The first solution I can come up with off the top of my head is to see if you can get him to understand that "metagaming" isn't a bad thing, as shown by the fact that he found himself in a situation where it was something he wanted to do (despite his "no true Scotsman" definition of the word).
RedSiegfried wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Krusk wrote:
Funny how if we'd just stuck to the dice, they already avoided playing favorites for us.
But people ignore them then come around to the exact same position anyway.
Noon wrote:
I just hear people talking about being fair and unfair and sprinkling unfairness here and there in the latter case, not about actually sticking to rules. Plenty of folk seem to think they can fudge whenever and then they still think they are adhering to some sort of fairness. Sounds the same here.
If it's not about dice, why are you talking about what sort of dice rolls an unfair GM might sprinkle around?
Noon wrote:
Centauri wrote:
Noon wrote:
Just seems like two subjects squished into each other again - one being fudging, the other being the rules and adhering to them, but taking the options presented in them (ie, the DM chooses who a monster attacks)
With the latter I think it's worth considering that you can play the one game, but take on very different modus operandi in it so much so it could feel like entirely different games. Ie, one modus operandi might be a GM never really has monsters attack a downed PC. In another the GM's modus operandi is to attack downed PC's at any given chance.
Ostensibly the same game, but the results would feel like two entirely different games.
Noon wrote:
For a start you'd need an agreement that the GM adheres to his modus operandi (or an agreement on how much and how often he can divert from it). No agreement, no unfair actions.
Granted I've been really annoyed in some games, but I still acknowledged to myself it was over something that fell within the rules for what a DM can do (before we even get to golden rule BS).
Some indie RPG's now seem to try and design their rules so the GM (if there is one) just runs a particular type of game - the indie designer makes rules to ensure no attacks on downed characters can happen, or ensures it must happen - whatever is the designers goal for the game.
The only thing that's maybe unfair is the expectation that if you join a game, you are married to the campaign.
If the GM has that expectation, we'll then you end up like a married couple arguing, unless you divorce and leave the game or he stops hitting your downed characters or takes back the action.
These days I tend to mention to the GM I'll try the game till about level 3 or such, to see how it goes - so as to say 'no, I'm not marrying your campaign'. I give it a fair try (I feel) and if their modus operandi doesn't sit well with me, I wait till level 3 and then politely thank them for their GM'ing and decline to play further.
Are you trying to argue some sort of unfairness based on the GM expecting marriage to the campaign and so if they expect that then your expectations need to be met too?
Who decides if a GM is being unfair? Wouldn't it be the players?
As an example: I have players who beleive that attacking down players is unfair, and others who don't.
I see attacking downed players as a tactical disadvantage.
If you have five people attacking you and drop one, why focus on the only one that can't harm you at the moment?
As for the immobilization situation, if everybody had made the check, would anyone have cared?
Further if a player had such an immobilization power is it unfair for them to use if if the enemies are all grouped up?
There are times when players beleive that they are the exception to the rule. This is usually brief moments when a players character is down on their luck. They focus on themselves.
There is nothing wrong with that. We are human we focus on ourselves every day. But some people (me included) can at times take this game far too seriously.
People play this game for various reasons, but if you imagine your character as a Bada$$ and they aren't living up to the pedestal you put them on that can really suck.
I have had games where my character couldn't roll to hit anything or make any save.
As a player we need to look at ourselves and ask if it was just bad luck or what it GM unfairness. It might be best to ask the other players this question since they were in the same battle and share the insight of that battle.
In the end GM unfairness would be dictated by the majority of the players in that game.
At least that is my opinion.
Grimli wrote:
Figured the marriage analogy would be uncomfortable.
Are you enjoying yourself?
Is the DM helping to facilitate this?
I'll bring cakes and chips, beer and wine, and then arbitrarily pound your PC into the ground. Deal ?
A fair dm is extremly very rare, reason cause a fair Dm is someone who has a extremly very rare ability of maintaining neutal discrepancy and in a fantasy role playing game that is not a easy thing to do, in all the years that I have played and all the dm's I have had , I have only had one Dm that did it , Many Dms may think they can do it, But what a lot of them do not realize is they are stacting the odds in their favor on a subconscious level, This especially goes for dm's that want to start creating a campaign based around their personal fantasys and personal belief system in short when they start bringing their own little worlds they live in into the game, when you have dm's that do that there can never be any true neutral discrepancy, There fore they can never be any true fairness...
Methen wrote:
Krusk wrote:
Sorry you have had a bad run. Whatever other foibles they may have had, I would say that 80% of the DMs I have played with over the years have been pretty fair.
Methen wrote:
Seth_Ulrik wrote:
I would counter Methen's opinion, that there's no such thing as a Player who can identify fairness.
I find myself wondering if I'm being fair at times; in "social" interactions I'm rather mean... 'forcing rolls' for things you may be able to roleplay or having them come up with reasons for doing odd things - but in combat, I can be quite fair. Sometimes that pesky 20 is actually a 1... you didn't see that as a 20, you see a 1. Don't you party? <<silence and nodding>>
I would want party members communicating directly to me, openly, unless the problem is with another player... in which case, I'll walk out of the room and chat - followed by hopefully getting the other person to also have a chat with me. Has yet to happen. But I would certainly hope overall I'm a fair GM.
I will though, in boss fights... let those 20's stay 20's. It's the one time I'm not completely on the players sides. I announce when it's a boss level fight. Players know they could be rerolling if they slip up.
All other fights, I'll play the hostage game.
Tsulia wrote:
Centauri wrote:
My players generally know that I only ever cheat behind my screen, if it is to make combat more fun. I might give a boss a few extra hitpoints, or turn that critical that might kill a player, into a normal hit. But I tend to throw a lot of my rolls on the table, so the players can see that I am playing by the rules 90% of the time. They know that I allow my monsters to fail their saves, and throw critical fails, just as much as I allow them to throw critical hits on occasion. It is hard to judge if a DM is being fair, but throwing important rolls out in the open, ensures that the players feel you are being fair.
It can be especially exciting when the DM declares that the next roll might kill a player, and then he rolls the dice out in the open for all to see.
I took part in a campaign a while ago, where I felt the DM was throwing everything in my path as a player to make me fail. It was as if every npc was out to get us, spike our drinks, call the cops, or pull out a gun. Every check was unfairly high, and bound to fail. And no escape felt possible from the railroading of the DM. It felt as if the DM wanted to beat the players, rather than allow the players to have fun. Worst of all, it felt as if we were being punished for roleplaying our characters. That is how a friend of mine lost his character, because his character wanted to go see a movie, and a handgrenade landed on top of him during the movie. The player was rightfully pissed, and we quit playing with the DM shortly afterwards.
I'm a DM, and I'm often not entirely fair. Especially when it makes a better game for everyone.
That's not to say I play favorites in combat. I make most of my rolls where the players can see them, and when there's a chance of an enemy choosing between PCs I often assign a probability and then roll the dice in front of the players so they know I'm not picking on them in combat.
On the other hand, when it comes to social interactions I reward some characters for failure and others for success. I have one player who loves getting caught up in the middle of social messes and another who hates it. I treat them differently in city/social encounters because I want both players to have fun. Other players have different preferences, and some want to hang back while others want to take the lead and be the main focus. Balancing those player desires means not always being "fair," but always providing the opportunity for players to get what they want most out of the game.
I roll most of my dice rolls in secret, but during crucial moments I roll the dice in front of the players, so they know I'm not cheating.
Of course I do cheat from time to time, as a good DM should. I increase the HP of boss monsters during combat, if I feel a fight is going too quickly. I turn crits into normal attacks, if I think a monster is being a bit too devastating against the players. And I pick on another player, if one player is downed. I never go for cheap player kills, nor do I break the weapons of the players if they roll a 1. And I often allow extra rolls to escape a tricky situation. If one player fails, maybe a nearby player is able to help (by grabbing his hand just in time, on a successful reflex save).
However, I never pick on one player, and I never cheat the players out of a good story development. If the players foil the plans of my bad guys, I let them have that moment. I let npc's and important bad guys die when they should, they are not immortal. So I think on the whole I am a fair DM.
Don't look for fairness, look for funness. I'll explain the difference below:
Fairness
- All PCs are treated equally; This is in terms of treasure awarded, magic items found, quests intended for specific PCs, and so forth. There should be a roughly even distribution of PC treated equal-ness.
- The DM makes all his rolls for combat public. This way, nobody can accuse him of cheating.
- The DM never adjusts the DC of any checks for any reason that is not mechanically and story sound.
- The DM never lies about an enemies damage modifiers, health, AC and so forth.
Seems good enough, right? I tend to find that being a bit unfair makes things more fun for everyone, though not unfair in the way you're thinking.
Funness
- All PCs are treated equally; This is in terms of treasure awarded, magic items found, quests intended for specific PCs, and so forth. There should be a roughly even distribution of PC treated equal-ness.
- The DM makes all his rolls for combat public. This way, nobody can accuse him of cheating.
- The DM may potentially decrease or increase the DCs of certain checks, especially during Skill Challenges if it's too easy or hard and the players are getting bored or frustrated.
- The DM doesn't fear lying about or adjusting an enemies health, damage modifiers, AC and so forth if the players are having an unlucky day with the dice for an arbitrary fight that they should feel they can win or for if they're breezing through the final fight against their long-time enemy.
As you can see, the DM isn't beyond changing the stats to make the game more fun for everyone if their focus is funness over fairness.
So yeah, I pick DMs who make things more fun for everyone over those that are essentially rules lawyers.
Timpookie wrote:
baldhermit wrote:
I play online, which probably has some effect on how I DM. I show the rolls total, but hide the static and actual roll. Players obviously know that when the total shows a 16 once, and a 35 with another attack, what the static roughly is, but I hide it a little because I sometimes cheat.
By cheating I mean I might give a level 10 monster the accuracy of a level 12 monster, just because the entire party went nuts for AC. At the same time those Orc reinforcements arrive at a time I find prudent to challenge the players, not on a die-roll.
I never fudge die rolls and roll in the open. The key is making sure that the stakes, win or lose, are interesting. I never put the fun of the table at stake when making a die roll.
iserith wrote:
Timpookie wrote:
Krusk wrote:
Timpookie wrote:
Timpookie wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
That is what I do as well. Sometimes the rolls can simply be really unfair to the players. I've seen campaigns where the DM kept rolling crits, and the players kept rolling 1's. Sometimes the DM needs to fudge a little, to make sure that the players still have fun. That is what the DM screen is for. If the players are being really stupid, then their character's death is entirely justified. But if they are really unlucky, or if I misjudged the challenge rating, then I'll adjust numbers on the fly, and sometimes outright cheat to make sure the players are having fun.
Timpookie wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
My strategy for preventing TPK is not to adjust die rolls after a encounter starts, but rather to adjust the encounter before dice start rolling.
There are so many stories we could be telling in the game that most people would consider
Encounter 1: Team NPC wants to (kill somebody, destroy something...) that Team PC cares about
Encounter 2: Team PC wants to steal (an artifact, a secret...) that Team NPC cares about
Encounter 3: An NPC wants to kill a PC, but her Team aren't willing to die for her when Team PC starts fighting back
Encounter 4: Team PC wants to (persuade, force, trick) Team NPC into doing something against the interests of MorePowerfulNPC
Encounter...
to be more fun than Encounter 1-∞: Team NPC and Team PC want to kill each other
Of all of the motivations that Pcs and NPCs could have, settling for "reduce each other's Hit Points to 0" every single time seems like the most immersion-breaking, metagamey of the options available, and I'm surprised that more people in the "stop metagaming, it breaks immersion!" crowd don't feel the same 
baldhermit wrote:
My players trust me to make it an entertaining evening, what else matters?
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
We often have an outcome in mind, Beldak. Players attack solo monster, solo monster dies after a couple of rounds, or perhaps surrenders and is questions. If I wanted to plan for PC death, they'd be easily done.
What imaculata was saying was increase / decrease monster HP on the fly just to increase player enjoyment.
Imaculata wrote:
baldhermit wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Keep in mind that this doesn't mean that I shield the players from dying, it's nothing like that at all. I just protect them from unfairness. If they are overwhelmed, so be it. But if I feel the dice seem unfairly stacked against the players, or that they are so close to victory that I might as well give it to them, then I will.
A good example of this was a campaign of a fellow DM. Our party fought a bonedragon, and we were pretty much done for. Our wizard was out of spells, and could be insta killed at any point. All of our other party members were at death's door as well. And so in one last heroic action my barbarian welcomed death. He took off all of his armor, and then charged the bonedragon completely naked. The dragon made one attack, missed, and my barbarian hit him with a critical hit. Now of course undead are immune to crits, but he still took a large amount of damage, and died with that last attack. Our entire party was expecting that this was it, that it was all over, but the dragon died and we lived.
Now did the DM cheat? We don't know.
But what I do know, is that if I had been the DM, I would have let the dragon die at that point as well.
The more you post, the more I'm glad that you've never been my DM or one of my players.
Did someone say fudge? My brother knows this awesome recipe for dark chocolate fudge that only requires three ingre... Oh, we're talking about fudging dice rolls? Alright then, carry on.
Timpookie wrote:
As DMs, we control the stakes of a situation (both the overall situation and the moment-to-moment beats), when to bring rules into play, and when to roll dice to resolve uncertainty. If a given set of stakes aren't interesting for the players, such as failure in a given scene or turn leading to character death, then simply don't include those stakes as a possible outcome of the dice. Say that failure means something else instead that the players do find interesting. I see no point whatsoever in rolling the dice if all of the possible outcomes aren't fun for the players (even if it sucks for the characters). Fudging is essentially saying "I'm okay with success, but not with failure, and I'm going to roll anyway and if failure comes up on the die, I'll change it to success." Why roll at all?
I never fudge the dice – not as a player and not as a DM. (I have been accused by a player once of not fudging in their favor)
But I can think of a whole lot of interesting / meaningful /fun situations that would never have occurred if I hadn’t rolled the dice and stuck with the result.
I've got to say that I fudge stats and die roles when I DM, though I like to do it as part of the story telling. I can however see why some people would be against fudging, after all when I play I want to know that the threat to my character is real as it adds excitement to the encounter.
For those people that are against fudging I am curious if the following would offend:
- DM messed up and the encounter turns out ot be to difficult, so the DM changes the monster stats (ie: decrease AC, HP, or apply penalty to hit) on the fly to make the fight fair. No fudging of rolls though so the Characters could still potentially die. Note that if asked about it the DM admits mistake. I am also curious how you handle this without fudging, as I assume it will happen to the best of DMs.
- Die roles favor the monsters to an unusual extend, so the DM decides to make the monster overconfident and give hiim a penalty or disadvantage until he misses with an attack.
- DM is playing a spell caster who just caught the party in a devastating spell, and casting said spell again would lead to a TPK and so the DM ignores the fact that the caster could do it agian?
Personally I have played in all kinds of campaigns where DMs cheat and where DMs play it straight by the book, and I honestly don't favor one over the other. I think it really just comes down to the DM and whether he is doing it for the right reasons, and if you don't trust your DM you probably shouild find a different game to play in.
Archmage_Conelius wrote:
iserith wrote:
Archmage_Conelius wrote:
iserith wrote:
Archmage_Conelius wrote:
Archmage_Conelius wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Archmage_Conelius wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Noon wrote:
Noon wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Zathris wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
You know what, why don't we all just agree that my way of playing D&D is best for me, and your way of playing D&D is best for you. Really, everyone here (other than me) are adults, and yet we argue pointlessly knowing that the other party is unlikely to change their views over things that we know to be just minor details of a campaign. I mean no disrespect to anybody here, but all this arguing is absolutely pointless, and this is time that could be spent more productively.
So back on topic:
I can remember some incidents were the DM’s haven’t been fair to my characters (both was back in 2nd ed).
1.) We were in the DM’s homebrew world and had to fight a homebrew black dragon on a graveyard. We were informed that this species had 3 different kinds of breath weapon as well as a knack for necromancy spells.
So the fight went quite well for us – we were doing good damage – even if the dragon used another breath weapon every round: 1st fire, 2nd gas, 3rd acid.
All of us were still standing – my character had the most hit-points left. But instead of just dying (the dragon had taken about 600 points of damage up to this point) it cast “power word kill” and choose my character – he had 59 HP left + 1d8 from Aid. (PWK was up to 60 HP in 2nd ed)
The DM disallowed the 1d8 because the player of our priest (who cast Aid on us every morning) had left early so his character wasn’t there any more.
My character (ranger) had a spell with the same effect though – but the DM hadn’t had the time to approve of it before the game (because he had chatted with the priests player before he left).
So I rolled a save -natural 20 - bevor the DM informed me, that here is no save to power word kill.
So my character died and the dragon flew of – pursued by the mage of our group that had shape changed into a dragon himself. It was an easy kill for the mage, because the dragon had 6 HP left. (So it shouldn’t have been able to fly – you needed 50% HP for this by the rules in 2nd ed)
And the DM admitted later that he hadn’t even calculated the dragon’s damage/hit-points. He just wanted to get all the dragons nifty special abilities used. (The dragon wasn’t even a great wyrm )
Now I love to play dragons when I DM and I’m not against killing some PC’s. But this dragon wasn’t played by the rules (a breath weapon only every 3rd round – even if it has different ones) And our tactic / roles / damage output didn’t matter the slightest because the dragon had “story hp”. And the kill of the dragon went to the mage finally, who overshadowed the party usually anyway (was higher level than the rest). I think the DM felt satisfied (or bad) by then and let the dragon die.
2.) With another DM and another character, the DM subtracted from my damage rolls, because he thought that my character had outrageous good stats (high dexterity and strength). So our party was overwhelmed by our opponents (hill giants led by an ogre-mage) and one of the players brought in his high-level character to save the day. (What might not have been necessary were it not for my character suffering from a DM-penalty)
Noon wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Noon wrote:
Noon wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Beldak_Serpenthelm wrote:
A small appendum to this discussion. Just for the sake of curiosity I asked my players today how they felt about the DM fudging the dice, and I gave them examples too (the same examples as I gave in this discussion). And they said they were fine with the DM fudging occasionally, at his own discretion. In fact, two of them remarked: "Isn't that the whole point of the DM screen? To do things in secret?". Also, one DM admitted that he sometimes also upped the challenge of a monster by boosting hitpoints, or changed a crit from a monster into a normal hit. We also had a talk about the ordeal with the naked barbarian dealing the killing blow to the undead dragon (which was with a different group, not with any of them), and they remarked that it was fine due to it being an awesome kill.
Make of that what you will.
Imaculata wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Noon wrote:
You know, some people know their players because they know their players.
Sometimes people play together because they are like-minded.
In both those cases, I like to call those players, "friends".
I lived with my father for 17 years before going to college. When coming back for vacation he would still sometimes forget that I hate Liver.
Any notion that you know what another person likes without ever having asked them is wrong to the point of absurdity.
I hate to do this, but do I really need to quote the DMG on this?
Page 11 of the 3.5 DMG:
"Ultimately, you have to know the kind of game your players want to play -- and, with players new to the game or a newly formed group, this knowledge may take a while to emerge. Recognize that while you're in charge, it's really everybody's game -- and that the players are all here, coming back session after session, because they trust that you'll help them have a fun and rewarding gaming experience."
In other words, you should know your players. And if you don't, you may need to take the time to get to know them.
And on fudging, page 18 of the 3.5 DMG:
"Do you cheat? The answer: The DM really can’t cheat. You’re the umpire, and what you say goes. As such, it’s certainly within your rights to sway things one way or another to keep people happy or keep things running smoothly."
Every good DM cheats. You are after all the one who makes all the decissions, in which case you are not cheating, because you make the rules. If something makes the game more fun for your players, by all means, cheat. But you should know your players well enough to understand what they would find acceptable. If your players feel really strongly about playing fair, then don't. But in all other cases I would say it is fine to cheat every now and then, just don't make it obvious.
As the DMG states on the very same page:
"Even if you decide that sometimes it's okay to fudge a little to let the characters survive so the game can continue, don't let the players in on this decission."
It's kind of like a magician revealing what's behind the curtain. If you reveal that you fudged, you ruin it. So don't make it obvious, and never tell your players. But don't fudge all the time, or players are bound to find out. This is why I often roll a lot of dice in front of my DM screen, so that the players can see that I really did roll that crit for that dragon. They know that I wouldn't punish them unfairly. But when things start to get out of control, I roll behind the screen, so that I'm free to alter an outcome if I feel its necessary.
Noon wrote:
Zathris wrote:
Beoric wrote:
I can't remember a single time where someone quoted the 3.5e DMG and I thought, "Wow, that's good advice." I think it's the worst DMG ever published.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
My players tend to have different expectations. When I present them with enemies, they expect that the challenge rating will always match their current level, or be one or two challenge ratings higher at most. When faced with ships and seamonsters however (since I run a pirate campaign), they tend to compare the strength of their own ship, with the foe before them. It's often easier to judge if another ship is a proper match, than it is to judge how tough a group of enemies is. That is because the armement of ships, and their relative size, is easy to compare to that of your own.
Recently I had only one instance where I presented them with a sunbathing seamonster, where they chose not to fight it. They simply weren't sure if this foe was worth the trouble, and wether they would be able to survive such an encounter. It was one of the rare cases where the players backed down from a fight. Since my players have a tendency to not run away a lot, I try to keep the challenges winnable. But only when they face against a boss, do I up the challenge rating a bit higher than usual, which is risky. Such an encounter will always be on the limit of what the players can handle, and sometimes slightly beyond it.
In a similar encounter with a seamonster, the players did choose to fight it, but that was at sea. The players were told that a seamonster was sighted just outside the harbor. The players prepared their ship accordingly, and set out to kill it. This was a case where the players judged that their ship would be up to the task, and they were right.
I don't really like battles where the only option is running away. Instead, I prefer to give the players options, and I think fighting should always be possible (it might just be hard, but not unwinnable). Of course, whenever you do try to balance a fight on the very edge of what you think the players can handle, you can make mistakes. Challenge Ratings are not a very precise system. They take into account a general wealth level, character level, and gear level for the players. If your campaign happens to keep magical items rare (which is the case in my campaign) the numbers will be slightly off.
Noon wrote:
To the original poster:
If you have to judge whether a GM is being fair, it might not be the right game for you. Trust between the players and gamemaster is essential for having fun while roleplaying. That is just my humble take on it.
Whenever I have had a bad gaming experience, I typically didn't trust (or didn't know them enough to trust) the gamemaster.
Whenever I have had a good gaming experience, I trusted what the gamemaster was doing with the game and where it was going.
Just somet thoughts...
Orethalion wrote:
Come on Noon, all DMs are psychic and perfect and do exactly what is good for the story all the time, and all players love them for it. Didn't you know that? What sorta crappy DM are you that you have to ask players what they like, and then try to incorporate that in your story?
Noon wrote:
Well I have no good answer to the actual question, but I would like to suggest the following for you to consider.
If you question your DM/GM's fairness you should call it a day and leave anyway.
- First, you do not have a good way of discerning if s/he singled you out for real, or what ever you suspect him/her of doing.
- Second, even if you could, it wouldn't help you after all, unless you can replace said person on the fly, without setting up everyone else sitting at the table.
- Third, independently from these considerations you should face up to the reality of the situation,
for whatever reason the chemistry between you and that person isn't working out and at that point it is rather unlikely this could be fixed somehow.
Otherwise you wouldn't be worried about the fairness employed by the GM in dealing with you and your PC and enjoy the game.
I think one of the primary issues is that players are probably going to work from the assumption that they are fair, when judging the GM.
Players, you might not be fair. Or your idea of fair is someone elses unfair.
If you go in thinking you know fair and the GM just doesn't, it's pretty arrogant.
Caveat : Some GM's might not go by some principle of fairness they have and instead try to manipulate you, I totally grant.
Imaculata wrote:
Noon wrote:
Noon wrote:
Noon wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
baldhermit wrote:
Your group Noctem is a prime example of having to adjust monster stats to increase player fun. If I threw standard monsters at you, you'd be bored silly.
baldhermit wrote:
baldhermit wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
baldhermit wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Last Sunday we had an encounter worth double the XP value for a level 18 encounter. Round 1 consisted of my firegoat monk rushing the main bad guys and dealing around 700 points of damage in order to kill the main one and bring the other two named guys past half hp. They were also dazed and had attack penalties while being adjacent to me while I had flame spiral going which gives around 30-40 damage per instance. I also killed off 2 standards at the same time. Then the rest of the party had their turns and the encounter was in mop up by round 2 because of our combined teamwork. This is pretty much how most encounters go. Though I don't expect other groups to like that.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
iserith wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Noctaem wrote:
Noctaem's group is high-op, which is why Bald needs to up the ante.
My players play mainly in heroic tier, and mainly with suboptimal (or at best mid-op) characters, with MM3-standard damage monsters, and battles are still usually over in three rounds.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
baldhermit wrote:
Well, as Beoric was saying even his mediocre group can handle a standard encounter with relative ease. So don't be too quick to dismiss the possibility your groups failings are due not having a clue :P
The big thing about this particular group is that they work together well, and feed off eachother. One dude has flame spiral up, the rest will start pushing and sliding through that fire, aside of doing their own attack. Every one APs in round 1 if they get a chance, which results in crazy stuff like +7 to hit, +20 damage per swing.
And I like enabling this stuff, since they enjoy it, and just raising monster HP is the easiest type of customization.
baldhermit wrote:
Every group is not like the others. I like charop, and even the players themselves admit this is rather extreme. But we're having fun.
baldhermit wrote:
4e combat is heavilly dependant on party tactics. It can be incredibly difficult for players to cede their characters "thing" in favor of the most optimal tactical choice, ex. Sorc has Flame Spiral up with several +damage buffs from Warlord, it almost assuredly becomes better to use nearly any power with forced movement in order to use Flame Spiral to remove a creature from the board than do what your "character does in combat". Not enabling the most obviously better choice is probably the #2 cause of longer combats (in terms of # of rounds). #1 being the DM not matching the encounter difficulty with the party's capability.
Noc: 700 damage, dazed and with penalty? You say firegoat, so I assume Sarifal MC Monk, but where's the Dazed+Penalty from? Dborn?
Zathris wrote: