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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kyoryu
Again, when presented with things that are not what you believed, or planned, or had in mind, or understood, I think there's two things you can do: Reject the idea or information or whatever out of hand, or consider it.
I think you'd be more successful in a number of areas if you defaulted to "consider it" instead of what seems to be defaulting to "reject it".
I would suggest that this would be a good place to start. If you read this and your immediate response is to tell me how I'm wrong, then you're rejecting the idea. And yet, whether or not you agree with me, there is a reason I am saying this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kane0
Being straightforward isn't the same as being easy. To earn trust, give them all the information. All of it. Knowing is half the battle, but it only gets you so far. You might know you have to hit AC 18 and deal 263 damage to drop it, but when push comes to shove someone still has to roll and get it done.
If you want to run a non-standard challenge like a trap, puzzle, intrigue, etc then state that outright and upfront. Don't be coy, batter them with the clue-by-four. If they come up with something that sounds even half as plausible as what you had considered then go with it. Keep the flow of the game going, [half a session] spent opening one door puzzle is [half a session minus 10 minutes] wasted.
Never say 'no'. Get in the habit of saying 'Yes AND' or 'No BUT'.
Agreed. 10char
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
King of Nowhere
oh, yeah. i can see that as a nice option, because it's a trope I've seen somewhere. And it doesn't mattter how realistically viable it is, it's a trope of the genre and so my brain instinctively thinks it is a possible solution. And I can't even name where I've seen it done, except mass effect.
Although giving peace to a ghost is a more common thing. I can remember two different instances, in ice wind dale and baldurs gate, where you have to allow a child ghost to rest by finding their teddy bear for them. So, by that reasoning, hugging this avatar... why not?
Perhaps, talekeal, you have different ideas of what is "logical" because you have been exposed to different tropes and so you have different expectations?
And I don't say that those things should have worked. In the end, there were enough possibilities, it was an optional encounter, and the players quickly enough jumped to the conclusion that you would shoot down any solution just out of spite.
Although I think giving peace to the avatar of violence by hugging it would have made for a far better story than just tieing it up
Hugging it wasn't ever actually seriously considered. It might make for a good story, but it would make for a pretty crappy game, and it also establishes a really weird precedent for the cosmology going forward. Essentially, it only hits the N pillar of the GNS pillars of gaming.
Again, this isn't to say that nonviolent resolutions to conflicts like this can't be cool. They are usually the most badass options in video games, like in Planescape Torment when you kill a revenant by convincing it that its world view is irrational.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kyoryu
Again, when presented with things that are not what you believed, or planned, or had in mind, or understood, I think there's two things you can do: Reject the idea or information or whatever out of hand, or consider it.
I think you'd be more successful in a number of areas if you defaulted to "consider it" instead of what seems to be defaulting to "reject it".
I would suggest that this would be a good place to start. If you read this and your immediate response is to tell me how I'm wrong, then you're rejecting the idea. And yet, whether or not you agree with me, there is a reason I am saying this.
This is, of course, all true.
I was not trying to be stubborn and arrogant, I was just stating that I take criticism on the internet a lot less seriously than I would in real life, and the fact that the majority of posters are critical of me does not, in and of itself, mean that I am overwhelmingly in the wrong, just like in real life a session without complaints from the players doesn't mean that you are doing everything right, or in business how they say every complaint is equal to a massive number of satisfied customers because angry people are more vocal than happy people.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
This is, of course, all true.
I was not trying to be stubborn and arrogant, I was just stating that I take criticism on the internet a lot less seriously than I would in real life, and the fact that the majority of posters are critical of me does not, in and of itself, mean that I am overwhelmingly in the wrong, just like in real life a session without complaints from the players doesn't mean that you are doing everything right, or in business how they say every complaint is equal to a massive number of satisfied customers because angry people are more vocal than happy people.
No, a large number of posters does not mean that you are overwhelmingly in the wrong.
Two things:
1) Seriously, try to stop thinking about "right" and "wrong". Nobody here is saying "Talakeal is a bad human and a bad DM and should be shunned." People are saying "You know, Talakeal, it seems like you might be more effective and get more of the results you want if you considered these things..."
Life is mostly not "right" and "wrong", when dealing with humans and emotions and perception. It is usually, really almost always, a matter of perception, of incompatible behavior (that is not inherently wrong), of needing to learn to see the other side more. Usually, when conflicts arise, there's some level of contribution on both sides.
So the question should not be "Is Talakeal wrong?" The question should be "is Talakeal getting the results they want, and if not, what could they do differently to get the results they do want?"
2) While a number of posters being critical does not mean you're necessarily wrong, if a number of people are all seeing the same thing it's almost always worth considering why that is. I had a discussion with a manger once who said he was shielding me from some criticism and telling people "yeah, he's not really arrogant, though I get he comes across that way." I told him to stop. Becuase if I don't hear it, I can't learn from it. Regardless of my intent in my communication, if my communication was resulting in an impression that I didn't want, it's my job to understand what I am doing that's causing that impression, and figure out how to fix it (within reason - if someone has just decided that "blonde men" are evil, then yes, they will think I'm awful, but that's not me. But if someone is not that level of irrational, it's worth listening to complaints, even if I know that they are factually invalid, because something led to that perception.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
So, if anyone is still interested in talking about telegraphing and gotcha monsters, I have a question:
How does this apply to enemy casters?
I am currently reading what Son pf a Lich wrote inthe guy at the gym thread, and he makes some very good points, about how any one spell can fundamentally change the nature of an encounter, and a given caster has dozens of spells memorized at a time and hundreds to choose from.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
So, if anyone is still interested in talking about telegraphing and gotcha monsters, I have a question:
How does this apply to enemy casters?
I am currently reading what Son pf a Lich wrote inthe guy at the gym thread, and he makes some very good points, about how any one spell can fundamentally change the nature of an encounter, and a given caster has dozens of spells memorized at a time and hundreds to choose from.
Well, since spells are well established within the setting there shouldn't be any real problem, unless this caster had spells unique to them, in that case foreshadowing would be good.
Btw, another thing to have in mind is that in order for the party to fight a lich, and not feel like the encounter is BS they already have a good degree of experience fighting casters of various kinds.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
zinycor
Well, since spells are well established within the setting there shouldn't be any real problem, unless this caster had spells unique to them, in that case foreshadowing would be good.
Many people were insisting that the problem with gotcha monsters wasn't the homebrew aspect thiugh.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
Many people were insisting that the problem with gotcha monsters wasn't the homebrew aspect thiugh.
Homebrew comes off as "gotcha" when it subverts expectations. Does it look like an orc, but suddenly self-immolates in a massive damaging aura, triggered when the meleeists charge in? That's subverting expectations of what an orc does.
"Gotcha" is all about tricking the players (usually intentionally, but they still feel like it was done if it's unintentional). Anything that makes normal behavior, or worse, normally-smart behavior, the exact wrong choice is a "gotcha."
The more informed the players are before they commit to a choice, the less "gotcha" it can be.
The less it outright looks like something it isn't, and thus the less it sets up incorrect expectations, the less "gotcha" it can be.
A homebrew monster that the players don't recognize and have no expectations about is almost certainly not a "gotcha" monster, unless it was deliberately designed to give false impressions about what are good and bad ways to deal with it that its actual stats and powers make inverted. Particularly if what it seems by description and behavior to indicate is a good way to deal with it is exactly the worst way to deal with it.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
So, if anyone is still interested in talking about telegraphing and gotcha monsters, I have a question:
How does this apply to enemy casters?
Even though a spellcasters' capabilities are inherently unpredictable they seem to have counters to being considered a 'gotcha', primarily the Spellcraft skill. Even if the spell has never been cast in your world before, a successful Identify Spell Being Cast check gives the player information on exactly what is currently happening. The players go in expecting the unexpected and have the opportunity to get accurate information on the surprise, letting them have confidence in their response, not to mention other options like readying counter-magic. Even though the specific spell being used on them might not be known, the fact that it is a spell already provides them with options. These are really important factors. The fact that the PCs might be able to loot a new spell off a defeated spellcaster just further weights reward versus the risk in the encounter.
Segev seems to have hit the nail on the head...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Segev
"Gotcha" is all about tricking the players (usually intentionally, but they still feel like it was done if it's unintentional). Anything that makes normal behavior, or worse, normally-smart behavior, the exact wrong choice is a "gotcha."
The more informed the players are before they commit to a choice, the less "gotcha" it can be.
Spellcasting seems to have been designed to be capable of surprise yet has been vaccinated against 'gotchas' due to having a built-in transparency mechanic. God job on WotC.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
So, if anyone is still interested in talking about telegraphing and gotcha monsters, I have a question:
How does this apply to enemy casters?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kane0
Gotcha rule of thumb:
“Does this break any previously established consistency?”
If so, follow the rule of threes when providing ‘tells’
Note that its not just your own consistency as DM that you have to consider, make sure to also factor in genre-savviness and similar.
Say you have a dragon. Dragons have precedent for being magical. But the average dragon in your world doesn't use magic. But this one does. This is a gotcha, because you have established consistency (your dragons don't use magic) that you then break (THIS dragon DOES use magic). If you want this dragon to use magic in your game where it is known to the PCs that most dragons don't, provide at least three obvious clues so the PCs can clue into this before the dragon uses magic on them.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Segev
"Gotcha" is all about tricking the players (usually intentionally, but they still feel like it was done if it's unintentional). Anything that makes normal behavior, or worse, normally-smart behavior, the exact wrong choice is a "gotcha."
The less it outright looks like something it isn't, and thus the less it sets up incorrect expectations, the less "gotcha" it can be.
I think segev hit the nail here. this is the first definition of a gotcha monster that actually seem to make sense: not just something unexpected, but something designed to be misleading, to trick players into doing something and then doing the opposite.
so, a wizard is not a gotcha encounter, because the players know not what spells the wizard has. it can be a gotcha encounter if the wizard has red robes with flame motives and a staff that permanently burns and he's been known to leave behind the charred remains on his enemies... and then he casts ice spells.
And in that case it may be justified, a smart opponent will try to mislead the party. but in that case at least there is a chance for them to find it out in advance.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Segev
Homebrew comes off as "gotcha" when it subverts expectations. Does it look like an orc, but suddenly self-immolates in a massive damaging aura, triggered when the meleeists charge in? That's subverting expectations of what an orc does.
"Gotcha" is all about tricking the players (usually intentionally, but they still feel like it was done if it's unintentional). Anything that makes normal behavior, or worse, normally-smart behavior, the exact wrong choice is a "gotcha."
The more informed the players are before they commit to a choice, the less "gotcha" it can be.
The less it outright looks like something it isn't, and thus the less it sets up incorrect expectations, the less "gotcha" it can be.
A homebrew monster that the players don't recognize and have no expectations about is almost certainly not a "gotcha" monster, unless it was deliberately designed to give false impressions about what are good and bad ways to deal with it that its actual stats and powers make inverted. Particularly if what it seems by description and behavior to indicate is a good way to deal with it is exactly the worst way to deal with it.
Ok, by that logic very few monsters fall under the gotcha category.
Now, the sticky issue I think, is "learning encounters".
I often try and use principles of "show don't tell".
For example, take the War Troll, a monster that is explicitly immune to fire, the troll's normal weakness. I could bombard the players with clues, or have the quest giver come right out and say "Careful, these are WAR trolls, they can't be killed by fire, use acid!".
Instead I will make an encounter have it, have the players sent out to face what they think is a normal troll, have them fight it alone in a situation without any real danger or consequences, describe the troll as unusual, and then describe in detail how the fire has no effect. Then they can either safely defeat it using trial and error, or fall back and do some more in depth research.
In my mind the "multiplying ghost" encounter was of this type; it was in an optional side room of the dungeon, it didn't have the damage output to really hurt the party, and it wouldn't travel more than a hundred yards or so from the artifact it was haunting. The players killed it, I clearly explained that death caused it to split, and the party fell back and did some research. This went exactly as intended. The "gotcha" came from one of the players deciding I was trying to trick them and misinterpreting their research, and then refusing to follow the rest of the party's plan as a result, which doesn't really seem to have to do with the nature of the monster and could have occurred in exactly the same way if I had a literal warning sign outside of the monster's lair saying "This monster cannot be killed by conventional means and will split into two if you try!"
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Talakeal, I don't know how feasible this is, but you ought to get some playtime as a player (not necessarily with your group) some time. You seem to have a hard time understanding subjective DMing mistakes, so it would help if you had a player's point of view on certain situations.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
Ok, by that logic very few monsters fall under the gotcha category.
Now, the sticky issue I think, is "learning encounters".
I often try and use principles of "show don't tell".
For example, take the War Troll, a monster that is explicitly immune to fire, the troll's normal weakness. I could bombard the players with clues, or have the quest giver come right out and say "Careful, these are WAR trolls, they can't be killed by fire, use acid!".
Instead I will make an encounter have it, have the players sent out to face what they think is a normal troll, have them fight it alone in a situation without any real danger or consequences, describe the troll as unusual, and then describe in detail how the fire has no effect. Then they can either safely defeat it using trial and error, or fall back and do some more in depth research.
That's... basically a gotcha monster.
I'd run that by having the creation of war trolls involve some actual in-universe activities, rather than just being randomly e.g. 'some trolls are immune to fire, surprise!'. Perhaps when normal trolls are put through a shamanistic rite, or fed on a certain diet, or cross-bred in a particular way, then a war troll might come into being. Well in advance of the encounter, I'd drop lots of opportunities to get intel about the troll forces and their operations, including things about this - a prisoner escapes reporting some kind of weird initiation ritual being performed, reports that the trolls have specifically been targeting transports carrying alchemical reagents, maybe the party stumbles upon failed attempts, or there are fragmented notes about the process that could be discovered before the encounter.
The reason I would do all of that has to do with my purpose in using the new monster. Whether or not the players figured it out in advance, I want them to have the feeling that everything clicks and makes sense once they discover the special trolls who have overcome their famous vulnerability. Rather than just being a random gimmick, it should feel like actually it means something and there's a reason why this troll is different.
Also, I would want to make very sure that in those previous hints, its clear that the focus was on fire. Otherwise, I would judge it to be very likely that players would assume that the new kind of troll is just outright invincible and cannot be killed. After all, when they see fire fail, why should they assume that acid would still work? So I want to create a situation where the players (who maybe didn't figure out the stuff about the ritual until they saw the new troll) have that 'click' moment, and can take the momentum from that to connect the dots that every hint about the ritual to create the War Troll involved only fire. That way, if they figure out that acid should still work, it will make for a great moment.
Even with all of that, I'd consider this to be of moderate risk to use - worth doing if it gets me something going forward (such as being a motivation that might get the party to investigate the salamander sponsors of the troll invasion, who themselves were coerced into helping by the manipulations of a BBEG noble efreet in the City of Brass), but not worth doing as just a throwaway gag.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NichG
That's... basically a gotcha monster.
I'd run that by having the creation of war trolls involve some actual in-universe activities, rather than just being randomly e.g. 'some trolls are immune to fire, surprise!'. Perhaps when normal trolls are put through a shamanistic rite, or fed on a certain diet, or cross-bred in a particular way, then a war troll might come into being. Well in advance of the encounter, I'd drop lots of opportunities to get intel about the troll forces and their operations, including things about this - a prisoner escapes reporting some kind of weird initiation ritual being performed, reports that the trolls have specifically been targeting transports carrying alchemical reagents, maybe the party stumbles upon failed attempts, or there are fragmented notes about the process that could be discovered before the encounter.
The reason I would do all of that has to do with my purpose in using the new monster. Whether or not the players figured it out in advance, I want them to have the feeling that everything clicks and makes sense once they discover the special trolls who have overcome their famous vulnerability. Rather than just being a random gimmick, it should feel like actually it means something and there's a reason why this troll is different.
Also, I would want to make very sure that in those previous hints, its clear that the focus was on fire. Otherwise, I would judge it to be very likely that players would assume that the new kind of troll is just outright invincible and cannot be killed. After all, when they see fire fail, why should they assume that acid would still work? So I want to create a situation where the players (who maybe didn't figure out the stuff about the ritual until they saw the new troll) have that 'click' moment, and can take the momentum from that to connect the dots that every hint about the ritual to create the War Troll involved only fire. That way, if they figure out that acid should still work, it will make for a great moment.
Even with all of that, I'd consider this to be of moderate risk to use - worth doing if it gets me something going forward (such as being a motivation that might get the party to investigate the salamander sponsors of the troll invasion, who themselves were coerced into helping by the manipulations of a BBEG noble efreet in the City of Brass), but not worth doing as just a throwaway gag.
Which raises the question, why is a gotcha monster a bad thing?
The method you describe, where everything is clearly laid out for the players beforehand, just sounds boring.
Maybe this is because I normally play World of Darkness games rather than D&D, but as a player I rarely ever encountered something where I knew what I was fighting, let alone its weaknesses, beforehand, and more often than not I never learned what something was. And that was great fun because it was interactive, exciting, surprising, and mysterious.
The vast majority of monsters in movies and video games follow this formula.
To me the term "gotcha" has a malicious feel to it, but if all it means is letting the players feel tension and learn by doing, then maybe I do love gotcha monsters.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
Which raises the question, why is a gotcha monster a bad thing?
It erodes trust, teaches undesirable gaming habits, will generally be a negative experience for most players, and is largely throw-away and pointless within the larger framework of the game.
As I've said before, what a gotcha communicates is 'the GM is trying to make me feel that I made a mistake, even though I didn't'. I won't rule out that there might be some rare circumstance where that could be used to good effect, but for the most part it's just abusive.
Quote:
The method you describe, where everything is clearly laid out for the players beforehand, just sounds boring.
Maybe this is because I normally play World of Darkness games rather than D&D, but as a player I rarely ever encountered something where I knew what I was fighting, let alone its weaknesses, beforehand, and more often than not I never learned what something was. And that was great fun because it was interactive, exciting, surprising, and mysterious.
The vast majority of monsters in movies and video games follow this formula.
To me the term "gotcha" has a malicious feel to it, but if all it means is letting the players feel tension and learn by doing, then maybe I do love gotcha monsters.
As other posters have said, a gotcha isn't just lack of foreknowledge, its direct subversion of expectations in a way which provokes an error that could only be avoided by metagame reading the GM's mind.
Having a big statue of liquid metal, Terminator style, that regenerates from anything but cold damage isn't a gotcha. Having a troll (traditionally vulnerable to fire) that is instead immune is a gotcha. It's using the fact that players expect that 'to fight trolls, use fire' to trick them into wrong actions.
If I'm playing WoD and I encounter a werewolf immune to silver but who takes agg from iron, a fae entity that actually becomes stronger in contact with cold iron, etc - those are gotchas. If I encounter a true fae who is repelled by rhymes, that's not a gotcha even if I didn't know that vulnerability in advance.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
Which raises the question, why is a gotcha monster a bad thing?
The method you describe, where everything is clearly laid out for the players beforehand, just sounds boring.
Then your problem is not with understanding what they are, but why you don't like them. You like the obscurity and figuring it out yourself, not everybody else is the same.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kane0
Then your problem is not with understanding what they are, but why you don't like them. You like the obscurity and figuring it out yourself, not everybody else is the same.
True, but I was only provided with that definition three days ago, and that definition excludes the vast majority of encounters that people have previously referred to as gotchas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NichG
It erodes trust, teaches undesirable gaming habits, will generally be a negative experience for most players, and is largely throw-away and pointless within the larger framework of the game.
As I've said before, what a gotcha communicates is 'the GM is trying to make me feel that I made a mistake, even though I didn't'. I won't rule out that there might be some rare circumstance where that could be used to good effect, but for the most part it's just abusive .
I will have to to take your word for it about eroding trust, my group never had any to begin with, but I could also see it building trust in the same way one would with a therapy patient or small child; something seems scary in the moment but the DM kept you safe in the end.
I don't see how being ready for the unexpected and being prepared for anything are bad gaming habits.
Any combat encounter is largely throw away and pointless within the broader narrative, but if you dont have them the players will get bored and quit / tune out long before you get to reveal the grand meaningful stories and character arcs.
The point of a gotcha encounter is to teach the players in a relatively safe environment, I don't think there is anything abusive about it unless the DM, either in his adventure balancing or ooc conduct, somehow acts like you should have known the twist going into the encounter.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
.Any combat encounter is largely throw away and pointless within the broader narrative, but if you dont have them the players will get bored and quit / tune out long before you get to reveal the grand meaningful stories and character arcs.
That's an alarming statement on several levels, not to mention a self-fulfilling one. It suggests strongly that you believe what really matters in the game is the story you want to tell, and not what the players want to do; that you are their benevolent king and they are the uppity peasants you periodically have to appease; and that since you can't be bothered to create a story to which combat encounters can contribute, you wrongly believe that it isn't possible, and your combat encounters therefore suffer from being afterthoughts.
All of those are bad things, some more than others. It also suggests that a big part of your table's problem is you, because what you've expressed here is a horribly condescending attitude that no right-thinking player ought to be expected to tolerate. So I really hope you've misphrased here, and all you really mean to say is that you don't like combat encounters and you can't work out how to integrate them with story.
But I have my doubts.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tajerio
That's an alarming statement on several levels, not to mention a self-fulfilling one. It suggests strongly that you believe what really matters in the game is the story you want to tell, and not what the players want to do; that you are their benevolent king and they are the uppity peasants you periodically have to appease; and that since you can't be bothered to create a story to which combat encounters can contribute, you wrongly believe that it isn't possible, and your combat encounters therefore suffer from being afterthoughts.
All of those are bad things, some more than others. It also suggests that a big part of your table's problem is you, because what you've expressed here is a horribly condescending attitude that no right-thinking player ought to be expected to tolerate. So I really hope you've misphrased here, and all you really mean to say is that you don't like combat encounters and you can't work out how to integrate them with story.
But I have my doubts.
This post reads like 50 pounds of assumptions stuffed into a 10 pound bag :P
I admit I could have phrased it better, but you are reading way too much into it, to the point where I disagree with almost every word you said.
Its also funny, in the previous incarnation of this thread I was getting accused of almost the exact opposite, as evidenced here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...&postcount=103
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
I had an idea about the gotcha monster and how is different from "learning encounter". I will admit it is a hard idea to articulate but I'm going to try.
There are many enemies or types of encounters (whole games even) that you need to learn about to deal with effectively. One of the main aspects of a gotcha in my experience is there a point where given the information you have you have all the information you need. It forces "unconscious incompetence" in that suddenly you don't know how little you know again because the unknowns are hidden again.
My counter argument would be "but they will learn again and then continue learning as before", but I have a counter-counter argument. Gotcha monsters actually erode knowledge. Which of these two statements would you consider to have more information in it? "Trolls are weak to fire." or "Trolls may be weak to fire." To me its the first and that is despite the fact that the second takes into account the existence of both trolls and war trolls, because it doesn't actually tell you anything. "Are trolls weak to fire?" "Maybe."
If you can't take your knowledge forward, then I guess it could work as an investigation game. But even then I could make the same arguments about investigation techniques. Imagine after dozens of monsters carefully researched and defeated, you faced a monster that "Feeds on silence and inaction." and later it turns out it gets stronger every day you don't fight it.
I may come back tomorrow and think this is stupid, but for now I think it is good.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
This post reads like 50 pounds of assumptions stuffed into a 10 pound bag :P
I admit I could have phrased it better, but you are reading way too much into it, to the point where I disagree with almost every word you said.
Its also funny, in the previous incarnation of this thread I was getting accused of almost the exact opposite, as evidenced here:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...&postcount=103
I admit to being a tad hyperbolic, but let me walk through the quotation again and show my work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
Any combat encounter is largely throw away and pointless within the broader narrative, but if you dont have them the players will get bored and quit / tune out long before you get to reveal the grand meaningful stories and character arcs.
Ok. The first part (until the "but") tells us that you don't think any given combat encounter by itself is meaningful to the narrative, and strongly implies that "the broader narrative" is the main point of the game. This is really problematic. If narrative's the main thing, why have something that takes as much time as a combat encounter in the game if it's not going to be meaningful? And why aren't you building combat encounters that are meaningful to the narrative? I assure you it can be done.
The second part tells us that the reason these combat encounters are in the game is because the players demand them, because that's what they find fun. And it strongly implies that these combat encounters are tolerated by the DM because they keep the players hanging around for his stories and character arcs. It also strongly implies that the DM has the story worked out, for the most part, beforehand--else how could stories and arcs be revealed--which means that the players have to be at least somewhat on the rails.
The logical conclusion from these points is that there are really two games going on here--one that's the kind the DM enjoys, and one that's the kind the players enjoy, and they don't exactly mesh well. That's obviously a major issue. But what makes it worse is that it falls into that classic trope of "the stupid players just want to smack stuff in the face but the DM wants to weave his masterful story." What you wrote above is what that arrogant, condescending DM would write, with bonus points for strongly implying that the DM has to bait the players into engaging with the story with combat encounter crumbs, and thereby suggesting that the DM's judgment of what is good and enjoyable is superior to that of the players.
What doesn't help your case, I might add, is that the above quotation from you, if an accurate statement of your views, makes Bob's hatred of monologues and desire to get straight to the action make a lot more sense. Because he would know that what you really value is the narrative, and that there are railroad tracks out there in service thereof, and maybe he doesn't want to ride. It would also make some of the conflicts you get into with your table make a lot more sense, because people tend to have a pretty keen sense of when someone is condescending to them, and they tend not to like it.
I think the only deductions you can really fairly quarrel with here are those in the paragraph immediately above. Those are more reliant on the context of the rest of your threads, especially since I have always found the "Talakeal's players are crazy" narrative unconvincing, and "Talakeal's players are crazy, but also deeply annoyed that he displays DM arrogance" is a more robust explanation.
If you have miscommunicated here so profoundly as to enable me to draw these conclusions while meaning something quite different, then I still think you have a very similar problem. Your players may simply have the perception that you are an arrogant my-story-or-the-high-way DM, thanks to your persistent miscommunication, and that itself is enough to screw everything up.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tajerio
snip.
The thing is, you are drawing all of this out from one sentence I typed on my cellphone at work without really thinking about it. I am not saying that you are wrong in drawing these conclusions, just that it is quite a leap.
I have been gaming with some of these people for over twenty years, so the miscommunication would have to be pretty persistent indeed for them to maintain that idea for so long.
For the record:
I do find fluff more entertaining than crunch, as both a DM and a player.
I do enjoy combat both as a DM and a player, but I enjoy it a lot more as a player as there are actual stakes and you actually want to win.
I do put a lot of effort into making (most) every encounter fun and memorable, we wouldn't have nearly so many issues with "gotchas" and the like if I didn't.
I work very hard to avoid putting railroads in my games, my players, however, wish I would use them more.
My current game is almost a complete sandbox without anything that could really be called a story.
And we can discuss this more in depth tomorrow if you want, but its late and I will leave it there for now.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
I will have to to take your word for it about eroding trust, my group never had any to begin with, but I could also see it building trust in the same way one would with a therapy patient or small child; something seems scary in the moment but the DM kept you safe in the end.
I don't see how being ready for the unexpected and being prepared for anything are bad gaming habits.
Any combat encounter is largely throw away and pointless within the broader narrative, but if you dont have them the players will get bored and quit / tune out long before you get to reveal the grand meaningful stories and character arcs.
The point of a gotcha encounter is to teach the players in a relatively safe environment, I don't think there is anything abusive about it unless the DM, either in his adventure balancing or ooc conduct, somehow acts like you should have known the twist going into the encounter.
So lets consider the behaviors your players have exhibited over the course of your DMing career, which have often left you frustrated, puzzled, and confused. You also have a reputation of somehow always finding the strangest and craziest players, who behave in ways that are totally unlike what other people have experienced in their gaming groups. You've demonstrated difficulty taking your players' point of view or empathizing with their concerns, and often the things you think answer their concerns actually blow up in your face.
Lets consider for a moment that maybe you aren't actually teaching your players what you believe you are.
There's a number of negative behaviors your players exhibit, things you definitely don't want them doing which you've told us about:
- Rather than give NPCs a chance to talk or potentially form alliances, you have at least one player who will initiate overwhelming aggression.
- You have at least one player who wants to fast-forward through all descriptive text, NPC narration, and the like.
- Rather than use strategic and well-reasoned mixtures of consumables to respond to specific situations and needs, your players will use less far less efficient but much more broadly reliable approaches
- Faced with things like final encounters, your players will openly metagame to just bull through the encounter.
- In the ghost situation, rather than taking you at your word and understanding your description of the scenario, you had a player who assumed you must be trying to trick them.
- When a player was absent from the table and you made what, in your mind, were reasonable interpolations of how they would behave when the party needed their assistance, they blew up and assumed you were trying to sabotage them.
To me, all of these behaviors make perfect sense if I had encountered a number of situations where by paying attention to the lore, listening to the descriptions, taking the GM's NPCs on good faith, etc, those actions ended up hurting me more than if I had just totally ignored the GM and tuned out the game. By running a gotcha, you aren't teaching players to play thoughtfully and prudently, you're teaching them that you as the GM are an unreliable narrator, and that the best strategy is to basically prevent you from being able to talk at all - because in the past when they've listened to you and taken what you said as informing them as to the way your world works, as often as not it has been not just uninformative, but in the end actively misleading.
You aren't teaching players to play smart, you're teaching them to detach from the game, because nothing in the game can be trusted. This is what leads to players who will collapse a dungeon with explosives rather than try to engage with it; players who will kill the NPC who is trying to tell the party their sob story because it will prevent that NPC from getting other players on their side just to betray them later.
The constant of Talakeal's bizarro world is Talakeal - consider that it may not just be that you're getting unreasonable players, but that you're actually training your players to be unreasonable. Because being unreasonable and sabotaging the GM's ability to run the game is the only strategy that your players have left to them in a world where the things you've learned will be actively turned against you.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
Which raises the question, why is a gotcha monster a bad thing?
Because they invaluate the lore the players already have and all strategies based on lore and mechanics.
It does not reward tactical behavior. Instead it punishes it, it basically guarantees a loss in an encounter entered with a sound tacticle plan. Instead it rewards what seems as random trials to find out more about this specific monster and calles that "learning" - only that, when finally done, the learned stuff is pretty useless because the monster was uncommon or even unique anyway.
So yes, that is generally a bad thing.
Quote:
The vast majority of monsters in movies and video games follow this formula.
In horror movies that is common because that is a major horror technique - produce helplessness and hopelessness by making standard tools/procedures useless and hide knowledge needed to produce a viable replacement (until maybe the end of the story)
If your genre is not horror, you only get player annoyance out of it because helplessness and frustration is rarely fun.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
I will have to to take your word for it about eroding trust, my group never had any to begin with, but I could also see it building trust in the same way one would with a therapy patient or small child; something seems scary in the moment but the DM kept you safe in the end.
Players are not small children and a DM is not a therapist. "Being kept safe by the DM" is not a pleasent experience at all. And considering that this monster only is there because the DM put it there, i don't see how such a thing ever could build trust instead of resentment.
Quote:
I don't see how being ready for the unexpected and being prepared for anything are bad gaming habits.
Because you can't prepare for everything. Either you end up holed in in your base as some kind of superparanoid prepper and are still not prepared enough or you basically stop preparing and take whatever comes because you know that you don't know enough to prepared for what comes anyway, so there is no point in prepairing at all.
Yes, both are bad gaming habits.
And as for story and character arcs : because those surprise monsters don't come naturally out of what is already established about the world, they render game world lore less relevant than it should be. It shows the players that what they knows about the world is less true and certainly less relevant than they thought. That hurts immersion and engagement with your world. It will only lead to players caring less about the story and even their character arcs.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
I have been gaming with some of these people for over twenty years, so the miscommunication would have to be pretty persistent indeed for them to maintain that idea for so long.
I find it rather strange that in 20 years these Players haven't adapted to everyone involved in the game. Either the DM adjusting to the Players - or them adapting to the DM.
Preferably a blending of both these. Old Players showing the New Players the ropes from Day One, so they understand what is going on and is expected in the game from the DM.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Talakeal
For the record:
(1) I do find fluff more entertaining than crunch, as both a DM and a player.
(2) I do enjoy combat both as a DM and a player, but I enjoy it a lot more as a player as there are actual stakes and you actually want to win.
(3) I do put a lot of effort into making (most) every encounter fun and memorable, we wouldn't have nearly so many issues with "gotchas" and the like if I didn't.
(4) I work very hard to avoid putting railroads in my games, my players, however, wish I would use them more.
(5) My current game is almost a complete sandbox without anything that could really be called a story.
1 - Then perhaps showing what the Fluff grants, in all the Pillars of the Game, is needed?
I see lots of really Great Ideas for my games in a lot of places in the Media.
But, unless I can figure out the Mechanics to show the Players how to use them during the game, they just don’t have the effect that I was aiming for.
2 - I agree that Combat is less "rewarding" as the DM. But the answer for me is - designing Villains and not just Monsters. Putting in Personality Quirks and unusual abilities but are obvious and (for New Players) easy to figure out Weaknesses.
Building mystery (Scooby Doo style) by having the PCs encounter the NPCs that talk about the Monster instead of just jumping straight into battling The Monster of the Week can be fun - but not for those players where they got sick of the running around that kind of ‘story’ involves.
(3) You like designing encounters that “Go Against the Grain” (doing the opposite of what is normal) or that break “Cliche trends” (War Trolls) but then you also prefer to hide all the information and that the Players must play 20k Questions (usually involving combat) and providing information only after they have gotten their Butts Kicked and go limping to whatever NPC you decided to have the pertinent information. Where there’s a long Movie Dialog Scene.
That’s your “Gotcha”. I’m not surprised that Bob and Company tend to just go Murder Hobo a lot. This seems to be broken communication on Play style.
(4) Railroading. Now, I tend to use Modules (from all Editions of D&D, and sometimes other Games) where a lot of the ‘story’ is preplanned. But even here, I don’t do the Video Game “You must go to Such-and-Such (person) to learn about The Castle (Location) and get the Oaken Stake (The McGuffin) in order to Unlock the next (Encounter/Location) against Stradhe.”
No, I allow the Players to determine where they go, and adapt what happens through the actions of their Characters. Heck, Half the available Encounters for either of my Groups is still unused!
Will it ever get used? IDK - that’s up to the Players. The Quest Clues are still there, new information/rumors about those Quests can be gotten with investigation and gathering information.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NichG
A - Rather than give NPCs a chance to talk or potentially form alliances, you have at least one player who will initiate overwhelming aggression.
B - You have at least one player who wants to fast-forward through all descriptive text, NPC narration, and the like.
C - Rather than use strategic and well-reasoned mixtures of consumables to respond to specific situations and needs, your players will use less far less efficient but much more broadly reliable approaches
D - Faced with things like final encounters, your players will openly metagame to just bull through the encounter.
E - In the ghost situation, rather than taking you at your word and understanding your description of the scenario, you had a player who assumed you must be trying to trick them.
F - When a player was absent from the table and you made what, in your mind, were reasonable interpolations of how they would behave when the party needed their assistance, they blew up and assumed you were trying to sabotage them.
A - Because there are not very many In Game rewards for engaging in Talking.
Heck, to me - For this group, Alliances seem to be very temporary things - even between the Players.
B - Most likely because this doesn’t (directly) involve the PC and there’s not much benefit for doing it. Perhaps just typing up the “Monologue” and handing it out would be better?
Each Player can then decide whether or not they want to read it.
I would Reward those that do, and ignore those that don’t.
C - Use of consumables really shouldn’t be part of any ‘strategic planning’.
The Players only saw Consumables as a Money Sink, instead of a “Healing Potions can save us when the Healer runs out of spells.” or “This can really help my PC if we run into X!”
D - These players seem to never stop metagaming, actually.
Normal Play: “We can’t die anyway, so no point in wasting money on non-permanent buffs.”
Final Battle: “Where the money is mostly pointless anyway? Sure, buy a metric ton of potions, scrolls, wands and stuff - and then burn them up first to mow through the resource draining Traps and Minions and use our actual Powers directly against the BBEG.”
E - Which, as I stated before, is either a Trust Issue - or an undercover Muder Hobo.
F - I refuse to play someone’s PC (especially as the DM), because of this happening too often to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Satinavian
And as for story and character arcs : because those surprise monsters don't come naturally out of what is already established about the world, they render game world lore less relevant than it should be. It shows the players that what they knows about the world is less true and certainly less relevant than they thought. That hurts immersion and engagement with your world. It will only lead to players caring less about the story and even their character arcs.
Very nice outline.
On the flip side, a Monster that resulted because of the Arc that a Character created can be cool.
Having the Lore of this Monster's creation be something that can be discovered as the Pc/s both investigate and battle it can be awesome.
But, like Satinavian said, unless it re-enforces the World Lore, it's just a One Shot Encounter.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
This thread is producing a lot of insight.
You can use those elements of surprise in moderation, the more sparsely the less trust you have from the players. So, in your case, not really. The damage may be beyond mending.
By the way tal, you say that as a player you like to be surprised. But how often? Because if it went to the point where you never understand what's going on, it would get pointless. And most gamers don't share your view either. They want control. They want to understand what's going on to face a challenge. Like a professional athlete, they want to know how the ball and the field will react to make a good performance. They do not want to have a ball that goes in different directions after being thrown the same way. That's the kind of thing that make them stop caring. Because they are inquisitive people, they don't want mistery, they want answers.
As for feeling that 'the dm is keeping them safe', that undervalues their efforts. It is demeaning AND insulting. It doesn't help with trust. I'm not sure what does, frankly.
Last but not least, for the " monsters in movies are rarely statted": we told you time and again that what works in movies and in rpg is different. And most action movies don't make sense in the first place and an rpg group would handle those situations much more efficiently.
You have to shift a bit your expectations. Which is not to say that you cannot have cool scenes, but you have to prepare them differently. Often you have to grab them as they unpredictably arise
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
I take issue with the idea that the "hydra-ghost" was somehow a safe weak monster meant to show a mechanic, after all that monster managed to deal a TPK on the players.
BTW, what are your feelings on running games on easy mode?, seems like some of your players would appreciate it but you don't like the idea of running such a game.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Out of curiosity, is the gotcha monster one where you do something that is different compared to that monster or compared to monsters in general?
For example, normal bullets will kill most things, but do nothing to a werewolf, for that you need a silver bullet. Does that make a werewolf a gotcha monster? (Assuming your players / characters don't know what a werewolf is going into the encounter).
Quote:
Originally Posted by
zinycor
I take issue with the idea that the "hydra-ghost" was somehow a safe weak monster meant to show a mechanic, after all that monster managed to deal a TPK on the players.
BTW, what are your feelings on running games on easy mode?, seems like some of your players would appreciate it but you don't like the idea of running such a game.
They killed it three times in the first encounter and then fell back without taking any serious injuries when they saw they weren't making any progress.
The next time they decided that they needed the magic item it was guarding and didn't want to spend any consumables getting it, and chose to simply form a human shield and let it kill them because they knew there was no penalty for death.
Two sessions later they fought five enemies with an identical stat line (except for the splitting obviously) and wiped the floor with them.
Running an easy game would be a lot of work, I am not sure how to balance it mechanically or figure out how to make a logically consistent setting where they players aren't facing any real challenges but still feel like they have accomplished something and be treated as heroes. I am also not sure if it would help in the long run or make problems worse; I would imagine it would set low expectations and might even encourage laziness or entitlement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Great Dragon
(3) You like designing encounters that “Go Against the Grain” (doing the opposite of what is normal) or that break “Cliche trends” (War Trolls) but then you also prefer to hide all the information and that the Players must play 20k Questions (usually involving combat) and providing information only after they have gotten their Butts Kicked and go limping to whatever NPC you decided to have the pertinent information. Where there’s a long Movie Dialog Scene.
Did I actually say any of that?
I don't love designing encounters that buck cliche trends or go against the grain. I tend to give boss monsters one unique ability (about half the time), and I give maybe 10-20% of normal enemies something unique that is purely cosmetic. I can't think of any monsters I have ever used that are the opposite for their species. In the current campaign the closest I have come is using a frost salamander and a rust monster straight out of the monster manual and then the aforementioned splitting ghost.
Likewise, the point of a learning encounter is that the players can either solve it through trial and error or can fall back and prepare. The idea that they get their butts kicked AND fall back is counter to the whole idea. Further, its rarely a specific NPC who has the information, more likely it would be a knowledge or gather information check providing OOC information. I am not sure what a "long movie dialogue scene" means, is that just a dismissive way of describing talking to an NPC?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Great Dragon
B - Most likely because this doesn’t (directly) involve the PC and there’s not much benefit for doing it. Perhaps just typing up the “Monologue” and handing it out would be better?
Keep in mind, the monologue in question was two sentences long. That would be a lot of effort (and really jarring) to print out, and I most players hate reading a lot more than they hate listening, and I don't want to punish them by keeping them lost as to what is going on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
King of Nowhere
As for feeling that 'the DM is keeping them safe', that undervalues their efforts. It is demeaning AND insulting. It doesn't help with trust. I'm not sure what does, frankly.
Note that what I mean by that is sending them on appropriate CR modules AND taking their lack of knowledge about a foe into account when balancing encounters, which I don't think is unusual play at all.
Out of curiosity, do you feel the same way about the advice people have been giving up thread about how I should pile on obvious clues as to the monster's capabilities, or simply hand out stat cards at the start of every encounter? Because imo those feel significantly more condescending.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NichG
The constant of Talakeal's bizarro world is Talakeal - consider that it may not just be that you're getting unreasonable players, but that you're actually training your players to be unreasonable. Because being unreasonable and sabotaging the GM's ability to run the game is the only strategy that your players have left to them in a world where the things you've learned will be actively turned against you.
I have plenty of horror stories with new groups or as a PC, try reading some of my posts from 2014-2016.
Again, I am not sure what you mean by "things you know are actively turned against you". Could you please give some examples?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NichG
- Rather than use strategic and well-reasoned mixtures of consumables to respond to specific situations and needs, your players will use less far less efficient but much more broadly reliable approaches.
How tricksy a DM would you have to be to make players think that a potion of fly wont help them reach a flying opponent, ghost touch oil won't help them hit an incorporeal opponent, cure poison potions won't cure poison, water breathing potions won't help them underwater, etc.? Because that is the kind of stuff I am talking about.
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Re: Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Talakeal
Out of curiosity, is the gotcha monster one where you do something that is different compared to that monster or compared to monsters in general?
For example, normal bullets will kill most things, but do nothing to a werewolf, for that you need a silver bullet. Does that make a werewolf a gotcha monster? (Assuming your players / characters don't know what a werewolf is going into the encounter).
If that was the first time they encounter something that can't be killed by bullets, and nothing let them think that stuff that can't be killed by bullets exist (like, say, finding the corpse of another cop that unloaded his full magazine into an assalliant that just kept coming at him anyway), then yes, it may be a gotcha. What is important there would be "did the players feel you designed that enemy just to get an easy "win" against their planning/tactics?"
If I say to my players that we'll do a normal, non-fantasy police game, and then drop a vampire or werewolf on them without proper forshadowing, I'm doing a gotcha.
If all animal people in my game are faerie that fear cold iron, and I then drop a classic, silver-fearing werewolf without warning, I'm doing a gotcha.
I'm creating expectations, and then upturning them for shock value. Good for horror, but dangerous for most other genre.
The important part of the gotcha : To the players, it feels like a cheap, unfair trick to one-up them. What the GM wanted to do is not important : It's the players that count here, since they're the one who experience the encounter and decide if it was a challenge or an unfair GM dickery. You have to put yourself in their shoes, really, to gauge it.