Bad Player Trends

[Amphetryon]

Laziness is what allows game to happen in a reasonable timespan. There exists only so much time and thought to dedicate to things, and the DM has a lot more things to keep track of running 'the world' than you do running 'your character'. Optimizing the use of that time is to the benefit of everyone at the table, because it means that the things which are actually interesting to play out get more focus. The DM can spend those thoughts on making the door really obnoxious to turn into loot, or you could spend those thoughts on statting up the enemies for the next encounter, or on figuring out some way to work in Player C's background story to help engage them in the game. If the DM decides they have to spend their thoughts on 'explicating' the door, then thats a little less detail that everything else in the world gets.

If you truly believe that the process of trying to remove the door or the stuff you can do with that wealth is the most interesting gaming you could have had that evening, then that's fine - I might not share those tastes, but its self-consistent. However, if you're just exploiting the situation because you saw a gotcha and you want to punish the DM for a mistake, then the end result of that behavior is that everyone at the table spends an hour bored because you were feeling spiteful. That's the problem here, when 'it makes sense' is used as an excuse for making the game tedious in order to punish the DM.

'It makes sense' should ideally be the primary motivating force behind any Character's actions. The perception that it's 'punishing the DM' or 'being spiteful' because the behavior doesn't mesh with that DM's initial expectations is not necessarily justified, accurate, or even conducive to a good Player/DM relationship. The Player whose Character attempts to remove the door may see the removal as the fastest, or most efficient, method of getting to whatever lies beyond, while simultaneously perceiving that the door was placed as a deliberate indicator that the most interesting stuff the DM had planned for the evening is likely to be on the other side of the fancy door. If you truly believe that spending an hour in-game trying to locate the key the DM has hidden somewhere, or rolling Disable Device checks (or another system's equivalent) until someone succeeds on hitting the target number is more interesting and better roleplaying than removing the obstacle through other means already available to the Characters, you're entitled to that belief, but I hope I'm equally entitled to disagree. And, as far as I'm concerned, the fact that the door is also likely to be as valuable, monetarily, as any single item they may find in the dungeon means they'd be behaving irrationally if, once they removed it, they simply dumped it by the wayside, just as they'd be behaving irrationally to voluntarily leave behind a 50k GP diamond, barring other factors.

Incidentally, I'll also disagree - strongly - with the notion that 'laziness is what allows the game to happen in a reasonable timespan,' unless you're using 'laziness' as a synonym for preparation, ability to improvise, and knowledge of your Players' general tendencies and preferences.

[Coidzor]

Incidentally, I'll also disagree - strongly - with the notion that 'laziness is what allows the game to happen in a reasonable timespan,' unless you're using 'laziness' as a synonym for preparation, ability to improvise, and knowledge of your Players' general tendencies and preferences.

Depends on where you count timeskips for travel and the like, I suppose.

[Keltest]

Depends on where you count timeskips for travel and the like, I suppose.

I don't consider that laziness. Theres little benefit to making the players actually elaborate on what they do for 8 hours until nightfall.

[Flickerdart]

Even if you want to use adamantine doors, it's beyond easy to make it unstealable. Maybe there are sinister looking black veins pulsing through it - it's clearly cursed, and tampering with it now carries an obvious risk, better find the key and open it properly. Maybe the door has no visible lock (to break) or hinges (to remove), either because it opens outwards or because it shapeshifts open rather than mechanically swinging. Maybe the door is guarded by suspiciously realistic statues with inscriptions to the effect of "don't mess around with the door."

If you want players to behave a certain way, then the onus is on you to make the behaviour likely or encourage it in some way besides wishful thinking and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[icefractal]

I've always liked portals for my "door that must actually be unlocked" needs. Want to smash the portal? Go ahead, now you have a broken pile of rubble and you're still not on the other side.

They can still be looted, but only if you have an Artificer, otherwise nobody's going to want to buy a portal that only goes to one destination and can't be moved (50% discount for the item being immobile, who wouldn't choose to construct it that way?) Plus it makes weird entry conditions more logical.

[Lord Torath]

Please correct me if I am wrong with these numbers, as I genuinely don't know the exact pricing of these things.

The AD&D modules D1-D3 listed an underworld price for Mithral of 250 gp per pound (at 10 coins per pound, or 25 times its weight in gold) and 400 gp/pound for Adamantium/Adamantite. It was also implied that this was lower than the above-ground values for the metals. But that's 1E AD&D.

If you want doors that scream opulence and wealth, have them elaborately carved and possibly gilded (gold plated in strategic places), with sturdy iron or steel bars, locks and hinges. The intricate carvings can also contain warnings of what it's hiding and/or magical protections sealing whatever it is inside. Much more interesting than just a slab of adamantium. And much more valuable as a door in their current location than removed from the dungeon and sold for scrap/turned into magic arms and armor.

Derp. You're right. Lead's atomic weight is greater (207 and change for lead vs just shy of 197 for gold) but gold is denser. Good catch.

Either way, we have a listed weight (1/2lb) for sling bullets rather than a volume, so I'm guessing it's somewhat like a lead-core 150-grain rifle bullet being shorter for the same caliber than a gilding-metal (not actually gold) monolithic 150-grain rifle bullet--size changes (only length in the case of same-caliber rifle bullets), weight does not.

How big do you assume your average sling stone is? No, really, form a mental image of one in your mind (This goes for everyone, not just JAL_1138). Got it? How big is it? I'm guessing something roughly golf-ball sized? Official golf balls are 1.68 inches in diameter in the US (42.8 mm), but we can round that to 1.5 inches (38.1 mm). Assuming an average rock density of 2.67 g/cm (granite is 2.65 - 2.75), that sphere weighs about 0.17 pounds (masses 80 grams), or just over 1/6th of a pound. A half-pound rock has a diameter of 2.14 inches (54.3 mm), which is about the size of a medium apple, which is substantially bigger than I usually imagine sling stones to be. 2E Players Option: Combat and Tactics dropped their weight to 0.1 lbs (or a mass of roughly 45 g), which gives you a sphere with a diameter of 1.25 inches (31.8 mm), just a bit smaller than a golf ball. Ever since I did the math, I decided to go with the 10 to a pound weight for sling stones and sling bullets. Makes more sense, and lets those wimpy mages carry a few more.

[BayardSPSR]

Many people tend to forget that things like 'xp', 'level', 'character class', and 'attack bonuses' are all arbitrary things that have no true equivalent in the real world. As such, this lapses into the the bigger issue of "metagame view", where players will look at the abstracts rather than the narrative sense when making a decision.

Fair enough. It's always frustrating when people kill the immersion - at least, in the kind of games I like to play. It does sound like there are in-character reasons to do "metagamey" things, based on this thread and a couple others I've been following. This one approaches the issue of optimizing enemies against the players. This one is mostly a discussion of the question "may players attack trolls with fire if the GM doesn't think they should know that."

Because honestly, how many people in the real world actually know the cost of a pound of iron without looking it up? And it stands to reason that if you are in an ancient dungeon that is the known stomping ground of monsters, it often looks exceedingly impractical to cause a lot of noise, potentially attracting more monsters and causing a significant drain on your resources.

I think the root of this problem is that D&D has fixed prices for everything instead of supply and demand. Of course, shopping would be much more effort-intensive for everyone if prices and currency values could fluctuate, so I'm not sure how best to get around this.

There's little benefit to making the players actually elaborate on what they do for 8 hours until nightfall.

Personally, I like offering players the opportunity to fill in details - character development is always fun. The players who aren't interested usually clean their weapons or go hunting, but occasionally you get some light philosophical discussion (so exciting!). It may not move things along, but it makes people care more, and there's definitely value in that.

Plus, it doesn't take any effort on the GM-side when the players are sitting around a campfire talking to each other. All you have to do is figure out when they're ready to move on - and all that takes is asking.

[JAL_1138]

The AD&D modules D1-D3 listed an underworld price for Mithral of 250 gp per pound (at 10 coins per pound, or 25 times its weight in gold) and 400 gp/pound for Adamantium/Adamantite. It was also implied that this was lower than the above-ground values for the metals. But that's 1E AD&D.

If you want doors that scream opulence and wealth, have them elaborately carved and possibly gilded (gold plated in strategic places), with sturdy iron or steel bars, locks and hinges. The intricate carvings can also contain warnings of what it's hiding and/or magical protections sealing whatever it is inside. Much more interesting than just a slab of adamantium. And much more valuable as a door in their current location than removed from the dungeon and sold for scrap/turned into magic arms and armor.

How big do you assume your average sling stone is? No, really, form a mental image of one in your mind (This goes for everyone, not just JAL_1138). Got it? How big is it? I'm guessing something roughly golf-ball sized? Official golf balls are 1.68 inches in diameter in the US (42.8 mm), but we can round that to 1.5 inches (38.1 mm). Assuming an average rock density of 2.67 g/cm (granite is 2.65 - 2.75), that sphere weighs about 0.17 pounds (masses 80 grams), or just over 1/6th of a pound. A half-pound rock has a diameter of 2.14 inches (54.3 mm), which is about the size of a medium apple, which is substantially bigger than I usually imagine sling stones to be. 2E Players Option: Combat and Tactics dropped their weight to 0.1 lbs (or a mass of roughly 45 g), which gives you a sphere with a diameter of 1.25 inches (31.8 mm), just a bit smaller than a golf ball. Ever since I did the math, I decided to go with the 10 to a pound weight for sling stones and sling bullets. Makes more sense, and lets those wimpy mages carry a few more.

A diameter of 2.4 inches is almost exactly the size of a billiard ball (2 & 7/16ths = 2.44). Most stone sling bullets IRL are rocks in the 4-oz (1/4 lb) to 10-oz (just over 1/2 lb, which is 8oz for the metric folk) range, and are about that size. Some were over a pound! Typical lead sling-bullets were often far smaller (around an ounce or two) if used for hunting game, larger if used against armor.

David pretty much brought a gun to a swordfight against Goliath. It wasn't the little guy against the giant, it was the Indiana Jones School of Fencing.

[Telok]

On descriptive text:

Spoiler: Rather long.

Show

DM: "The sage tells you where to find the dungeon of the lich who holds the final third of the artifact. He tells you that the lich, in life, was a famous wizard named [name] and that he ran the Imperial Necromancers Guild two hundred years ago despite not being a necromancer. He also made custom undead and had a succubus wife. You'll need to be careful."

PCs: "We travel past the town with the big library, past the town with the magic college, past the big trading town with the sages in it, through the capitol where the royal library is, through the front lines of a war, past a hostile city, and off into the uninhabited swamp where the dungeon is."

Note that at this point it's a party of six 10th and 11th level characters. No special anti-undead skills or powers beyond a standard mid-op cleric (they sold the ghost touch weapon that they'd been given), no divinations, no prep, no plan. In the very first area they disturb some crypts with specters in them, one specter per crypt. The first one is dangerous but not very harmful, bad rolls on my part, one person lost two levels. They prepare and ready actions when they open the second crypt... This specter rolls over 10 on the d20 a couple times. It drains and spawns one guy and then the two specters get about 8 levels off of two more people before then end.

After a couple of days they go past the first area, not opening any more crypts.

DM: "You find a huge dark pit. It is pitch black and extends beyond sight and light both up and down, stale cold water drips slowly from somewhere high above. It's about 80 feet across with a narrow three foot wide stone bridge across the middle, slick with water."

PCs: "We walk across."

Now I'd thought this was a pretty obvious trap. One of those crypts had a vampire and a weakened brick wall that led to a passage past this. But a water damaged brick wall with cold air coming through wasn't enough of a hint, they didn't even manage to kill the bog standard vampire who escaped through there as mist. But they waltzed across without even breaking stride to make a spot or listen check. By this time I'd downgraded the guardian from a Living Spell Scintillating Pattern to a Living Spell Rainbow Pattern with a couple extra HD (but still 2/3 of the original guardian). It dropped from above when the first person stepped onto the bridge.

They tanked it there, despite the corridor being too small for the Living Spell to follow them. Another person died and the guy carrying the party loot bag dropped his favorite weapon.

PC: "I jump down after it."
Everyone else: "Oh hell no!"

He never came back up. Now all the loot was down there. They went back to town for replacement adventurers. Still no prep, no research, not asking anyone any questions, not telling anyone anything. They knew there was a historian/sage/retired adventurer in town, they'd asked him questions and bought maps from him before. Nope. Just stock up on warm bodies and go back in.

Eventually they get to the bottom. Fight some ghasts, a couple demons, two more vampires, a golem. Nothing will go near the black lake.

DM: "It's icy cold down here, somewhere between ten and twenty degrees fahrenheit. The rim of ice on the shore indicates that the black lake is even colder. Slow, sourceless, ripples undulate across the surface. With your bright lights you see a huge eighty foot wide hole in the ceiling about two hundred feet out from shore. Water slowly drips into the lake and evaporates into ice fog when it hits the surface. The ghast that you captured whimpers in terror."

PCs: "Our loot is over there!"
That guy: "I jump in and swim out so I can start diving for it!"

He was a sorcerer with no ranks in swimming. I don't think he even had anything stronger than Endure Elements and Bracers of Armor protecting him. I think they went in that lake a total of four times, recovered about half the loot, and lost three more people. They never did kill what was in there either.

It doesn't matter with some players. You say "sealed door" and they think there's treasure on the other side. You say "danger" and they think it's xp on the hoof. You say "damsel in distress" and they ignore it because there's no reward posted. An enemy wants to parley and they kill him because they "never get xp for roleplay" (hint: you have to roleplay first). There are just people who play D&D like it's pen and paper WoW/EQ. The only things that matter are killing stuff, leveling up, and "quests".

And it's a bloody nuisance when you have one in the group. You can only hope that some day, they might learn.

[Maglubiyet]

You can only hope that some day, they might learn.

This is hilarious and sad. Were they baffled by their lack of progress or did they accept their fate stoically?

[NichG]

'It makes sense' should ideally be the primary motivating force behind any Character's actions.

"It makes sense" has to coexist with "the game is a functional and enjoyable experience". Thats why even if the party paladin would try to arrest and imprison the party rogue for tomb robbing, his player should think twice and consider the out-of-character consequences before doing so.

The less often the two needs come into conflict, the better, but sometimes 'crap happens'. The DM will make a mistake. The other player will do something without thinking and piss off your character. Yeah, you could get 10x your normal WBL by exploiting the door, but is that really going to make for a fun game when you either curbstomp everything or end up in an arms race? Maybe instead you should say 'psst, hey DM, you do realize how much this is worth, right? Want to change the material?'. Sometimes its best to pretend that you didn't notice the flaw and move on, or do your part to help correct it, because you can reason out what the consequences of the other path will be like.

The perception that it's 'punishing the DM' or 'being spiteful' because the behavior doesn't mesh with that DM's initial expectations is not necessarily justified, accurate, or even conducive to a good Player/DM relationship. The Player whose Character attempts to remove the door may see the removal as the fastest, or most efficient, method of getting to whatever lies beyond, while simultaneously perceiving that the door was placed as a deliberate indicator that the most interesting stuff the DM had planned for the evening is likely to be on the other side of the fancy door. If you truly believe that spending an hour in-game trying to locate the key the DM has hidden somewhere, or rolling Disable Device checks (or another system's equivalent) until someone succeeds on hitting the target number is more interesting and better roleplaying than removing the obstacle through other means already available to the Characters, you're entitled to that belief, but I hope I'm equally entitled to disagree. And, as far as I'm concerned, the fact that the door is also likely to be as valuable, monetarily, as any single item they may find in the dungeon means they'd be behaving irrationally if, once they removed it, they simply dumped it by the wayside, just as they'd be behaving irrationally to voluntarily leave behind a 50k GP diamond, barring other factors.

This scenario may be the case. But I was responding to the previous poster's comment in particular, in which the focus of the argument was on how 'the DM deserves what he gets' and things like that.

Doing something because you think it will make for more interesting gameplay than what the DM had planned is legit. I can certainly believe that the first time a player encounters an adamantine door and thinks 'hey, this is going to be totally awesome, I get to do the door thing!', it'll be a fun exercise to play out. But if you've done it before, is it really still a cool and interesting thing to do? Or is it that the player thinks that having 10x WBL would be a fun thing to try? Or is it just that the player is being spiteful or is enjoying ideas of 'beating' the DM?

The last type of situation definitely takes place, and I very frequently see posts in that direction on the forums - 'the DM messed up, so he deserves to have the game broken!'. That mentality in particular is a very bad player trend. It's the player-side equivalent of an antagonistic DM. Instead of working together to make the game good for everyone, such a player puts their energies into trying to make the game bad so they can say 'see, I knew you were a bad DM after all'.

Incidentally, I'll also disagree - strongly - with the notion that 'laziness is what allows the game to happen in a reasonable timespan,' unless you're using 'laziness' as a synonym for preparation, ability to improvise, and knowledge of your Players' general tendencies and preferences.

I'm using 'laziness' as a synonym for good time management skills.

[Darth Ultron]

The Outside the Game Player This player, oddly, does not really want to play the game by the game rules. They just want to make up stuff and free from it. For example, some foes are in a log fort. In stead of using any game rules, the player will want to ''burn down the fort''. Not that it's a bad idea, but the 3rd level group just does not have the means to do so. And it would take three times as long to try and fail, as it would to simply attack the fort. And, at it's worst, the player will think one flask of oil should cause the whole fort to explode like a cheesy action movie.

And the player is just crushed when the DM describes the guards see the small bit of the side of the one wall burning...and grab some waterfulls of buckets and put out the fire. A round later the wall is just a little black and scorched.

After all, the player was oddly expecting the oil from the one flask you dumped on the wooden wall explodes! With in a round the whole fort is on fire from top to bottom and then the whole fort explodes! You get 50,000 xp for all the people in the fort when it exploded.

[BayardSPSR]

Hang on, about how many buckets in a waterfull?

[Darth Ultron]

Hang on, about how many buckets in a waterfull?

Just one bucket.

[Jay R]

The player who insists on a "realistic" interpretation when it will give him an advantage, but wants to go exactly by RAW at other times.

The player who will not let go of a ruling that went against him, and grinds the game to a halt. (This is what I think wandering monsters are for.)

[Amphetryon]

Depends on where you count timeskips for travel and the like, I suppose.

Unless it takes your group eight days of playing in order to describe eight days' worth of travel from city to city, I'm inclined to believe that every group uses 'timeskips. . . and the like' without considering them a particularly 'lazy' choice.

[Spojaz]

The Outside the Game Player This player, oddly, does not really want to play the game by the game rules. They just want to make up stuff and free from it. For example, some foes are in a log fort. In stead of using any game rules, the player will want to ''burn down the fort''. Not that it's a bad idea, but the 3rd level group just does not have the means to do so. And it would take three times as long to try and fail, as it would to simply attack the fort. And, at it's worst, the player will think one flask of oil should cause the whole fort to explode like a cheesy action movie.

And the player is just crushed when the DM describes the guards see the small bit of the side of the one wall burning...and grab some waterfulls of buckets and put out the fire. A round later the wall is just a little black and scorched.

Wow. You are one terrible railroad engineer. Even a moderately good idea should be rewarded with something not just "you waste your time and oil and probably a spell for no change in the combat. No burning area of the wall for foes to avoid, no divided attention of guards, nothing. Your oil fire is put out instantly by the water the guards have right here already. srsly, learn to play the game exactly how I want you to play it!"

D&D is made for lateral thinking! Don't punish your players for their "odd" desire to play D&D like it was made to be played!

[Lord Torath]

Wow. You are one terrible railroad engineer. Even a moderately good idea should be rewarded with something not just "you waste your time and oil and probably a spell for no change in the combat. No burning area of the wall for foes to avoid, no divided attention of guards, nothing. Your oil fire is put out instantly by the water the guards have right here already. srsly, learn to play the game exactly how I want you to play it!"

D&D is made for lateral thinking! Don't punish your players for their "odd" desire to play D&D like it was made to be played!

I think the point here is that using a single flask of oil to try to burn down an entire fort does not qualify as even a "moderately good" idea, but rather a poorly thought-out idea will little real chance of success. Not that burning down the fort is not a valid strategy, but it's going to require a bit more planning and supplies.

Of course, you should probably point that out to the player before his character wastes his flask.

[Keltest]

I think the point here is that using a single flask of oil to try to burn down an entire fort does not qualify as even a "moderately good" idea, but rather a poorly thought-out idea will little real chance of success. Not that burning down the fort is not a valid strategy, but it's going to require a bit more planning and supplies.

Of course, you should probably point that out to the player before his character wastes his flask.

Indeed. Even if the Player has no idea of the physics involved, a veteran (or even novice) adventurer is at least going to have a grasp of what would actually happen.

[Amphetryon]

"It makes sense" has to coexist with "the game is a functional and enjoyable experience". Thats why even if the party paladin would try to arrest and imprison the party rogue for tomb robbing, his player should think twice and consider the out-of-character consequences before doing so.

The less often the two needs come into conflict, the better, but sometimes 'crap happens'. The DM will make a mistake. The other player will do something without thinking and piss off your character. Yeah, you could get 10x your normal WBL by exploiting the door, but is that really going to make for a fun game when you either curbstomp everything or end up in an arms race? Maybe instead you should say 'psst, hey DM, you do realize how much this is worth, right? Want to change the material?'. Sometimes its best to pretend that you didn't notice the flaw and move on, or do your part to help correct it, because you can reason out what the consequences of the other path will be like.



This scenario may be the case. But I was responding to the previous poster's comment in particular, in which the focus of the argument was on how 'the DM deserves what he gets' and things like that.

Doing something because you think it will make for more interesting gameplay than what the DM had planned is legit. I can certainly believe that the first time a player encounters an adamantine door and thinks 'hey, this is going to be totally awesome, I get to do the door thing!', it'll be a fun exercise to play out. But if you've done it before, is it really still a cool and interesting thing to do? Or is it that the player thinks that having 10x WBL would be a fun thing to try? Or is it just that the player is being spiteful or is enjoying ideas of 'beating' the DM?

The last type of situation definitely takes place, and I very frequently see posts in that direction on the forums - 'the DM messed up, so he deserves to have the game broken!'. That mentality in particular is a very bad player trend. It's the player-side equivalent of an antagonistic DM. Instead of working together to make the game good for everyone, such a player puts their energies into trying to make the game bad so they can say 'see, I knew you were a bad DM after all'.



I'm using 'laziness' as a synonym for good time management skills.

That's a curious synonym for 'good time management skills,' given that laziness is generally a negative descriptor, while 'good time management skills' is generally a positive descriptor.

Would you call the Player/Character who goes about getting into the vault in the room directly, rather than spending time looking through the rest of the room/building for any possible key or combination lying about in a drawer or under a rug, one who is metagaming, or being spiteful or trying to break the game? Because a giant adamantine door is a form of vault, as far as I can figure. If the Player/Character does go hunting for a key or combination through the rest of the building, is there a rational, in-world explanation as to why that search should be successful besides 'the owner's clearly not very bright or savvy about security protocols'?

[JAL_1138]

Indeed. Even if the Player has no idea of the physics involved, a veteran (or even novice) adventurer is at least going to have a grasp of what would actually happen.

That said, setting something on fire with one flask of oil is usually a great way to distract the guards and sneak in, or to cause a panic in a crowd and have some confusion going on to cover an eacape, while being reasonably sure no greater harm will befall.

(As an aside, though, putting water on an oil fire is sometimes a very bad idea. Oil floats on top of water, often stays lit while it does that, and so water can simply spread it rather than putting it out. That's why we always kept a bucket of absorbent material (soaks up the spill and smothers fire) and a fire-blanket around at the equipment dealership I used to work at. Spilled diesel, gas, kerosene, and/or hydraulic oil sometimes got set on fire by stray sparks from the welders, or by the cutting torches. Gas is the worst, followed by kerosene; diesel and hydro oil are actually pretty hard to get burning. You can drop a lit cigarette in a bucket of diesel and it'll just go out. Source on that last claim: I still have eyebrows.)

[Keltest]

That said, setting something on fire with one flask of oil is usually a great way to distract the guards and sneak in, or to cause a panic in a crowd and have some confusion going on to cover an eacape, while being reasonably sure no greater harm will befall.

(As an aside, though, putting water on an oil fire is sometimes a very bad idea. Oil floats on top of water, often stays lit while it does that, and so water can simply spread it rather than putting it out. That's why we always kept a bucket of absorbent material (soaks up the spill and smothers fire) and a fire-blanket around at the equipment dealership I used to work at. Spilled diesel, gas, kerosene, and/or hydraulic oil sometimes got set on fire by stray sparks from the welders, or by the cutting torches. Gas is the worst, followed by kerosene; diesel and hydro oil are actually pretty hard to get burning. You can drop a lit cigarette in a bucket of diesel and it'll just go out. Source on that last claim: I still have eyebrows.)

From my own experience, one of two things would happen with that fire. Either it would go out on its own without alerting the people inside of much, or it would quickly grow out of control. Either way, they aren't going to be doing much with a few buckets of water.

[Telok]

I had a player once say "I burn down the house!" With what? "I cast burning hands!" Where? "On the outside corner, that blank spot." Ok, roll damage.

In 3.5 D&D fire damage is halved before subtracting hardness, wood has hardness 5 and 8 hp per inch if my memory is correct. The house was made of four inch thick logs with adobe filling the cracks. The damage roll was 12 or 13, halved and subtracting five resulted in one point of damage.

When I said that one point of damage from an instant spell wasn't enough to set the exterior wall of a house on fire I was accused of railroading.

The guy sitting next to him slapped him for me.

There are times when something might be a good idea, and the execution is just so bad that it makes you wonder if the player is actually trying to fail.

[JAL_1138]

From my own experience, one of two things would happen with that fire. Either it would go out on its own without alerting the people inside of much, or it would quickly grow out of control. Either way, they aren't going to be doing much with a few buckets of water.

It'll probably only grow out of control if they've treated the exterior wood with tar or pitch to prevent termites and rot...or if they've poured water on an oil fire. Or if it gets into the thatch, in which case say goodbye to the town. Generally, you want to set something on fire where people will notice it and run to put it out, but where it won't spread before it can be dealt with.

Of course, smokesticks are even better, since there's little-to-no chance of starting the Great Fire of Ankh-Morpork, or being the probably-humanoid equivalent of Mrs. O'Leary's cow.

[Keltest]

It'll probably only grow out of control if they've treated the exterior wood with tar or pitch to prevent termites and rot...or if they've poured water on an oil fire. Or if it gets into the thatch, in which case say goodbye to the town. Generally, you want to set something on fire where people will notice it and run to put it out, but where it won't spread before it can be dealt with.

Of course, smokesticks are even better, since there's little-to-no chance of starting the Great Fire of Ankh-Morpork, or being the probably-humanoid equivalent of Mrs. O'Leary's cow.

Yeah, but apparently this was a bandit fort. I don't know the specifics, but if I were a player, "Killing everyone inside with fire" sounds like an acceptable plan of attack to me.

[NichG]

That's a curious synonym for 'good time management skills,' given that laziness is generally a negative descriptor, while 'good time management skills' is generally a positive descriptor.

Certainly. That was intentional, since the poster I was responding to was putting a negative spin on something by choosing to call it 'laziness' which, as you say, often has negative connotations. I wanted to demonstrate that that negative connotation wasn't intrinsic to the idea, just to the words they chose to use to describe it. One technique to make that point is to accept the word and show how it can lead to positive outcomes despite that initial negative connotation.

Laziness 'sounds' bad, but in the context of this conversation it just means 'the DM did not put effort into thinking about this door'. The decision not to assign effort to thinking about the door could be many things, but in many cases it can be the right choice to make in the larger context - if there are other things that need the effort more, if they have a limited time, if they're improvising in order to allow the party to go off the rails and don't want to ask the players to sit there quietly for an hour while they plan things out, etc.

Would you call the Player/Character who goes about getting into the vault in the room directly, rather than spending time looking through the rest of the room/building for any possible key or combination lying about in a drawer or under a rug, one who is metagaming, or being spiteful or trying to break the game? Because a giant adamantine door is a form of vault, as far as I can figure. If the Player/Character does go hunting for a key or combination through the rest of the building, is there a rational, in-world explanation as to why that search should be successful besides 'the owner's clearly not very bright or savvy about security protocols'?

It depends on the game and the player, of course. Its less important what they chose to do in this one case, versus why they chose to do it OOC. The reason that what they do doesn't matter so much is that as a one-time incident, its a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of time you might expect to spend playing with that player.

But the 'why' is far more important, because that will tell you what is going to happen the next time something like this comes around. Maybe it won't be a door next time, but it'll be the fact that D&D's economics is just inherently screwed up, or some rules glitch or broken combo, or whatever. If the player goes after entering the vault directly because they perceive that to be where the best gaming will be, then its possible to come to an understanding with their tastes and work together. But if they go after entering the vault directly because they think it will bother the DM, then that's an antagonistic situation, and requires a different response.

In the former case, I can play to the player's preferences. A player who prefers 'I excavate the door from the wall' to 'I roll Open Locks' or 'I Search for the key' is communicating to me that they want their OOC cleverness to matter more. So I can just shift the design of my adventures to assume and even require the sort of thinking the player seems to prefer, and intentionally put in things to exploit but in such a way that the stability of the game assumes that they will be exploited. So e.g. if there's a big, valuable adamantine door then I'll do it in a system or setting where money doesn't equate to combat ability (Dark Sun, for example), or in a situation where they are really really going to need that money for things coming up.

But in the latter case, I'd confront the player OOC about their behavior - first, checking to make sure they understand that the game being fun is also their responsibility not just mine, and if they persist in things like 'well, don't make mistakes then' or other things I'll make it clear that antagonistic play isn't welcome at my table.

[JAL_1138]

Yeah, but apparently this was a bandit fort. I don't know the specifics, but if I were a player, "Killing everyone inside with fire" sounds like an acceptable plan of attack to me.

No argument there; I was just going off on a tangent about how small fires that don't do any actual harm can be extremely useful when engaging in shenanigans or chicanery.

[BayardSPSR]

But if they go after entering the vault directly because they think it will bother the DM, then that's an antagonistic situation, and requires a different response.

I'm curious: how many of us have actually had players doing things with the specific intention of bothering the GM? That's never happened to me, even from the most clownish players.

[Amphetryon]

I'm curious: how many of us have actually had players doing things with the specific intention of bothering the GM? That's never happened to me, even from the most clownish players.

I'm curious as to how we'd know, for sure, that this was the case. I'd imagine it would require the Player specifically announcing the intent, or the relationship between Player and GM already being so antagonistic that they should have already parted company at the roleplaying table.

[ZeroGear]

Somewhat related to other trends, anyone run across the "interruption" and "tunnel vision" tendencies?
An example using the earlier argument:

DM: "You enter the room at the end of the hallway. It is sparely decorated, with walls made of what seems like stone, with a large door at the far end. From what you know about metals, it appears to be made of adamantine. Etched..."
Players: "Adamantine!? Let's loot it!"
DM: "Well, etched on the door are..."
Players: "We don't care, we're taking it anyway."
DM: "But around the door frame..."
Players: "WE'RE TAKING THE DOOR!"
DM: "Fine,everyone roll saves."
Players: "Why?"
DM: "Because, as I was trying to say, the runes on the door say 'only the key holders shall ever open this door', and the runes around the doorframe cast fireball when you start tampering with it."

Ok, little exaggeration on the DM's part, but anyone ever run into a situation like this?