Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories

[Segev]

I would agree that the big nose is not an obvious clue at all.

The thing is, it wasnt a make or break the encounter thing, the player was mad because he thought that I had given the monster the gust of wind ability retroactively to screw him over for "outsmarting me" by casting gaseous form.

And here's an excellent example of what a "gotcha" looks like. You may not have intended it as such, but this was a power they had no real reason to assume the ogre had. In fact, it's a power that they'd have every reason to assume it did not have, based on knowledge of ogres.

Now, under most circumstances, it's not a big "gotcha," more of a surprise ability that seems nonsensical to the players who didn't expect it. It's not a big deal, because it normally is just one more random thing during the fight.

But here, what makes it from a "surprise" to a "gotcha" is that they found out about it - in fact, only even had a real clue towards it - after committing to an action that made it particularly powerful. By commiting resources in a way that made the ogre's sneeze power more advantageous to use against the PCs than if they'd NOT committed those resources (i.e. hadn't spent a spell slot on gaseous form).

From the player's perspective, even if he assumed you hadn't retroactively given the ogre this power, what happened was this:

GM: You see an ogre guarding a bridge!
PC: I cast gaseous form; there's no way he can stop me from getting across now!
GM: Aha! Gotcha! He blows really hard and sends you careening over the bridge! (or whatever happened)

This wouldn't have been possible if he'd not been in gaseous form. Or would have been harder, at least, I assume.

Now, what you say your player believes is that you added this power after he cast the spell. That just goes to show why you need to advertise the weird powers of things that look like they are one thing when they have abilities they shouldn't.

Because even worse than "gotchas" are "Oh yeah? Well, now he has exactly the power to screw you over, wise guy!"s.

[Talakeal]

Sorry, been really bust the last few days. Now I finally have time to give some more in depth responses:

I personally enjoy the world-building aspects of an RPG first and foremost. When I am a DM I like being creative, when I am a player I like the feeling of exploration.

Playing a game where there are no real surprises would just kill it for me on either side of the screen. To have a fully transparent game means I would need to go to the effort of printing out stat cards for all the enemies (and avoid mistakes like the plague), remove all ability to customize the world, kick the "smart guy" character archetype to the curve, and numerous other problems. While I would be willing to do that for a while, the prospect of always playing that way is worse to me than the bitching I currently have to endure. As I have said before, my games tend to go fine when we are actually at the table except for an occasional (like once every couple months) angry outburst and one or two snide comments about how I am untrustworthy. This eats at me, but doesn't actively destroy my enjoyment of the game like cutting out some of my favorite parts.

And here's an excellent example of what a "gotcha" looks like. You may not have intended it as such, but this was a power they had no real reason to assume the ogre had. In fact, it's a power that they'd have every reason to assume it did not have, based on knowledge of ogres.

Now, under most circumstances, it's not a big "gotcha," more of a surprise ability that seems nonsensical to the players who didn't expect it. It's not a big deal, because it normally is just one more random thing during the fight.

But here, what makes it from a "surprise" to a "gotcha" is that they found out about it - in fact, only even had a real clue towards it - after committing to an action that made it particularly powerful. By commiting resources in a way that made the ogre's sneeze power more advantageous to use against the PCs than if they'd NOT committed those resources (i.e. hadn't spent a spell slot on gaseous form).

From the player's perspective, even if he assumed you hadn't retroactively given the ogre this power, what happened was this:

GM: You see an ogre guarding a bridge!
PC: I cast gaseous form; there's no way he can stop me from getting across now!
GM: Aha! Gotcha! He blows really hard and sends you careening over the bridge! (or whatever happened)

This wouldn't have been possible if he'd not been in gaseous form. Or would have been harder, at least, I assume.

Now, what you say your player believes is that you added this power after he cast the spell. That just goes to show why you need to advertise the weird powers of things that look like they are one thing when they have abilities they shouldn't.

Because even worse than "gotchas" are "Oh yeah? Well, now he has exactly the power to screw you over, wise guy!"s.

Yeah, in hindsight I can totally see that.

The thing is, I did kind of do exactly what the player was accusing me of, just not maliciously and retroactively.

Basically, I designed a custom monster for a set piece encounter, and realized I needed some way of dealing with flying or incorporeal targets, and I felt that giving it a sneeze ability that replicates gust of wind would be a lot more flavorful than simply having it shoot magic missiles out of its eyes or breathing fire or something more mundane.

Out of curiosity though, going by that definition, wouldn't any immunity be bad? Like, if you fireball a pit fiend, you wasted a spell slot (and potentially caught allies in the blast) for no gain.

Kyoryu's post has a decent definition and set of examples, but here it is in my own words:

A "gotcha" is anything where the subject thereof is suckered in to committing to something, and then discovers that what they committed to is not what they thought it was.

Literal/Jerkass genies are known for these, as a fairly classic example.

• "I wish for a million bucks!" "Granted! You now have completely traceable transactions leading from major financial services to your bank account making you $1 million richer! Enjoy the fraud police knocking on your door!"
• "I wish to be immortal!" "You'll die tonight in a way that will make your name go down in history, never to be forgotten!"

Con artists and schoolyard mockeries rely on these, as well.

• "Would you like to buy this?" they ask, holding up a picture of a yact. "It will only cost you $5000!" When you pay, they give you the picture.
• "Dude, Segev, are you gay!?"
  
  • If answer == yes: "Haha! Segev's gay! He just said so! That's a term we immature brats use to mock people!"
  • If answer == no: "Haha! Segev's unhappy! He's a miserable person! Everyone laugh at him!"
  • (This one from actual schoolyard shenanigans I found more confusing than insulting even in elementary school. Note: when I first was asked this, I didn't know "gay" meant anything other than "happy." I think I was 6. And bullies are hardly politically correct.)

In RPGs, a mimic is a "gotcha." It's a treasure chest that, when you go to open it, glues you to itself and morphs into a monster that tries to kill you. More modern renditions tend to have spot checks or the like to realize what's up before you commit, but the original was very much just meant to be a "gotcha." PC sees treasure chest, PC tries to get treasure, monster bites PC's face off.

GMs can engage in "gotchas" even without intending to, if they have something that requires players to devote resources to something and make it impossible to back out without serious loss, only for that something to not be what the players expected it to be.

"Alright, guys, we're going after the dragon in the ice caves. Lets buy some cold-resistance gear and load up on fire damage items!"
Later, coming across the RED dragon in the caves, "I AM THE FIRE DRAGON OF THE ICE CAVES! FEAR ME!"

There's a sliding scale, too, depending on how much the would-be sucker has to be gullible to be fooled. A good sign you're overusing "gotcha" elements, though, is when your players are almost impossible to fool because they trust nothing and expect everything to be "out to get them."

A monster with an apparant nature that seems known or knowable which exhibits a new, unknown power with no warning and no reason to believe he'd have it is a "gotcha," not because of hte unknown power, but because he looked like something else. This is, for example, the issue with the "sneeze ogre." If you'd had him pick up a rock and hurl it at somebody to knock them off the bridge, it wouldn't have been nearly so jarring. Especially if he'd had a pile of rocks nearby. It seems like a "gotcha" not because it does something mechanically different, but because it seems so out of nowhere. There's no, "Oh, we should've seen that coming." Instead, it's, "We should have known the GM was going to spring something on us." At least with your players.

See, in my mind a mimic is really just a trap where the consequence of falling for it is a fight. I really don't see why players hate them so much, as it fundamentally isn't really that different from a monster guarding a chest, a monster striking from ambush, or a trapped chest.

Not that I really like mimics either, the whole monster seems a bit too gimmicky for me, and in my campaign world I don't use them or monsters like them, instead I have a new monster called the carbuncle for all of my "tricky ambush mollusk" needs.

Here's where I am going to extend you the same courtesy and ask for a clarification. Given my hypothetical "orc that explodes in a fireburst like a phoenix", here's a few ways you can handle it:

1
"There's an orc here." Later.... "As you step next to the orc, he explodes into flame. Take 10d6."

2
"There's an orc here. He seems to have some kind of red threading weaved through his clothes" Later.... "As you step next to the orc, he explodes into flame. Take 10d6."

3
"There's an orc here. He's dressed in red robes with flame insignia." Later.... "As you step next to the orc, he explodes into flame. Take 10d6." (I'm going to skip the 'later' part from now on as it's increasingly redundant)

4
"There's an orc here. He's dressed in red robes with flame insignia, and waves of fire seem to pulse off of him."

5
"There's an orc here. He's dressesd in red robes with flame insignia, and waves of fire pulse off of him, barely constrained, like they could explode at any time."

6
"There's an orc here. He's dressesd in red robes with flame insignia, and waves of fire pulse off of him, barely constrained, like they could explode at any time. As you get near, you see him literally explode <for reasons>, and then continue on, unharmed by the flame."

7
"There's an orc here. He's dressesd in red robes with flame insignia, and waves of fire pulse off of him, barely constrained, like they could explode at any time. As you get near, you see him literally explode <for reasons>, and then continue on, unharmed by the flame. Mechanically, that means he can do a fire burst around him."

8
"There's an orc here. He's dressesd in red robes with flame insignia, and waves of fire pulse off of him, barely constrained, like they could explode at any time. As you get near, you see him literally explode <for reasons>, and then continue on, unharmed by the flame. Mechanically, that means he can do a fire burst around him. Here's his stat block if you want to look."

So, which of these do you think is appropriate for you in your ideal world?

In a vacuum I would favor five.

But the true answer is "whatever makes sense in the world."

Why do they explode? Magic items? Possession? Mutation? That really is going to hammer in how I describe it.

Also, its a matter of how big a consequence it is. If this is going to seriously hurt or kill the party, well, I probably wouldn't do it at all as I doubt most players would clue into anything less than an 8, and sometimes not even then.

But if its just a little bit of damage, I don't see anything wrong with lower levels. I would probably give some clue so that it didn't look like a total butt-pull in retrospect and give attentive players something to potentially pick up on, but in my mind if its just a bit of damage there is nothing wrong with letting them learn by doing and getting blasted a bit before they figure out that these guys explode.

Really? You find the current setup where you have raging and arguments more tolerable than disclosing statblocks? Am I reading that correctly? I mean, you have repeatedly said that bad gaming is better than no gaming, and that you are not going to quit this group no matter how dysfunctional it is, but... you'd quit if you had to reveal statblocks? Or am I misinterpreting this? Or did you think that I was advocating something else, like literally revealing the entire adventure to the players beforehand?

The level of transparency that I think would be required to utterly convince my players that I wasn't out to screw them is beyond my tolerance level for gaming, and probably would border on revealing the entire adventure before hand.

No, that would be BMOBC.

So the first part is the most important part, where you listen to the player's concern and assume that since they bring it up, it is a concern and should be addressed in some fashion. That fashion could be as simple as saying "no, he does the rolls clockwise every time, you can see that he does Joe's roll before yours and Jim's afterwards."

But, really, what I'm suggesting here is telling that character, or maybe even the whole group "hey, so you know, for me to accept a roll, you need to tell me what it is for first, okay?"

Note the lack of accusation, lack of ganging up, and increased transparency.

That's not too different from what I did; I acknowledged what he was saying, told him that I didn't think bob was really out to get him and that Bob has trust issues and that I am hoping to foster two way trust between us by trusting him not to cheat, but if it continues to be a problem I will step in and do something.

I am a bit overly sensitive about DM's demanding rolls as the last time I was a player the DM was really bad about forcing everyone to announce their rolls before hand, even if it is just a back and forth slog where we are just trading blows for ten turns, and it was just tedious and made me feel un-trusted, so I am trying not to do that to my own players.

If you're going to try to add these elements, I'd do it in a fairly lightweight way first - use vulnerabilities so figuring it out is a bonus, rather than resistances where not figuring it out is a penalty. Use resistances rather than immunities. Make the encounters beatable, but harder if you don't figure out the gimmick. Go overboard in describing the resistances/immunities in-character, etc. Then as people get more comfortable with this stuff (and build trust!!!) you can dial some of those back a bit further.

I agree 100%. I don't like binary stuff.

In my mind clues will probably be missed, but they will be there. If the player picks up on something, good for them, they can avoid a monsters gimmick or exploit its weakness, but if not I don't see any problem with players discovering them in play and then reacting accordingly.

You would actively avoid… games that don't have "gotcha" moments? Do you dislike Chess, and war games where all information is visible?

We may have found one of the core incompatibilities between you and your group.

So, *why* do you like hidden information? *Why* do you like "gotcha" moments?

EDIT: I think the question you probably need to be asking soon is "how to make Talakeal's players enjoy puzzles". But, first, we need to understand your obsession with puzzles, where without them you "would avoid that style of game like the plague."

I don't mind war games, but the tactical side is only one aspect I enjoy, creativity and exploration are far more important for me.

I am still not quite sure what a "gotcha" is, but I still don't like traps or puzzles, and I avoid them like the plague unless they really make sense in the world.

As I said in the other thread though, my definition of a puzzle is something where only a small number of solutions work and you are basically trying to read the DM's mind, something where a couple of the most obvious solutions don't work is simply an obstacle that keeps the game fresh.

Now, one thing I do like are "Oh crap" moments where you realize this isn't going to be as easy as you though. For example, in The Terminator, when they blow him up in the tanker truck explosion and he walks out as a metal skeleton, much scarier looking but still totally unharmed. This is a great moment, and if done right can really provide drama and tension for an RPG.

One of the games I play a lot is Werewolf: The Apocalypse. This game is about "savage horror" and the players are supernatural killing machines who primarily fight mutants and corrupt spirits. In that sort of game this is a really important technique for keeping up the mood, and honestly combat would be pretty boring and pretty unfulfilling if the monsters didn't have all sort of wierdness they could pull out.

I think we mean for you to have a session where you only handle the in group dynamics, and discuss how bad things have been, and how you want changes made to play to reverse a lot of the bad feeling, and then one of those changes is, everybody announces their rolls, the targets, and rolls openly on the table.

I would not continue as you have been, and start calling people out for how they play. You are right that would not be productive.

I was planning on doing exactly that this weekend. Unfortunately one of my players was hospitalized this week and we are going to cancel the session, and others are about to go on vacation, so we are going to be taking a month of from gaming instead.

I hope the time apart chills everyone out instead of giving them time to brood.

Talakeal, one of the reasons you get people advising you is that you sound like a Bad DM. Not merely an inexperienced DM. You sound like a DM that has a captive audience and is willing to ignore their concerns. On the other hand, you keep asking for advice which Bad DM's rarely do. Except when they are seeking validation. So while we don't know your motivations, we listen to the problem and your part in it. When confronted with advice you get defensive and engineer excuses & tangents that have filled threads. If healing the damage you caused is not worth your time, then perhaps reconsider not aggravating the wound? Find a different group. Find a group that likes and trusts YOUR playstyle if you are not willing to bend in even these extreme circumstances. Or, if all the potential groups would be harmed by you / harmful to you, then no gaming is better until those circumstances change.

Just because your audience is immature jerks, does not entitle you to continuously depend on more trust than you have earned.

Of course I also have plenty to lecture your immature jerk players about. But they are not here. You are. So you get the honest advice.

I don't think I am a bad DM. I have had too many players tell me how much they enjoy my games, sometimes years later, and how much they meant to me for me to be truly bad. On the other hand, I don't think I am a great DM either, I have too many horror stories and too many players who ghosted me for that.

I would say I am a poor to good DM depending on your preferences. I do fully agree that there are areas of DMing that I am bad at; reading the table, improving, pacing, and effectively communicating information are all areas that I could use a significant amount of improvement.

But yes, when it comes to being defensive and stuck in my ways, I am indeed guilty as charged.

Talakeal, what do you want out of these threads?
You tell stories about a toxic gaming group, people tell you that you should leave, and you say "No, I don't want to."
Then people try to give you advice about how to work things so that your toxic gaming group can be less toxic, and you say, "No, I won't make those changes."
And I am sure that people who have offered their advice when it seemed to be sought find that particular combination very frustrating.
If you make it clear at the top that your threads are about venting, not about amelioration--which is fine!--some irritation might possibly be avoided.

I don't know if you have noticed, either from gaming stories or my interactions on the forum, but I have mild OCD. I obsess over small things and can't really let them go until they have been talked to death. So yes, mostly it is just venting, but not always.

I am not willing to sacrifice the things I love about the game to (potentially) excise the things I dislike, but I do take advice.

For example, I am definitely going to start making sure I give at least some clues to every customized monster I put in, and I am going to start reflexively calling for knowledge skills every time the players encounter something new.

Edit: Also, I am seriously open to the possibility of running a drastically different style of game next to build player trust.



About telegraphing a monster's abilities:

Using "cut scenes" to show off the monster's abilities before the fight is a good idea, but hard to do right. If overused the players will notice, and they will, at best, start cracking jokes about how formulaic it feels, and at worst grow resentful of how I pause the game to show off how cool my monster is. They will also try and game the situation; so for example the previous thread about the player who wants a bonus turn for "interrupting a monologue".


About the hydra / ghost encounter:

In my mind this encounter would have been fairly routine if the players had resorted to crowd control tactics in combat. I expected them to kill it once, have a "Oh Crap" moment when they see that killing one only spawns two more, and then they would switch tactics, maybe killing one or two more to see if it was a one time fluke. On paper four of them up at once would have been an "equal CR" fight, and it was an optional area of the dungeon anyway, so there was no real issue here.

And its not like the idea of defeating something without killing it was totally alien to them anyway, the fighter is actually built to stun and knockout monsters rather than kill them, and the ranger has minor bardic abilities and has ended more than one fight with mind control.

The issue came up when they interpreted "Can't be killed by violence" as "Can't be killed by violence" and then started trying to figure out all of these random ways to kill it without violence. And that was really just a face palm moment, but it became an issue after the session when they said that I intentionally misled them because I wanted to wipe the party.

Honestly, I could see the same thing happening if they came upon a monster that was "Immune to non-magic weapons," and interpeted it as "Immune to non-magic weapons" rather than "Immune to non-magic weapons" and then tried to kill it with random improvised tools and farming implements because they technically aren't weapons.

[OldTrees1]

I don't think I am a bad DM. I have had too many players tell me how much they enjoy my games, sometimes years later, and how much they meant to me for me to be truly bad. On the other hand, I don't think I am a great DM either, I have too many horror stories and too many players who ghosted me for that.

I would say I am a poor to good DM depending on your preferences. I do fully agree that there are areas of DMing that I am bad at; reading the table, improving, pacing, and effectively communicating information are all areas that I could use a significant amount of improvement.

But yes, when it comes to being defensive and stuck in my ways, I am indeed guilty as charged.

You have some Good DM traits and some Bad DM traits. But right now you have been resorting to wild hyperbole to find a single person to validate your ratonized excuses for sticking with one of your Bad DM traits. You caused these stories by showing reasons for the players to distrust you. Then you continued on with a playstyle that the no longer trusted you enough for. When informed that you need to rebuild trust you have tried everything you can to avoid fixing the mess you caused. You justify this as "the temporary process would not be enjoyable for me therefore it is better if I continue to act as I please regardless of knowing it continues to sow distrust".

Honestly it looks like a poor to good DM on the brink of deciding to be a Bad DM because cleaning up their mess would be work.

I honestly hope you can bring yourself to rebuild the trust needed for your playstyle (or at least the playstyle that best satisfies the desires of all in the group). But, I don't trust you will make the temporary effort.

[Talakeal]

You have some Good DM traits and some Bad DM traits. But right now you have been resorting to wild hyperbole to find a single person to validate your ratonized excuses for sticking with one of your Bad DM traits. You caused these stories by showing reasons for the players to distrust you. Then you continued on with a playstyle that the no longer trusted you enough for. When informed that you need to rebuild trust you have tried everything you can to avoid fixing the mess you caused. You justify this as "the temporary process would not be enjoyable for me therefore it is better if I continue to act as I please regardless of knowing it continues to sow distrust".

Honestly it looks like a poor to good DM on the brink of deciding to be a Bad DM because cleaning up their mess would be work.

I honestly hope you can bring yourself to rebuild the trust needed for your playstyle (or at least the playstyle that best satisfies the desires of all in the group). But, I don't trust you will make the temporary effort.

I have said multiple times that I am willing to put in the effort to rebuild trust. What I am not willing to do is become a gaming martyr and run a game that I don't enjoy for the entertainment of others, and I am skeptical if it is even possible to run a good game that you aren't personally invested in.

Edit: In the long run I mean. I am more than willing to try a change of styles temporarily to see if it improves anything.

[TheYell]

Thanks for responding to us in depth, Talakeal.

To me the crisis point is not that they don't trust you so much, it's that they were yelling at each other.

They sound like they're about to implode as a group, and somebody needs to take the initiative to restore the group dynamic.

You're here listening to us, and you're the GM, so I feel free to urge you to be the one taking the initiative to restore the group.

I was planning on doing exactly that this weekend. Unfortunately one of my players was hospitalized this week and we are going to cancel the session, and others are about to go on vacation, so we are going to be taking a month of from gaming instead.

I hope the time apart chills everyone out instead of giving them time to brood.

This is a positive step forward, you are preserving the group harmony by being inclusive. Not all GMs would work it that way.

When you follow our advice, I would expect some bitching back. I work at a hotel, and a powerful piece of advice my manager gave us was, let angry people talk themselves out. Listen to what they're saying, and repeat back what you heard from them to let them know you were listening. Let them know explicitly that you are glad to hear what they think, and you agree that their impressions matter. This diffuses a lot of the emotion in the other person. It is hard to be angry with somebody who is paying attention to what you are saying and agrees it's important. Once you have diffused the emotion in the situation, you can offer explanations to direct the outcome going forwards.

Do not interrupt people to tell them what you want. Let them vent, and then explain what your concerns are after they are calm. It requires concentration to do this, but it pays off.

I would say something like, "There is a lot of disagreement at my table. A good roleplaying game is a cooperative effort by players, managed by a GM. Our reactions to each other aren't acceptable, and we need a break in the action to discuss how that's going to change going forwards."

Assume your authority to direct the game, while listening to others vent, and affirming their impressions matter.

I would be prepared to do some minor retconning as a gesture of goodwill, and a means to assert authority. For instance, you can restore the followers to the group, making plain while you do it, that they are NOT covered by TPK immunity going forwards, and the players must bear that in mind when bringing them into danger going fowards. This would address a peeve of some of the players, and bring them to engage your rules as controlling the game.

It is your table to run, and somebody clearly needs to run it. You have the instinct to apply your authority benevolently, and I think the aptitude to do so with effect. We're rooting for you to run a good game.

[OldTrees1]

Edit: In the long run I mean. I am more than willing to try a change of styles temporarily to see if it improves anything.

Thank you for the edit. Most of my insistence was a reaction to your "long run" hyperbole in response to suggestions about temporary changes that allow you to start to build trust back up to what your playstyle requires.

The idea is to use the easier to trust playstyle as a way to build trust so that you can transition to harder to trust playstyles. Even gotchas can be fun if there is enough trust established.

[Segev]

I personally enjoy the world-building aspects of an RPG first and foremost. When I am a DM I like being creative, when I am a player I like the feeling of exploration.

Playing a game where there are no real surprises would just kill it for me on either side of the screen. To have a fully transparent game means I would need to go to the effort of printing out stat cards for all the enemies (and avoid mistakes like the plague), remove all ability to customize the world, kick the "smart guy" character archetype to the curve, and numerous other problems. While I would be willing to do that for a while, the prospect of always playing that way is worse to me than the bitching I currently have to endure. As I have said before, my games tend to go fine when we are actually at the table except for an occasional (like once every couple months) angry outburst and one or two snide comments about how I am untrustworthy. This eats at me, but doesn't actively destroy my enjoyment of the game like cutting out some of my favorite parts.

Running a module for the purpose I've suggested would require you to relinquish the modification aspect to a fair degree, at least at first, yes. That's because the purpose here is to have a third party that designed the encounters, the setup, etc., so that you can point to them and say, "I did not make this to screw you; this is how it was written."

Now, as trust develops - if trust develops - you can start changing things up. I have made a number of small changes to Sunless Citadel to fit it into the Tomb of Annihilation campaign. Including what the dragonpriest optional boss is.

Yeah, in hindsight I can totally see that.

The thing is, I did kind of do exactly what the player was accusing me of, just not maliciously and retroactively.

Basically, I designed a custom monster for a set piece encounter, and realized I needed some way of dealing with flying or incorporeal targets, and I felt that giving it a sneeze ability that replicates gust of wind would be a lot more flavorful than simply having it shoot magic missiles out of its eyes or breathing fire or something more mundane.

Out of curiosity though, going by that definition, wouldn't any immunity be bad? Like, if you fireball a pit fiend, you wasted a spell slot (and potentially caught allies in the blast) for no gain.

"The obvious fire demon is immune to fire," is not a gotcha because it's kind-of obvious. And, if not, it's obvious in retrospect.

Having to have a means of dealing with something is not a bad reason to add an ability or feature, however, that feature or ability must be foreshadowed for it not to feel arbitrary. This foreshadowing can be as simple as having rumors about it. Anything from "There's an ogre with the power of wind at his command guarding the bridge" to rumors about how a strong wind has been knocking people who failed to pay the toll off of it would work.

Failing that, giving them a view of it from the get go. Perhaps he sneezes (involuntarily) at the start of or before combat, and the mighty wind this creates is obvious.

The reason it felt like a "cheat" to your players is that it seemed to come out of nowhere.

See, in my mind a mimic is really just a trap where the consequence of falling for it is a fight. I really don't see why players hate them so much, as it fundamentally isn't really that different from a monster guarding a chest, a monster striking from ambush, or a trapped chest.

No, it isn't. But there are adventures and DMs who would insist that, since it's a monster and not a trap, as long as you are searching for traps, you won't find any. This makes it more obviously a "gotcha," but the point largely remains.

Not that I really like mimics either, the whole monster seems a bit too gimmicky for me, and in my campaign world I don't use them or monsters like them, instead I have a new monster called the carbuncle for all of my "tricky ambush mollusk" needs.

Most gotchas are quite gimmicky. Your sneeze-ogre was gimmicky; he had a weird trick that is not usual nor easily detected until it's used that was custom-built to "deal with" a particular power set.

The biggest thing is: foreshadow. Foreshadow your monsters' abilities. Don't spring them on the players in the fight. You don't need to spell all of them out, but anything noteworthy should be deducible by some means, if you want them to trust that you're not just making it up as you go along in order to screw them over.

This is, again, why I suggest a written module in an established system. If the system has them feeling too weak, it's not your fault for designing a system that screws them over. IF the module has monsters that are too tough, it's not your doing that they're that way. And it will give you an independent-ish look at whether the balance issues, if any, are due to poor player choices, since the mechanics are not, at the least, your design and thus "your fault" for not working out to make the game as easy as they claim to want it to be.

[Talakeal]

Most gotchas are quite gimmicky. Your sneeze-ogre was gimmicky; he had a weird trick that is not usual nor easily detected until it's used that was custom-built to "deal with" a particular power set.

The biggest thing is: foreshadow. Foreshadow your monsters' abilities. Don't spring them on the players in the fight. You don't need to spell all of them out, but anything noteworthy should be deducible by some means, if you want them to trust that you're not just making it up as you go along in order to screw them over.

This is, again, why I suggest a written module in an established system. If the system has them feeling too weak, it's not your fault for designing a system that screws them over. IF the module has monsters that are too tough, it's not your doing that they're that way. And it will give you an independent-ish look at whether the balance issues, if any, are due to poor player choices, since the mechanics are not, at the least, your design and thus "your fault" for not working out to make the game as easy as they claim to want it to be.

Question for you; does this only apply to custom monsters?

Published monsters have all sorts of weird and random abilities and immunities that aren't telegraphed in any obvious way, but I have never really heard this advice before in all my years of browsing forums and reading DMing blogs.

[Quertus]

I have said multiple times that I am willing to put in the effort to rebuild trust. What I am not willing to do is become a gaming martyr and run a game that I don't enjoy for the entertainment of others, and I am skeptical if it is even possible to run a good game that you aren't personally invested in.

Edit: In the long run I mean. I am more than willing to try a change of styles temporarily to see if it improves anything.

Thank you for the edit. Most of my insistence was a reaction to your "long run" hyperbole in response to suggestions about temporary changes that allow you to start to build trust back up to what your playstyle requires.

The idea is to use the easier to trust playstyle as a way to build trust so that you can transition to harder to trust playstyles. Even gotchas can be fun if there is enough trust established.

From a psychology / relationship standpoint, I'd argue that changing in the short term can simply make resentment worse: "you clearly know *how* to be good, you just *choose* to fail this badly?"

The important part is to understand what level of trust you've built, and to communicate what you are doing. Talakeal, you have repeatedly said that one of your flaws is your inability to read people. It's great that you know your limits! What this means is, *you* cannot choose when you have built enough trust - you have to openly communicate all this, and have your *players* tell you when they are ready to trust you with what.

[Gallowglass]

Question for you; does this only apply to custom monsters?

Published monsters have all sorts of weird and random abilities and immunities that aren't telegraphed in any obvious way, but I have never really heard this advice before in all my years of browsing forums and reading DMing blogs.

When you respond to advice with comments like "in all my years of browsing forums and reading DM blogs" it comes across as if you are saying "your advice is worthless and I'm not going to listen because I'm an experienced DM and I'm right." Not saying that's how you mean it, just letting you know what it reads like to others.

The sad truth is, your sneeze ogre wouldn't be a problem on most other people's tables. My players, for example, would find it funny and enjoy the encounter. Even if one of them went gaseous and was therefore specifically nullified by the unexpected power. Why? Because they are sane, rational people who are there to have a fun time with friends.

If I was your player, I'd enjoy the encounter. I enjoy quite a lot of your encounter design. I like your immune to hitpoint damage puzzle monster, I enjoy your sneeze ogre. I tremendously wish you had players who appreciated it too. But you don't.

Keep remembering that a lot of the advice you are getting isn't advice for a normal table. Its advice for your table. Your table isn't full of sane, rational people who are there to have a fun time with friends.

So, because you choose to keep playing and DMing for them, most of this advice is "how can you make this livable for you." Not necessarily enjoyable, because most of us don't believe its possible for the game to ever be enjoyable for you, so we are trying to help you come up with ideas to lessen the terror.

That means making changes to play toward your players, rather than toward what you enjoy.

Now.... the sad truth is, even if you DO change toward your players and go full "8" and hand out stat blocks for each encounter, it probably won't work. I, personally, don't think its likely you'll ever find a way to fix your problem. I hope you do. I hope this advice helps. I hope it does make it better.

But I also know the maxim "hope in one hand and crap in the other and see which one fills up first."

[TheYell]

I'm commenting in this thread because I expect a change can make a difference.

[Segev]

Question for you; does this only apply to custom monsters?

Published monsters have all sorts of weird and random abilities and immunities that aren't telegraphed in any obvious way, but I have never really heard this advice before in all my years of browsing forums and reading DMing blogs.

In your specific case? Yes, it only applies to custom monsters. Remember, the problem we're discussing here is players' trust in you.

That said? While rebuilding trust, you should not use published monsters that seem in any way like "gotchas," either. Not without clearly telegraphing them.

The key here is to try to put yourself in the mindset of Bob or Brian or your other players. Ask yourself, "If I am thinking the way Bob or Brian have told me they think, what will I see when I encounter this?"

If there's any room at all to think, when pretending you're Bob or Brian and already are just waiting for the nefarious GM to try to pull the rug out from under you, humiliate you, or prove himself "smarter" than you, that something revealed only when it is too late to do anything about it is just that effort by the nefarious GM to do just that, then assume they'll think that.

Don't use an Intellect Devourer possessing an NPC if there's any chance that the surprise revelation will leave them assuming you did it to make them look stupid. Don't use a Disenchanter or Rust Monster to take out their magic items without extensive warning that this is the probable outcome of fighting one of these things.

Now, you don't have to worry about this in a published dungeon; you didn't place the monsters, so it's not you being untrustworthy. But any time you're choosing to place something that could be considered a "gotcha" by a paranoid player who thinks you're cheating to ruin their fun, they'll assume you put it there to screw them over unless you go out of your way to let them know what to expect as potential risks.

[Talakeal]

When you respond to advice with comments like "in all my years of browsing forums and reading DM blogs" it comes across as if you are saying "your advice is worthless and I'm not going to listen because I'm an experienced DM and I'm right." Not saying that's how you mean it, just letting you know what it reads like to others.

I can see that. Sorry, my bad.

In your specific case? Yes, it only applies to custom monsters. Remember, the problem we're discussing here is players' trust in you.

Followup questions:

Is the problem that they don't trust me to not make monsters which are unbalanced / to spite them in the first place or that they aren't able to check my work? If the latter, could letting them see my notes after the session help?


And on the subject of telegraphing, typically my monsters only have one or two unusual abilities, while something like a demon in D&D might have a dozen random powers and immunities. Is a DM really expected to telegraph everything, or is it just something about using "unofficial" material that breeds distrust?

[Kardwill]

In my opinion, there's not much difference between an homebrew "gotcha" monster and an official "gotcha" monster. Both are engineered to give a nasty surprise to players, and in both case, it's you (or the module designer) who decided to place it here, so a paranoid player can always assume malice (and sometime be right about it. I've seen my fair share of sadistic dungeons and scenarios, even in official modules). So I'd say telegraphing is good either way. You want your players to say "I should have seen that coming", or to say "Ha! I was right" and be smug about it. You don't want to completely surprise them and have them think "what just happened?" (unless what just happened was precisely the warning shot you gave them so they know how to tackle the encounter when it counts).

For example, if I put a medusa in a dungeon, anybody knows what a medusa is and what she does, and yet, simply having her stare at the PCs when they open some random door would be bad form. Smart for the medusa, sure, but dickish from the GM that put her there. Instead, the PCs will get to see ominous statues, they will hear the serpentine noise of her body... Maybe they will see her back just before she turns toward them. Or maybe she'll be behind a curtain, and taunt them about "adding them to her collection". I won't open the encounter with a saving throw.

As you say, some monsters have A LOT of special abilities that can completely screw over the party. Many D&D demons were made to surprise the players with a "Ha! Fooled you!" sucker punch. IMO, that's just bad monster design. I don't use them.

Surprise is completely overrated. I think suspense is far better. And you can't have suspense without anticipation

[Friv]

And on the subject of telegraphing, typically my monsters only have one or two unusual abilities, while something like a demon in D&D might have a dozen random powers and immunities. Is a DM really expected to telegraph everything, or is it just something about using "unofficial" material that breeds distrust?

Neither, really. It's a playstyle thing.

"Gotcha"-style monsters work for groups that enjoy having nasty tricks sprung on them, which is one of the possible D&D playstyles. This style works less well the less trust that you have in a GM, and your group's trust is so far in the negative digits that they're not going to bite.

[Segev]

Followup questions:

Is the problem that they don't trust me to not make monsters which are unbalanced / to spite them in the first place or that they aren't able to check my work? If the latter, could letting them see my notes after the session help?

I don't know for sure, but if I'm reading the situation right, it sounds like it matters because they believe you're designing monsters to "win" against them. To punish them, or to make them feel or look stupid, or the like. If that's the case, then, anything that's your own design is going to be looked at through that lens.

This is why I'm suggesting playing an established game whose mechanics you did not write, using a dungeon you did not design, with monsters printed by the game's designers. None of the points of "the DM is out to get us and is going to design the world to make us feel bad" can apply when you're not the one making those choices. How they perform in this dungeon and game will let you compare to how they perform in ones you've designed. This will give some hint as to whether the balance-point of your game is different from, at least, D&D 5e, and it will let them see what is "typical" in a game where you aren't designing things. It will let them see that you're just running the game. Not playing malicious games with the rules to screw them over.

And on the subject of telegraphing, typically my monsters only have one or two unusual abilities, while something like a demon in D&D might have a dozen random powers and immunities. Is a DM really expected to telegraph everything, or is it just something about using "unofficial" material that breeds distrust?

"It's a demon" already suggests "lots of weird powers." "It's an ogre" does not.

Does that help clarify the issue?

[Talakeal]

"It's a demon" already suggests "lots of weird powers." "It's an ogre" does not.

Does that help clarify the issue?

For the record, I never used the term "ogre" in the game or on the forums. What I said was "I was going for a sort of fairy-tale ogre vibe..." meaning something like the ogre in Puss in Boots that can transform into anything.

[zinycor]

For the record, I never used the term "ogre" in the game or on the forums. What I said was "I was going for a sort of fairy-tale ogre vibe..." meaning something like the ogre in Puss in Boots that can transform into anything.

How did you describe the creature?

[OldTrees1]

Followup questions:

Is the problem that they don't trust me to not make monsters which are unbalanced / to spite them in the first place or that they aren't able to check my work? If the latter, could letting them see my notes after the session help?

The concerns they voiced so far were about not trusting your choice of difficulty, not trusting your strategic assessment, and not trusting your motive when designing or running encounters.
If faced with a gotcha moment, they will presume you intended it unfairly.
If told the encounter was balanced correctly, even if they see your notes, they will ignore your assessment as untrustworthy.
If faced with a homebrew creature they will presume the creature has unfair mechanics, that you designed to spitefully punish them, and simultaneously presume you were negligently unaware that the encounter was too hard.
Occasionally in your stories they even suspect you of inventing new abilities on the fly to negate creative solutions.

So it is almost entirely the former (They don't trust you ability to make encounters nor your motives behind your encounter design) however there have been moments of the latter (They thought you made up the sneeze ogre's sneeze on the spot). Showing your notes after the session would help with the latter. Showing the page in the module / monster manual after the session would help with the former. Showing the stats before the encounter would help with both.

Hence the suggestions of using a module for a short time. That lets you show the stats in advanced. This lets you build up a reputation of being honest. It lets you use someone else's monsters and encounters which lets you talk to the players about those encounters. This lets you build up a reputation of being willing to listen but also a reputation of honest and accurate assessment of difficulty.

And on the subject of telegraphing, typically my monsters only have one or two unusual abilities, while something like a demon in D&D might have a dozen random powers and immunities. Is a DM really expected to telegraph everything, or is it just something about using "unofficial" material that breeds distrust?

Tropes already telegraph information. Even in a Fairy Tale an Ogre is expected to be no more magical than the Trolls in the Hobbit. Frequently Ogres are expected to be merely strong, large, tough, and stupid. So a DM can use tropes to help quickly telegraph many things.

Yes unusual / random abilities probably should be telegraphed. Using abilities you created also leaves room to be suspicious about the intent behind the design of those abilities. If you are the author & the DM, then the players will distrust you for the sins of the author AND the sins of the DM.

For the record, I never used the term "ogre" in the game or on the forums. What I said was "I was going for a sort of fairy-tale ogre vibe..." meaning something like the ogre in Puss in Boots that can transform into anything.

That ogre was not a typical example of an ogre in fairy tales. I would never have assumed an ogre could transform. The closest thing is the ogres in fairy tales that are defeated by stalling them with riddles until the sun turns them to stone. And even that olde folklore Ogre is less common than the mundane no magical effects Ogre.

[Talakeal]

That ogre was not a typical example of an ogre in fairy tales. I would never have assumed an ogre could transform. The closest thing is the ogres in fairy tales that are defeated by stalling them with riddles until the sun turns them to stone. And even that olde folklore Ogre is less common than the mundane no magical effects Ogre.

In my experience most fairy tales I am familiar with give magical powers to trolls, giants, ogres, goblins, and other things that D&D and Tolkien consider as mere brutes. But that is really irrelevant as I never actually used the word "ogre" with my players.

I was merely explaining my reasoning behind the encounter on the forum; from a mechanical perspective a boss monster without a ranged attack is a shooting duck, and from a narrative perspective I chose a sneeze over or more traditional breath weapon because I wanted the encounter to have more of a whimsical fairy tale feeling.

[kyoryu]

In my experience most fairy tales I am familiar with give magical powers to trolls, giants, ogres, goblins, and other things that D&D and Tolkien consider as mere brutes. But that is really irrelevant as I never actually used the word "ogre" with my players.

I was merely explaining my reasoning behind the encounter on the forum; from a mechanical perspective a boss monster without a ranged attack is a shooting duck, and from a narrative perspective I chose a sneeze over or more traditional breath weapon because I wanted the encounter to have more of a whimsical fairy tale feeling.

So how did you describe the monster?

I mean, I'm not sure it matters. You gave it an ability explicitly to counter a tactic the party was using, not for any in-world reason (even if you justified it as such after the fact), and then clearly gave the party insufficient reason to suspect it (as evidenced by their reaction).

I mean, you know that you're teaching the party how to play the game, right? You've said previously that you adjust encounters to make sure they're sufficiently challenging. People notice this, and so figure "why get consumables?" and then you complain they don't get consumables.

You give them encounters that are difficult if not impossible to gauge the difficulty on, and could be extremely hard even if they look benign, and are then surprised when the party wants a full rest after every encounter and doesn't act "bravely".

[Talakeal]

You gave it an ability explicitly to counter a tactic the party was using, not for any in-world reason (even if you justified it as such after the fact), and then clearly gave the party insufficient reason to suspect it (as evidenced by their reaction).

Hold on a second, this is coming off as bicycle made of babies crazy to.

First off, I made this monster long before anyone had even signed up for the game or created a character, let alone decided what tactics to use, so saying I gave it an ability to counter a tactic the party was using is just wrong.

Second, creating a mid level monster that has some way to deal with fliers is hardly unusual, go to one of the D&D sections of the forum and look at virtually any thread discussing tactics or adventure design, its pretty much common knowledge that by mid-levels most opponents will be able to fly and that you absolutely need some way to deal with it. Likewise, in monster manual review threads, it is a very common criticism that people make high level bruisers with no way to counter flying characters, thus rendering something that could be fearsome and challenge into a joke that a level 5 character can easily solo at no risk to themselves.

Third, why is creating a monster that can be a challenge for the party for meta-game reasons a bad thing? This is a game after all. There is no "in world reason" that the majority of the monsters that the DM throws at the party will be within four levels of them, but it is absolutely essential for the game to function.

[zinycor]

Hold on a second, this is coming off as bicycle made of babies crazy to.

First off, I made this monster long before anyone had even signed up for the game or created a character, let alone decided what tactics to use, so saying I gave it an ability to counter a tactic the party was using is just wrong.

You did say:

The thing is, I did kind of do exactly what the player was accusing me of, just not maliciously and retroactively.

Basically, I designed a custom monster for a set piece encounter, and realized I needed some way of dealing with flying or incorporeal targets, and I felt that giving it a sneeze ability that replicates gust of wind would be a lot more flavorful than simply having it shoot magic missiles out of its eyes or breathing fire or something more mundane.

So you did give it n ability to counter a Party tactic.

Second, creating a mid level monster that has some way to deal with fliers is hardly unusual, go to one of the D&D sections of the forum and look at virtually any thread discussing tactics or adventure design, its pretty much common knowledge that by mid-levels most opponents will be able to fly and that you absolutely need some way to deal with it. Likewise, in monster manual review threads, it is a very common criticism that people make high level bruisers with no way to counter flying characters, thus rendering something that could be fearsome and challenge into a joke that a level 5 character can easily solo at no risk to themselves.

Third, why is creating a monster that can be a challenge for the party for meta-game reasons a bad thing? This is a game after all. There is no "in world reason" that the majority of the monsters that the DM throws at the party will be within four levels of them, but it is absolutely essential for the game to function.

There is nothng wrong with a monster having a ranged attack, but this "Ogre" had a custom ability, made to counter, not so much to counter fly, but gaseous form. Now, if this was an NPC who, within the narrative of the game, had prepared to face the party and gained this particular ability to counter this tactic. It would be more accepted, but a random monster, having a custom ability, to counter a fairly rare ability... it does sound cheap.

[NichG]

Hold on a second, this is coming off as bicycle made of babies crazy to.

First off, I made this monster long before anyone had even signed up for the game or created a character, let alone decided what tactics to use, so saying I gave it an ability to counter a tactic the party was using is just wrong.

Second, creating a mid level monster that has some way to deal with fliers is hardly unusual, go to one of the D&D sections of the forum and look at virtually any thread discussing tactics or adventure design, its pretty much common knowledge that by mid-levels most opponents will be able to fly and that you absolutely need some way to deal with it. Likewise, in monster manual review threads, it is a very common criticism that people make high level bruisers with no way to counter flying characters, thus rendering something that could be fearsome and challenge into a joke that a level 5 character can easily solo at no risk to themselves.

Third, why is creating a monster that can be a challenge for the party for meta-game reasons a bad thing? This is a game after all. There is no "in world reason" that the majority of the monsters that the DM throws at the party will be within four levels of them, but it is absolutely essential for the game to function.

To the first two points: by using a chassis that displays as a standard brute trope, you're telegraphing that 'strategies that exploit the weaknesses of brutes would be a smart thing to employ' - but you've silently covered those weaknesses in ways that are totally unobvious. Big nose doesn't equal 'can deal with fliers'. That's a gotcha, just like having a red dragon who has changed its breath weapon to acid damage, and has found some source of cold immunity.

To the second and third point: rather than listening to what your players tell you they want, you're finding excuses to justify your design decisions on the basis of things done by DMs and designers who are not running for your group. That does not engender trust. Rather, it suggests that no matter what someone says to you, you're going to stubbornly do what you want and then just find some excuse for why they're wrong to complain. Creating a challenge for meta-game reasons is a bad thing when the meta-game reason is in direct opposition to what your players have asked for. Your players have said that they feel your game is too hard, that they need every advantage they can get just to break even, and are reverting to extremely defensive and cautious playstyles in response to your DMing. 'I'm going to make sure to maintain a level of difficulty by designing to the meta-game' is the exact opposite of what you should be doing.

I feel like the constant in these threads is that you're looking for justification. You seem to say a lot 'other people do X, so is X bad?' or 'its normal to see X in old modules/other games/etc'. If you display that behavior to your players, then naturally they would lose trust. If your response to their requests, concerns, and criticisms is 'other people do it' or 'it's normal' or 'but here's an example from fiction that's like what I did', then they have no reason to believe that you care at all what they actually feel or want from game, and nothing they say will ever change your behavior - so all that is left for them in order to pursue change is to act disruptively and push for dominance, so that at least you might flinch away from things that they explode in response to. Metaphorically, they've said 'please don't use my dice'; you said 'I've been in groups where people share dice all the time' and went on using their dice; so now they're coating the dice with itching powder and wearing gloves to game.

[Great Dragon]

@Talakeal:

In all honesty, I'm not sure that doing "Building Trust" exercises will really change how your current Players view you as a DM.

Bob's "Entitlement" Attitude (where nothing ever Challenges his Character/s)

And Brian's (apparently Group backed) opinions that you're just out to screw them over.

Combined, means that everything you do will be viewed in the worst light possible;

from Modules (in which case Bob is happy because he can get a copy of it and Metagame his way to "Victory")

to modifications to a Module to fit a Campaign: Lost Mine of Phandelver into Tomb of Annihilation. (Brian would most likely believe that you deliberately chose ToA to make it impossible to Rez PCs)

to Homebrewed monsters (everyone is already convinced your just trying to screw them over with "gotcha" gimmicks)

I tend to agree with your statement of "nothing short of just telling them the entire Adventuring Plot in advance" (along with complete monster Stat blocks) will make them happy (after all, this all started with them being unhappy with just regular D&D Legendary Actions and maybe also Legendary Resistances).

In which case, you (Talakeal) might as well break out all of J.R.R. Tolkien's (or whoever's) books (Silmarillion, Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings trilogy) and just do Kiddie Storytime.

Now, Talakeal has mentioned that most of the Games are fine. But snide comments during games, and straight up "complaining" (putting it both politely and with sarcastic understatement) between games is what bugs him.

Sadly, Talakeal's current group isn't going to be easy to change.
As suggested some time ago, I'd just have a long OoC talk with them the next time it happens, and if they (still) indicate that only you changing to a Style you don't want to run will make them happy, if so - then just accept the status quo and do what you can to make what you run more fun to engage with.

The fact that they still show up to play, is at least (IMO) a victory on your part as a DM.

*****

Here's my advice (for what that's worth) for future Groups:

These are the things that I do when I'm DM-ing to build trust with my players:

Spoiler: Open Games

Show

(Remember that, unlike you, I run an open game at 2 FLGS, and get Random Players of every Exp/Skill Level. So far, I've managed to get good dedicated Players in both.
But, I have lost some Players, too. A few due to RL getting in the way; as well as some that just went Ghost)

1) I advertise online - and announce at the table - what Game, Edition, and Campaign World I'm using and the fact that it is Homebrewed. (D&D, 5e with changes to some Classes, and modified Faerun)
(I'm going to return to typing the list of all the changes, and my reasons for why; and start printing that as a handout for Players)

2) The Style my game is based on.
(Heroic, and OSR playstyle in a player-driven Sandbox Living World)

"If you're PC does nothing, then nothing exciting/interesting happens to them."

"The World is in constant motion, and Time doesn't stop. What the PCs do can change the Fate of the World."

3) Announcement that PvP isn't welcomed.
My limits for non-good PCs in my Games.
CN isn't allowed, due to abuse.
TN isn't allowed, being The Unmotivated NPC.

Evil PCs discouraged, but not banned by me.
(The All Evil Party still needs to be Team-oriented, since I'm not interested in running D&D Solo games. If I'm doing mostly Solo gaming with occasional team-ups, I'd rather just run Shadowrun or a heavily modified World of Darkness - mostly to allow more "Types": Werewolves, Vampires, Mage/Mummy, and Hunters. I don't allow Changeling, Wraith, or Demon PCs)

3a) PCs need strong self motivations.
Don't rely on me (or other Players) to involve your Character in whatever is going on In Game. (Not to be confused with cooperative inter-player Stories (past, present, future) and Plot creation and/or World Building with me, using the PC's Background and Backstory.)

4) I don't use a Screen. All rolls are Open, and I don't Fudge Die Rolls to "make a better story". Players do have access to things to help their PCs: From Inspiration/Luck to helpful DmPCs.

After a few attacks, I'll announce the Monster's AC.

I'll do my best to telegraph any Homebrewed changes to a Monster. Descriptions of better armor/thicker hide for AC. Place more than one NPC that has seen the Monster use an unusual ability or power. With all other NPCs pointing those inquiring PCs to those in the know.

Various Knowledge Checks to know things IC about a Monster. I make it fairly easy: DC 10 + CR.

Arcana for Elementals and magical creatures. From Firenewts to Dragons.

Nature for Humanoids, Giants, Beasts, Monstrosities, and Aberrations.

Religion for Undead and Dimensional Beings: Celestials, Fiends, etc.
(both Arcana and Religion know about the Astral to Outer Planes, Ethereal to Elemental Planes, the Realms in the Shadow Plane, and the Feywild)

History to know a Race's culture and relations with other Races. As well as knowing about historic events and "Legendary" Items.

Investigation can get what a failed Knowledge check misses.

******

I'm sure I'm forgetting things, but I'm tired right now.

Thanks for reading.

[Kardwill]

I was merely explaining my reasoning behind the encounter on the forum; from a mechanical perspective a boss monster without a ranged attack is a shooting duck, and from a narrative perspective I chose a sneeze over or more traditional breath weapon because I wanted the encounter to have more of a whimsical fairy tale feeling.

And those are fair reasons to do it. As you say, the "magical ogre" (well, "magical everything", really. All bad guys have some magic mojo in those tales) is a fairy tale classic, and having a big guy who blow you off by his sneeze sounds like a fun challenge for a bridge fight.

The problem is I'm not your player. And even if I was, I'd expect a more telegraphied approach (like feeling the wind of one of his accidental sneezes, or hearing about him from a local shepherd. Or simply have him brag about it), to set the conditions of the fight and tell me I'll have to use non conventional approaches.

Even in the tales you're fond of, the monster's powers are often telegraphed in some way or another. For example, the Ogre doesn't turn into an elephant to squash puss. Instead, puss first learns of the ogre's transformation ability, and then designs a plan that will take advantage of this ability (Flatter him so that he transforms into a fly or a mouse) to defeat the ogre. That way, rather than being a tale about the monster's incredible power, it is a tale about puss' clever way to deal with it.

[Segev]

Indeed, note that in Puss in Boots, Puss knows about the ogre’s powers before he ever challenges the ogre.

That’s why it’s not a gotcha in Puss’s story.

[kyoryu]

Even in the tales you're fond of, the monster's powers are often telegraphed in some way or another. For example, the Ogre doesn't turn into an elephant to squash puss. Instead, puss first learns of the ogre's transformation ability, and then designs a plan that will take advantage of this ability (Flatter him so that he transforms into a fly or a mouse) to defeat the ogre. That way, rather than being a tale about the monster's incredible power, it is a tale about puss' clever way to deal with it.

In fiction, it's generally good advice to indicate something exists before you use it to screw over the protagonist, to maintain a sense of continuity. If the hero is going to get attacked by ninjas, you'll generally hear a report on the TV about ninja attacks at some point before the attack happens. This is to avoid that exact kind of jarring "what just happened?" moments that end up sucking a bit. That is literally what Aspects in Fate represent.

https://creativewriting.fandom.com/w...ts_and_Payoffs

[Talakeal]

I guess I am just getting frustrated at this point because the thread is coming off as "anti-homebrew". People are criticizing my monsters for doing things that published monsters do all the time (I am pretty sure atleast half of the monsters in the 3.5 MM would be labelled as "gotcha" by the criteria listed in this thread) and it really makes me sad as creativity and worldbuilding are the things I enjoy most about the hobby and all of these people telling me that the only solution is to strip it out are effectively killing all of my enjoyment for it.

Also, this thread is really highlighting the old CMD. Monsters need to have lots of random abilities to deal with the crazy stuff wizards pull off, and even the most convoluted monsters only have a fraction of the versatility and random powers that a PC magic user has.

So how did you describe the monster?

I don't remember precisely, it was many months ago. But here is the description in my notes:

The bridge begins to shake and swing with heavy footfalls. You the party looks up to see a giant creature lumbering towards them, four times the height of a man. It is somewhat humanoid, with a hunched posture, shaggy malformed shoulders, and an almost comically oversized nose. It reminds Lina somewhat of a Goliath. It is clad in hides and holds a large sack in one hand and an uprooted tree in the other, which it swings before it in a sweeping motion.

I mean, you know that you're teaching the party how to play the game, right? You've said previously that you adjust encounters to make sure they're sufficiently challenging. People notice this, and so figure "why get consumables?" and then you complain they don't get consumables.

You give them encounters that are difficult if not impossible to gauge the difficulty on, and could be extremely hard even if they look benign, and are then surprised when the party wants a full rest after every encounter and doesn't act "bravely".

Really confused about what you are talking about here. Are you referring to me saying that I will play monsters slightly dumber if the party is struggling months ago or to me saying that when I am designing an adventure I try and make it an appropriately challenging?

What does that have to do with consumables? And the issue wasn't me complaining about them not using consumables, it was the players complaining that they were spending money on healing potions, and I advised them that they should probably be a bit more proactive and by a variety of consumables that would make the fight easier beforehand, and was ignored.

Also not sure why a lack of information means you need a full rest after every encounter; virtually every dungeon ever has more than a few surprises in it, and unless you are metagaming to the hilt you aren't going to know what everything does in the dungeon. Adventuring is, by default, a risky profession, and, generally speaking, cowardly characters really shouldn't become adventurers in the first place.*

I am not totally dismissing this, you do have a point about the player's ability to judge difficulty, and I will work better to communicate it in the future.



*:The resting after every fight thing is really just Bob being a power-gamer and trying to game the system. He is playing the caster, and wants to be able to go nova and overshadow everyone every fight, and likewise he wants to be able to make money off of his unused spells, and so he wants to go back to town as often as possible to make gold. If I would let him he would just stay in town all day long casting wall of iron and fabricate until he was the richest man in the world.

[Segev]

I guess I am just getting frustrated at this point because the thread is coming off as "anti-homebrew".

Reread the posts above the one I'm quoting you from, here. Note how emphasis is placed on foreshadowing abilities.

In old-style D&D, where a lot of the gotcha monsters that aren't meant to be gotchas come from, adventuring was basically aggressive archeology with a side-order of looting. Adventurers studied their marks, gathered as much information as they could about them, and went in preparing to learn more and adapt tactics to defeat them. they scouted. They probed. They had plans to run and regroup if they hit something for which they were unprepared.

And yes, a fair number of monsters in published works ARE gotcha monsters. Gygax loved them, especially as ways to "increase challenge" against his best players. The ones who otherwise knew most everything they were going to face because they'd so carefully researched and were so cautious about checking everything.

You can have homebrew, but you have to foreshadow what is coming.

Well, actually, my advice to you is NOT to have homebrew, in your specific case. This has less to do with gotcha or no-gotcha, and more to do with the fact that your players are by now conditioned (fairly or not) to try to figure out how you sought to screw them over, rather than how they could have done better in the fight.

By avoiding homebrew and using published dungeons, they have less to tell themselves that, no matter what they did, you'd have made it worthless. They can be shown what the setup was and can trust it was always that rather than something that the DM changed it to on a malicious whim.

Because my advice about avoiding homebrew has less to do with avoiding gotchas in general and more to do with convincing your players that you're not trying to "gotcha" them. (Which, in case it's not obvious, is a corruption of "got ya," as one might say when one has successfully pranked or fooled somebody else.)