Legendary Actions and More of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories

[Max_Killjoy]

To Max_Killjoy: I think I know you well enough to know why you say you don't want to write a script, but why the quotes around "collaboratively"?

1) Because those games often emphasize "collaborative storytelling".

2) Because in my experience it comes down more to certain players trying to impose their vision of what "should" happen to make the story on other players' characters and important NPCs... and sometimes that player is the GM, using those rules as a new form of railroading... and then saying things about "collaboration".

[Cluedrew]

Spoiler: We are drifting from the core topic so I'm going to tuck it away.

Show

1. I mean whether or not you want to call it storytelling (I gather you don't), whatever you call it I should hope it is collaborative otherwise you would effectively be sitting at the side lines.
2. That sounds like a subversion of the intended use of mechanics. Don't let the hypocrite's flag distract you from the real thing.

So... I don't think the problem is "collaborative", is it and I'm just missing something?

Ha, secret text.

[Talakeal]

Well, we had our last session tonight. And the campaign died as it lived, with the players bitching constantly and me being frustrated.

Some highlights:

As I mentioned in another thread, several of the players had been refusing to spend any money for the last four or five sessions, because they realized that while permanent items will pay off in the long run, there isn't a long run, and so they just bought tons and tons of consumables and used them all. This really frustrated me, as it stinks of metagaming (their characters have no way of knowing the campaign is ending) and just kind of trivializes what is supposed to be the epic climax.


During said climax, the villain moves to attack the mage, and one of the other players interrupts with an attack of opportunity that they use to trip him and, being unable to reach the mage, attacks the barbarian instead. The barbarian's player tells me that since I already declared his intent to attack the mage, he can't now change his action and thus his turn is wasted. I say that isn't a rule in this game, or indeed any modern RPG I can think of, but he tells me that I do that to them all the time, and that he is just being fair. This legitimately baffles me as I don't think I have ever done anything like that, and the only thing I can think of is that this is some sort of passive aggressive revenge for the haunting incident a few months back.


Despite having a really easy time in the fights due to all the stored consumables, that players are still bitching about how tough the monsters are now because, it being the last session, with the player characters being the strongest they have ever been, the enemies they are facing are appropriate level for their current power level. Thus every fight they whine about how the monsters (who will be dead a few rounds later) are.


While fighting an eldritch abomination in the final dungeon, the players complain about how tough it is, and I tell them to cool it, its the final boss, of course its tough. Now, I was planning on running an epilogue session next time, but I learned that people are too busy to game for the next three weeks, so I decided to just have a late session and run the epilogue that night. The players then get mad at me for having combat in the epilogue, because by calling the previous fight the "last boss" I have promised that there would be no more fights, and thus I am a liar.


So, the premise of the campaign is that they are in a city where magic is outlawed save for the lord's court magician and his apprentices. One of the PCs spontaneously became a sorcerer, and was facing exile, but they cut a deal with the court wizard; if he would take her on as an apprentice, then the group would, when they were strong enough, venture into a warded dungeon on the far side of the kingdom and bring him whatever they found within. So, they finally do so, finding ancient arcane machinery that has recently activated, torn a rift in reality, and brought an eldritch abomination into the world, which they defeat and trap in a magic sword. As a result, the sword is too dangerous to actually wield.
They return to the wizard and tell him what they did, and he says he will keep the magic sword safe, and they announce that they will not be handing it, or anything else, over to him. They say they are justified in doing this because A: The eldritch horror was not actually in the dungeon at the time the pact was made, B: the sword was not initially from the dungeon and therefore not his to claim, and C: The machinery was too heavy for them to transport. The wizard, feeling that he has been played for a fool, but knowing that the PCs are too powerful, both personally and politically, for him to force to hand anything over (let alone face repercussions for their perceived betrayal) tells him that he is through with them and the entire damned city, smashes his staff upon the stones, and in a blinding flash of light he has disapeared and his tower begins to crumble around them. I felt this was a pretty traditional fantasy trope for a scorned archmage, but my players didn't see it that way.
They were, presumably, looking forward to killing the wizard and looting his tower, and then when events played out as they did, they told me that they were "Tired of my NPCs always acting like spoiled two year olds throwing a tantrum and taking their toys and going home just because they don't always get their way."


So, in the end, rather than feeling a sense of satisfaction in actually completing a two year campaign, I just feel frustrated and depressed. I told my players that I couldn't do it any more and would not be GMing for them in the foreseeable future, and they, no surprise, were pissed off at me and, despite me having asked Brian to take over DMing for me months ago, flat out stated that he wouldn't do it and its either I continue to GM for the group or they disband.

Or even ROTJ (assuming I got the correct "ep5", and it still works if I didn't) - Luke hands over his lightsaber (!) and surrenders, to be taken to Palpatine's throne room in manacles. It was, of course, not true submission/ surrender, but a serious gambit to get himself face to face with the BBEG. It, of course, worked in a movie with a script, but is not the way most D&D players would expect to play (not leastwise because it split the party and created a three-way fork for the final act which would have been a nightmare to run).

So yeah, I literally read all thirty-two pages of this over the last several days, during my "kick around on the internet" time. Wow. And so many specific things I wanted to respond to from months ago, but will keep my comments to the more recent items.

Talakeal, one thing I haven't seen anyone note is how much you enjoy the WW system. In my experience, people who like WW will rub me the wrong way, quite badly, in D&D. Even when describing your setting doc (which I haven't looked at yet but hope to soon), you talk about putting the setting before the rules, in the spirit of WW. If Bob is like me in this respect (and if he's a crunchy game tester, I almost guarantee he is), he wants a world with a consistent set of rules he can interact with. You seem to want to story to be told, and want the players to share your vision for that story, and have no issues with the rules being shaped to fit that story.

To bounce from the Star Wars example above, I absolutely loathe Star Trek. It pretends (and claims) to be "serious SF instead of that Star Wars space opera nonsense", but the holodeck behaves differently from week to week based on how the writer wants it to. As does the transporter. As does... literally everything else. Every time it changes, I lose my suspension of disbelief. Clearly a lot of other people disagree, but I'd be curious how Bob feels.

For all that the rogue encounter was discussed, no one has commented on this: you had a framework for how you expected it to play out, which would have made an outstanding scene in a movie. At least one of your players did not see your vision for that scene, and it seems people here (including me) don't either, at a very high rate. For what it's worth, the rogue's comment as you wrote them sounded like the prelude to a fight (explaining his reasons for anger) rather than the prelude to a parlay. It only works with information they couldn't have had.

That sort of thing is how I felt every time I tried to play WW games, and it was worse the more enthusiastic other people were. Every action felt like it was "wrong", and that everyone else was reading from a script I didn't have, and it ended poorly (though nothing like what you describe). It was frustrating, and I went through the motions for the sake of my friends and having literally any form of social life, but it was miserable.

I used to live in Boulder; if I still did I would love to be able to sit in on a session. Not that I believe you're lying or deliberately misrepresenting the situation, but it would be interesting to see the whole situation from another perspective.

Since this thread has become quite large in scope, I also want to address "gotcha" monsters. Off the top, they're terrible. They're terrible in a technical, game-design perspective, in that they force the player to take the hit up front and only learn for the next encounter (possibly as a new character). To GG, that was the intent, and players were expected to churn through huge numbers of low-level characters before "earning" the right to survive more than a few sessions (which is terrible and abusive on its own). It also caused a disconnect with future versions, in which players are encouraged to become invested in their characters and put effort into developing and expressing their personalities. In a system in which that character might die for no good reason other than the DM "teaching the player not to reach into a log", why bother? Just stab things in the face until you need to roll up a new one. If I ever write out the system in my head, characters will be very durable against death for exactly that reason.

This affects video games as well. Back in Doom, the monster closets pissed me off to no end, until I started walking backwards over every major powerup or key. That worked, but it was still terrible design for playing through the first time; it was from an arcade perspective where the player was expected to replay and restart levels and episodes until they learned all the gotchas. I hated it (but there were fewer options, and especially fewer options that had anything like the rest of the experience Doom brought). In Halo, more aliens are certainly placed onto the level in various circumstances, but to my memory it was never "pick up powerup, get shot in the back with no warning". That was a game expected to be played through more-or-less linearly.

D&D would be much better off with the "gotcha" monsters eliminated or reworked. The rust monster is cool if there's a warning, ditto for the slimes and oozes that eat weapons or split when hit with a blade (as long as it's not a tool to take away the fighter's favorite or best weapon, and the party has a way to deal with it). The mimic... maybe as a once-a-year surprise, if the party can deal with it fairly easily. The "ogre" with the "big nose" that lets it sneeze a Gust of Wind? I would have never made that connection, especially as lots of monsters are described as having large noses. On the other hand, your sick/ infected dragon sounds awesome, and from the description you've given I'd actually be surprised if it did breathe fire as normal. I certainly wouldn't describe that one as a "gotcha".

I don't know if that was even everything I wanted to say, but that seems like plenty enough for now.

I think I may be giving you the wrong impression. I am not really a "story" guy, I believe that stories are something that emerges through the course of play, and the of either the GM writing a script for the PCs to follow or of "collaborative storytelling" and "narrative mechanics" can go hang. I do, however, think the fiction of the setting, of which the player characters and their personalities are the largest part, are more important than the rules and should generally come out on top when the two are in conflict.

The problem is not that the players do unexpected things, its that not all approaches are equal, yet my players expect the game to be balanced around them, which is just something I don't know how to do. Killing a monster, bribing it, sneaking past it, fast talking it, poisoning it, etc. are all drastically different ways to solve the problem, some more difficult than others, and when I am balancing the dungeon I have to go with what I think of as the "most likely" approach, I just can't think of any better way to do it.

And I still don't understand what a "gotcha monster" is or why its a bad thing; as close as I can tell its that some players don't like to be surprised or don't like to lose. I can see how you can have an unfair surprise, for example something that provides very severe consequences for what is normally good practice, like an ear worm or something, but that is apparently not what we are talking about.

Out of curiosity, what are "monster closets"?

[zinycor]

Am very happy for you since it finally ended, now since that group disbanded you are now free to go play with a normal group.

[Cluedrew]

"Tired of my NPCs always acting like spoiled two year olds throwing a tantrum and taking their toys and going home just because they don't always get their way."

If only they could see the wonderful irony.

So, in the end, rather than feeling a sense of satisfaction in actually completing a two year campaign, I just feel frustrated and depressed. I told my players that I couldn't do it any more and would not be GMing for them in the foreseeable future, and they, no surprise, were pissed off at me and, despite me having asked Brian to take over DMing for me months ago, flat out stated that he wouldn't do it and its either I continue to GM for the group or they disband.

OK seriously, don't do it. Let the group disband. You are not enjoying this*, they might be getting some enjoyment out of putting you through this but I think the fact they refuse to try to run it shows they know what they are putting you through. Stop putting yourself through this.

* And if you say you are, write a post gushing about the great moments you had in this campaign.

[Talakeal]

Oh, one other thing:

Remember how a few months back Bob was mad that I was threatening to nerf his magic item? Well, after that conversation I decided I was through with "gentleman's agreements" and put a hundred yard maximum range on his item, and of course that made Bob bitter and resentful.

I probably heard some variant of "Well, I could just take out the monsters from here, but I won't because Talakeal gets mad when I do that and I don't want to listen to him whine," probably half a dozen times last night.

[Great Dragon]

I am also glad that the game is done.
And I seriously hope that you put your foot down with some very firm conditions upon resuming being the G/DM for this group. Otherwise, just decide to let them disband and look for a new group.

Talakeal "Out of curiosity, what are "monster closets"?"

I remember a video game (Gauntlet?) where in certain rooms (or along the path) there were Doors or Boxes ("Closets") where monsters would Spawn, and would keep spawning until someone attacked and destroyed the Door/Box where the monsters were coming out.

I think this is what is meant.

[Elysiume]

"Monster closet" refers to an innocuous setpiece that spawns an enemy. Rather than having them either be present from the start of the level or just sort of phase in out of thing air, they jump out of a closet, or a locker, or an air vent. Sometimes the entrance is initially obvious (e.g. a closed door), sometimes it's not (a seemingly-innocuous piece of wall with a hidden door, a random grate, etc.).

[Talakeal]

Huh. I wonder which Doom he was referring to then, as I have played the original PC games and the only spawning in those games occurs on nightmare difficulty and doesn't have any sort of object or area associated with it. I am assuming its either Doom 3 or the 2016 remake?

[DataNinja]

And I still don't understand what a "gotcha monster" is or why its a bad thing; as close as I can tell its that some players don't like to be surprised or don't like to lose. I can see how you can have an unfair surprise, for example something that provides very severe consequences for what is normally good practice, like an ear worm or something, but that is apparently not what we are talking about.

A "Gotcha monster" tends to be something that punishes or penalizes something that would usually be smart play, or needed something external to be told, or whatever.

If you're fighting a type of enemy that, say, you know from past experience is weak to bright light attacks (I'm not going for any specific system here), but then you have an enemy of that type that happens to be supercharged by bright light attacks instead, and there's no warning about it? That's a gotcha. (If there was some tidbit about "beware, some darkness dwellers have adapted, and they shape the light against those who wield it" beforehand, that would not be. It would introduce the tactical choice of "oh, do we use bright light attacks? We should keep an eye out for anything that might help us figure this out." Or if they were dressed differently, wearing mirrors, or symbols of the sun proudly, or whatever.)

Basically: If it exists to provide a tactical choice, that's fine. If it leaves the players saying "...what? How could we ever have seen that coming?" that's bad. And what exactly that entails does change from group to group.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Your game, and everyone in it, sounds like ****. Forget not GMing for them, stop associating with them in general.

[Talakeal]

A "Gotcha monster" tends to be something that punishes or penalizes something that would usually be smart play, or needed something external to be told, or whatever.

Those are two very different things. Which is, I think, my problem with understanding this concept. People are using it to describe a variety of things that are only tangentially related.

If you're fighting a type of enemy that, say, you know from past experience is weak to bright light attacks (I'm not going for any specific system here), but then you have an enemy of that type that happens to be supercharged by bright light attacks instead, and there's no warning about it? That's a gotcha. (If there was some tidbit about "beware, some darkness dwellers have adapted, and they shape the light against those who wield it" beforehand, that would not be. It would introduce the tactical choice of "oh, do we use bright light attacks? We should keep an eye out for anything that might help us figure this out." Or if they were dressed differently, wearing mirrors, or symbols of the sun proudly, or whatever.)

I guess my problem with this is I don't see why learning through experience is fundamentally a bad thing.

In a story, "show don't tell" would be the rule of the day, it is far more interesting to see someone attempt to cut off the hydra's head and have two grow in its place than to have an oracle standing in town telling Hercules this fact beforehand.

As long as you factor the "surprise" into the difficulty of the encounter, and it doesn't have irreparable consequences, I am not quite sure why it is such a bad thing.

For example, when I had the monster that spawned two more when killed, I assumed the players would discover this through experience, and so I budgeted the encounter for three of them; the initial one and then the two that would be spawned when the players killed it the first time because they didn't know any better.

[NNescio]

Huh. I wonder which Doom he was referring to then, as I have played the original PC games and the only spawning in those games occurs on nightmare difficulty and doesn't have any sort of object or area associated with it. I am assuming its either Doom 3 or the 2016 remake?

Doom, Doom 2, and all the various WADs made copious use of literal monster closets, with monsters hidden in small rooms behind hidden doors that are activated by picking up* an item, throwing a switch, or crossing a particular section in a room or hall. It's pretty much the central pacing mechanic in the game (at least for most maps). They are pretty obvious (sometimes even on the minimap, at least after they are triggered) to players who thoroughly explore the map to find all the secrets, because you'll see all those tiny empty alcoves that weren't there earlier before you triggered the "closet" to open.

(*Well, technically crossing a linedef [a "line definition", that is, a "line" between two vertices, used to "define" a map sector or an action to be triggered] under the item, so speedrunning or repeat players can sometimes avoid the 'spawn' if they pick the item up from a specific direction.)

Some maps even have hidden monster-only one-way teleporters (basically a teleporting linedef without the tele pad) connected to inaccessible monster zoos (so, not just a closet, but a gigantic hidden room filled with monsters). This is used to set up teleporting ambushes (player walks in, wakes up monsters via a sound tunnel or lowers a hidden door in the zoo, triggering the whole horde to bumrush the one-way teleporter), made most infamous in E1M9: Military Base (where most players will encounter it for the first time).

[NichG]

I guess my problem with this is I don't see why learning through experience is fundamentally a bad thing.

In a story, "show don't tell" would be the rule of the day, it is far more interesting to see someone attempt to cut off the hydra's head and have two grow in its place than to have an oracle standing in town telling Hercules this fact beforehand.

As long as you factor the "surprise" into the difficulty of the encounter, and it doesn't have irreparable consequences, I am not quite sure why it is such a bad thing.

For example, when I had the monster that spawned two more when killed, I assumed the players would discover this through experience, and so I budgeted the encounter for three of them; the initial one and then the two that would be spawned when the players killed it the first time because they didn't know any better.

In the case of a 'gotcha', there's an element of it that crosses some wires. Generally in a game with strategic and tactical elements and a moderate level of difficulty (enough that failure is likely if you don't pay attention, say), there's a premise that if you do well it's because of your own smart play and if you do poorly it's because of mistakes you made or deficiencies in your own play. That is to say, the message set by a game that what happens to you is your fault.

A 'gotcha' is a game design element that creates a failure that is not actually the player's fault, because there was no mechanism in alignment with the normal expectations of play in the rest of the game for them to anticipate the gotcha. So it says 'you failed/suffered a setback (something is your fault)' while simultaneously having that thing actually not be the player's fault. That can at best feel bad (the player thinks 'what did I do wrong?' when the real answer is 'nothing, you were supposed to have a setback there'), and at worst come off as actively malicious ('wait, I know that I wasn't at fault, why is the GM trying to make me think that I was?').

Now, I'd argue that a campaign centerred entirely around hunting 'gotcha' monsters of the week actually could be fine, if the players were given freedom as to how to approach the encounter (sufficient time and space for scouting, investigating previous attacks, etc, before actually having the fight). In that case the expectation of normal play would be established that if you go into an encounter without e.g. sending a sacrificial team of minions first or scouting out the monster or whatever, that actually is a strategic mistake and you should expect to die. But that very much means a hyper-cautious, non-heroic style of gameplay - if you hear someone being attacked when you enter town, you don't rush to their defense, you take to the rooftops and watch the attack through a telescope - you can't save this one, but their death can teach you what you need in order to save the next. But that sounds like the opposite of what you want to encourage.

[OldTrees1]

I guess my problem with this is I don't see why learning through experience is fundamentally a bad thing.

In a story, "show don't tell" would be the rule of the day, it is far more interesting to see someone attempt to cut off the hydra's head and have two grow in its place than to have an oracle standing in town telling Hercules this fact beforehand.

As long as you factor the "surprise" into the difficulty of the encounter, and it doesn't have irreparable consequences, I am not quite sure why it is such a bad thing.

For example, when I had the monster that spawned two more when killed, I assumed the players would discover this through experience, and so I budgeted the encounter for three of them; the initial one and then the two that would be spawned when the players killed it the first time because they didn't know any better.

Talakeal here are a couple lessons:

1) "Learn through experience" is not what you are doing. Gotchas undermine the entire premise of experience. If vampires were undead in the past, they might not be in the future because Gotchas use past experience as a vulnerability with which to subvert expectations. Eventually the only "learning through experience" that happens is learning you can't learn through experience under that DM.

If you want the players to "Learn through experience", avoid gotchas. Show if you can, or tell if you can't, but don't keep silent unless you want them to abandon experience as a source of learning.

2) Passive readers and active characters interact with a story differently. A passive reader will make a prediction, and then can check when the event happens. An active character will make a prediction, and that will inform them about how to avoid the bad fork. If the character only gets information after their decision, then you never showed nor told.

If you stay silent until after the cut off the head of a monster, you did not show the monster regrows it heads. It is already too late. You failed to even attempt to show or tell.


Talakeal, you don't seem to want them to learn from experience. You want them to learn from failure. You chose to subvert expectations, and then avoid showing or telling information related to those changes. Then, when the players try to act based upon what they learned from experience, "GOTCHA" the players guessed wrong so that you can force them to learn through this forced failure. (This can be considered related to railroading)

Or at least, this is the Talakeal you present to us. This is the Talakeal represented by your stubborn "I don't see [concept the forum has communicated ad nauseum]" or how you treated your players when "They ALL think it was too difficult but of course I know it was just right".

Sure your players are major parts of the problems. But the more we listen, the more we hear your own faults. Do you have the wisdom to grow or will you become set in those faults. Please be a better GM to your next group of players. Treat communication as a 2-way street with responsibility on both sides. Learn to describe better so that you can Show/Tell rather than Gotcha. And accept the feedback the players find the courage to share with you, especially if it clashes with your prior estimates.

[MeimuHakurei]

During said climax, the villain moves to attack the mage, and one of the other players interrupts with an attack of opportunity that they use to trip him and, being unable to reach the mage, attacks the barbarian instead. The barbarian's player tells me that since I already declared his intent to attack the mage, he can't now change his action and thus his turn is wasted. I say that isn't a rule in this game, or indeed any modern RPG I can think of, but he tells me that I do that to them all the time, and that he is just being fair. This legitimately baffles me as I don't think I have ever done anything like that, and the only thing I can think of is that this is some sort of passive aggressive revenge for the haunting incident a few months back.

I knew all along the players were gaslighting you.

[AdAstra]

I think here, your performance as a DM is pretty much irrelevant to what you should do here. If this is what your players are actually saying, you should not DM for them anymore. This is genuinely a toxic situation. Even if your players' criticisms were accurate, that doesn't remotely justify this degree of vitriol and entitlement to your time. So basically, now's the best possible time to bite the bullet and get out of that mess like people have been saying since I don't even know when. I sincerely doubt you will find anything more of value down this road.

[Pelle]

So, in the end, rather than feeling a sense of satisfaction in actually completing a two year campaign, I just feel frustrated and depressed. I told my players that I couldn't do it any more and would not be GMing for them in the foreseeable future, and they, no surprise, were pissed off at me and, despite me having asked Brian to take over DMing for me months ago, flat out stated that he wouldn't do it and its either I continue to GM for the group or they disband.

Have you warned them repeatedly that you planned to step down? And did you tell them why (their behaviour), and called them out when they were doing things that made you not have fun? It sounds like you haven't really given them chances to improve their behaviour to make you enjoy yourself more.

I assume you can't resist, and will continue to GM for them sooner or later... If so, how about trying to run one-shots, and not commit to running a full campaign until you are all on the same page, with feedback given by all?

[Kardwill]

So, in the end, rather than feeling a sense of satisfaction in actually completing a two year campaign, I just feel frustrated and depressed. I told my players that I couldn't do it any more and would not be GMing for them in the foreseeable future, and they, no surprise, were pissed off at me and, despite me having asked Brian to take over DMing for me months ago, flat out stated that he wouldn't do it and its either I continue to GM for the group or they disband.

So let them disband. I know you've heard it multiple times already.
Seriously, I'm not at your table. Maybe I would enjoy playing with you, or maybe you're a terrible GM. But even if the later is true, then the sane course of action for your players would be either to bite the bullet or to drop your game. They can't whine about your game all night long, and then bully you so that you'll GM the next one! That's toxic.
I know you said you need RPGs as a creative outlet, but right now, you're in an abusive relationship. Find another group. Try playing online in some play-by-post or on roll20. Anything.

And if you absolutely, for some unfathomable reason, don't want to drop your current players, do a long GMing break, with maybe some boardgames? A fun, short one-shot of a different game when you feel like it? NOT another campaign. I think long term engagements will only generate frustration on both sides of the GM screen.


To end on a positive line, it sounds like they finally bought some consumable. I remember you ranting about them never using those a few month ago. ^^

[Segev]

I find it interesting and revealing that they did nothing but gripe about you and your DMing, then got mad at you for deciding not to DM for them for the foreseeable future. I'm curious what their spoken justifications for being mad at you were, since nobody has a right to demand anybody else play in, let alone run, a game for them. On what basis do they claim a right to be angry?

[Talakeal]

On the subject of "Gotcha" monsters, which of the following would you guys say fall under that category:

1: Monsters which are immune to their kind's normal weakness (e.g. frost salamnders, greater werewolves, dhampirs, wartrolls)
2: Monsters which ambush people doing otherwise smart behavior (ear worms, lock lurkers, mimics)
3: Monsters which grow stronger if you attack them in the wrong way (hydras, ochre jellies, flesh golems, shambling mounds)
4: Monsters which screw you over for attacking them (Rust monsters, balors)
5: Monsters which can only be killed with a gimmick (Nilbogs, Rakshasash)
6: Monsters which have a special ability which isn't apparent (most monsters actually, especially demons)
7: Non standard monsters such as home brew, or those with non-standard feats, class levels, or templates

I find it interesting and revealing that they did nothing but gripe about you and your DMing, then got mad at you for deciding not to DM for them for the foreseeable future. I'm curious what their spoken justifications for being mad at you were, since nobody has a right to demand anybody else play in, let alone run, a game for them. On what basis do they claim a right to be angry?

I think it was more about no body else being willing to step up to the plate and DM.

To end on a positive line, it sounds like they finally bought some consumable. I remember you ranting about them never using those a few month ago. ^^

Not really, no.

The problem was not that they weren't using consumables, its that they were upset that they were using too many consumables and I was trying to get them to use them smarter and more proactively; for example buy a potion of fire protection before facing the dragon to save 10 potions of healing afterwards.

They didn't use them proactively, they just had so many of them that they were back at 100% after every encounter no matter how careless they were.

Talakeal here are a couple lessons:

1) "Learn through experience" is not what you are doing. Gotchas undermine the entire premise of experience. If vampires were undead in the past, they might not be in the future because Gotchas use past experience as a vulnerability with which to subvert expectations. Eventually the only "learning through experience" that happens is learning you can't learn through experience under that DM.

If you want the players to "Learn through experience", avoid gotchas. Show if you can, or tell if you can't, but don't keep silent unless you want them to abandon experience as a source of learning.

2) Passive readers and active characters interact with a story differently. A passive reader will make a prediction, and then can check when the event happens. An active character will make a prediction, and that will inform them about how to avoid the bad fork. If the character only gets information after their decision, then you never showed nor told.

If you stay silent until after the cut off the head of a monster, you did not show the monster regrows it heads. It is already too late. You failed to even attempt to show or tell.

Talakeal, you don't seem to want them to learn from experience. You want them to learn from failure. You chose to subvert expectations, and then avoid showing or telling information related to those changes. Then, when the players try to act based upon what they learned from experience, "GOTCHA" the players guessed wrong so that you can force them to learn through this forced failure. (This can be considered related to railroading)

Or at least, this is the Talakeal you present to us. This is the Talakeal represented by your stubborn "I don't see [concept the forum has communicated ad nauseum]" or how you treated your players when "They ALL think it was too difficult but of course I know it was just right".

Sure your players are major parts of the problems. But the more we listen, the more we hear your own faults. Do you have the wisdom to grow or will you become set in those faults. Please be a better GM to your next group of players. Treat communication as a 2-way street with responsibility on both sides. Learn to describe better so that you can Show/Tell rather than Gotcha. And accept the feedback the players find the courage to share with you, especially if it clashes with your prior estimates.

Did any of this ever actually happen in my game though?

For example, the giant with the gust of wind ability drove off the PCs, they regrouped, came back, and killed him. When faced with the vestige that spawns two more when killed, the party fell back, learned what he did, and then chose to come back and do a smash and grab with the treasure rather than trying to kill him. In both cases they saw something in action, suffered a mild setback, learned from it, and then proceeded to finish the task.

When I say show, I suppose mean learn by doing, while you consider showing to be watching someone else do it?

Fundamentally, there is no mechanical difference between cutting off the monsters head, seeing that it regrows two heads if not burned, and then cutting off the two heads and burning them VS. simply fighting a three headed hydra which obviously telegraphs the fact that the stumps need to be burned after decapitation. The only difference is the perception of the events, I see the first as more dramatic and immersive, while my players see it as a surprise screw-job.


You seem to have edited out the part about balance and difficulty that I meant to respond to (or I am just being blind and not seeing it), but to elaborate; perfect difficulty is subjective. When I say it is perfectly balanced, I mean that it follows the CR guide lines so that in a white room each adventure uses up ~80% of the parties resources, which is the balance point that most editions of D&D are built around. Across every campaign I have ever run, the players success rate at completing adventures is in the mid to high 90%s.

I actually talked to my players about what difficulty they think is fair, and they basically said that they think the game is fair as is. When I asked why someone bitches every encounter*, they said that it was simply human nature to complain when things don't go their way.


*note that it isn't everyone bitching all the time, and they rarely agree on cause for bitching, but at least one person bitches about one thing every encounter, be it combat, social, or exploration based and whether or not they actually struggle or have a trivially easy time about it. Bob, for example, complains that it is unfair for his character to take any damage at all.

A 'gotcha' is a game design element that creates a failure that is not actually the player's fault, because there was no mechanism in alignment with the normal expectations of play in the rest of the game for them to anticipate the gotcha. So it says 'you failed/suffered a setback (something is your fault)' while simultaneously having that thing actually not be the player's fault. That can at best feel bad (the player thinks 'what did I do wrong?' when the real answer is 'nothing, you were supposed to have a setback there'), and at worst come off as actively malicious ('wait, I know that I wasn't at fault, why is the GM trying to make me think that I was?').

That makes a lot of sense. But at the same time makes it a lot harder to solve as it is a perceptual problem rather than something more tangible.

Doom, Doom 2, and all the various WADs made copious use of literal monster closets, with monsters hidden in small rooms behind hidden doors that are activated by picking up* an item, throwing a switch, or crossing a particular section in a room or hall. It's pretty much the central pacing mechanic in the game (at least for most maps). They are pretty obvious (sometimes even on the minimap, at least after they are triggered) to players who thoroughly explore the map to find all the secrets, because you'll see all those tiny empty alcoves that weren't there earlier before you triggered the "closet" to open.

(*Well, technically crossing a linedef [a "line definition", that is, a "line" between two vertices, used to "define" a map sector or an action to be triggered] under the item, so speedrunning or repeat players can sometimes avoid the 'spawn' if they pick the item up from a specific direction.)

Some maps even have hidden monster-only one-way teleporters (basically a teleporting linedef without the tele pad) connected to inaccessible monster zoos (so, not just a closet, but a gigantic hidden room filled with monsters). This is used to set up teleporting ambushes (player walks in, wakes up monsters via a sound tunnel or lowers a hidden door in the zoo, triggering the whole horde to bumrush the one-way teleporter), made most infamous in E1M9: Military Base (where most players will encounter it for the first time).

That makes a lot more sense. Literal closets, yeah, I remember that.

[zinycor]

So... will you let them disband? Or will you continue to torture yourself by GMing for them?

[Talakeal]

So... will you let them disband? Or will you continue to torture yourself by GMing for them?

Not any time soon, that's for sure.

[zinycor]

Not any time soon, that's for sure.

That's good to know, once you are ready to play again try finding a group that gets along better.

In my honest opinion the real problem at this last table had less to do with any particular thing you could have done and more with players being *******s to you and eachother

[Segev]

So they're mad that you asked somebody else to DM, then? Meh, asking them to do it is fair, as long as you don't demand it of anybody. If they're willing to let the group dissolve, that's their choice. I wouldn't really recommend playing with them anymore, even if somebody else runs a game, though it'd be interesting to see if they're as hostile to the new DM in that case.

[Lord of Shadows]

So, in the end, rather than feeling a sense of satisfaction in actually completing a two year campaign, I just feel frustrated and depressed. I told my players that I couldn't do it any more and would not be GMing for them in the foreseeable future, and they, no surprise, were pissed off at me and, despite me having asked Brian to take over DMing for me months ago, flat out stated that he wouldn't do it and its either I continue to GM for the group or they disband.

My vote is for disbanding...

I find it interesting and revealing that they did nothing but gripe about you and your DMing, then got mad at you for deciding not to DM for them for the foreseeable future. I'm curious what their spoken justifications for being mad at you were, since nobody has a right to demand anybody else play in, let alone run, a game for them. On what basis do they claim a right to be angry?

I think it was more about no body else being willing to step up to the plate and DM.

Kinda makes you wonder if they already knew something about themselves, while you kept coming here for feedback... And anyway, I'm certain no one else wants to DM for "Bob."

You can DM here anytime... well, just as soon as I get the bugs worked out of the teleporter...

[Koo Rehtorb]

May I suggest linking them to this thread?

[Great Dragon]

Bob, for example, complains that it is unfair for his character to take any damage at all.

In which case, Bob's never going to happy. Because even in something like the My Little Pony tRPG (where combat isn't supposed to happen very often, if at all) still have "failure" and "setbacks" (and yes, I'm aware that Bob {etc} most likely won't ever even be anywhere near a MLP - or similar - game. The point was that there's never a "I Always Win" condition)

1: Monsters which are immune to their kind's normal weakness (e.g. frost salamnders, greater werewolves, dhampirs, wartrolls)

2: Monsters which ambush people doing otherwise smart behavior (ear worms, lock lurkers, mimics)

3: Monsters which grow stronger if you attack them in the wrong way (hydras, ochre jellies, flesh golems, shambling mounds)

4: Monsters which screw you over for attacking them (Rust monsters, balors)

5: Monsters which can only be killed with a gimmick (Nilbogs, Rakshasash)

6: Monsters which have a special ability which isn't apparent (most monsters actually, especially demons)

7: Non standard monsters such as home brew, or those with non-standard feats, class levels, or templates

I agree with the post by NichG.

Added comments:
Each of those are basically situational "gotcha", and thanks to E.G.G. are now traditional.

IMO (1) is only really a gotcha if the Frost Salamander that is Resistant/Immune to Fire looks exactly the same as the one that is Vulnerable, and the DM withheld all possible means of getting info of the change (IC) before the encounter. And is more suspicious of (OoC Meta) if everyone in the Group had their PCs stock up on doing Fire damage. I could maybe see the 3x D&D Adult White Dragon getting something to cover their Blatant Weakness, but there should still be some Clues as to that fact. A worn item that is visible and can be either taken away, or broken to get rid of; The Dragon casts a Spell, but that has a Duration (if not Concentration) and can be Counterspelled when cast, or Dispelled if already active.

(2) I refuse to use Ear Worms.
Sleeping people don't really have a way to detect or avoid these things..

Lock Lurks should be noticed with a decent Investigation and Mimics with Perception Rolls.

(3 & 4) most of those monsters are Encountered by enough nPCs that a Nature Skill Roll gives enough information to plan something on the fly.

(5) Both Rust Monsters and especially Balor have lots of In Game/World Lore, and really shouldn't surprise anyone.

(6) Hidden (and especially Secret) powers are a type of Gotcha.

(7) A lot of Homebrew falls into the problem of #6. There's no In-Game/World info on them (like books) or any tales about anyone that Encountered them, and survived.

Well, again I'm glad the game is over, and I hope to hear good news from you in the near future.

[kyoryu]

Monsters are "gotcha" monsters if a Reasonable Player(tm), after encountering the monster, goes "well that was a load of crap."

That's the only definition that matters. Because any other definition can be twisted to create a gotcha monster, while the GM follows the "rules".

Also, in most cases, the issue is not the creature, but the presentation of the creature.

Is a Frost Salamander a gotcha monster? If you find it in a snowy cave, with lots of evidence of cold stuff, and it's colored white, probably not. If you find it in a lava cave and it looks just like a regular salamander? Yeah, that's a gotcha.

Same with the hydra. Is a monster that, when attacked with a particular type of attack, a "gotcha"? Maybe, maybe not. With a hydra, when you attack it with a slashing weapon, it's head is cut off, and two grow in place. There is an immediate cause and effect relationship demonstrated, even if the first "split" couldn't be predicted.

Now, if you have a monster that grows in power if you attack it without saying "wibblewoo", and especially if there's no lore to be found out about it? And if the monster gives no hints about it during the attack? Yeah, that's a gotcha.

Special abilities? Again, as I used with the orc example, it all boils down to how logical the ability is, after the players discover it. If it's nonsensical or hidden behind an obscure clue? Then it's a gotcha, especially if the ability is such that the use of it dramatically changes the encounter. There's like some math here, about the influence of the ability needing to be proportional to the level of telegraphing. (Note I didn't say power - it's not about damage or ability to kill).

Don't be afraid of them figuring out the monster - it should be a challenge even once they "figure it out". Err on the side of more information.

[Talakeal]

Monsters are "gotcha" monsters if a Reasonable Player(tm), after encountering the monster, goes "well that was a load of crap."

Unfortunately that doesn't help me a whole lot as I only game with unreasonable players who think every encounter is a load of crap.

Now, if you have a monster that grows in power if you attack it without saying "wibblewoo", and especially if there's no lore to be found out about it? And if the monster gives no hints about it during the attack? Yeah, that's a gotcha.

How about an identical monster that doesn't have the weakness to wibblewoo; it simply gets stronger each time it is attacked no matter what. Is that also a gotcha?