Adversarial DM - Not a good look for D&D
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ต.ค. 2024
- This week I'm chatting about how we need to separate the PCs and how they are treated from the Players. I also talk a bit about adversarial DMing
Links!!
Expedition to the Grizzly Peaks Podcast (Andy) Episode 331 starts this discussion. anchor.fm/andy...
Bandit's Keep on Anchor : anchor.fm/dani...
Seth Skorkowsky
/ @sskorkowsky
Fear of a Black Dragon
www.gauntlet-r...
Adventure Review (really old school)
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You can follow me on Twitter @BanditsKeep
I think that was everything!
Welcome to Bandit's Keep where we play a variety of tabletop role-playing games!
Adversarial DM - Not a good look for D&D
#Dungeons&Dragons #DMAdvice
Can't believe it took me so long to find this channel, your content is amazing.
Thank you, I appreciate the kind words
I’m continuously rewarded by diving through your back catalogue of videos. Love it as always!
Thanks
Seth's channel is a gold mine of information for me as a DM
For sure
@@BanditsKeep I've pulled my punches in the past as a DM and I've regretted it. I'm not doing it anymore and the whole game is more fun. Lots of DMs kinda act like running a game is a power trip, but that's a stupid way to look at it. If everyone had fun, you win. That's how you "win" at D&D
Everyone having fun is the goal!
DMs that made it a point to kill off PCs don’t last long. People don’t want to play with them. It’s how I ended up being a DM.
Love your channel Daniel, and your positive input and attitude my friend. You're a real credit to DMs, D&D and the OSR. Thanks for your great videos, I've been binging lately. :) All of those modules are great topics. Looking forward to them.
Thanks for the kind words, I’ve enjoyed so many of your videos over the past year with lockdown it’s pretty cool hear from you.
I'd love to have you talk about Tomb and see how you'd alter it to your style of game. Also, I've never heard of anyone ever "finishing it". 😋 Good vid again....softy. Lol... just kidding.
Ha ha. Thanks. We actually finished it (I was a player) in the 5e remake - which did not change much from the original so was a cakewalk for those PCs
@@BanditsKeep Yes, I bet 5E made that relatively easy for sure. In "our day", feels old even saying that, we played it twice and couldn't even survive long enough to complete it, or even close, either time. I've never ran it myself.
Back in col!ege my players went through TOH back for 1e, They actually had no problem with the puzzles, as they in RL were puzzle fanatics. The Demi-Lich on the other hand nearly killed the party. They defeated it, but half the party was dead or down and the survivors were hurt. However they loved it, because they really felt like they accomplished something.
As the DM, I ran the module straight as written and stayed neutral...the Tomb is deadly enough without me being a jerk or asshole.
I love your content. So fresh. I've always had the issue about how to approach individualistic or greedy players that doesnt look for the group cooperation but their own benefit.
Thank You!
I just found this channel and wow, I can't believe I have been missing out on it for so long.
I am a player who started in 4e (so I have been DMing for 10 years now!) but recently got into OSR, and am letting some themes from OSR influence some of my modern games a bit. There is some great content here. Well done!
Thanks! Welcome aboard
I really enjoyed this video mainly because although I can see how the peer pressure could happen, when things like this (losing sight, a limb, whatever) happened in the games I have played in and the player did not want to continue playing that PC, the PC was retired and made into an NPC. This idea of a player continuing to play a PC that they no longer wanted to play is completely foreign to me, so hearing this story was very educational.
It really worked well to retire the PCs when the player didn’t want to play them anymore. By retiring the PC the continuing PCs then truly had an ally who was a former adventurer turned swordsmith, or alchemist, or scholar, or whatever. We had players just retire PCs when they got bored with them even, the PC didn’t have to lose a limb or anything like that, and the player just made up a new PC and continued playing. Not only that, but now that the retired PC was at that point forward an NPC, the DM could develop the character in other directions. I remember one PC who was retired became very jealous of the other PCs who continued adventuring after they acquired a big treasure. The former retired PC turned NPC then became a villain in the camoaign.
These are good points, having the retired PCs in the world as allies or I guess adversaries can be very interesting
@@BanditsKeep yes, in the case of the jealous retired former PC turned NPC, realizing eventually that this was the individual responsible for some hardships the PCs had to endure was jaw dropping.
From a campaign I played in, as PC:
My character got handicappede during action, and I played on with that character, but... It caused the campaign to end... Because the GM could not handle it!
(Ok, there was also other reasons to why the campaign ended, but this was the final drop.)
The essence was that our GM thought that I should just have played on my character as if it was not handicapped.
It seems to be a quite normal GM mistake to do: Thinking handicap have no effect.
Or more precise: The GM have not thought things through, and thus too late discover own inability to handle the situation.
It can be great to play a handicapped character.
I remember a CON scenario (A 4 to 5 hours scenario.): There my character did got killed for to be raised as undead.
It did surprise people a bit that I did continue playing my character, (The scenario text had it that my character became a NPC) but from my point of view it was quite easy to continue the play of my character in this new situation.
It became a conversation topic at that CON, as people found it an interesting example of good role play. (Thank you for the recognition!)
It is something CON scenarios sometimes deliberately have: A PC start out as member of the group, but a certain event in the story reveals to one character, that that character work for something else. (Like in the Alien movies where the android pretend to be part of the crew, but in reality work for the company.)
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You mention horror movies.
Why do people see them? They are scary!
But... It is our nature as human beings, we have a desire to live out extreme situations... In a safe environment.
That is why we find movies, stories, role play, etc. interesting, as it satisfy that desire.
For role play it is worth to remember the "safe environment" part, there it is good to use a "RPG Consent sheet" to ensure no one is pushed too far.
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If you are going to do a video about the use of scenarios, modules and other InsertWhateverAlreadyWrittenStuff, then could you include something about "How to modify it so it fit the characters in the group"?
It is a problem I have seen quite often: The GM run something that should have been great, but it end up disappointing as it did not fit the group; the players felt steamrollered, railroaded or another InsertYourFavouriteMethodOfReducingThePCsToNPCs.
And I have seen far to few people talking about how to handle that problem.
When you played the undead, was it intelligent and did you become a “bad guy”? Or just join the group? - as far as the scenario, I agree talking about fitting it into your current campaign/group is a good idea and one I will cover
The story was something about an uncle, of one in the group, was gone missing or maybe dead. Thus the story was about figuring out what had happened to the uncle. It turned out that the uncle was dead, but had managed to get his spirit to hang around for to get a new body. Here turning one of the PCs into a servant was a part of the uncle's plan. Thus it was quite obvious for me that my role now became to help the uncle to the family member needed for to have a body again.
Yes, the story idea is somewhat similar to "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".
So, yes, my "new" role was to be on the antagonist's team. - That is why I do mention that some scenarios deliberately uses the idea of having one character switch side.
In favor of talking about the old d&d modules! Great channel!
Awesome, thanks!
I've heard it suggested that you approach prep with an adversarial mindset but root for the players during the session.
Hmm, that’s an interesting perspective.
I'd like to see you talk about and run White Plume, but I'd still rather see you do Keep On The Borderlands
Cool, any particular part of the Keep that you are interested in?
I think the idea that the GM's job is to make everyone happy around the table is misplaced. Being a GM is no easy task. You've got to keep a lot of plates spinning all the time. You've got to get the story plot to work. You've got to design NPC's with motivations,. You've got to create an interesting environment. You've got to select and position opposition with a purpose and a fair challenge. You have to have a firm grasp of the rules and be fair and consistent in your decisions. You've got to keep your players engaged. You have to have their actions matter to your world. Now players feel entitled to make demands. I have this concept for my character, make it happen. I made this backstory, make it matter in your world. I want this story arc, make it happen. The result I see is a lot of codependent DMs that get burned out because they're trying too hard to please. The result is everyone wants to play and no one wants to DM. It's a two way street. Players can't take all the time and DMs can't be givers all the time or the game will end.
In my experience working with the players makes my life easier as a DM, not more difficult. If a player wants to help with world building by having a rich background that is certainly no burden on me. That being said, if you feel a player is overreaching or their ideas are out of line with the world, it’s fair to have a conversation and set expectations. Also, being a DM is not hard. At 9 years old all if my friends ran games 🤷🏻♂️
@@BanditsKeep Your mileage may vary, of course. But different players get different psychological utility from playing the game and often the way they experience rewards is different and conflicting with other players including the DM. One player may get psychological utility from mastering complex rules while another player may get utility from a huge boss fight. Keeping everyone emotionally happy and engaged with the direction of play is at times difficult and unrewarding. The DMs psychological utility needs are just as valid as those of the players and need to be satisfied to keep the game going.
Hey excellent content, I'd really love an A B of the original modules you love and their yawning portal reprints. I know that'd be a lot of work, but have you noticed that the giants can't fit down their own hallways? Oh, those crazy folks up in Seattle...
Oh that’s interesting, perhaps they didn’t build the structure and just took it over?
@@BanditsKeep Ha, I don't remember, the module is Against the Giants. That could be the excuse, it's pretty funny to imagine the massive 5e giants squeezing themselves into these ten foot corridors. Malkovich?
If an adventurer got blind, he would retire. That's it. So unless you're planning on giving him a magic item that allows him to mitigate that condition (Daredevil style), don't be surprised if he want's to create another character - heck, if I was a soldier and one of my mates got a injury so bad it affects his combat effectiveness, I would be the first asking for the man to be sent home.
The particular game was Call of Cthulhu - neither dungeon delving or battlefields to deal with.
@@BanditsKeep Uhm... 🤔 Yeah, that adds a bit of complexity, but I think the argument still stands. It would take time for a person to "learn to live while blind" (how to read, how to walk around, how to use a computer, etc...), so I wouldn't find that crazy if the guy who just lost his vision last week said to the group: "You go investigate those eldritch mysteries without me, in my current condition, I would only get in your way."
@@falkyrie5228 unless they were an adventurer in a game - games are not real life 🤷🏻♂️
@@BanditsKeep Not my point. If you wanna rule that the character learned all that in a week so that he can still be in the adventure, feel free. My point is that if the player wanted to retire that character, there would be plenty of logical reasons to let him do so.
The adversarial DM is pretty much the same as the Murderhobo PC , both have zero impulse control in their role.
indeed
I believe in being a fan of the players/characters as well. I guess this works best, if the players feel the same about their GM. ;-)
And yeah, not a fan of dwarves either.
I’d say if they come back week after week they are fans of your game 😊
You have to separate DM knowledge and encounter knowledge. I can easily see that their wizard is level 5 and has prepared Web, but a troop of orcs they run into aren't going to know that. They might not even know the PCs exist, if they are clever, sneaky or lucky enough. I'm not fond of monster infravision because it's such a specific power over the PCs.
The crew hit up a cult restaurant, and we were good enough to kill the guards at the front without raising a sound. So we waltz in, and of course the cannibal-cooks on the floor below have no idea that the PCs are nothing more than ordinary guests. They set a table and started taking orders like nothing was out of the ordinary until we pulled our ray-guns.
Indeed
For me, any situation the players get into, even death or injury, I have always provided a way out or way back. It could take a side quest or cost a lot, but no result is permanent (unless the player wants it that way) The goal is fun, and the last thing I want is a player to quit playing. I had someone quit the game entirely when their first character died through the player's stupidity.
That’s the truth
I very much agree. This is a topic of many dimensions so I won't attempt to tackle a whole lot of it.
I find it really strange that a DM should abuse their players by being a d*** and forcing players to play characters they don't want to or taking some twisted retribution against players and their characters. Even speaking of punishing characters sounds odd, but I believe we're on the same page, just wouldn't use that word. A character may suffer from a player making a bad decision or due to good role playing or bad luck. I don't see that as the DM intentionally punishing them.
Being in the process of getting back to OS stuff I haven't yet fully made up my mind about instant death poison, level drain and other severe permanent and sudden effects like that. I'm not sure they make sense. Often there's not even a way the character could avoid them (except maybe by metagaming or by not becoming a PC).
I don't think it takes away from the sense of danger of you take away unavoidable instant death/maim effects. I also understand it if a group enjoys that aspect.
I think "be a fan of your players and PC's" is a great philosophy. But it's healthy to realize that the DM needs their inspiration so their play style is primary in that sense.
For sure - when I talk about punishing I mean what the player is doing (usually with their character) is disruptive to the DMs vibe so they find a way in game to execute the PC instead of talking with the player about the issue.
Id very much like to hear your thoughts on ToH
Cool!
As a player losing a character has never really bothered me,, I think losing a limb or eyesight is more difficult because it gives a feeling of being useless. Like if I'm blind I can't fight, I can't look for traps, and in most cases probably can't even cast a spell. So it feels like my character becomes more of a liability and so yeah I have totally had that feeling of just wanting my character to die because then I could roll up a new character and be useful again.
Honestly, though, what I really hate the most is when I do something in character I think is good or cool, and then it turns out that thing was actually really dumb and so obviously dumb my character should have known better in the first place. Then I go to take it back cause it's like I wouldn't have said or done that thing if I knew it was stupid and then the GM is like "No, you did it so we're leaving it." then all the other players are laughing and I just feel like the butt of the joke. I mean usually, these moments become funny things my friends and I will remember and laugh at together later on, but at the moment these things happen I can't help but feel like everyone is laughing at me cause I'm not laughing.
Good points here. I think it’s human nature to laugh at things like that and hard in the moment to see it could be hurtful to others. Something we all need to be more aware of. That being said, even the best trained, smartest people do things that “they wouldn’t do” - which is part of why these things are funny or shocking. IMO you control your character, they do what you would do no matter their stats, that’s the game.
We've had no issue with PC retirement. People can always retire a PC and start a new one as if their old PC had died. They can do so for any reason, the player could get bored of a certain class or the story takes a turn where the PC suddenly turns to a more sedate life. Or being horribly maimed as you mention. They're not out of the world, and you can always decide to bring them out of retirement for a job.
WFRP loves to maim PCs. And kill, but mostly maim. PCs can gain so many Insanty Points that they act increasingly irrational as one mental debility after another sets in. They can gain Corruption Points by being touched by the ruinous powers of chaos through magical mishaps or close encounters with daemons. Then you manifest new mutations, and you can always end with one that is so spectacular it can't be disgused. And of course there's the critical injury table with a great deal of results that chop off hands, ears, eyes, noses etc.
If a player at any time no longer wants to play the character they have, they are free to make a new character.
For sure
Daniel, I would not revoke your DM/GM card. I’ve been playing with the same group for 30yrs+ and they would say I’m brutal but fair. You do something wreckless or foolhardy and you’ll probably pay the price. That said, I have very few pc or total party kills in that time.
TPKs I can’t remember ever having, character deaths are not uncommon
Like I guess it depends on the game. I could easily have tpk's all over the place by mistake in old school. Heck Ive played DCC and killed 35 characters in one session.
People get too wound up on this. As the DM you get the dirty work. Someone falls off a cliff you gotta roll for damage. The players wanna attack a lair and slaughter the inhabitants and take the gold then you’ve got to roll for the other side. Some people aren’t good players. Some people aren’t good DMs.
That’s all fine in the surface level, but there is a deeper level beyond dead and in the moment combat/traps. Some of the best times at the table are the in between times.
@@BanditsKeep agreed
Hey, are we the bad guys???
It’s good to be bad