Well, it’s that time of the month again. That time when I turn to my loyal Discord Patrons and say, “hey, guys, I’ve put out three good weeks of content, so what I can of drivel can I put out to ensure a disappointing non-climax to the month?” Then, they give me some poorly conceived, open-ended-to-the-point-of-meaningless aphorism. I start with an introduction complaining about the whole process and implying that I’m going to give up on this Fanservice BS bulls$&% because of how particularly stupid and useless this topic is, and then I manage to find a whole bunch of insightful things to say and get hailed as a genius. Last month, I dispensed with all that crap by choosing the topic for myself. But I can’t get away with that again because, apparently, some people ludicrously consider picking crap topics for crap articles a “reward” and threatened to take their ball and go home if I ever did that again.
And that, kids, in a nutshell, explains both the downfall of network television and YouTube because creative control is a luxury for the self-financed.
So, let me just what this week’s topic is. Oh, okay. Here we go, it was submitted by my podcasting partner in crime, @Fiddleback, of all people and then upvoted by a whole bunch of others. And the topic is… let’s see…
How to be wrong as a GM.
Fine. Whatever. How to be wrong as a GM. I don’t know why anyone would want to know that, but here we go.
Yes, There ARE Wrong Ways to Game
It’s a popular and incredibly harmful belief that “there is no wrong way to game,” especially – but not exclusively – if “everyone is having fun.” Both of those statements are utter horses$&%. And people who tell GMs that horses$%& are RUINING GAMING. First of all, there are plenty of wrong ways to game. You know how I know? Because there’s a MILLION F$&%ING ARTICLES literally choking every gaming blog about “how to be a good player” and “how to be a good GM” and “how to deal with problem players” and “what to do about bad GMs.” And there are nicknames in the community for literally every sort of WRONG behavior you can imagine. Some of them even refer to actual things instead of being just the meaningless whines of idiots who think they are unfairly put upon whenever some player or GM somewhere disagrees with them on any point, no matter how minor. There are all sorts of ways to game wrong.
Now, you might argue that here is where that little caveat will save you about everyone having fun. “As long as everyone is having fun, you’re doing it right.” But that’s bulls$&% too, as well as being completely useless advice. After all, all that tells you is “make people have fun.” It doesn’t say how. And that’s what GMs are really after. Most people are not so stupid as they have to be reminded that games exist for enjoyment. And yet, smug, self-aggrandizing GM advisors all over social media are constantly saying “the best advice I can give you is make sure everyone has fun.” And then they cross their arms and raise their chins and nod a little like they just made a logical argument so powerful that it caused Socrates to retroactively cease to exist. But if you went to a cooking class and the instructor said “now, the key to making a cake is to make it taste really good” and then asked you for a check and dismissed you for the day, you’d punch the moron.
But fun isn’t just bad advice because it provides no actual instruction, it’s also not always the best goal for the game. See, fun is a momentary thing. It’s about laughing in the moment. It’s about experiencing pleasure right now. And that’s fine if you’re at a comedy club. Except it isn’t. Even a joke isn’t fun all the way through. It’s only funny after the punchline. Before the fun, there’s a setup. And that might lead to an expectation, which the punchline will then subvert. Or it might lead to tension, which the punchline will satisfy. Or it might lead to confusion, which the punchline will clarify in an absurd way. The fun comes when the setup is paid off. Hell, the reason timing and delivery are essential to a well-told joke is that they draw out whatever initial emotion is built precisely long enough that the audience almost – but not quite – can’t stand another minute of waiting before they get frustrated or bored. Yes, telling a joke is about letting someone remain expectant or confused or tense for just the perfect amount of time before you smack them with absurdity. THEN, the joke is fun.
Fun is a terrible measure of “doing it right” because a good game is – partly – a good story. And a good story has emotional highs and lows, setups and payoffs, victories and defeats, tension and resolve. A good story exists on the sinuous line between yin and yang. A very difficult combat might not be fun at all. No one will be laughing. A snapshot of the players might reveal that they look they are passing kidney stones. But then, when they final foe goes down, and they are laughing and high-fiving, it’s all paid off.
Fun is one type of emotional engagement. But there are lots. And that’s really what you want. And honestly, if you said to me “you’re doing it right as long as people are engaged,” I’d be a little bit more onboard. Except that engagement is a delicate thing. The players are only engaged until the moment, and they’re not anymore. And that can happen very suddenly. You don’t tell a runner, “as long as you’re in the lead, you’re winning,” because that isn’t always true. In fact, the runner who desperately tries to simply stay ahead no matter what may exhaust themselves. Pacing is more important. Two runners can stay neck-and-neck the entire race, constantly shifting back and forth between first and second place. In the end, the runner who paces himself is the one who wins, even if he spent most of the race just behind instead of just ahead.
The point is, it IS possible to game wrong. And neither FUN nor ENGAGEMENT are good metrics because they only work at a snapshot in time and you want to know you’re still going to be doing good in an hour or four hours or next week or next month. And little things you do now can f$&% you over in a month. So, it’s important to know what SPECIFIC behaviors you can do wrong.
And what are those? Well, there are a hell of a lot of them. But if you really want to know how to game wrong, here’s a rapid-fire list of many – but not – all of the ways you can be wrong. In no particular order.
How to Be Wrong as GM
- Run a game you don’t want to run.
- Mistake improvisation for the lack of a plan.
- Don’t treat the group as your own.
- Run Fate.
- Stick unwaveringly to your plan.
- Refuse to take the blame for anything – whether they are actually your fault or not.
- Mistake math problems for choices.
- Change the rules on a whim.
- Ensure the players will lose.
- Forget the rules.
- Be inconsistent.
- Don’t treat the game as your own.
- Ensure the players will win.
- Never allow anything you think is broken.
- Mistake die rolls for choices.
- Tell players what their characters think.
- Steal the players victories.
- Overuse the dice.
- Run campaigns for evil PCs.
- Run games that use dice pool mechanics.
- Rob players of their agency.
- Put too much stock in your players’ feedback.
- Use the rules before you use your brain.
- Allow gnomes.
- Fix out-of-game problems inside the game.
- Forget that die rolls do not invalidate choices.
- Always say yes.
- Forget that role-playing means making choices.
- Deny that you might be wrecking the game.
- Keep information from your players to make their decisions more meaningful.
- Bury your meaning behind flowery words.
- Run a game for a player or group of players you don’t like.
- Run GURPS.
- Take too many risks.
- Treat the rules as gospel.
- Always say no.
- Use every sourcebook available.
- Stop the game to look up the rules.
- Bring a bad attitude to the table.
- Underuse the dice.
- Be overprepared.
- Ignore your players’ feelings.
- Tweak, change, or remove rules you don’t understand.
- Badmouth the game, system, or module you’re running.
- Let the players throw your entire plan away with one choice.
- Tell players how their characters feel.
- Run a game your players don’t want to play.
- Let fear of failure keep you from taking risks.
- Treat the rules as useless.
- Let very high or low die rolls change reality.
- Fix in-game problems outside the game.
- Be unclear
- Allow psionics in fantasy games.
- Be unprepared.
- Steal the players defeats.
- Force players into the spotlight who don’t want it.
- Disregard tonal consistency.
- Steampunk. Just steampunk.
- Stay silent when you see a player wrecking the game.
- Sacrifice story and game structure to give the players more agency.
- Or spellpunk, for that matter.
There you go. That’s not an exhaustive list, but that’s a bunch of things you can do to run your game wrong. And that pretty much answers the entire question. Wow, much quicker than usual. I guess I should thank @Fiddleback for giving me such an easy… hold on, actually, he’s sending me a private message right now.
F$&%.
It appears that @Fiddleback has decided to EXPLAIN what the hell he meant by his topic idea. And apparently, that wasn’t it.
Look, this is exactly what happens when you decide to give me some vague, pithy garbage topic because you think I need help coming up with a clever title instead of actually telling me what the f$&% you want me to talk about!
I’m done. I’m done with this bulls$&%! Fanservice BS is… right. Right. Patron reward. Fanservice BS is a wonderful topic, and I love it a whole huggy bunch, so I’ll just keep right on putting up with this bulls$&%. Please don’t pull your support.
What to Do When You’re Wrong as a GM
Apparently, what @Fiddleback actually wanted from me – and I’m not sure that anyone who upvoted the topic knew this – what @Fiddleback wanted from me was actually a discussion of what to do when you, as the game master, realize you have done something wrong. And this is something I have a lot of experience with. I’ve seen a lot of GMs who aren’t me do wrong things over the years. Hell, I’ve had to point out most of those wrong things myself. So, I understand how hard it can be when you’re wrong. It seems to be a very difficult thing to deal with. And that’s why I’m just never wrong myself. But if you’re wrong, and you probably will be, here’s how to deal with that.
First, you have to get the notion of blame and fault right out of your head. This is important because sometimes, you’re going to be wrong even when you’re not. You’re the captain of the ship. You have to own the ship that is your game. And you have to take command of the crew that is your group of players. And you have to assume responsibility. And that means that anything that happens is, to some extent, your responsibility. Even if it isn’t your fault. And that’s why people talk about “taking responsibility” instead of “taking the blame.” Honestly, blame and fault are pretty useless concepts most of the time. People think that if they didn’t intend to do something or they didn’t have control over it, they don’t have to be responsible for the outcome. Unfortunately, that’s not how life works. Because someone HAS TO be responsible. And you’re in the big chair behind the fancy screen.
In short, when something goes wrong or bad, you’re responsible for it. In shorter, even when you’re totally right, you can still be wrong.
You’ll know when you’re wrong because someone – or a whole group of someones – is unhappy with something that happened. And the moment someone is unhappy, you have to assume they are unhappy for a reason. And, since you are responsible, you have to fix that. Too many GMs – too many people in general – dismiss the feelings of others as invalid for a host of reasons or assume motives in people that don’t exist. And too many GMs – and people in general – also dismiss the feelings of others when they, themselves, can somehow rationalize how those feelings are not the GM’s own fault somehow.
For example, let’s say that a player feels particularly put upon because their character keeps getting nearly killed. They spend half of every game session unconscious. And they increasingly make it known that they feel something is wrong. They might even accuse the GM of targeting them. Now, the player may actually be really tactically stupid. Or they might be ludicrously unlucky. Those things happen. There might be no actual unfairness involved. Hell, it might be the players’ own fault. But, as a GM, you can’t simply dismiss the player’s feelings. You can’t say “well, sure, he does end up unconscious a lot, but he’s playing his wizard as a front-line fighter, and I’m pretty sure his dice are cursed, so he just needs to get over it.”
The thing is, players may not know why they feel something, but they know what they are feeling. And when that feeling is unhappy or victimized or bored or bullied or whatever, they really are feeling that. And it has to be addressed. And you have to address it. Because you have the big chair and the screen. See how this works?
Beyond that though, you also can’t just tell the player it’s their own damned fault, and they need to fix the problem. However true that may be, it’s going to create an adversarial relationship. The player is going to dig and become defensive. And you can whine and say “well, that’s the player’s fault and why should I deal with that crap?” Well, again, big chair and screen. And also because, presumably, you want to keep the player at the table.
Seriously. You COULD kick the player out of the group if you don’t care about their feelings and don’t want to take responsibility, but that’s a bad precedent to set. Eventually, you’ll end up running games for three stuffed animals and a body pillow with a big-boobed anime lady printed on it.
Really. You can’t have so much pride that you’re unwilling to take the blame for things that aren’t your fault. Or at least willing to share the blame. Because blame doesn’t matter.
If you can’t take responsibility for something that isn’t your fault, you can’t run a game in the long term because you can’t manage a group of people. And that’s what running a game is.
But that’s just attitude. That’s just the mental hurdle you have to overcome BEFORE you can handle being wrong. Or being right but being wrong anyway. And that assumes you’ve overcome the bigger mental hurdle which is being able to look yourself squarely in the mirror, ask yourself “am I the a$&hole here,” and answer honestly and objectively. First, you have to be willing to admit to yourself you’re wrong. Then, you have to be willing to take responsibility for being wrong. Then, you have to be willing to take responsibility for anything that happens under your jurisdiction regardless of whether you have direct control of it or not. Then you can actually be wrong. And then you can run a game.
So, what the hell do you do? Okay, fine, something went wrong, and you’re willing to be wrong. Now what? Well, it depends. If you’re lucky, you noticed the thing you did wrong before anyone else did it. And then, you admit that the wrong thing went wrong and say, “sorry about that.” And then fix it. Because, once you’re wrong, there is a two-step process for correcting it. First, apologize. Second, fix it. And you have to do both.
Maybe your custom-built ogre-troll hybrid came out way more powerful than you expected, and it is currently trashing the party, and they are quite clearly not going to walk away from this combat encounter with their character sheets intact. Stop the game. Apologize. And then say “let’s assume you win here, okay? Whatever you lost, you lost. But no one has died yet. We’ll chalk it up to a hard fight and a skin-of-your-teeth victory, and I’ll take it back to the drawing board.”
That’s it. It’s as easy as that. Find a solution that works for everyone and one that doesn’t break the game. I can’t tell you how to do that because the solution is always going to be determined by the problem.
If the problem has already happened and its over, then things are harder, but the basic pattern remains the same. Maybe the ogre-troll – I should call it a trollgre – maybe the trollgre killed two PCs last week. And when you looked at the numbers, you realized you really f$&%ed up. Okay. Fine. That happens. What do you do? First, you apologize, and then you find a solution. If it was close enough to the end of the game and the character sheets still exist, you might be able to say that the characters were only mostly dead or critically injured or whatever and recovered between adventures. Unless the players made new characters and are really excited to play them. They might want to stay dead. Or one might want to stay dead, and one might want to recover. Give them a choice.
That, by the way, is why you apologize first. Once you admit the mistake and apologize, you can negotiate a solution with the affected parties. Once you’ve come out and said, “look I f$&%ed up, and I’m sorry, and I’d like to fix it,” you can then say, “now, let’s work out a way we can fix it that works for you and me and the game.”
And this is all true whether the problem is some game-related problem like a poorly designed encounter or a bad rule call or whether the problem is a personal problem like inadvertently offending some player’s stupid beliefs or whatever. Or even if the player is offended by some other stupid player some stupid thing about their stupid beliefs. First, apologize. Then negotiate a solution with the affected parties.
There are just a few caveats to keep in mind. And they are really simple caveats too. First, only involve the affected parties in the apology and the solution. If there’s a problem with one player, the apology and the solution should involve you and that player and no one else. It should happen away from other prying eyes and ears. Though, sometimes, negotiating the solution may involve offering a public apology. Second, the solution should remain in-scope with the problem. That is, if the problem is an event that happened inside the game, the solution should also happen inside of the game. If someone’s character died, restore their character or give them a new character or let them keep a treasured piece of equipment from the dead character or whatever. Do not buy the player a pizza as part of the solution. And if the problem was an out-of-game offense or misunderstanding, the feelings themselves must be mended. No amount of favorable in-game treatment or bonus XP or magical items will actually fix the problem. Those are just band-aids.
And that’s really it. That’s how to be wrong as a GM. First, get your mind to accept you might be wrong. Second, get your mind to be willing to accept responsibility for things that weren’t strictly your fault. Then apologize. Then find a solution with those affected that works for those affected. And keep those solutions in-game for in-game problems and out-of-game for out-of-game problems.
And let me tell you something. It’s a damned good thing I wrote half of this before @Fiddleback deigned to explain what his dumb topic actually meant. Otherwise, this article would have been short and boring. And, honestly, it was still kind of short and boring. But blame @Fiddleback. I didn’t pick this stupid topic.
The punchline set up is honestly a really simple and really straightforward metaphor. Beautiful. Everyone wants to have fun, but no one specifies what that looks like or how to get to it. Beautifully done as always, Angry.
“•Run campaigns for evil PCs.
•Run games that use dice pool mechanics.”
How come?
I can answer the evil PC thing:
Basically, evil characters tend to be active, rather than reactive, making it harder to plan for what they’re going to do. Because of this, they tend to all go in different directions. The evil barbarian may decide to go burn a village down, while the necromancer is setting up her very own cabal in the city. It’s a mess.
Also, because evil covers a much wider range of character drives than good, you’re more likely to have conflicts in the group, especially because evil characters are usually not at all adverse towards hurting people to get what they want.
Oh, and most players don’t actually want to play evil characters, they just want to not be bound by stupid rules they don’t like and want to be free to come up with their own ways of doing things. Not to mention the whole “stupid evil” phenomenon or the edgelord characters…
It’s just a mess. I’ve run a campaign with evil PCs, but it didn’t start out as an “evil campaign.” They were heroes that just happened to use some really shady techniques in their adventuring.
The active vs inactive thing isn’t even the problem – that can even be a huge bonus in a sandbox sort of campaign because the party will be motivated to pursue their agenda even in the absence of outside plot stuff. What *is* a problem is that all the players are ultimately out for themselves and don’t share the same goals. It’s the lack of party coherence that makes evil games fall apart.
The one evil campaign I’ve been part of that actually worked, we all swore a blood oath of loyalty to each other and pledged to the same goal – overthrowing the kingdom, installing the party face as king and putting ourselves in charge as a governing council.
Games with evil PCs don’t always work well. Mostly due to players having too little restraint and the game imploding on themselves. At least in my experience,
As for die pools? Those take longer to resolve so they tend to bog down gameplay.
1. Evil Campaigns: There are two problems with evil campaigns or evil characters. The first is that some players will think to themselves “Well, my character is evil and willing to steal from everyone he comes across, why wouldn’t he be willing to steal from the other players?” D&D is a cooperative games and is absolutely dependent (almost all the time) on the group having camaraderie and fellowship. Some players play D&D solely and specifically to get that feeling, and it is utterly ruined if any of the PCs being screwing each other over. And it only takes a single player to ruin this group dynamic.
Now, let’s say you manage to convince everyone that despite their PCs being evil, they are still completely and utterly loyal to each other. Maybe they are family, or it is them against the world, whatever. You still have the problem of every player having a different tolerance for how evil they are willing to behave or witness other people behaving. Your group kidnap the princess for ransom and one player states “I bet we can steal the crown jewels AND get a ransom, I’ll rape the princess until she tells me where the jewels are kept” to which all the rest of you players say “Dude, what the fuck?!” And now instead of playing a fun game of D&D, your group is arguing about what constitutes acceptable behavior for their evil characters. Everyone has a moral line they won’t cross, even while roleplaying as evil characters. That’s why child molesters have a rough time of it in prison, because even the other murders in prison find child molesting morally reprehensible. Everyone will probably be fine with robbing from the rich, even “good” PCs have a tendency to do that but some players may have a problem with their characters robbing from poor farmers. Most might be okay with kidnapping the princess for ransom but will balk at kidnapping children. DM’s make the mistake of thinking that the evil campaign has no limits of player behavior set on it, but in order for everyone to be comfortable playing you will need to set limits, equal to the tolerance of the player with the least tolerance for evil. And that might be a different player for each time of possible crime. Basically, your group is always going to have to have an agreement on acceptable behavior whether they are good or evil, but generally good behavior isn’t something that anyone would argue about. They might disagree about whether they should ask for payment first before rescuing the orphaned goblins from the evil human farmers, but they will all agree that rescuing orphans is a good thing.
2. Dice Pool Mechanics. Dice pools take decisions normally made by the players or the DM and instead randomize them. A human brain will always be capable of making better decisions than rolling a bunch of dice. The whole reason we play RPGs with people instead of on computers is to gain the benefit of a human brain making the decisions to bring the world to life. Also, when you decide the outcome of an event in D&D, you pick up one dice and roll it, and it is always a d20. In something like Star Wars, you have to figure out which dice you are going to roll every single time you need to decide the outcome of a decision, which dramatically slows down the game and takes away the focus from the fun parts (players playing the game and seeing what happens to their characters).
How do dice pools take decisions made by people and randomize them? What is the difference between “Roll a d20 and add +4 for your Wisdom” and “Roll 4d6s because your wisdom is 4”? How is the former giving decision making to people and the latter take it away?
If you feel that “Grab four dice, roll them, and count the ones that come up higher than 3” is harder than “Roll a d20, and add all your fiddly bonuses” in terms of time spent resolving actions, that’s fine, but that’s far from an established fact. Counting successes if faster than adding up bonuses for a lot of people.
I’m not sure, but what I think many people see as the problem (yet other think is great) is this.
With a system that takes a single roll (whether a single die or group of dice added together), adds/subtracts modifiers, then compares it to a target number, you get a binary resolution. pass/fail. win/lose. The result of the pass/fail is up to the GM to determine. If the player fails their attempt to be diplomatic, the GM decides if the king is horribly offended or just mildly miffed.
A dice pool, wherein you roll multiple dice and count individual results as a pass/fail, the result is that you have a number of successes (or failures). And that number can establish a “degree of success”. So the system may work such that a single success means you convince the king with your diplomacy. Two successes mean that you convince the king AND he will increase the reward. Three successes mean more, etc. etc. This is putting the results into categories that are less controlled by a human decision and more driven by random results.
Some people like these types of mechanics. Some people don’t. Personally, I don’t have a preference. I’m most accustomed to the single-die, pass/fail mechanic (like the d20 in D&D). And as a DM, I’m accustomed to determining the “degree” of success or failure based upon a single roll by using the current situation in the particular encounter. But that’s just me. I’ve never ran a game that uses a dice pool, count-the-successes system, so I can’t say much about how those work. And I’ve only played in one game that uses that system anyway (OWoD, about 6 years ago) and that was only about a dozen sessions. So I don’t really have an opinion on how good or bad they are.
I think this is still incorrect. There’s nothing inherent about Dice Pools that mean you need to use degrees of success though.
If you roll 5 dice, and you NEED 3 of them to come up 4-6 in order to succeed, that is as much a binary success as rolling a d20 and needing better than 14. In both cases you CAN “de-binarize” it by looking at how much you exceeded you target by (“You had 4 successes!” vs “You rolled an 18!”), but it is in no way inherent in either mechanism.
Also, as Justin Alexander points out (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38140/roleplaying-games/art-of-rulings-part-6-fictional-cleromancy), D&D success/failure doesn’t always need to be binary. Sometimes it makes sense to recognize multiple degrees. D&D already includes the seeds of this in knowledge and investigation checks:
DC 10: You notice thing A.
DC 15: You notice thing A and thing B.
DC 20: You notice thing A, thing B, and thing C.
This is basically equivalent to gaining more information based on how much you exceed the base DC of 10 by.
Of course, this is not true of all rolls, or even most rolls: there’s no such thing as a better degree of success on an attack roll, for instance (crits are separate, and based on the face value of the die rather than the DC anyway), because that’s done by rolling damage. But sometimes it can make sense.
I believe the dice pools Angry has taken issue with in the past are the ones like FFG Star Wars game where you build the dice pool based on your character’s ability but also the difficulty of the task, and anything out of the ordinary that makes the task harder/easier. Resolution there isn’t a simple “Did you succeed?” It involves figuring out the binary of success, but also factoring in critical successes and critical failures and which dice gave which results. The GM in such a system has to take all that into account, adding extra complications or benefits because the dice said so, not because it necessarily made sense in the fiction. It takes away control from the GM in adjudicating the action.
Also, Fiddleback is a big fan of FFG Star Wars, wich uses dice pool, so maybe, Angry was taking the piss aswell
Because it’s funny to say things like that, just like the comment on gnomes.
But Gnomes really are a sickness that needs to be cut out like a cancer.
I bet the dice pool mechanics part comes from Angry’s position on being able to immediately see the result after rolling the dice. He expressed it on the latest Digressions and Dragons. If you have to waste time figuring out whether you succeeded or not, you lose the “tension.” With one die, you can figure out a way to say “you need a 16” and then hold your breath to see if you roll a 16. With a dice pool, even if you know that you need 4 successes, you waste time after rolling to figure out how many you got.
And part of it must be humor.
As for evil PCs… “Evil” PCs derail games. PCs that believe they are doing good, or don’t care about the morality, but do bad things are different from “EVIL” PCs. IMHO that is at least in part where he was coming from.
>glares<
You got what you asked for and then some.
Leave him alone.
Also, thanks for asking that. This article is quite helpful for me.
This is often my intended result…
Fate! Really. Our best campaigns have been in Fate (And don’t try and say that tree quality of or other campaigns must have been dismal ). Epic exciting campaigns with great story, character development and insanely fun battles.
We do as crunch using the Legends of Anglere rules though.
Great article Angry.
But how do you deal with the tactically terrible player? You can apologize for. . . Running combat fairly, I guess? But then what? There’s no solution OTHER THAN to to do what you said not to do, which is explain they need to make smarter tactical decisions.
Anything the GM does to handle that on their end is then being unfair to other players by either fudging rolls against Marty the Musclewizard or attacking other PCs when monsters should be attacking the terrible player.
And then what do you do when the other players notice Marticus is immune to his own stupidity as dragons constantly miss him and hordes of orcs part to move around him and attack the rest of the party who took cover like smart people do?
Then thou apologize to them, but if you fix that Marty starts going down again.
The only real solution is to explain to Marty’s player that he didn’t build a frontline fighter, he can’t rush ahead of the party and survive, and if he really wants to do that he should roll a barbarian who might still go down sometimes with those tactics.
But, again, that’s exactly what you said not to do.
In this case (and I’ve had this case plenty of times at my table), I have taken the player aside, outside of the game table, and explained to them what they were doing.
I always tried to be tactful when doing it… “So, I’ve noticed that your Paladin is spending a lot of time being Prone during combat scenarios. I’d like to share some advice on playing a Paladin that might help you overcome that issue…”
Many times I’ve found that it is because the player either doesn’t fully understand the specific mechanics of the game, but they are too embarrassed to admit this at the table. Or they just don’t really like how their character has turned out. I always try to work with the player and maybe give them some tactical pointers, under the premise of “friendly suggestions to use the rules effectively”. And I’ve even offered to let them alter their character so that it is more in line with what they’d really like to play.
I have had the issue where a player just didn’t care about their character or the game that much. One campaign I was running, the player was getting ready to move out of town and so would be leaving the game. So they became reckless with their character, and doing things that were very much not in line with what they had originally said they envisioned for the character. In this case, I took them aside and explained that I understood that since they were leaving the game, they didn’t care at all what actually happened to their character, but that was adversely affecting my ability to run the game. It made it much more difficult for me to keep things following a coherent plot and I asked if he could work with me to write an appropriate “outro” for the character. It seemed to make things work well and we had the last two sessions with that player end up being a very heroic end and sacrifice for the good of the rest of the party (and also my story arc).
Yeah, you can say to the player, “hey, your character is more suited for this role or this tactic. ” What is bad is to say to *yourself* “well, they would be better off with this role or tactic so I’m justified in always beating on them”
This is a fantastic article. It reminds me of something that someone wrote long ago about a DM Credo. I still have mine and item #3 on it is “I am responsible for the game session.” Related to that is my #7, “I set the tone for the game.” which is my way of saying that what I do will let the players know what they can do. So if I resolve a problem by apologizing first, then working to implement a solution, the players will learn that they can do the same.
And I think this article is not only good advice for issues that happen during an RPG session, but it also is pretty sound advice for life in general.
So thanks for that.
But, I’m not convinced that you should trust that @Fiddleback guy for topics. He’s got that strangely soothing voice and he could probably talk a lot of people into writing about a lot of foolish things. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go listen to back episodes of GM World of the Week.
So, for the first time, I disagreed with some of the things you said (maybe he’ll swear at me next article, yay, lol)
While it is fairly useless advice, the term “your doing it right if everyone is having fun” isn’t false either. Now, I think mainly we disagree on this is because you are defining fun as “immediate pleasure”. When I would consider it more “overarching enjoyment” that might seem irrelevant but it isn’t constructive to misinterpret someone’s words and use the new interpretation to show that there wrong.
also, your list of wrong ways, I think some were just gags but I though I’d say something (cause internet, and we know you love listening to people disagree with you)
Change the rules on a whim. better described as dangerous, I’ve thrown away alot of stupid rule because of reasons, as long as you stick to your new rule, and the new rule is better than the old one, it will sometimes work.
Never allow anything you think is broken. I don’t even know what to say, perhaps it’s another vocabulary difference but there is a difference between “powerful” and “broken,” by definition, a broken thing breaks the game.
Run campaigns for evil PCs. I house rule against it, but that’s because it requires a more “open” campaign then I’m used to, I could see it work well for other playgroups.
Allow gnomes. some people run more comedic games, and some people take gnomes in different directions.
Steampunk. Just steampunk. Ibid. I wouldn’t use it but I don’t see how it’s inherently wrong.
also, all the different systems, I’ve never run anything but D&D 5e but considering the fact that people enjoy them, they con’t be terrible for all playgroups.
“I’ve never run anything but D&D 5e” = “I have no experience of all the things I have opinions about”. He’s not going to swear at you; he’s going to crucify you!
“run” and “played” are differen 😉
That’s not Angry defining fun – that’s the actual definition of fun.
You can say, “overarching enjoyment” if you want, but at this point you’re saying:
“It doesn’t matter if every bite tastes good, as long as your guests enjoy the meal as a whole.”
That’s still not advice.
“I think some were just gags, but just in case they weren’t and someone is WRONG on the Internet, I sure as hell had better speak up. After all, I have OPINIONS and they have to be spewed all over everything! And I don’t know about any of these things, but I sure as hell have OPINIONS about them.”
Your brain has diarrhea. Given you’re not smart enough to take care of that in private instead of all over my comment section, you’re not really qualified to render opinions about anything.
Also, things to look up: definition of the word “whim,” definition of the word “broken,” definition of the word “game,” definition of the word “fun,” and Proverbs 17:28.
That last part will be especially useful when you wrack your brain trying to decide whether to s$&% out a reply to this comment. See if you can figure out the right answer.
lol, theres the swearing =).
I’m not going to return the insults because, A: I’ll lose a shit fight B: I wasn’t saying they had to be wrong, I was saying I disagree with some of your points (which I’ve never done before) and I was wondering if you could elaborate.
definition of whim: a sudden desire or change of mind. If I suddenly decide that I want my players to be able to shoot a cyclops in the eye (using a previous example of yours), then I’ll allow it, it’s dangerous, but not impossible (again, you even provided a reasonable rule to allow for it)
defintion of broken (in games): an unintended programming flaw in a game’s development, especially resulting in a move or character that unbalances the game, is uncounterable (or very nearly so), or is overpowered. if you belieave that allowing those things is a good idea, please share, most of the times I start an article disagreeing with you, by the end I’m convinced, just not this time.
definition of game: a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck. (why did I have to google this one? I don’t think this has anything to do with any of my points)
definiton of fun: enjoyment, amusement, or lighthearted pleasure. again, if no one is enjoying your games, they stink
Proverbs 17:28: Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent. Again, I’m not going to get into an insult war.
just to reiterate, your attitude does iritate me, but I’m smart enough to know that beneath the attitude you have the best content on the internet, so I stick with it.
Wow, you don’t learn. I’m not sure my content can help you.
You described “fun” the same way Angry did.
You argued against changing rules “on a whim” and then said you change rules “for reasons” so no disagreement there.
You argued against disallowing “broken” things by pointing out that you allow powerful things and “powerful” and “broken” are different and honestly I don’t see the point there, it’s a complete non-argument.
You disagree with disallowing campaigns for evil characters yet you disallow evil characters… Seriously?
NO GNOMES
Also NO STEAMPUNK I’m not even sure how to explain that one, I never considered that it would ever need to be explained, let me think about it a week or two.
“… considering the fact that people enjoy them…” People enjoy sitcoms and cheap beer too, defend that since there’s a chance you actually have experience with them, unlike other play systems.
Everything you “disagreed” with you either actually agree with or don’t know about.
And if his attitude irritates you, you may be too thin-skinned for the social parts of the internet. Just saying.
I can handle this, thanks.
Asher, thanks for actually answering my quesrions, or at least some of them.
I tried to say something to angry, but I realized anything I say to him will just result in more insults, hate, and swearing.
“Don’t explain the joke. If you have to explain the joke, life is not worth living. I got the joke, Scott. That’s what matters.”
Like many of your. articles, this isn’t just advice about how to be a good GM – it’s advice about how to be a good person. I’m wrong so apologise and try to fix it.
I’m surprised you didn’t include “Uses milestone levelling” in the ‘How to game wrong’ list
I use milestone leveling. I know Angry has already expressed his dislike for it, but here are my reasons:
1. I’m lazy, along with my other group members.
2. I’m inexperienced, and when I tried to design an encounter that would work for a party with a range of levels, everything went to s%#@.
3. The group has voted unanimously for milestone leveling.
***Disclaimer***
The contents of this comment are my personal opinion, and are intended to cause constructive and rational discussion or debate. Attacks on my idea will be read and considered; ad hominem attacks will be ignored.
Lazy and bad at it are terrible reasons. They are basically saying “I suck and I don’t care to get good by practicing.” Putting it up to a vote merely absolves you of personal responsibility. Players are terrible at knowing what will make them feel good and I’m willing to bet you didn’t frame the options properly anyway. So your group sure has a winner in you.
Feel free to ignore this ad hominem attack and continue to be terrible. Frankly, that’s your problem and your groups problem, but not mine. By the way, when two of your PERSONAL QUALITIES are two of the PREMISES of your argument, arguing against them ISN’T an ad hominen anyway. And if you’re so afraid of being forced to confront yourself that you need a disclaimer about not hurting your feelings, get off the internet.
Thank you. That disclaimer is a habit to prevent people from screaming at me on unmoderated forums. I didn’t know yours were moderated. I will try XP leveling again. See how it works. I framed it: “Alright, do you guys want me to level you up at story milestones, or dish out XP for successful encounters?”
Maybe this is wrong. Besides not using milestone leveling at all, how would you frame it?
I never understood the hate for milestone leveling. Honestly all milestone leveling means is that accomplishing the objective is the paramount goal, and encourages PCs to do so. Now obviously it sucks if you’re playing a game that has no clear cut objectives (like a megadungeon), but for the average “save the princess” type adventure, I don’t really see a problem. The main thing to understand is that you’re encouraging PCs to avoid combats and encounters as opposed to the typical style of murderhoboing their way through everything. And there’s nothing really wrong with that if that’s the type of game you want to run.
Point-based leveling has always had an issue with strategies that involve avoiding combat. It’s always been difficult as far as figuring out how much XP to award. If I use augury and avoid a door that ends up being a “woe” response, do I get full XP for overcoming it, even though I never entered the room? What if I disintegrate or passwall to bypass a series of rooms, do I get XP for the rooms I avoided (since I technically overcame them)? Most DMs are loathe to give XP for a challenge the PCs never truly interacted with, even if active player agency was used to avoid the encounter. Milestone leveling solves that issue nicely.
Another nice thing I like about milestone is that random encounters are completely a nuisance. Like literally they’re something PCs never want to happen, because they grant no extra XP and usually have crap treasure.
No. It doesn’t encourage anything. And this is one of the few things I’ve written about. It isn’t that it encourages this or that or whatever. It’s that GMs are lazy. Read here: https://theangrygm.com/how-to-xp-good/ and then COMMENT THERE if you want to be wrong further.
Angry GM,
I would post in the other article at https://theangrygm.com/how-to-xp-good/ , but it says comments are closed and won’t let me.
Probably didn’t think it need to be said, milestones are CR 0 with immunity to most damage types so hardly anyone uses them for leveling.
but milestone xp isn’t inherently wrong, and milestone leveling is only giving out xp on the milestones so that the players level.
xp is a reward and is useful for incentivising good play but if you don’t use it for it’s intended purpose it’s the GM’s loss. dumb sure but not inherently game breaking.
Oh, oh! You forgot:
* Let PCs mind-control or have sex with each other without their players agreeing.
* Change game systems regularly within the same campaign.
* Refuse to let players know the campaign’s concept.
* Allow a character concept you don’t understand at all.
…though seriously, important article here.
What if you made a problem but the player doesn’t speak up about it?
Just to add one:
* GM drunk
Yes I made that mistake. Multiple times. And I don’t mean don’t drink while GMing, I mean don’t get shitfaced.
Also I have made a mistake with a too difficult encounter once, and when I tried to retcon it (“Sorry guys, I thought this enemy wouldn’t brutally murder you as much as it is doing right now, can we just assume that you beat it?”), one of the players reeled against the very IDEA of doing something like that. How do you deal with such a situation?
If your players rebel against you fixing mistakes that way because it ruins their immersion and sense of accomplishment when they win, you can try fixing those mistakes behind the scenes. Personally, I detest the idea of fiddling with the numbers just to let the players win, I want to let them have the deaths they’ve earning for themselves. That being said though, if they are dying because you accidentally put them into an unwinnable fight with no warning, you could always drop the enemies health down to 1hp so that the next attack kills it. Or fudge some dice rolls. “Holy s&*t! My unstoppable Half-Demon/Half-Vampire Tyrannosaurus Rex just managed to roll a natural 1 even with advantage!”
As a long-time reader, I hope Angry doesn’t mind a little constructive criticism…
Honestly, I was a little disappointed in this article. Now pretty much any article by Angry is going to contain a hefty scoop of wisdom and good advice, and were I a new reader coming across this I may well think it’s great, but I feel like this article was something of a rehash of a bunch of articles he’s written before:
On mistakes:
https://theangrygm.com/ask-angry-i-gave-too-much-loot/
https://theangrygm.com/ask-angry-mistakes/
and on fun:
https://theangrygm.com/gaming-for-fun-part-1-eight-kinds-of-fun/
https://theangrygm.com/gaming-for-fun-part-2-getting-engaged/
All of which are well worth reading (particularly those on fun, which delve much deeper into the subject).
As Angry himself alluded to, I’m not altogether sure the Fanservice BS series is really pulling its weight. Especially when I pray daily to see the return of the Megadungeon. At least with Ask Angry (which I actually think is great) he’s at least able to pick and choose interesting questions, but having subjects decided for you is always going to be tricky. As evidenced by last month when he ignored the Fanservice stuff and just picked the subject himself!
Here’s one to add to the list, one of my biggest pet peeves as a player.
– Always deconstructing and “breaking the illusions” after the session.
No, I don’t want to hear about how you added a random NPC on a whim who wasn’t pre-planned in the module. No, I don’t want to hear about how we almost fell into a deadly trap. No, I don’t want to hear that “something crazy” is going to happen next session.
You break immersion when you pull back the curtain and say “Lookie what I did!”.
I agree, maybe except for the trap example, sometimes in my games players ask me what they could do differently, then i give information about possible outcomes they did not consider in the first place. It’s very hard to not break immersion in those moments, but i figured out that is similar to debating with friends after watching a movie. i think DMs needs a lot of trust from their group to be so open about the game.
Now see, I know this is one that people feel differently about, but I’m really a fan of the post session breakdown. If I had to guess, that’s because my gaming group is:
Me
The guy that taught me to DM
My first DM
The guy I taught to DM
So 1) every game is pretty meta: We all recognize the structure of the campaign from a few episodes in, we all understand the character-archetype-game-structure-element combo that an NPC is once we meet them, etc, etc. There’s not a whole lot of immersion being sacrificed at this table. 2) We do a lot of theory proofing as DM’s, in the “I bet you next week’s pizza you can’t make a hexcrawl that’s also a strand of spaghetti campaign, that’s also any fun.” kind of way.
Angry can you put a link in any of those lines of “being wrong” about some article that explain the reason behind it? I remember articles about psionics, gnomes, and others topics; the one that i don’t remeber (if any) is why steampunk setting are wrong. Never played steampunk before but i was charmed by the idea in future campaigns, i will be glad to know your point about it, or simply know where i can one. Thanks
Tell us how steam/spellpunk’s additional components are not as fantasy breaking as psionics and then we can have a discussion on how angry is wrong.
i never said he’s wrong, i simply asked the reason behind playing those settings are wrong, seems legit to me.
No. Because that would just encourage people to completely miss the point even more than everyone who is commenting already has. Much to my delight. In fact, I am now refusing to answer ANY questions about ANYTHING I put in that list because this is f$&%ing hilarious.