Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1012456I've noticed as I GM more and more, I tend to kill power fantasy and preconceived notions pretty quickly and empower players who use their character's skillset to great effect or in unorthodox ways.

Maybe this is because I'm getting older (I say that being in my mid 20's). Maybe it's because I've gotten to a point where I'm now teaching others how to GM effectively (not sure whether that'd be called Mastery but whatever). Maybe it's because I've dealt with shitheads many times over within this hobby. Or I could just be an asshole, plain and simple.

But whatever it is, I tend to enact severe consequences on PCs doing shit which "isn't gonna go well".

Smart-mouthing a hired blade in a back alley entrance to a gambling den: knife through the throat.

White knighting for a cause (especially OOC): feathered and tarred (usually socio-politically but sometimes quite literally).

Trying to pick that lock for the umpteenth time: get a rusty metal cut to the fingers requiring amputation without medical attention in the immediate future.

Trying to seduce a particular NPC in a club so you can "pump" them for information: better hope your fellow PCs rescue you in-time from the non-consensual bathroom rendezvous you're about to end up in somehow all dazed and confused.

(I have never seen a player turn so white after pulling that last one, bar one other instance I can think of. It worked out ok, though -- I was being really generous with the save rolls, I admit. I woulda' had a cokehead interrupt before anything happened, I'm not quite that callous... yet. They never did that douchebag crap ever again).

Do others do this? Is this a thing with other GMs?

That stuff goes on when both the GM and players are still trying to understand what it is they're supposed to be doing in a tabletop game.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1012456Or I could just be an asshole, plain and simple.

You do post here!

I agree PC actions should provoke NPC reactions, and depending on the NPC, the reaction might be...troublesome for the PC.

That's a good thing.

Quote from: Bren;1012826...9:15AM is way too early in the day to be messing about with dynamite.

Well, he did say that they were the 'Drinkwater Gang,' so y'know, no hangovers.


To the OP-- yes, sorry, we did mistake this for you asking for advice, rather than asking if others did this. I would say of course it has happened at times. No one is perfect, and all of us in my circles who have sat behind the screen have undoubtedly gotten annoyed with someone's gaming actions and decided to 'teach them a lesson' or whatever. But, as a general rule, our theoretically adhered-to best behavior is to try to create a world with internally consistent sets of consequences for actions. And that's what we shoot for. On our good days, that's how it pans out.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1012645You're right, I should elucidate.
...

What I don't accept in my games is using a character as a piece of meat to sex NPCs. If every other solution is "I try to get him/her alone" (which is what it was) and the situations are getting progressively more sketchy (which they were), you can expect to get met with fierce consequences. This is what this dude would do all the time. Was too much.

You have still not explained what the Player or Character did that was wrong. They tried to 'sex NPCs?' -- as in pick up someone in a bar? That's... well, looking for one night stands is kinda sorta pathetic/vaguely sketchy in real life, doing so vicariously through one's character in a TTRPG is downright sad unless you're doing it as a lark. But again, what is the untoward behavior of the PC in this situation that you felt the need to punish?

QuoteIf you're gonna go the creepy stalker route, own it. I've known people who joke about using Forbes and CEO magazine as to pick dates, so it is entirely within my capacity to know people do this in real-life. This has happened in my games and the players had their PCs make the appropriate checks to do so (they never end up sleeping with anyone, they usually do even more fucked-up shit like drug em' and then canvass their pad for the info they're looking for etc... that actually worked very well one time but they almost tripped the alarm trying to leave through the penthouse skylights).

Okay, so still not clear where the creepy stalker route comes in, but at least we're getting somewhere. So what has happened in the game is that players have seduced NPCs with important information, instead of sleeping with them mickey-finning them and digging through their desk drawer (instead of other drawers) looking for vital info? So that's acceptable behavior apparently (which IRL it isn't, of course, but I'm assuming the alternative they otherwise would use would be general burglary or violence), but what this person did where you retributed with getting them in trouble wasn't? So what was it that they were trying to do?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1012924Well, he did say that they were the 'Drinkwater Gang,' so y'know, no hangovers.


To the OP-- yes, sorry, we did mistake this for you asking for advice, rather than asking if others did this. I would say of course it has happened at times. No one is perfect, and all of us in my circles who have sat behind the screen have undoubtedly gotten annoyed with someone's gaming actions and decided to 'teach them a lesson' or whatever. But, as a general rule, our theoretically adhered-to best behavior is to try to create a world with internally consistent sets of consequences for actions. And that's what we shoot for. On our good days, that's how it pans out.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1012645You're right, I should elucidate.
...

What I don't accept in my games is using a character as a piece of meat to sex NPCs. If every other solution is "I try to get him/her alone" (which is what it was) and the situations are getting progressively more sketchy (which they were), you can expect to get met with fierce consequences. This is what this dude would do all the time. Was too much.

You have still not explained what the Player or Character did that was wrong. They tried to 'sex NPCs?' -- as in pick up someone in a bar? That's... well, looking for one night stands is kinda sorta pathetic/vaguely sketchy in real life, doing so vicariously through one's character in a TTRPG is downright sad unless you're doing it as a lark. But again, what is the untoward behavior of the PC in this situation that you felt the need to punish?

QuoteIf you're gonna go the creepy stalker route, own it. I've known people who joke about using Forbes and CEO magazine as to pick dates, so it is entirely within my capacity to know people do this in real-life. This has happened in my games and the players had their PCs make the appropriate checks to do so (they never end up sleeping with anyone, they usually do even more fucked-up shit like drug em' and then canvass their pad for the info they're looking for etc... that actually worked very well one time but they almost tripped the alarm trying to leave through the penthouse skylights).

Okay, so still not clear where the creepy stalker route comes in, but at least we're getting somewhere. So what has happened in the game is that players have seduced NPCs with important information, instead of sleeping with them mickey-finning them and digging through their desk drawer (instead of other drawers) looking for vital info? So that's acceptable behavior apparently (which IRL it isn't, of course, but I'm assuming the alternative they otherwise would use would be general burglary or violence), but what this person did where you retributed with getting them in trouble wasn't? So what was it that they were trying to do?

The OP examples all sound like GM over-reaction, to me.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1012456Smart-mouthing a hired blade in a back alley entrance to a gambling den: knife through the throat.

I think the correct logical response is a mental state in the NPC - however the NPC reacts to the smart-mouthing, which would take into account the whole situation. NPC deciding to murder the PC on the spot would be an extreme reaction probably only appropriate for a reckless psychopath, and would need to be gamed out, giving the PC an appropriate chance to notice the NPC's reaction (psychology vs. acting), and the attempted maneuver (perception, tactics, awareness), and then the actual attack resolution.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1012456White knighting for a cause (especially OOC): feathered and tarred (usually socio-politically but sometimes quite literally).

I'm not sure what this one even refers to, but again I just play out logical reactions as fairly and objectively as I can, and this sounds like the GM is making a punishment happen because some behavior was somehow OOC, so no.

QuoteTrying to pick that lock for the umpteenth time: get a rusty metal cut to the fingers requiring amputation without medical attention in the immediate future.

This is an insanely bad GM move in my book. Either find or invent some rules that can handle this basic situation appropriately, or make an appropriate ruling. Ruling that they get a cut and require amputation (without appropriately small chances that that would happen, and actually rolling that) makes you a nightmare GM.

QuoteTrying to seduce a particular NPC in a club so you can "pump" them for information: better hope your fellow PCs rescue you in-time from the non-consensual bathroom rendezvous you're about to end up in somehow all dazed and confused.

(I have never seen a player turn so white after pulling that last one, bar one other instance I can think of. It worked out ok, though -- I was being really generous with the save rolls, I admit. I woulda' had a cokehead interrupt before anything happened, I'm not quite that callous... yet. They never did that douchebag crap ever again).

So you relate to GM'ing as making things happen, for OOC reasons that include GM preference for whether the players are being creative in how they use their PC skills or not, and also in picking horrible punishing outcomes, making them happen, and judging what your players are willing to take and fudging the odds and making deus ex machina rescues when you think you may have "gone too far" for the sensibilities of the players. That sounds atrocious to me. The gameplay is evidently about sizing up the GM's tastes and catering to them, and being prepared for weird forced consequences.


P.S.: I read later posts by the OP and see that he says he was using appropriate rolls and the players were being stupid and inappropriate. Ok, so there is a point where stupid and inappropriate moves do quite reasonably lead to very bad consequences. However I tend to apply another filter before that point, when appropriate: If the player suggests something stupid or inappropriate, I consider the PC - if I think the PC would tend not to be that stupid or would have observed and considered things the player seems to be ignoring, then I mention those things to the player and ask them to reconsider. If they persist in being awful, I judge whether their PC really does the stupid thing, or whether they're being so incompetent as a player that I'm not going to have the PC do that, and/or rule that they're incompetent to play that PC. The "now I drop off the rescued slave kids to sell them as sex slaves" would be an example of that unless the PC is a demented psychopath, for example.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1012924Well, he did say that they were the 'Drinkwater Gang,' so y'know, no hangovers.

You got me there.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1012483With asswipe players.  It's often the next step after teenage gaming, because 14 year old boys are feral little beasts.  In players at or just after college age I've noticed that power fantasies tend to be crude, primitive, and violent, and referee responses tend to be similar.

By the time I hit thirty, things had changed.

This is good, providing perspective and self-/forgiveness of one's past indiscretions.

So finish the advice! What should we expect at 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond!

One gets increasingly tired as each decade passes.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1013020So finish the advice! What should we expect at 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond!

Less hair on the top and more everywhere else.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1012859That stuff goes on when both the GM and players are still trying to understand what it is they're supposed to be doing in a tabletop game.

Admittedly, that seems most likely.
Then again, maybe he's just got players that made stupid enough plans to merit such treatment;).

Quote from: Skarg;1012987P.S.: I read later posts by the OP and see that he says he was using appropriate rolls and the players were being stupid and inappropriate. Ok, so there is a point where stupid and inappropriate moves do quite reasonably lead to very bad consequences. However I tend to apply another filter before that point, when appropriate: If the player suggests something stupid or inappropriate, I consider the PC - if I think the PC would tend not to be that stupid or would have observed and considered things the player seems to be ignoring, then I mention those things to the player and ask them to reconsider. If they persist in being awful, I judge whether their PC really does the stupid thing, or whether they're being so incompetent as a player that I'm not going to have the PC do that, and/or rule that they're incompetent to play that PC. The "now I drop off the rescued slave kids to sell them as sex slaves" would be an example of that unless the PC is a demented psychopath, for example.

I have been known to ask players "Are you sure you want to do that? It doesn't seem like a very good idea." Sometimes they say "yes" and go ahead and do it anyway, but at least it is then clearly their choice, not the DM being a dick and trying to screw them.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1012924They tried to 'sex NPCs?' -- as in pick up someone in a bar? That's... well, looking for one night stands is kinda sorta pathetic/vaguely sketchy in real life,

It is?

Quote from: Nexus;1013137It is?

Yes.  

The mating dance is best done in long term committed relationships preferably marriage.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1013081I have been known to ask players "Are you sure you want to do that? It doesn't seem like a very good idea." Sometimes they say "yes" and go ahead and do it anyway, but at least it is then clearly their choice, not the DM being a dick and trying to screw them.

Nowadays I try to remember to ask them what they are trying to accomplish by that thing they want to do that seems to me to be obviously unproductive, odd, crazy, suicidal, or some combination of the four. When I do that I often find that it isn't that the player(s) and I have different ideas of what constitutes a good or a bad idea it is that the player(s) have a very different view of the situation than I have as the GM. Sometimes that's because I didn't communicate the situation well. Sometimes that's because they weren't paying attention or because they forgot something important.

Quote from: Headless;1013154Yes.  

The mating dance is best done in long term committed relationships preferably marriage.

Indeed, pre-martial sex is a crime against the sacred institution of marriage.