If it makes them happy and doesn't completely break the game then I let them do it.

If it breaks the game to such an extent that it is unplayable, then I throw a few more powerful NPCs at them with the same, or similar, setup and see how they like it. If they still think it's a good idea then I use my GM-Munchkinery to optimise a few more NPCs and throw them in the mix. Normally they get the point and we house-rule to prevent game-breaking side-effects.

It's only a game, after all. Everyone is there to enjoy themselves and if it makes a player happy to optimise a PC then I don't have a problem with that.

Quote from: two_fishes;504810really. You do this, do you? You smack your players in the nose and you consider them subhuman if they don't play the game the same way you do? I sincerely doubt you really do; I suspect this is a load of internet bluster, but if you do then maybe you should stop for a minute and ask yourself who's really engaging in the cheap power trip.

how about this, for all responses. Talk to your player about what kind of game you want to play, you know, like actual colleagues and social equals, rather than making stern demands or doing cheap passive aggressive tricks like, "oh, my campaign doesn't play that way!"

For future reference, the most obvious indicator of when I'm joking will be me, saying "I'm not even joking", while saying something patently ridiculous. No way you'd know this, of course. I'll be more careful in the future.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;505149There is NO SUCH THING as common sense in a fictional setting, only a sense of what the GM assumes to be true. This is kinda a fundamental element of RPGs people keep missing. In an RPG session there are no reasonable assumptions outside of either the rules or the GM's decisions. They only seem reasonable because you have enough shared experience not to notice them.

I'd argue that reasonable assumptions that seem reasonable because of shared experience is the very definition of 'common sense'.

The idea that what a sane and reasonable GM thinks is 'common sense' and what any particular sane and reasonable player thinks is 'common sense' is somehow entirely arbitrary is false, in my experience. Minor differences are moderated through effective communication - major differences, assuming two people from the same culture and neither is intentionally unreasonable or mentally ill, probably don't exist.

Quote from: Kaldric;505275For future reference, the most obvious indicator of when I'm joking will be me, saying "I'm not even joking", while saying something patently ridiculous. No way you'd know this, of course. I'll be more careful in the future.

You got me. I didn't catch on to the sarcasm at all.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;505137(b) is a really valuable tip for any situation where the players have discovered a tactic or ability combo that seems unbeatable to you. Once the NPCs start doing the same thing, there are only two possibilities:

(1) The players will realize it's busted and will be amenable to the problem being fixed.

(2) The players will figure out an effective counter for the tactic... which the NPCs can then use.

Exactly. Once a group of players see their brilliant tactics used against them, they really have to think really hard about the stuff, and if it makes sense to them.

Anyway, this problem seldom happens to me.

Quote from: Imperator;504920Exactly. I do not worry about this kind of stuff. If some build happens to be negative to the game, either (a) we discuss it and make the changes needed to make things work or (b) I note it down and it becomes part of the bad guys tactics, too.


This is not a stupid proposition

Quote from: Justin Alexander;505137(b) is a really valuable tip for any situation where the players have discovered a tactic or ability combo that seems unbeatable to you. Once the NPCs start doing the same thing, there are only two possibilities:

(1) The players will realize it's busted and will be amenable to the problem being fixed.

(2) The players will figure out an effective counter for the tactic... which the NPCs can then use.

Sounds like a good common sense solution to me.

Honestly, I do think that common sense is really underrated on RPG message boards. The problem with stuff like rules-lawyering, uber-CharOp-powergaming and the likes isn't the rules system, unless issues are generalized with it, but the people who use those rules to break the game. If you forget the game's the thing here, and not the rules, you fail at role-playing. Try again. So. Rules don't fix people. People fix themselves. Nothing beats good communication at the game table.

If you consistently have problems like this at the game table ask yourself: am I being obtuse here? Am I perceived as a douche by the players? Is there something to be said about my GMing that spawns this bullshit all the time? Chances are, there is a bad dynamic going on. That can be fixed with good communication and an ability to be honest with yourself.

I'm taking a turn DMing my group. We were talking about what system to use next, and d6 Star Wars came up.

The first thing one of the players said was "Oh, cool, I'm totally being a Smuggler or a Bounty Hunter [I think it was]". He then went on to explain how over-powered they are. Another one of the players agreed with him.

Strangely, no one seems to have connected "we know how to break Star Wars and we will" with "James isn't running Star Wars".

However, I don't really blame the players. Maybe it's inappropriate for Star Wars, but they're mostly 3.5 players, and they're only doing what you're supposed to do.

PS Yes, I simmered in rage instead of saying something.

Quote from: Age of Fable;505545I'm taking a turn DMing my group. We were talking about what system to use next, and d6 Star Wars came up.

The first thing one of the players said was "Oh, cool, I'm totally being a Smuggler or a Bounty Hunter [I think it was]". He then went on to explain how over-powered they are. Another one of the players agreed with him.

Strangely, no one seems to have connected "we know how to break Star Wars and we will" with "James isn't running Star Wars".

However, I don't really blame the players. Maybe it's inappropriate for Star Wars, but they're mostly 3.5 players, and they're only doing what you're supposed to do.

PS Yes, I simmered in rage instead of saying something.

I've got to ask, how in WEG d6 Star Wars can a Smuggler or Bounty Hunter break the system?

No idea. It might not have been those two either.

Quote from: Age of Fable;505545I'm taking a turn DMing my group. We were talking about what system to use next, and d6 Star Wars came up.

The first thing one of the players said was "Oh, cool, I'm totally being a Smuggler or a Bounty Hunter [I think it was]". He then went on to explain how over-powered they are. Another one of the players agreed with him.

Strangely, no one seems to have connected "we know how to break Star Wars and we will" with "James isn't running Star Wars".

However, I don't really blame the players. Maybe it's inappropriate for Star Wars, but they're mostly 3.5 players, and they're only doing what you're supposed to do.

PS Yes, I simmered in rage instead of saying something.

Wow.  Simmering with rage sounds pretty bad.  I don't know the people here, but do you think that talking to them in the future could help?  

From what you say, this sounds just like play that I have often engaged in as a player, and at other times as a GM accepted such behavior without problem.  Often, the fun for me is not just playing make-believe, but specifically working within a rule system with mechanics, and trying to do best with those rules.  I don't think it's too much an issue of Star Wars d6 vs. D&D 3.5.  I remember when I first played D&D3.0, my DM sometimes seemed annoyed when I would do things that seemed best within the rules.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;505137(b) is a really valuable tip for any situation where the players have discovered a tactic or ability combo that seems unbeatable to you. Once the NPCs start doing the same thing, there are only two possibilities:

(1) The players will realize it's busted and will be amenable to the problem being fixed.

(2) The players will figure out an effective counter for the tactic... which the NPCs can then use.

Unless there is a logical line of communication between witnesses of the PCs battle and later enemies, I find this one pretty annoying - much like the discussion of The Ethics of )(*#$ing with the PCs' plans.  The message is likely to come across as "Don't use good tactics, because then I'll just make things harder for you."  

Basically, if there is an infinite loop type problem with the rules, then I'd simply rule straight out that it doesn't work.  Other than that, though, I would prefer to just let them succeed, and offer generally tougher opponents (and greater rewards) in the future - rather than specifically trying to break the one tactic.

Quote from: Age of Fable;505545I'm taking a turn DMing my group. We were talking about what system to use next, and d6 Star Wars came up.

The first thing one of the players said was "Oh, cool, I'm totally being a Smuggler or a Bounty Hunter [I think it was]". He then went on to explain how over-powered they are. Another one of the players agreed with him.

Strangely, no one seems to have connected "we know how to break Star Wars and we will" with "James isn't running Star Wars".

However, I don't really blame the players. Maybe it's inappropriate for Star Wars, but they're mostly 3.5 players, and they're only doing what you're supposed to do.

PS Yes, I simmered in rage instead of saying something.

I suspect those were empty boasts. For one thing templates don't really mean much in Star Wars; they are just a pre-packaged set of points. Sure if you spend all your dice in combat related abilities you'll be good at combat - it doesn't take genius to figure that out - but unlike D&D3.x there are no tricks or complicate combinations of Feats  that will make you disproportionally more powerful.

Also, my experience with WEG Star Wars games is that you need an equal amount of combat, technical (especially ship related), roguish and social skills. So the guy who made the combat monster you can end up being sidelined for most the adventure.

Quote from: jhkim;505708Unless there is a logical line of communication between witnesses of the PCs battle and later enemies, I find this one pretty annoying - much like the discussion of The Ethics of )(*#$ing with the PCs' plans.  The message is likely to come across as "Don't use good tactics, because then I'll just make things harder for you."

Meh. The game is also a game: Both players and GMs are going to get better at playing it. Saying that the GM is never allowed to get better at playing the game is, IMO, sophomoric self-entitlement.

"E2 to E4."

"You can't use that opening! I used it in the last game! You're just trying to send the message that I'm not allowed to use good tactics!"

Quote from: Justin Alexander;505766"You can't use that opening! I used it in the last game! You're just trying to send the message that I'm not allowed to use good tactics!"

I don't think the analogy's appropriate; chess is an explicitly competitive winner-take-all game.  TTRPGs are ostensibly supposed to be cooperative ventures between players and GM, and I think it's entirely reasonable to be concerned about GMing tactics that are pretty much guaranteed to create an adversarial relationship between the players and their GM and kick off an arms race to boot.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;505766Meh. The game is also a game: Both players and GMs are going to get better at playing it. Saying that the GM is never allowed to get better at playing the game is, IMO, sophomoric self-entitlement.

"E2 to E4."

"You can't use that opening! I used it in the last game! You're just trying to send the message that I'm not allowed to use good tactics!"

Note that I never said that the GM is not allowed to get better at playing the game.  I'm fine with the GM getting better on his own, or learning broad principles from the players.  My problem was with the PCs' enemies using specific tactics only after the PCs have tried them.  

As GM, I don't have to be tactically clever with my NPCs -- because I can always just give them more levels/points/etc.  RPGs are not like chess games, because there is no such thing as fair competition between me and the players.  

If the campaign has gone on for a while and my understanding of tactics has gone up significantly, I might introduce a new bunch of NPCs who are more tactically skilled who use some tactics including ones the PCs have used.  However, that wouldn't be a general thing, and it wouldn't be done as a "counter" or "solution" to the PCs using an effective tactic.  In general, if the PCs come up with an effective tactic, then that tactic will continue to be effective, and I won't try to find a "solution" so that tactic is no longer effective.