The "Behind the Curtain" thread got me to thinking about dirty tricks GMs can pull. Last session of my game, I inadvertently led the players on a 10 minute tangent by using the phrase "appears to be normal" in regards to a query pertaining to a statue they saw from a distance. It was pretty funny to witness the ensuing investigation, poking, prodding, ranged attacks, and mumbling of possible command words. What words, tricks, etc. do or have you used in your games to keep things interesting? As a player, do you consider something like this to be below the belt, or aboveboard?

If someone looks for traps and fails, I tell them it looks clear.  If there is no trap, I say the same thing.  I also use "as far as you can tell".

Doesn't strike me as "subterfuge" or an attempt to "keep things interesting" at all.  I'm just telling them what they see and if they don't see anything out of the ordinary, then "it appears to be normal".  I rarely, if ever, describe things like that in absolute terms, although, if the system has some kind of perception rolls and the player rolls extremely well (or extremely poorly...), I'll also mention that they're highly confident in their assessment ("you're pretty sure that it's just a normal statue").

Our Wednesday night GM always puts it as, "To the best of your knowledge and ability it appears to be..."
I'm fine with that.

When I run games I try hard not to imply/suggest/lead... 'Just the facts, ma'am.'

"Appears to be normal" is a simple statement that invites further investigation should it be desired. It isn't sneaky or underhanded. The phrase can be uttered in such a way as to be more leading, " The statue APPEARS to be normal". That is one way to try and draw interest to the statue but still isn't underhanded.

Some players will just latch on to something like that and refuse to let go.  It's probably because another DM pixel-bitched the shit out of them.

Same as the "you don't hear or see anything" response when the players are anticipating ambush. I just cant see telling them "there's nothing there" although at times it woukd save a lot of grief.

Quote from: Harlock;913934The "Behind the Curtain" thread got me to thinking about dirty tricks GMs can pull. Last session of my game, I inadvertently led the players on a 10 minute tangent by using the phrase "appears to be normal" in regards to a query pertaining to a statue they saw from a distance. It was pretty funny to witness the ensuing investigation, poking, prodding, ranged attacks, and mumbling of possible command words. What words, tricks, etc. do or have you used in your games to keep things interesting? As a player, do you consider something like this to be below the belt, or aboveboard?

Laugh!

I remember early on when my players started reacting to:

GM: "Ok you march another day up the road to Feebtown." (rolls dice) "You're walking along when..."
Player: "I ready my crossbow!"

Which soon developed into:
GM: "... uh, ok, you ready your crossbow when you hadn't noticed anything."
or
GM: "You hadn't noticed anything yet. Do you want to always have a loaded crossbow ready all day every day when you travel?"

I have run entire sessions where I just let the players' own paranoia and appetite for mischief generate play. I have just described the situation, laid it out on a map with figures, and handed out notes, and they start generating mystery, magical investigations and deceptions, theft, seduction & love triangles, mysteries, contests, duels, etc. All I have had to do is give them the details that their PCs can see and hear or already know about, and withhold what they don't know for sure without them investigating, and often all sorts of things happen, especially if one or two PCs are being sneaky or just yanking each others' chains.

All that has led to a GM style where I am very deliberately filtering in-character from OOC information. Causally muddy clues in the way the GM describes things can lead to all sorts of meta-game (dis)information otherwise. Some of it is practically unavoidable, but I think it's worthwhile to develop one's awareness of it.

I like to try to maintain a game state where the world seems to be full of all sorts of detail and stuff to discover, but players can choose what to investigate, and need to go look to get information (they can't just randomly question the GM except about what their PC already thinks they know).

So I try to make sure they get plenty of "you pass a gem shop and a greengrocer" or "a man in leather armor with a slung throwing axe passes you" or "you notice a man in  a cloak watching you" or "the shopkeeper wears a wolfshead brooch" that is just mundane people & things, so that it's not just the fact that the GM mentions something means that they are supposed to investigate (or acquire or fight) it.

Quote from: yosemitemike;913972It's probably because another DM pixel-bitched the shit out of them.

Is 'pixel-bitched' a slang term?

I doubt this would be a dirty trick but here the neatest trick I ever pulled off. This was from an Majestic Wilderlands OD&D Campaign.

One players was a half-Viridian (a demon race) who hated his father for a number of very good reason, one of which was abandoning them when he was young. Because of this one of the themes of the campaign was the party tracking down and killing the last of the full Viridians still alive. A decade the empire was liberated from them and the authorities gladly pay for the head of any of the survivors.

They got a lead on the player's father, this lead up to the opening of X2 Castle Amber. When I run campaigns, I often re-purpose published modules to keep up with the prep. In this case, I substituted the Amber family with a similar family only they were Viridians. The character went through the adventure which involved travel back to an earlier time period.

The highlight of the adventures was the liberation of "Stephen Amber" which turned out to be the character's father! The party learned that the who reason that for the character for being born was so that he could grow up. Then go back into time and free his father from the curse in the module. To say that that the player's jaw hit the floor was an understatement. The rest of the players spent a couple of minutes trying to wrap their head around how the whole chain of event and time travel played out.

Quote from: estar;914035I doubt this would be a dirty trick but here the neatest trick I ever pulled off. This was from an Majestic Wilderlands OD&D Campaign.

One players was a half-Viridian (a demon race) who hated his father for a number of very good reason, one of which was abandoning them when he was young. Because of this one of the themes of the campaign was the party tracking down and killing the last of the full Viridians still alive. A decade the empire was liberated from them and the authorities gladly pay for the head of any of the survivors.

They got a lead on the player's father, this lead up to the opening of X2 Castle Amber. When I run campaigns, I often re-purpose published modules to keep up with the prep. In this case, I substituted the Amber family with a similar family only they were Viridians. The character went through the adventure which involved travel back to an earlier time period.

The highlight of the adventures was the liberation of "Stephen Amber" which turned out to be the character's father! The party learned that the who reason that for the character for being born was so that he could grow up. Then go back into time and free his father from the curse in the module. To say that that the player's jaw hit the floor was an understatement. The rest of the players spent a couple of minutes trying to wrap their head around how the whole chain of event and time travel played out.

Sounds like a good twist. Also, Castle Amber is one of the all time greatest of TSR modules. Nothing like a keep full of inbred and insane nobles to keep players on their toes!

Quote from: estar;914035I doubt this would be a dirty trick but here the neatest trick I ever pulled off. This was from an Majestic Wilderlands OD&D Campaign.

One players was a half-Viridian (a demon race) who hated his father for a number of very good reason, one of which was abandoning them when he was young. Because of this one of the themes of the campaign was the party tracking down and killing the last of the full Viridians still alive. A decade the empire was liberated from them and the authorities gladly pay for the head of any of the survivors.

They got a lead on the player's father, this lead up to the opening of X2 Castle Amber. When I run campaigns, I often re-purpose published modules to keep up with the prep. In this case, I substituted the Amber family with a similar family only they were Viridians. The character went through the adventure which involved travel back to an earlier time period.

The highlight of the adventures was the liberation of "Stephen Amber" which turned out to be the character's father! The party learned that the who reason that for the character for being born was so that he could grow up. Then go back into time and free his father from the curse in the module. To say that that the player's jaw hit the floor was an understatement. The rest of the players spent a couple of minutes trying to wrap their head around how the whole chain of event and time travel played out.

That's a really good one! This was exactly the type of twists that a close friend of mine used to pull in his campaign.

Shemek.

Quote from: estar;914029Is 'pixel-bitched' a slang term?

Derived from the old Sierra adventure games (hence the "pixel"), it refers to GMs who have one specific (usually fairly obscure) solution to the problem at hand. And, therefore, everything the PCs attempt will arbitrarily fail until they've done the specific thing the GM has in mind (i.e., clicked on the specific pixel they're supposed to click on).

...and the original use of the term "pixel-bitch" as applied to gaming is pretty apt for what it describes - the GM has one solution that must be followed exactly, and if the players do not do that exact thing, then they get nowhere.

Like all terms, it gets misused.  For example, on purple when someone says "pixel-bitch" you can usually insert "everything didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted it" and the sentence will parse correctly.  Other times, it gets used when a frustrated PC forgets something.  As a result, they don't mention it, so the GM doesn't assume they intend to do it.  For example, one thread I remember on purple, PCs were bitching about finding something.  They didn't say "We search the whole room".  They went bit by bit through the room, but forgot one of the pieces of furniture.  They gave up and then when the GM reminded them that they missed a piece from the description - Pixel-bitch GM.
If they said they search everything - no issue.
If, after they chose to search piecemeal, they had remembered what was actually in the room and searched it - no issue.
But how they chose to search the room and the fact that they failed to actually remember what was in it - complete GM fault.

So yeah, like any internet gaming term referring to GM misdeeds - actually exists 1% of the time it is invoked.

Pixel bitching also works in the reverse, where it can be used in Org Play to funnel down variance in overarching adventure seasons. Since Org Play is a meta-layer that can override GM judgment, it is not uncommon for Org Play adventure writers - and subsequently traveling competitive players - to invoke the pixel bitch to shut down alternate creative play solutions, by either other players or GMs. It's a form of meta-rules lawyering to cramp the GM into CPU server mode so a player's optimization is not fettered by human variance.