Well? As a GM, do you feel that you need to cut players a break with their characters? How, and to what extent, if so?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1004868Well? As a GM, do you feel that you need to cut players a break with their characters? How, and to what extent, if so?

Define "Requirement" and define "nice".
(You'll get some yes's and no's, and several "depends" but you're aware of that.
I'll just play along for now as i just happened to come across this.)

The technical answer is no, but the practical answer is or should be "yes" or "depends", because if the GM isn't at least "nice enough", then that person will find himself without players eventually.
After that, the ACTUAL question is "What is nice enough?", and that varies from player to player, from GM to GM, and from Gaming group to Gaming group, and can even vary between games ....

So, after that, i guess it is more of individual answers that is being asked for here?

Well , I guess we ought to look at the notion of "should" in what is essentially a pastime. Considering that your players have all come for the reasons of mutual entertainment (no giggling, please) then it largely depends on what you and the other players have agreed upon as the tone, dynamic and genre of the game that you want to play.

On one extreme you have games like Paranoia and certain scenarios in Call of Cthulhu in which the whole premise of the game is the characters' suffering and eventual demise.
Of course, there are different takes on Lovecraftian role-playing that are less doom-laden (the more pulpy ones) but then there are the Trail of Cthulhu "Purist" scenarios where it's pretty much about playing a person meeting a face worse than death.

With these games in mind, providing that everyone knows what's in store, then the answer would be a Big Bad "No" to being required to be nice.

OTOH, if the players were expecting a more Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom having shoot outs with the Nazi servants of the Mi-Go and car chase scenes with Night Gaunts then to hit them with Dead White World is not gonna make you any friends.

It's like your partner offering to spank you and then coming back in the bedroom with whips and cuffs. Not that I would know anything about that.

In terms of DnD and its siblings it also largely depends on what style that you and your fellow players are going for. And this is, to my mind, where things can fall apart. If you have four players all wanting to play in a game that resembles four very different styles of fantasy adventure then somebody is going to be very disappointed.

e.g.

Mary loves Game of Thrones; a saga in which lead characters lose body parts on a regular basis and betrayal is the only thing you can be sure of.
Pete has only read Edding's The Belgariad and Feist's Magician leading him to think that his Mary Sue character is frickin invincible.
John is looking forward to a bit of Leiber sword and sorcery and is happy to be unlucky but alive in his own little Lankhmar.
Sam is a veteran 3.5 player and is expecting all the encounters to be magically tailored to his PC level. Bespoke dungeons and items everywhere!

And Phil the GM is a grognard who thinks Gygaxian Tomb of Horrors clone scenarios are the One True Hobby.

Fuggup in  3..2..1..

A break in play, or a break in character creation? In play I don't tend to give breaks. In random character creation, I tend to be rather forgiving and push a great deal of the randomness aside.

I try to be fair and up front with what my players can expect. Also, I seldom put them in danger that they can't see coming (if they care to look!) or haven't caused themselves. ("Don't piss of the head of the assassins guilt if you don't want to be assassinated!"). And I often tell them what the consequences of a crass action might be, so that they can rethink it if they want ("Your character is aware that jumping into this lava pit is most likely deadly. Do you want to proceed anyway?").

I think that counts as nice, and I prefer other GMs to be that nice themselves.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1004868Well? As a GM, do you feel that you need to cut players a break with their characters? How, and to what extent, if so?

Me personally? No, I normally arbitrate neutrally, so lots of dead PCs in most games.

I do think there are genre games where this might not be the best approach. I GM'd d6 Star Wars that way and it ran a lot like the end of Rogue One, not much like the 'real' Star Wars trilogy films. It would be in-genre for Star Wars GM to be kind to the PCs.

You aren't obligated as a DM to be nice to any character, or do anything. But your treatment of them also effects how much they cooperate with your campaign later, I feel. In our gaming group there used to be a guy where, when he ran games he would go out of his way to like disrespect our PCs, like openly insult them, or like drop something on their toes for one hitpoint of damage, just inane stupid shit. And then later on he'd be so surprised and frustrated when we didn't help this same NPC in a time of need, or when we held on to the MacGuffin ourselves instead of giving it to the railroad conductor.

It's the same for the PCs, though. This same guy, whenever he was a player and not a DM, his characters would also openly sneer and insult every NPC(and every other PC) he met, and couldn't understand why nobody was ever kind to his characters. And why the then-enraged villain would attack him first.

Quote from: UppercutIntoCeilingSpikes;1004876This same guy, whenever he was a player and not a DM, his characters would also openly sneer and insult every NPC..

Met that guy. Or his clone. Was this a thing, back in the day? Was being snarky and obnoxious mistaken for witty and scathing? Cos there seemed to be a whole bunch of young jerks that thought acting like you wanted a punch in the face was the height of hilarity and were oblivious to other gamers cringing and rolling their eyes.

Was it from reading bad fantasy literature featuring smart-talking walking cliches? Did they think it was cool to resemble the crew of Red Dwarf for some weird reason?

Similarly, creating a campaign setting full of ass-holes as if nobody in the imaginary world of the GM could ever be nice is not gritty, realistic or interesting in my opinion. It's not like the World of Verandia TM[/SIZE][/I] has to be populated exclusively by people from Sevenoaks.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1004880Was it from reading bad fantasy literature featuring smart-talking walking cliches? Did they think it was cool to resemble the crew of Red Dwarf for some weird reason?

Taking out the sci-fi elements, the crew of the Red Dwarf were a group of arrested development adults with all of the social boundaries gone because they were the last members of their civilization forming an impromptu family unit and then squabbling like siblings.

So I'm going to assume that they people you are describing were just more arrested development adults with all of the social boundaries gone (because they are in a roleplaying game and suddenly rules like you can't violence your way to victory or whatever aren't true).


To the OP question. The answer, as always, is a GM who does not communicate properly to their players what kind of world they are putting characters into and then enforcing that world is going to end up with dissatisfied players. Once that is established, just adjudicate evenly and non-preferentially. If you sold the game as Princess Bride and then throw the characters into Game of Thrones, the players aren't being whining wusses for crying foul. OTOH if they came for a GoT game, and then have a Littlefinger betray them and they end up losing their heads, well then they should have played the game better.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1004868Well? As a GM, do you feel that you need to cut players a break with their characters? How, and to what extent, if so?

No.

They get enough as is, or demand it. So Im usually disinclined to be handing out free goodies or bumping stats or whatever else is asked for.

If an adventure is particularly lethal I may supply backup in the form of NPCs. Though usually the players never call on them.

I do though play the NPCs and monsters fairly so if I think some orcs are inclined to take prisoners and the PCs happen to surrender when things are going badly then they will accept. They wont on the other hand if the PCs have been slaughtering surrendered foes. When in doubt I roll on the reaction tables.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1004871Considering that your players have all come for the reasons of mutual entertainment (no giggling, please) then it largely depends on what you and the other players have agreed upon as the tone, dynamic and genre of the game that you want to play.

This. Best on topic reply for this thread.

Nice? No. Scrupulously fair? Yes.

There should be some nice NPCs so that the players will get invested in protecting them and thus, invested in the game. Otherwise you as the DM want to be fair and give the players the benefit of the doubt.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1004868Well? As a GM, do you feel that you need to cut players a break with their characters? How, and to what extent, if so?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1895[/ATTACH]

PCs get treated in accordance with their actions and social status in the setting.

Quote from: Michael Gray;1004903Nice? No. Scrupulously fair? Yes.

Yes.  Do this, and the world will be as mean or nice as the players push it.