Hello to everyone at the RPGsite, this is my first post, so please forgive any clumsiness and naivety. I'd like to ask you all if GM sadism is a sign of immaturity? Or does it have an acceptable place within a game or in certain genres?

If by GM sadism, you are referring to the "killer GM" style then mostly yes. It is a phase that we played through as kids and quickly left behind because it provides little fun for the group.

I think an adversarial GM can be a good thing (they're being a good opponent, challenging the players' abilities).  But a sadistic GM is just a child.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;643166I think an adversarial GM can be a good thing (they're being a good opponent, challenging the players' abilities).  But a sadistic GM is just a child.

Yup, this.

When I'm playing, I don't want a hand-holding GM any more than I want one setting out *just* to kill my PC.

Yes. Sadistic GMs are immature, they don't understand that the role of the GM is to provide challenges for the PCs, not set them up to fail.

P.S. Welcome to the forum, and good question for your first post .

wait...

Sadistical GMs DO have their place...
... in Paranoia.

I'd like to give you details but it seems you do not have clearance for that information, citizen.

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;643167Yup, this.

When I'm playing, I don't want a hand-holding GM any more than I want one setting out *just* to kill my PC.

That's why so many people misunderstand S1 and disregard it as "Gygax being a dick, agaaaaain :rolleyes: " - S1 is aimed at really highly experienced players, not simply "high level characters".

You could take some folks who've never played D&D before, give them 20th level characters, and put them through S1 and have a total party kill in the first (real) hallway.

On the other hand you could take a quartet of 9th level characters played by experienced players and cakewalk the whole module.

Assuming the DM is being evenhanded through the whole thing.

In fact, S1 is as much a challenge for good DM acumen as it is for good play acumen.  A good DM will read it front to back and make sure that each challenge in the module functions exactly as described, no more or less lethal than written (where applicable), with hints given as written, and keep a good poker-face during the whole thing.  A bad DM will either nerf the whole dungeon or go full-bore sadistic and turn it into a murderhouse, deliberately lying/changing room descriptions and make the players play "Guess what I'm thinking." instead of "Figure out these puzzles."

Quote from: thedungeondelver;643174That's why so many people misunderstand S1 and disregard it as "Gygax being a dick, agaaaaain :rolleyes: " - S1 is aimed at really highly experienced players, not simply "high level characters".

You could take some folks who've never played D&D before, give them 20th level characters, and put them through S1 and have a total party kill in the first (real) hallway.

On the other hand you could take a quartet of 9th level characters played by experienced players and cakewalk the whole module.

Assuming the DM is being evenhanded through the whole thing.

In fact, S1 is as much a challenge for good DM acumen as it is for good play acumen.  A good DM will read it front to back and make sure that each challenge in the module functions exactly as described, no more or less lethal than written (where applicable), with hints given as written, and keep a good poker-face during the whole thing.  A bad DM will either nerf the whole dungeon or go full-bore sadistic and turn it into a murderhouse, deliberately lying/changing room descriptions and make the players play "Guess what I'm thinking." instead of "Figure out these puzzles."

Sadly, the entire concept of player skill is under siege these days. Modern game theory would have us believe that all challenges should be solvable by pushing the right button on the character sheet.

Having a character's survival depend on how well the player can actually think in a given situation is largely absent from mechnics heavy systems.

Quote from: Riordan;643173wait...

Sadistical GMs DO have their place...
... in Paranoia.

I'd like to give you details but it seems you do not have clearance for that information, citizen.

MUTANT COMMUNIST TRAITOR! You used your mutant commie powers to read my mind!

Sometimes its fun.

For about 20 years I have had a killer kobold maze with 20 rooms.
Each member of the party gets 30,000 xp to build a character they can buy up to five magic items at the XP cost in the DMG (1e) and the rest spent on levels.
The question is how far will they get before they die. Some of the rooms repeat from previous sessions, eg the entrance is always a 4 foot by 4 foot burrow with random murder holes, and parties develop tried tactics (like don't waste xp on magic weapons, they are goblins you can kill em with a stick and some angry words) so it's like playing a favourite level of an old FPS.

For a one off session its really enjoyable, everyone knows what to expect.

There are DM rules of course. All the traps must be buildable by  a nest of kobolds with no magic. Kobolds are no dwarves so perfect sliding stone blocks and so on are beyond them. But they are cunning little buggers so they can certainly dig pits, build false floors, boil pitch, roll large boulders up steep slopes, train giant scorpians and do some crafty stuff with perspective, and of course as they are all 3 feet tall they have no need of 10 wide corridors you can swing a battle axe in.
Likewise the PCs can't hire 100 mooks, PCs only, and they have to go through each room, so destroying the whole place with a horn of blasting is out.

Sometimes the party get to room 5.....

Quote from: Exploderwizard;643181Sadly, the entire concept of player skill is under siege these days. Modern game theory would have us believe that all challenges should be solvable by pushing the right button on the character sheet.

Having a character's survival depend on how well the player can actually think in a given situation is largely absent from mechnics heavy systems.

for me in most games its the balance between player skill and character skill, but in a Killer DM games character play gets put to one side.

Quote from: jibbajibba;643187Sometimes its fun.

For about 20 years I have had a killer kobold maze with 20 rooms.
Each member of the party gets 30,000 xp to build a character they can buy up to five magic items at the XP cost in the DMG (1e) and the rest spent on levels.
The question is how far will they get before they die. Some of the rooms repeat from previous sessions, eg the entrance is always a 4 foot by 4 foot burrow with random murder holes, and parties develop tried tactics (like don't waste xp on magic weapons, they are goblins you can kill em with a stick and some angry words) so it's like playing a favourite level of an old FPS.

For a one off session its really enjoyable, everyone knows what to expect.

There are DM rules of course. All the traps must be buildable by  a nest of kobolds with no magic. Kobolds are no dwarves so perfect sliding stone blocks and so on are beyond them. But they are cunning little buggers so they can certainly dig pits, build false floors, boil pitch, roll large boulders up steep slopes, train giant scorpians and do some crafty stuff with perspective, and of course as they are all 3 feet tall they have no need of 10 wide corridors you can swing a battle axe in.
Likewise the PCs can't hire 100 mooks, PCs only, and they have to go through each room, so destroying the whole place with a horn of blasting is out.

Sometimes the party get to room 5.....

Please say this is something you have shared online.......

Quote from: thedungeondelver;643174That's why so many people misunderstand S1 and disregard it as "Gygax being a dick, agaaaaain :rolleyes: " - S1 is aimed at really highly experienced players, not simply "high level characters".
"

I have a friend (admittedly a pretty eccentric guy) who goes apoplectic with foaming rage whenever S1 is mentioned. To him, it's proof that Gary was a genuinely bad person with evil in his heart who probably did other awful things we don't know about yet. This neurosis seems to be a combination of his taking things in RPGs way too personally and being such a product of the 3.x generation that he can't wrap his head around "Player skill" meaning anything other than "Constructing a good feat chain". It's sad, really.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;643193Please say this is something you have shared online.......

no sorry, I have refered it a few times on this forum but never in detail.

And the latest incarnation played about 3 years ago I left in the UK.

however rather like a well worn pair of shoes, I could slip back into it easily enough.

The best feeling , the very best, is when an experienced player that has seen it all before, a 20 year man bred to the game since boyhood, moves that chest in the middle of the room (the one that is sooo obviously a trap that it can't be a trap and must be hinding the secret passage down to the next room and the 2 other exits must therefore obviously be traps) hears that sliding, noise as the trap triggers and the ceiling block comes crashing down on his head. Turns out a dozen kobolds 2 pulleys and some sturdy rope can lift a pretty fucking heavy chunk of rock .

Or maybe its when the human barbarian gets stuck in the 6 inch wide doorway and as the party try to pull him through the player says in that dejected voice, there are six kobolds behind me with spears aren't there ....

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;643194I have a friend (admittedly a pretty eccentric guy) who goes apoplectic with foaming rage whenever S1 is mentioned. To him, it's proof that Gary was a genuinely bad person with evil in his heart who probably did other awful things we don't know about yet. This neurosis seems to be a combination of his taking things in RPGs way too personally and being such a product of the 3.x generation that he can't wrap his head around "Player skill" meaning anything other than "Constructing a good feat chain". It's sad, really.

Ah.  Yeah, I've encountered that too hence my qualification for that kind of player.

I think it speaks volumes that the 3rd ed. reboot of Tomb of Horrors features former deathtraps that now have "make a Fort save or suffer n damage" (I'm thinking of the ramp that leads into the fire pit where if you fall in, you die, end of story.)

I should pick it up one day and take a very good look at it to see what they changed.  Back in the early 2000s my FLGS had a copy of the boxed edition, and I missed out on my chance to own a pristine copy of the monochrome cover 1e module