Quote from: IggytheBorg;818490I saw my overarching goal as ensuring everyone had fun to the extent possible.

How'd that work out for you?  Not too well, right?  Every GM to certain degree is Worldbuilder, Storyteller, etc. but Master of Ceremonies, where you micromanage things on the fly to try to keep the Fun-O-Meter within acceptable tolerances is only one style of GMing, it's not the only one.  Ask Grove, he's just found that out and he still half doesn't believe it.

Problematic players are never helped by the MoC approach, you only reinforce their bad behavior through acceptance.  The only out at that point is even worse, Punitive GMing, where you switch from positive to negative reinforcement.  Psychological programming isn't the GM's job, that's a GM screen, not a Skinner Box.  

Now some of that wasn't necessarily punitive.  If the Cleric is not following the dictates of his God, then he's not, what's does he expect to have happen?  Dungeon O' Rust Monsters, however, is just terrible.

You should have just played it straight and if a PC dies, you MOVE ON, that's why they have 2 each, right?  You don't stop then and there to make up a new character, they can do it after this session, before next one or in between.  By switching to just being Referee at the table, just Playing the World, you could have started adjusting expectations, but you do it slowly.  At first it might seem weird, and the problematic players are going to be...problematic, but in the end, you're just moving from a state of doing things illogically in order to save them to a state of doing things perfectly logically.  They're just no longer playing with GM-issued training wheels.

So yeah, you may have had an Idiot and Munchkin, but letting them affect your campaign is completely your doing.

BTW, players hardly ever are going to use items to balance themselves out and strengthen their weaknesses.  Maybe with minor items, but give them a Big Ticket Item and they are going to specialize and strengthen their strengths, that's the most efficient use of resources - of course that's going to be the Munchkin's path, even great roleplayers have to be chasing a specific concept in mind to not take the obvious best path.

But a good rule of thumb is, if you find yourself doing what the Terrible Trio always accuse BA of doing* (even though he never is)...DON'T.

*Knights of the Dinner Table Reference

What a weirdly random necro.

Quote from: One Horse Town;938039What a weirdly random necro.

Vulmea used his volcanic anger to raise it from the dead.:-)

(I think my favorite aspect of the reactions is, "The player is a munchkin, but it's YOUR fault for enabling him. Bad GM! BAD!" I assume these sort of comments from from those godlike GMs who never, ever, ever have to deal with the unexpected screw-up.)

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818490I see the merit to this argument, of course.  My concern at the time was that killing him and having to take up precious game time to have him roll up another character (he was TERRIBLE at coming up with a concept, and could not be trusted to roll up a character honestly on his own) would have dragged everyone else's good time down even further than his low level of play did.  I saw my overarching goal as ensuring everyone had fun to the extent possible.  But considering how much the combat oriented tank and idiot bitched at every puzzle or role playing opportunity, while the two role players enjoyed every opportunity to do everything, eventually it became more about seeing that the two role players and I had a good time.   But the aforementioned stall in the flow would have infringed on that.  Tank and idiot having fun was incidental after awhile.

I'm sympathetic to your reasons, but if you let those kinds of things prevent you from enforcing concequences, then the players have you by the balls.

Quoteand could not be trusted to roll up a character honestly on his own

This is why I sometimes like stat arrays, especially in large groups of players, and online games. The temptation to cheat can hit even otherwise trustable players from time to time.
A stat array, point buy, or any system without randomizers, helps tremendously with this. (And removes the quirkiness of random stats, which can be a downside.)

*Edit* I fell for a necro. Braaaainssss!

Quote from: cranebump;938046(I think my favorite aspect of the reactions is, "The player is a munchkin, but it's YOUR fault for enabling him. Bad GM! BAD!" I assume these sort of comments from from those godlike GMs who never, ever, ever have to deal with the unexpected screw-up.)

In my last Traveller campaign I had a twentysomething who did not understand that actions have consequences. The PCs had run across a Highleaf smuggling operation and this guy had kept a sample of this OTU incredibly addictive substance. Their ship was boarded by Imperial Navy doing a customs inspection while they entered system from jump exit. Instead of getting rid of the sample by ejecting it from the ship, he announces, "Guys, I know this is stupid but it will be hilarious!" His character then proceeds to take the sample and insert it in his ass. Marines in Battle Dress detect traces of the Highleaf during the customs inspection that lead them to this PCs ass and the whole crew is taken to the brig with the ship impounded.

Following a couple of failed rolls on twentysomething's part, the Highleaf begins to seep into his system directly through his character's intestines. His PC is now having a drug trip while a Navy doctor tries to remove what remains of the Highleaf from his PCs intestines. The entire party was questioned by Navy and Marine officers until they learned everything. Meanwhile, the twentysomething's character is now addicted to Highleaf because of his antics and another failed die roll.

Using up a hard earned favor from a noble, the party got out of the brig and their ship out of impound. However, they now had to work off a debt for that by working as an autonomous command under Imperial Navy supervision with a Knighted Marine representative onboard to make sure that no problems occurred while working for the Imperium. Twentysomething's character had to deal with Highleaf withdrawl which was debilitating for the character when it hit. Hampered their adventuring, that all did.

Now, that was an unexpected screw up. It all was a chain reaction from a single stupid player decision.

Somebody please PM IggytheBorg so we can hear about how his campaign is going a year later.

That's the only real value of the necro.

Quote from: cranebump;938046(I think my favorite aspect of the reactions is, "The player is a munchkin, but it's YOUR fault for enabling him. Bad GM! BAD!" I assume these sort of comments from from those godlike GMs who never, ever, ever have to deal with the unexpected screw-up.)

I don't run Godlike, but I am a God, so I'll bite.

We hallowed Gods of GMing (a subdomain of the Metal Gods) do deal with LOTS of unexpected screw-ups.

But that's the point. We deal with them.

In traditional RPGs, the buck always stops at the DM screen, next to the pizza slice and cheeto bowl. A GM who allows a shitburglar to disrupt his game does a disservice to the rest of the table who are there to have fun during their valuable free time, not bask in the glow of the shitburglar.

I made my own share of mistakes by tolerating a pair of super passive aggressive players that just dragged the game down for everyone for more than a year instead of just kicking their asses out. When they finally both left, it was like a new Golden Age in the game, everybody was enthusiastic and energetic about playing again. It made me realize I waited too long.

I agree with most of what most people wrote as suggestions in this thread, which I see is old but was new to me.

Especially the consequences part. Seems to me that usually when there is a "problem" in a game, it is something that rational consequences would solve. And any time the GM is trying to prevent PCs from getting killed, maimed, or even hurt  (as this GM said), that undermines consequences and invites such problems (and also makes the game far less interesting IMO). Conventions, expectations and forced balance also undermine consequences and invite problems. Any trying to artificially and immediately prevent or punish the use of powers, abilities, and magic stuff is adding irrational consequences that also undermines natural consequences and tends (IMO) to spoil all sorts of things.

Of course, if the GM is inexperienced enough that they give out a +5 sword and have no idea what to do about that, and think that something like a Ranger wearing Plate Mail is an awful thing the GM should intervene to stop... they probably also have no idea what sorts of natural consequences would make sense. These sorts of situations though can be great ways to learn.

Quote from: Spinachcat;938059Somebody please PM IggytheBorg so we can hear about how his campaign is going a year later.

That's the only real value of the necro.




I don't run Godlike, but I am a God, so I'll bite.

We hallowed Gods of GMing (a subdomain of the Metal Gods) do deal with LOTS of unexpected screw-ups.

But that's the point. We deal with them.

In traditional RPGs, the buck always stops at the DM screen, next to the pizza slice and cheeto bowl. A GM who allows a shitburglar to disrupt his game does a disservice to the rest of the table who are there to have fun during their valuable free time, not bask in the glow of the shitburglar.

I'll grant that, but I also think it's a fair expectation that the shitburglar isn't fully absolved from his "shitburgliness.":-) It's a group activity, after all.

Quote from: cranebump;938046

Quote from: One Horse Town;938039What a weirdly random necro.

Vulmea used his volcanic anger to raise it from the dead.

:cool:

It's an interesting thread, in part because Iggs [strike]stuck his head so far up his colon[/strike] made a number of decisions which bit him in the ass: catering to a problem player, trying to solve an out-of-game problem in-game, coddling his players and their characters, and a pretty profound failure to understand the rules which created the immediate conflict.

But if it wasn't the +5 Defender, it would been something else, as it sounds like this was a doomed combination of shit-ass player and piss-poor refereeing.