Sup. A GM asking a question here. Alternatively, this is a general GM help--thread

Sup. A GM asking a question here. Alternatively, this is a general GM help--thread.

Anyway, I've got two small, but annoying problems.

The first is, my players want sidestep encounters as much as possible.

My players do this often enough that it's becoming very annoying. This is the type of stuff they'd do:

>> Bugbears are mulling around near a small cave. They can use their stealth to try and sneak around, or fight them head on. Players want to take a third option and just walk around it.
>> Players are in a city. They need to talk to someone. That someone wants them to do a small quest for their information or item. PCs try the Diplomatic approach to convince, then just resort to outright physical intimidation, up to and including murder.
>> Players are in a dungeon. Instead of going through encounters, they wait for a time when the enemies leave the room, spending in-game hours or even days essentially doing nothing but waiting and occasionally making hide or stealth checks.

There's only so many roadblocks you can put up to stuff like this. Perhaps they need to follow a specific path, and going anywhere but forward will simply not work. Perhaps even though it's in an open area, there's a bunch of rocks blocking the left and right, which is why they had to go to the cave in the first place. Perhaps enemies are always around, and there's no way they can avoid an encounter, so the one presented is the path of least resistance. And for social encounters, perhaps the person simply cannot do something for them unless the PCs finish a quest.

But there are ways around all of these, and my players would certainly be the ones to find it. It's uncanny how hard they work to be lazy. What do?

>my players want sidestep encounters as much as possible.
So play a game where sidestepping encounters is a good thing.

You didn't post your second problem.

>spending in-game hours or even days essentially doing nothing but waiting and occasionally making hide or stealth checks.
How are they getting food and water, and disposing of their waste products

If the answer is "magic", then why are you expecting people who can use magic to walk from room to room like a common fighter

tl;dr actions have consequences, and inaction is an action of its own

The second problem is my players insisting their characters would automatically do stuff without their saying so.

For example, they say they drink from a well, I tell them the well water was not very clean sometime afterward, making them sick. They call bullshit by saying their characters would never drink dirty water, because that's just common sense. Nevermind their is nothing on their character sheet to indicate they would automatically do that. The water wasn't obviously, visually different from any other type of well water, and without any survival skills they'd have no other way of knowing. But they claim a seasoned adventurer would never make such a stupid mistake, and that it only happened because I forced them to do something stupid.

Of course, they only ever bitch about this stuff after something bad happens. And I get it, something bad happened that they didn't really have control over, so they're mad. At the same time, I'm not going to always assume their characters are some paragons of rationality who always do the most rational and intelligent thing in every given scenario, especially if their character sheets don't indicate that.

Lastly, you're on a difficult adventure. Bad things are supposed to happen to your characters. How am I supposed to know every little thing you think your characters would automatically do? Hindsight is 20/20.

So yeah, rant over. If any other GMs got problems or rants, do post.

Apologies, it needed to be in a second post.

But what sort of game actually rewards that? That seems absurd.

the drinking from the well thing is retarded. If something is out of the norm, you tell them it is out of the norm because they don't have any reason to assume that it isn't.
They had no reason to think the water was dirty so they acted as if it wasn't. Something as obvious as "the water is dirty" would be immediately noticeable and you should've mentioned it before they drank.
You fucking idiot.


I'm not saying you should tell them "the water is going to make you sick if you drink it because it's dirty"
but you SHOULD tell them "the water looks kinda dirty"

>They call bullshit by saying their characters would never drink dirty water, because that's just common sense
the response to that is "I have no way of knowing if you're characters' have common sense, if you don't tell me you sanitized the water before drinking I HAVE to assume that you didn't." They will eventually learn.

hell anytime a player says something to the affect of "can we assume my character isn't an idiot." when they get upset that their recklessness led to bad consequences, the GM's answer should always be to the effect of "I don't know if your character's an idiot or not so I can assume nothing"

i actually do agree with the players here. they shouldn't have to go through the motions of explaining every single thing they do, for fear of unfortunate consequences arising from something they forgot to mention. making sure water found in the wild is clean is something that seasoned adventurers would do unless they were in a hurry or something

it sounds like you're just putting the conflicts "in the way" of the pc's. what do they want to accomplish? what are their characters' goals? make these conflicts essential to accomplishing these goals.

Have you tried talking to players first? Remind them that they are heroes, they are supposed to slay things.

Every game where combat is a failure state.
Meaning most OSR stuff and The Dark Eye for starters.

Granted, this does not address the "interacting with NPCs" part, but it's a start.

Bad things should always make other things more interesting.
Getting sick from water that they had no way of knowing was dirty is just shit GMing. No matter whether you think it adds "verisimilitude" or whatever term you prefer, this is just dicking the players over for no reason.

As for automatic actions, if they claim their characters would obviously do something, let them retroactively declare that and add that to their character sheets so you can hold them to it later.

It's still annoying to prepare encounters just to have the players spend their time avoiding them completely.

Get better players.

How they make sure that water is clean though? There should be at least some token effort by the players to show the actions of their characters.

> Players are in a city. They need to talk to someone. That someone wants them to do a small quest for their information or item. PCs try the Diplomatic approach to convince, then just resort to outright physical intimidation, up to and including murder.

The difference between killing the NPC questgiver and killing the person he wants dead is that you save time and get to the action. Since you wish to send your players all over creation for frivolous reasons instead of real adventure, I have to think that you hate your players, and maybe that's why they avoid your encounters.

>There's only so many roadblocks you can put up to stuff like this.
That's a terrible idea. Change your design.

boiling water. it's basic survival skills. shouldn't be something they'd even make a survival check for.

>Players want to take a third option and just walk around it.
Then clearly they don't care enough to bother with whatever the bugbears are doing/protecting. If you're talking about meeting some random monsters on the road, why should they risk injury to fight them? Just to make an action scene?
>PCs try the Diplomatic approach to convince, then just resort to outright physical intimidation, up to and including murder.
Go ahead and let them kill the informant and lose any hope of accomplishing their goal. Actions have consequences. If they can bribe or intimidate their way to getting what they want--well, perhaps it's ok to reward them for a creative solution... and if they rough up the informant, perhaps he'll give them misleading information that could get them killed.
>spending in-game hours or even days essentially doing nothing
In a dungeon? Why haven't they run out of light? or water? or been attacked by some other wandering monster that can smell flesh?

1. Make things time sensitive. If they dilly dally for too long trying to avoid everything, they either make things harder on themselves or fail entirely. They need to find the magic mushroom before sunset or the king dies. Bandits have stolen a crap-ton of money and will disappear if they don't chase them right goddamn now. The evil wizard completes his ritual at midnight and summons demons to ravage the countryside.

2. Have the encounters happen to them. Can't remember where I read it, but there's an old piece of screenwriting advice that goes "When it doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand." The crazier shit the better, because the players will want to know what the fuck it was all about. Assassins burst into their room during the night. Orcs ambush their campsite. A dragon swoops down and demands tribute for entering its territory.

>Getting sick from water that they had no way of knowing was dirty is just shit GMing.
well we don't know that. the GM may have described it in a way that, even if the water itself was not obviously contaminated, the source would've been questionable.

>No matter whether you think it adds "verisimilitude" or whatever term you prefer,
It could be used to add a complication to future encounters, so now instead of just fighting off a bunch of angry goblins, now they have to fight off those goblins while suffering the effects of illness.

and adding verisimilitude isn't a bad thing either, it adds to immersion. though admittedly the especially crappy situations I don't make a requirement to advancing the story (for example the villain will never hide in a sewer but if the players insist on going through the sewer anyway to get somewhere I don't feel bad about making their PC's sick and ruining their gear, because they honestly didn't have to go through there to advance the story)

Then that's what the players should mention doing, instead of just assuming their characters do it automatically, especially if none of them has any ranks in survival skills.

Fair point.

It only seems absurd because so many RPGs only allow advancement through "grinding mobs". Which, if you think about, is pretty silly, both in terms of real world logic and game incentives. How does a wizard learn new spells by killing goblins? Should a hero really be motivated by nothing more than slaughtering ever more dangerous creatures, regardless of whether they're even causing a problem? To the point that even treasure is a secondary concern?

Kinda sounds like your players are doing that rarest of things in the RPG world... thinking like the character.

>Bugbears are mulling around near a small cave. They can use their stealth to try and sneak around, or fight them head on. Players want to take a third option and just walk around it.

Do they have any compelling reason to enter the cave? No? Then why risk life and limb fighting monsters, when they could just avoid the situation entirely? Any half-decent tactician will tell you that comitting oneself to battle is a serious gamble, no matter how much the odds are stacked in one's favour. Choosing not to make that gamble when the option arises is an entirely reasonable response.

>Players are in a city. They need to talk to someone. That someone wants them to do a small quest for their information or item. PCs try the Diplomatic approach to convince, then just resort to outright physical intimidation, up to and including murder.

This isn't "avoiding an encounter". This is "finding an alternative solution to the problem". If you can't roll with your players finding novel ways around your roadblocks, you're a bad GM.

That said, if their response to a person who won't share vital information freely is to murder them, then they are idiots, and deserve to suffer the consequences of their stupidity.

>Players are in a dungeon. Instead of going through encounters, they wait for a time when the enemies leave the room, spending in-game hours or even days essentially doing nothing but waiting and occasionally making hide or stealth checks.

This is both previous responses combined. Choosing to avoid combat as much as possible is a completely reasonable decision. And they're not avoiding encounters - they're overcoming them, arguably by going to even greater lengths than if they just fought the enemies outright.

Although, again, the PCs spending entire days hiding in the same spot without being discovered is absurd. You really should have thrown some difficulties in there - need to eat, sleep, defecate, etc.

Well, I think that there's no actual point in making everything as simulationist as possible unless you all agree It's exactly that kind of a game.

Bad things should happen, but don't forget that this is still a game. Let them play by giving them the means to. Don't try to outsmart them at every little thing.
Adding bad water is a fun move but you should give them some hint. Dirt, bad smell or you word that something's not right. They can still fail their roll but this whole thing gave them a new reason to roll something outside of combat, broke the narration into action and provided some opportunity for roleplaying

this is medieval fantasy, yeah? boiling water is *basic knowledge* and wouldn't require any kind of survival rank. and as for mentioning them doing *basic tasks*, do you have them explain every basic task they do? sharpening their sword after every encounter? pissing every couple hours?

again, unless they were in some kind of hurry, or they described them dipping their hands in the well and drinking directly, it's assumed they have the basic survival knowledge to boil the water. if they DID just dip their hands into the well, it might have been wise on YOUR part as the DM to explain that this water kinda looks like shit.

Moreover, by doing things in that way, you're teaching them paranoia and force them to focus on things that don't really deserve much focus.

Consider this:
This can quickly lead to players meticulously describing andy detail possible: the way they are putting the utensils, how well they are barricading the windows whenever they are at the inn, the speed they are opening shit with.
And you will find something to fuck them over anyway, and that will make them frustrated.

There's also a chance that you will only add more troubles to your side. I mean, If you want them to be that detailed, you'll also have to be as detailed as possible with every little thing, and that's draining as fuck and for longer periods of time, straight impossible

>boiling water is *basic knowledge* and wouldn't require any kind of survival rank.
well, technically no. it wasn't.
In medieval times the average person knew that drinking water from nearby sources makes you sick, but they didn't know why. This is where that old wives tale that "standing out in the rain would make you catch a cold" came from, they thought the water itself was making people sick and wouldn't dare to drink it. most people drank ale and other kinds of alcohol instead, never realizing that boiling the water as part of the brewing process was purifying it.

So play a system where you can put together encounters on the fly or have a couple of generic encounters ready to adapt into whatever situation the PCs get themselves into.
It's not rocket science.

>the GM may have described it in a way that, even if the water itself was not obviously contaminated, the source would've been questionable.
If he had, he would be the first one to tell us.
He instead drew attention to the PCs having no way to tell whether the water was tainted.

...

i can accept this.
though i don't think "average person knew drinking water from nearby sources makes you sick" doesn't help OP's case much

If a character has enough survival skill or some sort of sensitivity to smell or such he should be given a chance to roll to check if the water is contaminated. If none of them have any of that, they really should be penalized and no warning is needed.

OP here. Gonna touch on everything.

>> Players are making rational decisions.

Not against characters acting rationally. It's only annoying because it's becoming increasingly difficult to present challenges and interesting adventures to these guys when they pull the stuff they do. I was hoping someone might have an anecdote of a similar problem so I could learn how to adjust. I'm tempted to just let them loose in a city and let them do what they want.

>> The water.

I GMrolled Perception checks for all of them to notice something out of the ordinary with it. All of them failed, so they didn't see anything. I explained this to them after the fact, and they still complained. It wasn't supposed to be a major thing, they were just trying to find drinking water, and I decided there was an old well in one of the abandoned hamlets nearby, but the water would probably not be good due to years of neglect, and animals going in it.

That said, I agree with some of the stuff you guys said, it was probably a pointless thing to do. I was hoping it would be cool to see how they'd fare in the next encounter while sick, but the detail was unnecessary. And yeah, it does encourage paranoid thinking, which can get annoying.

>> Encounters

When I said encounters, I meant it in a general sense, like any sort of situation that can arise.

>> The days in the dungeon

To clarify, these guys would move from room to room normally, find a hiding spot, and stay put. They'd memorise enemy movements to the best of their ability, and only leave the room when they had the best chance of sneaking out. They had all their gear on them, so eating/drinking wasn't a problem. Defecating wasn't a problem given some of the spots they were hiding in, but I admit I wasn't thinking about that at the time.

Thanks for the posts, y'all. I'm still not sure how to deal with players when they get uppity about their characters automatically knowing something, though. Any more thoughts?

Comment too long. I also realise now that the thing about the water should have been one of the first things I mentioned, but I was mad guis.

I have a guy in a group I play with that likes to do that shit. "I tap every brick on the floor while keeping an eye on both doors with my sword and shield readied, of course.". Whenever he pulls that shit, I just charge ahead, sometimes knowingly into danger. Usually nothing bad happens, but I hate players that want to preempt anything the DM could possibly throw at them by acting uncharacteristically paranoid.

Yeah, I GM enough to be able to guess what the GM is thinking most of the time, so when I'm a player it gets grating to see ForeverPlayers act in rediculous ways like that.

If the GM is determined to screw you, acting super paranoid is just going to make him want to pull one over you all the more.

the goal is to kill shit and get sweet loot, same as every game. idiot.

what's all this preparing? just randomly generate a bunch of monsters and loot in your head, takes a few seconds max

lmao at these faggots. he learns new spells because he hit the XP requirement and leveled up. yes, a hero should be motivated by nothing but loot and murder. get your bedtime story bullshit outta here.

>let them do what they want.

why aren't you already letting them do what they want?

You force them to take action.

More enemies show up. Goblins think it will be funny to blow up the room. An dragon is trying to kill a mouse and starts throwing fire breath everywhere.

Put items on the monsters that are valuable to the players so they have to take risks.

Also

>The room has no places to hide

Best way to facilitate banter between travels? I find myself taking the party from encounter to encounter almost instantly, despite the fact that their characters are crossing vast distances over a long period of time.

The only time they really talk in character is in town. I've tried just stopping narration sometimes after a battle to give the players time to think and plan their next move - but all I really get is silence.

I do my best to describe the environment and surrounding area so they don't just feel like they're in a small section of a video game level, but they seem to lack initiative. I have to usually interject with "...what do you do?" after an awkward pause.

what we do is go to the next place that has monsters to kill ya fuckin storyfag

>PCs try the Diplomatic approach to convince, then just resort to outright physical intimidation, up to and including murder.

Give your quest-givers guards as backup. If they actually decide to kill them, make them the targets of a city-wide manhunt. Spread rumors around the land of some faggot party consisting of elves and a dwarf are going around assassinating people, drill into their heads that going around starting shit with every NPC isn't the best approach.

I need your help guys. I've created a total of three campaigns and only one has been finished. (The first one everyone liked, but we didn't finish it, the second one we completed but hated it, and the third one didn't even last 1 session). And the one campaign had one good player who completely ditched the plot I had, because it didn't pursue his characters interests, and the others followed him like lost puppies. Now I'm in the works of a HUGE campaign which I'm actually working really hard on. I've talked to the "Leader" and he's seen the errors if his ways, but I though it would be better for everyone to have a more relatable campaign. I've told everyone to make a backstory for me to see before I start making the campaign. There is only 3 people playing, with one saying that its going to be a "surprise" and other one claiming that it should be my job to intise them and that it would be wrong to make a ending because it would be boring with only one particular goal to fill. Any suggestion on how to fix this shitstorm?