Player management advice needed

And if they tried something like that, then I'd probably give them a chance. But you should never let there be a roll of the dice unless there are varying possible outcomes, and when the plan of action suggested is 100% fail outcome rate, there should be no roll, same as if there action has an 100% outcome rate.

It's just the flip side of not making them roll to walk across the room, or remember to keep breathing, or taking a dump without shitting their underwear, or anything else they can presumably do without any risk of failure.

Also, I'm really not sure it's a GM's place to suggest plans of action to players. Point out things or facts they might have overlooked, sure, but to tell them htat

>No, your idea is retarded and would never work, but this might do the trick

cuts into player agency too much.

Oh, to be sure, I could have presented them with options, but quite honestly, no matter what they did, the idea of them impersonating a deity's group of avatars was absurd, and well, impossible. Why is leaving the option open better? Why is the game superior if there's some million to one longshot in the plan succeeding when there "shouldn't" be? Again, what's the difference from doing things the other way around? If you were playing a game, and you were told by the GM you all died, because his tables showed that there was a million to one chance of a meteor crashing into their inn as they slept and killed them all instantly, I bet you'd be howling, and rightly so.

>Well, yes, but what do you do to soothe the ruffled feathers afterwards?
Not much you can do aside from distract them. They'll either forget and forgive or hold a grudge over their silliness forever.

Suggesting courses of action is perfectly reasonable behavior for a GM to augment player agency. When the GM offers advice as to how a plan could potentially work, he turns an idea that the players otherwise would have given up on due to not knowing how to implement it into something that the players might actually attempt. It's not railroading either, as the players don't have to follow the GM's suggestion; they're free to accept, reject, or modify it as they see fit. All you're doing is putting everyone on the same page, which is never a bad thing when it comes to collaborative storytelling.

I prefer the "Yes, And" rule. So like, yes you can try bluffing. If they get a nat 20 they succeed, and! Avatars of the troglodyte God's must prove themselves in combat!

>, he turns an idea that the players otherwise would have given up on due to not knowing how to implement it into something that the players might actually attempt.

And I'm far from convinced that's a good thing. If the players can't come up with an idea to make something work, maybe they shouldn't be attempting it.

I mean, say, just as a simple hypothetical, the players want to get the bag of treasure guarded by the giant, but they don't think they can sneak past, trick, or beat the giant in a fight. The GM suggests a combat strategy that actually gives them the edge, but it's something the PCs hadn't' thought of and weren't likely to think of. Armed with this new information, they go for the gold, fight the giant, and win. Personally, I think that's a gross overstepping of the GM's bounds.

>It's not railroading either, as the players don't have to follow the GM's suggestion; they're free to accept, reject, or modify it as they see fit.

It's providing them ideas which they otherwise wouldn't have had. The players, as part of a game, have a responsibility to themselves/their characters to come up with the best plans of action they can, and to prosper or fail by them. The GM suggesting what they should do, or ironing out the bugs in a plan, is playing at least part of the game for them.

So now you've given them a 1 in 20 chance to prove themselves in a trial by combat.

Why? What have you added to this by saying that the player's actions, no matter how absurd, always have a chance of succeeding. Where do you draw the line?

> you shouldn't put your foot down as a GM and say "no, you can't do this successfully", but when you do, how do you go about doing so to as minimize bad feeling?
Never say no. Let players have their agency. Let them do obviously stupid things and then fail. What you should focus on in a case such as in your example is not how they can succeed and never how to make them not try... Rather, you should focus on the reactions of the trogs and map the coming combat and the chances of the PCs to escape.

That doesn't give them agency, that gives them the illusion of agency and then punishing them. Now you've got the same thing, except they're rolling despite the fact that no matter what they roll they'll fail (and you'll get probably even worse butthurt if they roll really well and you reveal then that no roll would have been good enough) and you've set them up into a fight that they might or might not have gotten into otherwise.

The players rely on the GM to describe things, and that's more than just what things look and sound like. Supplying information that their characters should know, like the relative values of items they're familiar with, what is and isn't an acceptable action for political figures they're familiar with, or in this case, what the troglodyte priests are willing to swallow, comes with the territory.

>I realize that generally, you shouldn't put your foot down as a GM and say "no, you can't do this successfully"
Correct assumption. Do not repeat the above again.

>when you do, how do you go about doing so to as minimize bad feeling?
Keep asking them "are you sure about that?" in increasingly alarming tone and wording while shooting daggers with your eyes at them. The hint shall be taken.

>Keep asking them "are you sure about that?" in increasingly alarming tone and wording while shooting daggers with your eyes at them. The hint shall be taken.

And if the hint isn't taken? Or the players feel like they're in the mood for DM chicken tonight? Or they think you're trying to psych them out?

>Correct assumption. Do not repeat the above again.

So that means, by your logic, that the players deserve a chance at doing anything, no matter how improbable, by being sufficiently stubborn and oblivious.

>So that means, by your logic, that the players deserve a chance at doing anything, no matter how improbable, by being sufficiently stubborn and oblivious.
Define "deserve a chance at doing anything."

If you mean it as "they should have a chance to succeed in anything they try doing" then no. That is absolutely retarded. And if you thought I said that, you are a fucking idiot.
If you mean it as they should try doing whatever they please and then face the inevitable consequences, then yes. In this case you should have gone "don't roll anything, they roar at your insult to the devine and attack you."

>And if the hint isn't taken?
Then you're fucked. If you want minimised bitterness, you'll have to go with that. If you want to avert the players doing retarded shit, sometimes you have to accept they'll get grumpy once you tell them to stop being a bunch of glue huffing brainfarters.

>If you mean it as they should try doing whatever they please and then face the inevitable consequences, then yes. In this case you should have gone "don't roll anything, they roar at your insult to the devine and attack you."

Cannot be reconciled with the statements in post that you shouldn't repeat "the above" and tell players that no, they cannot perform the action successfully, and just keep asking if they're sure they want to do X until they get the hint that it's a bad idea.

>And if you thought I said that, you are a fucking idiot.

How am I a fucking idiot when that is in fact exactly what you said and would be the obvious interpretation of what you meant?

Well its obvious you're an idiot then.

>Why? What have you added to this by saying that the player's actions, no matter how absurd, always have a chance of succeeding. Where do you draw the line?
The players have NOT succeeded in getting into the temple. Their actions have changed the scenario from "get past all these guards" to "succeed flawlessly in trial of combat".

Flapping your arms hard enough to try to fly might give a nice effect of the wind moving around you but not get you off the ground. That might startle the attacking Orcs into thinking you're casting a wind spell.

Willing the landslide boulders to go away with your mind may not make latent psyker powers activate but a natural twenty might allow you to ignore some of the damage they do.

This method of dealing with players:
1: lets them feel better about rolling high so their stupid action isn't entirely wasted
2: is still suboptimal compared to doing most other things and they also wasted their turn
3: makes players less annoyed at you since it did *something*.

It's perfectly fine to throw a sop to the players AND MORE IMPORTANTLY move the scenario on into a different problem you need to solve. The guards simply ignoring the players bluff is boring if they don't react - have the bluff change the scenario! It doesn't have to succeed to do that!

They're upset because you didn't let them attempt it. Let them try as much as possible if they want, just don't let it succeed in this case. Sometimes, people just need to be stupid. Punish accordingly.

The simple solution, then, would be to not play the game for them, which wasn't even what I was talking about. When I say "suggest a course of action," I'm talking about telling players a possible way that a plan they thought of could work. Say, for instance, the players decided they wanted to talk the giant out of his treasure. Of course, you inform them that it is very unlikely that the giant will simply give his treasure away. If this seems to stump the players, you might also offer that their characters know that giants are typically pretty stupid so it could perhaps be convinced to accept an inopportune trade. The players might then try to convince the giant that the ranger's dagger is worth more than the giant's treasure, a creative player might even try to convince the giant that the treasure is cursed so as to walk away with maximum profit, or they might decide that's a stupid plan and try something else. In any case, you've at least got a standstill point in the game that much closer to moving forward. To that end, even suggesting plans wholesale isn't necessarily a bad thing. Like, if the players really had absolutely no idea how to get past the giant, it wouldn't be the worst thing to at least put the fight, sneak, and talk options on the table.

My main point, I guess, is that interesting ideas shouldn't be prevented from being explored simply because the players aren't as smart or knowledgeable as the characters they are playing as.

>I doubt any amount of magical legerdemain would be enough to let them pass themselves off as avatars.
>they are not even glowing giant powerfull looking dudes.

This looks like a job for FUCK YEAH JASON STACKHOUSE.

youtube.com/watch?v=gPPqh84A-i4

>"Bullshit! God has horns."

>The players have NOT succeeded in getting into the temple. Their actions have changed the scenario from "get past all these guards" to "succeed flawlessly in trial of combat".

Which is still not the situation they were in beforehand, and can even be considered progress of a sort, depending on how tough this trial by combat is as opposed to other methods of entry.

And if this method of entry isn't actually any good, if their situation is just as shitty as it was before, you've just dicked around for a bit because you can't justify having them fail on a "good" roll, and you can't just say that they shouldn't have rolled at all.

>It's perfectly fine to throw a sop to the players AND MORE IMPORTANTLY move the scenario on into a different problem you need to solve. The guards simply ignoring the players bluff is boring if they don't react - have the bluff change the scenario! It doesn't have to succeed to do that!

To be honest, the guards wouldn't have just ignored them, they'd probably have attacked for their blasphemy. I was issuing the warning primarily because I don't think the players quite grasped how improbable their idea was. I'd do something similar if they forgot about or I forgot to mention some physical feature in their path, and they made some absurd plan around that. But part and parcel in such a warning is "no, your plan is fatally flawed and can never work". If I wasn't clear about that, I apologize.

>My main point, I guess, is that interesting ideas shouldn't be prevented from being explored simply because the players aren't as smart or knowledgeable as the characters they are playing as.

But at least to me, there's a fundamental difference in reminding your players about stuff that their characters should know and might have forgotten to factor into their plans, and actually helping them plan. The former is something the GM should be doing continually, sice he's the route that the players have to go through to access the game setting.

So for instance, concerning your counterhypothetical about offering the giant a very bad trade on the assumption that they're really dumb; that hinges on whether or not the characters should know that the giant is really dumb. If it is, then you're just helping them along with something that they should know how to do. If it isn't, you're adopting a player role.

What's that from?

You shouldn't have told them they'd fail. You should have let them roll and fail.

>To be honest, the guards wouldn't have just ignored them, they'd probably have attacked for their blasphemy.
So what the roll did is get less guards attacking them.
Or if you want, all the guards attack as how they would have normally but a good intimidate after two or three are down would be much more effective.

Progress is generally good for the story, though it can be bad for the players. Is it particularly bad to have stupid things have minor positive effects if it was going to land them in the same stupid situation (guards attacking) anyway?

>you've just dicked around for a bit because you can't justify having them fail on a "good" roll, and you can't just say that they shouldn't have rolled at all.

The guards will obviously have some sort of thing to assist in entering the temple. Unless the players deliberately manage to screw over all the methods of getting inside then they have a chance and one thing can lead to another. If they fuck up entering the temple before the ritual happens then skip to the consequences of them having to deal with those ritual aftereffects. If they're not dead, they can deal with the next thing.

This is pretty easy GMing tips. Change the situatuon as a result of player actions. If the player actions can't actually work, see what might happen because of them.

Sounds like you shouldn't be allowed to GM. Saying no is basically just railroading.

So, first I'd like to say that it's a good thing you stuck to your guns and didn't let the players do something completely ridiculous.

You may have failed to communicate that the reason it wouldn't work is because it didn't make sense in universe, and instead they assume that you're railroading them because they think they've found a 'clever' solution.

If not, then your players are just being a bunch of assholes.

The best thing to do is talk about it before the next session, explaining in no uncertain terms your point of view even if it contains spoilers for the rest of the adventure. If it seems that your players still don't get it - or just don't care and are mad because you didn't buckle to their dumb plans, then you're fucked. All you can do is tread on careful waters for the next few sessions until your players ..just....let it go.

My least favored DM type as a player, it encourages and rewards problem players, and alters the game world beyond immersion.

you should have said it was a terrible terrible idea but still let them do it.

with a good persuasion roll they could have partially suceeded in having at the very least the guards be persuaded and wanting to alert the high priests to talk with them, even with he would have been suspicious.
or at the very least the guard laughing his ass off would have had a penalty on initiative roll.

No is no. You did right. People whining here about railroading are trolling or havn't been railroaded before so they don't know what they are whining about.

To minimize bad feeling... You did the right thing there. Sometimes things lead to bad feelings. It happens. Such is life. But at least they know now that in the setting they have to invent another way to get in. Not every opponent is stupid or crazy or illogical. People do get over that slight bad feeling in time. If not. They have other problems in life or they just arn't mature enough. Just keep playing. It will sort itself out.

>I agreed with but told them that sure they can try, but they're going to fail no matter how well they bluff, so they may as well not bother.
This was the correct call if, and only if, their character would have known the plan had a zero chance of success.
If the characters have no knowledge of the trog religion and want to pull off a Great White Brother routine with no way of knowing that their god's avatars are always ten foot tall glowing reptiles, then you let them roll.

If the characters know their plan is stupid, but wanna play divine dress-up anyway, telling them it has 0 chance of working is what you do.
>But at least to me, there's a fundamental difference in reminding your players about stuff that their characters should know and might have forgotten to factor into their plans, and actually helping them plan.
Glad someone got around to saying it.
The characters are in the middle of it and would know it has zero chance of working, whereas the players are removed enough to think that anything is possible.

>But you should never let there be a roll of the dice unless there are varying possible outcomes, and when the plan of action suggested is 100% fail outcome rate, there should be no roll, same as if there action has an 100% outcome rate.
To this user, and any others that said similar points, you are absolutely correct. Generally.
But there are going to be times when the players have no way of knowing that they have no chance of success.
In these cases, rolling pointlessly is just good GMing.

>Even then make it a one in a million chance so you know it isn't really going to succeed but it will stop players from bitching.
I think I get what you're saying, but sometimes a player is going to ask the impossible.
You can give them a tiny, tiny chance of summoning the God of Chaos to perform a miracle for the luls if it's that kind of setting, otherwise, no.

>Even then make it a one in a million chance so you know it isn't really going to succeed but it will stop players from bitching.
I think I get what you're saying, but sometimes a player will want to do the impossible and unless the setting can handle a one in a million chance that the God of Chaos will show up to perform a miracle for the luls, the answer is going to be no.

>I prefer the "Yes, And" rule. So like, yes you can try bluffing. If they get a nat 20 they succeed, and! Avatars of the troglodyte God's must prove themselves in combat!
5% chance of the impossible, for fun!
You are terrible.
pic related

>or at the very least the guard laughing his ass off would have had a penalty on initiative roll.
Now this I like.
Would this be "success at failing forwards"?

I've done something similar with high social rolls that shouldn't work.
>I don't recognize the face.
>Well, that's because you haven't seen me putt my driver and make holes. *rolls high on social skill*
>Sorry?
>Yeah, just golf talk.Or a golf joke, if it doesn't seem right.*rolls high again*
>Hehe That's good stuff.

Dont ever say no. Instead say 'roll' and if they DO get a 20? Then you let them go inside.

Then EVERY action they do? You roll. Not for anything to happen but you make it obvious that they aren't getting away with what they are doing.

Worst case? They get a 20 but it backfires and they end up in the sacrificial chamber because the trogs actually believe that by sacrificing an avatar of their god they would gain massive favour due to proving themselves superior to a godly being. Make the god have a facet of humour for THAT specific outcome.

>Dont ever say no.
Worst advice ever. You are taking the tone and style of the game to the backyard and putting it out of its misery old yeller style.

>actions have consequences
>this removes agency

What?

>"Don't ever say no"
Are you a customer service professional? I thought you were a GM.

Because agency is more than just do action X, get results from a set of A-D. Players rely upon the GM for their information that they use to make decisions. If the GM gives them bad data, and they make bad plans based on that bad data, yes, the GM has interfered with their agency.

In this case, telling the player to roll for something indicates that yes, you have a chance to make this work. If they in fact do not have a chance, no matter how well they roll, they shouldn't be rolling. Telling them to roll, and thus that they have a miniscule chance of success when there is in fact none, gives them bad data and thus interferes with their agency.

What if their character would have no way of knowing?

If the character has no way of knowing, they don't get a warning, but I wouoldn't ask for a roll, I would just tell them IC about their failure and whatever consequences, and OOC how whatever it was they did had 0 chance of success.

So you give the player knowledge that shouldn't have out of adherence to some arbitrary rule.
Not how I would run it.

Here is how I would have ran it.
>they approach
>they claim they are avatars to the trogg God.
>roll bluff
>if succeeded guards will not attack immediately
>trogg guards send sentry to priest to confirm
>trogg guards question appearance of avatars
>roll depending on how they explain themselves. I'd as a player go the intimidating route at this point
>If successful high priest shows up and questions validity of party
>knowledge religion rolls
>if botched persuasion or intimidate again
>on success they enter the settlement but under armed guard and taken to the temple
>failure during any of this will incur combat

Honestly it's a bold move but taking the persuade route is a toss up since you blow the element of surprise and failure means open combat.

No, its the way that is the most fun. Not doing it is just railroading them into the one thing you WANT them to do.

>Well, we need to get into that tower up there
>I know, I'll flap my arms really hard and fly in through the window.
>You can't do that, that'll never work.
>RAILROADING SHIT GM!

Telling the players that something which has 0 chance of success has zero chance of success and not letting them do so, no matter how well they roll, isn't railroading you imbecile.

You can say no to some player ideas while still saying yes to others, user. GM is supposed to use their good judgement if an action is even possible in the first place.

>Not doing it is just railroading them into the one thing you WANT them to do.

Oh boy, I didn't miss you.
No, it's not railroading. Railroading is putting the players in the path you want them to take. Telling them that they can't invent machineguns in a fantasy setting isn't.

You are giving terrible GMing advice all thread. "Yes, and" is the worst logic to use as a GM. It destroys the mood of any game and rewards patheticly retarded behavior, not to mention it cheapens any victory. You come in my games, I ain't letting you get away with whatever your cokehead brain cooks up. You either work within the confines of the universe or you fuck right off.

And if it is that much of a badwrong GM thing to not allow you to somersault from wizard to wizard and take a dump on their heads ecks dee, I would like to recommend you growing up.

Or getting players that aren't little whinny bitches.

>Samefagging this hard.

You're just moving the goalpost by switching character knowledge with player knowledge. Not every player is incapable of playing along.

First, it's not moving the goalposts if only one of you is playing football.

Second, I only meant that providing the player with information they don't need and could only metagame with is not something that I would do, were I running the game.
I don't give the player the monster stats unless there's an IC reason they would know.

I think I've learned enough from playing and GMing alike to know a plan can be really fun, but compromise is possible.

I would actually be joking and brainstorming with them, sometimes, if I'm running the campaign. In this case, maybe instead of "the avatar", they could emulate a different figure, discoverable via a roll.
What I mean is, I'd like to support their general "approach" as best I can, unless the roll says they can't figure out the details for that particular method.

This is stupid in many respects. The knowledge gap when it comes to setting is already a miles wide chasm between character and player, in the character's favor.

If one of them has the ranks in "Knowledge: Gog" to know who the troglodytes worship, telling the players is only giving them what they're entitled to. There's no realism in absolutely ignorant PCs.

This seems like a perfect teaching opportunity.
Instead of saying (as a GM) no or yes, let them attempt to execute their plan.
Different settings vary a lot in the amount of suspension of disbelief, and GMs vary too.

I would have let them attempt it, and encounter skeptical and absolutely unreceptive temple-guards, that could have chased them off, or possibly died horribly, but not before alerting their friends (who can be heard coming towards you).
This would have told them ( IN CHARACTER ) That their plan was fucking retarded, and also possibly would have developed the plot.

Don't forget that (even though this whole magical world is just coming out of your ass) the experience of the players will change, based on whether YOU tell them no, or an NPC tells them no.

Well, it comes down to whether or not the PCs have the knowledge or not.

>This would have told them ( IN CHARACTER ) That their plan was fucking retarded, and also possibly would have developed the plot.

The players are dependent on the GM for the totality of their knowledge of the game world. If their characters should know, and in this case did know, that this has no chance in hell of ever working, the GM should tell them, rather than just yanking their chains and hitting them with the likely consequences of failure.