What's the hardest thing you've ever had to say to a player as a GM?

What's the hardest thing you've ever had to say to a player as a GM?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Seedman#1962.E2.80.931971:_As_detective
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"Look dude I know you're my friend and all but quit acting like a fucking dumbass. We're here to have fun not be idiots."

Kicking a player for something that isn't really their fault.

It's happened a couple of times to me, and it doesn't get any easier. Playing in online groups where one player just doesn't gel with the rest of the party. How they play and what they enjoy just doesn't line up, and they're oblivious enough to not really be able to notice or actively fix it.

I feel bad, because they're not doing anything inherently wrong, it's just wrong in context and often they lack the self awareness to really realise that, which is why they often need to be sat down, talked to and told that the game would probably be better off without them.

Sometimes they hold a grudge, sometimes they don't. I've actually invited some back in future when the group composition and game premise is different in a way that I think suits their playstyle more, and I've had some pretty amazing successes with people who were once problem players. Context is really, really important for things like that.

Kicking a player for spotty attendance even though he was chill, enthusiastic, and played a character others generally got along with.

>No.
Seriously, that's it. Player wanted to do something dumb that was against the RAW, so I told him no. Made me sad because it would have been really fucking cool. Most of my players are good and the cases where we have a shit player I have no issue telling them to fuck off.

>inb4 rule of cool fags
I'll bend the rules for something cool, but I won't break them.

You're the GM. The rules are what you make them. They exist to support you and assist you in running a fun game, not restrict you when ignoring them would create a better experience for everyone involved.

Then again, different philosophies and GMing styles I suppose.

"Ladies, please, one at a time, I'm not a machine."

> "Everyone else has managed to read the rulebook, if you can't, then I'm not going to hold your hand, I have enough on my plate I have to organise to get this game off the ground"

I am not a terribly confrontational person.

"I'm sorry guys my depression has gotten so bad, I can't focus on planning a game or have the energy to handle running one either."

God, that hits close to home. I'm doing better these days, although I still struggle with it some weeks. Hope you're doing better now as well, user. Depression is a total bitch.

"Tomb of Horrors", in that I have a hard time saying "horrors" for some reason and it often comes out as "whores".

Then again, it probably added some much-needed levity to a grim situation.

It gives me a migraine headache

"Since the soft reset did not seem to fix things or make them better, should we consider that, at this point, the best choice for the is to give it a dose of the Old Yeller?"

You didn't say that, you just made an excuse to leave and try to pass the game on to one of the players and never came back you fuck

No, actually, I legitimately did say that. I talked it over with my players and we decided it was for the best, since I wasn't enjoying running it anymore due to a combination of factors; I'm running a new game with the same group in the same timeslot, so it's not like I vanished, either.

My dick.

"...Yes, I suppose you could just take the long way and go around the other side... ...I have nothing else prepared for today. That's it. I guess we're done."

Thus ended my first multiple player game, in which I GM'd for a much more experienced player.

Rewinding the plot for something that made perfect sense IC to do (a character having the opportunity to easily kill the BBEG with a sniper rifle, and taking it, and rolling ridiculously to do so), but which would have derailed the entire plot completely.

Pretty much everyone at the table agreed it would be fucking stupid and anticlimatic storywise if that happened at this moment, and the player said they got ahead of themselves with just rolling it away and everything and that they would kick out a player themselves if they did this to them, so there weren't any hard feelings there.

But, myself, I still feel like the dice told me this should be so, even if it would have made me throw out all of my notes and have to asspull something completely new and probably much stupider.

>No, I can't run the game next semester. I have Senior Design and Hydrology to worry about and those are going to eat all my time.
What I'm not sure is if it was harder to say the first time or the eighth.

Eight players or retaking the same classes eight times?

DM: You stand at the precipice of the Tomb of Whores!

>Bard starts whistling and saunters in

Tell that to your boss you lazy piece of shit.

No no no, telling the players eight separate times.
Though at one point, it certainly felt like I would have to take Hydrology eight times just to understand it.

>the player said they got ahead of themselves with just rolling it away and everything and that they would kick out a player themselves if they did this to them
If the player just saw the opportunity and rolled without checking with the GM in any way, yeah, that's not kosher.
A bit of a rewind after realizing that just going along with it would be disastrous is fine there.
I've fudged when I let someone roll then realizing that mitigating factors meant I shouldn't have allowed or called for the roll in the first place.

>But, myself, I still feel like the dice told me this should be so
I get that feeling.
I would have fiated the damage rules if there was no plausible way to block the shot at the last second (and if taking the shot wouldn't derail every damn thing for the players)
Player take the shot, a small splash of blood and the BBEG goes down, hijinks ensue, hours later he is up, angry, and determined but also gonna sport a sexy new scar.
Five seconds on the internet confirmed an anecdotal account of a 9mm bullet deflecting off a skull from being fired 10 inches away.

"Look, heads do all sorts of crazy things when you shoot 'em." - Agent Seeley Booth

>Wizard has to explain to the bard about homophones, about the sort of people found in tombs, and about necrophilia, immediately regrets the last bit.

Sinking down to your level

A head might do crazy things when zinged by handgun rounds, but when it's a rifle the craziest thing they usually do is just pop.

When real-life BBEGs (for whatever given value of BBE) are killed, power vacuums form. So it depends whether your designated bad guy made up all or most of the threat on his own or if he had any sort of apparatus working beneath him, but if it were me I'd accept it as a consequence of enabling the scenario in the first place and shift gears towards having the players try to deal with the ensuing fallout. Again, this knowing nothing about what your game was like.

It might be a bit cheesy but you can rewrite it that it was a body double that took the bullet. Even have the bbeg announce a week later that he miraclously recovered from his wounds, while the double is in a morgue or shallow grave or something.

>Five seconds on the internet confirmed an anecdotal account of a 9mm bullet deflecting off a skull from being fired 10 inches away.

And if you believe that you'll also believe there's Richard Simmons jr. running around.

I love it. Dino de Laurentis, bravo.

"He left the group because you kept treating his character like shit. And as the one who introduced you two to each other it physically hurts me to hear you talk shit about him behind his back like some kind of high school gossip queen."

>And if you believe that you'll also believe there's Richard Simmons jr. running around.
Meh, I've seen crazier things actually confirmed, like a bullet ricocheting off water in the middle of a lake to hit a driver in a passing car through the gap in the window, into their temple.
Plus I totally saw it happen to that Ukrainian in that one episode of Sopranos.

>A head might do crazy things when zinged by handgun rounds, but when it's a rifle the craziest thing they usually do is just pop.
Fun fact: That quote was a sniper specifically talking about rifle shots and what heads do as they pop.
But your point is valid. A perfectly rolled rifle shot is not the same thing as a glancing pistol shot.
I still would not be surprised if a glancing rifle shot to the skull could be easily survived, but that was not what was rolled.

Just to clarify: that bullet ricochet off water was crazier than the one off the skull, and neither is crazier than Richard Simmons Jr.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Seedman#1962.E2.80.931971:_As_detective
Guy got fined a hundred bucks for violating local firearm ordinances. Fucking amazing.

"I'm not crying."

"Yes, I did have sex with your mom."

You and your entire table are a bunch or gigantic faggots. Seriously, what the fuck, this has to be the weakest shit I've read all week.

Why brother? She's been dead for years!

>Sorry I didnt show up, and didn't even respond last night. I know I am the GM and the game can't run without me, and I should have told you. I'll make it up to you, I promise.

The worst part is, that I still haven't told them it was due to no sleep for a good 50 hours, overworked to shit, and that I no-showed with no response because I collapsed at work, and was lying unconscious in the hospital at the time of our session.

That's why it was hard to say, user.

Damn man yeah had to kick a close friend because his attendance was so spotty it was screwing with the group comp. His work schedule was just not reliable enough that he barely showed up to any sessions. Till finally i just told him sorry man but this is just not working out he was cool about it though .

"Dude, you just threw a shit fit and blamed -New guy- for your dude's death. We're like level 13, you would've come back next session anyways if not this one but we've taken a group vote and kicking you off."

He proceeded to throw another shit fit, a month later try to get back in contact with me (This guy only ever spoke to me when it was tabletop related and he wanted something for his character) and is still stalking me to this day after like a year.

>Just don't start drinking to stop it, that'll only make things worse

How I wish someone had have told me this 5 years ago.

You are either too young to post on this site or NEET scum. Either way you should not be here.

How could you possibly be so inflexible?

Do you understand improvisation?

>whores and horrors are homophones

speech impediment, ESL or just fucking retarded?

Probably not native English, certain accents can make words sound completely different than a native speaker would be able to pick up on.

You have it the wrong way around, I skipped half of elementary and middle school.

>I don't want to play with you anymore
The guy deserved it

Honestly user, while it didn't take me five years to realize that, it did take a very startling event. For background, my father had been an alcoholic. Now the event was that I had gone to visit my mother (father had died years ago). When I got there, despite no hangover, having brushed my teeth, took a shower, and so on, the first words out of her mouth were that I smelled like an alcoholic. That shocked me enough to get some serious help. You won't feel better overnight and it won't be as easy as just drinking your problems away, but in the end it will lead to a happier life.

i told a player to shut the fuck up when I got sick of him interrupting the game whenever he sensed an oppurtunity to have a good rant about how communism will somehow solve whatever the issue is this week.
Corrupt noble?
>We need to kill all nobles and establish a stateless proletariat, because in the communist world...
Bandits are robbing and killing people on the road?
>The real problem is the nobles. We need to join forces with the bandits and slaughter the nobility because then the communist system will fix everything...
Starvation due to magical blight that killed all the crops and is beyond anybody's control?
>If we just kill the bourgeoise we can redistribute their property and that will fix things, because in the communist world...
So I told him to shut the fuck up or piss off. He doesn't play with us anymore.

I've had a "11" argument
It took 3 hours to convince him that we were already in agreement and just phrasing it differently, bastard just would not let it go.

>started a r20 group with randoms and DMed pathfinder.
>had 5 players 3 guys 2 girls
>At first it was slow and awkward but after 5 months, most of us are comfortable around each other.
>However one of the guys was a stereotype neckbeard, we didn't know this until a few weeks ago
>He was quiet and had a strange way of roleplaying, we all thought it was his character
>One of the girls played a sorcerer who found it hard to to trust people, but quickly trusted the Neckrbeard who was a paladin
>The sorcerer start to see the paladin as a brother and acted so.
>however the neckbeard saw this as her hitting on him
>over the months he started to do weird things to the sorcerer
>It started when his pally wanted to start sleeping in the same room/tent, 'for protection', raised some eyebrows
>then it got strange. the sorcerer likes to take baths, the pally wanted to watch over here so nothing bad happens. She said 'fine' but she wanted a screen to give her privacy
>the pally gave a long though out reason why she should let him see her at all times when she bathing. sorcerer say 'we're in a safe place so no need'. Then he says very loud "I WANT TO PROTECT THAT SMILE!"
>*awkward silence*
>since then, the sorcerer started to push the paladin away and said in character that he was getting to clingy
>the neckbeard PMs me "Dude you should make a situation where pally and sorc are alone"
>this was the breaking point for me and about 5min later i ended the game for the night.
>I sent the girl a pic of what the neakbeard said and she was freaking out. i told her to have a talk with him. She agreed but I had to be there.
>The talk was so creepy, the girl talked to the neckbeard about how she's willing to go back to the brother and sister like friendship. But the neckbeard confest him loved and said he would treat her like the goddess she it and this went on for 10mins.
>We talked to the party about this and voted to kick the neckbeard and we did

That was a really creepy experience..

Just too lazy to find a better ways to say "two words that kinda sound similar if you aren't paying attention or have an accent, like horse and whores."

Can't be a decent wage slave if you won't organize your entire life around the hours your employer tells you where to be and what to do, after all.

>Sorry dude i know you were really stoked to play in the game and you have a cool character concept but i'm going to have to boot you. You're just not clicking with the rest of the players.

The guy had severe but "high-functioning" asbergers. Kinda felt like i was kicking a puppy but it had to be done

...

"so that's why she was just laying there quiet..."

"wow, I guess you are right, ok, so, the monster doesn't kill you"

>How could you possibly be so inflexible?
It was less about being inflexible than it was about having the entire session undone in a few minutes.
The story was abbreviated to fit OP’s question and I omitted the couple skillcheck rolls that killed the BBEG, thereby achieving the goal of the session and all the material I had prepared.

>Do you understand improvisation?
First, yes.
Second, I said it was my first time running more than a one-on-one.
Third, I was decent at improv and had put together the whole session from scratch in an afternoon.
Fourth, I had designed the entire second half of the session to be about storming the BBEG’s ranch, which he would have fortified against an attack coming from their direction unless they beat the first encounter super quietly, which they didn’t.
The new but older and more experienced player (with an Ent familiar and an animal companion) had them sneak up, spy the defenses, and since I hadn’t thought to give them a time-based challenge, suggested they simply circle around and approach the ranch from the opposite direction. I was surprised and couldn’t think of a response. They snuck in under darkness into the stable where for some reason, that probably had to do with my telegraphing the idea by not letting them see my map, he searched the stable for a secret door, found the BBEG’s escape tunnel, snuck up it, successfully crept behind him after I rolled to see where he was, and slit his throat.
So in the space of a few surprising but reasonable rolls, my entire session was finished.
Today, I could probably roll with it, but at the time I was kinda defeated and since I had been asked to whip up a scenario in a vacuum, I had nothing else to draw from to create another challenge.

>Third, I was decent at improv and had put together the whole session from scratch in an afternoon.
Do you consider preparing a session improv, or are you just randomly mentioning these two things in the same sentence?

This. Why are there GM's who shit on that one specific character? Particularly when it's undeserving.

Please elaborate.

"And shit like this is why you are now a single"

Listen buddy, I am a self employed finance support guy, I work as much as I want for my customers, and I regularly earn 10k burgerdollars a month.

If you no-shows even twice, you destroy literally all credibility you might have built for yourself. This applies as much to personal life as it does to your professional life.

I understand some of you here are NEETs, and likely dont work much, if at all, but just understand that in an ordinary person's life, you can't no-show without ridiculously good reasons (hospital/doctor/health issue in genergeneral, death, etc). The average boss will fire you, your friends and family will begin to resent you, and a more casual group of roleplayers who barely know you? They will kick you out. This should not be a surprise.

You can have other plans, sure, but plans are, you know, planned, and you should know how to work around it.

I organise the economics and funds of a severely mentally ill woman, who can't work in a social environment worth shit, and SHE can manage to say "ahh, I can't attend there, I have other plans for that day".

You really have no excuse. It is not like the gaming days come as a surprise. And if you can't, for gods sake get help, you idiot.

>"wow, I guess you are right, ok, so, the monster kills you."
>What now?

He insisted on a stupid ruling that would mean a TPK, and since nobody else spoke up, I just went with it. TPK, new PCs. Really stupid.

>BBEG being used to describe historical figures as well now
This place is truly fucked

Usually it's because the GM has a personal problem with some part of the character or the player that's unrelated to the game. Like he doesn't like player personally, an atheist shitting on a devout paladin, or a he doesn't like that the bard is gay or something to that effect.

It's usually people who have a hard time separating their real life beliefs from the game and can't deal with it like a mature person.

>BBEG being used at all

Ugh.

>Ugh
BBEG

"I'm fading to black because even though I'm responsible for your character gaining a lover, I'm not here to provide you with fap fuel.
Now, control your power level, we're in a game store."

The fuck is wrong with you?
Tell them that you dummy, they'll understand.

>Game is over, I lost all of my inspiration because you all just sit there and do nothing.

>Assumptions; the post

>I am a self employed finance support guy
So your situation is in no way similar to that of a wage slave.

>I work as much as I want for my customers
This is a luxury not afforded the common wage slave.

>If you no-shows even twice, you destroy literally all credibility you might have built for yourself.
You make your own appointments on a case-by-case basis, don't you? The common wage slave signs a single agreement and suddenly has another human being telling him where he has to be for X hours out of every week. Don't even tell me that's the same as your situation.

Even NEETs understand this concept, user. It's not something that has to do with experience, but with consideration. In my experience a lot of people consider social events to be secondary, and take more liberties with them. And to an extent, that's acceptable. Because frankly, a lot less rides on your ass showing up to the game.

It's when people start taking too many liberties that it becomes annoying. I know this guy who will pull the "I have other plans" excuse way too often, and it's infuriating. Mostly because it's self-serving. I've seen that dude leave a close friend's birthday party to smoke weed on his own. I've had him blow me off because he needed "alone time" despite being there for him every day of the week when he went through shit himself.

I think it comes down to the person, and the environment they're used to. My other friends are maybe not very punctual, but I know I can count on them. We dislike flaking, in the end, because it's self-serving.

No, but the post implied that only wage slaves are limited to these "have to be here at xx:xx or you're fired".

You should never no-show, at any point in your life. The least you could do is give them a call the second you know you will be delayed/prevented from showing up.

>Setting my own appointments
You have never worked with customers in a service business before, have you?

Conversely, if you're not willing to make a commitment that everyone else is, why should they keep you around?

Maybe, but I don't want to lose the group, it is literally what is getting me through every week, knowing that our weekly game night is always on.

I know for sure that my players would force me to take a break, no matter what I say. I would much rather just keep going and say nothing, and try to deal with my issues in the work side of my life instead.

You are an idiot. People are planning and making sure to meet up on time, and you decide to no-show because... what, exactly? "Fuck you I didn't feel like it?"

>Now, control your power level, we're in a game store.
Oh fuck, my sides.

>You have never worked with customers in a service business before, have you?
It's all I ever do. I'm self-employed as well. My customers don't tell me when to work, they ask whether I'm available.

>You should never no-show, at any point in your life.
Whatever. Fine. I'm not even sure why you feel the need to make this point.

>No, but the post implied that only wage slaves are limited to these "have to be here at xx:xx or you're fired".
Uh, no. Don't equate every kind of appointment you might make to the hierarchical relationship between a wage slave and an employer.

Do you at least mention it to them before hand?
If they're just oblivious they might take the lack of comments to mean what they're doing is okay. Typically people try to fix things once its mentioned to them. And it gives you more safe room when you kick them out because its not out of the blue.

>Whatever. Fine. I'm not even sure why you feel the need to make this point.
probably because you, or the post you're defending, was being an edgy fucklord about attendance not mattering
turns out that if you don't show up to the shit you said you would, people don't like it and won't do that shit with you anymore - no matter the situation.

"your GF is not allowed to game night dude, she is fucking annoying and disrupting the game and you act like a faggot when she is here"

A bunch of things to consider from the game:

- It was a homebrew system, which would give changing rules on the fly even worse taste.
- It wasn't a headshot, it was a 300m shot at a thing sized as a golf ball that was on the inside of a flat footed body. That said, the character's firearms/perception skills are completely ridiculous to the point they can see a few hundred meters through the walls. They also enchanted the bullet to do vastly more damage than rifle rounds are meant to do, thus bypassing the mechanics in place against trying that kind of a thing, and rolled stupid high damage to tie it up.
- If the shot failed to kill, they'd get immediately swarmed by faggotbird familiars screaming sound waves of fuck you which were present in the area, whilst having zero defensive capabilities, not even being a combat character at all, and still in system shock from having undergone emergency resurrection less than an hour earlier, hence them being separated from the party to begin with.

So we went with "The character considered it and decided it's not worth the high likelihood of failure, because automatic hit at nat 10 out of cover should probably not apply to completely ridiculous called shots like this but I didn't write that anywhere, because you are using a school of magic that's not supposed to be available to players to accomplish this and your sheet (genuinely accidentally) has like twenty points more than it should have, because we are not even sure lorewise if this thing is even present in the material realm before the body is destroyed, because it would wreck every other character arc as well as the main storyline."

Then we had a big fat boss fight with the villian flying away screaming revenge instead, and it was cool, but I still feel bad about it. I would have asspulled DR for the person and gone with it only cracking, if it was an option, but it wasn't.

Yeah. This was after multiple conversations and attempts to bring it to their attention which hadn't helped the situation at all.

>Now, control your power level, we're in a game store."

>Knock off the mid-game bitching about how I run the game. If you have a problem, that's what the after-game questions, comments, and concerns is for. Use it for once

It was with new people, who I have never met before, and I was apprehensive of them throwing a big enough shit fit that'd explode the group and my game altogether.

>"...you fail to save her"

Sarah, please don't put your finger up my ass again. It hurt last time.