Shit Players Do

Shit Players Do thread.

>party attacks goblin chief through secret tunnel, kill him
>we are escaping as hordes of goblins chasing us
>running through a cave to outside, and passing Perception, we hear above us that there are goblin archers preparing to shoot
>I'm the Fighter with 18 AC, I say I will go first and draw fire
>the Rogue instead asks to borrow my shield. I'm confused but consent
>"I ride down the cliff using the shield as a skateboard"
>what the flying fuck
>Rogue rolls Dex check
>5 (+3)
>Rogue skateboards down the cliff but can't control the shield, goes off balance, crashes in to ground taking 5 damage
>goblin archers loose their arrows, he gets mown the fuck down
>I have to head to Rogue and pick him up along with my shield while rest of the party Dashes away
>get shot my goblins again next turn, goblins that were following behind come in sight, start lobbing me, manage to escape with 4 HP
>mfw

>Party are a bunch of fantasy commandos during a major orc invasion.
>Running around behind lines, wreaking havoc.
>But this is a large war, and at the beginning they're only having a local impact, and I have a little table of mostly bad results to randomly determine how other segments of the "front" they aren't directly effecting do.
>Random local lord gets a very good roll for his month's action, and actually drives the Orcs back a bit, and is a hero of the hour.
>Players decide that I must be building up a DMPC, so the next time they're back at the capital, they track down this baron and murder him.
>Then they don't understand why everyone is upset at them.

>>Players decide that I must be building up a DMPC, so the next time they're back at the capital, they track down this baron and murder him.
>>Then they don't understand why everyone is upset at them.
Don't play with people from Veeky Forums.

How about interesting/clever shit?
>GMing Delta Green for my group
>The Last Equation
>for people who don't know:
>scenario involves a math guy who discovers an equation that essentially allows anyone with a good handling on math to predict nearly everything, all events can be traced with math
>it also drives said math person insane and to kill/destroy people/things
>players are coming in after a Columbia math grad murdered a whole family
>are told to erase evidence of the number and link the grad student and the wife/mother of the family he murdered romantically
>there's also a super annoying reporter guy who is dogging their steps
>players find stuff at the family's home to plant as evidence as an affair
>also decide to leak to the reporter that grad student and wife were having an affair
I really didn't anticipate them turning the reporter to an asset, but I dig it.

>give party member a premonition that a noble looking young man is going to be kidnapped and they'll be framed for it
>they enter capital city, make a few checks and find that the noble is actually the prince of the kingdom
>ask what they are going to do
>player 1 "we should kidnap him"
>me - wut.exe
>player 2 "well yeah if we take him, keep him safe, explain the situation, and return him after a day or two when the real culprits are found we should be okay"
>the other two agree to this complete asshattery
>me "guys I don't usually do this but that sounds incredibly stupid, especially so considering your usual decision making. Are you ABSOLUTELY sure you're doing this?"
>they unanimously agree
>they end up getting into his room, casting sleep on him, and getting him out a day before the planned kidnapping was going to take place
>they stayed in an abandoned mine a few miles away, explained the situation, and played chess for a few days
>they king sent out most of the garrison in a frantic search the morning of the next day, the players didn't hide their tracks too well and found they left the city perimeter, leaving a skeleton crew of a garrison nsidenthe walls
>would be kidnappers (radical revolutionaries who were slighted by the players before) is have a glorious opportunity to simply kill the king instead
>and they do so
>players eventually go back to castle with prince, obviously being sneaky/disguised, but are seeing their posters for death of the king
>get to main hall, prince learns of everything that's happened in his absence
>blames players for fathers death
>they decide to comply with every order given into the dungeon when beforehand they've ran from others
>can't find a reasonable way to not execute them
>assassins knew the players well enough, planted more than enough evidence to counter mere "but we told you everything" as a plea for innocence
>players get pissed their "kidnap the prince" """plan""" got them killed

Fucking players.

While the players plan was retarded, you did kinda escalate things by changing the situation to them being framed for killing the king. This isn't entirely your bad as the players were idiots about everything but you certainly didn't help matters.

Now that is a group who will go far.

>>assassins knew the players well enough, planted more than enough evidence to counter mere "but we told you everything" as a plea for innocence
Why would they still plant evidence when they ultimately achieved their goal of assassination? And if they planted evidence that the party carried out the assassination instead of the kidnapping... Wouldn't the prince know that it's impossible for that to be true?

You sound like a moronic GM. That's a perfectly sound, if ridiculous plan, and you seem like you decided to be spiteful.

>you certainly didn't help matters
If your end goal is to do Z, but you must first go through plans A,B,C, etc. but an opportunity opens up an immediate jump to X, why would they not take that opportunity?

>Why would they still plant evidence when they ultimately achieved their goal of assassination?
Their "ultimate goal" was political reform away from monarchy. The assassination of the king is NOT the end, simply a major loss to their enemy as nobles scurry to get in good with the new monarch, new factions sprouting up, possible weakening if the new lord isn't up to par (which the prince wasn't), the list keeps going on. One of the most important being to NOT be found guilty of a crime if you can help it by framing a group of other people who you knew were also in the area who were also wanted in other regions for asshattery, murders, etc.

>Don't play with people from Veeky Forums
Best damn post in this thread. The worst players/DM I've personally dealt with were people from either Veeky Forums, /pol/, or tumblr. One of those faggots actually tried to TEEHEE MACARONI! me a couple of weeks ago.

What about the prince knowing it's impossible?

Dave, it was a stupid plan.

You guys didn't think to investigate the group who was going to do the kidnapping, to take your wanted status in other lands into effect, or to try and cover your tracks at all. You broke a fucking window without casting silence which you were fucking able to cast at the time, you guys seriously thought that killing the guard that saw you would do you any positives to your credit, and the list goes in.

I know you aren't an actual player in the campaign, but the character limit is a bitch and you cannot even begin to fully comprehend their idiocy. Especially if you think that was a "sound plan" you fucking dunce.

You're a shit GM.

Because it was their actions that led to the kings death. I did a series of INT and WIS based tolls in an attempt to keep them from the gallows for the prince and his advisors and they came to the conclusion with a series of high rolls that, even though they weren't the assassins they still led to the kings death. They were tortured and interrogated to see who they were working with (since they didn't fully believe them) and then killed a few days later.

And had he actually been kidnapped, the king would have done the exact same thing, no?

And you're a shit player/DM if you think that was sound decision making.

I don't think it was "sound" but your reaction to it wasn't sound either. You missed several serious opportunities.

>Know bad shit is going to happen to someone
>Tell them bad shit is going to happen to them while also keeping them away from said bad shit
Seems alright to me.

Well yes but the players would have maybe seen who it was, would NOT have a murdered guard under their belt, could have joined in the investigation, maybe kept the king guarded since they would have told the king it was political reformist radicals. I mean hell user I tried to keep them alive I really did, but you can only do so much.

Not him, but you're just skipping over all the stupid shit they did that is posted ITT.

>I tried to keep them alive by having everyone refuse to hear their side and not believe them and execute them.
Yeah, okay.

>giving the player a vision
>they decide to enact it out
>not turning it into a self-fulfilling prophesy
>not having the prince be pretty damn grateful thinking that without them, both he and the king would be dead
You got butthurt they decided to take things in a slightly different direction and couldn't adapt.

ITT: hugbox players reject the idea that the player party can ever suffer bad consequences from their own actions

Just write fanfic if you only want to 'win' RPGs and never have anything at stake.

Not the GM but they killed a guard, that alone could get them the gallows.

>NPCs should ignore logic and just believe whatever wafer-thin excuses players make, or else the players will get a boo-boo on their feelsies and we can't be having that
Shit player.

>the game environment must be warped to fit what the players do so that they always win
Shit player

If those bad consequences are pulled out of a sour GM's ass, then fuck yes I reject it.

>without them, both he and the king would be dead
The king only died because of the PCs.

That's brilliant. What the fuck is wrong with you?

Kidnapping the prince, in this situation, is like tackling the president to keep him safe. It makes total sense.

That's actually fair.
>You didn't do what I wanted? RAILROAD
Shit GM.

Where is this mentioned in Because I feel that you're lying to cover up your shitty GMing.

>The king only died because of the PCs.
And the prince and all have no way of actually knowing that. If said group could kidnap the prince, and the king goes full retard trying to find him, there was nothing stopping said group from kidnapping the prince and then killing the king when he goes full retard.

The NPCs aren't following any logic. That's the problem. The GM wanted the players to follow his railroad, and he killed them when they tried to subvert things.

I think the GM made a shitty call, but: >you guys seriously thought that killing the guard that saw you would do you any positives to your credit

Wouldnt it make MORE sense to say "hey someone may make an attempt on the royal family" and work WITH the guards? A decent level party probably has a degree of reknown to show they are legit

>guys this sounds really bad
>they do it anyways
>this window will make a loud noise when the shards hit the grou-
>they do it anyways
>guys you can't give unconscious attacks with ranged weapons
>they shoot him dead
>dude sweeping a branch behind you doesn't work like that to cover your tracks just roll a mix of stealth and survival I guess to BS some reason that you covered your tracks
>failed miserably

Yes, I tried.

Wasn't specified in the original post, so it's basically fan-fiction tier.

>the game environment must be warped to fit what the players do so that they always win
>Shit player

There's an unspoken agreement between the players and the GM:

The players will always bite the plot hooks, and in turn, the GM will seek a satisfying ending to the story.

It's much better for everyone if the players are fitted with magic suicide collars, Escape from New York style, and tasked with rescuing the king/bringing justice to his killers.

But "you didn't follow my story so you die" is a complete waste of everyone's time.

It's more like shooting the president to stop someone else framing you for shooting the president.

>These things don't work because I say they don't because they'd ruin my railroad.
No, you wanted them to die so you fucking executed them. You even ignored rules to make it happen.

>Wouldnt it make MORE sense to say "hey someone may make an attempt on the royal family" and work WITH the guards? A decent level party probably has a degree of reknown to show they are legit

Have you ever read a book, watched a film, or played a video game where this strategy worked? If the first mission is "try to warn the prince about the kidnappers," then you -know- that the prince is getting fucking kidnapped no matter what you do. Considering the dickbag GM, it's pretty likely that the players sought a workaround for his railroading tactics.

Someone posted this exact same story just a few weeks ago except it was a princess instead of a prince.

>But "you didn't follow my story so you die" is a complete waste of everyone's time.
Maybe next time they won't kidnap nobility.

Everything is pulled out of a GM's ass, that's what GM is there for almost by definition.

>a boo-hoo on their feelsies
Do you even play with friends? Who even types like this outside of baitposts?

>all these people responding to copypasta
You'd think they would learn.

>I tried to persuade them to get back on the tracks, but they didn't listen, so they had to die.

He died because the DM was a spiteful prick who decided the castle should have lower security after the prince was kidnapped.

>Maybe next time they won't kidnap nobility.

why not? that sounds really fun, and it's also just crazy enough to work.

This!
>all these court officials and nobles that correct deduce how the PCs lead to the kings death
>not one was able to deduce that leaving the king without adequate security after a kidnapping might just be exactly what kidnappers want

>running Pathfinder
>one of the PCs is an Aasimar
>party is sent to investigate a new drug, it's extremely addictive and addicts are disappearing after getting hooked
>find a dealer and try to convince him to let them join the cartel
>he says okay, sets up a meeting for them in an abandoned church
>party shows up and gets captured
It turned out okay because the escape was actually one of the more fun adventures of the campaign, but...seriously, guys. The race you choose is more than just stat adjustments, it can affect how people in the world will react to you and if you're obviously part-angel you shouldn't expect criminal organizations to trust you immediately.

I don't think it's unreasonable that a King would send out guards, though a good guard captain would basically be sleeping in the room with the King during such circumstance.

That's true but we don't have a good reference for the player level. If 4 level 15 heroes come to you saying that you are going to get kidnapped, and these are the heroes who have stopped a Lich, a dragon, a mindflayer coven, and an Orc warlord, you stfu and listen to the heroes. But if they are Level 3 or something, yeah the dude was probably going to get kidnapped anyway.

Yeah, but there are GMs with asses worth their diapers and GMs with asses I'd rather kick. Don't pretend every GM is as shit as you are, that people think you suck.

Why did you give out a prophecy if you weren't going to stick to it at all?

This, I had a player who was an orc who was incredibly surprised that the elves being harassed by orc war parties were so untrusting of him.

>but i'm not one of THOSE orcs, i'm from a different clan!
>Right Trevor, and Lebanese people are different than Saudis or Iraqis, yet the TSA still pulls them away for "random security checks".

What the fuck. What was their in character motivation?

Your mistake is assuming that characters are often given fully-fledged personalities, rather than caricature-like theme masks worn by many players. Characters by shitty players are basically muppets controlled by fickle and easily bored gods, with little to no real motivation rather than what is listed on their equipment list.

until they learn to not be murderhobos, which takes time and actual investment into a campaign, something that some players rarely get because campaigns end to soon, often due to their murderhobo shenanigans .

This was the perfect twist to the prophecy (you were blamed because you actually did it) and you fucked it up.

>Prince is kidnapped
>PCs will be blamed for it
Checks out if you ask me, prophecies are usually vague but they walked themselves right into it.

That sounds like a neat basis for a game.

A couple gods get together, fuck about controlling some mortal shells.

A GM in a pathfinder campaign I was part of was from /pol/. Met him in a game finder here and apart from the occasional "muh elf-niggers" he was competent and invested, also had a 0-Tolerance policy towards people who don't show up which really helped keep the game going unlike most online RPs.

Reminder that no matter how good your plan is, if the GM disagrees you're fucked.

>That is such a stupid plan, don’t do it
>Turns our the plan was only stupid because the king autistically sent out all his guards and left the castle unprotected when someone managed to penetrate the castle
How are the players at fault here?

You're an asshole GM and your players deserve better

Why didn't you just let the character die?

How to do this properly.
>Self fulfilling prophesy, the prince was kidnapped because you kidnapped the prince to prevent the prince's kidnapping.
>King sends out a reasonable amount of the royal guard and offers huge reward for safe return of prince. Instead of literally a small army.
>Some fortune hunters find party, refuse reason and attack in order to rescue prince
>Pcs fight them off and hopefully pick up on the irony of the situation
>Guard shows up, secure the scene taking both prince and pcs into custody
>After convincing the king that he is under no magical compulsion the prince manages to convince his father to lighten the punishment against the "well meaning and entertaining idiots"
>Pcs are exiled for their crimes
>Spymaster contacts them on behalf of prince.
>"Seeing both their competence in the kidnapping and well meaning intentions the prince would like to offer them a job dealing with local rebellious elements. Having been publically exiled after a stayed execution for kidnapping him, they'll make the perfect moles. Of course they'll be paid handsomely through melted down gold bars by a 3rd party with no relationship with the monarchy, and they'll have to be careful as he won't be able to pull any strings if they get caught, either by the rebels, or the guard."
>Boom exciting new plot hook, nothing thrown off course, and the prince gets some characterization as being a capable schemer. Abusing player good will, for disposable and deniable assets.

Step it up son.

>not having another adventuring group get a premonition that the prince will be kidnapped
>not having them find the mine and confront the players
>not watching your players faces as they realize that they became the bad guys they've been fighting this whole time

That is pretty solid, but in this case the players apparently murdered a guard.

Wait, why wasn't the prince, who they were with the whole time, able to be thier alibi? Or at the very least command them to go on a vengeance quest to "clear thier names"?

>>Some fortune hunters find party, refuse reason and attack in order to rescue prince
Even if they hid their tracks properly, the fortune hunters find them anyway? Nice railroad.
>>Pcs fight them off and hopefully pick up on the irony of the situation
And if they fail to fight them off?
>>Guard shows up, secure the scene taking both prince and pcs into custody
Guard just shows up, regardless of location? Nice railroad.

You're as shitty of a gm as the previous guy.

Ah fair enough, though easily remedied by cranking up the scheming.
Exile for murder is still totally reasonable, happened plenty of times in the real world, no reason it can't work now. Even better if the prince get's the king in on the scheming, that's even more of a distancing factor between the monarchy and their future stooges.
You know like deep undercover cops killing to prove to some gang that they're not cops, just not in that order.

Oh hello mister bootyblasted assumption lord. This is all of my time of day you're getting.

Fuck off on both counts, you railroad master. You a conductor in real life or what?

I've got one
>Party is in a boss battle and is severely outmatched by their enemy
>They propose to work up a strategy to deal with said boss in a way that doesn't get them killed
>Resident Fighter says he will take on the boss headfirst
>butwhytho.png
>He has a character trait of PTSD which he must roll for every 6 turns (his choice not mine) which gives control to me until he rolls lower than ten on his roll during battle
>What transpires is he goes into PTSD mode and I make him fight the party as well as the boss and this continues for 7 turns
>death.jpg
>The party blamed me for the boss battle being so difficult and them almost getting killed by their fighter
>They enjoy it as a funny story tho

Sidenote: PTSD in my game creates an almost Blind Rage during battle, anything in front of him is an enemy when it happens, and I mean ANYTHING

Your definition of ptsd is retarded.

Dark Heresy
>underhive mutants are being incited to rebel by a mutant named Archimedes Noxt
>party sent down to staunch the flames of revolt and kill Noxt
>track him down to a church to the Emperor
>hear mutants inside
>immediately lock the doors and burn the entire church down
>they start shooting at it for good mesure
>turns out it was a trap and the church was filled with mutants worshiping the Emperor
>mutants start rioting because they massacred innocent people, non-mutants start rioting because they burnt down an imperial church
>Arbites need to be called in, hive city erupts into a warzone, Noxt uses the chaos to steal an insane amount of resources and escape the planet.

The inquisitor punished them by taking away all of their gear except the shirts on their backs and sending them off on a suicide mission. A surprising amount of them survived actually.

Best GM/players I ever had came from here, though.
Worst too, mind.

You don't understand PTSD.

>the Rogue instead asks to borrow my shield
>"What for?"

Problem solved.

>link the grad student and the wife/mother of the family he murdered romantically

How do you murder someone romantically? :^)

Quality post.

No.

You're a fucking retard. They kidnapped the prince and killed a fucking guard. The punishment is totally deserved.

AHAHAH its just like flippy on hpapy tree friends xD

I have a new player in my group i'm just not sure how to deal with.

He's the type of guy who, no matter what the subject of conversation is, will chime in with a more extreme story or anecdote about it, like he always knows more about any given subject or situation. Mainly stretched truth and bluster.

In game, he's a perpetual focus stealer, yet a really bad roleplayer. Almost every interaction goes the same: He eagerly starts a conversation, takes over the dialogue, then out of character says "Can i start over?" and wants to reset button the dialogue.

>They kidnapped the prince and killed a fucking guard.
That wasn't what they were executed for though, it was because "they caused the king's death," but not really.

>"Can i start over?"
You say "no". Problem solved.

that's not a problem solving situation.

He does it every time. Like i'm guessing he was the kind of kid who was told 'don't do that' and then would immediately just do it again.

"No, and I'm halving your xp gain every time you ask". Problem solved.

This guy seems to think people work like computer problems

Not getting your xp points is a strong icentive for a retard to start behaving.

Honestly the guy sounds like it's mostly a confidence issue. He starts talking, second guesses himself, decides he's done something wrong, and tries to start over.

Tell him at the start of the game not to rush, think about what his character would say, and get into character. He'll gain confidence in time if you play against him well as your npcs

>players come up with an unorthodox plan
>i completely handwave everything into screwing them over

see
andmaybe he suffered from rabies,roid rage and the momentary attention of khorne instead ?

>and the momentary attention of khorne instead ?
>when Khorne-senpai notices you

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD SENPAI

You should've made the fighter follow the strategy he was trying to ignore instead, for the laughs.

Your a shit GM. I wanted to add to the number of people calling you trash. Because you are trash.

Then he needs to freshen his ass up! Wipe that shit clean! Use some nice soaps! Probably dig deep because he probably has some things up there. Then febreez that ass and slap an air freshener on it!

If it's coming out of the GMs ass, his ass might as well not be sour.

Poisoned wine and dinner