>You enter the bar and are greeted by the bartender, an elderly woman smoking a pipe of harri leaves. She nods in greet -
>"Hold on, user. Let me guess. She's actually the leader of an underground criminal syndicate. She also has a heart of gold under her cold, gruff exterior. Oh, and she'll be a major player in our upcoming quest. Seriously, user. Can we have one campaign without a not-yakuza run by a not-so harmless old lady?"
What do when your players see right through your favourite tropes?
You've never GM'd a game in your life, shithead.
I don't plan ahead so it never happens.
Well duh. I assumed that was a given.
Reach over and slap them in the fucking face.
>How about we have one campaign where you're not a know-it-all asshat Jim? Maybe one where you play the fuck along instead of pointing everything out Jim? We've all read tvtropes, but you don't see anyone else acting all high and mighty about it.
You invent lame excuses when it's your day to DM until a month or two has passed without a single game of your campaign (but you make sure to go to others where your players DM). If they keep asking you to continue, you do so knowing that it wasn't an important issue. If nobody mentions your campaign again consider it closed. Save up some ideas for your next one and never mention it again.
Dude, you gotta get better at improvisation.
>Naw, she's just the bartender. If you ask, she says she's running the tavern because the actual owner, her husband, is a drunken deadbeat passed out in the stables. Now, moving on...
Gotta know when and how to mix it up on the fly.
If they wanted something other than your style, one of them should have offered to DM. My players don't come to me and ask for something that doesn't use "PCs are on the fringe of the Empire dealing with the undead monsters, supernatural horrors and magical fuckery of a bygone age that the citizens back in safer lands are starting to doubt exist". If they wanted a lighthearted game about fighting goblins and being seen as something other than potentially psychotic wandering homeless murderers then they'd ask someone else to run.
Remove her heart of gold and have her orchestrate the party's deaths in a very gruesome manner that they can only avoid if they're especially, genuinely clever about it.
>not having a character reserved for taking over any position when someone decides to be a smartass
>What do when your players see right through your favourite tropes?
Subvert them, I guess. Let them be right up until the exact moment when they really need to be, letting them blissfully stroll into the grave.
Yes, just evil enough to be worth the look on your player's faces when they signed their own death.
>We've all read tvtropes
>>>/reddit/
I laugh at that player. He knows nothing.
Stare him dead in the eyes and grin wickedly.
>Roll for initiative.
Tell him that if he doesn't want her to be those things, maybe he shouldn't pry into her past and let her be a fucking barkeep and then slap him for having bad taste
I mean, it never happens to me because I'm not a shitty 3rd-rate story teller, and if I was my players aren't literal fucking aspies so they wouldn't say some faggot shit like that. So maybe just get good?
you know what tvtropes is so you've read it
haha retard get CALLED OUT
retard
if you keep doing it enough that they start noticing and getting pissed off about it, you should probably stop doing the same thing over and over
oh, I like this answer
You lean into it, ask if the characters says as much to the lady, then have fun with her getting identified right off the bat by some random.
Seriously though if you're using the same trope multiple times you may want to switch things up a bit.
>Well fuck you, Jim. Not anymore. Now I'm coming up with a special plan just to fuck with you. It's the plot of Lucky Number Sleven, now figure out who you are.
>What do when your players see right through your favourite tropes?
move them to later in the campaign. and reskin them a bit so they aren't sure what is what.
I know the tropes are there and that's enough for me. They don't have to have an easy time of figuring it out.
>calling shit where he sees it
Jim is based
This has never happened to me because I don't have a not-yakuza run by a not-so harmless old lady in every campaign. Maybe you should just stop doing that?
Do it anyway. Fuck 'em. Don't respond if they talk out of character. If they won't play along with your yakuza boss NPC then they don't get her quests and they can go do something else. Not your problem.
Not give a shit and play them completely straight
Playing a trope straight is one thing. If you're doing so with such a complete lack of subtly that someone immediately pegs it as such to the point that they know exactly what's going to happen to a T, your GM'ing probably has bigger issues.
Maybe take a break and let someone else DM for a while.
>What do when your players see right through your favourite tropes?
I go full damage control and flip it around in the moment, then I make the game harder for the players for making me have to work more.
Play it straight, only she doesn't really have a heart of gold, she's a ruthless fucking psychopath, and either the PCs help her (while she keeps this hidden, and uses their help to have her enemies brutally killed) or they piss her off enough to make an enemy.
>turns advice thread into dick waving contest
Pretty third-rate, mate.
Kay but there's a stark difference between GMs having a specific style and the GMs recycling the same tired formulas over and over again. By what OP is saying, we're dealing with the latter. Implying the players are ingrates for wanting the GM to mix it up for once is unfair. Especially since OP makes it really clear he writes his plots using "tropes" instead of actual stories and characterization.
Also since you seem proud of the fact you just run the exact same game every time I probably would never let you GM anyways.
CONTINUE ON! It doesn't matter if one person can see what gonna happen next. You can't change your plot now!
> "your" plot
Even as a perma-DM, this is painful to read. Worst games I played in / DMed had a very good plot in them and suffered its shoehorning. Better take what the players give you (or seem interested in) and make something out of it.
Two things would happen. Either I told my players ahead of time as it is the start of the campaign, or suddenly the old man sitting at the bar is the quest-giver.
The old lady immediately starts berating the party. She's not even pretending to be harmless.