Stories of your idiot players

It didn't strike me to tell them that they had already solved the riddle, you're right, maybe I should have told them that. On the other hand, is it better for me to tell the players everything or should I allow them to find out for themselves?

This thread is now:
“Stupid DMs and their stupid ideas.”

Well it's reasuring you weren't completly blind to their attempt and you planned a little reward behind the screen. If you can keep that up I am sure you'll turn into a great DM!

We all make mistakes, don't be like that. If we were faultless we wouldn't be human.

But isn't the DM supposed to be a Übermensch?

>Playing GURPS: Infinite World
>In a campaign focused on diplomacy and intrigue, one of my players insists in playing as if he was a stereotypical Barbarian in D&D.
>Tries to intidimidate mall cashiers, punching them whenever they tthreaten to call the police.
>At a formal dinner, he goes to the cocktail bar, does a somersault and starts drinking fine wines straight from the bottle, getting him kicked out by the host's bodyguards.
>He once genuinely asked why the police were trying to arrest him.
>Whenever he's in combat, he spends dozens of Fate points to say "I ignore that" whenever he gets hit in vital areas, because he charged straight ahead and doesn't know the meaning of the word "tactics".
>The worst part is, this player plays a character that's supposed to be another PC's bodyguard, so he's basically screwing somebody else over with his antics.

>Party enters a Sahagin dungeon/cave system
>One player is really drunk IRL, he's the only one drinking
>Party reaches a fork and goes right
>A ways down that hallway, drunky decides he wants to know what was down the left passage
>RUNS back down and then up the right passage
>50 ft in he reaches a dead end filled with polyps/urchin things, dozens of them
>Everyone in the party, and me, table talking to get him to stop
>Attacks the polyps in melee
>Immediately fails 12 saves against 1-3 Con damage poison
>Stays in the room and keeps fighting, dies in 2 rounds
>SCREAMS at me for an hour about how unfair the scenario is and how i'm a shitty GM and it shouldn't be that easy to die
>Was not invited back

What was the solution to the riddle anyway?

>not making up on the spot something to reward them
>"that was clever, the wight could only be killed by his own sword!"

>players sneak on orc hunting camp
>get spotted by the orc dogs, a single wounded orcs come out of a tent
>party charges in, realize he's a bit harder than what they would expect (class levels)
>one party member is greviously wounded and needs healing they can't provide on the spot
>they decide to go back to the city
>but first they burn the camp
>ohwell.jpg
>and leave an easily followable trail
>ohwell2.jpg
>and decide to camp in the middle of fucking nowhere during the night (knowing orcs are nocturnal)
>had to fucking asspull a random elf ranger saving their shit

>Playing GURPS
>Fate points

Wasn't there a GURPS module that added something similar? Mostly for open-roll GMs to give out to players in moments where a positive roll fudge would be good?

fate points are such a good idea, i just add them to literally every system i play. they reward interesting risks and stop players getting salty about unexpected death.

I used to think it was a good idea to use Fate points until I realized it's redundant when Luck and Super Luck exists, even unused CP can be used that way, but why are you using fudge dice on top of it?

stop enabling stupidity, retard

>but why are you using fudge dice on top of it?
But I don't, it's just that, as far as I know, that was the excuse used to explain why they were added as a mechanic. Since the way I homeruled the whole thing is somewhat too autistic to be comfortably fudged, I decided that give players an option to get auto-successes either by doing extraordinarily well, by advancing the plot significantly or at very least not die/get imprisoned for two weeks in-game, to use them where letting it happen would speel an anticlimatic or utterly derailing situation. The fact that players could use them to basically go "Lol I'm invincible" and nothing else never occurred to me.

That's exactly why I dropped it, you can use free CP to turn any critical failure to normal failure, a normal failure to a success, and a success to a critical success, also with luck you get two extra rolls and choose the one that suit you the best for any given situation, so instead of players going "Lol I'm invincible" they can only turn enemy hits into misses, it's still internally logical and don't fuck with the story, the only way I see fate points being useful is when used to add minor details to the story and not fucking up with dice rolls.

The solution was "your word". You need to give someone your word in order to keep it. So the solution was either to recite the oath, or just say "I give you my word". For more info, check Mathew Colville's Running the game series, episode 1 or 2 i think.

>is it better for me to tell the players everything or should I allow them to find out for themselves?
Tell them when they have done a thing. Tell them when they are wasting time on a thing. If they aren't figuring a thing out, give them an Int check or whatever to IC figure it out. Riddles and puzzles should be used incredibly sparingly and should always have an IC bypass, some way to just say "fuck it I dunno let me roll for it" because You Are Not Your Character.

For example: my players come to a gate they need to get through. It is guarded by a golem made of keys that says "what is the password." The trick is that it's making a statement, not asking a question, so all they have to do is say "what" and it lets them by. But if the PCs for whatever reason don't manage to do that, they can roll initiative and kill the key golem, then unlock the gate with one of the keys it was made out of.

Something that happened roughly a year ago is when the group I'm in encounter, I think it was science experiments or something Idontgiveashit. They were completely reliant heat signatures for sight kind of like the Predator. There was like children we had to save but with some hints and what npcs told us is the monsters have a real hard on for anything that gives enough heat. My memory is a bit fuzzy, what I remember clearly was what happened next.
Queue player who CRAVES attention and spotlight time, says some stupid shit like "I light myself on fire in order to distract the monsters!" The other 4 of us just said "Or we can just light this rag on fire, and whisk the children to safety while they're distracted." Nope, the dude was adamant about lighting himself on fire to the point we argued with him NOT to do it he does it anyway during his turn with his fire magic. Surprisingly the monsters were easy to take down which I think in the end were just there for added suspense because "THE KIDS ARE IN DANGER!" Whatshisface was pretty buttblasted that the party were in the action while he was taking damage and running around in circles. He rage quit the group a week or 2 later if I remember correctly

I roll a d12 for puzzles. That is how many tries it takes to solve if the players can't figure out the legit answer. If I roll a 9, then whatever the ninth thing they tried is was secretly the answer. Yes, the secret of opening the puzzle door with the rotatable mural depicted a scrambled version of the hierarchy of the gods was to hold a torch to the doorframe and use your Turn Undead feature on the flame. Why not?

>playing with 4 rl friends
>one of them brings his gf to a few games
>she's actually pretty chill, used to play ad&d but never played 3.5, which i'm running
>one of the 4 friends gets visible pussthirst when she comes
>never makes eye contact or talks to her but stares at her when she isn't looking
>no one else notices and i say brush it off
>one day gf says she'd like to give 3.5 a try
>pussthirster is the one with character sheet printouts
>she asks "hey man, can you pass me a sheet?" and smiles
>he makes eye contact with her for the first time
>goes red and hyperventillates
>vomits on the table
>mom's spaghetti
>friend's gf never comes back

>Players need to get important NPC out of a city before a disaster hits
>Ask "Can you ride a horse?"
>Answer is no.
>PC solution is to literally tie him across the horse's back so he won't fall, and ride like hell out.
>Are honestly and truly surprised when later on, guy is not exactly thrilled to see them again
>But we rescued you mayne!

>one of my players is a "Chaotic Neutral" Rogue
>tries to steal from a powerful Fey God's house and gets cursed
>tries to get a city resident to open his door during a time of civil unrest to ask some questions, is surprised when the man doesn't want to open his door because he thinks he's going to rob him. Dwarf then lockpicks the door and gets into a knife fight with the civilian, knocking him unconscious and robbing him blind because "he attacked me"
>tries to steal a 14,000 gold item from a shopkeeper and gets poison thrown in his face, knocked unconscious by guards and locked up in a jail cell for a few days then stabs the guard to death bringing him food with cutlery, then disguises himself as said guard and stabs other guards in the town to death, and then is confused when the entire townsguard are after him because he "didn't do anything wrong"
>he's still cursed almost 20 sessions later because he doesn't want to go back and apologise because "that god was being a total dick"

What did they do wrong? Should they have left him to die instead?

what are the details of the curse?

He's got a penalty to all his attack rolls, saving throws, and stealth/disable device/sleight of hand checks.

This seems to be a very typical case of you not describing what the character is experiencing as clearly as you think.
Most DMs fall into that problem at one point or another.

>playing superhero game
>stupid player is playing a hulk-like character (meek to superhuman) that turns into a were-gorilla
>also has ability to grow to king kong size
>dumbass decides he wants to clear huge distance in shortest amount of time.
>turns big ape
>picks up a sedan, throws the fuckin thing at the target.
>transforms into his normal human form after throwing to grab the car as it flies
>thisnigga.jpg
> rolls poorly to hang on
>human form lands on a car full of other PCs, heavily damaged
>damages other players

Good news is, the car hit the target building perfectly.

How the fuck does he even catch up with a car in mid-air?

The solution is to get him riding behind someone else, holding on to their waist

Riddles are a stupid, by the way.

I am sure you realize now, but riddles make the game a lot less fun, because people like me exist. I am stupid as heck: I would never for the life of me be able to answer a riddle in less than ten minutes.

And I play average intelligence characters, which is already straining because I have to concentrate so much.

So, instead of relying on the stats of the player, OOC, rely on the stats of the characters they are playing. The Wizard might know the answer, while the wizard's player might Not. And then you have the opposite problem: the Barbarian who doesn't know the answer but his player does, maybe because he's smart or because he's heard it before or because he's lucky.

You wouldn't pretend the barbarian's player to deadlift weights to do his feats of strenght, right? Similarly, you wouldn't challenge the player of the Dwarf in your game to a drinking contest, to test their Constitution, right?

Whenever you think about using riddles:
>don't

I make it a point to not tell players what their characters think, otherwise they will start relying on me to make the choices for them.
(except when a supernatural effect or spell goes off, thats different)

Don't listen to his lies, riddles are fun
>Stone bowl carved into the wall filled with dark water. The only way to go past it is to remove the water from the bowl
>Every PC fail their check to determine what is written on top of bowl
>Make more checks, we determine that the water is suspicious as fuck
>Guy with what is essentially an holy pendant decides to try and purify the water
>Plunges the pendant into the water
>Both magics violently react, resulting in an explosion which clears the way since the bowl no longuer contains any water

We still laugh about it, especially since the GM explained us what was up with the bowl. Is still think that it's a neat idea because it doesn't have one "correct" way to solve it and as such is subject to player interpretation

>playing more realistic SoS setting(Party is not much stronger than NPCs)
>Party attacking orc encampment
>Severely outnumbered, orcs even have two ogres
>Deal with it gar better than I hast hoped, until the elf has to bail
>Lure the orcs out of their Camp
>Hide in forest(it's night, only the orcs hold torches atm)
>Suddenly decide to ambush the ~20 orcs
>Fail, accompanying NPC gets heavily wounded
>Turn tails and Run
>Luckily they are faster than the orcs, manage to outrun the torches' light
>Wizard left His staff back in the forest in order to fight with his one-handed feat in his sword
>Casts a cheap spell so that his Staffel comes floating to him, from anywhere, at a set, moderate speed
>Players rack their brains about how they can't shake the orcs who constantly follow them exactly, in the dark, a good multiple dozen feet behind

The Plan overall was decent, but this Player especially tends to manouver the group into problematic situations by simply not thinking things through. At the moment he cast that spell, he was even all smug about getting his staff back easily...

>calling people liars
>stooping so low as to ad hominem

I'm speechless.

>complains about logical fallacies in response to a fun anecdote
go outside some time will ya

It's a fun anecdote, but it doesn't change the fact that most times, riddles bring the game to a screeching halt and are not fun for the party.

>It seems like a dick move to just flat out deny them an oppertunity to look smart.

Comic logic.

He explained as soon as he did a windup and transformed to human form as he let go.

This. Riddles are either so easy that they're pointless, or something that only makes sense to the GM and you'd have to be able to read his mind to get it right.

>He's got a penalty to all his attack rolls, saving throws, and stealth/disable device/sleight of hand checks.
Not defending rogue player, and I'm sure he deserves it, but holy fuck is that a powerful curse to slap on even a max level character.

I love how great these new mantic skeles are.
Patrician tastes my man.

This happened to me last friday

>running a one-shot of Alatriste
fucking amazing trpg by the way
>newbie players
>players get the guards angry
>after an intelligence roll one PC tells everyone to take refugee at the church because law prohibits to arrest people who take asylum at churches
>once inside they plan a way to get out with all the guards waiting at the front door
>they ask the cleric there for a way out
>"oh, the guards will probably let you slip out the back door without any issue, they aren't paid enough to want any trouble with a band of lowly delinquents"
>"oh thanks"
>mfw they waste one fucking hour thinking of ways to burn or blow up the bell tower of the church

Why would solving the riddle be rewarded with a fight? That's dumb. They could have ignored the riddle and opened the sarcophagi one at a time and dealt with the undead individually. Failing to answer the riddle should have led to a fight...

You may have had bad players but you're a bad GM who designs bad encounters and should feel bad.

You don't lock the main quest behind them, they are for locking off extra content, you dummies! ;^)

The simplest thing to do would be to hire a carriage, but they had numerous other means at their disposal, from having someone else help him along handling the reins as he rode double, to getting a boat, to simply running away on foot.

>It seems like a dick move to just flat out deny them an oppertunity to look smart.
The GM's job is to provide challenges and rewards for succeeding at them, not to suck the players' dicks just for showing up.