What was the point of that (GM's actions)

[Desert]

Alright, one of two threads. The idea is games where because of the GM or such, things didn't go well. For the most part ends up leaving you with the question "what was the point of that?" Games where it seemed pointless to play or such.

Now I haven't really played any Hero system campaigns yet (I'm new to the system. Just recently got the core book and am looking through it), but I can give an example I've been through:

Alright. So I was part of a weekly D&D group that got together everyweek, but would switch off who ran and where we played. So this night, it was a high level campaign, and having just recently gotten the Dragon Compendium, decided to use a prestige class from it, the Osteomancer. I recall we also had a monk, a paladin, and there were about three other players who escape me at the moment.

Now, if I remember right, a mysterious had shown up from nowhere and we were being sent to investigate. Along the way we were attacked, multiple times by multiple things, including a wyvern and various members of what I guess were a cult or hired mercenaries. We would fight, some of us got injured, but in the end we would be successful. It was tough and exhausting, but fun. Of course as we progressed, the characters were getting worn out, and those of us who were spellcasters, myself included, were running low on spells if not out already. The choices were either continue on with one or two able to battle, or stop and rest. So the group decided to rest and recover, then go after the tower.

After everyone rested and was at full strength, the group continued on to the tower and up to the top where it was revealed that it was the home of an ancient vampire. There were the bodies of some victims who were people that came upon him at the previous time and who he had drained.

After talking to him slightly, the fight ensued. We tried to battle him, but he was able to beat us quite thoroughly. No spells worked, if anyone was able to use turn undead, it did nothing. Very few of the physical attacks were actually able to do any damage. We basically had to flee to escape the villain.

The GM said that he had been much weaker the night before and if we had continued our adventure earlier and did not stop to rest, there would have been a chance for us to defeat. But the only ones who would have been at or near full strength and had a chance of fighting were any fighters who would only be able to use physical attacks against the villain.

Now, only one or two had characters that level, so most of them (myself included as I mentioned above) were new characters and we rarely played at that level so the experience, if we got any which we might not, didn't really seem of value (I don't remember if we got experience or not, and sometimes we would just be leveled up, which still didn't seem worth it.). There had not been much treasure that I recall. A few minor items that we were able to find on the people who attacked us, but nothing exciting or of any great value. There was also no gold really given for it all.

So it ended. A powerful, most like EPIC level, vampire with a tower was there, quite strong and dangerous near civilization with none of us able to defeat him. We won some battles, but lost the war so to speak. There was no treasure, no advantage that might give us a chance later, no money, and the danger was still present. We had defeated some threats, but in the final battle, there was nothing we could have done either way. Go in extremely weakened while it was and have one or two do most of the fighting while the rest tried to do something, but was for the most part incapable of assisting, or go in full strength against something that had been around for quite a while.

Whole thing left me, and some of the others, wondering "So, what was the point of that?":confused:

[mudpyr8]

Well, I suppose there are two schools of thought.

1. The Set World
The world is a set board on which you game. Everything is happening regardless of your actions. Villains rise, wars are fought, and the PCs are in it. This means you can win, you can lose, you can as a 1st level character walk into a cave occupied by a CR20 dragon. This is a challenging campaign to run for the GM who wants to have his players appreciate the game and return on a regular basis. I have run (am running actually) this type of game and it can be extremely exciting. There is a level of objectivity to it - the players succeed on their own merits and not because the GM presented a balanced encounter.

However, you have to make sure that threats are communicated clearly and that the players get to go into these challenges with their eyes open. Using the 1st level into a CR20 den example, enrich the descriptions to impress upon the group the danger that is before them. Give them ample opportunity to avoid the situation. Then, if they persist, they can get destroyed.

Using your story as an example, as the GM I would have responded to the decision to rest with some appropriate skill rolls to see how much of the "the vampire is weaker tonight" information I could give out. Or, as I think about it, treat the whole encounter with the vamp lord as a dream. When everyone flees, everyone wakes up having just drifted off. They realize the vampire is weak now and though they may be tired, they have to press on or their shared vision will come true. If you are using Action Points, allow the players to spend one to gain a spell back or 2. If the evil is as great as you describe, are their no good gods that would aid the party in return for a quest? Are their no evil gods that want to see this rival minion punished?

So many options.

2. The Tailored World
Well, now this is even more of a pickle. If the world is tailored in challenge to meet the players, then this encounter was all wrong. At a minimum, the vampire will be weak, as per the story, WHENEVER the players arrive. That's part of the story.

With this approach, if that is how the campaign is run, you really can't justify what happened.

FOOTNOTE
Regardless of whether you are playing Hero or D&D this type of thing can happen. My "Set World" game I am running in Hero, but using the Judges Guild/Swords & Sorcery Wilderlands setting because every 5 mile hex is mapped out and populated. Same with the major population centers. I pretty much just show up and my players do the rest.

[Desert]

2. If the evil is as great as you describe, are their no good gods that would aid the party in return for a quest? Are their no evil gods that want to see this rival minion punished?

Actually, now that you bring it up, I recall that we did have a Good cleric in the party (I think it was a follower of Pelor, but not certain), who attempted to pray to his or her god for help. The GM had the player roll a percentage chance which did not work. The GM might have even said the tower interfered with it, which made it need a higher roll, but I'm not certain.

[mudpyr8]

The GM is definitely running from a Set World approach. That said I think he failed to impress upon you the danger. As a group you could have asked "are we ready for this?", which could have led to a whole adventure/quest to get the one thing that can kill the vampire. D&D doesn't really handle the encounter where everyone runs interference for the one guy with the slaying weapon well, but that would be the appropriate way to end that.

Regardless of how, what, or why, when your players are left with a bad experience the GM has ownership of managing that. Sometimes the players don't have the right mindset or are not in synch with the GM's approach - that is as much of a problem as a GM not communicating his style correctly and setting the group up for failure.

Bummer of a session, dude.

[Cygnia]

Sounds like the GM was going out of his way to screw you all over to be honest. Or he was so wrapped up in his creation, it didn't occur to him that players don't usually think the same way as he does.

[Curufea]

Sounds like Ravenloft.

It's a horror setting. Q.E.D.

[Nolgroth]

Sounds like the GM was going out of his way to screw you all over to be honest. Or he was so wrapped up in his creation, it didn't occur to him that players don't usually think the same way as he does.I have to agree here. Just seems too arbitrary.

Mudpyr8 also has a valid point about set worlds and the need to impress upon the players the urgency of getting it done within a certain timeframe. I would have expected some sort of augury or prophecy to have been made apparent to the characters that the boss monster would be at his weakest on May 1, 299 CY and that waiting until May 2 would be the worst mistake possible.

Honestly though, I wonder if the GM really had a write-up for when the boss monster was "weakened" vs. "full strength." Off the cuff, I would say no. Sounds like he wanted to punish the players for some imagined slight and so waved in 100% Magic Resistance, some sort of Damage Reduction, blah blah blah. I could be wrong. I suppose my early days of gaming were filled with too many situations exactly like that.

[Desert]

I doubt it. More than likely if we had gone in the night before, we would have made it just as he was attacking the group who arrived before us and was growing to full power.

I appreciate everyone taking an interest in the problems I felt I went through with the game, however, I feel we are getting off the main idea of the thread and would like to try and return to it please. I would like to see if anyone else had similar problems or felt the same way. Supposing they did, I would like them to share it here.

[Fitz]

I've had a (sort of) similar problem, but from the other side of the screen. I set up a major threat that the party were supposed to encounter, get slightly beaten up by and then run away, having been alerted to the magnitude of the threat and leading into the Quest For The Threat-Killing McGuffin. Unfortunately they didn't run away; a couple were left (barely) alive and eventually dragged themselves back to civilization where they said "Crikey! That was bad, let's not ever go back there ever again, not ever" and completely screwed up my grand story arc :)

I eventually managed to get the campaign more or less on track, but it took a lot of work.

[Vulcan]

That's the problem with the 'have the megavillian whoop up on the PC's as the plot into' scenario. The PC's feel they were thrown in over their head, and either resent it and quit, or feel free to 'never go back again.'

Sure, it gets used in movies/TV all the time, but the 'heroes' are shackled to it by the Script. In a RPG, the players are (theoretically) free to go where they please... so it pleases them not to go back for a second round of 'getting our a**es kicked!'

[Ian Mackinder]

All of which simply highlights the most fundamental principle of GMing - No plotline survives contact with the PCs.

[Enforcer84]

Played in a RIFTS game where we were coalition on some back alley garrison. We had been ordered to test a new robot design (I was a robot pilot) and we were to investigate a group of insurgents.

When we found them we reported it like we were supposed to. We were told to engage the insurgents and await back up.

We managed to defeat the insurgents just as our back up arrived.

Oh did I say back up? I meant Nuclear Air strike.
We were all destroyed.

[Desert]

Okay. I'm guessing it was the GM, the was in charge of the nuclear strike. Was there at least a warning about incoming or some attempt at a saving roll, no matter how impossible?

I myself have actually had something similar occur. This was by the same GM, but in an earlier campaign. One where I was still learning the ropes and such.

The details I remember are that we were in some kingdom, where someone had started to create clones of certain people. These were not ordinary clones though. The GM added a special trait which was when they died, they exploded. The higher the number of hit dice/levels the cloned character had, the bigger the explosion. One of the clones was of like the king or some other ruler. Who was the target of an assassination.

We, the players, were in some sort of underground facility, trying to decide what to do, when the assassination takes place. We are able to come out and find the town demolished. Most of us being good, we search for survivors, and admittedly if treasure was found we kept it, but it was not our main focus.

We happen to find some survivors and take them toward a dock or such where there's a boat. Somewhere a long the way, a clone of the prince joined us. Maybe he was with us already, it was years ago.

Anyway, at the dock, a fight ensues, the prince is knocked out. Most of the players are focused on the battle and none bother to check him. Point, none of us were clerics as far as I recall. Anyway, during the battle, the prince is losing more and more hit points in the negative. He reaches negative ten, being a clone explodes, and kills off the entire party.

Now, the last part got fudged. Instead of dying, we all became half celestials. However, it was revealed that none of us were expected to search for survivors. Also, none of us checked the prince so we did not know he was alive and unconcious, but dying. (In my defense, I would like to point out that I was fairly new and most often had seen NPC, villain or otherwise, be dead at zero, not negative ten). So, the GM later tells me or us that we were supposed to be in the facility when it exploded, not actually being able to stop it (Just now making me remember that when we left the day before, there were supposed to be several hours left, then when we resumed, it jumped ahead to the explosion). We were just supposed to survive the explosion, then go through the remains, searching for any sort of treasure.

[Nolgroth]

When the GM says "you were supposed to...." is usually my first clue that I want to retire my position at the gaming table. Especially when the GM has a serious desire to punish the players for outsmarting him by destroying their characters.

My case in point, the GM of a particular game granted my character's wish to become a dragon (very munchkin of me at the time). The next session he had an elaborate battle planned. So I transformed from my elf form to dragon form in order to take care of the bad guys. The GM stared at me blank-faced for about ten seconds before announcing that there was a "dispel magic field" in the doorway I had just passed through and that prevented me from changing to dragon form.

He then refused to retcon the part where my character jumped off of a high cliff so my character died. Looking back at the situation, I don't blame the GM for wanting to remove an unbalancing element from his game. On the other hand, he could have just as easily either refused the wish or took me aside to explain his difficulty with the results of the wish. Instead, he callously killed my character because the tactic I chose would have ended the battle in four minutes instead of the four hours I had to sit around while the other players continued on with this "epic" battle that was frustrated at every turn by the GM. These days, I don't cut a GM any slack in the abuse department. The situation above will (now) get the GM a terse "thanks for your time" as I pack up.

I have no problem with a character getting killed by bad rolls or whatever, but abusive GM's make my skin crawl. Probably one of the reasons I became a GM myself. I wanted to make sure that none of my players ever had to endure that kind of crud. I only hope that I have been successful.

[ghost-angel]

I only hope that I have been successful.

You were for Gemini. Hands down.

[ercarlson1974]

I recall a few situations in our d6 Star Wars campaign that could qualify for this thread, but one stands out. Ironically, it was a session I wasn't present for, but I subsequently heard the story and have never forgotten it.

Anyway...this was the published "Starfall" adventure. The basic premise is that the party is captured and held aboard a Victory Star Destroyer, which is then attacked and mortally crippled. They are then supposed to escape and fight their way out.

The party made its way to the docking bay, where an Imperial AT-ST tried to stop them. One of the characters spotted a Y-wing that had crashed into the docking bay and ran over to it, firing up the ion cannon (the fighter was more or less toast, but the swivel-mount cannon on top still worked and the power generator did too). Normally this would have wasted the AT-ST walker pretty quickly, but the GM wanted to draw out the final "climactic" fight, so he arbitrarily gave the walker a 5D dodge ability. We all saw through the tactic, but wondered...what was the point?

In hindsight, some of those published WEG adventures weren't that well written for really smart players, but we still had fun.

[Peregrine]

<snip>... completely screwed up my grand story arc :)


Key problem - it's not *your* story; it's the PCs story.

[Fitz]

Key problem - it's not *your* story; it's the PCs story.

Oh please.

[Ian Mackinder]

Oh please.

YOUR point being?

[steamteck]

Key problem - it's not *your* story; it's the PCs story.


Seems to me each is nothing without the other. Its both of their stories. The GM does do the nuts and bolts of getting it rolling and setting the scene though.

[ercarlson1974]

Seems to me each is nothing without the other. Its both of their stories. The GM does do the nuts and bolts of getting it rolling and setting the scene though.

I echo Steamteck on this one. The success of a campaign depends tremendously, if not entirely, on the synergy between the players and GM. The GM must do considerable prep work, especially at the start of a campaign, but without players, the campaign will be poor at best. Likewise, without a good GM, even the best players are hard-pressed to make a decent story.

[archermoo]

Key problem - it's not *your* story; it's the PCs story.

Calling it the PCs story is just as one-sided as calling it the Ref's story. The players control the actions of their characters. The Ref controls the actions of everyone and everything else. Best case scenario is that everyone works together to help make sure that everyone is having fun.

[Vulcan]

The players need to remember that the GM, after all, has to deal with the rest of the world and the events going on in it. Sometimes, the PC's need to be reigned in a bit to keep the world from imploding under the mass of their egos... ;)

And the GM need to remember, the title on the comic is the name of the PC's, not the NPC villian-of-the-week, or even 'GMPC and his amazing friends'.:nonp:

[Peregrine]

A couple of folks correctly pointed out that my comment was essentially incomplete. To elucidate:

It is not the GM's story, for the GM to tell to an appreciative, interactive audience (the players). It is the PCs' story, told collaboratively by the GM and the players. The PCs should be the stars of the story, the main actors, the ones whose decisions and actions determine the outcome of the story. The players, who play each PC, and the GM, who portrays the rest of the inhabitants of the setting and the setting itself, all participate in both the storyteller's art and the mechanics of the game, the combination of the two being that unique hobby we call role playing games.

Or, just read what Vulcan said. :)

[Grymour]

Key problem - it's not *your* story; it's the PCs story.

I must completely agree with you on this point. When I run a game I make notes and put down characters, etc. However, it's the players that fuel the story. I learned a long time ago, that no story arc survives contact with good players. Take this past week for instance, I was running a solo game for a member of our hero team. He was facing off against one of the "tougher" villains. He not only defeated him handily, but then went out of his way to try and make sure he was not seriously hurt. The villain has a child like mentality and doesn't understand right from wrong, so said player did the one thing I did not expect.... he befriended him.... now I must figure out how that will impact the game as a whole (which is something I love to do in any case, but still...

So as was stated in the quote, it's not "your" story, it's the PCs story.. words to live by.

Take care and be well,
Grym