I made the GM cry....

[KA.]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

Definitely. The guy was new to the group' date=' and a recent convert to CoC. He had tons of enthusiasm, but was running a module straight.[/quote']

 

Okay, that explains a lot.

 

By the way, what were your characters supposed to be?

Ex-Military or something?

 

Just wondering,

 

KA.

[Maelstrom]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

Okay, that explains a lot.

 

By the way, what were your characters supposed to be?

Ex-Military or something?

 

Just wondering,

 

KA.

 

Mine was an ex-Marine PI. I don't remember the rest.

[cutsleeve]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

hmmmmmm on the zombie/horror house note. id have let them go through the house and destroy all the zombies. Job well done good for you thats how its sposed to be done.but thats the point where the scenario becomes horror. the point where the players thought they had the baddies licked and so easy, the point where they thought they could relax and go home, the point where they realize that they use up almost all of their amunition clearing out the house.

 

It was a good plan and it would have worked. If all the zombies outside the house hadnt heard the gunfire.

 

Im not an evil gm i just dont plan my works in great detail. i just plan enough that i have resources avaliable if the players somehow do something i dont expect. The players will always think of ways to mess up an adventure. I just have to provide them with the props, extra's, plot, and fancy special effects.

[gewing]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

GM didn't cry, but it was fun.

 

 

At the Dragonflight Con one time, I was playing their pre-generated Fantasy character, a tubby monk/priest with a longbow. We managed to get through the "puzzle" things, once by brute force because we didn't understand something, when we got to the final bit where the Mage was trying to summon the great DRAGON!!!

 

We had no Way to survive getting through the forces he had between us, and had no idea how much time we had left in his long ritual.

 

I set and braced, and shot him in the head. His forcewall spell only stopped iirc 5 points, I rolled 11 iirc, and he was dead before the other characters sling stone hit him.

 

it was a competetive game, 2 different groups doing the same adventure. We had gotten it done in the time frame available, they were apparently floundering.

 

The other GM, fromt he gaming group that the characters were from walked in.

as nearly as I can remember, the exchange went like:

"He shot him in the head at X hexes."

 

"SOunds like Archibald."

 

Apparently I "Grokked" the character fairly well.

 

 

 

 

And the GM would reply' date='" Oh. You can TRY to do that." That would generally be enough incentive to go the long way around. Sometimes you do things because the GM wants you to do it but most of the time you do not if you can think of a better way to go about it or if it does not make sense to your character. I made a GM extremely angry one time. We were playing first level characters and I was made leader of the group. A huge orc army was coming to devastate this large city and the leader of the city asked us to stop the army (which was being led by a Cloud Giant). The going rate for this type of suicide mission was 100 gp for the whole party. I laughed in his face and we went elsewhere. The adventure ended right there. None of the other players seemed to mind my decision.[/quote']

[william_nova]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

I always shiver a little inside when I hear stories like these, I find there's a big difference between creative problem solving and game breaking. No insinuations or accusations whatsoever should be drawn to what I've read here, obviously. I'm speaking from personal experience purely.

 

I've run a few games with the game breakers, and like their cousins, the min/maxers, they live to derail the moving train with their carefully placed explosives on the tracks.

 

I enjoy the creative problem solver, who is running in the spirit of the campaign and the rules. They're a pleasure to create and run scenarios for.

 

As I get older, though, I have less and less tolerance for the game breakers of any stripe. As recently as a few years ago I ran a Unisystem scenario and I had a game breaker in my midst. The dude who plays opposite to whatever is going on at the table, has a totally ridiculous concept, again opposite to the spirit of what's going on, and who demands spotlight time far more than others.

 

By the second hour he split the party, going off to where clearly there was no action to be found. I did everything I could but put a big flashing neon saying "this way to the action!" to no avail. Finally I realized he knew there was nothing out there, and was just hacking for the sake of it. I told him if he didn't get back the group he might as well leave, as I wasn't going to spend any more time watching the entire group look bored while I waited for him to indulge his graffiti session.

 

After the shocked "who, me?" look came the barest hint of a smirk, as if to say, "oh, you spoke up, at last!" and thankfully after that there more party unity, with much mystery solving and blood splatter to be had by all.

 

So weird!

[Tim]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

I've been spending time on the Paizo boards recently. The scarey posters there aren't hte min/maxers. Those can be easy to spot and delt with. The scary ones are the GMs who dislike anyhting that might help their characters succeed or penalize them when they try..

 

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG/advice/detectMagicMyGMHatesIt

 

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderSociety/general/sczarniAndNotBeingEvil

 

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG/houseRules/flyIsTheMostOverPoweredSpellSomeHow

[Lucius]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

So?

 

He didn't because Tolkien didn't want him to.

 

No, he didn't because it would not have worked as I've pointed out before.

 

 

 

Repost

 

Elrond:

Gandalf, old friend....we have known each other longer than any other two people in this chamber. None know so well as I the depth of your wisdom or the inestimable value of your sagacity. And so I hope you take it to heart when I ask - have you been bereft of your wits?

 

Surely Sauron has heard of your escape from Isengard, and been reminded of your rapport with Eagles. He will watch for you to travel so by air again, and do we not know that he has servants with wings of their own? And ever he seeks the Ring, as it seeks him. Before even an eagle's far seeing eye spies the edges of Mordor, the terrible Eye will have spotted the Ring, seen exactly where it is in the sky, and before an eagle's great wings beat thrice he will be moving to strike.

 

The very winds of Mordor would be against you, flocks of foul birds will harrass you, even before reaching the border, and both archers and arbelests and whatever other engines of destruction are at his command will be turned upon you as you pass into his land. How swiftly can Sauron summon a storm, how swiftly can he seize a bolt of lightning, and with the Ring for a target, how can he miss? He will have no fear, knowing no such force could undo the Ring, and perhaps even you could survive, Gandalf, but surely your noble mount would perish. Or he could send a dragon, or some other fell winged creature, or a noxious cloud that it would be death to breathe, or even turn all his power to beguiling the poor eagle into forgetfullness so that it alights at his very gate, helpless as a sparrow before a mesmerizing serpent.

 

Nay, put this plan from your mind. It is a fool's cleverness, unworthy of a wizard. Surely we are not so desperate as to pursue a course all but certain to doom us all!

 

One does not simply fly into Mordor!!

 

Lucius Alexander

 

One does not ride a palindromedary into Mordor, without at the same moment riding it out again

[Greywind]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

"You cannot defeat me! I have conceived of every possible avenue open to you to defeat my plan and accounted for them all! My defeat is inconceivable!"

 

"What if we ___________________?"

 

"I did not conceive of that..."

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

 

Wow.

 

I noticed I got a rep for a post that was 7 years old and wondered what?

Never had a thread resurrected from so long ago before.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

No' date=' he didn't because it [b']would not have worked[/b] as I've pointed out before.

 

Snip awesomesauce

 

Repost

 

Fantastic.

[Lucius]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

Our new teen superteam has been invistigating a new drug ring. New designer drug, new cartel. Our team telepath did a scan on one of the thugs we captured. Got the info on where it was made (which confirmed what we suspected by normal investigative means). After about 8 or 9 phases of her looking through his mind, his memories go black. She can go back beyond a month and a half (about the time he started with this new cartel) and they come back.

After a successful KS mental powers roll, she relealized that this was a "erase memory" trigger psychic surgeried into the guy by his boss, who had also hit him with a mental transform of total loyalty- he had never done drug deals before (mostly muscle) and had a brother who was destroyed by drugs, and avoided it, and here he is doing work for drug stuff.

 

So the head of the bad guys is a mentalist who does psychic surgery on his underlings, to make them loyal and have a memory wipe of the time they were with him if they get mentally scanned.

 

So as we were planning to do a recon on the drug making site - situated inside a major chemical company.. a few bad people were making the drugs on the side on the graveyard shift... and trying to decide what to do about the gang I said "Well, we could just scan every employee going in on graveyard and the failsafe will hit, and they lose the last month and a half, and they guy looses his entire cartel. It will just return them to the state before they were mindcontrolled into being criminals"

 

The GMs responce to which was to theatrically bury his face in his hands.

 

He said he figured we would do something a bit off the wall, but not that far off.

 

So I got us an XP for a creative solution.

 

Also leading to considerable confusion and probably some distress among the victims.

 

Especially if any of them experienced a significant life event in the deleted period. Imagine, for example, one of them going home after shift to find someone else living there because they have forgotten that they had moved. Or being surprised to find a fiance (as they think) who reminds them that they already married.

 

Inevitably the obvious link between the amnesia victims - all working the same shift at the same place - will be exposed, and the company will have to prove that they did not, in fact, expose their workers to dangerous memory altering chemicals.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

No palindromedaries were exposed to mind-altering substances during the production of this tagline

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

Also leading to considerable confusion and probably some distress among the victims.

 

Especially if any of them experienced a significant life event in the deleted period. Imagine, for example, one of them going home after shift to find someone else living there because they have forgotten that they had moved. Or being surprised to find a fiance (as they think) who reminds them that they already married.

 

Inevitably the obvious link between the amnesia victims - all working the same shift at the same place - will be exposed, and the company will have to prove that they did not, in fact, expose their workers to dangerous memory altering chemicals.

 

Do you have a superior solution? Theirs seems like a comic booky result - the mindwashed innocents can't remember the period in which they were controlled. The PC's may have to communicate with the authorities. Presumably, if the teen hero's KS: Mental Powers can work it out, so can a more experienced hero or expert in superhuman powers. If the choices are "stay brainwashed" or "lose six weeks' memory", which would you choose?

 

If the players and GM are so inclined, perhaps the PC's become involved in helping the victims reintegrate. If not, aren't there psychlogists and psychiatrists who would deal with this sort of thing?

 

I'm with the GM - bonus xp for a creative solution.

[Christopher]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

If the players and GM are so inclined, perhaps the PC's become involved in helping the victims reintegrate. If not, aren't there psychlogists and psychiatrists who would deal with this sort of thing?

 

I'm with the GM - bonus xp for a creative solution.

It might be a original way, but is it the Heroic way?

 

I and my characters would consider a 6 week mindwipe a serrious damage to innocents, let alone for dozen of innocents....

When the heroes have anything like "code of the hero" or "protective of innocents" I would remember them to act upon it and not go the easy way.

Also, who says a Mind Wipe would affect the Minds Enslaving/Controll? Just because I alter your memory to "you have been mind controlled until now" does not means you are under my mind controll right now... (unless that is the SFX for a Midn Controll and it archives the nessesary effect of course)

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

It might be a original way, but is it the Heroic way?

 

I and my characters would consider a 6 week mindwipe a serrious damage to innocents, let alone for dozen of innocents....

When the heroes have anything like "code of the hero" or "protective of innocents" I would remember them to act upon it and not go the easy way.

Also, who says a Mind Wipe would affect the Minds Enslaving/Controll? Just because I alter your memory to "you have been mind controlled until now" does not means you are under my mind controll right now... (unless that is the SFX for a Midn Controll and it archives the nessesary effect of course)

 

It was clear that the mind wipe also erased the control. Mostly the bad guy didn't want anyone to see the lackey's memories of him. It was clear from the people that had the mindwipe by accident that there were no afteraffects - so having the decision we did was a heroic one. The game is very 4 color (innocents are no longer mind controlled, or doing bad things - a win. Followup from heroes to help - a win.)

And re-intigration was handled by the team, and their extended help (money, connections etc.)

[Christopher]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

It was clear that the mind wipe also erased the control. Mostly the bad guy didn't want anyone to see the lackey's memories of him. It was clear from the people that had the mindwipe by accident that there were no afteraffects - so having the decision we did was a heroic one. The game is very 4 color (innocents are no longer mind controlled, or doing bad things - a win. Followup from heroes to help - a win.)

And re-intigration was handled by the team, and their extended help (money, connections etc.)

Okay, then the bad guy actually had a plan with built-in self destruct...

[Balabanto]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

Our new teen superteam has been invistigating a new drug ring. New designer drug, new cartel. Our team telepath did a scan on one of the thugs we captured. Got the info on where it was made (which confirmed what we suspected by normal investigative means). After about 8 or 9 phases of her looking through his mind, his memories go black. She can go back beyond a month and a half (about the time he started with this new cartel) and they come back.

After a successful KS mental powers roll, she relealized that this was a "erase memory" trigger psychic surgeried into the guy by his boss, who had also hit him with a mental transform of total loyalty- he had never done drug deals before (mostly muscle) and had a brother who was destroyed by drugs, and avoided it, and here he is doing work for drug stuff.

 

So the head of the bad guys is a mentalist who does psychic surgery on his underlings, to make them loyal and have a memory wipe of the time they were with him if they get mentally scanned.

 

So as we were planning to do a recon on the drug making site - situated inside a major chemical company.. a few bad people were making the drugs on the side on the graveyard shift... and trying to decide what to do about the gang I said "Well, we could just scan every employee going in on graveyard and the failsafe will hit, and they lose the last month and a half, and they guy looses his entire cartel. It will just return them to the state before they were mindcontrolled into being criminals"

 

The GMs responce to which was to theatrically bury his face in his hands.

 

He said he figured we would do something a bit off the wall, but not that far off.

 

So I got us an XP for a creative solution.

 

I'm not sure this qualifies as a creative solution. Sure the guy loses his entire cartel, but you also create a situation where in the long run, some of these people might be very angry at you. As much as this guy tampered with their minds, there's also their psychological well being to consider. If they don't remember anything before working for the drug dealer, is that really any better than rehabilitative therapy and deprogramming? See, I wouldn't award any addtional XP for this, because a few years down the road, when one of these guys becomes a supervillain, YOU'RE the guy he's gonna remember, and you'll be the one who's the target of an unexpected and terrible revenge in a couple of years.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

I'm not sure this qualifies as a creative solution. Sure the guy loses his entire cartel' date=' but you also create a situation where in the long run, some of these people might be very angry at you. As much as this guy tampered with their minds, there's also their psychological well being to consider. If they don't remember anything before working for the drug dealer, is that really any better than rehabilitative therapy and deprogramming? See, I wouldn't award any addtional XP for this, because a few years down the road, when one of these guys becomes a supervillain, YOU'RE the guy he's gonna remember, and you'll be the one who's the target of an unexpected and terrible revenge in a couple of years.[/quote']

 

True in an Iron Age or Gilden Iron Age, but the tone of the game is very 4 color, where this kind of thing isn't always addressed. Everyone blamed the bad guy. The solution was well within campaign tone.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

I'm not sure this qualifies as a creative solution. Sure the guy loses his entire cartel' date=' but you also create a situation where in the long run, some of these people might be very angry at you. As much as this guy tampered with their minds, there's also their psychological well being to consider. If they don't remember anything before working for the drug dealer, is that really any better than rehabilitative therapy and deprogramming? See, I wouldn't award any addtional XP for this, because a few years down the road, when one of these guys becomes a supervillain, YOU'RE the guy he's gonna remember, and you'll be the one who's the target of an unexpected and terrible revenge in a couple of years.[/quote']

 

I'm not seeing any alternative solutions being presented. If the alternative is "well, these innocent people continue being under the control of the Master Villain, so we either let his plans proceed or we beat up/jail/kill the mind controlled victims", then the Gold/Silver age answer seems to be "loss of 6 weeks memory is not crippling to the victims and this solves the problem". The more bronze/modern age answer might be "considerable rehabilitation is required but the other alternatives are worse". The Iron Age/AHGM solution is "Ha ha - if you break the conditioning, it will be devestating for the targets and they will be forever traumatized, unable to be reintegrated with society and become villains, and if you don't they keep going as drug producers, or whatever other criminal endeavour the mastermind instructs, until you jail them or kill them. You can't win - no XP since whatever you do violates your heroic code!"

 

Did the mastermind leave an out? Sure. But he likely wasn't expecting to get caught anyway, and since no one knows who he is, he can fade into the background and reappear at a later date. If he left out the mindwipe, he gets located from the scan, which isn't a win for him either. In any case, the villain in source material is seldom omniscient and omnipresent - they make mistakes which the heroes capitalize on.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

I'm not sure this qualifies as a creative solution. Sure the guy loses his entire cartel' date=' but you also create a situation where in the long run, some of these people might be very angry at you. As much as this guy tampered with their minds, there's also their psychological well being to consider. If they don't remember anything before working for the drug dealer, is that really any better than rehabilitative therapy and deprogramming? See, I wouldn't award any addtional XP for this, because a few years down the road, when one of these guys becomes a supervillain, YOU'RE the guy he's gonna remember, and you'll be the one who's the target of an unexpected and terrible revenge in a couple of years.[/quote']

Even ignoring the fact that it was very clearly stated to be a classic 4-color game this response seems odd at best. Would it be better to beat every single one of them unconscious risking causing permanent physical injury, and risking one of them getting away to report exactly who attacked them, then spending time mentally reversing the psychic surgery (which may be just as invasive as the mind wipe or even more so, where does the original personality end and the programming begin?) for each individual person? In fact, trying to deprogram them may have set off the mindwipe anyway, and you just beat the living crap out of a bunch of brainwashed normals for no reason...good job.

[Greywind]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

In a 4-color, I'd call it good. In anything else, well, not all victories are clean.

[Balabanto]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

Even ignoring the fact that it was very clearly stated to be a classic 4-color game this response seems odd at best. Would it be better to beat every single one of them unconscious risking causing permanent physical injury' date=' and risking one of them getting away to report exactly who attacked them, then spending time mentally reversing the psychic surgery (which may be just as invasive as the mind wipe or even more so, where does the original personality end and the programming begin?) for each individual person? In fact, trying to deprogram them may have set off the mindwipe anyway, and you just beat the living crap out of a bunch of brainwashed normals for no reason...good job.[/quote']

 

Have you ever read any classic era Marvel comics? From the 1960's to 1970's? That kind of backfire happens all the time, especially in Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and the Avengers. One word: Ultron!

 

Ultron wasn't created in the Iron Age. He was a classic in the 1970's. Yet, constant failure to monitor Hank Pym consistently produced new Ultrons! And they would all learn from the mistakes of their previous Ultron selves. So before you go and throw me under the bus, consider some of the source material.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

Have you ever read any classic era Marvel comics? From the 1960's to 1970's? That kind of backfire happens all the time, especially in Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and the Avengers. One word: Ultron!

 

Ultron wasn't created in the Iron Age. He was a classic in the 1970's. Yet, constant failure to monitor Hank Pym consistently produced new Ultrons! And they would all learn from the mistakes of their previous Ultron selves. So before you go and throw me under the bus, consider some of the source material.

1) I wasn't trying to "throw you under the bus". I'm not even sure how that phrase would apply, but whatever.

2) The fact that there may be repercussions does not automatically mean it's a bad solution. In fact, according you your post it would actually be an in genre solution. You claim you wouldn't award XP for this because it's not creative, then point out it is a perfectly acceptable solution according to the source material the game is based on. So you only award XP if the players ignore tropes and break genre convention or what? Well the GM was suprized so it seems he thought it was creative, he didn't foresee it going that way and he planned the adventure! Also, you didn't answer my question:

Would it be better to beat every single one of them unconscious risking causing permanent physical injury, and risking one of them getting away to report exactly who attacked them, then spending time mentally reversing the psychic surgery (which may be just as invasive as the mind wipe or even more so, where does the original personality end and the programming begin?) for each individual person? In fact, trying to deprogram them may have set off the mindwipe anyway?

 

EDIT: In an attempt to pose the question in a less extreme manner. What would you consider a "creative" solution worthy of XP? Even if their solution wasn't "creative" according to your standards, why is solving the problem in a non-(physically)-violent way that, according to your own arguement is totally fitting with the genre conventions of a four-color comic, not worth XP? Saying you wouldn't give them XP for dealing with the adventure in that manner heavily implies they did something "wrong". What, in your opinion, is the "right" solution to the situation?

[Greywind]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

Have you ever read any classic era Marvel comics? From the 1960's to 1970's? That kind of backfire happens all the time, especially in Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and the Avengers. One word: Ultron!

 

Ultron wasn't created in the Iron Age. He was a classic in the 1970's. Yet, constant failure to monitor Hank Pym consistently produced new Ultrons! And they would all learn from the mistakes of their previous Ultron selves. So before you go and throw me under the bus, consider some of the source material.

Pym built ONE Ultron. Ultron took it upon himself to make improvements.

[John T]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

I'm not sure this qualifies as a creative solution. Sure the guy loses his entire cartel' date=' but you also create a situation where in the long run, some of these people might be very angry at you. As much as this guy tampered with their minds, there's also their psychological well being to consider. If they don't remember anything before working for the drug dealer, is that really any better than rehabilitative therapy and deprogramming? See, I wouldn't award any addtional XP for this, because a few years down the road, when one of these guys becomes a supervillain, YOU'RE the guy he's gonna remember, and you'll be the one who's the target of an unexpected and terrible revenge in a couple of years.[/quote']

How's this different from possibly having to fight through the brainwashed horde, potentially seriously injuring several of the more persistent and durable, and almost certainly having most if not all of them arrested and at least temporarily institutionalized to repair the mental damage?

 

If the bad guy inserts a mental "reset" button to protect himself, I'd be pretty likely to use it, too. From a (possibly limited) player's perspective, this could very easily look like the path of least destruction for all the potential victims.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: I made the GM cry....

 

I'm not seeing any alternative solutions being presented. If the alternative is "well' date=' these innocent people continue being under the control of the Master Villain, so we either let his plans proceed or we beat up/jail/kill the mind controlled victims", then the Gold/Silver age answer seems to be "loss of 6 weeks memory is not crippling to the victims and this solves the problem". The more bronze/modern age answer might be "considerable rehabilitation is required but the other alternatives are worse". The Iron Age/AHGM solution is "Ha ha - if you break the conditioning, it will be devastating for the targets and they will be forever traumatized, unable to be reintegrated with society and become villains, and if you don't they keep going as drug producers, or whatever other criminal endeavour the mastermind instructs, until you jail them or kill them. You can't win - no XP since whatever you do violates your heroic code!"[/quote']

 

Still waiting for that alternative four color solution. Or do those opposed to the method accepted by the GM in question feel that he should simply have held out for the one solution he had in mind (I assume he had one), either frustrating or penalizing any other approach taken by the characters? To me, the worst genre trope violation in a four color game would be leaving the PC's in a no-win situation where the victims simply cannot be saved, regardless of their efforts or creativity.