Threatening Party Members

Last night we had an odd session that involved a shopping encounter.  It was very much needed and a great way for the GM to allow us to resupply without having to retrace our steps and restart.  The merchants were goblin, fey goblins who seem to ply their trade with anyone they can get to sign a 600 page agreement.  Since we still considered ourselves individuals and haven't conglomerated into single entity we each needed to chose to sign.   Half the party did.  Dante and my guy Adzeer chose not to, although I was tempted to.

When our party's thief started paying for things I discovered he'd been stashing money from the rest of us.  Adzeer, knew a little of what was going on, but didn't say much at the time.  Last night when he saw Luven shilling out more coin than he should have Adzeer threatened him.  The typical measuring of members followed, "Luven, if you keep stealing from us I might forget which way my healing spells work."  "Oh yeah, well maybe we'll be some place dark and you won't be able to cover your back all the time."  It was a short exchange, but enough I think to make the others uncomfortable out of game.  That was not my intent.  Just some harsh RPing.  

Even though there was nothing personal about it, I didn't like the way it came off.  I will blame it on my inability to put the bad work day in my back pocket.  How I wish it came off is with a bit of humor and without the threat.  Next time. 

I was thinking about when party members get on the opposite ends of a dispute.  It happens.  I kinda should happen.  Most of the time it adds and interesting element to the party dynamic.  Years ago I ran an adventure where everyone was the member of a thieves guild, they were to sneak into nobleman's home, but that's where their common cause ended.  Each had a goal and they conflicted with the other thieves' goals.  It was a lot of fun.

Last night I failed my good player roll.  Next time a conflict comes up I hope to handle it better and more in line with the fun we are trying to have. 

Incompetence and Ignorance Can Be Fun

Rarely did Rob and I have a chance to adventure together. Rob was usually the GM while Dwayne and I tore up or got tore up in his Majestic Wilderlands. This time Dwayne decided to give it a go. We were playing GURPS so no alignments were needed, but Rob and I played a pair of nasty SOBs. I played an unlucky mercenary named Del-Goth who was not all that tough, always got into trouble and he never thought any of it was his fault. Rob played pretty much the exact same type of character except he was a dwarf and I was human. I referred to him as my 'little brother' because we were constantly getting into one mess or another. Neither were that smart and we played their incompetence to the hilt. It was a blast.

One of the first adventures we had was when I was fired from a job for no fault of my own. Little Brother was fired due to his association with me. So we concocted the fantastic idea of mugging thieves' guild members. We figured thieves steal for a living so they have money. We knew of one place where the thieves went so we set up an ambush. Little Brother with his crossbow and me with my sword. First guy comes to the door we are staking out so Little Brother tries to plunk him off is a shot to the top of the head. He had to point down so much that the bolt fell off the crossbow and onto the street. Alerting our mark and he disappeared. Crap.

Onto the next plan. We figured we were big bad mercenaries and they were just thieves so should just kick down the door crack some skulls and take the money. We needed money bad because we had none. So we go into the door we were staking out and went into the den of thieves. At first we did well. Kicked some asses and feeling good about ourselves. We were plucking the bodies clean like a pair of starving vultures when Little Brother got his with a knife. Then another. I grabbed Little Brother and tried to get out, but they had surrounded us. Crap.

I managed to get out by beating one little thief to the side and running out the door. On the way out running through the streets trying to lose the pickpocket boys we ran into our old boss. He didn't see us so we had a few healing potions got back up to snuff and came up with our next brilliant idea. Steal the money from the mercenary group. We knew the people, knew the layout, and knew where the gold was. Why hadn't we thought of that before? This plan lasted all of fifteen minutes. Del-Goth tried to convince one of the other mercenaries to let him in on the premise he'd forgotten something. I got in, apparently the guard was a bit more incompetent that us, and we went directly to the treasury and looted as much as we could carry. What we didn't figure on was how to get out. It's difficult to sneak by people when you jingle. The gig was up when we were spotted coming out of the treasury with sacks full of payroll. An alarm was raised and we were on the run again. Crap.

So we ran and ran until we ducked into a temple in the middle of the city. The priest was kind enough to offer us sanctuary. They fed us, were kind to us and when we woke in the morning all the gold we looted was gone. The priest explained it was the price of staying. Just when me and Little Brother were about shish ka bob a couple of priests I noticed outside a small crowd of mercenaries was camped and in the alley ways a crowd of thieves waited. Crap.

It took some time but Del-Goth and Little Brother escaped by getting shipped out inside barrels. At least we were fed and in good condition even if was a brief. We were shipped to this tavern at a crossroads and here is where Del-Goth and Little Brother's story ends. Again, we were out of money so a tavern seemed like as good as any place to rob. What I didn't know is the tavern was protected by an iron golem. After a short fight that saw Little Brother killed by a small mob of patrons. Del-Goth fell into a water trough and held underwater by the iron golem until he died.

We died they way we lived, unremarkable and wasteful. But there was a charm to playing them. It was one of my favorite pairings. The campaign did not last long, but I will always remember the adventures of the two most incompetent adventurers to strap on boots.

GM Rulings

There will be times when a player disagrees with a GM's ruling. My view is simple. If you think the GM is wrong make your case briefly. If the GM overrules you then that's it. Discussion over and move on with the game. To give an example of a situation that happened recently a GM stated that the players could not see at night in the desert. A player argued that with starlight he could. Both argued about their personal experiences with the same or similar situations. The argument boiled until it was decided to postpone the game for another night. In this case I believe the player is wrong. This is the GM's world based on his experience.

I'm not talking about the times when a GM ignores, disallows or is inconsistent with a rule. In such cases the player has a valid gripe. What I am focusing on is interpretations or laws of the gaming world. If the GM decides you cannot see in at night in an area or you cannot swim across a fast moving river than you can't. Use your imagination to get around the problem or solve it. Don't let the problem ruin the night of gaming. We get precious few as it is.

PC Wrecking Balls

I've been reading a lot about GMs spending a lengthy time developing a campaign only to have it so dear to them that it was unplayable. There is still a strain of GMs out there who consider it a 'me against them' game. That there is a winner, and for him to win he has to annihilate the party. These GMs want you to walk through their worlds and marvel at what they have created, but don't touch anything. It's not to be played with. They spent too many years developing it to be tarnished by any actions of the PCs.

Let's talk about the flip side, PCs who want to destroy what the GM has built. Some players are like that all the time, I shall dub them the wrecking ball PCs (or if you're into MMORPGS you can call them griefers). Class and alignment don't hinder them from their goal of causing destruction where ever they go. There is always some degree of this in players, but most will play along with the society you have developed and explore the world first then change the things they don't like. Wrecking ball PCs will target things they know that will bother the GM. Maybe a shop owner NPC the GM seems to be having fun playing or a village that the GM was up last night mapping because the week before the players said they wanted to explore this area and wanted a map.

The easiest solution is to weed out these types of players. There is no sense of spending time developing something of interest if the player goes out of his way to make sure it gets destroyed before anyone can enjoy it. This player is making it personal and is the same kind of person who will scream the loudest if a call goes against him.

If the player is working within the confines of the world and using the rules and laws to his advantage that is just good game play and the GM should encourage it even if it drives him nuts. These two should not be confused. The first guy would try to burn down the palace where all the nobles are gathering. This second player will use skullduggery, blackmail and maybe assassination to bring down the nobility.

GMs need a way to handle this kind of player. Any fantasy world has some type of law whether it's the King's Law or Law of the Jungle, some type of structure is in place and anytime anything that gets disruptive there are consequences. Keep the consequences within the game. Another possibility is to get the other players involved. This is what usually happens, they will police themselves or deal out the consequences themselves.

The important thing is to allow the players to alter and move through your world. Allow them the freedom to change and destroy parts of your world. GMs cannot be so protective of their world to deny any PC influence on it. That is the fun of the game. Guiding the players through your world and see what parts they stop to admire and see what they want to change or part of your world they want to become a part of. PC wrecking balls, their joy comes from making sure no one else has fun. Each GM has to decide how much they are willing to tolerate and whether the player is worth the struggle.

The Worst Player I Ever GMed

Zack on RPG Blog II wrote about his worst DM ever and it read like a horror story. My worst DM was one who had a PC graveyard folder. If you went through his dungeon(s) and died he wanted your character sheet. These days it's no big deal to give up a copy of your PC, but back then we had no copies. This DM was proud of how thick his PC graveyard was and would thumb through it and brag how he'd killed them. First time I encountered him we played and I had a half-orc assassin character I liked a lot. I believe he was 5th level. This GM slaughtered the entire party within fifteen minutes of game play by rolling a random encounter of ten crazed titans. He expect each of us to hand over our characters and told him no. This was a one shot deal this character was involved in another campaign. He told me I could no longer play that character. It was his. It was dead. I left with my character sheet as did the others. I'm not sure what happened to him, but I am sure he is still thumbing through his PC graveyard folder.

Now onto the worst player I ever had. Now this will be in two parts because it changed. The first worst characters I ever had were actually Rob and Dwayne. They couldn't get along well enough to complete a single session without wanting to or killing one another. It was one of the main reasons I stopped DMing for a long time. It's hard to DM when your players just want to disembowel one another. But I am happy to report that is long past.

The worst player I had was always trying to find new ways to cheat. The only reason I dealt with him was he was part of a new group Rob and I started to play with. All the other guys in the group were a lot of fun to game with. I shall name this player Butthead, but Butthead was always cheating. We were playing a GURPS campaign so it is a point based system. Everyone started out with 100 point characters. I believe after a couple of game sessions the players were 110 characters, but magically Butthead's character was nearing the 200 point total. After I checked his sheet he defended it saying I had given him the points, like he was trying to pull some Jedi mind trick. I told him to go pound salt and redo his character to the 110 point level.

During game play he would roll the dice and cover them with his hand so no one could see the result but him. So I had to take a box off a Trivial Pursuit game and said all dice rolls needed to made within or it would not count. He said it wasn't fair. He said he wasn't cheating. He said I was doing it just because of him. I told him yeah I am now shut up and roll. In the box.

I was not fond of him game play either. He was playing a holy warrior, paladin type, but every time a monster or NPC would go down he would be the first to start pilfering through the pockets even if a battle was still going on. He let two of his party die so he could get to an NPC's pockets first. Since he was not a true paladin he did not lose any powers, but when he went to the church he proclaimed to be a part of the healing spells would not work on him. Through the priests I explained he had angered the god with his actions. Butthead thought I was being completely unfair. That I was picking on him and wanted his character dead. When I told him his actions had consequences to roleplay it. If you want to be the bad boy of the church please indulge or if he wanted to storm out in anger and join an opposite aligned church and show them then please do. But he was more interested in arguing.

During the one of the final sessions he continued to cheat with his character by slipping in more points and equipping them with magic items he never had access to. Even through all his cheating and pouting he met his character met an appropriate death by the hands of the lowly city guard. He did not return to play with us again. He said we cheated. The rest of his group stayed on and we had a lot of good adventures together. So if nothing else, Butthead managed to introduce me to another group of gamers I would not have known.