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Your group seems to not want to play a roleplay. They want to go on a rampage killing things. Thats not what a rpg is about.

Ahtman wrote:

Jubear wrote:everything I read about GMing mentions that its not my job to kill my players.

You are reading the wrong books.

He has the wrong PCs.

Manchu wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Jubear wrote:everything I read about GMing mentions that its not my job to kill my players.

You are reading the wrong books.

He has the wrong PCs.

Well sure, there is that too.

VikingScott wrote:Your group seems to not want to play a roleplay. They want to go on a rampage killing things. Thats not what a rpg is about for me.

FTFY.

Keep in mind that different people enjoy different things in games. It sounds like a GM/Player mismatch as some others noted earlier.

Either there needs to be a style compromise or he needs to find a new group.

Ahtman wrote:

Manchu wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Jubear wrote:everything I read about GMing mentions that its not my job to kill my players.

You are reading the wrong books.

He has the wrong PCs.

Well sure, there is that too.

Actually, upon further review, you got it right the first time.

I have a personal dislike of the "The GMs job is to kill players" mindset. First, it's incorrect as it's hopefully "The GMs job is to kill player characters or else we're advocating murder, but more importantly killing player characters is neither challenging nor surprising for GMs.

GMs have unlimited credit to throw opponents at PCs, not to mention the 'rocks fall, everyone dies' option of being able to rule at will. The primary player reaction to these kind of options, if abused, is to leave the game.

A good GM challenges the players (and their characters) and may occasionally kill one, but the goal is to make sure everyone has a good time, preferably by telling a good story that everyone takes part in. (Which may be heavy or light on combat depending on the group and their mood.)

As mentioned elsewhere, the days of DM fiat are pretty far behind us ruleswise (all else being equal). Third Edition reads like a PC Bill of Rights compared to anything before it and Fourth Edition has only further exaggerated that tendency. While "kill the players" was indeed a battlecry of tyrannical DMs in the days of yore, it makes a lot more sense nowadays. Any warmer or fuzzier and the minmaxing PCs aren't even bothering. They start in on the NPCs, especially the shopkeeps, and who can really blame them. The ideal priority is still "cooperate to pen a memorable story" but in a board/skirmish game-influenced edition the practical goal is to drive them just short of TPK so that they'll actually use that huge, team-oriented arsenal that Wizards is providing.

If the players want to go the "Knights of the Dinner Table" route and start robbing shopkeepers, then they're obviously not 'heros' (Unless it's a 'dark' campaign where that kind of thing makes sense) and the DM is justified to start using that aforementioned unlimited line of credit at the monster bank. Doing so is a 'nuclear option' though.

Players want to knock over the local weapon shop? Besides the folly of knocking over the one guy in town who probably does have some Fighter levels, there's almost always going to be a witness unless they're in serious 'serial killer' territory. So the PCs are now outlaws, and will need to make amends if they ever want to function in civilization again... And they're the 'Heroes' so they might want those contacts and resources if they want to stop the Dread Lord Bamfer from destroying the world.

I'm against the "I am here to kill players (characters)" mindset, but that doesn't mean they have to 'win.' Losing can be fun! Make the follow-up campaign the lousy ruined world the Dread Lord Bamfer left behind when he ascended to become a new god of evil, and the new PCs (maybe even some old ones if you want to get wacky) get to deal with it... And now, shiving a shopkeeper for a few copper is either acceptable (It's kill or be killed) or an even worse idea (Who's going to forge weapons now?) depending ont he campaign the players and GM desire.

It's kind of a social contract. If I run a campaign, I try to open by a sort of 'mission statement' or setting of expectations for the game. Something like "You're thieves, but with some morals, like perhaps the crew of Firefly" to help set the tone.

Balance wrote:If the players want to go the "Knights of the Dinner Table" route and start robbing shopkeepers, then they're obviously not 'heros' (Unless it's a 'dark' campaign where that kind of thing makes sense) and the DM is justified to start using that aforementioned unlimited line of credit at the monster bank. Doing so is a 'nuclear option' though.

Players want to knock over the local weapon shop? Besides the folly of knocking over the one guy in town who probably does have some Fighter levels, there's almost always going to be a witness unless they're in serious 'serial killer' territory. So the PCs are now outlaws, and will need to make amends if they ever want to function in civilization again... And they're the 'Heroes' so they might want those contacts and resources if they want to stop the Dread Lord Bamfer from destroying the world.

I'm against the "I am here to kill players (characters)" mindset, but that doesn't mean they have to 'win.' Losing can be fun! Make the follow-up campaign the lousy ruined world the Dread Lord Bamfer left behind when he ascended to become a new god of evil, and the new PCs (maybe even some old ones if you want to get wacky) get to deal with it... And now, shiving a shopkeeper for a few copper is either acceptable (It's kill or be killed) or an even worse idea (Who's going to forge weapons now?) depending ont he campaign the players and GM desire.

It's kind of a social contract. If I run a campaign, I try to open by a sort of 'mission statement' or setting of expectations for the game. Something like "You're thieves, but with some morals, like perhaps the crew of Firefly" to help set the tone.

A very good post. Thanks for sharing. It certainly gave me pause for thought on this issue.

The two main jobs of a GM besides the obvious ones are to provide a challenge to the players and to keep their attention/keep them interested in the game.

If you can do both of those while GMing, your doing a hell of a lot better than some terrabad GM I know.

Balance wrote:t's kind of a social contract.

I'm having trouble with the analogy. Who are the parties to this contract? The PCs on one hand and the DM on the other? The PCs on one hand and the NPCs on the other? And what are the parties offering one another in consideration?

I think you could envision a sort of contract like this: the DM agrees to give the PCs a challenge and the PCs agree to take the DM's challenge seriously. That's the most basic level of the contract and, in Fourth Edition especially, the challenge practically devolves to the DM trying to kill the PCs fairly (that is, within the limits of rules) while the PCs similarly try to avoid being killed fairly. The rules already stack the deck against the DM as long as you assume a competent and intra-cooperative party of 5 to 6 PCs. Going soft on said party is basically wasting their time. It invites boredom and eventually disruptive behavior. As you know, Fourth Edition is criticized pretty heavily for not supplying encouragement to role play the game compared to its encouragement to simply play the game. This criticism, although often leveled unthoughtfully, is basically fair inasmuch as Fourth Edtion does pit DM against PCs much more explicitly and more transparently in terms of mechanics than preceding editions. The storytelling aspect, meanwhile, is more than ever simply what ties all the encounters together rather than serving as the driving force behind playing in the first place. YMMV, of course, but D&D 4E is not a storytelling game in the same sense as something like the World of Darkness lines.


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Balance wrote:GMs have unlimited credit to throw opponents at PCs, not to mention the 'rocks fall, everyone dies' option of being able to rule at will. The primary player reaction to these kind of options, if abused, is to leave the game.

To wit, this kind of stuff (the unlimited credit and cave-in TPK) was perfectly possible for DMs in AD&D--although you can make a very strong case for it being mean and abusive. But it's actually against the rules in Fourth Edition.

The 'social contract' is between the GM and the players. Basically, the responsabilities are:

GM: I will try to make the game interesting, spread around the fun parts, and not treat you or your characters as my personal buttmonkey.

Player: I will accept that the game has a narrative flow of which I should be part (as long as I have some freedom) and that I need to play the role I am provided.

I haven't read the 4th edition DMG, so I'm not aware of any specific rules against such things... Then again, a literal interpretation of the rules to support such a view might also prevent the aforementioned 'shiving the merchant' as the merchant is neither a 'monster' not 'part of an encounter.'

From what I've seen of 4th edition 'official' adventures difficulty varies widely based on some things the official GM tools may not be able to account for... I.E. a fight becomes much more difficult if it's on narrow bridges over a scalding lake of blood, and the adventures seem to encourage this kind of thing... Which is old-school, in a way, as 1st edition D&D had a lot of dungeons with weird stuff like this in it.

I am glad, as a player, that the 'grudge monsters' have mostly been banished from normal play for 3rd an 4th. Stuff like the rust monster and such that was a rite of passage, but more annoying than threatening. They probably exist in the recent editions, but aren't nearly as common.

Legal wrangling cuts both ways, of course!

Balance wrote:I haven't read the 4th edition DMG, so I'm not aware of any specific rules against such things... Then again, a literal interpretation of the rules to support such a view might also prevent the aforementioned 'shiving the merchant' as the merchant is neither a 'monster' not 'part of an encounter.

Fourth Edition takes a holistic approach to encounter difficulty. You mention terrain, for example, and this is definitely taken into account. Also, the DM does not have unlimited credit at the monster bank. You have a very tight budget per encounter based on the size of the party. Monsters are also designed to work together. That means that I need to "buy" an expensive controller-type monster as well as a plethora of minion types--who all have exactly 1 HP, by the way--and use whatever's left for artillery, etc. Against smaller parties, therefore, your monster-buying budget is basically unworkable. And that brings us back to terrain. But by terrain, I don't mean traps and the like (i.e., skill challenges). Traps also come out of your monster budget. Terrain means something more like your narrow bridge; basically, laying out a dungeon that monsters might actually have built to defend.

How do shopkeep's fit into this? I've often envisioned that every single thing that PCs do in Fourth Edition should be framed as an encounter. After all, in Descent you don't suddenly go into freeform negotiation when the players want to purchase items out of the treasure deck. That would be unfair to Descent's version of the DM. Of course, people have different expectations of D&D 4E than a boardgame--well, they have a lot of mixed-up and unfair expectations. In practice it boils down to the PCs trying to get away with everything they possibly can, at least when--or especially when--they're bored.

We've been having this discussion from the DM's point of view, asking whether the DM should be at outright war with the PCs. But consider it from the PCs' persepctive: they're already at war with the DM. And in the battlefield of Fourth Edition, the PCs have some overwhelming advantages over the DM. Aside from being exponentially stronger (at least as a team if not always as individuals) than anything DM's are allowed to throw at them, there are also logistical considerations. A PC is responsible for one character. The DM is responsible for everything and everyone that isn't a PC. Both between and during sessions, PCs have the leisure to plot and plan while DMs are busy with EVERYTHING.

Balance, I don't really see your stance as genuine. You're basically saying the DM shouldn't pull a fiat "cave-in TPK" and the PCs shouldn't mess with the shopkeeps. But there is a tacit threat in there: if you mess with the shop keeps, the ceiling is gonna fall. You describe this proverbial cavern collapse in terms of "logical consequences"--the PCs being outlaws or losing access to a shop. But I wonder if you've had to deal with really clever PCs, the PCs who come up with extremely intricate plans that effectively have no negative logical consequences in game. Perhaps you would rely on some kind of karmic redressing of justice in this case? DM fiat via in-game divine wrath or the like? It's still, at heart, the DM threatening to kill the PCs--just done in a much more paternalistic style. Fourth Edition puts the DM and PCs on a more transparent, if still imbalanced, playing field: the DM tries to kill the PCs FAIRLY and the PCs try to avoid being killed FAIRLY.

The quicker everyone can get on board with this transparent sense of fairness, the quicker everyone can "grow up" with regard to ravaging the NPCs.

And honestly, if you're for logical consequences, what could be more logical than monsters actually trying to kill the PCs?

I think a few things need to be mentioned:

1. The XP guidelines for encounters are exactly that, guidelines. The official table from DMG 1 err on the side of easy, especially with all the options that have come out for players in the last two years. The suggested encounter budget for a five first level adventures is 500xp. In my experience they're going to steamroll that at this point. I find that increasing the budget by thirty to fifty percent of suggested gives a more rewarding encounter. So the average encounter for those fives will now be around 750 xp.

2. If your players are running around gutting NPCs you have failed as a DM. They're aren't interested in roleplaying, they just want constant combat. That's fine, you can run an Insert Coin style of game where you have a brief "cutscene" to set up the next encounter, but keep PC to NPC interaction to the more murderous variety. Part of the deal between players and their DM is that the DM will provide the type of game that players are interested in.

3. There are other ways to do consequences then straight DM-fiat. Players murder and rob a shopkeeper? Okay, you get a few mundane items. Also the town guard (stated for a hard encounter) wants to see you swing. Or maybe you now have a group of bounty hunters following you, waiting for the perfect time to strike, probably right when you're low on healing surges or have just finished a fight and are out of encounters and dailies.

4. You can easily kill a PC "fairly". An elite with an Action Point can go for a KO on an encounter power, then AP for a coup de grace. This is a perfectly valid way to run a game if your players are cool with it.

@Gr3y:

The specifics of the budget "guidelines" are not really at issue; rather, the point is that there is no infinite "line of credit" at "monster bank." Whether your group makes the decision to play with a more or less limited pool of resources available to the DM, the fact remains that the DM has a limited pool of resources in Fourth Edition. Otherwise you're no longer being guided by the guidelines at all; you're just breaking the rules.


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Gr3y wrote:If your players are running around gutting NPCs you have failed as a DM.

So it's the DM's fault?

Gr3y wrote:They're aren't interested in roleplaying, they just want constant combat.

No, wait, it's the PCs' fault?

Gr3y wrote:Part of the deal between players and their DM is that the DM will provide the type of game that players are interested in.

This helps clear up the confusion. Yes, that's part of the deal--only part of the deal. There's another part of the deal where the PCs will actually bring something to the table as well. Many, many PCs have this idea that the DM is there to entertain them. And many DMs spinelessly go along with it. NPC-slaughtering is one symptom of this disorder.

Your third point is the same as Balance's: "if PCs anger the DM, the DM must punish them with logic." I prefer a game in which the player's are equals who have all agreed to play by the rules rather than a game where the DM's default motto is "father knows best." This is why later editions of D&D are, to my mind, so much better than earlier ones. In essance, disguising the inherent bilateral tensions of the game with the cloak of "cooperative storytelling" is simply not as effective as naked hostility. Which brings me around to your fourth point: yes, PCs are supposed to die now and again. They have the resources to deal even with this. Adventuring without plausible threat is absurd.

I tend to think of it as more of a world where the 'golden rule' is very immediate.

But in the end, I admit everyone's game is different. Everyone I game with is in their mid-30s, so we've reached the point where we want to have a fun night and the game is really just an enabler for that.

That's a great situation! I wonder that there even need to be rules.

Manchu wrote:@Gr3y:

The specifics of the budget "guidelines" are not really at issue; rather, the point is that there is no infinite "line of credit" at "monster bank." Whether your group makes the decision to play with a more or less limited pool of resources available to the DM, the fact remains that the DM has a limited pool of resources in Fourth Edition. Otherwise you're no longer being guided by the guidelines at all; you're just breaking the rules.

I'm not sure what you mean by "line of credit". As a DM I do have unlimited credit at the "monster bank" the "trap bank" and the "unfairly designed encounter bank". If I want to create a dungeon that will rip a party to shreds I can easily do so. All while following the guidelines. Creatures and traps that straight eat a healing surge (meaning that the player looses a surge without being able to spend it first) come readily to mind. Couple that with structuring things so they don't get an extended rest, toss in an extra encounter or two, and you have a party whose survivability is on par with an Imperial Storm Trooper three days from retirement.

My point about the guidelines is that the original encounter budget guidelines are on the low side. You need to jack those up a fair bit to make the encounters "average" or above.

Manchu wrote:
So it's the DM's fault?

Yes.

Manchu wrote:
No, wait, it's the PCs' fault?

Also yes.

Manchu wrote:
Many, many PCs have this idea that the DM is there to entertain them.

That is what I expect from my DM.

Manchu wrote:
And many DMs spinelessly go along with it.

If my players aren't being entertained then I'm doing a poor job of it. I don't spend a few hours outside of playtime making things for people to not enjoy.

Manchu wrote:
NPC-slaughtering is one symptom of this disorder.

Not really. It's a sign of player boredom or DM/player mismatch. If you don't want to play in the type of game I run you are welcome to leave. I'll ask what I can do to involve you more in the game, and if it doesn't fit with what I want to run I'll ask you to find another group to play with. If all of my players are acting out then I've misjudged what they wanted from our sessions and I'll either create something that satisfies them or I'll politely bow out and let someone else run it.

Manchu wrote:
Your third point is the same as Balance's: "if PCs anger the DM, the DM must punish them with logic." I prefer a game in which the player's are equals who have all agreed to play by the rules rather than a game where the DM's default motto is "father knows best." This is why later editions of D&D are, to my mind, so much better than earlier ones. In essance, disguising the inherent bilateral tensions of the game with the cloak of "cooperative storytelling" is simply not as effective as naked hostility. Which brings me around to your fourth point: yes, PCs are supposed to die now and again. They have the resources to deal even with this. Adventuring without plausible threat is absurd.

My players don't anger me when they act out. They show me how they want to have fun. If they want a spot of the ultraviolent then I'll send it them. Killing that shopkeeper shows me that what they really want is more combat. Now I can take that, work it into the story, and have it fulfill their request.

Manchu wrote:That's a great situation! I wonder that there even need to be rules.

We do enjoy the challenge aspects of tactical combat, so rules are good. We just don't feel we need to be slaves to them. We did, for example, years ago we did a Necromunda campaign and had a lot of fun, and games like that bring out a lot more rules-lawyer behavior as they're a bit more truly 'competitive.' D&D is, basically, trustingt hat the GM will challenge us, but won't wipe out the party unless we really screw up.

Gr3y wrote:
My players don't anger me when they act out. They show me how they want to have fun. If they want a spot of the ultraviolent then I'll send it them. Killing that shopkeeper shows me that what they really want is more combat. Now I can take that, work it into the story, and have it fulfill their request.

I can accept this. The main thing is that GMing is a lot of work. The GM of an average RPG has to deal with running a bunch of characters (in some systems (like D&D 3.0), these may be as complex as the PCs!), trying to listen to a bunch of different play requests, and keeping the overall story moving. It's not easy. Last time I GMed a game I burned about a day a weekend, or 2-3 evenings, to do my prep work. I enjoyed it, and I'm also into making hand-outs and maps and such when appropriate.

Anyway, GMing is a lot of work and it's generally unpaid. As such, it is in the player's interest to reward the GM by going along with the story a bit and, if that's the group's method, not shiving merchants. The GM has a right to have a good time as well.

In my group the GM (and his wife) also provide the space to play (cleaning time) and often cook for us (some of us contribute snacks and sodas/booze. Sometimes we do just order food.). it's a non-trivial cost in time just to host for us and prepare to run the game, and feel I should reward that by letting the GM do what he wants (which is generally some variant of "tell a story") instead of indulging my own bloodlust.

Although, yeah, there's something to be said for a combat-heavy night when it's been a lousy week at work and you jsut want to slay some orcs.

Gr3y wrote:As a DM I do have unlimited credit at the "monster bank" the "trap bank" and the "unfairly designed encounter bank".

Gr3y wrote:If my players aren't being entertained then I'm doing a poor job of it. I don't spend a few hours outside of playtime making things for people to not enjoy.

With great power comes great responsibility, eh? It sounds like you're running second edition with fourth edition books. And if that's what works for your group, so be it. To assume the best, I think that you and Balance both game under very enviable circumstances where clear communication and cooperation are givens.

In any case, the points I've been making are really not about anyone's particular gaming group but are rather about the game design itself. Fourth Edition. Not Fourth Edition as re-worked for the needs/purposes of group X. When I think of the various iterations of D&D, I see a progression away from DM as omniscient/omnipotent storyteller to DM as opponent. The rules of Fourth Edition make this more explicit and transparent than ever before.

I understand the sentiment behind not going after the PCs--we just want to drink some beer and laugh, after all, no hard feelings. From a design standpoint, however, which cannot really assume the best of the particpants, I think Fourth Edition (and 3.5 before it) has done well by encouraging greater transparency and accountability on the part of the DM.

The next step in this progression, I hope, will be encouraging the PCs to bring more to the table.

Manchu wrote:The next step in this progression, I hope, will be encouraging the PCs to bring more to the table.

Like food or perhaps money.

^^^^
Hey I get a 10% discount at my FLGS for running stuff for them. I also never let my DM pay for Coffee if we game at a cafe.

Manchu wrote:With great power comes great responsibility, eh? It sounds like you're running second edition with fourth edition books. And if that's what works for your group, so be it.

Maybe? I never really played 2e. I've converted a couple of Ravenloft modules to 4e, but that's about it.

Manchu wrote:
In any case, the points I've been making are really not about anyone's particular gaming group but are rather about the game design itself. Fourth Edition. Not Fourth Edition as re-worked for the needs/purposes of group X.

If there is any advice anyone takes away from my insane ramblings it is this: Thou shalt not slavishly follow the rules, for down that path lies madness.

4e is the best two fisted dungeon busting system out there. Hands down. However there are parts of it that are absolute trash and need to be replaced with something less sucky. Skill challenges and Solos (though to be fair MM3 was a step in the right direction) come readily to mind.

Manchu wrote:
When I think of the various iterations of D&D, I see a progression away from DM as omniscient/omnipotent storyteller to DM as opponent. The rules of Fourth Edition make this more explicit and transparent than ever before.

I think 4e gets back a little bit more to the roots. Back when it was 3d6, straight down the line, and pick a class that fits your highest stat, the DM wasn't a story teller. They were there to try to kill the characters in an interesting and unique manner. 3rd edition was much more story focused. Unfortunately D&D was never meant for story based gameplay. It's about killing monsters, taking the stuff, and using it kill more monsters (who hopefully have better stuff). Can you use the system to tell a story? Sure, but if you want a deep story based game there are better systems for it.

Manchu wrote:
I understand the sentiment behind not going after the PCs--we just want to drink some beer and laugh, after all, no hard feelings. From a design standpoint, however, which cannot really assume the best of the particpants, I think Fourth Edition (and 3.5 before it) has done well by encouraging greater transparency and accountability on the part of the DM.

The next step in this progression, I hope, will be encouraging the PCs to bring more to the table.

At this point you've lost me.

I'll try an example to get you back on track. After seeing one campaign (not run by me) go down in flames because of PCs (including me) not being satisfied by the storyline, I determined to run a one-off where the PCs were required to contribute to world-building. I prepared literally nothing for the session, except mental notes about the general shape of the plot. The session was to be set entirely within a city. Whenever a PC wanted to talk to an NPC or even find a tavern/etc, it was her/his job to come up with some details about the person/place in question. Using those details as a starting point, I improvised the rest of the development on the spot.

In this way, the players had a sense of "ownership" in the setting and plot. When something happened that they did not think "fit," they were better able to articulate why and how it could be changed. Instead of frustrated lack of expression channeled into random disruptive behavior, a process of negotiation emerged. And, as a DM, I was more free to build encounters and thoughtfully conduct the combat. If something wasn't working out in terms of the "fluffier" aspects, the burden wasn't on just one person (in this case, me) to miraculously make everyone else happy again.

Okay. I see what you're getting at now. Giving your players narrative control can be great as it take a lot of pressure off the DM. However this not something D&D is really set up for out of the box. There are systems that have Fate or Drama points that players can spend to take control of a scene and do some world building of their own.

Letting player's set the scene is something the DM has to decide on. It's not a function of most systems. In fact, one of the strong points of 4e in my opinion is that it has introduced a sharp difference between fluff and crunch. There are no rules for roleplaying, you have a mechanical system for conflict resolution, but how you use it is up to you.

If you want a system that focuses more on shared world building you should check out Seven Seas, PDQ, Unisystem, Lights Camera Action, etc.

However I don't think that another system would have saved the OP's group. They wanted to use dice only for killing, so I don't giving them more narrative control would have satisfied them. Giving them a game structure where it was one fight after another, brief cutscene where they get a quest or reward, followed by more killin' sounds like what they were looking for.

Gr3y wrote:In fact, one of the strong points of 4e in my opinion is that it has introduced a sharp difference between fluff and crunch.

I agree 100%--which is why I say "kill the PCs!" is what 4E DMs should be doing. But, at the same time, this is the heart of the "it's roll play not role play now" jibe. If WotC really want to publish a RPG, they need to develop the RP as well as the G. I think the next innovation should involve rules that bring the PCs in on that. Something that makes the line between mechanics and RP hazier--like a "fate point," as you mentioned, but more defined, like 4E's action points.

I don't think that another system would have saved the OP's group.

They'll do fine with Descent. (Not a "system" like you meant, I know.) Although I'm not sure OP will want to play. A game that more clearly defined what the PCs responsibilities are with regard to R(ole)Ping would better suit him, I think, when he finds a better match group-wise.