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As title.

What are some of the hardest choices you've had to make as the GM/DM for a game, or been a part of?
They might have ended badly, or well, but I'm interested to hear what you guys have experienced in the chair.

Determining how hard to troll my players.

Dwarven character gets knocked unconscious and the controlling player keeps leaving to drink, piss, and smoke.

The other PC's get aggravated with the constant interruptions and chop off the unconscious dwarf's sword hand. They then argue, that since the dwarf was unconscious and the player absent, that I should not tell him who inflicted the injury on him. I keep the assailant's identity secret from the Dwarven player. He throws a fit, leaves, and never plays D&D again.

The player who cut his hand off then goes into a tirade about him being a big baby about getting soo upset over an imaginary character.

The gaming group drops from 11 players down to 6 over the incident.

So we start a new campaign. I allowed the PC's to play nonstandard races in this campaign, because one of the players really wanted to play a Minotaur. The hand chopper shows up with the most broken PC he can manage. A half dragon something or other. One of the other players just looks at me, nods, and says "let him play it".

Not 15 minutes into the adventure the hand chopper gets mouthy with the Minotaur, and they end up in a nonlethal brawl. The Minotaur wins the initiative, criticals, and floors the half dragon in a single hit. Upset and now sitting there doing nothing, the hand chopper decides to go for a smoke.

When the Hand Chopper returns he is irate to learn that his Half Dragon's hand has been cut off. In an EPIC display of both Irony and Karma the hand chopper now flys into a tirade about how immature the group is for inflicting harm to his imaginary character, storms out, and doesn't play D&D again for another decade..

 adamsouza wrote:
Dwarven character gets knocked unconscious and the controlling player keeps leaving to drink, piss, and smoke.

The other PC's get aggravated with the constant interruptions and chop off the unconscious dwarf's sword hand. They then argue, that since the dwarf was unconscious and the player absent, that I should not tell him who inflicted the injury on him. I keep the assailant's identity secret from the Dwarven player. He throws a fit, leaves, and never plays D&D again.

The player who cut his hand off then goes into a tirade about him being a big baby about getting soo upset over an imaginary character.

The gaming group drops from 11 players down to 6 over the incident.

So we start a new campaign. I allowed the PC's to play nonstandard races in this campaign, because one of the players really wanted to play a Minotaur. The hand chopper shows up with the most broken PC he can manage. A half dragon something or other. One of the other players just looks at me, nods, and says "let him play it".

Not 15 minutes into the adventure the hand chopper gets mouthy with the Minotaur, and they end up in a nonlethal brawl. The Minotaur wins the initiative, criticals, and floors the half dragon in a single hit. Upset and now sitting there doing nothing, the hand chopper decides to go for a smoke.

When the Hand Chopper returns he is irate to learn that his Half Dragon's hand has been cut off. In an EPIC display of both Irony and Karma the hand chopper now flys into a tirade about how immature the group is for inflicting harm to his imaginary character, storms out, and doesn't play D&D again for another decade..

That is hilarious... but outlines the frustration gaming with smokers ends up being. It really is like those commercials where a bully forces them to leave in the middle of something and ruin it for everyone. Breaks are breaks, but not every 30minutes like clockwork that some gamer smokers need.

That's why I smoke behind my GM screen.

That's why it is generally a bad idea to let players maim/kill each other's characters. It just breeds more hostility. DnD, at its heart, is a cooperative game. When players turn on each other, it usually ends badly.

In that situation, I think allowing the players to maim the unconscious dwarf was a bad call and would have been way out of line for any good PCs. Probably neutrals, too. Instead, the player should have been taken aside to discuss how his behavior was affecting the sessions and decide if this was a good fit.

I guess I don't get why the other players were upset. If he was unconscious, just drag him along or dump him in town somewhere to heal. Really, that seems like the ideal time for the player to do his smoking, etc. as his character won't be having much input on anything.

But the fact that players are trying to make "broken" builds, constantly infighting, etc. says a lot about the dynamics.

 jmurph wrote:


But the fact that players are trying to make "broken" builds, constantly infighting, etc. says a lot about the dynamics.

Some people just want to be murder hobos and not much more. I try to make sure there is always an alternative to 'kill it with fire' available, but sometimes people are not interested in that aspect.

Hardest decisions as a DM?

Trying to judge if my players are having fun or not... I normally run published adventures, and in a current game I'm running a french system I really like called Shadows of Esteren, its published adventures have very little details, and are broad strokes of scenes. So I'm thinking on my feet a lot trying to figure out where to go, what to do, and generally how not to sit there and stammer trying to think of what to say. This is after a few hours of prep during the week...

So I generally sit in the game running it, hoping my players are having fun. They seem to be...

 jmurph wrote:
That's why it is generally a bad idea to let players maim/kill each other's characters......

I'm going to take that post as being written in the spirit of being constructive criticism and not be offended.

Hand Chooper was a douche, plain and simple. I explained to him that it was a colossally stupid and inconsiderate thing to do before he did it. As a game master though, I'll tell players that things aren't physically possible for their characters to accomplish, but I won't just flat out tell them "no" when I don't like it when they do something that their characters could accomplish. There will be consequences, but I abhore heavy handed Game Mastering overriding player choice.

This event, not only provided me with a great story, it served a useful porpose.
They player who's dwarf got his hand cut off was inconsiderate of the other players, drunk, and contantly interrupting.
The Hand chopper was a royal douche.
The other 4 players, that stopped showing up over the event, lacked the moral fiber to stop him from harming the dwarf in the first place. They literally lacked the courage to stop an imaginary bully, while chosing to be offended by it.

Natural selection weeded my gaming group down to a more managable size of people who were not dead weight.

 Alfndrate wrote:

Trying to judge if my players are having fun or not... They seem to be...

If they eagerly show up every week it's a good sign.

If they start finding other things to do instead, not a good s

 adamsouza wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

Trying to judge if my players are having fun or not... They seem to be...

If they eagerly show up every week it's a good sign.

If they start finding other things to do instead, not a good s

They do keep showing up every week, I just feel like I'm lost which isn't good when I'm supposed to be the one running it all .

For me it's allowing the characters to die when they do something stupid, when we initially started dwathwatch I had restrictions on equipment, leveling stats etc. To try to keep the game balanced, I've since allowed them to level as they please and take what they want, without restriction, but have removed the "kid gloves" this has led to them being a lot more careful on selections on gear and how they play, as several have died already and had to make new characters, they have started to use cover and the squad and solo modes too, so when trying to make the game safer to keep them alive, they did stupid things, but indirectly after allowing them free reign they have actually started using thier noggins.

We're now playing grey Legion (dw 30k) and our salamander player who is usually head strong and charges in with his thunder hammer has actually stopped being so head strong, losing a leg, arm and having his ass handed to him at the end of a volkite culverin, has decided that always charging in isn't the best strategy haha

Hardest decision for me was how to deal with douchy players.

My first game ever DMing I was running a Star Wars game (the pre-Saga edition version, whatever its called). I had 2 Jedi, a smuggler, a tech-oriented Anomid, and last but not least, a gangster that worked for the Exchange. He specifically knew that it wasn't going to work well with having 2 Jedi in the party, but that's what he wanted, and I allowed it.

So needless to say, he was trying to do his own thing, while 2 Law abiding Jedi were there saying "Uhh, no dude". So him and the melee Jedi ended up fighting, and the gangster was swiftly killed. He then got pissed saying that he had no choice but to "roleplay his character", though we all warned him this would most likely happen. Then his next character was a Jedi, and he just tried to outclass the other Jedi in the party.

I avoid letting him join games now.

The hardest decision? Deciding when to railroad and when to sand box.

And when to put the rulebook down and just make something up.

For me, it's been when the situation and the rules are in conflict. Do you give them the roll they're allowed by the rules, or withhold it because the rule doesn't account for the situation at hand?

 Carlson793 wrote:
For me, it's been when the situation and the rules are in conflict. Do you give them the roll they're allowed by the rules, or withhold it because the rule doesn't account for the situation at hand?

I find that one easy myself, rules come way after the story, so if a story element conflicts the rules, I ignore the Rules.

The hardest decision is telling a close friend that they can't continue playing with a particular group/game because they just aren't fitting in with what all the rest of us want from our sessions

It does not go down well and tends to wreck friendships

(yes you can try to avoid it by changing the game, your gming style etc but sometimes their fun means everybody elses misery and the words have to be said)

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
The hardest decision is telling a close friend that they can't continue playing with a particular group/game because they just aren't fitting in with what all the rest of us want from our sessions

It does not go down well and tends to wreck friendships

(yes you can try to avoid it by changing the game, your gming style etc but sometimes their fun means everybody elses misery and the words have to be said)

I have had to do that a couple of times, and have found that it is sometimes easiest to point out directly what the problems are. Stuff like "this character class/ability/power that you have means the rest of the group is sitting around doing nothing while you do all the things, and this is supposed to be a group effort" or "the storyline to this campaign is not the Insert-PC-Name-Here Show, you need to dial it back and let other people have their time in the spotlight" or "while that idea would work in the real world, this is a fantasy setting, so gasoline engines are right out".

I think the hardest one for me was having to back-peddle after my own mistake. One time I was running a game online. It was all going really well, until we got to a part where the group was hiding from an enemy patrol. The patrol had stopped on a road, and the group were hiding behind the brow of a roadside embankment (in the bushes). I told them that one of the enemy soldiers was "staring" up the hill in their direction. One of the players then said that he wanted to jump out and attack the soldier with his knife. I thought this was a terrible idea as it meant closing a considerable distance against troops armed with guns, needless to say he was gunned down. Then there was a lot of a disagreement about why this had happened. After much backtracking I realized that I had written "starting up the hill in your direction" instead of "staring". An unfortunate mistake, as it still made sense grammatically, but described a very different situation. As it was my mistake, I had to do a rather heavy-handed continuity reset: after the player rolled down the hill, apparently dead, he suddenly sprung back up and succeed in the attack with his knife! It turned out that despite the the fact that the player was shot multiple time, miraculously the bullets had ricocheted harmlessly off his canteen, belt buckle and radio, and he had just fainted momentarily from the shock... (I know... but what else could I do?)

After a bit more arguing about incompetent GMing, I was finally able to regain control by giving the most vocal complainer a curse called "final destination". Because he had also miraculously avoided death, Death himself felt cheated, the universe was out of balance. From this moment on the very environment is your enemy, everything that can go wrong, will go wrong in spectacularly lethal ways, inanimate objects will do their utmost to murder you and restore the balance that was lost...

He got the message then that messing with the GM is bad. Final Destination actually ended up being a fantastically entertaining side-plot for everyone, and was quite a useful device for me and the players to make improbable things happen. It's something I'm definitely keeping in my bag of tricks for the future.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
The hardest decision is telling a close friend that they can't continue playing with a particular group/game because they just aren't fitting in with what all the rest of us want from our sessions

It does not go down well and tends to wreck friendships

(yes you can try to avoid it by changing the game, your gming style etc but sometimes their fun means everybody elses misery and the words have to be said)

I know this only too well.

Smacks: Why did you have to reverse there? Staring/starting isn't a big deal. The player made a huge tactical error and if death is on the table... A soldier absently staring in the player's direction should just prompt them to hold very still for a moment. Unless the enemy starts motioning or doing something indicating the position is blown, charging out into the open is a terrible idea.

The fact that he was belligerent after you gave him a do over speaks volumes. Good job turning it into a positive!

 jmurph wrote:
Smacks: Why did you have to reverse there? Staring/starting isn't a big deal. The player made a huge tactical error and if death is on the table... A soldier absently staring in the player's direction should just prompt them to hold very still for a moment. Unless the enemy starts motioning or doing something indicating the position is blown, charging out into the open is a terrible idea.

The fact that he was belligerent after you gave him a do over speaks volumes. Good job turning it into a positive!

Because starting implies that the soldier is moving towards you rather than just looking in your general direction. And not necessarily just casually strolling, to do something with a start (or to start towards something) can imply sudden and/or violent movement.

So the players reaction was not completely unusual considering the written description.

The decision to stop running a well-crafted game 10 weeks in because only half of the players showed up to take the game seriously and the other half just wanted to **** around the entire time. Ah, high school DnD.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 jmurph wrote:
Smacks: Why did you have to reverse there? Staring/starting isn't a big deal. The player made a huge tactical error and if death is on the table... A soldier absently staring in the player's direction should just prompt them to hold very still for a moment. Unless the enemy starts motioning or doing something indicating the position is blown, charging out into the open is a terrible idea.

The fact that he was belligerent after you gave him a do over speaks volumes. Good job turning it into a positive!

Because starting implies that the soldier is moving towards you rather than just looking in your general direction. And not necessarily just casually strolling, to do something with a start (or to start towards something) can imply sudden and/or violent movement.

So the players reaction was not completely unusual considering the written description.

Yeah, exactly. They thought the guy was coming up the hill to investigate, so the idea was to wait until he got close, and then kill him with the knife so as not to make noise. Since it was my mistake, I figured it's just easier to put my hands up and let the players win one, rather than feel cheated. They are usually happy if they get something, and you can always reign them back in later. Getting off track from what you have prepared can also be very difficult though.

If I get too far off track, then one of my favourite things rather than trying to steer the players, is to reward them with something that seems amazing (possibly a variation on something that I wanted them to get much later), but I make it completely impractical (for example, incredibly heavy, or inaccurate).This then acts like a carrot on a stick reward, as they really want to use the thing, and feel excited that they already have it, but they need to solve the problem of moving it or getting it to work. Then while they are planning what to do with it, I can think about ways to restructure what I have planned. I've noticed people place a lot more value on things that they already own over things that they might hypothetically acquire. So rather than promising something like "treasure" as an incentive, it can sometimes be better to give the heroes a chest full of treasure right at the start, which they aren't able to open, then send them on a wild goose chase looking for the magic key.

If they try to hide it, then something like a map might become an important story object. They might meet NPCs who are looking for it, or want to steal it (or succeed in stealing it), and if they go looking for assistance to move it, then of course they will get waylaid. That kind of stuff writes itself, and before long I will probably be able to thread back in something that I have preprepared. Eventually, I might stop dicking them around and let them have it, probably about the same time I wanted them to get something good in the first place.

The hard part is knowing which player to throw books at to get the other to fall in line. Beatings are always the key to being a good DM, but knowing how and when to apply those beatings can be tricky.