Can You Say Yes Too Often? [Questions]
Last night our party faced a god. This was the whole goal of the current adventure, something everyone knew was coming for several weeks and was looking forward to last night.
Well, I thought everyone was looking forward to it. It turned out there was a huge discrepancy between how I, as the Game Master, viewed Gods in a campaign and how one of my more vocal and involved story-drivers viewed them.
Me? I don’t think much besides another God or perhaps an army of Dragons is going to be able to fight against deities and win, or for that matter, even scratch them. My player felt that if this was the case, it should’ve been an entirely scripted scene, with no dice rolling. He felt that if you’re allowing players to roll dice, they have to be able to affect some damage on some level, even if they die the next turn.
I felt that allowing players to roll dice, even if the target number was absurdly high, was a way to say yes, to allow the chance, however slim, of success.
He felt that his numbers should have been high enough (they were double plus some of the highest rolls in the game).
In the end, we compromised and re-wrote the scene so that the situation never came up. Dice were never rolled, confrontation was completely rail-roaded out of the picture.
Now, the player and I were perfectly happy with this compromise, for this situation. Two other people involved in the game were not.
They felt that I should’ve allowed the combat and killed his character with the God. The comments were that because he was my boyfriend, I’d deliberately avoided the scene in his favor. Three other players present were just fine with the outcome and conclusions.
Can you say yes too often? Would you have allowed the confrontation and killed the character? Do you feel that because we had basic, deep-seated conflicts in philosophy and definitions, avoidance was best?
In the end, my decision stood and everything worked out well but I’d love more opinions on this one. I don’t think there’s any possible “right” answer to it but knowing how other people would’ve handled it would be great.
Why did the player have to roll dice against the god? Was there combat? Was it clear that there were many options? Did the player have to attack the god? Did he/she die?
I have to be impartial when any of my family plays, and they are told that up front – I also would have probably asked to take a few minutes and had the discussion in a private place.
the player attempted to intimidate the God. This would’ve precipitated combat and we did roll initiative. It was clear there were multiple options. He would’ve died in combat.
We did discuss it privately which is how we discovered the differences in basic concepts. Given we hadn’t realized those differences existed before the scene in question, we both agreed avoidance was best at the time with future scenes of similar nature taking the differences into account.
I believe if you present an npc, no matter who it is, and the players wantto attack him/her/it, they should be able to. Even if it is a god. They’ll die, but that was by their doing.
Players like free will, for scripted scenes play a computer game
Had the player insisted, I’d have indeed allowed it. And killed the character.
You can indeed say yes too often, mainly by rewriting a scene because someone didn’t like it. If I were one of the other players I’d be griped too. Not that he necessarily had to die (given the disposition of the god in question – not sure why an intimidate automatically means combat and combat automatically means death) but this is bad solution.
1. Should any character be bailed out when things are ‘different than they expected them to be?’ Do you bail the other players out with retcons when it happens? “Boy, that god was different that I expected…” That’s what we call a learning experience. Is “I didn’t know golems were immune to magic” an excuse for a retcon? How about “I didn’t know there were traps in that hallway?”
2. Retcons in general are bad on players. One, they waste a lot of time. The events happen in game. Then there’s the long argument. Then there’s the reenactment of “how it should go.” Everyone is bored stiff. And it’s easy for players who weren’t the ones invested in the retcon to get confused as time passes as to “which way that went again…”
I think I misunderstand the scenario. Was the deity there for combat or divine interaction? If combat, then I think it was a heavily unbalanced encounter, unless the players’ means of survival was strictly run away or use some super powerful artifact. It’s not much fun if you’re rolling dice just to meet the likely end of a god crushing you with its pinky. If it were divine interaction, then the deity’s stats are there in the event that the player was looking for combat; in that case, let the dice roll.
Sometimes players have certain expectations of how an encounter might play out, but if the most likely outcome is death, the player has no incentive to play as it feels almost futile to even try. The player feels like he is rolling dice to humor the GM.
I recall one scenario I played in which we were trying to find an artifact before the bad guys did. Well, the bad guys got it first, but a battle ensued before they could get away with it. We did everything in our power to prevent the bad guys from escaping via a portal, but it was obvious the GM had other intentions. After a while, we felt cheated, like our actions were futile.
On one hand, there’s a bit of reality to it in that you don’t always win the fight, but on the other hand, you feel at that point the GM is writing a story rather than running a game. If the bad guys were to escape, make it obvious and immediate that this is the outcome the GM wants. Have the players stuck somewhere while the escape occurs, but don’t run combat as if there were a possibility, however unlikely, of winning.
That’s about all I can say without much detail of the nature of the encounter.
Is avoidance the best thing? I don’t know – since it involves your SO, there are a whole lot of layers here that I can’t even think to address. Like I said, I warn my family members that I am not going to favor them – for the duration of the game, they are on the same playing field as everyone else. But that’s me, and you have to live with your SO, so is avoidance the best thing because the game will cause problems afterward? Maybe. I would not avoid the situation for one person – one’s “fun” does not come at the detriment of others and it sounds like this player just didn’t like the outcome, but everyone else was OK. I can’t make everyone happy all the time and that’s OK. I am fair and I roll the dice in front of everyone and they know they control the situation with their choices.
Can I say “Yes” too often? That’s a hard question to answer, so let me ask if you’re really asking “Would you say ‘yes’ to one to the detriment of others?” If you’re asking that, then my answer is “No.” Someone’s fun doesn’t come at the expense of others. Would I have allowed the confrontation? If the player was pre-warned that this avatar of the god was extremely powerful, and given all the clues, and yet the player persisted – yes. I’ve given them the situation. If they choose to have a philosophical difference with it, it’s not about them vs. me, it’s about them vs. the situation.
I should also say that I mainly have any sort of god interact with players through avatars. I choose to interpret the “stats” of gods as the avatars. A god in their own right is not going to be killed by a player. A god can will a player out of existence. An avatar is fair game.
I disagree, newbieDM. It’s one aspect I strongly disliked after years of playing D&D. I realized how much the challenge rating system destroyed my belief in the setting. It’s one reason why I like Savage Worlds so much now. All creatures are manageable despite their power strength, but the definition of manageable is very different in Savage Worlds. Running away is perfectly viable. Also, XP isn’t based on destroying monsters. It’s based strictly on how much you accomplish in a given game session. PCs can earn 1-3 XP in a given night, with an advance at every 5 xp.
In summary, I have a hard time believing the stability of the world given the presence of high-powered creatures that are too tough for PCs to fight, and the idea that they wouldn’t show their faces until the PCs can kill them.
It is possible to say yes too often. But there’s so much going on, and a lot of it is unclear, so I’m not sure any of us are going to be able to give you a great answer.
Why were there such hugely different expectations? Good communication is key. If there wasn’t a way to get the invincibility of your god across in-game, then it couldn’t have hurt to have mentioned it out of game – “By the way, just so you know, gods in this world aren’t like the others things you’ve faced. I’m not telling you what to do; I’m just saying if it involves dice, it’ll probably fail.”
How plot-driven is your game? If it’s one of those “roll up a new character every other session” then yeah, you should’ve let that one die. If the current party has been the party since the start and will likely be the party until the end, it’s fair that you try to find ways to avoid killing them off. But the fact that half your players thought the character should have died suggests that PC death isn’t out of the question. If even the player whose PC bought it was okay with that happening so long as he got in one good hit, why did you have to retcon it?
How major a retcon was this? Was it, “Let’s go back five minutes, to when you decided you could intimidate a deity,” or was it, “Let’s erase the last hour of play and pretend you guys are just entering the chamber?”
Players will always feel their numbers should have been high enough.
And gaming with SOs is a whole ‘nother issue. I’ve actually had to rearrange my gaming plans slightly now that I’m dating a potential gamer. There’s just no way I’m letting her in my main campaign – I get accused of favouritism often enough as it is (generally in relation to a different person every time).
I don’t know. It sounds like there was a lot going on, and you handled it in a way that satisfied most of your players, which is all any of us can ever really hope for. But it also looks like there’s some underlying issues.
@Viri: I usually allow a few seconds for “take backs” or for my players to convince each other that a certain action shouldn’t be done, but after that it’s done. If you get into a fight with a god and lose, I’m sorry but you probably should have known better. I’d say just on the merit of it being a god in the first place, there is the implicit understanding that combat ends in death and other options should be used.
@Kristian: That’s not a problem with the game, that’s a problem with the DM’s style of running the game. CRs just tell you how likely the PCs are to die against a given foe. It’s the DM who chooses which foes to present.
You handled the situation with how you felt comfortable. Was it the best way? who knows, obviously some of your players did not agree. Another way to handle it might have been to allow the combat, have the character die, then go about either having the God resurrect him and giving some reason why the God brought him back to life or have the players go about figuring out some way to bring his character back to life.
@mxyzplk I have rewritten things for other players who were basically unhappy with disagreements in concept perceptions, yes. We actually re-wrote the magic system to accommodate my vision but keep a player happy with how his character worked in the game.
In general, I agree they are bad to use often.
@Kristian The players sought out interaction with the deity to save the soul of a hireling whose death they’d caused.
@chgowiz Yes, use of avatars will indeed be more prevalent should players seek out god-interactions in the future. We have 3 very religious characters so I see this possibility.
The re-write was to the detriment to no one else involved.
@Swordgleam The re-write only covered a few minutes of game time and wasn’t a major scene write. And yes, there are alot of issues lol
If I could exclude an SO from my game, I’m not sure I would. Generally, things work out well and people rarely feel I’m playing favorites, thank the gods.
@Spencer Those are good thoughts. We had the discussion about the misconceptions before the combat round was over and tbh, I feel like I was the one given a chance for a “take-back” P I don’t even mind that it felt that way as no GM is perfect and I could see the point of view.
@Art now THAT was an option we hadn’t considered! just goes to show even 7 people don’t think of everything.
You can say yes as often as you like, but you need to be aware of cases where the player is clearly not aware of something that the character would know/believe. When players and GMs differ on what is known/believed, the GM is the one who is ‘correct’ (and correspondingly the one who has failed, in that she didn’t communicate effectively enough with the players) and so the GM has a duty to allow the player to match their play to what they likely would have had their character do if their knowledge had been accurate.
@Viriatha: Since it was a minor rewrite, it sounds like you handled the situation just fine. I’m not a big fan of retcons, but I think erasing a couple of minutes due to a major misunderstanding is okay. This is just a game, not life or death – we can have a redo if we want.
I started to write something, but it grew, and so I posted it on my own blog. Essentially it amounts to immidiately reformulating what you’re seeing your players do. They argue against your vision and describe their point of view. With both viewpoints on the table before any actions are resolved, we can start talking.
Since most of your play group is OK with the resolution, you’re probably safe for the moment. As a fellow player, I’d have a heart-to-heart with any player who thought his or her character could intimidate a god. That sort of direct confrontation seems the least likely avenue for a lesser being to defeat a higher one, whether it is a god, or a particularly high-level monster. Same goes with swinging a sword at them. Now, a deceptive or roundabout approach might have a slim chance of success, but it’d have to be pretty creative.
My statements naturally reflect my perceptions of RPG encounters. Your game could be very different. Common sense (again, my interpretation) just doesn’t lead to the assumption that direct confrontation of a superior foe is likely to be successful. If players completely abandon common sense in my game, they would suffer the consequences (very possibly death.) And then I’d ask ‘em if they were tired of the character, bored, or just plain angry with me for some reason. Telling me, “I have a 5% chance of succeeding, according to the rules”, would yield the reminder that we’re playing a human-judged game, rather than CPU-judged game, and a gentle suggestion to find an alternative approach.
My SO plays in my game too. We have lots of laughs about GM favoritism, but we try to keep it fun at all times.
@rainswept Agreed completely.
@Swordgleam Yeah. I’m not entirely happy with the result but it worked well enough to allow the game to go on.
@Alex Interesting read! Will comment there
@anarkeith Now that’s something I should have tried. Telling him outright what his chances of success were would have been a good idea.
Yeah I agree that being open about the chances, pausing for effect, waiting for a take back, and then rolling in the open sounds like the thing to do.
@Spenser, I understand that, but my point is that there’s a certain lack of immersion with the idea that only the monster that the PCs can kill appear before the PCs to challenge them. It’s where the immersion becomes disconnected from a living, breathing world, IMHO. Levels and CR are just an artificial mechanic to scale power for the players and give them the next cool thing to look forward to. The game then becomes less about the story and more about the cool powers.
And that’s fine. As I said, I enjoyed D&D for many years with that concept in mind, but after a while, I became disenchanted with that idea. That’s just a matter of personal preference.
As a general rule… Once you get to the point in your campaign where PCs are going to duke it out with a *God* then you’re out of ammo as a GM. What do you have left that is greater than a God in your World? The result is that you’re World no longer can offer meaningful challenges, but moreover you have nothing left to mitigate the avarice of the PCs. It’s like a group of thugs becoming so well armed that they can take on the combined governments of the world with a doomsday device. That would be the equivalent. Once the PCs get to that level of power, there’s nothing meaningful left for them to conquer – they won. One thing you can do is lower their levels and take their stuff to keep balance between your World and the PCs. Another thing you can do is say “you won” and start a new campaign. But what is going to be really hard to do is to continue that game while providing challenge to the PCs. What happens the next time they go after a *God*? Or overthrow a country and take over the government? If someone is powerful enough to fight a god then … you’d think a government would not stand much of a chance. Personally, I would recommend not letting things get that far to begin with.
Second, once things to go that far, and you have that situation, and there’s not chance that they can do damage to, or meaningfully affect the god then I would consider how the gods of ancient Greece used to behave. Read the Iliad. At one point Aphrodite is wounded by a mortal hero Diomedes, and bleeds Icor. She flees to Olympus for healing by her mother who tells her “the man who fights the gods does not live long.” What happens to that mortal hero? Well, not good things for him, his family, his nation down to the third generation, you would thing, and in most cases this is true, except for this one. Diomedes actually wounded both Aphrodite and Ares in the same day, which makes him the only Greek hero to do so. He lives a long life, and does a great many deeds of valor. How does Diomedes get away with this? Because in each case he wounded a god under the divine instruction and inspiration of another, equally powerful god, Athena. Had it not been for this then he might have suffered the same fate as Oedipus whom the gods caused to love his mother and kill is father, which was part of the punishment of the gods on his family due to the rather egregious crimes of his ancestor. Point: Battling with Gods is something that the GM should weave into their World-Story in a way that is interesting and takes into account the majestic nature of the gods. Otherwise the gods are merely more-powerful beings, and they lose their meaning as Celestials who uphold the order of the universe. The PCs, unless aided directly by another god (which should be in my opinion exceedingly rare, and happen only towards the conclusion of a campaign if ever), should stand no chance, and should be punished in some divine-Justice sort of way down to the 3rd Generation.
Overall, my advice is to read the classics, in particular the Greek classics, if your campaign is going to deal with The Gods, and have PCs engage them directly. It is certainly instructive, and entertaining, and might help you to think about how the gods behave, what kinds of motives they have, and what kinds of relationships they develop with mortals.
I think the fact the old versions of D&D/AD&D statted up gods as high-level monsters means that some players don’t automatically see gods as invulnerable in RPG worls. If you are running a game that involves meeting the Gods, maybe it’s best to set out the nature of the gods in your world. Of course, we can all be wise after the event, and I’m not sure I would have thought to do this.
However, if your gods are invulnerable, I don’t agree that PCs should only be able to interact with them via scripted scenes. That gets too close to the idea of “we know the PCs won’t meet anything they can’t beat in a fight”, and other commenters have pointed out the problems with that. On the other hand, I think such gods should have some interesting ways of responding to belligerent PCs that don’t involve simply killing them there and then.
I think you handled the issue in the best way possible and if your group (including you) is satisfied with the outcome, then that’s all that matters.
In the main game I play in, if our characters are about to something monumentally stupid, the GM asks “Are you sure?” The players get 3 “Are you sure”s, then the action is considered official and the player(s) have to deal with consequences of their actions.
In the games I run, if a player is about to do something that his character should know better, I try to let him know what his character knows that would contradict the action he’s about to take. If the player insists, I let him go ahead and try, even at astronomical odds. The big thing is that *if* he does succeed, then he’s successful.
I too use avatars for my gods. I’ve got the same belief — gods are powers beyond mortal ken and cannot be killed by mortals. Their avatars, however, are a completely different story.
I’ve rarely GM a game session in my life that didn’t have some family member playing — usually my SO, my heart sister, and her husband. My family is warned that not only are they going to be treated impartially, they are the most likely ones to receive the short end of the stick if something happens to the party. It’s now become something of a competition to have their character draw the most fire.