GM (n)PCs..., How do you deal? Options

[mister__joshua]

NO security is perfect (at least none that I design), I'm sure of that, which is why I believe the runners will find an angle.

Haha. This just reminds me of one of the first 'runs I GM'd (I more often play). The players were breaking into a remote facility. One of the players asked me to draw it for them bird's eye view. I drew a stretched hexagon shaped fence with a watch tower and searchlight on each corner but, because of how I'd drawn it, on the back of the facility the search light patterns didn't meet in the middle as they should, so the players went round the back, ran between the search lights and started on the fence. I couldn't deny their thinking, I'd drawn it, I'd drawn it wrong and they noticed it. We all laughed about some poor security consultant collecting his p45 the next morning.

[thorya]

This means most of the time you have to skip about half a minute. (Or your run is crappy build to begin with)
Honestly: How many have ever had the problem, that the players solved a one evening run in 5 min? That one player had to do one part alone? Yes, that might happen. But something like that?

I have had this happen before. A few times. Maybe you just don't have creative players.

I had a player neutralize an entire cult in one round by giving a gift to the cult leader. I had players that avoided a run entirely by realizing they could get what the Johnson wanted without hitting the intended target.
As a player, we dealt with an infestation of undead horrors coming from an ancient mansion by barricading the doors and burning the thing down during the day rather than working our way room to room like the GM was expecting (the last one could just be shortsightedness on the GM's part). It does happen that players will trump everything you have planned and improvising is necessary. Just saying it doesn't, won't make it true.

Yeah, a GM should design reasonable security systems and challenges. But even reasonable scenarios can have huge loop holes for intelligent or creative people to walk through. This happens in real life.

[Mercer]

But honestly, it is not very common, nor wise, for players to fight a plot every step of the way. Because THERE IS ONLY ONE Plot prepared.

It's the difference between strategy and tactics. If the players show up to the session where the GM has a run prepared, they have to recognize that if they don't want to do that there may be nothing else planned for the night. (I respect GM's that have multiple runs planned in advance or have the system familiarity necessary to run SR or the fly-- I could do it with SR2 and 3, but I don't know SR 4 well enough to do a good job of it.) That's the short term scenario where the players need to be accommodating of the GM, because GM's don't have unlimited time to prep stuff. The problem is if the GM only preps his ongoing plot every week, despite the players stated desire to do anything but whatever that is.

There has to be some give-and-take is what I'm saying.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I had a player neutralize an entire cult in one round by giving a gift to the cult leader. I had players that avoided a run entirely by realizing they could get what the Johnson wanted without hitting the intended target.

These sound like good stories. Share?

As a player, we dealt with an infestation of undead horrors coming from an ancient mansion by barricading the doors and burning the thing down during the day rather than working our way room to room like the GM was expecting (the last one could just be shortsightedness on the GM's part).

Ahhh, the old Call of Cthulu standby, eh? I like it!

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

Ahhh, the old Call of Cthulu standby, eh? I like it!

Duh, I tried that in my first and only Cthulu game. Ok, I didn't want to torch the place, I wanted to put 100lbs of dynamite in the living room and blow it. GM threw the towel instantly and complained "You can't play Cthulu like that!". That was the end of Cthulu for me.

[thorya]

Duh, I tried that in my first and only Cthulu game. Ok, I didn't want to torch the place, I wanted to put 100lbs of dynamite in the living room and blow it. GM threw the towel instantly and complained "You can't play Cthulu like that!". That was the end of Cthulu for me.

To be fair, this was D&D so he was expecting hack and slash with swords. I think if it had been Cthulu, it would not have been such a big deal. After all, dynamite and leveling places are Lovecraft cannon.

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

To be fair, this was D&D so he was expecting hack and slash with swords. I think if it had been Cthulu, it would not have been such a big deal. After all, dynamite and leveling places are Lovecraft cannon.

Obviously he didn't know his D&D, or it was super-low-level. A common fire does piddly damage to higher level bad guys, so basically all you get by torching a place is everyone coming after you at the same time - at the time when everyone leaves the house.

[Loch]

All of my Call of Cthulhu games end that way. Dynamite seems to be everybody's go-to for dealing with squicky things. Every. Last. One.

[thorya]

These sound like good stories. Share?



Ahhh, the old Call of Cthulu standby, eh? I like it!

The first one, I learned the valuable lesson that cursed items are more dangerous to your NPC's than to the players. (again, D&D) One of the players had acquired a necklace that granted you immunity to cold, made any weapon you touched icy burst and improved your strength. It also had the draw back that it only worked if you worshiped Freya (goddess of winter in this world) and if you failed your Will Save you immediately converted and became slowly more fanatical. Its magical aura was altered to hide the curse part. The barbarian wore this necklace for several levels, before it eventually became a problem and the group eventually got it away from him and removed the curse. Rather than destroying it though, another player wrapped it up in a cloak and hung onto it (I assumed to sell to some unsuspecting shopkeeper). Cut to two adventures later, the player gets split from the party and captured by a Nerull worshiping cult (god of death) while they are in the process of permanently summoning a new undead creature into the world. The player claims that he too worships Nerull (and actually did, oddly enough) and that he wishes to join the cult and to prove this he offers the necklace as a gift. The cult leader is of course suspicious, but detect magic reveals that the necklace is powerful, detect alignment shows that the character is chaotic neutral so at least not good, and he can't detect any curse on the item. He has an underling take the necklace and when it becomes apparent that the underling has been granted power by the necklace the cult leader snatches it for himself. I figured this would not be a problem for the leader because of a high will save, but I rolled a 1 on his will save. The player immediately spotted the change and ran to the summoning circle and screamed, "Great and powerful Nerull, do not give control of your undead child to this false worshiper! Your priest has betrayed you and worships another." The cult leader orders him killed, but since the cult was performing a ritual directly linked with Nerull and his power, I did not feel like it was a stretch for the player's prayer to be heard. Nerull's skulled head appeared in the vortex of energy glared at the cult leader and immediately the ritual ended with a thunder clap. All the cultists were left standing around trying to figure out what had happened, while the high priest screamed to kill the unbeliever. It did not take long before some started to question the high priest and soon the cultist turned on one another. The player slipped away and met up with the rest of the party who were running to his rescue. Sure, I could have ruled that the high priest didn't take the item and a lot of the plan depended on luck with bad saves on the evil side or I could have ruled that Nerull ignored his prayer, but it just made more sense to me even if it meant scrapping the fight with the cultists and the disarming of the summoning that was planned for the evening and then the run from the catacombs as they collapsed. And the players loved it.

The second one, the team was hired to break in and sabotage a shipment of the new cola the Johnson's rival was releasing (yes, I stole the idea from the story in the core book, but there was not the complicated racially motivated double cross since my players have actually read the book) so that it would make people sick and the new cola would tank. The team decided that they could accomplish this much easier on the low security retail end than at the factory where they would have to tangle with security. They rigged up aerosolized laxatives, salmonella and rat shit and spent a day or two going from one grocery or convenience store to another in the test market subtly spraying down the tops of cans and their packaging. It took a week before the medical community traced all the stomach pains and diarrhea back to the cola, then the rat shit was discovered. It immediately got out that the Cola's bottling plant was infested with rats and that the new cola contained rat shit. Even though they never found rats at the factory, the company still had to shut it down and spent millions on a new PR campaign.

[thorya]

Obviously he didn't know his D&D, or it was super-low-level. A common fire does piddly damage to higher level bad guys, so basically all you get by torching a place is everyone coming after you at the same time - at the time when everyone leaves the house.

We were level 3 if I remember. A few things did try to leave the house, but when players are waiting in ambush most appropriate CR creatures don't stand a chance. We set the entire circumference on fire so nothing could get out without being burned a little, it takes time before things hiding inside know to flee, some of them were weakened by sunlight, traps can't flee, and things in the lower levels (i.e. the more powerful things) also have to deal with floors collapsing on them. Though it's true that fire does not deal a lot of damage if you just go by the 1d6 per round. Gold and magic items should mostly survive fire though, which is nice.

The point was though that the entire dungeon was solved in almost no time and the GM's plans were scrapped rather quickly. He did an awesome job though, when we got back to town and announced that the monsters were dealt with, someone with the claim to the estate appeared and demanded reparations. Of course this individual was connected and may have been connected with the creatures in the house to begin with. So we got to deal with that for the evening instead.

[Blog]

All of my Call of Cthulhu games end that way. Dynamite seems to be everybody's go-to for dealing with squicky things. Every. Last. One.

That is only because nuclear ordinances have a longer waiting period.


I know my most favorable SR GM would design Standard Operating Procedures or templates of them for facilities. His mentality is that there is a functioning world out there and if the PCs are interacting with parts of it, design the machine then describe the cogs if it comes up.

[Irion]

@thorya
Well, most of this was really bad prep. I mean here is the house of horrors go from room to room and kill any undead.
Can we just burn it? Mhm, I guess so...

Honestly? Burning shit to the ground is quite THE first approach any group has.

Giving players stuff that changes the personality of somebody is just asking for it. (And I guess it was a bit of bad luck there)

This is exactly what I mean with the GM has to come prepared. Those things do not happen if you took a look at the character sheets and think about the situations you are creating.

@Brainpiercing7.62mm

I'm in no way saying you should not be prepared, but I believe if you simply create your runs as a problem set then you can't really go wrong.

I am just saying doing so takes more preparation than just make up a few scence. I do not argue, that it is the better approach.
Just to really do it, you have to put at least the same amount of work into it. I would even say more, because you need to prep. for more eventuallities.
(Because if you don't you will soon realize that without thinking about how your players might approach it, you won't beprepared for any approach.)

Preparing one array of scence is a bit gambling. If everything goes fine, you made due with almost no preperation. If players go in an other direction you stand only a bit better than with no preperation.

]Problems only arise when you've built a situation where one of the PCs suddenly faces odds that were not anticipated, for instance, you tailored a fight for the team, but one or two runners meet it alone. So now you either change the encounter, or run with it and hope your runners don't run out of edge smile.gif

Here I also totally agree. Thats the kind of situation preperation won't help you with. This you can't anticipate. (For example that half of the group just wants to do something completly different than running)

Also very funny is, if Players meet the big bad in earlyer but they do not know who he is, but he knows who they are....
This is also something you might just not be able to prevent without streatching ingame logic too much.
Or the players getting romantically involved with the big bad guy/girl.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Obviously he didn't know his D&D, or it was super-low-level. A common fire does piddly damage to higher level bad guys, so basically all you get by torching a place is everyone coming after you at the same time - at the time when everyone leaves the house.

The figure you're thinking of is for a common campfire. A roaring house-fire would quite justifiably be more damage. Plus it's damage per round, which is going to be a while since they were barricaded into the house. Let's not forget the smoke causing suffocation (possibly not an issue if it's full of things that don't breathe, admittedly,) and the damage that the house collapsing will cause.

So yeah, you can kill something surprisingly high-level by barricading it into a sturdy house and then torching it.

The point was though that the entire dungeon was solved in almost no time and the GM's plans were scrapped rather quickly. He did an awesome job though, when we got back to town and announced that the monsters were dealt with, someone with the claim to the estate appeared and demanded reparations. Of course this individual was connected and may have been connected with the creatures in the house to begin with. So we got to deal with that for the evening instead.

You 'dealt' with that demand with a sword to the face, right?

[Glyph]

The problem with solving D&D dungeons by burning the whole thing down is simple. D&D consists of two steps; killing things, and taking their stuff. Burning the dungeon down takes care of the first problem, sure, but now that magic sword, chest of fire opals, and pile of electrum pieces are all buried under tons of charred rubble.

[thorya]

Well, most of this was really bad prep. I mean here is the house of horrors go from room to room and kill any undead.
Can we just burn it? Mhm, I guess so...

Honestly? Burning shit to the ground is quite THE first approach any group has.

Giving players stuff that changes the personality of somebody is just asking for it. (And I guess it was a bit of bad luck there)

This is exactly what I mean with the GM has to come prepared. Those things do not happen if you took a look at the character sheets and think about the situations you are creating.

Yeah, a GM is completely out of line having things that change personality in their world. Especially when those things are canon and the players have access to spells that do just that. I don't know what I was thinking. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/twirl.gif)

Do you want to tell me what I did wrong in letting them avoid raiding the cola factory too? Probably the grocery stores should have had chemical detectors and there should have been armed response teams waiting at the 7-11. Preferably with spirits as back-up to catch would be vandals. It's obvious I should have anticipated that the players would go for retail stores and I should have just mapped out the security of everyone in the greater metro area.

What you seem to be saying is that a GM should simply have the entire world designed to deal with what the players are capable of. The world does not revolve around the players and their character sheets. If you want it to, that's fine, but don't act like everyone else's should or that it's good GMing.

Also, think about what your argument is. Players coming up with creative solutions that solves things quickly never happens. GM's are never caught with their challenges suddenly solved. If it does happen, then you're just a bad GM. You should have anticipated every creative solution and set things up to thwart it. I guess I'll just stick to running canned adventures where some smarter GM has already thought through every idea or scenario my players could think up. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Edit: Also, my original point was that it does happen to all the rest of us bad GM's.

[ShadowDragon8685]

The problem with solving D&D dungeons by burning the whole thing down is simple. D&D consists of two steps; killing things, and taking their stuff. Burning the dungeon down takes care of the first problem, sure, but now that magic sword, chest of fire opals, and pile of electrum pieces are all buried under tons of charred rubble.

This may be true, but the swag should be intact unless the GM has been hitting the "art objects - cloth and wood" table pretty hard. Clearing out tons of rubble is a simple matter of manual labor - you can cast up spells, hire peasants, or even do it yourself.

Remember, the lengths to which players will go to make a fast GP are extreme. Don't mention that the bad guy has tiled his grand hall in imported marble and silver tiles, or they will not only pry up every single tile, they will go room-to-room in his castle, conducting a materials survey.

[Neko Asakami]

Okay, so I'm gonna weigh in from the other point of view, as someone who's been the bad GM.

When I was younger, I fell into the GMPC trap. I don't wanna go into a lot of detail, but let's just say it was a) not pretty and b) vaguely similar to what you're going through. Now, as an outsider who's been on both sides of the GMPC issue, I believe you're right in thinking this is a problem. Personally, though, reading through the thread and your responses to various points that have been brought up, I don't think you were posting looking for advice, I think you were posting looking for validation. I'm not saying this to be a jerk, I'm just stating what I see. You (and your friends) want to take your frustrations out on this GMPC rather than on your friend, the GM. That's good of you guys, but to be honest, you NEED to sit down with the GM and talk this through.

This isn't a problem with the game or the GMPC, it's a problem with the GM. Personally, before getting the whole group up in the GM's face, I'd sit down alone with him and express your concerns that this GMPC is getting out of hand and you (as a player) are not sure if it's meant to be a Deus Ex Machina or the Real Big Bad. Explain that you (as a group) are considering killing the GMPC because of this. Then ask him point blank what the character is. A good GM will be willing to tell you "Yes, this is the Real Big Bad, just trust me on this" or he will freak out about you killing his PC. Do this right before the session where the group plans to spring the ambush on the GMPC so he doesn't have time to prepare any tricks. If he asks you to trust him, do so; just let him know that's he's going way overboard on making you want to hate the Real Big Bad and ask him to tone it down since it's making the game less fun. If he freaks out because you're going after his Precious, be prepared for all out war.

Also, don't forget that some people just aren't GM material. In my old play group, we had a good player who was a terrible GM. We'd tried letting him GM a number of times and he'd done pretty much everything in the Bad GM Playbook, including over-powered GMPCs in every game. Every time we tried a different solution (in-game murder spree, not showing up for games, "It's us or you," kicking him out of the group for a while, etc), and the only thing we found that worked was sitting him down and just explaining what was going on. Like your GM, it would be good for a little while then back to business as usual, so we ended the campaign and not so politely told him that he wasn't allowed to GM anymore. Hopefully it won't come to that though.

Now, as for the subject of "ah, it's cool, we're friends" "time heals all wounds" and all that other BS: DON'T BE A DICK. Seriously, the guy is human too, and has to be more or less decent if he was a housemate with ya. You don't want to throw this away over a stupid game. Don't give him an "It's Us or You" speech, just tell him that the game isn't fun anymore and that you want to play something else. Don't play SR with a different GM, play a different game with a different GM. Don't say "You change or we walk," say "you change or you get stuck playing for a while and then maybe, when you've had time to think about what you've done, we'll let you GM again." Seriously, I've seen this kind of thing ruin decade-long friendships. Basically, what I'm trying to say is: Don't kick him out of the group, just don't let him GM. Encourage him to play since he's still part of the group. If, at that point, he decides to walk, then it's on him.

If you absolutely have to kill the GMPC to get some sort of closure or whatever; I would just try and kill his GMPC and then call the campaign at the end of the night. Even with numbers on your side, you will probably lose. Speaking from experience, he's going to cheat. He's already let you know he's got plans and contingencies in place for when (not if!) things go south. He'll use them. He'll fudge dice rolls, he'll "accidentally" for get to add penalties for damage. He'll randomly summon 12 Force 6 spirits that she "just happens to have on retainer" when things start to go bad; and he's going to justify it by saying she's Top Dog in this metaplane and everyone is at her beck and call. When the smoke clears, I'll be really damn surprised if any of you are standing. As a GM, a group could spring this on me with no warning and I could still screw them seven ways to Sunday, even without breaking the rules. You, as players, need to be ready to accept that fact. If, through some Miracle of $Deity, you manage to kill it when it wasn't supposed to die, your friend is going to throw his dice at whichever player struck the killing blow and stomp away from the table. Don't rub it in, let him be mad. Then, a few days before your next session, call him up and let him know what he needs to bring so he can build a new character for the new game. Don't mention the old campaign at all. Pretend it never happened. Then, in a few weeks, when tempers are cooled and he realizes you guys still are his friends, discuss with him openly and plainly what went wrong. If he doesn't want to discuss it, then move on. Trust me, the group as a whole will be better for it.

Okay, there. I've said my piece. Please note this comes from nearly 20 years on both sides of the screen, making a LOT of mistakes along the way. Hope my advice helps.

TL;DR Version: Try talking first. Don't turn this into an Us vs You. He's still your friend, you don't wanna lose that over a stupid game. Remember, not everyone is cut out to be a GM. Lastly, when/if the crap hits the fan, just be done with it and move on.

[UmaroVI]

Yeah, I did some shitty GMing like that too when I was 15. Thankfully, people generally talked to me when I did stupid stuff, which is why I got better.

[Neurosis]

Also, I've found that what works best for me is when it is abundantly clear to my players that no character - PC or NPC - is immune to being blown away. When a key NPC they've dealt with dies horribly, and not necessarily by their hands, they know I mean business. I also find it keeps them on their toes.

I GM this exact way too; all of my games are definitely "any one can die" affairs, and my Players never feel safe. And yes, when someone more powerful than them can be reached and silenced, that can be quite a way to send the message that anyone can die.

But does this go both ways? Are you okay with your PC dying, if it makes sense in the story? Like if you were outfought/outhought by this F10 Free Spirit for instance, or if she managed to take out one or more of you before you finished her off.

Tangent: This is a fascinating topic me because the mindset of a player not being okay with a PC death is very alien to me. I think my gaming background is extremely traditional, and gives the GM a lot of authority and that the social contract at my table definitely revolves around respect for the GM's authority, regardless of what game we're playing or who's GMing it. The idea of players having the right of "veto" over their character's death--if that death made sense in the story and was borne out by the rules--is very alien to me. Apart from the Hand of God rule, obviously, which I think is a great rule. But the idea of any player resorting to "nuh-uh, didn't happen" has bothered me ever since I found out that was like...a thing.

[Irion]

Do you want to tell me what I did wrong in letting them avoid raiding the cola factory too? Probably the grocery stores should have had chemical detectors and there should have been armed response teams waiting at the 7-11. Preferably with spirits as back-up to catch would be vandals. It's obvious I should have anticipated that the players would go for retail stores and I should have just mapped out the security of everyone in the greater metro area.

Whats wrong with it?
It was a different approach but the run was not over, or was it?
(I even think it is the harder approach but thats just me. Well, it depends on how good the security in the factory is...)

Yeah, a GM is completely out of line having things that change personality in their world. Especially when those things are canon and the players have access to spells that do just that. I don't know what I was thinking.

If it was a problem for you, that he solved it that way, yes not all the stuff which is canon should be given to players.
D&D is not that bad in this instance as some other RPGs, but still.

Also, think about what your argument is. Players coming up with creative solutions that solves things quickly never happens. GM's are never caught with their challenges suddenly solved. If it does happen, then you're just a bad GM. You should have anticipated every creative solution and set things up to thwart it. I guess I'll just stick to running canned adventures where some smarter GM has already thought through every idea or scenario my players could think up.

It might be that we have a different view of the "size" of an "adventure". Yours might a bit smaller than mine. So I guess, my arguement would not be true in this case.

To give one extream example: If your adventure is rescue a cat out of a tree, true you can't count on the PCs to climb the (probably very high) tree. They just find a magical solution or take flying drone in SR.
But something like that I consider a single minor challenge. And yes, those might be bypassed. It does not stop the game and it has actually no results.

If your adventure only consists of a view major challenges I guess this could be a problem. But I never played this way....

[Mercer]

As a player, we dealt with an infestation of undead horrors coming from an ancient mansion by barricading the doors and burning the thing down during the day rather than working our way room to room like the GM was expecting (the last one could just be shortsightedness on the GM's part).

We did the same thing in an old D&D game with a haunted ship: sailed away as it burned to the waterline. The GM said later that he did not see that coming.

[thorya]

It might be that we have a different view of the "size" of an "adventure". Yours might a bit smaller than mine. So I guess, my arguement would not be true in this case.

To give one extream example: If your adventure is rescue a cat out of a tree, true you can't count on the PCs to climb the (probably very high) tree. They just find a magical solution or take flying drone in SR.
But something like that I consider a single minor challenge. And yes, those might be bypassed. It does not stop the game and it has actually no results.

If your adventure only consists of a view major challenges I guess this could be a problem. But I never played this way....

That cat isn't bulletproof and you should have looked at their character sheets and the players have guns. So when they shoot the cat out of the tree, it's your fault because you didn't expect it. A good GM would have a cat in a tree with kevlar and anti personnel mines to prevent someone climbing.

I'm talking about when you prepare a session of an adventure (whatever size you want to make it and ignoring your adventure) and you expect it to take some set amount of time and it takes much less, but you've already set aside 3-4 hours to play so you have to move on to the next thing. I'm sure there are a lot of amazing GM's like you that have every possible scenario mapped out and have 100+ hours of game play sitting around for players to jump to so that players avoiding something entirely is just a hiccup.

Also, there is a huge difference between in game and out of game time. Sure in game it's faster to go in and fight the monster and loot the house. Out of game it's much faster to burn the place down and dig through the rubble for a week because there's a lot less rolling.

Edit: In case you didn't catch it Irion, suggesting that the cat should have kevlar was a joke to illustrate how ridiculous GMing gets if you're going to base every challenge off of what players are capable of.

[mister__joshua]

The idea of any player resorting to "nuh-uh, didn't happen" has bothered me ever since I found out that was like...a thing.

I didn't know this was a thing? I've never heard of it before just now. Who does this? I think I'd get laughed at if I tried that with out regular gm and rightly so. Please tell me you just made it up

[The Jake]

There might be a bit of validation I am searching for on this one. I'm relatively confident I've chosen the correct course. The reason I haven't spoken to the other two players is I can't rely on them not to go running to the GM before the start of the next session. At a minimum I want to discuss it with all the other players before the start of the next session first and confirm it is still an issue and we want it handled then and there.

- J.

[Yerameyahu]

I'm kind of awestruck by everything here. It's such a trainwreck (including sub-group cliques), I'm dying to know what happens. I hope things work out for you, but I'm so glad it's not me. :/