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The GM as Judge -- how to stop it without ruining their fun?
Playing Pathfinder the other day, my character wanted to shove one (cowardly) party member in front of another (badly injured) one. I asked the GM, "Is that doable?" and the GM replied, "Roll!"
So I rolled a success, and the GM said, "You successfully shove the cowardly guy forward! However, he stumbles and knocks into the injured woman, causing her to fall and provoking an Attack of Opportunity by the gremlins."
"Uh," I replied, "if that was a success, what was I rolling for? I asked you if it was doable."
"You rolled to push him!" the GM answered. "And you did. And this is what happens when you push people who weren't expecting it!"
Obviously there's a problem here -- "Is that doable?" isn't about whether I can push a guy, it's about whether I can push a guy into the specific position I stated, and the GM ought to answer me with "yes", "no", or "you can't tell" before the action's in motion. I know many ways to fix this, and I've been pondering which one will go over most easily, socially, with a GM I just met and who is used to being in charge during game time. As I've pondered, I've assumed that he'll be on board with fixing this obvious glitch. But just now, I realized:
To him, it might not be a glitch. He might like having players act in ignorance, so that he can come down on them with his own judgment of the consequences, as a surprise, and without anyone else weighing in.
This just occurred to me, because when I was first GMing, I used to do this. I initially did it just because my first GM had done it, and this sort of authority seemed to fit naturally with buying books and prepping dungeons and hosting and facilitating and all the other stuff the GM apparently did. But I kept doing it because it was fun. Not good, healthy, sustainable fun for the whole group -- I see that now, and that's why I don't do it anymore -- but fun nonetheless. The players want to do something, and in my head I form a vision of what'll happen that clashes with theirs, and right then, as they're bent on the outcome of their effort and looking to me in suspense, I get to surprise them and express my own vision and provoke a strong reaction. What a rush! Often it led to arguments or disappointed players, but in the end, they willingly bowed to my authority often enough to keep me coming back to that well.
If someone had asked me, "Hey, could you not do that? Could you give the players the info they want so they can make informed decisions?", I probably would have been so surprised that I would have responded, "You must not know what 'GM' means."
I'm the new guy in a group of friends who've played together before. I don't want to rock the boat any more than I have to. I don't want to tell the GM that I'll only have fun if I can take his toy away. Is there a way we can both be happy?
So I rolled a success, and the GM said, "You successfully shove the cowardly guy forward! However, he stumbles and knocks into the injured woman, causing her to fall and provoking an Attack of Opportunity by the gremlins."
"Uh," I replied, "if that was a success, what was I rolling for? I asked you if it was doable."
"You rolled to push him!" the GM answered. "And you did. And this is what happens when you push people who weren't expecting it!"
Obviously there's a problem here -- "Is that doable?" isn't about whether I can push a guy, it's about whether I can push a guy into the specific position I stated, and the GM ought to answer me with "yes", "no", or "you can't tell" before the action's in motion. I know many ways to fix this, and I've been pondering which one will go over most easily, socially, with a GM I just met and who is used to being in charge during game time. As I've pondered, I've assumed that he'll be on board with fixing this obvious glitch. But just now, I realized:
To him, it might not be a glitch. He might like having players act in ignorance, so that he can come down on them with his own judgment of the consequences, as a surprise, and without anyone else weighing in.
This just occurred to me, because when I was first GMing, I used to do this. I initially did it just because my first GM had done it, and this sort of authority seemed to fit naturally with buying books and prepping dungeons and hosting and facilitating and all the other stuff the GM apparently did. But I kept doing it because it was fun. Not good, healthy, sustainable fun for the whole group -- I see that now, and that's why I don't do it anymore -- but fun nonetheless. The players want to do something, and in my head I form a vision of what'll happen that clashes with theirs, and right then, as they're bent on the outcome of their effort and looking to me in suspense, I get to surprise them and express my own vision and provoke a strong reaction. What a rush! Often it led to arguments or disappointed players, but in the end, they willingly bowed to my authority often enough to keep me coming back to that well.
If someone had asked me, "Hey, could you not do that? Could you give the players the info they want so they can make informed decisions?", I probably would have been so surprised that I would have responded, "You must not know what 'GM' means."
I'm the new guy in a group of friends who've played together before. I don't want to rock the boat any more than I have to. I don't want to tell the GM that I'll only have fun if I can take his toy away. Is there a way we can both be happy?
Comments
Given those two interpretations, I'd have to say that the GM not only has a good chance of being as heavy-handed as you imply he is, but before that: he's the one who broke the clarity of the conversation.
If no talking good, how GM is good to be alsoing?
Either the GM thinks their role is to be a real-life-simulator. And in real life you don't know for certain what will happen when you push someone until you do push them. He's being fair as he sees it, and describes the most likely consequences of an unexpected push as he sees them.
Or the GM is following common passive-aggressive advice on how to deal with disruptive players without actually confronting them (by providing consistent, unpleasant consequences in-game to unwanted in-game behaviours).
(Or he's doing what you described, which is something that never occurred to me but does explain a lot about the behaviour of a fledgling GM I played with a long time ago.)
Also in my experience there's no way for a new guy in any group to provide negative feedback without stepping on someone's toes or ask for explanation why something happened without giving the vibe of questioning the authority.
I suppose you could ask about how, in future, if you wanted to do XYZ, should you go about making sure that XYZ happens as described, without unintended consequences. This is basically asking about the preferred communication format of the GM, and the way they view the role of the GM.
David: "Is that doable?"
Me: "Describe how you do that."
Assuming you describe how your character does it, and the description contains intent (the part about the position you want him in), the way I would want to "resolve" that would be that you simply get what you want, or if I think it should be a challenge, I would start describing the obstacles in your way that you would have to roll against should you choose to go through with what you described and roll the dice. But you could step back from your description if you don't like the sound of the obstacles in your way.
This is clearly not the same method as having a dialogue with me about stakes. That's why I'm curious what your take on it is.
Edit: So about the part about ambushing you with unexpected consequences. For the most part, I think the consequences of your actions should be clear. You try to jump over a pit and fail and you fall into the pit. But there are at least two things here:
1) Sometimes there are surprises. You climb a cliff and it starts to rain halfway through. Now you have a harder difficulty. In your example the surprise was the GM sort of punishing you for "not paying attention to the rules" That's my interpretation; that he thinks you weren't thinking out the consequences of moving a character near an enemy, the consequences of which in modern D&D is an AOO. I think with a game like modern D&D with all its rules, it's way better to do the "let's talk about stakes before rolling" thing. But this GM may very well think this is part of the fun: letting players "fall on the sword of the rules" until they know them well enough to not fall prey to the same consequences? Not my cup of tea since I abandoned pouring through tomes of rules-texts and character abilities years ago.
2) This surprise happened even though you were successful on your roll. I can't imaging running a game like that, but I also dislike modern editions of D&D (just a matter of style-preference). Again, I don't think the GM cares/thinks about player intent. I think there is just a different agenda to get to the fun.
(As a GM I always have these discussions on the spot because I very much consider them part of the game. A GM's legitimacy rests on nothing but the justifications of their rulings, so how could you not encourage and embrace players who dare to call you on your bullshit...)
Anyway, assuming the GM is amenable, perhaps you could ask them to fine-tune their play for the future. The particulars of how would presumably depend on your shared goals; it could be that he needs to predeclare consequences more thoroughly before rolls, or he needs to double-check that the players know what they're asking for, or he needs to outline risks explicitly before things are attempted, or whatever.
I'd say that one experience isn't enough to make an informed decision from. You really need a bit more exposure to them to determine if the person is normally pretty solid, or makes 'bad calls' regularly, or if there's simply a different table environment than you're used to.
I'd also say that as calls go, this one isn't all that bad really. I can see several 'outs' whereby the GM was acting well within scope and intent (BigJ mentions some). Without their input we'll never know the warrants for the decision, and therefore can't say with certainty. I don't personally find their choice there optimal by the way, just don't think it's awful either.
Finally I'd mention that in many games, especially D&D (or directly derivative thereof), the DM is essentially God. Their power and influence is nearly limitless by design. Now, that can lead to abuse of power, or a mismatch between players and GM, but it can also lead to some pretty spectacular gaming...so long as the values and preferences of everyone present match. When they don't, and someone doesn't have fun because of it, it's not a 'right way to play' issue, it's a 'playing with the right group, or right game' issue. I don't think you'd be out of line to gather more info about the playstyle at the table to decide if it's something you're interested in, and doing so might communicate that you're questioning the fit enough that for the DM to make allowances, at least until you're 'up to speed'.
I think your second interpretation is a perfectly legitimate thing for a reasonable GM to have meant. Unfortunately, the thing he actually meant is not.
Also, Big_J_Money - I don't really understand where you are coming from here. What you describe as "Tell me what you do and I'll tell you what the obstacles/potential consequences are" is exactly a "discussion of stakes". Just because it's framed fictionally doesn't make it not a discussion of stakes. In fact, almost all discussions of stakes are framed fictionally, because the vast majority of the stakes ARE fictional. The only time it they're not is if the discussion is along the lines of "Just how much damage would I take from the fall?" because there's a direct mechanical 'real world' (even if it's just numbers on paper) consequence.
Also, I disagree that the GM is within the rules here. First, I can't find anything anywhere for any D&D version that indicates that falling prone triggers an attack of opportunity (it clearly does NOT in 4E, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't in 3/3.5, though standing up from prone does). Second, the whole issue here isn't "he bumped into her and knocked her over, causing an AoO" but rather "My intent was to push him in FRONT of her, not INTO her, so why did he bump into her if I succeeded on my roll?" Or maybe you just misunderstand the circumstances? He's NOT complaining that the opponent got an attack against the person he PUSHED (in fact, as far as I can tell from the example, the enemy didn't get an AoO against the person they probably should have), he's complaining that the opponent got an AoE against the person he was trying to PROTECT (who, by all rights, should not have been involved in this action at all, except perhaps as part of a fail state). So no, I don't think there's a rules leg to stand on here.
Similarly, phoenix182, I don't really think a "DM is all powerful! Kneel before Zod!" actually applies here either. This is right up there with "I shoot the goblin! I rolled a 20!" "Okay, you shoot your buddy who was standing along the line of fire! Hey, sorry, but melee is chaotic!" It's essentially denying the player agency.
All that said, I don't really think there's a "comfortable" way to have this conversation. As framed, the GM clearly has different expectations. I would be strongly tempted to explain my stance and then bow out of the game, but I don't think that would make the point clear either.
If your GM is doing this because of ignorance, or to demonstrate power, or for some other dumb reason, you should talk about it. But this behavior in and of itself can be great.
It seems to me that you don't need to roll to push someone like that.
What would have happened if you missed? "You push the air beside him, like the goofball you are"?
You put it pretty well when you said: "if that was a success, what was I rolling for?" With that, you've said your piece.
I agree with Jason also, this sort of thing happens sometimes. People talk past each other.
DMs make bad calls. I'm the best DM of all time and even I make a lot of bad calls, every game. In the heat of the moment.
The DM should've handled it in one of two ways:
"Sure, you can push him. Let's have a roll to see how well that goes" (And then roll some sort of "awareness" on the NPC or whatevs.
Or tweak the rules -- if only for a moment -- to be more "conflict resolution" (intent focused) than "task resolution" (action focused). I do this all the time. Failure in my campaign doesn't mean "You're a goof". It means "You didn't get what you wanted".
Or, well, just let it succeed, easiest.
That said, I didn't get that the thread was "What should the DM have done, boo, bad DM", I thought it was "What should David, the player, do in that situation?"
And I thought he handled it perfectly. He said pretty much the perfect thing to say. He noted it. He moved on. He can remember it if similar bad calls come up. He can talk about the GM after the session. Mismatches of expectations are the most common cause of bad calls; it's pretty much a hyponymical relationship. If you want to argue semantics.
In any event, in terms of how to handle it, I think that the non-confrontation described feels inadequate to David (or so I infer from the fact that he's posted asking for advice), so it's probably not a perfect handling of the situation by the one metric that matters.
I was just so happy with "You call that a success?". Perfectly put.
What were the other players' reactions? If you are the only one that seems upset it is probably just how they do things and the group might not be right for you. In that case trying to alter how they do things could just be disruptive. If on the other hand, the players seemed to share your frustration, it may be a sign he has habits that are at odds with the group and could use some constructive feedback.
I mean, actual judges in real-life courtrooms aren't supposed to behave the way you describe. Arbitrators and referees and umpires aren't supposed to behave like this. They're supposed to clarify the issues at play in a given situation and explain the stakes well so all parties understand what's going on. They're supposed to always say what honesty and the rules require them to say.
I think if your DM isn't willing to give honest answers and help you reach a consensus on what the stakes of a given roll are, it speaks to a deeper problem of the DM monopolizing the fiction.
This was my third session with this group, and the GM has often responded to character actions that he judged to be ill-advised with, "Ha ha, that was dumb, now you're in trouble." I'm fine with winding up in trouble if I have any sense of the risks involved, and I'm also fine with being told "your character can't tell, so you're signing up for the GM's judgment!" The only thing I dislike is when my job is to determine "what can I do that will be useful here", and I don't have access to the relevant factors in judging that.
If the group were playing as Jason describes -- interesting outcomes over character agency -- then I'd welcome the ignorance and simply strive mainly to be colorful and interesting. But this is a Pathfinder dungeon crawl, and no one seems eager to lose hit points because I decided to (e.g.) roleplay an interesting character reaction instead of choosing the optimal attack.
Part of the problem is probably that I just find a long series of to-hit rolls with zero fictional positioning to be boring as hell, so I'm trying to mix it up. Unlike the min-maxed orc in the party, who gets to revel in doing 30+ damage per hit, my guy's a wizard, and when I chose that class I wasn't thinking that "wait until your initiative rolls around and roll to hit with your crossbow" would be the bulk of my contribution. I figured I could use my cute little first-level spells to distract opponents and make them waste actions at the very least -- but that depends on being able to agree with the GM on what's possible in the fiction.
It's possible that my default job is to be irrelevant in combats and contribute elsewhere, which is something I could live with if we weren't playing a giant dungeon module.
The other players seem mostly content to revel in their characters' mechanical combat abilities during fights, and provide comic relief whenever we're not fighting. I'm right there with them for the comedy; just looking for ways to engage with the dungeon crawl too.
I absolutely can force the info I want out of the GM, simply by refusing to roll until I can get answers about whether a successful roll will accomplish my aim or whatnot, but I suspect that'd produce some unwelcome friction and, as I said, take the GM's "gotcha!" toy away.
What I'm hoping to find is a way to let the GM play his "gotcha"s and also let me interact meaningfully with the dungeon.
Aside from this one part of play, how much are enjoying the rest of it?
I am going to guess that the answer is "no" in this situation. You're new; the rest of them like the way he runs his game.
Of the three other players in the group, one seems to also want to be able to make some fiction-based strategic decisions (the most excitement he showed all session was during my planning to light the gremlin cave on fire), another seems to want to do that only very occasionally and otherwise make jokes and inflict huge amounts of damage, and the third guy seems to enjoy doing the obvious in fights and otherwise heckling every PC and NPC in the game with innuendo or braggadocio.
I am loving the comedic aspect of the game -- for example, our orc was raised by an intelligent axe and thinks our goblin is a baby orc. I am also enjoying the minor developments in our relationships with the townsfolk around the dungeon, and it's cool to see each new monster in the dungeon and go, "Whoa! What is that?" I'm also fine with HP loss as a pacing mechanism for when we leave the dungeon to get healed; the unpredictability of "How far will we get this time?" is kinda fun. I was also psyched for the premise of the adventure, which is about a crashed meteor, an extinguished magical flame, and a missing friend, but we've yet to actually encounter anything that sheds light on any of those.
Even if the GM doesn't need to change anything, I'd like to think it's possible that he might do it anyway, just to be nice. It certainly isn't going to ruin the other three players' fun if he adds a little "here's what your character can see, which bears on your decision" description. Who knows? Maybe he'll want to support my desire to be useful in fights, and we can find a way to agree on how that could happen!
Failing that, though, perhaps I can just give up on useful dungeoneering and find the fun elsewhere. Maybe I can find a new comedy niche, or act awed at the other characters' combat prowess and pump their players up or something. It is a fun group of guys to hang out with, so the gameplay certainly doesn't have to be seamless for me to enjoy my evening. (If this ever winds up conflicting with my more creatively fulfilling World Wide Wrestling game, though, WWW is totally gonna win.)
If the GM lets me know that successfully shoving the guy will (or even might) send him into the injured woman rather than past her, then I would (intelligently) choose not to do that.
If I do a stupid thing because of impatience or poor risk/reward assessment, punish me! But if I do an apparently intelligent thing, and then you introduce reasons why it's actually stupid, the results aren't consequences, they're just random.
If you envision the passage as being too narrow or the character spacing as being wrong for me to shove one PC past another, please tell me that when I ask, "Is that doable?"
I'm not saying this is intractable. I know plenty of solutions. Just pondering which ones might be most feasible here.
Sandra, I certainly don't want to push an entire play style on this poor guy! But if the right opportunity arises, I might mention the comics to him in a "just in case you're interested in this sort of thing" way. Good call.
Maybe his way is good, don't shove people.
I guess I misunderstood your OP. I didn't realize you meant to push the other character prone. I thought you were pushing them forward, and the reason this triggered an AOO was that they passed through a 5-foot square that triggered one.
If the GM is making up house rules that trigger AOO just because he doesn't know what else to do with your fictional input, that's even more frustrating than what I had imagined.
FWIW, I'll go back to what I said about some players who have only exclusively played one RPG, and specifically D&D. Some GMs are so used to relying on the rules in the text that this is all they know. They don't know how to handle more creative input. So you might just not be compatible with this group if the GM doesn't know how to handle your style in a way that's fun for him and everyone else.
@Airk - If you don't understand, then you don't. To me there is a significant difference in play style between discussing stakes solely through the fiction versus out of the fiction. It's not that I'm aggressively opposed to doing it out of the fiction, it's just that it's my last resort. Also, my question to David wasn't "would this have been a viable way to resolve your frustrating situation" but it was "how do you think things would play out if I were the GM, and had done this instead?" (i.e. do you think this approach would have avoided such a frustrating situation to begin with).
@Eero - Ok, it's interesting to know you have these discussions. It sounds like you save it for situations where someone feels slighted, or as if something has not gone according to their expectations, right?
That does sound like the falling character provoked the AOO, and I don't remember if falling characters normally do that.
In any case, that is even more different than how I read it at first. The real rub probably has nothing to do with the AOO itself, but the fact that the shoved character fell down in the first place. From David's description of intent here (to get a cowardly character in front of the injured one), it's easy to see what's so frustrating about that result.
Sorry David, because nothing I wrote addressed this. I'll read more carefully next time :-/
The only thing that addressed it, I guess, is the part where I said basically that this is why modern editions of D&D would do better with discussions of stakes up front. And your GM refused you that. Maybe if you have a discussion outside the game about why he takes that approach and if he could try something different in your case; if he'd be okay with learning a new technique (stakes discussion).
My intent was not to push anyone prone; my intent was that both characters would be upright and ready to fight, but that the healthy guy would provide a closer target for the gremlins than the injured woman. Agreed 100%! That's my preference. "Here's what will happen if you succeed" is completely unnecessary in this game, in my opinion (which is why I specified "might").
If the GM rejects our first preference, though, I do think that at that point a guarantee would be better than nothing.
That said, the example in your initial post was decidedly off from the Pathfinder rules; in Pathfinder, shoving people around is explicitly covered by the rules in some detail, and it works out quite differently (and arguably, more reasonably): 1) you attempt to shove the coward; 2) he gets an attack of opportunity against you, making your shove more difficult if he hits you; 3) if you make your check, you shove him, conceivably protecting the injured character by making him a more convenient target for the enemy; 4) he doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity for being shoved; 5) even if you do shove him into the injured woman, which is something that should be under your control, she doesn't fall down, he just bumps into her and stops moving. Speaking from my experience of what is typical for Pathfinder, you're mostly right about the expected contribution of a low-level wizard in a dungeon crawl, but you're not necessarily right about the need for some sort of negotiation with the GM. The spells' effects are quite explicitly described, and you can mostly expect them to work as written.
It might seem reasonable to be able to distract an enemy by making their sword light up with a light spell, but that's not what the Pathfinder light spell says it does: it just lights something up, no distraction. On the other hand, color spray is intended and described as a visual distraction spell, so if that's what you want to do, that's what you should use. No negotiation on what's possible in the fiction necessary, or (by most Pathfinder GMs, in my experience) expected. One way to do as above, learn the rules and play them to your advantage, giving you your own gotchas.
But then there's a very real danger that might be labeled rules lawyering, rules abuse, or bucking the authority of the GM.
A lot of people, especially new players or players used to more narrative games, won't do that, relying on the at-the-table conversation to make those details clear, and a lot of enthusiastic Pathfinder players, especially GMs with a bit of an authoritarian bent, will see that precisely as impatience or poor risk/reward assessment, deserving of punishment in order to encourage learning.
We had minis on a map, and from that it looked to me like there was probably room to push the coward past the injured woman, but I was translating into the fiction by thinking about "so the mini's base isn't there in the fiction" rather than just asking about hex rules.
One thing, though -- although an explicit, unmistakable rule is indeed treated as a final authority at this table, rules are definitely not the GM's starting point. He didn't mention a single rule about hexes or movement or bull-rush etc. when making his determination. Maybe some rules informed his judgment, maybe not, but he certainly didn't reference them aloud.
If he wanted to punish me for poor rules-use, then I wish he'd clued me in to the fact that that was happening. I'm guessing, though, that he simply formed a vision of the fiction in which it was a dumb move, and arbitrated as per that vision.
The fact that Will didn't jump in with the Bull Rush rules makes me guess that rules-lawyering generally isn't worth it to this group, and that poking the GM's authority in that way might be unwelcome. But perhaps I can find a polite way around it. I'll check in with Will -- I don't know if he can help, but if he can, it'll be a much easier conversation than the one with the GM. (Will's the guy at the table who I actually knew before I joined, and is much more chill than the GM.)
This, together with Pathfinder's general design philosophy that characters can try almost anything, but are only really good at stuff they really apply themselves to, means that it's not entirely unreasonable for a GM to rule that if your character tries something you don't know the rules for, it should probably go wrong. I don't know the people involved, but I'm not sure a typical Pathfinder player even shares so much vocabulary with a typical story gamer. Are you sure your GM even thinks in terms of "poor rules-use decision" vs. "poor action-in-the-fiction decision"? That's a good observation. Maybe just ask Will straight up for his opinion on the matter? Should you learn and stick to the rules? Should you ask for more clarification? Does the fiction have a bearing on results?