have you guys got any stories about your players being obnoxiously stupid? I'll start>party is sent to survey a location in an old map>map is scribbled by an NPC whom I've explicitly made out to be absent-minded, clumsy and forgetful and that has a few notes, most of which are useless throwaway jokes>one location is marked 'haunted woods' paired with a cartoon drawing of a ghost.>players ask first NPC if the woods are haunted>first NPC admits that they do not know, they have never seen a ghost and don't know the first thing about them.>player asks me to roll to see if his character would know if undead are common in this area.>I tell them not to roll, because they know for a fact that undead cannot be found in this region>other NPC, who is actually knowledgeable, points out that the woods are, indeed, not haunted.>I clarify out of character that the 'haunted woods' bit was simply a joke and it's just a regular forest.>before they depart, I have the quest giver give them some money to buy supplies before the trip and have him point out that they should get climbing equipment because they'll have to cross the mountains>they spend it all on things to fight undead and don't buy any climbing equipment>I remind them that there aren't any undead and that their travel speed will be halved without enough climbing tools for everyone>they don't care>later on, the path to the objective is straight through the woods>we waste like 30 minutes discussing alternative paths to avoid going through the haunted woodsI fucking wrapped that game up before doing everything I had planned because the experience was fucking miserable, holy hell, I'm never playing with zoomers again.
sounds like you're a bad GM, honestly
I cringe any time a thread starts with "do you guys ________? I'll start" because it just makes me think of the sad lonely fucker on the other side of the screen who gets home from hanging out with his friends and decides "I know, I'll complain about them on 4channel, that will be the best thing to do with my time"didn't read your story, btw, and I will not be contributing my owneat shit
>>88980175normally, I would be inclined to blame myself, and would agree with you, but I actually ran this very same module previously for a different group of players and it was absolutely smooth, legit one of my best ever experiences with ttrpg's in 7 years of running games.The previous group was all about taking initiative, describing their characters, taking notes and solving puzzles- for contrast this group struggled to do something the other group did in under a minute, fought each other, never took any notes and when I asked one to describe a spell they were casting replied with "I don't care"
>>88980128I wasn't the GM here but another player in the group:>party comes across a magical obelisk>it's emitting great amounts of arcane energy>a bird gets too close to it and is obliterated by the power>wizard: "I touch it with my staff!"Apparently he thought that the energy would go into the staff and turn it into a super powerful item. Because of course it would do that, why wouldn't it do that?
>>88980251well, maybe everyone's bad in this story. but you should never go into a session with an expectation of what is going to happen. Nothing in your session should hinge on the players doing one particular thing, even if that thing is very obvious. If your party of retards wants to go into the woods to hunt ghosts, fuck it, put some ghosts in there. When your players ask you to clarify something about your setting, the answer should probably never be "no, those leads I put in earlier were false, it's actually boring."
>>88980283Well it was a calculated risk. Run the possibilities:>wizard explodesfunny as hell>wizard gains phenomenal powerfunny as hell
>>88980308>the GM must always coddle the playoids no matter how dumb they areFuck off with that shit, he isn't your nanny.
>>88980128>I remind them that there aren't any undead and that their travel speed will be halved without enough climbing tools for everyoneWhy are you telling them this?Because it's the only way your railroad will work.Stop GMing, until you understand to never storyshit again. Then seek wisdom in old games, and contemplate what makes a game fun to begin with.
>>88980308Not OP, but the fact that they were trying to find detours around the haunted woods makes it seem like the group wasn't eager to fight ghosts, but was instead just way too wary about ghosts that didn't actually exist. It probably would have been better to leave it open-ended, and just say that they haven't heard of any in the area. But then if they're really keen on investigating, you still have the option to have them be the ones to discover that the woods are actually haunted in some way. But it's also fine to have the NPC be wrong and the woods not be haunted at all, so long as there's still something else interesting about the woods.
>>88980308you know what? yeah, that actually makes some sense, and under different circumstances I might have done that. Problem is, we were playtesting a new system so I didn't have stats for undead at hand>>88980337in the context of the setting that is something that they would know and that the questgivers would say. yeah, there was some heavy railroading but it had to be for the 1-shot to work. in a long term campaign there'd be more freedom
>>88980348there was a wood elemental that the players could befriend or defeat to secure safe passage to the goal
>>88980337>Why are you telling them this?If the PCs are in a burning building and the players don't seem to be aware of that fact, should the GM have inform them?
>>88980334There's a general misconception in the hobby that the GM is a storyteller; he isn't. The GM is there to arbitrate the system and the setting, and in a general sense to run the session, occasionally injecting drama. Once you stop trying to tell a specific tale, GMing becomes a lot more fun, especially because it allows you to remorselessly obliterate retards when they do stupid things. >>88980364general tip: add a time pressure mechanic to all your content>the tomb door will shut once the moon goes out of phase>you are being pursued>the cultists will sacrifice the maiden during the next full moon, in 3 days>every 10 minutes of real-time, I will roll for a random encounterThis will keep your players on-task.
>>88980128I would have just made the woods haunted at that point.I have a story but I was another one of the players>10 player game>Right at the start of the game we’re given a map>Nobody can agree who gets to carry the map>After a lot of arguing one player takes the map and burns it>Now nobody gets the map
>>88980528KEK, but also, 10 players is fucking insane, I played with 7 or 9 once and it wasn't great
>>88980399The difference lies here:>Flames rise along the walls all around you. At then end of the hallway you see an elevator, behind you is the lounge with those large windows.>Ok so the building is on fire, you need to take the stairs beside the elevator now.
>>88980528He knew it was the only way to get moving. Genius desu.
>>88980128Idiots, in every age and generation dipshit.Your problem isn't playing with zoomers your problem is playing with idiots.
>>88980128If you want there to be uncertainty insert uncertainty. Do not insert uncertainty when you want something to be straight forward.
>Pathfinder>girl in group>every character has a tragic back story>every character is a whore, or tries to be if I don’t restrain it>every character must have high charisma because charisma=beauty>can barely handle leveling her characters properly>gets emotionally attached to her characters and gets moody when they die from doing stupid shit>suspect her characters are based on or influenced by anime characters, but I don’t watch anime and am not certain of this>really really likes werewolvesAnons sometimes say femcels aren’t real, but I know better.
>>88980128My fren, I understand your frustration, but at some point you have to roll with the punches.Not saying you should've taken out the mountain entirely because they had no climbing gear. But if the party is so adamant in buying equipment against the undead, at least throw a wight or two theor way and be done with it, doesn't need to be too tied to the plot either: "oh, you came across a lost climbing expedition, they are undead now, kill them again".
>Urban Heroes>Party of 5 is a motley crew of old farts plus their 20-something handler.> Handler can see through walls and skin at will, at cost of nosebleeds; the others run the gamut from having super-hearing if it's an odd day of the month and super-smell if it's an even day; to having skin as though as titanium and cough fire, at cost of looking like a a misshapen miniature Colossus of Rhodes that also needs painkillers after using fire.> Notably, none of them have Super-strenght or any form of Telekinesis.> While trying to rescue a PC's granddaughter, the group reaches the kidnappers' warehouse.> The group has made a lot of noise, so the kidnappers have barricaaded a door, but thanks to the handler's vision and the superhearer's odd-day power, they know the kidnappers are planning to fortify the windows above and then try to ambush the group with guns and crowbars.> The mini-colossus asks to the others if they think they can catch them by surprise if they break down the barricaded door they have right in front of them.>"I wouldn't do that if I were you, sir, you might hurt yourself badly.">"I'm 77, I know damn well what I can and cannot do.">"Don't you want me to disassemble the door? It would make it way easier to throw off all that crap they piled up."> "No, fuck off, a child's life is at stake."> I point out that his skin isn't literally titanium, and that the door is an emergency one.> He insists both IC and OOC.> So his character prepares a shoulder charge, grits his teeth...>... and shatters his entire right arm, sending him rolling on the floor in pain while also making a fuckton of noise.
>>88985372> The handler, causing himself more nosebleeds than reccomended, sees that 1) that PC's arm bones are now a jigsaw puzzle no thanks to his action and his skin and 2) the kidnappers are now agitated and going for the guns.> By the time the combat is over, the handler is bleeding from more than the nose, one guy is dead, and the kidnapped girl barely survived a bullet to the head.> Oh, and the downed PC got his other arm broken when trying to grab a thug's leg, only to get it crunched up.At least the player understood how idiotic it was after a few days passed, but GODDAMN was it frustrating to watch.
>>88980128If the woods weren't haunted and the NPC didn't know they were haunted then why did he label them as that?
>>88980128>Calls woods “the haunted woods”>Is surprised when the players think the woods are hauntedThere’s only one retard here and it’s you.
>have mountain labeled “Dragons Peak”>players think there are dragons there>explain to them that it was labeled dragons peak a joke by an explorer 365 years ago>go into the in depth lore of the region which their characters should know>two hours later, they buy anti dragon suppliesPlayers are retarded
>88980128Honestly pretty much everything you said is screaming that the woods are haunted through story logic. The party probably thought that the idiot character was meant to be an "idiot savant" who at first appears to be borderline retarded, but is actually very wise in his own special way. >but the other NPCThe introduction of another NPC who is knowledgeable stating that it's not haunted could easily be someone who is too reasonable to assume anything is wrong "that screaming woman is just a cougar in heat" and "that whisper asking for salvation was just my imagination" or he could be the reverse of an idiot savant who is very smart in most aspects but short in others ways.>but my out of character statements that's a bit harder to pin down, but I think they thought you were planning for them to be unprepared for when the woods were actually haunted to give them a greater challenge and they thought you were trying to trick them by speaking OOC about it. They could have also thought you were going to be a dickhead and TPK them for not picking out the obvious signs that the woods were haunted.
>>88980128Shitty GM who couldn't throw something at them for all their effort.
>Players are fighting a spirit that is possessing bodies a bunch of cloned bodies all around them, one at a time>The clones are weak, clumsy, and fragile, but when the ghost possesses one of them, it becomes very dangerous and difficult to hit (but still very fragile) >The party kill the possessed body 6 fucking times, suffering 2 downed party members, before finally realizing they should destroy the uninhabited bodies firstI love setting up puzzle fights, but shit like this always makes me second guess myself.
>>88985171I have serious doubts that this was a girl, anon. Honestly all the girl players I've played with were chill and usually played either a dude or some tough warrior girl done tastefully. The only one case where the girl played some sort of seductress was an IRL game where she played a Toreador, and that player was a sexy redhead and she knew it very well.
