I’ll drop the analogies since they’re clearly confusing you.

You also seem to have lost the plot here. We’re talking about the proper way to address a table of murderhobos and bring them back in line.

Sure, throwing an unwinnable encounter at your players to punish them for their behavior is potentially a way to do that - but in my experience it’s more likely to foster an adversarial relationship between the players and the DM. Even if the players get the message it’s possible that they might interpret it as “play my way or else”.

If your players are all murderhoboing, there’s clearly a disconnect in your expectations for the table. The best way to address these kinds of disconnects is through open communication. If you pause things to make it clear that people aren’t playing in the way you’d prefer, you can have a genuine discussion about how to roleplay that can take as long as it needs to. You can come to compromises or draw attention to things much easier than if you just throw an unwinnable scenario at them to humble them. If your players are all murderhoboing and all want to murderhobo, maybe you’re the odd one out and you need to change your expectations. Or find a new table. But you won’t know for sure until you have that discussion on a level that a super-NPC can’t get you.

That’s better communicated through… communication.

I don’t know about you, but if I were playing a game to win and my “opponent” reveals that they can just cheat and instakill me whenever they feel like, I’m more likely to just stop playing the game than to try to play it for fun. Even if I did try to play it for fun, it would be hard to really enjoy it when I know that any encounter can just be a big middle finger.

If you don’t explicitly tell people what they’re doing wrong and how to fix it, it’s unlikely that they’ll figure it out on their own.

opponent

???

when is the DM an opponent?

Never, hence the air quotes. It’s an analogy. I’ve been over this already with someone else.

opponent

yet you don’t use airquotes elsewhere. you really think the DM is a rival to the players, it shows in the shit you’re writing out.

imho, you’ve been playing the game wrong for a long time. you need to stop thinking of the DM as some counter to your players and instead think of them as an orchestra conductor.

I shouldn’t have to explain this shit to you either. you’re either being willfully ignorant or motivated to start some shit. not my monkeys,not my circus.

@mojofrododojo Maybe it's a client issue ? Because I see the quotes

It’s just an analogy. Here; let me try one more time.

If you’re playing a horde shooter and your friend reveals they can just spawn a boss on top of you at any time, it kind of kills your desire to keep playing - at least with them.

No offense, but you seem overly fixated on all the wrong things.

You have fucked around. Time to find out - Lemmy.World

Lemmy

(lemmy.world)

ctrl-f opponent, his reply to /bouh for example.

but thanks for chiming in

you still don’t get it.

you must be a miserable person to TTRPG with.

I guess I should stop using analogies then.

The point isn’t whether the players are competing with the DM. The point is that there’s two people playing a game and one person can just screw over the other whenever they feel like it. Painting that in a competitive setting hits closer to home for a lot of people since they’re more likely to have experienced that themselves. It wasn’t meant to be indicative of how I perceive a good player/DM relationship.

I’m sorry, I had no idea it would confuse so many people so badly.

@mojofrododojo Yes, this is exactly the response I screenshoted. It has quotes, unicode of said quotes are U+201C before and U+201D after.

The point isn’t whether the players are competing with the DM.

you’ve made it abundantly clear you believe this, and then double down by following it up with:

there’s two people playing a game and one person can just screw over the other whenever they feel like it.

the DM is not there to ‘screw over’ the other players, and the players aren’t there to ‘beat’ the dm.

Have you ever actually played a TTRPG?

I’m beginning to wonder if anyone would even sit at a table with you.

Do you understand the context of the discussion?

Maybe I’m in the minority here, but to me I’d consider throwing a god-level NPC at your players explicitly to punish them for their behavior to fall pretty squarely under “screwing them over”. Not to say players should be allowed to do whatever they want, but I’d expect a smoother escalation than that.

Maybe I’m in the minority here, but to me I’d consider throwing a god-level NPC at your players explicitly to punish them for their behavior to fall pretty squarely under “screwing them over”.

yeah obviously that’s how you see it because you only see things one way, throughout this entire convo.

I get that.

the rest of us playing ttrpg’s don’t see it as ‘oh they’ve sent punishment’ - no, the dm is tailoring the world to react to the player’s shenanigans. should the DM just drop everything and cater to whatever whims the PCs devise?

you really don’t understand any of this shit.

If that’s the expectation that’s been set up for the table, sure. But jumping straight from murderhobo shenanigans to “Ok here’s a god to stop you, roll initiative” isn’t the way I’d handle people playing the game in a way I don’t like. I’ve been over this all already with another poster; it causes problems and might not even solve the ones you’re using it to solve.

never dm’d shit but insists they know better.

I’ve been over this all already with another poster; it causes problems and might not even solve the ones you’re using it to solve.