I had my first ever KO of a party member on one hit from an NPCd assassin. The player promptly cried foul and made trouble with other party members who are now complaining that my villains are too hard. They constantly push the envelope with rule limits and get mad whenever I point out the rules are not only in my favour but also remind them I'm the DM.
How do y'all handle a ring leader troublemaker who's usually a good player until they don't get their way? How do you come back from an impasse over a DM ruling when you don't want the player to quit but can not go back on your decision for fear of setting a precedent you're a flake and the whinging if a player will eventually get them their way in-game regardless of the rules they want broken or only applied to certain things?
It sounds like your players don't want to play as challenging a game as you want to run. There's not a right or wrong there, it's a matter of personal taste.
I can't say for sure with the information you provided that your encounter was too challenging or not, although I am curious about the one hit. You mentioned an assassin, does that mean that it was a surprise attack on a player who didn't know they were in combat yet? There can be reasons to do that, but if I was planning on an NPC assassin going after a character I would probably do the math so that outside of a critical hit the assassin wouldn't be able to do enough damage to one shot the player before the player had a chance to act. That would not be fun for the player.
It does sound like you are treating your role as DM as an adversarial one to the players. You said:
They constantly push the envelope with rule limits and get mad whenever I point out the rules are not only in my favour but also remind them I'm the DM.
I don't know what rule limits they are pushing, and yes you are the DM so you have the final say on rules, but things shouldn't be in your favor. Unless you told your players from day 1 that you were running a grimdark campaign where they shouldn't expect to survive the rules should favor the players. They are the heroes of the story after all, they are supposed to win. That doesn't mean you don't create challenges for them. IMO the hardest part of DMing is creating encounters that are challenging enough that the players feel like their characters might die without killing anyone off.
So advice going forward. I don't know if you had a session 0 or not. If you didn't, it's time to have one now so that you are your players can agree on the kind of game you want to play, and how player deaths will be handled. If you did, it might be time for a reset. Sometimes players think they want to play one kind of game, but then either they realize that's not what they really enjoy, or they learn that their definition of challenging is different than yours.
You're worried that if you give ground on this you will always have to give ground. Did you discuss character deaths with the players ahead of time? If so, for this instance stick with what you said previously but talk to the players about if they want to set different rules going forward with the understanding that you and them will abide by them. If you didn't talk about this before hand in a session 0, I would say that you should try and find a way to bring the character back, and set expectations for how character deaths are handled in future.
It seems like a session 0 issue. There are some people who are opposed to allowing character death unless the player oks it. I don’t think there was a death here, but I’m not clear on that. But otherwise it’s like gadgetgirl says, they might want a different kind of game than you, that’s the kind of thing to work out in session 0, and lethality is kind of a subset of that issue. Tasha’s has some good advice on how to do a session 0, and it’s never too late, even if the campaign is already underway. And as far as dealing with that one player, it seems like an out of game (probably private) conversation is called for. Point out that sometimes — in any game — things don’t go your way. They need to be more mature about dealing with bad luck. Tell them their behavior was disruptive, and they really need to reign it in. If it keeps up, the next conversation gets more difficult, and you’ll need to look at kicking them from the group, but hopefully it won’t come to that.
You could always remind them they could take the body to a temple and pay for a ritual. If they don't have money for it yet, then set up some runs that give them treasure. The one who lost his character could run a temp character until they can pay to have him brought back. But of course, I'm not sure if that is RAW. I use the rules as a guide, but ultimately, its a DM's decision what to run to make the story flow. That's what I love about D&D, its what YOU make it. Which is funny, in life I am a black & white rules person, but D&D, I'm all shades of gray.
…How do y'all handle a ring leader troublemaker who's usually a good player until they don't get their way? ….You let the player quit. (I toss a friend from my table once.)
If the encounter was fairly ran, you let the play stand. This should be handle in session 0 on how the group is going to handle PCs deaths. I am a stick another quarter in the slot and game on dm. So raise dead etc are freely available with just the spell cost payment.
On rules. Make a call and let it stand of the session and both sides read the rule, give their input and the dm makes a call which stands.
But it does read like the group is trying to bully you to get their way. If so, talk to them and then if they don’t light up, don’t dm for them.
It sounds like it might have been a bit of an unfair attack - though the details are a bit thin on the ground. If it was indeed that the PC was doing whatever and was fairly healthy, and then suddenly bam, knife in the back, make a new character, that sucks. There's no challenge there, no chance to avoid it. It's the equivalent of "rocks fall, you die".
If they were previously badly injured in combat then followed an assassin into a darkened room, whereupon the assassin did assassiny things with all the effects which make them a successful assassin, then that was their decision and well, they shouldn't have done it. I think this is what DMing is always behind a screen - if you roll max damage, and that's too much, you say you rolled lower than that for the sake of the plot. a DM saying "that's just what the dice say" is the DM equivalent of "It's what my character would do".
What were you trying to accomplish on this encounter? Was a player supposed to die, or was it supposed to just be a quick stab for decent damage and then the assassin runs away?
It sounds a lot like this is DM vs players, rather than a cooperative game.
So...
I had my first ever KO of a party member on one hit from an NPCd assassin. The player promptly cried foul and made trouble with other party members who are now complaining that my villains are too hard. They constantly push the envelope with rule limits and get mad whenever I point out the rules are not only in my favour but also remind them I'm the DM.
How do y'all handle a ring leader troublemaker who's usually a good player until they don't get their way? How do you come back from an impasse over a DM ruling when you don't want the player to quit but can not go back on your decision for fear of setting a precedent you're a flake and the whinging if a player will eventually get them their way in-game regardless of the rules they want broken or only applied to certain things?
Sometimes a Nat 1 tells a better story than a Nat 20 ever could.
It sounds like your players don't want to play as challenging a game as you want to run. There's not a right or wrong there, it's a matter of personal taste.
I can't say for sure with the information you provided that your encounter was too challenging or not, although I am curious about the one hit. You mentioned an assassin, does that mean that it was a surprise attack on a player who didn't know they were in combat yet? There can be reasons to do that, but if I was planning on an NPC assassin going after a character I would probably do the math so that outside of a critical hit the assassin wouldn't be able to do enough damage to one shot the player before the player had a chance to act. That would not be fun for the player.
It does sound like you are treating your role as DM as an adversarial one to the players. You said:
I don't know what rule limits they are pushing, and yes you are the DM so you have the final say on rules, but things shouldn't be in your favor. Unless you told your players from day 1 that you were running a grimdark campaign where they shouldn't expect to survive the rules should favor the players. They are the heroes of the story after all, they are supposed to win. That doesn't mean you don't create challenges for them. IMO the hardest part of DMing is creating encounters that are challenging enough that the players feel like their characters might die without killing anyone off.
So advice going forward. I don't know if you had a session 0 or not. If you didn't, it's time to have one now so that you are your players can agree on the kind of game you want to play, and how player deaths will be handled. If you did, it might be time for a reset. Sometimes players think they want to play one kind of game, but then either they realize that's not what they really enjoy, or they learn that their definition of challenging is different than yours.
You're worried that if you give ground on this you will always have to give ground. Did you discuss character deaths with the players ahead of time? If so, for this instance stick with what you said previously but talk to the players about if they want to set different rules going forward with the understanding that you and them will abide by them. If you didn't talk about this before hand in a session 0, I would say that you should try and find a way to bring the character back, and set expectations for how character deaths are handled in future.
It seems like a session 0 issue. There are some people who are opposed to allowing character death unless the player oks it. I don’t think there was a death here, but I’m not clear on that.
But otherwise it’s like gadgetgirl says, they might want a different kind of game than you, that’s the kind of thing to work out in session 0, and lethality is kind of a subset of that issue. Tasha’s has some good advice on how to do a session 0, and it’s never too late, even if the campaign is already underway.
And as far as dealing with that one player, it seems like an out of game (probably private) conversation is called for. Point out that sometimes — in any game — things don’t go your way. They need to be more mature about dealing with bad luck. Tell them their behavior was disruptive, and they really need to reign it in. If it keeps up, the next conversation gets more difficult, and you’ll need to look at kicking them from the group, but hopefully it won’t come to that.
You could always remind them they could take the body to a temple and pay for a ritual. If they don't have money for it yet, then set up some runs that give them treasure. The one who lost his character could run a temp character until they can pay to have him brought back. But of course, I'm not sure if that is RAW. I use the rules as a guide, but ultimately, its a DM's decision what to run to make the story flow. That's what I love about D&D, its what YOU make it. Which is funny, in life I am a black & white rules person, but D&D, I'm all shades of gray.
Thanks everyone. I really appreciate your insights even with limited info.
Sometimes a Nat 1 tells a better story than a Nat 20 ever could.
…How do y'all handle a ring leader troublemaker who's usually a good player until they don't get their way? ….You let the player quit. (I toss a friend from my table once.)
If the encounter was fairly ran, you let the play stand. This should be handle in session 0 on how the group is going to handle PCs deaths. I am a stick another quarter in the slot and game on dm. So raise dead etc are freely available with just the spell cost payment.
On rules. Make a call and let it stand of the session and both sides read the rule, give their input and the dm makes a call which stands.
But it does read like the group is trying to bully you to get their way. If so, talk to them and then if they don’t light up, don’t dm for them.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
It sounds like it might have been a bit of an unfair attack - though the details are a bit thin on the ground. If it was indeed that the PC was doing whatever and was fairly healthy, and then suddenly bam, knife in the back, make a new character, that sucks. There's no challenge there, no chance to avoid it. It's the equivalent of "rocks fall, you die".
If they were previously badly injured in combat then followed an assassin into a darkened room, whereupon the assassin did assassiny things with all the effects which make them a successful assassin, then that was their decision and well, they shouldn't have done it. I think this is what DMing is always behind a screen - if you roll max damage, and that's too much, you say you rolled lower than that for the sake of the plot. a DM saying "that's just what the dice say" is the DM equivalent of "It's what my character would do".
What were you trying to accomplish on this encounter? Was a player supposed to die, or was it supposed to just be a quick stab for decent damage and then the assassin runs away?
It sounds a lot like this is DM vs players, rather than a cooperative game.
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