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[Pathfinder] New GM and Rule Questions
Lastweek
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I am about one game away from quitting just because of all the arguments I get per night in my campaign.... So anyway I need some clarificition on some things. I appreciate all the help. There's 5 people.
1) Traps: A room is 35 feet long 10 ft wide. At the end there is a proximity trap at 30ft. The rogue starts at the door and checks for traps, nothing. Doesn't check again and triggers it. Gets pissed cause he said he checked. I said you can't see traps 35ft down a hall way under water.. So. Then the usual BS (I am always looking for traps!)What is the distance a trap check is good for? I was thinking half movement. So about 15ft for him.
2) Smoke filled rooms: They triggered a cloud of poison, hits for 2d6, also makes the room completely unseeable. No darkvision, nothing. So. They want to get out. But the room is 15x15. And they say "Oh well lets just run to the stairs..." Now is it unfair of me to say "ok well because you can't see anything and running around blind will make you likely fall down the huge spiral floating stair case you found. Acrobatics check." or this came up. "Ok for a standard action I move around the room and find the exit." I said fine but it takes 2 turns cause you are can't just casually walk around a completely smoke filled room and find the exit so quickly..... So that was fine, the next guy wanted to use a bomb to clear the room with fire. I said fine thats a great idea. But you can't aim your bomb because you are blind so you may hit one of your friends... this caused an uproar with a player. I said "you are fucking throwing a bomb into a room full of people who are all blind and don't think you wont hit anyone?" "YA!" "to bad. " How would you deal with this?
3) Player has mummy rott curse on him, every 24 hours he takes 1d6 cha and con. Only cureable with Remove Curse and Remove Disease casted within 1 minute of each other. Literally this was the convo...be prepared. "ok you have mummy rott. 1d6 con 1d6 cha 1/day till cured." "ok we go back to town." "what?" "we go back to town and cure him." "No you can't just say your intown. You will have cross the entire Schloss Castle again make all the checks on the bridges and ride your horses 25 miles south to a town who is in riot and find a cleric who will help you." "WHAT?!" "RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE" "Fine I go back alone. without the group..." "ok you still need to do all that and it'll take you one day (50 miles of travel on horse plus finding a cleric.)." " Well god fine I just wont show up next week." "Well you still need to play your guy to cure him.. he isn't just magically cured because you said you are going to town... here is a hint, ask your sorc. and druid to help you later (he is a first time player so I was tryign to help). You can still survive for a couple days as long as you stayed heal." so they camp for the night. And we restarted today.
I said ok to make this less of a pain you have three options. 1) wake up a day later in the castle and take the hit now and deal with it. 2) wake up in town with the group and travel back after being cured and questing for the cleric.. 3.) sleep for 8 hours and keep going take the hit when you wake up next, possibly being out of materials for potions and all that. They chose 3..
Any hints or ideas? Am I being a bad a GM? Thanks again guys. See you all at PAX PRIME!
1) Traps: A room is 35 feet long 10 ft wide. At the end there is a proximity trap at 30ft. The rogue starts at the door and checks for traps, nothing. Doesn't check again and triggers it. Gets pissed cause he said he checked. I said you can't see traps 35ft down a hall way under water.. So. Then the usual BS (I am always looking for traps!)What is the distance a trap check is good for? I was thinking half movement. So about 15ft for him.
2) Smoke filled rooms: They triggered a cloud of poison, hits for 2d6, also makes the room completely unseeable. No darkvision, nothing. So. They want to get out. But the room is 15x15. And they say "Oh well lets just run to the stairs..." Now is it unfair of me to say "ok well because you can't see anything and running around blind will make you likely fall down the huge spiral floating stair case you found. Acrobatics check." or this came up. "Ok for a standard action I move around the room and find the exit." I said fine but it takes 2 turns cause you are can't just casually walk around a completely smoke filled room and find the exit so quickly..... So that was fine, the next guy wanted to use a bomb to clear the room with fire. I said fine thats a great idea. But you can't aim your bomb because you are blind so you may hit one of your friends... this caused an uproar with a player. I said "you are fucking throwing a bomb into a room full of people who are all blind and don't think you wont hit anyone?" "YA!" "to bad. " How would you deal with this?
3) Player has mummy rott curse on him, every 24 hours he takes 1d6 cha and con. Only cureable with Remove Curse and Remove Disease casted within 1 minute of each other. Literally this was the convo...be prepared. "ok you have mummy rott. 1d6 con 1d6 cha 1/day till cured." "ok we go back to town." "what?" "we go back to town and cure him." "No you can't just say your intown. You will have cross the entire Schloss Castle again make all the checks on the bridges and ride your horses 25 miles south to a town who is in riot and find a cleric who will help you." "WHAT?!" "RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE" "Fine I go back alone. without the group..." "ok you still need to do all that and it'll take you one day (50 miles of travel on horse plus finding a cleric.)." " Well god fine I just wont show up next week." "Well you still need to play your guy to cure him.. he isn't just magically cured because you said you are going to town... here is a hint, ask your sorc. and druid to help you later (he is a first time player so I was tryign to help). You can still survive for a couple days as long as you stayed heal." so they camp for the night. And we restarted today.
I said ok to make this less of a pain you have three options. 1) wake up a day later in the castle and take the hit now and deal with it. 2) wake up in town with the group and travel back after being cured and questing for the cleric.. 3.) sleep for 8 hours and keep going take the hit when you wake up next, possibly being out of materials for potions and all that. They chose 3..
Any hints or ideas? Am I being a bad a GM? Thanks again guys. See you all at PAX PRIME!
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D&D isn't about the players fighting a system, it's about using the system to enable everyone to tell a story. All your complaints seem to be, "Well, I used an obtuse, obscured system to hurt my players and didn't help them figure out how or why this system worked."
I am more than happy to work with them. But there was just some things I thought were pretty common sense. Like throwing a bomb in a room full of people.. But its also hard to work with them when they just start yelling like a little kid. I don't want them to fight the system, I just wanted them to treat it like any other RPG. You get sick you have to find a healer. But if you guys think it will make it more enjoyable for all of us. Any ideas on what to do in those situations?
Just a side note: I do try to help them. I don't want to come off to whiny. I ask them questions on other ways of going around problems, kind of push them into another direction.
More to the point, if the trap was impossible to find why was it there? Why bother dragging the encounter out? Just say "You all take 15 damage for reasons." It will be just as fun for everybody involved.
2) Did you enjoy this? Did they?
3) You've sidetracked your campaign because of an incidental encounter. If your campaign is just a string of encounters this is probably fine, it's more encounters right? If your campaign has a story, a progression, a plot then it is some filler that nobody is likely to enjoy.
To be harsh, you are being an unpleasant DM, but to be fair you're doing it in classic style. I think you need to ask what you want out of the game, what your players want out of the game and if you think you are getting what you want and if they are.
I'm not saying you're a horrible person, I'm saying you're doing what pretty much everybody does when they first DM. You seem to recognize that it isn't working well so you're on the right path to improving. You can't really do better than that.
For me the game isn't me versus the players but I am certainly there to challenge the players. The game is me and the players having a fun time and things that don't really add to that are just a waste of every bodies time. Please note that most people think that fair challenges are very fun.
1) Ok will work with this.
2) No it was stupid and a waste of time haha.
3) It's the carrion crown campaign. I did recommend them to just deal with it and fix it later. I will think about working on this problem.
Thanks for the tips. I will ease up on them next week. And not think into to much stuff.
2) The bomb in a room, you were totally reasonable. The longer than a round to get out, not so much. It was only 15 by 15, they entered it (so they already know one way out) and likely had a moment to look about before the smoke came in. Fact, any room under 30 by 30 can be exited extremly easily even if blind, because you just need a general direction (left right back forward) hit a wall, and then you've got the exit. Unless you give difficult terrain, maze, or much bigger room, more than a round to get out was too harsh.
I'm just talking as a player instead of a DM, but you want to cut down on the tedious stuff (where is the exit, you said you were checking traps there but not there, if you want to buy a scroll of restoration you need to quest through two cities in two sessions and then only find one when you need to cure two players) and focus on the important parts (you can't cast banish on the woman just because you accidentally saw in my note she's a succubus, its a riddle so you either have to risk a wrong answer or go back to another side quest instead of DM giving the answer, etc).
Your first two were small things, be a bit light on them and you can move to real story and fun fast. For the mummy rot part, make sure they have the tools available to deal with it (even if it would be difficult to deal with, make it clear it is at least possible). Roll the knowledge check for them if they can't figure out which would apply, hint they feel they can find a cure somewhere or are able to cast the cure themselves with some preparation, it should be fine. If every disease means the only method to deal with it is a 2 day ride to a town that may or may not have a cleric that can fix it, maybe diseases don't belong in the adventure. You are the DM, you can tweak things to let characters not have to deal with bullshit and only deal with the challenges.
A general point I avoided at first because I didn't want to get too muddled: Traps slow down the party. This statement has no value attached to it, neither good nor bad.
A party that constantly confronts traps will slow down and search everything. If enough traps occur they will move five feet and then have the rogue take two minutes repeatedly searching for traps. Conversely a party that rarely encounters traps will be more likely to push forward quickly.
Something to remember when you decide how many traps to use.
On 3, it can be a tough decision when a string of bad die rolls could outright kill your character. It is reasonable and prudent to take the time to remove this threat of death and creating situations like this will encourage those virtues. This is a bit like the trap thing, when you place more long term status effects players tend to be more cautious. How many of these you place should be related to how you prefer your characters to act on the realistic to heroic scale.
"Your bard recalls stories of a local hermit with some knowledge of the healing arts a few miles from the castle. You could seek him out, but who knows if he'll help you, and the castle may be better defended as a result of your failed foray this time" offers the party something interesting to do as a result of that disease.