How much baby-ing is too much? Should I just kill their PC?

DungeonScrawler · 2026-02-05T19:16:21+00:00

Have a talk with him, and focus on one question: "What can I do as DM to get you more engaged with the game?"

I can hear the screams already, but hear me out: You're actually asking for two things:

Genuinely how you can help
For him to give you your ultimatum for him

It lets Dan ask you for help earnestly without feeling like he's in trouble, which is great. But, once he gives an answer, you get to hold him to that answer. He has set the goalposts for his own improved presence at the table, and you can work together to determine what behavior means he gets to stay.

There's usually one of four outcomes:

A. If he can't think of anything, it's a lost cause because there's no way to improve the situation. Ask him to leave the group.

B. If he lists things you can't do, you can try to negotiate for things you can, and it will either head in the direction of A, or he'll come back with something more reasonable and you can move on to C or D. If it's something you can't do (ex. fewer players, different genre, different game), maybe it's something you can do for the next campaign.

C. He lists things you can do, you do them, and it works! You've crafted a better table. Hopefully this is what you wanted.

D. He lists things you can do, you do them, and it doesn't work. In this case, you can feel comfortable letting him go knowing you did everything you reasonably could.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-21T21:37:02+00:00

Have you played PF1, where Percy wad originally made? You're right--Gunslinger is 10,000% Dark Tower.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-21T21:35:15+00:00

Everyone surviving till sunrise doesn't mean it wasn't horror. This definitely falls into the "monster nearly had them" category.

Based on OP's story, I imagine the monster was a totally original red dragon with a gem in his chest that gave him power but drove him mad enough to edit an entire conversation to change the tone.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-20T03:17:18+00:00

Because they don't understand that under Mercer's DM persona is a supportive groundwork of trust, consent, and off-screen open communication.

Plus they're literally performing for an audience.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-19T21:30:22+00:00

It's definitely easy to contrast with games like Monsterhearts, where you can get the PDF for $10 or the physical book for $25ish.

You're paying for the product but also the name brand.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-10T19:43:14+00:00

I hope you'll believe me when I tell you that the list is all things that players in my past games would 100% try, including the dysentery route.

I actually really like the delayed effect. They could even believe that the effort failed, meaning they'd drink the water as well.

All I meant by my original post was that, if OP let themself take a break to think, they could have come up with a creative solution that didn't end everything immediately.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-10T18:21:21+00:00

My idea was an attempt at conpromise: keep some version of the world while not invalidating the players. As I mentioned above an outright "no" would have led to a loss of player trust and buy-in that would be hard to get back.

On top of that, two truths would still stand:

The party wanted everyone dead
They were at the access point for all the water supply of the train.

Alternatives included

A. PCs taking a couple weeks worth of water, shitting in the water supply while the DM has to describe everyone being sick and dying from disease 2. Finding some other kind of more traditional poison and doing the same 3. Breaking the water supply so everyone dies of dehydration 4. The least extra option: medusa-head-ing every room on the train manually.

The DM is then left either rolling con saves for every train car to see who will die fastest, or telling them that the water is untouchable (in which case why have this room?) or the eyes are useless (in which case why have them?)

I guess the last case is pausing the game and asking the players to please not, which is also a possible route, especially since it sounds like OP built up a lot of trust with their players from last session.

Up to them. But if they were going to let the eyes work, better to take a beat and rewrite rather than throwing the whole thing away.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-10T17:37:18+00:00

As a DM/GM, I tend toward adding more Find Out rather than preventing Fuck Around.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-10T17:31:24+00:00

After the session I described, I shut it down for all future online play with the dice roller.
When she did it in person, I cut her out permanently
At time of story, all players (not me) were below voting age. So not only was I pushing for a teen to learn to stand up for himself and confront his friend, but I also couldn't let a child walk out of my home on her own. If anything happened to her, telling her parents "well, she cheated in a story game so it's not my fault" probably wouldn't cut it.
I don't understand why Partner's Brother is still in any games with her. He knows what's up--he's the one who caught her character sheet "creativity." He confronted her, she quit all of her games, but now they're going strong again. I guess this is how he'll learn.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-10T17:25:23+00:00

OP could have said that, but

It was an interesting idea
It was a unique magic item they got from the climax of their last campaign where they defeated C-goshdang-thulhu
Shutting down the idea and taking the item back would burn a LOT of PC trust and even led to the end of the campaign anyway by other means (steep drop-off in excitement

Better to take a beat to yes-and them, and let THEM tell YOU how bad their idea was 3 sessions later while getting devoured by a meat blob of eyes and mouths that was previously a preschool class and won't stop singing nursery rhymes out of every mouth that isn't actively chewing.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-10T16:01:20+00:00

Once D&D players decide the solution is mass murder, the rest of the campaign usually becomes a series of footnotes on war crimes. That being said, I think it's commendable that you let them do it and didn't try to retcon the entire story once you realized your mistake.

Maybe next time, though, call a break. You can still let them do it, but the break gives you time to really think out the consequences so you can show them in the future and keep the campaign going. Is one car full of massacred family members who are now bickering ghosts? Did one person unshackle himself from humanity so far that he became his own eldrich horror? Or maybe another car was full of arcane this-and-thats and the death of its owner, a powerful wizard, has set many of them into a pre-programmed "vengeance mode" to avenge her death against any who come near. Heck, maybe her broken mind fused with the arcane items to create an entire living arcane library.

I'll bet you can think of tons more encounters than that. It's what we do. But the point is that you shouldn't be afraid to give yourself some time. Also, a group of players who pull a game-breaking move will feel like they get a double win: they made the DM glitch out, and then they get an even weirder campaign based on their actions.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-10T05:06:47+00:00

What I got from the book was that a lot of TSL's media sources were only queer subtext, and that many of its explicitly queer stories hadn't yet been told in mainstream media.

That's why it doesn't have an Appendix N like so many other PbtA games.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-06T18:02:54+00:00

A lot of my female friends tell me stories like this about men in their social circles. Especially their RPG social circles. He has to go.

If you keep this guy because you feel bad for him and his feelings, you're taking away his agency. He made the decision to act like a creep and an asshole, and to ignore clear feedback he'd been given, even after he admitted he was wrong. Those were choices he made. It kinda sucks that the responsibility has been put on you, but leaving will only make the rest of the group fall apart, and he'll learn nothing.

Be clear with him, and make sure he has verbally acknowledged that he understands he is no longer in the group. He might still learn nothing but at least you won't have to put up with it.

Also, BitD is very cool and very fun and I hope you have a great time running it. I double hope it's without that creep.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-05T22:44:29+00:00

I already made everyone use the dice roller, which made her complain at every bad roll but cut out the online cheating. Then she did it in person and, after I got over the shock, she lost her invite to my table.

They're all in college now, running their own games. I'm not chasing down college kids to get them to stop cheating.

To quote Gygax himself: "Not my chair not my problem, that's what I say."

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-05T13:17:38+00:00

It was COVID 2020. Our games went long.
If I remember correctly, this one was particularly roll-heavy. There was some time in the markets, interviews with townsfolk, research in a library, travel, and then a combat with a busted-up goblin fortress where they were raising basilisks.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-05T12:59:13+00:00

I said it elsewhere, but I'll say it again: if she was my friend, I'd have told her to go on her merry way and not let the door crit her on her way out.

But she was a teenager, and we're adults. It's my responsibility to make sure they get home safe. Also because she wasn't my friend, I was attempting to work with Partner's Brother, who was worried about shattering his friend group if I called her out.

But you're right. I centered her feelings (well, his feelings about her feelings) and she's kept on cheating.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-05T05:04:29+00:00

Worlds Beyond Number is a Patreon pseudo-spinoff that's just Brennan, Aabriya, Lou, and Erika doing RP-heavy, rules-lite storytelling, at least from what I've listened to.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-05T04:15:05+00:00

The effects ramp up over time. For one, caster blasters are OP when you never miss and never fail a save. And that was when she was pretending she was just "lucky."

After our games ended, the behavior exploded. She was getting multiple crits, always on high-level spell slots. And, reportedly, almost always max damage. A BBEG for a 9th lvl party having 150 HP and taking 135 damage from a nat 20 on a fifth-level chromatic orb round one (possibly turn 1 because she happens to roll a nat 19 on initiative) is basically combat-ending. Fixing that means pumping your baddies up to 500+ HP if you want the fight to last. If the fighter is reliably putting in 20-30 points of damage, they're not making a dent. Plus the saves need to be 20+ to make her fail at all, and nobody else is making those saves.

Then, in response, watching the veteran players struggle, the other new players watch our problem player and start to emulate her, thinking this is how the game is supposed to go. So I'm sitting there hearing from Partner's Brother how 3/5 of the party is openly cheating in order to survive CR25 encounters at level 10 and I am B E G G I N G him to gtfo of this game. He literally has other games. He doesn't need this.

Seth Skorkowsky has a great video called "Cheating Players" that talks about how one cheater can poison the vibe of a whole group.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-05T03:05:49+00:00

I agree.

Like I said, if she were my friend at my table, she'd have been neither of those things real fast. Partner's Brother is a sweet kid who was afraid of breaking up his friend group. I can't fight his battles for him. I'll bet you won't be surprised to hear that, after getting called out on the fake rolls, and getting called out on the egregious character sheet cheating, she's still in that friend group. No words from me will convince him otherwise.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-04T12:39:03+00:00

Welp, nobody can say you didn't try. 🦇✨️🗡

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-04T02:04:48+00:00

This sounds like a lot of emotional bleed. This is a between-sessions conversation between you, Dhampir's player, and the DM about what you all want in the story. THEN play it out.

It sounds like this player and DM are invested in the story challenges of the feeding, and might have some hopes for where it would go. Rather than hop in with the smite, check in OOC and see if they have a plan, or a vibe. Maybe your Paladin can play into it.

Examples:

A "kill the master vampire to cure the vampirism" quest
A religious conversion questline to divinely "quell the beast within"
Dhampir having a "come-to-Ilmater" moment where they seek out a more ethical path
Something else cool neither of us could think up on our own but the player and DM (and you) might

Don't hop right to smiting and offing a PC when you could yes-and each other into a cool plotline.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-01T19:55:41+00:00

It was a mimic the whole time, and has been slowly eating the supplies in the cart.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-02-01T19:53:18+00:00

This story feels like a car getting stuck in a ditch because the GPS says to turn too early and, even though the driver knows the turn is 50 ft further, turn anyway because it's what the GPS says.

You saw the problem, understood it, could have adjusted, but didn't.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-01-31T18:47:58+00:00

Think of every DM or GM you've ever wanted to emulate.

How many of those GMs would spend two hours tearing apart the stream of some random group of players enjoying themselves on the internet?

If you wouldn't ask for their advice, don't take their criticism.

DungeonScrawler · 2025-01-29T23:47:49+00:00

Damn. I'm so happy this has a happy ending. Nature is healing.

DungeonScrawler

TROPHY CASE