What causes groups to play what I call "DM chicken?"
You know, you describe something as explicitly dangerous or unworkable, and then the players seem to go out of their way to try it, even when there's no clear upshot to be gained, like provoking a powerful NPC.
As far as I can tell, it seems created out of an expectation that you, the DM, won't actually cause the consequences to happen to them, that you're bluffing. Is this on the ball?
And how can you curb these tendencies? The obvious, of letting them suffer the consequences of their foolishness, hasn't really worked out for me, usually just getting complaints that I make things too hard. Can anything be done but pack up and move on?
>>47760087
I find that the thing that works best is bringing the hammer down HARD. I found that every time I went easy on my players for doing something stupid, they would just up the ante the next time.
Spending 30 minutes rolling up a new character is enough of a pain in the ass that its a disincentive to doing stupid shit.
Don't tell them how dangerous something is and they won't see it as a challenge.
>>47760207
Of course, dropping the hammer down on somebody for something stupid just makes you look like an ass.
I've had friends who do that, they get tired of all the baiting players do and just say, "Lightning stikes and you die."
>>47760214
the problem with that is that most role playing games have a certain leeway when it comes to player behavior. They expect new players to do stupid shit and go, "Thats not what I meant!" or say things like "I go up the stairs" when you're on a single story building.
>>47760207
At least personally, I haven't had this work. Usually when I do bring the hammer down, it's because I'm a mean, shit GM, who sets things to fail.
>>47760231
Not like that, you retard. You just show them the consequences of their actions. If they die at the process, they deserved it.
>>47760231
>"Lightning stikes and you die."
I think that this is a bad sport and you should go through the steps of combat, roll for the damage, etc. There's difference between players dying to biting more than they can chew and dying to GM fiat.
>>47760255
The goal is to make your players feel stupid when they do stupid shit. There has to be a sort of poetic justice to it, like, "Well, what did you think was going to happen?"
>>47760262
>>47760278
>>47760207
>>47760231
I was highlighting the contrast between being tough and fair and just being vindictive.
And don't call me a retard for no reason. I mean, seriously bro, just chill
I do this myself, but only because the bigger the foe, the bigger the victory.
That said, when I do it, I'm on my own, and don't drag others into it, and not every character does it.
>>47760529
>Bigger the beast, greater the glory
Remind yourself that overconfidence is slow and insidious killer.
A campaign I played in saw the party flee from an attacking blue dragon. The party asked for the chance to fight the dragon without actually risking the character loss by making it a sort of alternate universe thing, just to see how poorly/well we'd do. The DM made it canon after none of our characters died to it, not even the pack animal that got pushed off the top of the tower and onto the dragon as a final blow.
>>47760592
>Bondari reloads.
>>47760538
I'm going to fail regardless.
>>47760538
If I wanted to live, I'd stay at home and be a family man.
>>47760087
I was thinking about a good way to resolve this in one of my past groups the other day. I come from a small town with only two other tabletop players, and one of them's only love was to push the boundries in tabletop.
I would set up situations where there would be an obvious "don't do this" thing in it (A pit the player can't see the bottom of, an NPC that's able to reshape matter at will, etc.), and he'd do it on purpose just because he could. At first, I'd either let him off with a serious wounds or consequences, and occasionally reward him for coming up with something that actually made sense to do against whatever it was he did. Finally though, I decided enough was enough, and when he picked a fight with a group of wizards in nWoD (as a mortal none the less, on our first session, with nothing more than a tree branch), I just had him die on the spot and told him to roll a new character.
Guy gave me a big surprised look, we agreed to take a break so he could roll a new guy and the rest of us could eat, and we never played tabletop again. Anytime after that, he wouldn't join our games because he "didn't feel like it right now" or another reason. Tabletop was a way for him to act /b/ tier random, and suddenly when I wouldn't engage in that wish anymore, he had decided to move on.
It was fairly sad too, but ultimately we wanted different things out of a game -- I wanted to see a decent story written by the players, the other guy wanted to play something slapstick and non-serious.
I can't really give advice on what causes DM Chicken as you said, other than some players are just naturally predisposed to wanting to break convention for entertainment. I think his case started when a 4th player who moved away cut down a talking tree that was a clear plot point in the story just because he could (I thought it was great too, since it was in character for him and actually made the campaign different in an interesting way).
>>47760087
Whenever my players are about to do something phenominally stupid, I find parroting their stupid idea completely (with the line of logic of what this stupid idea is supposed to accomplish) back to them usually causes them to calm their tits. I will also ask questions after I finish parroting their Idea. Questions like: Do you think this action will have repercussion? If no, why not?
