What's the most polarizing thing you've done as a GM, /tg/? I'm not looking for strokes of brilliance, I'm not looking for stuff that was imbecilic, I'm looking for stuff that divided your playgroup down the middle, half thinking it was a great idea and half thinking it was a terrible one.
For me
>"Fast" random encounters.
>Instead of the random encounter spawning XdY enemies and bringing out the battlemaps and fighting it out, which drags things down, have a different setup.
>You roll on the table, you get an encounter
>Encounter will say something like "Two sand golems, lose 8/6/3/3 hp/fp, distributed randomly. Lose 2 potions. This much loot, this much experience.
>Modify for system, party composition, etc. as needed.
>Keeps things moving fast, while maintaining the "Tax on ability to stay in hostile environment"
>On the other hand, it really, really pisses some people off, especially how I deal damage or take items without tactical input from the players.
What are yours, anons? Pic unrelated.
>>46226238
>What's the most polarizing thing you've done as a GM
Run Star Wars. I've done it twice, and they were the two worst GMing experiences of my life, almost entirely based around everyone bickering constantly about what was cannon, what was not cannon, what was in the spirit of the movies, what violated that spirit, what was or wasn't part of the Jedi code, whether Jedi could wear armor, how much damage laser cannons did to ground targets, whether Yoda's species had a name, I mean, it was unbelievable.
I've gamed for years, dozens of systems and settings, and yet in two entirely different Star Wars games, years apart, using different systems, different plots, and different players, it was an absolute nightmare both times. People would not stop fighting about trivia, no one was happy with the way I chose to run the game either time, and both games collapsed after only a few sessions. It's sad to me, too, because there's nothing I'd rather run.
>>46226459
OP specifically said, not stuff that was imbecilic.
>>46227693
Could have been worse. You could have tried to run a Star Trek RPG.
>>46226459
Metro, Stalker and a lot of eastern post-apo in general is about people coming together to survive and form some semblance of normality, hopefully getting some profits out of the whole ordeal and edgemasters like this are the villains in both most of the time for fucks sake, this shit is about as far from that as possible
>>46226459
>>46228961
yea seriously. Did you miss the whole fucking point? IN the face of the fucking apocyalips dudes are banding together, distributing medical aid, even forming different armies and fighting over government types. No one is fighting over who gets to rape who.
>>46229873
>Why should I have to play the good guys all the time in a game about MY imagination?
Because you have other people at the table who do not want to hear about your rape urges, fuckmorton.
>>46229838
Human instinct is not to 'rape and kill' people you fucking edgelord.
Human instinct would be to ban together in a tribe and throw rocks at other people without actually trying to murder them or get murdered. Humans are chimps, we act like it when things go to shit.
>Pregnant mother is dying
>Father sells the child's soul to save her (kid would have died)
>God of Death accepts and saves her
>Father then hires a witch to switcheroo the kid
>Death ends up with a dog as his angel's host
>With an incompatible host, the reaper can't shepherd the souls
>The local area will eventually go full zombie apocalypse
>Death says he'll fix it if the party undoes the switcheroo
>Tells the paladin to kill the infant and Death will take care of the rest
Kickers :
>Paladins can't fall in setting, he just has to judge himself
>Half the party is essentially Ghost Rider's for Death to get revived
>Witch wasn't found, no time table for apocalypse
>Selling unborn children to the gods is how you make assimar, fairly common even for Good aligned deities
>Death is LN, not evil, he in fact acts as the reins on the evil gods, keeping them in check
I once had a player have an epic level freakout when I told him that I didn't obey perfect RAW as the GM.
He was annoyed that an encounter wasn't exactly like it was in the book, and I explained that as part of my role I would tweak, adjust and vary the mechanics as I saw fit to make the game more interesting and fun, including doing so on the fly if a fight was too easy/too hard.
Some of the other players weren't entirely comfortable with it, but his reaction was something special. He went on an hours long rant about me 'cheating', before turning it around on me in the next game he ran and saying that, because I was willing to cheat as a GM, he clearly couldn't trust me as a player.
I eventually stopped gaming with the guy, but I still can't understand what made him flip out that fucking hard. The GM screwing with the rules is a standard thing.
>>46229946
At the end there was still the GM and three players, so it seems like at least three other people were okay with it. It's not my cup of tea, but the arguing in this thread already shows this is a great example of a polarizing thing to do in an rpg.
>>46230009
Interesting idea, I can see how some might find it offputting, but I like it.
>>46226238
I started to enforce a rule where after a social roll the player then had to describe, in character, what their character was saying/doing. Half the table thought it was a good idea to encourage more roleplaying where as the other half thought it was a needless obtrusion since they'd already rolled.
>>46229973
If it isn't then why do women orgasm when raped? Obviously that shows a evolutionary adjustment for rape.
>>46230245
I must not fall for the Bait
Bait is the mind-killer.
Bait is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face your Bait
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the Bait has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
>>46230041
Better off without players like that Anon. Sounds like a major Sperglord. I don't think I could stand a GM who did everything literally by the book, I believe that the purpose of a good GM is to filter and interpret the rules to facilitate an engaging and entertaining experience not mindlessly enforce arbitrary rules.
>>46230245
It's because they enjoy it. You can enjoy something without necessarily liking it.
>>46226238
Paranoia?
>>46230245
Imagine your father coming into your room right now, he is naked and ties you to your chair.
Now he is slowly jerking you off with his strong hairy hands.
Do you enjoy it? Probably not.
Will you come? Given enough time you will.
>>46230041
I don't understand people who sperg out about RAW when they always miss rule zero.
I made a guy use a coaster.
>>46230185
You know, the funny thing is, the entire table just stared at me, then at the table, kept staring, and all agreed to off the kid.
Real shame the paladin had to go take the BAR, and the wizard dropped out of college and the group died before I could bring back the artificially aged half-asamir child
>>46226238
Telling a player to show up on time for once or never come again. Motherfucker would regularly be upwards of an hour late and one every 3 or 4 times just simply wouldn't come.
>>46227693
Try running it with people who aren't giant Star Wars geeks. I don't particularly care about Star Wars one way or another, but I'd be down to play it in an RPG. Whatever you said would go since the only thing I know isStar Trek technology is superior to Star Wars.I might know some small stuff, but much like weaponry and armor in fantasy RPGs it doesn't matter much, just accept the rules and play.
>>46230009
How was this divisive? According to the rules set forth this should be not only an easy fix, but an obvious fix.
>>46230202
Based on the number of threads made about this exact thing I'd say it's pretty polarizing.
>>46230245
Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 4chan, I will take no bait.
>>46234290
Oh shit.
I once had my players actually go through the process of selling rum they liberated from pirates. I didn't have anything else planned for session but we had time, and as I was sleep-deprived I decided to have some fun. They had the rum, they knew of the main pub in the seaport, and it had been hinted that the town had been without rum for a few weeks now.
I overdid it.
I was joking, I swear, just joking when I said the pub's customers plastered themselves to the window and started licking it as the player left to go get the rum. It freaked one of my present players out enough that he decided he didn't care if I was joking, they were going to deliver this rum as low-risk as they could. The other player who was still around didn't think it was a big deal and wanted to just do it quickly. They argued for a few minutes until eventually he gave up and went with it. (Dutch accents are really convincing.)
Cue the midnight dead drop down the street. I'm telling you, they spent more time planning out this rum delivery than they did planning out how to take on an entire ship of pirates. They were terrified of "the rum zombies."
>>46235009
>How was this divisive? According to the rules set forth this should be not only an easy fix, but an obvious fix.
Because it involved strangling a baby to D/death and the players knew Death was manipulating them into it, hiding alternatives from them.
There was also the case of the Demon that offered a Wish if it was freed into the mortal realm, that the wizard accepted when the party wasn't around.
>>46235152
Grab the baby, give to death, let death do it. Although I guess traveling with the baby would give some players time to have/feelings/ about the whole thing. It's a distasteful task, but as servants of death they don't have a choice so... go kick a baby, players.
>>46235506
Death was speaking through the reaper, who refused to do it because it would be /his/ vessel soon. Also, Death didn't cause this, humans did. So humans get to clean it up.
Death is a bit of a dick.
Deities in the setting are quite literally on a different planet.
>>46235638
Well then, it's baby kicking time. have they already done this, and if so how did they do it? I hope you didn't fade to black them killing a baby, as that's the kind of shit that sticks with a player from roleplaying.
>>46235725
I faded to black, shit was already fucked up enough because the mother died with it in her arms because the divine ice golem her husband (a priest of the goddess of peace who was indifferent to his pleas) summoned went berserk when the party double critted him in the first round and killed him.
>>46230202
Ancient Chinese secret. have them RP out the conversation and then when it reaches the climax point to decide if they get what they want. Give bonuses or negatives based on their RP and how they championed their point. That way their characters skill is still the prime determiner of the roll. But RP can hedge their argument or hamstring it a bit.
rolling in the open or rolling behind the DM screen.
>>46238929
I do this. Works great, really gets my group into the flow of things.
