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DM with malicious intent
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this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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Serious question, who here actually tries to create such paranoia in their players? It's probably one of the biggest reoccurring memes around here and I don't entirely get it.
Is this the tone some people are actually trying to create and if so, why?
It could just be I have a very narrow group of people I've played with, but this doesn't necessarily seem a tone I'd be striving for.
I had a DM hide mimics and traps everywhere and then get pissed at us for "wasting" so much time checking everything for traps.
my personal rule is to only lay a trap that has clear potential to be discovered in-game, with a context clue, and not an ambiguous "roll for perception" out of nowhere.
randomly dropping an anvil on a player is a dick move.
telling players they're walking through an active construction site of a new smithing conglomerate, with an unfinished forge 10 meters above them, at least sets the tone and let's them know caution is a reasonable option.
also sets up some weird intrigue that could easily turn into a sidequest.
The confusion lies in calling them a GM. Sounds like they were just a dick
In a lot of ways, yes. It was my first time playing D&D, so I didn't really know any better.
Generally, such paranoia is only for a single adventure (I had a haunted mansion my friend did where that paranoia was well done), or a one-off scare/surprise we can all have a good laugh about later.
Yeah, if you try to make it a regular thing, I think you need to expect your player count to be less and less regular in correlation.
I think that's a terrific answer!
I had a sort of opposite problem the last time I ran a campaign. my players came into the game super paranoid, probably from reading stories about tricky DMs, and it made my life pretty difficult.
I did set up traps and misdirection, but only when there were exactly enough clues to figure it out. I learned that the major problem with that method, is that what's obviously a clue to me wasn't always obvious for them. so, I was thought of as a tricky DM. then, after I softened up, my sessions looked too easy and obvious.
honestly, it's just a really difficult balance. I eventually got it to a good place for everyone, but everyone really does have a preferred level of deceit, and it isn't easy to cater to a group of 5 with varying levels of expectation
My life is so stressful. I like to giggle with friends when I play games. This would give me so much anxiety and end relationships.
Call of Cthulhu DMs, I'd assume, though I don't know if there's mimics in that, I'm just somewhat familiar with shoggoths and garden gnomes.
I'm genuinely curious how garden gnomes fit into the Cthulhu mythos. I thought I was relatively well versed on the topic, but that's new to me.
Ah. I see you're unfamiliar with the tale of Old Man Henderson. Enjoy.
(To be fair it was specifically the lack of garden gnomes that was a significant plot point in said tale, but characters in a setting being aware of a lack of garden gnomes sort of implies that garden gnomes do exist in said setting... but, again, given Old Man Henderson's nature they could have easily just ever have existed in his head...)