Is it fair for a DM to screw you over in a game if you're playing the character the way YOU want to?

[ChineseGuy212]

..loud mouth smart aleck ...

Huh, I guess either the DM had a bad sense of humour, or you're not as funny as you think you are and the DM just got fed up of puns.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

If you're screwing the game, the DM should absolutely do whatever he feels is necessary to get the game back on track. I'm sure he wants you to have fun, but not at the expense of his fun or the fun of the other players.

I wasn't screwing the game by taunting enemies to attack me so my ally could flank them. His entire argument was "Your taunts were boring, you weren't creative enough for my liking so I silenced you. I think it improved your character!". I wasn't breaking the rules, I wasn't continuing out of character, it was just my guy being a motor mouth taunting enemies because I had a shield and was better able to survive the hits than my partner. Then he made me mute, had a Like Like appear out of a pot to eat my shield and then kept me going when a bad roll should have killed me for the sake of putting my character through more crap (You don't die till I say you do).

Dude, you need a new DM, this guy sounds a) bad at it and b) like an asshole in his own right

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

To me it sounds like a pretty ham handed way of handling a situation that should have been handled with a quiet PM.

If your GM thinks you're behaving like a jerk or in an especially annoying manner, pissing off other players etc then they should at least give you a warning to tone it down.

Unless this happened:

Are you sure it was the GM's decision to do this and that it wasn't the other player communicated privately with the GM and said "I want to try to hit {your character} in the throat with the follow-through of my swing and make it look like an accident."?

Because I've never met a GM who would do this through an ally's actions rather than just have one of your opponents do it to you.

Intra-party conflict happens a fair bit and is probably even easier to hide over online games.

 

[happyninja42]

The setup was this. Me and some Skype buddies were doing an ad hoc "Four Swords" RPG. Well it was just two of us playing so far and I decided that my character was gonna be a loud mouth smart aleck and spout taunts at enemies to get their attention. Because I had a shield really so might as well use it right?

Anyway, the GM didn't like the way I was playing my character. So on the second characters CRITICAL SUCCESS in an attack on a Stalfos, he has player 2 SLICE MY THROAT OPEN AS A SIDE EFFECT! Rendering me mute the rest of the game and generally coming across as a dick move.

Was it a dick move? I was playing a role I wanted, so what if the GM didn't like the character, it's not up to him to like it, just to lord over the preceding, narrate and call out the rolls as they land. I mean, for making a mistake yeah I expect to be punished but I didn't DO anything for that to happen.

Well there is a balance to be struck with a gaming group. The GM is there to have fun too you know, it's not all about you the player. Depending on how much of an obnoxious loudmouth you were playing the character as, I can understand his frustration to a point. Some players let the chance of being an asshole in game, as an excuse to just be an asshole at the table. And this type player is very difficult to get along with. Also, if you were being highly disruptive to the gameflow because your comments were derailing the game itself with side comments between players, then that is also a problem

Now, personally, I would've asked you as an aside to tone it back a bit if it was being a major hindrance to the story I was trying to run. Or maybe come up with some other form of negative consequence for your character's smart-assery, like he says something that truly insults the enemy, and you now have a personal hit out on you by the BBEG, because he hired a hit squad to take you out. Something like that.

Overall, if he just arbitrarily slit your throat to shut you up, yeah that was kind of a dick move, though if the game crit system allows for stuff like that (some games do), then maybe you just got ironically bad luck on the roll table for crit injuries.

I'd talk to the GM outside of game time about it, and express your problem with what he did, but also ask him why he did it. I mean, I know players like to just have a free fun time when they roleplay, but there are others at the table too, and sometimes, for the good of the gaming group as a whole, you have to make compromises. So your super wise-cracking smartass character might have to be toned down a bit, to keep from just grating on people's nerves.

*Edit*

I wasn't screwing the game by taunting enemies to attack me so my ally could flank them. His entire argument was "Your taunts were boring, you weren't creative enough for my liking so I silenced you. I think it improved your character!". I wasn't breaking the rules, I wasn't continuing out of character, it was just my guy being a motor mouth taunting enemies because I had a shield and was better able to survive the hits than my partner. Then he made me mute, had a Like Like appear out of a pot to eat my shield and then kept me going when a bad roll should have killed me for the sake of putting my character through more crap (You don't die till I say you do).

Ah, ok then yeah he was being a dick. Not much to be done about this other than to speak to him directly about it and how it bothered you. Not sure if you guys are actually friends and thus able to work it out, or if this is more of a public type of game at a gaming store or something, where you don't really know the guy. I'd discuss it with him further if it really bothered you.

Also!! If you are actually rolling a dice mechanic to succeed at your taunting insults, then whether or not you were coming up with witty quips that he enjoyed is irrelevant . The dice mechanics are there to facilitate playing a character that you yourself don't embody as well. You don't have to be a skilled debater, in order to play a politician, that's what the dice and skills are for. You don't have to be a skilled combatant to be a warrior, that's what the skills and dice are for.

And you don't have to be a skilled wise-cracker to play one, that's what the skills and dice are for

So yeah, he can just suck it up and deal with it.

 

[mmiki]

Without hearing the other side of the story it's hard to make a judgement, but you're probably both at fault. You were annoying him, and he handled it poorly. Playing roleplaying games requires good social skills, and it's easy to fall into the trap of being self-centered as a player or abusing GM powers on the other end of the table.

In my gaming group I had a player who was playing a 'lone wolf style wild elf ranger who's not fond of civilization', or at least that's what he said was his concept before we started playing. In practice he was abrasive against other party members, refused to enter the city they were staying in, and often did stuff in combat that was completely off-beat from what the rest of the party was doing. Every time I called him out on it, he would point to his character history.

I couldn't kick him out of the group because we are friends outside the game (we still are quite good friends, actually), I couldn't kill his character because, long story short, I wrote myself into a corner with a few story threads, and I couldn't get him to change his behavior because he was being a stubborn asshole. I responded by exacting small, petty revenges on his character. In the end, we just stopped playing because it was no longer fun for anyone.

These days we just play board games.

 

[Batou667]

I don't roleplay but I've heard that every RP group has "that guy". The guy who undermines the setting by being either explicitly bloodthirsty in a light setting or LOL RANDUMB in a serious setting. The guy who fights the DM's story arc at every turn and bitches about "railroading" when the DM won't let him play a Tourettes-afflicted chicken farmer for the duration of the campaign. The guy who's constantly screwing over the other characters for comic effect, or deliberately blowing their cover "because it'd be fun", or sets hostages on fire because he's bored.

I think there's a good chance that in this case, OP was That Guy.

 

[spartandude]

I don't roleplay but I've heard that every RP group has "that guy". The guy who undermines the setting by being either explicitly bloodthirsty in a light setting or LOL RANDUMB in a serious setting. The guy who fights the DM's story arc at every turn and bitches about "railroading" when the DM won't let him play a Tourettes-afflicted chicken farmer for the duration of the campaign. The guy who's constantly screwing over the other characters for comic effect, or deliberately blowing their cover "because it'd be fun", or sets hostages on fire because he's bored.

I think there's a good chance that in this case, OP was That Guy.

Not every group has that, i have 3 groups and in only one do i have "that guy", and he seems to think that anything bad that happens to him is unfair because he shouldnt be punished at all. "Oh whats that i got bitten by the desease spreading creatures and you want me to roll a fort save, ok then.... (fails saving throw) your just picking on me!" or "everyone in the town is pissed off at me because i shot one of the guards immediately when they were just trying to help me? Thats not right! I didnt know when i made that impulsive judgement before they could even speak."


OT
I am more likely to side with your DM here but i do think he went a bit extreme rather quickly. I would have asked you to tone it down first, but you should talk to your DM about making it only temporary and it healing over time.

 

[Deimir]

Also!! If you are actually rolling a dice mechanic to succeed at your taunting insults, then whether or not you were coming up with witty quips that he enjoyed is irrelevant . The dice mechanics are there to facilitate playing a character that you yourself don't embody as well. You don't have to be a skilled debater, in order to play a politician, that's what the dice and skills are for. You don't have to be a skilled combatant to be a warrior, that's what the skills and dice are for.

And you don't have to be a skilled wise-cracker to play one, that's what the skills and dice are for

I actually quit a Pathfinder campaign because of a GM that forced players to come up with their own dialogue all the time. Any sort of Diplomacy or Barter check, he'd require the player to come up with a convincing argument for the person they were talking to, and apply penalties to the roll if he-personally-wasn't impressed. Bards had it the worst. Any time they wanted to use any Performance-based skill or power, the player had to sing a couple lines of a song.

TC, I think that your GM is way off base here, since, as Happyninja said, it's on your character to come up with 'witty' taunts, not you.

 

[otakon17]

I don't roleplay but I've heard that every RP group has "that guy". The guy who undermines the setting by being either explicitly bloodthirsty in a light setting or LOL RANDUMB in a serious setting. The guy who fights the DM's story arc at every turn and bitches about "railroading" when the DM won't let him play a Tourettes-afflicted chicken farmer for the duration of the campaign. The guy who's constantly screwing over the other characters for comic effect, or deliberately blowing their cover "because it'd be fun", or sets hostages on fire because he's bored.

I think there's a good chance that in this case, OP was That Guy.

Nope, I wasn't being that guy. My only crime was making bad puns against enemies to taunt them into attacking me. It was only during combat as well, out of combat my guy was loud and brash but didn't constantly spout off puns. I didn't blow cover and I tried to fight intelligently. My ally had a bow and arrows, I had a shield. With a shield I was harder to hit and I didn't just want to post "I taunt the enemy" repeatedly.

 

[otakon17]

to tell the truth a loud-mouth that has been muted makes for a very cool character idea and can turn into a hellishly cool game, new plot stuff (how to get my voice back) new ways to interact with people (hmmmm so should i use sing langue or BUILD A GOLLEM THAT WILL TALK TO PEOPLE IN HITLERS VOICE!)It was (probobly) a dick move but on the other hand it can turn into a lot of cool ideas for cher development

The player is likely to find the motivation to do this, if the muteness has been implemented correctly and in a narratively sound fashion.

This is not what happened here. The DM shoehorned the muteness into the game for vindictive reasons and in doing so spat on the game's mechanics. What he did was one step up from simply saying out of character "btw your characters mute now."

Thank you and the worst off? He admits he was being petty but just doesn't care.

 

[Batou667]

Nope, I wasn't being that guy. My only crime was making bad puns against enemies to taunt them into attacking me. It was only during combat as well, out of combat my guy was loud and brash but didn't constantly spout off puns. I didn't blow cover and I tried to fight intelligently. My ally had a bow and arrows, I had a shield. With a shield I was harder to hit and I didn't just want to post "I taunt the enemy" repeatedly.

You thought you were being witty and charming, your DM thought you were being a loudmouthed pain in the butt. Without us being there and watching there's no way of telling who's correct, or if it's a little of both. If you don't get on with your DM, maybe it's just best to find a new group that suits you better.

 

[Deathlyphil]

From the sounds of it, your GM is the type of GM that thinks they are playing against the players, rather than with them.

To sum up what you have said so far:
- You tried to keep your taunts interesting instead of just going through the motions. This was only done in combat, and so that your ally could flank the enemy.
- You get arbitrarily muted to stop you from being able to taunt.
- You get your shield taken from you, so your main advantage is gone.
- Eventually you get to the Big Bad, and due to injuries taken, you can't actually hurt it.
- Game fizzles out because there is no point in continuing.

Is this correct? If so, then to me this looks like a simple case of a terrible GM (or an inexperienced new GM). I'm sure we've all come across one (or been one) in our time. A GM that has their game on rails, and any deviation to their glorious story is a gross injustice and must be stamped out immediately.

My recommendation? Try another group. If this happens again, then maybe it wasn't the GM.

 

[Jandau]

Sounds like you were being a self-centered prick who insisted on making every session about himself by being loud and obnoxious.

It also sounds like your GM wasn't really sure how to handle it and went about it in the wrong manner, being overly arbitrary and heavy handed.

Sure, your GM acted poorly, but I'd be willing to bet money that you deserved at least some of it.

 

[otakon17]

Nope, I wasn't being that guy. My only crime was making bad puns against enemies to taunt them into attacking me. It was only during combat as well, out of combat my guy was loud and brash but didn't constantly spout off puns. I didn't blow cover and I tried to fight intelligently. My ally had a bow and arrows, I had a shield. With a shield I was harder to hit and I didn't just want to post "I taunt the enemy" repeatedly.

You thought you were being witty and charming, your DM thought you were being a loudmouthed pain in the butt. Without us being there and watching there's no way of telling who's correct, or if it's a little of both. If you don't get on with your DM, maybe it's just best to find a new group that suits you better.

I didn't think I was being "witty" or "charming" I was just trying to add flavor over "I attempt to taunt the monster" over and over.

 

[carnex]

Well, DM writes rules. That's the scope of it.

Seriously, many DM/GMs hate non-involved play you did than players playing badly. GMs and DMs I played with warned people when they see lack of enthusiasm and then outright killed people. Most would put up with internal drama, player murders etc but will not put up wit player that brings the mood down. And player that doesn't really shift himself into that new world can really bring the enthusiasm to halt.

 

[otakon17]

I've always said that GM has no right to control your character, how they feel about something, or what their goals/reactions are (unless under mind control or something of the like). That said I also think a GM has every right to have consequences for behavior. I think it's perfectly reasonable to have a paladin loose their powers after dismembering a prisoner. I think its perfectly reasonable to have a taunted enemy hold a grudge and put a bounty on their heads or just hunt them down. Consequences for a characters action can make for good stories and memorable moments in a game

As for this specific situation, I don't like it but I wasn't there either. If it were me I probably would have asked you nicely to tone it down a bit if it was disruptive to the game. That said I'm only hearing one side of the story too.

If I were you I would sit down with your GM. Let him know your pissed about what happened and try to work it out in a calm and reasonable discussion

Glad to see somebody else that's willing to try to solve a dispute in a calm, peaceful manner.

The setup was this. Me and some Skype buddies were doing an ad hoc "Four Swords" RPG. Well it was just two of us playing so far and I decided that my character was gonna be a loud mouth smart aleck and spout taunts at enemies to get their attention. Because I had a shield really so might as well use it right?

Anyway, the GM didn't like the way I was playing my character. So on the second characters CRITICAL SUCCESS in an attack on a Stalfos, he has player 2 SLICE MY THROAT OPEN AS A SIDE EFFECT! Rendering me mute the rest of the game and generally coming across as a dick move.

Was it a dick move? I was playing a role I wanted, so what if the GM didn't like the character, it's not up to him to like it, just to lord over the preceding, narrate and call out the rolls as they land. I mean, for making a mistake yeah I expect to be punished but I didn't DO anything for that to happen.

Judging from what was read, I'd say the GM was being kind of an A-hole. He should have discussed this with you, or at the very least,stopped the game and said that you were being disruptive. But that said, were you being rude during the game? Because, if you were,or the game was getting out of hand, then the GM had to bring the hammer down. Just look at Spoony's "Counter Monkey" episode "The Code". One of the players got out of hand, (It was a Shadowrun game, they were trying to steal something from a local museum. But it went bad real quick. So, what did one of the players decide to do? Hold the guards hostage after shooting one of them with Dragon's Breath rounds, then punching said guard in his burnt stump. It only got worse from there; during the negotiation with the cops, one of the players started throwing bodies out the door. So as you'd expect, they're really trying to get away, one of the players is arguing with Spoony, trying to get him to reveal a secret exit in the museum,[these players were rather new, and to be honest, not that bright. They hacked a local terminal to get a map of the museum.] and finally told them there was a exit into the sewers via the basement. They go there and guess who's waiting? The Cyber-Psycho squad [Think Swat if a large amount of them were cybered up crazy people]. XD)and Spoony had to bring the hammer down.

Nothing on that level of dickery. I didn't do anything to screw over my fellow player(loot or otherwise put them into a shit position in combat). My only "crime" was using stuff like "You son of a sow, come get me" on Moblins in a Legend of Zelda inspired short pen and paper module and the like. He said that he didn't like my taunts, that they weren't creative enough and he doesn't like the usage of puns. SO he muted my character, thus forcing me to type out in elaborate paragraphs the hell I was trying to do to communicate with my team(two others joined up later) before just dropping that entirely to go with "Simple directions(what my character actually wants to say)" since this was all over Skype and in text.

 

[otakon17]

Sounds like you were being a self-centered prick who insisted on making every session about himself by being loud and obnoxious.

It also sounds like your GM wasn't really sure how to handle it and went about it in the wrong manner, being overly arbitrary and heavy handed.

Sure, your GM acted poorly, but I'd be willing to bet money that you deserved at least some of it.

It was over Skype chat actually and no, I didn't use all caps if that's what you're thinking. The only thing I did was not be creative enough for his liking when it came to attempting to taunt the monsters(there weren't even rolls for this as far as I know but I did it anyway because that's what I'd think you'd do when you're in a situation like that and know you're more likely to survive over your buddy if you're hit, which I was).