Annoying Players

[alex_greene]

I had an encounter with some really annoying players once, a long time ago. Something I read recently brought the memory back into sharp relief.

They'd received a simple enough assignment: stand at the door to a warehouse, and screen incoming people for guns, bombs, knives, drugs, whatever. Bouncers, in other words. They would get a nice bit of cash at the end of the night, but nowhere near what they needed.

Oh. And despite the characters they had to screen, many of which were some really ugly criminal types - notorious criminal types, too, like "Legbreaker" Jonni Rowland and his moll Flannie (the cause of his heartbreaks and the excuse he used for earning his name by practicing his art on would-be suitors), "Phreak" Moloi the hijack king, renowned for his infamous hijacking ring which used data lifted from Starport ATC computers, and of course the Patron, a renowned Mr Big in the pharmaceuticals industry - legit, not recreational - they were told, quite clearly, not to try and sneak a peek at what they were all doing inside this warehouse.

In all, about fifteen different gang leaders and mob bosses went into the warehouse, and they were screened. The usual - body pistols, knives, knucks, an electro baton and all the molls had various means of chemical incapacitation sprays concealed about their persons.

But after they all went in, and the characters were told by the Patron to close the doors and let nobody in - and "Don't peek if you know what's good for you!" - you know what they did that was so annoying?

They listened to the Patron.

That's right. They took the Patron at his word, stood around the rest of the night, were good little boys and never once went anywhere near the crystal clear window panel in the warehouse doors.

They went back home, collected Cr. 500 each for their troubles, never saw the Patron again, and missed out on the chance of an adventure which would have embroiled them in an immediate firefight to save the Patron's life (well, just about anybody's life, because that would mean each mob boss saved would owe the characters BIG favours), followed by further hijinks and shenanigans (mostly of the running variety) which would ultimately lead them off world in a stolen Starship, brand spanking new, all legit papers, a ghost in the system, top of the range systems, good acceleration, J-3 ... in short, the very thing they were after.

And the moral of the story is ... It is only in the real world that people have to avoid getting into trouble or crossing the wrong people.

In Traveller, getting into trouble is the whole point.

Anyone else had The Game You Wish You'd Never Started; or worse, The First Encounter Self-TPK Self Destruct?

 

[IanBruntlett]

Anyone else had The Game You Wish You'd Never Started; or worse, The First Encounter Self-TPK Self Destruct?

Years ago I tried running the "Temple of Elemental Evil" AD&D2E module. The PCs ran away.

 

[Pascalahad]

The thing is : I don't think you can blame PCs for doing the "reasonable thing", you can only blame you as a GM for not giving them enough incentive to get into the adventure. The rule should be : if they run from an adventure, then the adventure should go to them instead.

We had this problem once, in D&D. We were level 1, and in a castle, when suddenly, shadow creatures began slaughtering people easily, by merely touching them, including ALL guards dressed in full plate armors and wearing halberds. We, as low-level PCs, ran like everybody else. When he got out of the castle, the DM just said : "well you ran out of the adventure"... End of the story. There were ways to get us into it again, he simply didn't bother to find them.

Did the PCs guarding the hangar heard something unusual inside, like gunfire ? People screaming ? Even if they went home after doing their job, they could have been contacted by law-enforcement people later, to ask them what they heard, or were they suspected of being accomplices to what went wrong in the hangar ? To redeem themselves, could they have been forced to help frame their former patron ? There was seemingly plenty of possibilities for the adventure to go on from this point.

I had that problem once as a GM. I just plotted one course of action for my adventure, and one only. The players had other ideas, and I went dry. I promised to myself never to be that specific again, plotting only where I wanted them to go, leaving the "how" really vague, and it worked ever since.

 

[AdrianH]

I do remember a long time ago running Twilight's Peak. The characters go into the building and see a skeleton. One of the players asked "What is the skeleton doing?" My reply was something like "Not much, it's dead". You have to make allowances for players whose usual experience with skeletons is in some form of D&D, where they attack people. :lol:

Another favourite incident was where the scenery was mostly moorland with one solitary tree. This is realistic, based on a place I've been to. The players were very suspicious of that tree and kept trying to find something in it such as a hidden sniper; in fact it was just there for scenery, I hadn't even considered player paranoia when I described it.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Anyone else had The Game You Wish You'd Never Started; or worse, The First Encounter Self-TPK Self Destruct?

Years ago I tried running the "Temple of Elemental Evil" AD&D2E module. The PCs ran away.

Years ago I played this as a PC, or, more accurately, as several consecuative PCs, in fact, the PC body count was horrific (not helped by the DM requiring that all new characters started at level one), must have made twenty trips to that wretched temple.

The sensible thing to do would have been to run far away, I congratulate your group.

Egil

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

If the players had been good little boys and done what they were told, I would have had Mr. Big approach them later, tell them he was impressed with how they followed orders... Now, I have another job for such trustworthy peoples as yourselves... Back in the Game!

 

[rust]

In Traveller, getting into trouble is the whole point.

Only if it is the kind of trouble the characters can expect to be able to
deal with, and to risk retaliation from an impressive collection of po-
werful mobsters may well be considered an unnecessary and hard to
calculate danger by prudent characters.

 

[hdan]

If the players had been good little boys and done what they were told, I would have had Mr. Big approach them later, tell them he was impressed with how they followed orders... Now, I have another job for such trustworthy peoples as yourselves... Back in the Game!

Best answer yet! I'll have to remember this one - if the player miss the adventure, then it didn't happen. Set it up again with a more compelling reason to have them involved. Maybe now, the Boss trusts them enough to use them as bodyguards?

 

[far-trader]

Another favourite incident was where the scenery was mostly moorland with one solitary tree. This is realistic, based on a place I've been to. The players were very suspicious of that tree and kept trying to find something in it such as a hidden sniper; in fact it was just there for scenery, I hadn't even considered player paranoia when I described it.

Classic empty room syndrome

So common there've been comic strips aplenty about it. I've experienced it from both sides myself. As a player and a ref in a couple variations

For those who haven't, it's basically the players are wandering your latest dungeon in search of XP and GP when...

Ref "You open the door, the room is 10x20. There are no other doors and it is empty." (your expectation, they'll close the door and move on, after all this is just the first room of the dungeon... )

Players "Check for traps! Throw dust to show invisible! Detect magic! Search for secret doors! (finding none... ) Search again, I must have failed my roll! (repeat, continue, etc... )"

...finally the players have exhausted all their talents and ideas, though they are still suspicious of this "empty" room and feel they have missed something.

Ref "Do you close the door on your way out?" (you immediately realize your mistake but it's too late... )

Players "Wait! What?! Of course!! IT'S THE DOOR! OK, should we close it? Or leave it open? Let's close it then look inside again. Maybe someone should be inside when we close it? NOT ME! Hold on a second, is this the same corridor as when we entered the room? ..."

Ref (weeps quietly behind the DM screen wondering if it's too late to drop a killer monster in the empty room to eat the whole party... )

...it can be just about anything. An empty room, a solitary tree, just something that the ref intends for no real purpose with no meaning or hidden agenda but somehow the players miss that and pounce on the thing like it is the key to everything if they could just figure it out. Ref protestations don't help, generally they only feed the problem.

 

[AndrewW]

Or sometimes the paranoia is at the wrong place. Had one that started in a city, where there was a pair of wagons that had an accident and where blocking the street and they had to go around, they where jumping at shadows. A bit later out in the countryside they failed to pay much attention to the area where the forest happened to get closer to the road they where on... Or even just after that ambush that their was another one just a little up the road from there.

 

[Bense]

Oh, I thought this thread was going to be about how to annoy your players.

I personally would be a little annoyed if it turned out the Referee expected me to get myself into trouble rather than sensibly doing the job I was getting paid for (depending on the character I was playing, of course).

 

[IanBruntlett]

I have an unofficial system of "destiny points". In return for someone doing something unusual/daft I offer them a "destiny point" which 1) gives them some protection in the short term and 2) gives them the opportunity to spend the "destiny point" to get them out of trouble when they most need it.

 

[Bense]

I have an unofficial system of "destiny points". In return for someone doing something unusual/daft I offer them a "destiny point" which 1) gives them some protection in the short term and 2) gives them the opportunity to spend the "destiny point" to get them out of trouble when they most need it.

So if I were playing the equivelent of "Howling Mad" Murdoch in your campaign I would be rolling in destiny points?

 

[IanBruntlett]

I have an unofficial system of "destiny points". In return for someone doing something unusual/daft I offer them a "destiny point" which 1) gives them some protection in the short term and 2) gives them the opportunity to spend the "destiny point" to get them out of trouble when they most need it.

So if I were playing the equivelent of "Howling Mad" Murdoch in your campaign I would be rolling in destiny points?

Well - it is an unofficial system, applied very sparingly. Last time a player went mad was in a Prison Planet play test. The PC, ran by a part-time Hospital Chaplain and Pharmacist, grabbed a prison guard's gun and went on a rampage, initially having the upper hand but very quickly ended up very dead.

 

[alex_greene]

Oh, I thought this thread was going to be about how to annoy your players.

I personally would be a little annoyed if it turned out the Referee expected me to get myself into trouble rather than sensibly doing the job I was getting paid for (depending on the character I was playing, of course).

People who very sensibly just do the job they are told to do and who try and avoid trouble are nine to fiver sarariiman struggling in the rat race.

Like I said, the point of Traveller's to do the exact opposite: "What do you mean, bodyguarding the Noble as he goes lava rafting? You mean we have to ride in the raft with him as well?" "Well, you could get out and try to run alongside the raft if you wish ..."

And as for annoying the players ... basically, ending the game the way I did was the best punishment I could think of. Basically, no more Patrons, no more big jobs, not enough money even to buy a cold berth passage, stuck on a planet where the only thing left was some cubicle in an air conditioned office ... Hell. Sheer hell.

They didn't have to go in and risk their lives. All they had to do was just peek.

In Doctor Who, The Doctor is usually extremely dischuffed when his Companions refuse to just "stay there" when he asks them, but go wandering off on their own and blunder into Silurians or Cybermen or whatever, forcing him to have to go in and rescue them and thereby stumble upon the plot of the story.

 

[Bense]

People who very sensibly just do the job they are told to do and who try and avoid trouble are nine to fiver sarariiman struggling in the rat race.

Well it depends on the job, doesn't it? If my job description is basically "secretary" then I might very well be described as a boring sarariiman/corporate drone if I stick to it. But if my job is "explorer" or "bomb defuser" or "security at a mob meet" then avoiding trouble is generally a good idea, and won't prevent me from having excitement on the way.

And as for annoying the players ... basically, ending the game the way I did was the best punishment I could think of. Basically, no more Patrons, no more big jobs, not enough money even to buy a cold berth passage, stuck on a planet where the only thing left was some cubicle in an air conditioned office ... Hell. Sheer hell.

But that's the problem I have with your approach - I think the players shouldn't have been punished for not taking your schmuck bait.
If the players are behaving unusually sensibly or cautiously then it's your job as Referee to find a sensible reason for them to get involved.

I like the suggestion of dropping your planned sequence of events (with their patron dying off-stage) and having this simply be the first job that leads to another, where they are invited inside by the patron this time, and therefore present when the fight breaks out...and you can pick up your planned scenario again right where your players derailed it the first time.

 

[alex_greene]

Yeah, but I thought that the players put their characters through the trouble of being Entertainers, Agents, Nobles, Army, Navy, Marines and Scouts just for the thrill of doing things like abseiling down the insides of cooling towers to avoid patrolling guards, skydiving from orbit with their dying ship disintegrating in orbit above them, running through a hail of bullets to pick up a fallen comrade, or lava rafting with Bertie and Quentin.

About the only time they'd have a job as a secretary would be if they were under deep cover, casing the joint or being the inside man planted there in preparation for a heist or something.

The most boring thing I ever want my players to do in Traveller is to go through a couple of rounds of pure spec trading to build up the funds to, I dunno, buy some new cybertech or a new Air/Raft for their ship or something. The rest of the time, it's about safaris under a green sky, running through alleyways of Startown dodging the squadron of Imperial Marines whose noses they just put out of joint, or standing on a mesa looking at a ringed gas giant low on the horizon as the rest of the team work on cracking the script to open the door to the Ancient base they just discovered.

And lava rafting.

With Bertie and Quentin. And maybe some Pimms.

 

[far-trader]

Maybe your players were looking for something more heroic and less criminal? Like if they'd been hired as external security at a clandestine meet of some big wig Nobles and then some shifty types come snooping around and are put off by the security the PCs are putting on, only soon after the shifty types leave the sound of breaking glass around a corner...

...maybe they'd have gone to investigate and gotten involved in stopping a hit on the patron who would then be grateful, and have a mission for them to find the mole that obviously tipped the competition about this meeting. Maybe

It's tough to know what is going to work for players. Sometimes asking helps. Other times you just guess or try what interests you and hope they have fun too.

 

[rust]

People who very sensibly just do the job they are told to do and who try and avoid trouble are nine to fiver sarariiman struggling in the rat race.

Even special forces soldiers in a combat zone very sensibly just do the
job they are told to do and avoid any unnecessary trouble ...

 

[kristof65]

One of the most frustrating and enjoyable things I face as a GM in any system is figuring out how to motivate my players and PCs on the path's I want them to take. There winds up being this careful balancing act of what will motivate the player and what should motivate their PC. It gets worse when you have to balance those for different kinds of players in the same group.

I've got any annoying situation going on in my current campaign. One of the PCs is the selfish greedy type who won't share anything with anyone. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, he's also been the one to manage to get ahold of most of the objects containing the info the group needs to succeed in their quest. It wouldn't be so bad that he had it, but he can't read the language it's written in, and so it needs to be shared with rest of the party. I've finally managed to setup a situation to tip off the rest of the PCs that he has this needed info and isn't sharing it, but they're not being aggressive enough in making him share it with them!