this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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It's just an analogy. Here; let me try one more time.
If you're playing a horde shooter and your friend reveals they can just spawn a boss on top of you at any time, it kind of kills your desire to keep playing - at least with them.
No offense, but you seem overly fixated on all the wrong things.
you still don't get it.
you must be a miserable person to TTRPG with.
I guess I should stop using analogies then.
The point isn't whether the players are competing with the DM. The point is that there's two people playing a game and one person can just screw over the other whenever they feel like it. Painting that in a competitive setting hits closer to home for a lot of people since they're more likely to have experienced that themselves. It wasn't meant to be indicative of how I perceive a good player/DM relationship.
I'm sorry, I had no idea it would confuse so many people so badly.
you've made it abundantly clear you believe this, and then double down by following it up with:
the DM is not there to 'screw over' the other players, and the players aren't there to 'beat' the dm.
Have you ever actually played a TTRPG?
I'm beginning to wonder if anyone would even sit at a table with you.
Do you understand the context of the discussion?
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but to me I'd consider throwing a god-level NPC at your players explicitly to punish them for their behavior to fall pretty squarely under "screwing them over". Not to say players should be allowed to do whatever they want, but I'd expect a smoother escalation than that.
yeah obviously that's how you see it because you only see things one way, throughout this entire convo.
I get that.
the rest of us playing ttrpg's don't see it as 'oh they've sent punishment' - no, the dm is tailoring the world to react to the player's shenanigans. should the DM just drop everything and cater to whatever whims the PCs devise?
you really don't understand any of this shit.
If that's the expectation that's been set up for the table, sure. But jumping straight from murderhobo shenanigans to "Ok here's a god to stop you, roll initiative" isn't the way I'd handle people playing the game in a way I don't like. I've been over this all already with another poster; it causes problems and might not even solve the ones you're using it to solve.
Lol how long will you reference games that have nothing to do with ttrpg? And then I would be the one focusing on the wrong thing?
Do you understand that the dm is fundamentally unable to cheat?
Do you understand that the dm can make things difficult just as much as he can make them easy?
Do you really expect that the player should never face anything they can't murder?
I'll drop the analogies since they're clearly confusing you.
You also seem to have lost the plot here. We're talking about the proper way to address a table of murderhobos and bring them back in line.
Sure, throwing an unwinnable encounter at your players to punish them for their behavior is potentially a way to do that - but in my experience it's more likely to foster an adversarial relationship between the players and the DM. Even if the players get the message it's possible that they might interpret it as "play my way or else".
If your players are all murderhoboing, there's clearly a disconnect in your expectations for the table. The best way to address these kinds of disconnects is through open communication. If you pause things to make it clear that people aren't playing in the way you'd prefer, you can have a genuine discussion about how to roleplay that can take as long as it needs to. You can come to compromises or draw attention to things much easier than if you just throw an unwinnable scenario at them to humble them. If your players are all murderhoboing and all want to murderhobo, maybe you're the odd one out and you need to change your expectations. Or find a new table. But you won't know for sure until you have that discussion on a level that a super-NPC can't get you.
Clearly we don't play the same kind of game. In my game, murder hobos are putting themselves at risk of death. And the old man and his canary is actually a safe encounter to through at them. Because the of the character itself, and because of the difference of power.
Again, you're missing the point of what is taught. You're hell bent on the unfairness and people acting like children. I play with adults. Setting the tone of the game is important to do in game.
This encounter is not a punishment. It is a lesson and a demonstration and an opportunity. It shows how big the game can become. It shows the kind of enemies they can make. It shows that the story can go any way they like, but they should not be stupid about it.
The problem with murder hobo is not that they are evil. It is that they are stupid. Stupidity should be a fatal mistake for the game stay interesting.