RPG Horror Story: These Players WANT To Be Railroaded??

0:20 Hell and hello, yea perfect nilding. We're gonna get that again. We're as my wife. We're gonna leave it in as is, Thank you so much. A podcast for game masters and players and all kinds of people to level up your game. We're just gonna start it off completely off the rails. That's fine. Yeah, that was sort of a horror story of an introduction. Well, today's story is about keeping things on the rails. I'm gonna say, is it about players not paying attention? Because that was me? You got me. That's not even the story. That's just facts. It's horror facts. We're going to do horror story today. We're pulling this one from the RPG horror story subreddit from user grand Red Larceny. But I love this story. I love what it implies. And I know, particularly Jim is going to have plenty to say about this, and so do I so Joe. Yes, our listeners may have learned that I have opinions about things. Yes, I should hope so or else In particular, it's a pretty host. Today's horror story is titled the Players want to limit the quote DM influence. I am intrigued on that's what a good title will do story goes. So this is something that has never really happened to me before.

1:40 I've been to DM for a while, not extremely experienced or anything like that, but I've run a few games. A few weeks ago, I started talking to someone I know and they mentioned that they had a group of friends looking for a DM and asked if I could do it since I really liked D and D. I didn't think twice and said sure. I met with this group for a session zero of sorts to discuss what they were looking for in a game. And here's what they told me. They wanted someone to run cursive strawed for them, which is fine, that's one of my favorite modules. But that's where the problems came up. I told them I'd be happy to as cursive strad actually has a lot of variables and ways to make these things interesting. That was when a player stopped me mid sentenced and said, before you start, I want to make sure you're running it for us without change. I want you to not influence the module at all, don't even change a comma. I hate when dms think they know better than the folks at D and D. That was strange to say the least. But I understand wanting to run something as it was intended, and I said I would definitely follow the module. However, the player continued, No, you shouldn't even use dialogue that isn't in the module. Okay, that's how D and D is meant to be played. Also, you need to roll dice out in the open for us to see. Things felt really strange to me.

2:54 I know, I'm not experienced or anything, but this didn't feel normal. So I asked them plainly what they're expecting of me, and this one player, who seemed to be speaking for the group said, we hate when dms abuse their powers to manipulate the world. That's why we only play modules and make sure the dms don't change a single thing from them. I imagine my expression didn't seem too good when he said that, because what followed were a bunch of complaints about dms, and from me, it sounded way too close to player versus DM mentality. It went on for a while, but there was no way I was dming for them. I'm barely experience. Good choice, I'm Billy's okay, okay, good because like I thought, like like many of these horror stories start with, here's the huge red flags that I ignored. Yeah he did and forged ahead. Anyways, Somewhere somewhere in our third year of this campaign, I thought, hmm, this feels a little odd. Yeah, that's good, says I'm barely experienced enough to do with normal players, and to me, this definitely, this definitely isn't normal.

3:55 Honestly, at that point, they were expecting me to be an AI simulator for their game with a voice, which is not at all what I'm looking for. I told them that that we aren't going to be a good fit as expected. They didn't like my response and started to angrily shout at me that I was wasting their time, that I wasn't a quote true DM, et cetera. That being said, I would no longer be DM me for this group ever anyone that's this friend of mine introduces me to. I'm just glad that they didn't go beyond session zero. They were shouting, but you're not a real DM unless you don't DM like you just you just need to read the book and then just do just only say what's in the book. Don't even change a comma. Why doesn't that player? My first thought is why doesn't that player Okay, no, Actually my first thought is like this would make a terrible horror movie because you know, like how we're all shouting like no, don't go down into the basement, like that's what this person did. They're like, I'm just not going to go down there.

4:55 I'm just gonna add Yeah, I'm going to leave this house. Actually, I'm not going to go investigate that weird sound at all. I'm good. I'm gonna go home now. Yeah, and there's no harm movie that's what happened here. But then my second thought is, why doesn't that player just be the DM right if it's like if you're just reading from the literal them, Yeah, you don't need to do anything if you're just reading a story book to your friends. Yeah, like I'll bring over a copy of, like, just know, some fantasy book and you can just all work together and read it together. Yeah. Also, how does that player know if if if I go off the rails? How does he know? Oh, you reading ahead? I mean, and part part of me sympathizes though here, like like I'm trying to find some empathy for these players because clearly they had a DM like that they had real problems with like one of our other horror stories. Yeah, exactly, like like in the past that led to this trauma that they're expressing to this, you know, the new guy who's like, Okay, I was hoping to run D and D and not be your therapist. So yeah, yeah, yeah, but but but good for him for like, and that's why you have a session zero, folks.

6:08 Yeah, and why your session zero is let's make sure this is gonna work, right, and and you know, and good on him for saying not gonna work. Sorry, Nope, that's not not how we want to be going about it. I was scrolling through some of the comments here of there's some golden there, Like my favorite one of the top comment is nice deck saving me. They're dodging that bullet. Yeah, yeah, it's that it doesn't matter if it's not twenty right. The DC was low out out the way, yes, yeah, yeah, So say, what do they expect you to do if they speak to an NPC that has no written line? Just stand there and not answer. Yeah. That was my next question was, like, you don't have any dialogue written for this guy? If I was citistic enough the DM for them, that's exactly what I would do stare at them in pure malicious compliance. Yeah, sometimes you got to give people what they want for them to understand that they don't actually want that. Yeah, so what do we do in this situation? Obviously, the the DM left, and that is the correct call to go run a game they want to play with. The DM is also a player at the table and should be having as much fun as anybody else. So this wasn't the right game for the DM. But the players, I hope they either if they want to continue playing D and D they should, you know, figure out that that's how it runs. I hope they find a DM that's good enough to like undo a bad experience they problem bad, or they just have storybook hour and just read a book to each other. That's kind of what they want, and I'm kind of serious about that, like like like find a cool fantasy book and just read it together during a book club. I'm super curious whether this would be the first time that that group has played Cursus Strode or

7:43 whether they're no kidding, think of it in terms of like a video game, and maybe the thing is they played it through before and they want to play it again to see if they can, you know, somehow like like like optimize or go in different directions or something like that. But it's got to run exactly the same way, otherwise they won't know, you know, whether it was Like I just think I think what it is is. I think they're northern northern Dungeonists, and they take a very literal interpretation of the Book of Straw with no room for interpretation whatsoever whatsoever. Anythink that's probably as opposed to more liberal Borovianists. Well yeah, yeah, yeats, they do allow some interpretation of the bow that's man and in particular and in particular that module more than any others. The fun of that module is as a DM, sinking your teeth into it and making like the weird gothicness of that like your thing, right, Like no two dms should have the same straw voice, right when they talk of you know, when they do his voice, and when you do the you know whatever the fourtune and tell her and all that like like that is your opportunity to just you know, be weird and have fun with it. And the idea that somebody is gonna, you know, wants you to run that that module of all of them, you know, totally on rails is just it's just it's set like it's just a missed

9:15 opportunity for everybody. It should be a for interpretation. As long as everyone agrees that Strat is hot, that's all that matters. My last because it's thirsty and you're doing it right. Yeah, So what is your straw voice? I didn't run so okay, but I just come up with one right now. I would probably go super campy, like like bla, like the stand, the beating about the like the like the cartoonish nineteen fifties like bad Vampires. Yeah, like uh the I think a real solution for those players is go play Baalder Skate. Yeah, it is a video game. It cannot be it cannot break it pro Yeah the game. Go play AG three.

9:56 Yeah, it's we can be becau. Everything has to be pre program and you can play. And the great thing about Baller's Gate you can play co op. You can have your friends on the mics with you, and you can all do it. You go through together just like a plaint, a regular D and D game, and that you don't have to worry that anybody might inject their personality into God forbid running go to based someone like plays a role playing game in their own voice. Hello Adventurers, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy the show, the absolute best thing you can do to support us is to subscribe so you'll be notified when new episodes are released. You can also leave us a review five stars. Of course, that will help us get seen by more D and D players, and more than anything else, just tell your friends about us. If you like what we're doing here, that there's a good chance that your DM or your players will enjoy it too, And you don't need to loop gold to do any of that. We appreciate your listening. Now back to the show, but seriously, kind of picking up on something you said, Jim is getting down to like like, was there no room for any kind of discourse?

11:07 There was there no like well, okay, hold hold on, I'm not I don't think I'm better than the people at Dungeons and Dragons that wrote this, and I don't think I know better than that. However, however, like here, let's go to this part of the d MG that was written by these same people. Let me show you this, and and you know that that's where I don't know. I guess like what kicks in for me if I'm seriously in this situation after kind of laughing and being like you guys, okay, that was a good one. You always got me, and then we go out you're serious, Okay, well what do you really want to play? Yeah? Is like getting into like okay, I obviously need to educate you on something like okay, so let's let's break that down. And so so I get saying like no, not for me, I'm good, thank you, but no, thank you. But at the same time, to your point, it's like maybe something kind of horrible happened to them in the past. Maybe it's someone where they had some kind of this.

12:05 They definitely had some kind of asshole DM that was like just completely arbitrarily changing what was in the module. You know, there's a sweet spot there between you run it word for word verbatim, and you sit down to play strawed and they end up in you know, like and they end up in Strict Saving instead or something like that. You know, you you decide that that you you really want to run a Magical Academy game, so you drop the Magical Academy into Barovian they never even see straed kind of thing as far as like seeing a room for discourse, you know, if we're ever taking the story your face value. There are two points where the players interrupted DM right in order to say in order to double down on saying they don't want anything fun, so I don't think there was much room for discourse. And also like this wasn't the DM's friends. This was a friend friends of a friend that liken't He doesn't know these people, doesn't owe them anything, So no, and I don't think that, right, I don't think that. So, so what would you do? Is how much time do you have?

12:58 Because because I'm going to do one of two things, depending on how much one of three things, depending on how much time I have I'm going to One is nothing and leave. One is to say I honestly don't have time for this. Yeah, this sounds like it's not my game. Thanks, thanks, but no thanks and leave. The second one is to do what I said is to try to educate them. Sure, okay, you know this is open to interpretation. I'm not going to change any anything. I'm not going to change anything. However, there are parts that are maybe slightly ambiguous that I need to kind of fill in. That's how this game is designed. And here's a two sentence description of this shopkeeper. And if you guys want to talk to him, I got to make some shit up right, and like kind of explain that. And then the third one is, if I'm feeling particularly saucy, I'm having a bad day and I have some time, I am going to malicious, maliciously comply. I'm gonna give you exactly Okay, that's what you want. Sure, here we go, and you're going to get the most vanilla mhm yep land game of your life.

14:05 Yeah, and that's maybe exactly what they want. Maybe they'll be thrilled at that. I don't know, Yeah, but certainly that like like I like the kind of like that. I mean, like, like you say, we only have one angle on this story, but the fact that he spent some time going do we really understand each other? Like do I actually are you really asking what I think you're asking me for. Let's poke at this a little bit, them going oh yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. You know, it sounded like he did kind of take some time to try and you know, come at it from a different angle and make sure that they were really no kidding as adamant about this is as it seemed like they initially were. Yeah, like I said, the player interrupted him twice to double that for me, that's I don't think it's any there was any room for or for educating anybody on this on this particular day. And hopefully they'll figure it out, or they go pick up a copy of Boulder's Gate or start a book club, and I think those are all perfectly fine ways to spend your afternoon. This is This doesn't make them bad people, bad D and D players, And if the people that were playing this game and interrupting this DM are listening, some of the best lines in the movies, some of the best lines of movies are improv Okay, I'm just gonna throw that out there. Yeah, the part where Eric gorn Broker's thumb, he improved that line that wasn't in script. He was like, you know what, I'm gonna break my thumb here. Or when Harrison Ford was hungover or no,

15:35 not hungover, he was sick in Indiana Jones and the guy comes and he does all these cool night things and they shoot him Like that was just improv because he didn't want to be filming that day. They kept Yeah, you know, I mean my favorite improv I think of the last twenty years is because the truth is I am iron Man, not in the script down. He just did it and everybody loved it so much that you know, that became that iconic thing, and that just that's and that's where that that's where those things can can happen. Yep. Yeah, a lot of the magic happens folks and the commers. There's a lot of speculation exactly what you said, Jim, is that these guys have run Strawed before and they're trying to optimize their speed run. Yeah, a lot of speculation on that Twitch speed road of straw And then piggybacking off of that is that saying that some people just want to win whatever game they're playing, even for a game that doesn't really have a win or lose. Yeah, David, that's the wrong module to play then, from my understanding and having not played it, if they've done it before or optimized on their speed run, then you can absolutely win D and D. It's not the module to play. So what would you have done in this situation? What and have you had a DM that went a little too far off the rails and maybe you sympathize with these players a little bit. Reach out to us Hello Adventures Podcast at gmail, dot commerce store, tell us your story yourself, Hello Adventures Podcast dot com slash voice and if you can do it in your straw voice, that would be awesome. You have to make it hot. Yeah, uh anything bad boys,

17:06 No, I think this is good from me. Yeah, this was. This is like the perfect type of horror story that we'd like to see on the show where it's just like like what were these people thinking? Yeah, it was cool man, and they had a happy endingwhere with the potential d M left without them this Yeah, that was like like like Joe was saying, the house said, yeah, you know what, too bad, we can't stay. I will thank you. They had capital idea. Sir guys, thanks so much for listening with Hello Adventurers. Where your host Jason Ptizo, Jim Crocker and Joe McCall producer, editor an engineer Jason Piso a music by n Experior outwork like Christ and Roderick. You can meat out to us with any feedback We're suggestions by emailing Hello Adventures Podcast at gmail dot com.

17:48 Hello Adventures is a j TP oil production by Adventures, but to have the