The Almighty Player

Excuse me, but could I have just a few moments to talk to the players out there? If you’re a DM, with your level-plus-four encounters, your killer dice that never roll below 15, and your behind-the-screen smirk, I’d just ask you to step out of the room for a little while so I can address the players… okay, are they gone? Good.

There’s a few things I need to tell you, and it wouldn’t do any of us any good if the DMs were still here. You know what they’re like. They’re power-mad. It’s the whole reason they got into the gig. They want to know the attacks and defenses of all the monsters, the locations of all the traps, the difficulty of all the skill challenges, the answers to all the riddles. They have to know the background story: the cause for the lich’s madness, the reason for the goblin uprising, the cure for the spreading plague. A happy DM is one who knows what’s going to happen next.

And so, the worst part of any DM’s game are you players. You are wild cards, unpredictable, irrational, and completely-bonkers-crazy sometimes. Consider the following scene:

DM (head down, reading in a monotone): “As you sit in the tavern, drinking your ales, an old man approaches you, a hopeful look on his face.”
Player: “What’s he wearing?”
DM (looking up): “What’s he– what?”
Player: “What’s he wearing? Anything good? Any money on him?”
DM: “I– he doesn’t–”
Player: “I attack him.”

So the big secret, the one those DMs out there don’t want you to know, is this: you players hold all the power. Sure, he’s got the screen and the killer dice and all those numbers, but you have the ability to completely torpedo several weeks worth of work, to unravel a carefully constructed master story filled with heartache and humor, pathos and excitement, thrills and chills and more rapid ascents and sudden drops than an Islands of Adventure roller coaster.

When the DM introduces the story, you can pick a fight with the other party members. When the DM introduces several huge, flashing, neon arrows that all say, “TURN RIGHT,” you can turn left. Oh, and when you meet a significant, interesting, fully developed NPC, you can slaughter him without a moment’s thought. It’s especially fun if you do it in a degrading and disgusting manner.

If the DM dares to turn on you, innocent little you, and brings down any sort of punishment for your little fun-time, all you need to do is drop that atomic bomb in the form of four simple words: “I’m not coming back.” Of course, it does help if all of the players have a little bit of a maverick attitude, but that’s not absolutely necessary. It’ll still leave a nice, dark mark on the game for a little while, a stink that clings to the DM (at least in his own mind) as some form of failure.

So we can all agree, I think, that we as players hold quite a bit of power. And as you know, with great power comes a dreadful third movie, a franchise reboot, and Tobey Maguire free to make SERIOUS FILMS. Nobody wants that. What if we were to agree on a few players’ ground rules? A Bill of Rights, a Magna Carta, a Louisiana Purchase, as it were. What if we decided, starting at our next game, we would follow some arbitrary list written by a total stranger? I think that list would look like this:

1. Just go with it. Even if the premise is cliche, even if it has the feel of “all aboard, next stop Kookamunga,” even if you can feel the DM’s hand pressed into the small of your back and shoving you towards some goal, just go with it. When presented with the options, “You can go talk to the jailer or go straight to the vizier’s house,” you really aren’t doing anyone a favor saying, “Yeah, instead I’m going to set fire to the local temple and see what happens.” Hey, it’s outrageous, it’s wacky, no one could have predicted that you were going to do that. True, however, I can predict what happens next: the DM’s joy dies just a little bit.

2. Passive-aggressive is not just a river in Egypt. Look, DMs are humans, and like all humans, they’re kind of stupid. They make mistakes, they make bad calls, they resort to petty punishments because you just killed their biggest baddest villain with brilliant tactics. That’s no excuse for you to mutter under your breath, “That doesn’t make any sense,” or, “I wonder what Player’s Handbook you’re reading,” or, “Huh, that’s not the way I or anybody else in the entire world interpret that rule.” Of course there’s always room to question a ruling, but it should be done at an appropriate time, such as after the game, well away from the table, when all the dice have been put away. “Hey, before you head out, could I talk to you about that sneak attack damage thing?” It’s the sniping and biting that does damage, to the game and sometimes to the relationships.

3. Active-aggressive isn’t all that great either. While it’s true that coups can be fun, what with the casting off of the oppressor’s chains and the making of the stand and the raising of the fist and the crying out, “No more, you tyrant,” an in-your-face, bug-eyed, spittle-flying confrontation is simply unpleasant for everyone, even those players cowering under the table, pleading that you need to get back to the game, that it’s the DM’s ruling, that you need to move on. If you feel the rage rising, if you feel your inner-hulk wanting to make a sudden appearance, do everyone a favor and step away for a little bit. Go outside. Go to the bathroom. Learn to juggle. Learn a trade. Don’t go with your instinct.

4. Do something, and do it now. Have you noticed that players have become so concerned about doing the wrong thing that they often won’t do anything at all for long stretches at a time? There’s this endless series of carefully-worded, lawyer-reviewed questions that start, “From what I know…” or “Based on my knowledge…” There is a sort of implied, “Dungeon Master, I’m not entirely sure what to do here and I sure don’t want to look stupid, so you make the decision for me.” Instead of jumping in with both feet, the players hold a conference, discuss every possible iteration of every possible plan, verify they understand the situation from every possible angle, and conduct lengthy interviews with the DM about the minutest of minutia.

Now I understand where this comes from. It’s entirely Pavlovian, as these poor players have been slapped down hard whenever they did jump in with both feet. “Ah, the heck with it, I’m pushing my way to the front to talk to the prince.” “Oh really? Well, the guards jump on you, beat you senseless, and drag you to jail. You lose all your gear and two weeks of adventuring time.” Okay, fine, I’ll admit, that’s not a whole heap of fun. But it’s memorable, and it feels more like what an adventurer would do, doesn’t it?

5. Let the nerdiness flow. There’s one thing worse than playing with an over-the-top role player at the table, and that’s BEING the over-the-top role player at the table. Trust me, I know this first hand. It takes a vast amount of commitment and a total lack of self-respect to speak, think, and act like your character, to write up a background and consider a history, to try to incorporate yourself into the world your DM is trying to build. While everyone else is giggling, your DM is fairly tingling with appreciation.

6. Curb the cheating. Notice that I didn’t write, “stop the cheating.” As long as there’s dice, there will be fudging. But just curb it a little. Instead of setting up your player’s screen (in the form of stacked Mountain Dew cans or a Player’s Handbook on its side), instead of rolling that teeny translucent crystal dice that no one else can read, instead of throwing two dozen “practice rolls” when it comes to your turn and taking the one that’s the best, just spend a game in a dazey haze of total honesty. See what it feels like.

I’m coming at this subject as a player who spent one multi-round battle never rolling higher than a five. It was driving me crazy. I got so close to pulling out one of those fudgy methods above, but I decided, “No, forget it. I don’t care if I never hit again. I’m sticking with what happens.” On that same night, the randomness rebounded, the mojo returned, and I rolled several consecutive 18’s. It was either four, five, or six, I can’t remember. But it was probably the happiest moment in my entire life. Don’t tell my kids.

Ultimately, what I’m saying here is, place your trust in your DM and in the rules of the game. Neither one is there to ruin your good time, to beat you down with merciless cruelty and delight in your misery. I would submit that adhering to the above players’ rules would radically, massively, and immediately improve your game experience. And if you can’t trust a total stranger, who can you trust?