Tell him "look, this game isn’t about being a Total Badass By Yourself. It’s about working with your team and overcoming challenges you couldn’t otherwise. If you wanna be a Total Badass By Yourself, there are games you can play. But if you wanna play this, you’re gonna have to work with me here. Because my time and effort is valuable, and I want to have fun just like you do.
I really need to do some kind of team building exercise before a game, something that they’ll want to do, but requires teamwork, just to demonstrate the point that they need to work together.
When my first character did the whole “I’m gonna be all by myself because I’m a lone wolf” thing, the DM let me go off and the totally unexpected happened and my character got into a scuffle he wasn’t prepared for, but a group sure would have been.
The easy way out is “abuse action economy”. There are better uses for it, though, and better options here.
The other easy way out is to let people roll to see if something happens. Never, ever allow stalled play to resort to this. They have to search and talk.
Oh god so many DMs in the past have done this, and I just roll my eyes every time.
Like I’m okay if you want to roll your own dice behind the screen to see if we get attacked overnight, but that should be the only kind of “roll to see what happens” going on.
Tell him "look, this game isn’t about being a Total Badass By Yourself. It’s about working with your team and overcoming challenges you couldn’t otherwise. If you wanna be a Total Badass By Yourself, there are games you can play. But if you wanna play this, you’re gonna have to work with me here. Because my time and effort is valuable, and I want to have fun just like you do.
I really need to do some kind of team building exercise before a game, something that they’ll want to do, but requires teamwork, just to demonstrate the point that they need to work together.
When my first character did the whole “I’m gonna be all by myself because I’m a lone wolf” thing, the DM let me go off and the totally unexpected happened and my character got into a scuffle he wasn’t prepared for, but a group sure would have been.
Yes you do.
The easy way out is “abuse action economy”. There are better uses for it, though, and better options here.
The other easy way out is to let people roll to see if something happens. Never, ever allow stalled play to resort to this. They have to search and talk.
Oh god so many DMs in the past have done this, and I just roll my eyes every time.
Like I’m okay if you want to roll your own dice behind the screen to see if we get attacked overnight, but that should be the only kind of “roll to see what happens” going on.
Absolutely. The GMs got tables to help them determine what’s going on - you’ve got one person. Engage with the setting, not a piece of paper.
And yes, DMs, sometimes that means adjusting your plans on the fly to make what they do have fun consequences. That’s our job.