As a Dm have you ever punished a player?

It is a play by post game so going in to it is knowing it is slow paced game. I place clues and info all about. They killed one clue, found a few other clues, npcs supplied clues. Without forcing them which is railroading them, i have to go at the groups pace.

Metroknight said: In my game I don't have a disruptive player but the player is making poor choices for his character in my opinion. I won't tell him that because it is his character and his choices but he made a choice for his 1st level mage to sleep away from the safety the group twice in a row. Both times his character got lucky not to be killed by the encounter that wandered up on his character. As the player of this character, I don't feel that the character has been punished for the poor choices. These choices are because of his character flaw, which I wouldn't have given him if I was particularly attached. It's a fact of life, scary things live in the woods and sometimes they get hungry, so I can't really complain.

As I said I can not nor will I try to influence your choices. All I can do is layout what the world your character sees and experiences to let you make the best choice you can make with what your character knows. I now understand it is not poor choice for your character but your constraints on your character personality and such.

My gaming buddies and I are pretty much in agreement when it comes to being mean or I guess punishing another player in game you have to have a concrete reason behind it, mainly if someone is being a jerk to other players. A lot of the time the GM will just say "you are now struck my lightening" or something like that.

Feefait said: So have you ever done something 'mean' to a player/group and then regretted it, or can you justify your actions? Explain below. :)\ I really don't think it is the job of a GM to "punish" players. As a GM, if a player is acting in a manner that ruins the game for everyone else, I just ask them to shape up or leave, I don't take it out on their character. As for "mean", the meanest thing you can do sometimes is let the players actions stand and then let the dice decide. I made one encounter that was tough, for a tough party I might add, and the giant critted twice in round one taking out the party's tank. They were livid. It was simply the roll of the die, I didn't roll in secret, they saw me roll. Had he not rolled two nat 20's and confirmed both, I suspect the party would have steamrolled him like the other encounters. So, sometimes "mean" is more in the eye of the beholder than in real life.

The problem with power gamers that nobody seems to be discussing (that I saw) is not the effect on the game, but the effect on other players. Seems like a lot of GMs talking here, saying, "Just increase the difficulty of the monsters!" -- have any of you ever been a player in this situation? For a long time, I played with a group where the characters were pretty balanced between various types of combat stuff and other things. We got a new player who really knew the system we were playing really well, and suddenly challenging combats became the new guy decimating every monster. The GM raised the difficulty of the monsters to make them challenging for the power player, and the rest of the group ended up getting one-shotted by the monsters. Nobody died, but every melee character except the power players' was immediately unconscious or running away after the first hit. The game pretty much died after that. The GM gave us a dragon to slay and we poisoned its water supply. :| Combat was no longer fun. Once initiative was rolled, the game belonged to the power player -- other players started pulling out PSPs. (Or in my case, drawing -- I got a lot of art done during those games!) While I do think that the GM handled things badly in this case, I've had those problems myself, as a GM. Most of the group will make balanced characters with a variety of skills, and one guy will dump all his money and points into combat skills and notice and the best armor he can afford. It's all well and good to give the PCs challenges that can't be solved by beating something to death, but still. It's upsetting to a wizard when the fireball he finally got access to still isn't as good as the team beatstick punching the monster in the face.

The "problem" with "power gamers" is that they are playing a different game than you . Communication is the solution.

Laura said: The problem with power gamers that nobody seems to be discussing (that I saw) is not the effect on the game, but the effect on other players. Seems like a lot of GMs talking here, saying, "Just increase the difficulty of the monsters!" -- have any of you ever been a player in this situation?. Seems to me like if players are having a problem with wildly unbalanced characters, there are a few solutions: 1. Sit back and enjoy the carnage that the high-powered character is causing 2. Have a conversation with everyone about the expected level of optimization to get everyone on the same page. This could even include asking the powergamer for help making your character more powerful - often these kinds of players enjoy making characters as much as playing. 3. Switch to a system that doesn't have extreme balance issues as a key feature

Or the solution is tell people "no power gaming, it's more narrative", then boot power gamers when they crop up to in fact "power through the narrative style game" for the purpose of joining to wreck it. Seen it. Boo to power gamers. Communication needed: "Keep Out. Myths rule!"