Game Master's Duct Tape: Player Wants an Overpowered Character

by Andrew Gronosky

Gamemaster’s Duct Tape is a series of short articles on quick fixes for common problems at the tabletop RPG table. It’s based on the author’s 40+ years’ experience as a forever gamemaster. A “duct tape” solution is one that can be applied quickly, within the context of a game session.

The Problem: A player wants a new power for their character, which may be a spell, a class, or some new species that can fly or shapeshift. The game master thinks this option is overpowered.

The Duct Tape Solution: You could just say no, but that can cause bickering and/or resentment. It’s better to point out some of the reservations you have. Be specific—explain why you think there’s a potential problem. Then ask the player how they want to ensure their choice of power will be fair to the other players.

You, the game master don’t want one player character to overshadow the others. Neither do you want the new power to spoil challenges that you and the other players think are fun. If the player is reasonable, you can work something out.

For example, suppose one player has a new book featuring avian humanoids who can fly, and wants to play one of them. Whether this is a balance problem depends on whether all the other characters can fly or teleport and what it costs them. You could point out that it looks like this species has the ability to fly at will, and that it would cost anyone else in the party one of their good spells to do the same. You could also add a flying player character makes obstacles such as chasms, cliffs, and pit traps irrelevant. Ask the player which other characters are most likely to be overshadowed by their character’s flying ability, and how they’ll make sure those characters get to do the fun things they were designed to do.

This is a lot easier for you when the overpowered idea is coming out of the player’s imagination or some random thing they found on the internet. You have to be assertive if the player has a rule book to wield against you. Just because a power is written in a book, doesn’t invalidate your concerns.

In an ideal game, the rules would help make sure all the players have the same opportunity to do fun things. When the game designers fall short, or when their idea of balance is simply divergent from yours, it’s up to you to ensure fairness at the table. Sometimes you have to act as a referee, blowing the whistle to stop a problem. It’s usually better to act as an adviser, helping players to see how their choices affect other players at the table.

Gamemaster's Duct Tape: Infinite Rerolls

by Andrew Gronosky

Gamemaster’s Duct Tape is a series of short articles on quick fixes for common problems at the tabletop RPG table. It’s based on the author’s 40+ years experience as a forever gamemaster.

The Problem: Players fail a key dice roll and their progress in the adventure is blocked. The players may realize this, and start looking for reasons to re-roll the dice, such as letting someone else try. The narrative flow is broken and replaced by bargaining and/or bickering over who gets the next re-roll.

The Solution: Players don’t have to roll dice for every task. You can just declare that they succeed. Very often, that’s the best way to get gameplay out of a rut. Just provide a narrative justification for why the character is able to succeed. “All right, with your 16 Strength, you’re able to force that door open eventually” or “That’s such a good argument, the baron is convinced and agrees to hire you.”

In my 40+ years as a GM, I have never once heard a player complain because I let their character succeed without a dice roll. I have had players announce they wanted their character to fail, usually because failure would be highly amusing.

As a gamemaster, the dice are your tools. It behooves you to give some thought to how and when you want to use them. The Fate™ RPG has a piece of advice that changed the way I think about dice rolls forever. “Roll the dice when succeeding or failing at the action could each contribute something interesting to the game.” (Balsera Leonard and Kurt Komoda. Fate : Core System. Evil Hat Productions 2013. Page 187.)

It seems a lot of GMs presume rolling dice is a necessary part of gameplay—that the player’s choice of action is only successful if it’s confirmed by a dice roll. Taking this to an extreme would be absurd: do you want the player to roll dice every time their character tries to cross a street?

The GM is always making decisions about when dice are needed and when they’re not. I’m just suggesting that you think of dice as failure generators rather than success generators, and use them in situations where you want a chance of introducing failure. You’ll never need to fudge dice rolls if you make intentional decisions about when to roll dice in the first place.

The duct tape solution is simply to let the PC’s action succeed without a dice roll whenever it makes sense or when failure would get you stuck.

Gamemaster's Duct Tape: Unwanted Haggling

by Andrew Gronosky

Gamemaster’s Duct Tape is a series of short articles on quick fixes for common problems at the tabletop RPG table. It’s based on the author’s 40+ years experience as a forever gamemaster.

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The problem: One player (it’s usually one) seems to relish haggling with NPCs over money, usually the cost of purchases and/or payment for adventuring missions. You, the gamemaster, dislike haggling. You sense that the other players don’t enjoy sitting there waiting for the back-and-forth to end.

The solution: You (the gamemaster) need to set boundaries. Don’t let yourself be forced into roleplaying through a tedious interaction. The problem is the player’s expectation that haggling is part of RPG gameplay. You’re the gamemaster, and you can say that it’s not part of the game you run.

Be very direct, and speak for yourself only. Say that you don’t enjoy haggling and you won’t roleplay it. What I don’t recommend is that you present reasons. Giving reasons isn’t the right way to set boundaries. It only opens invitation to refute your reasons. You’re not negotiating with the player, you’re setting boundaries.

You might be afraid to make a scene by pushing back on a player in the middle of a game session. It’s definitely better if you can make your statement at the start of a session. That said, a scene that turns into haggling is already ruined so you might as well make a stand.

There’s likely a bigger issue at play: one or more players at your table thinks they can get advantages by badgering or wheedling the gamemaster. I have advice for fixing that situation, but it’s more of a long-term strategy than duct tape. We’ll come back to that in a moment.

After you refuse to roleplay the haggling, the player will almost certainly ask you to let them resolve it with a dice roll. That’s the pattern of badgering: never take no for an answer. Tell the player, “no dice.” If you allow haggling via dice, the player will do it every time. You can then expect endless arguments from that player over the dice results: how much money their character should get based on their dice roll, how they should drag in a second PC for help after they fail the roll, and so on.

The best duct tape solutions keep the game fun, and I do have a fun solution for you. Presumably you’re roleplaying this interaction in the first place because you want interacting with the NPCs to be enjoyable. Give the character some value that’s not monetary. Make them into allies the player characters appreciate, rather than marks they want to fleece.

• They can be a source of relevant rumors—not every tavern rumor needs to be literally told in a tavern.

• They can be a knowledgeable guides to the local area, pointing out which of the city guard officers are most honest or where to find a good herbalist.

• They can just be fun to roleplay with, such as showing genuine interest in the PCs’ adventures and reacting with enthusiasm to the characters’ deeds.

I don’t recommend offering anything that seems transactional, like favors. That will just bring back haggling.

Coming back to the big issue of players badgering and wheedling the GM: it may be fixable. You, the GM, can address it through positive reinforcement. Starve problems and feed opportunities. Show that the behaviors you want, such as problem-solving and collaboration, get results. Behaviors you don’t want, such as whining about bad dice rolls, can be dismissed quickly: “you have to try something else,” or “let’s move on.” It helps a lot if you can find ways to fail forward. The rogue failed to pick the lock but it looks possible to force the door open. The merchant doesn’t lower the price but says “if you’re short on cash, my cousin has a little job for adventurers like you.”

Unwanted haggling is easy to get rid of: just say no. It may be a symptom of a larger issue, which would require a longer article to really fix. You can solve the haggling problem with duct tape: give each NPC some value beyond the money the player wanted to haggle over.

Gamemaster's Duct Tape: When PCs Run to Their Patron for Everything

I’m starting a new series of short blog posts of gamemaster advice. This is “Gamemaster’s Duct Tape:” quick and simple fixes for the little problems that can get in the way of the fun of a tabletop RPG.

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Problem: The player characters have a powerful patron who gave them their mission or quest. Unfortunately, the players expect ongoing access to their patron, and come back in the middle of the adventure asking for help or more resources. In other words, they abuse their patron to solve their problems for them. The extreme case (reductio ad absurdum) is a D&D cleric asking for divine intervention to solve a routine problem.

The Duct Tape Fix: Explain out of character that powerful patrons want adventurers who solve problems for them, not ones who bring problems back to them. When roleplaying the NPC patron, go ahead and make this perfectly clear. Appeal to the characters’ pride: “I hired you because you’re the kind of adventurers who can handle whatever complications and obstacles come up.”

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Giving the player characters a powerful patron is a great plot device. You can use the patron to quickly set the characters up for success, bypassing a lot of dull preparations and even preliminary information gathering. Giving the players a patron can backfire if the players try to use the patron as a substitute for solving problems as a team. Fortunately, that problem is easy to fix with a little duct tape.