GMs, Fight The Urge To Take Things Away From Players

I tend to spend a lot of time in forums and social media groups where players and Game Masters congregate. And every day or so someone runs in with wild eyes and their hair sticking up at all angles, on the verge of panic because it turns out that a player character has an ability that is wrecking house, or they gave their PCs magic items that have seriously upended the balance in their game. Then, without fail, they start asking all of us how to take those items and/or abilities away from their players.

I want to be very clear, here... do not do this. Nothing will frustrate your players faster, or mar their trust in you more, than feeling like they cannot rely on you to hold up your end of the social contract for this game.

That said, if you find yourself in this situation, consider the following steps.

No, give me that back!

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Step #1: Re-Read The Rules in Question

It says what, again? Really?

This is the first step because it's one nearly everyone skips, and it can solve a majority of problems in a lot of situations. If an ability like sneak attack or smite is giving you fits as a Game Master, make sure that you're reading it carefully, and that your player has been running it correctly. A lot of the time we misread a class ability, item description, or feat, and then it becomes far more potent than it should be due to a misunderstanding.

As an example, I once shared a table with a player who wanted to use the Panther Style combat feats in Pathfinder. The way they work is that when you trigger an attack of opportunity for moving through an enemy's space, you may counterattack them if they take that attack of opportunity against you. It's a useful ability for speed-based characters with a high armor class to get in extra shots on several enemies while rushing through a crowd.

What it does not do, however, is allow you to trigger all of your possible counterattacks at once when an enemy attacks you. It's one counterattack per attack of opportunity against you, and most foes you fight only get one. However, this player insisted that he should get 6 free attacks on an enemy, and that they should all resolve anytime he received an attack of opportunity for any reason, rather than due to movement as the feat states.

If something seems really overpowered to you, look it up. There's a good chance the player isn't reading the rules correctly.

Step #2: Look At The Big Picture

Don't get too close to things.

If it turns out the rules are being run correctly, and the ability, magic item, etc., does do what you think it does, then step back and take a big picture look at your game. Try to gain a sense of perspective, and ask if something is really as potent as it first appears when you look at it from your god's eye view.

For example, your wizard may be able to wipe out a single encounter by using a combination of their highest level spell as well as several metamagic feats... but while that's impressive, is it that game breaking when there are 4-5 encounters that are going to happen in a given session? You can ask the same question about barbarian Rage, paladin smite, magic items that have daily charges, and so on, and so forth... any ability that can only be used a certain number of times per day has a cap built in. And that cap is usually enough to carry the day in one or two encounters, or to solve a handful of problems, but it has limitations beyond that.

Even if an ability can be done as often as the circumstances present, like sneak attack, take a look at what it's actually doing. Sneak attack damage allows a character to deal extra damage to a single foe under specific circumstances... even if such an attack kills a foe, is that such a big deal when there are 4-6 enemies on the board? Even slaying as fast as they can, the sneak attacker can only be in so many places at once... and the circumstances for that ability to work won't always be present whenever they attack.

As someone who's been a Game Master, and written my share of modules, even the most powerful player abilities are rarely as potent as we think when we look at them in regards to the sheer amount of nonsense they're going to have to face down over the course of a campaign.

Step #3: Modify Your Challenge Accordingly

Numbers... got to change the numbers...

Once you've checked the rules, and examined the ability or item in question, and you've determined that it is, indeed, a powerful ability that still doesn't mean you should re-write the rules to take it away from your players. Instead, modify the challenges you're presenting.

To reiterate, this does not mean immediately presenting only enemies and scenarios that render powerful or potent abilities unusable. It simply means that you need to put a few extra bells and whistles in to make sure the game doesn't become a cake walk.

For example, say your barbarian fighter has a devastating ability to deal a lot of damage to any foe they charge. Cool, let them do that! But instead of just putting one enemy on the board, give them a couple of mobs to deal with. That way everyone gets to participate, and while the blood is still going to flow it isn't just letting Rogar run in and one-shot the enemy tank. If you have a sorcerer whose area of effect spells are really potent, let them blow up a crowd of foes from time to time... but ensure there's cover strewn around, and that enemies are widely dispersed enough that it isn't enough to immediately end the entire battle. If the fighter got hold of a flametongue far earlier than you expected, don't make all their enemies immune to fire... but once word has gotten out that Kristoff the Red bears a blade of fire, maybe have enemies drink potions to offer them some limited protection if they were planning on taking on the party.

Bonus Step: Alter, But Do Not Remove Items

Most of the examples up to this point were about class abilities, feats, etc. However, sometimes you get a little overly generous with magic items because you want everyone to have fun, and you realize too late that you might have screwed yourself over in terms of presenting a challenge.

Ideally, you should alter the threats your players face, making these items a necessity, or providing some challenges they simply cannot defeat. Perhaps the barbarian who acquired frostbrand has been tearing through many of the bandits with it, but when it's time to fight the leader we find that they're a demon in disguise, and the greatsword's icy aura is nowhere near as potent against them. A normal blade, however, would have been utterly insufficient to pierce their hide! Mayhap your rogue acquired a ring of invisibility, and while it's enough for them to sneak around guards and undead minions, it does not hide them from the dragon's keen senses. And so on, and so forth.

However, if you feel like you really messed up and gave your players something far too powerful, and it's going to break your game, make modifications to the item instead of coming up with some reason that it gets stolen, broken, or commandeered by an NPC.

For instance, consider putting a minor curse on an item that explains why it was found so early in the game. Perhaps the Iron Bands of Binding that were found only work on evil outsiders, making them potent when facing demons and devils, but less so the rest of the time. The deadly dagger the rogue found has been a life saver, but it turns out that it only functions in areas of dim light or darkness. The enchanted suit of armor the fighter has used may seem great, but the armor is actually woven with a thread of cowardice, and it offers less protection the more injured its wearer is.

You get the idea.

Lastly, if an item is particularly rare, powerful, or unique, consider making it intelligent (though perhaps it was asleep until just now). This doesn't lessen its powers, but it does turn the item into something of an NPC that players will have to contend with in order to continue using its abilities. This can add an extra hurdle to unlocking the item's full powers, and make it a more engaging aspect overall.

All of these choices are infinitely better than just having an item stolen off someone's hip while they're at the bar, or finding it missing from camp in the morning. Because your players are going to want it back, and to punish the thief, often to the point that this will utterly derail whatever campaign you were trying to run in the first place to rectify this situation.

Recommended Reading

If you'd like to check out some more stories with lessons for Game Masters in them (or just some GM advice in general), I'd recommend some of the following:

- Game Masters Shouldn't Leave Players Twisting in The Wind: While this particular incident happened at a Werewolf: The Apocalypse LARP, it's a lesson that I think can be applied across all RPGs; don't let your players chase their tails for no reason.

- 100 Tips and Tricks For Being a Better Game Master: 10 years of tested advice from this blog, boiled down into a simple, easy-to-digest list for GMs new and old alike!

- How To Ruin a Promising LARP in 3 Easy Steps: A game that had great promise, but which was ultimately laid low by the way the folks running it handled (or didn't handle) things.

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If You Don't Want The Players To Win, Get Out of The DM Chair!

There is something satisfying about victory when it comes after the end of a lot of hard effort. When your last spell tips the balance, your final sword stroke lays low the villain, or that saved-for-a-rainy-day enchanted arrow finds its mark, that swelling feeling of satisfaction can cement that campaign forever into the stories you tell when you reminisce against games of yesteryear.

He thought he had me, but he didn't know I had one more shocking grasp left for the day...

As a dungeon master, your job is to set a challenge for your players. You pick the monsters, the arenas, the villains' spell sets, the traps, and all the other aspects so that your characters can hack, slash, dodge, tuck, roll, steal, fast talk, and blast their way from where they are, to the end of the story. However, there is something a lot of dungeon masters out there seem to forget... namely that if your players don't succeed, then the story doesn't move forward! Therefore, in order to actually finish the campaign, part of you has to actually want them to come out on top!

But I Don't Want To Just GIVE It To Them!

As I acknowledged in the beginning, your job as the DM is to set your players a challenge. They need to fight the minotaur, rescue the baron's son, find the spy, what have you. However, whatever task you set your party to achieving, you need to make sure you give them the tools to actually succeed. Otherwise you're watching them bring a knife to a gun fight, and folding your arms, claiming no responsibility for what's going on here.

Even when you're the one who gave the other side guns in the first place.

That's the thing that a lot of dungeon masters forget; they are largely responsible for what's going on, here. Yes the dice and chance play into it, and the players' actions can take you down strange and unexpected paths, but when something skews wrong, it's you who chose to include that element.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.

You're running your campaign (either pre-written, or one that you made yourself), and the only way into your villain's stronghold is through a subterranean warren that's festooned with traps. There are guillotines, drop-away floors, crushing walls, spiked pits, poison darts, explosive runes... everything you can think of, it's in there. That sounds cool... but what do you do if your party has no one with the ability to disable those traps? Especially if a lot of them out-and-out require a special ability to turn them off?

Give you another scenario. Say that your villain has taken the time to properly prepare themselves, laying protective magics over themselves. These protections make them practically immune to weapon attacks, and even most spells, but those protections could be peeled away by a spellcaster with the ability to cast dispel magic... the problem is the party is light on casters, and the ones it does have do not have that spell.

So what do you do in these scenarios?

This is not a rhetorical question, either. Because if your reaction is to shrug and say something along the lines of, "They should have played different characters/spent their skills differently/bought the right magic items," then you are ducking your responsibility in this mess. You are the one who chose to present these scenarios, knowing full well that the group you are all telling the stories about cannot make it through this setup as it's presented. And if you're okay with them hammering themselves to paste against an obstacle they are unlikely (or even unable) to overcome, then you have missed the point of the game.

You're all on the same side. And if all the PCs die here, then the story might very well die with them.

Match The Party To A Challenge They Can Beat

There are, essentially, two ways to go about this. The first is to alter the challenges in the game to fit the capabilities of your party. The second is to alter the capabilities of your party in order to overcome the challenge.

The second one, in case you're wondering, is a whole lot easier nine times out of ten.

But you may need calculators for either approach.

Let's take these approaches, and apply it to the death battle with the wizard. You initially have set it up in such a way that this bad guy is layered in protections, and can now blast away at the PCs without any real worry about their abilities. That is clearly a fight tilted in favor of the bad guy, if the PCs don't have some way to strip away those protections, or reach past them.

If you're changing up the encounter to fit your party's capabilities, then you should do away with the, "Impossible to hit the bad guy unless you dispel 4 or more of his 12 protection spells," scenario. Instead, ask what your party is really good at, and throw them a bone while still making stuff challenging.

For instance, if you have a lot of combat brutes, then have the villain summon legions of undead monsters, or outsiders from beyond the veil, and turn it into a big arena battle. The goal is still the same (stop the wizard), but now instead of contending with a single impossible-to-hit enemy, the party now has to try to avoid getting overwhelmed by the bad guy's minions, while still closing the gap to come to grips with him in a meaningful way. This would allow your melee brutes to go toe-to-toe with real threats, it would give your archer the pick of targets (and allow them to try to spoil spells by firing perfectly-timed arrows at the villain), and if you have buffers like a bard or a cleric in the party, they could really let their powers roar.

By doing this you maintain the challenge of the encounter, but you've turned it into something where everyone can participate and have fun, rather than something that feels they're being punished because no one played a wizard.

Not everyone loves them, after all.

But what about the second method? Okay, so you're sticking with the magically-warded wizard who's blasting away at the party. The problem is that the one method of success that works in this scenario is not something the party can do. So you need to give them the capacity to do it, at least in this one fight.

There are all kinds of ways you can do this. The easiest way is to provide your party with powerful magic items that can mimic the necessary spells a handful of times, which will work the same way as if they had an arcane caster trying to crack open the villain's Russian doll of magical protections. It could be a handful of scrolls inked by potent wizards of years past, it could be a magic staff taken from the villain's own lair (which is a fun bit of irony), or it could just be something they were given by a helpful NPC. You could even include an NPC who acts as the monkey wrench on the players' behalfs. Maybe it's the baron's son, being held in a cage, and he's saved up every ounce of magic he has to cast this one spell to help his rescuers. Maybe it's the sage the party had to escort through the tunnels, acting as a kind of payload to make the final fight that much easier, even if previous fights were made harder because they had to protect him.

The point is that you recognize early on that your party lacks something they will fundamentally need, so you give them something that will allow them to continue the story, and move forward instead of running face first into a wall, and then battering at it until they are slain by a rock slide.

Their Victory is Your Victory, Too

When you sit down to run a game, your goal is to tell a story using the main characters the players provide. There will be hardship, there will be bad luck, and sometimes things you thought were going to be a challenge will be breezed right past due to clever thinking, smart tactics, or just having the right die roll for the right occasion.

If you're ever setting out an encounter, though, and your thoughts are, "This will show them," or, "I'd like to see them beat this one," take a moment, and ask what happens if your encounter kills them. You've just slain your protagonists in mid-story. How does that help you?

Seriously, think it through.

A campaign can survive an occasional death. It can even survive cast changes as players bring in new characters when the old ones finish their arcs. But if everyone dies (or worse, just gets tired of the slog your game becomes when they don't bring the one solution to the problem), then you have no more story to tell.

And you shouldn't be okay with that. The players want to see the end of your campaign, and you should want them to get there. Work with them to make that happen!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday installment! If you'd like to see more of my work, then head over to Vocal, or check out my Gamers archive to see all my tabletop content. Alternatively, you can pop over to the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio where I get together with other gamers to make videos for players and dungeon masters alike!

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