I would like to see how players competing against each other worked in game, but I don’t think it does. How does that competition improve cooperation inside the party? Again I would like for someone to show me how well that works. Perhaps the worlds that people play in are not that dangerous, and so players ‘up the ante’ by competing with themselves? I don’t know. On the other hand I have spoken against competition in D&D before, where players compete against the DM or vice versa. Competing in this greater arena seems like total folly. It suggests to me that the people at the table are young, or acting young.
My context for game is that of adults playing the game, so forgive me if you actually are young and I am sounding critical. Adults shouldn’t use the game to ‘recapture their youths,’ at least not in a long-term, healthy game. The first and best example of this aberrant behavior is the immature DM making the game harder because he or she is upset at what the players are doing. I am not just talking about anger here.
The DM made this ulta-cool adventure, with neat NPCs, fascinating traps and unique bad guys, the lead-up to which being a great story in itself. However, the players don’t want to pursue the leads or engage with the story. This week they would rather do something easy and spontaneous. The DM doesn’t necessarily get angry at this, but is damn-well going to make whatever the players want to do really hard and dangerous. This is what I am talking about. The DM here is not able to step back but has to ramp it up, because the players just are not playing right. They are not doing what the DM wants them to do, and so, they will pay.
Perhaps, alternatively, the DM feels that the players just are not smart enough in a given situation and so deserve to be punished. Now think about that. The DM has taken time to craft something he or she thinks is really clever. The players miss some aspect of the DM’s cleverness. Therefore, the characters deserve whatever negative fate they get. Let’s say in this instance that half of the party is lost. Who here wants to hear the DM go on about how dumb the players were? Who here wants their DM to emphasize the player’s shortcomings, because their thinking didn’t match up to the DM’s? Don’t do that crap.
If the party is low leveled, and an area near their location on the map is full of giant dinosaurs, then the proper thing for the DM to do is to make the dinosaur area sound as dangerous as it surely is. The players would deserve to lose their characters if they decided to fight these massive beasts, all good. But note the difference in thinking. The danger of the situation is made clear by the DM. There is nothing for the players to figure out except the obvious. If the DM was angry at the way his or her players have chosen to play then there is still NO reason to hold back these danger signs. That would be the same as attacking the low-leveled party on the road with an ancient Red Dragon. There is no good place for it in a healthy game.
Now perhaps your game isn’t so healthy. Perhaps your players are playing poorly. I am not talking about bad rolls or even players being disconnected from what’s happening at the table. I am talking about players who have lost the reason to care anymore. I am talking about jaded players, and players who in all honesty would rather be doing something else. These situations are much better handled outside of the game. Talk to players as a group or individually. If someone is going through a hard time then that should be understood, at least by the DM. If there are personality issues between players then that should be handled publically. The game isn’t just for the game. In role-playing, more than in any other kind of game, relationships matter. Arbitrary actions or acts out of frustration or anger need to receive a mature response.
