Something that I have noticed crop up a few times as a player and since I am thinking of GMing soon I’d like some advice on handling it.
How do you handle a “grappler” player? A player who consistently chooses to grab or subdue enemies with their rolls and if they haven’t rolled well enough they choose “avoid blows” to keep themself ready to attempt it again. They never really try to do anything with the environment/using words until they’ve “grappled” the enemy into submission. They also generally have super strength/speed as a power so explaining how an enemy escapes their grip either feels cheap or causes arguments.
Once in a while it’s alright, but when it’s the ONLY action they take it brings the game to a screeching halt and other players start to feel useless. How would you suggest this be handled? Talking to the player privately? I’d rather not go the route of making all the enemies be teleporting mist-monsters…
Some top of the head ideas. Multiple foes. You can’t grapple everything. A foe with super speed who can’t be grappled until that obstacle is overcome. A foe with flight. You might not be able to fly. A foe with an energy shield that has a move which says “any time this foe is touched the recipient is knocked back 10 feet and takes a powerful blow”
I’m not entirely certain how to handle this situation, but it may be interesting to know that when Brendan (the creator) ran this game for me and a group of others, when I went to grapple/subdue my evil twin brother, it was ruled as an Unleash rather than a Directly Engage.
At the very least, it should stop whatever “avoid blows” loopholes are being exploited.
I’d say, if the opponent is combat-capable, having them escape a grappling attempt isn’t that unfeasible. Think Spider-Man vs. Hulk, or any of the brick characters.
I’m tempted to say that of the PC is ignoring the environment, there’s no reason for the villain to. Have them use it against him; drop crates on his head, make fire hydrants explode and splash him, that sort of thing.
If it is an issue of the player not quite getting the feel of the game, communication is always a good option. Talk to him outside of the game and explain what you’re looking for form the characters. It may be just an issue of the player not really knowing what else he can do.
Also, in the fiction, if words gets out that one hero always handles everything this way, then villains will react and come up with counter measures.
If that is how the player has fun, figure out whether it’s really a problem for you and the rest of the group. Once you figure out the underlying problem, address that. Open communication is tough, but makes the gaming experience so much better.
Assuming it’s actually fine for the player to solve every problem with grappling, then find ways to keep GMing the game interesting for you and the other players.
If the PC has directly engaged and resit/avoid the enemies blows, that simply means that they don’t get hurt moving in. But you have other moves at your discretion. And the PCs are heroes already, right? Villains could reasonably expect the PC to grapple foes, as it’s a clearly established preference. I’m sure a clever villain could use that knowledge to set traps:
* The PC grapples a disguised enemy, only to find while grappling it’s someone they wouldn’t expect. (activate the downsides of their abilities and relationships)
* The PC grapples an enemy, only to find they’re wearing an adhesive suit as an attempt to capture them, or is strapped with explosives or toxins or something equally bad. (make them pay a price for victory / turn their move back on them)
* The PC grapples an enemy, who then proceeds to injure them self trying to escape, and a witness thinks the PC was using excessive force. (show the costs of collateral damage / bring an NPC to rash decisions and hard conclusions)
* The PC grapples an enemy, and then the enemy’s partner threatens someone else, forcing the PC to chose between sticking to the current fight or defending the new target (put innocents in danger / capture someone ).
Also, look at the villain moves and the PCs playbook moves. There may be lots of ways to challenge the PC, even if they are quite capable grapplers.
I teach Judo in the real world. I would love to approach more problems by grappling; unfortunately, there are many problems that grappling simply cannot solve.
Well, the obvious option from my perspective is that in most super hero fights, no one is in a position to be grappled. Can your opponent fly? Jump really far? No grappling unless you can too. Teleport? Hah. Good luck with that. Force field? Yeah, that blocks grappling too. Super strength? I guess you can grapple if you WANT… 😉
I’m actually having a hard time imagining what kinds of heroes/villains have powers that grappling them would be A) Feasible B) A good idea C) Any better than anything else, since, let’s face it, if you are grappling with some non-combat-type, you haven’t really accomplished very much.
I’d have a villain mock that PC as “a sad hugger” or call out “bad touch” and use Influence on them.
For that matter, if it’s something for which they gain a reputation, that’s likely to make people think they’re less dangerous, and hence, push to shift their Danger down.
If they can beat a 7+ and always pick “resist/avoid blows” they’re hitting and should succeed. If you don’t want them to beat a 7+, have NPCs yell at them and shift their labels around. Or, if they keep their Danger really high, have NPCs yell at them and give them conditions because their Danger is too high.
In our game, “mobility” is an option for “take something from them” when directly engaging. Only on a 10+ can we both avoid damage and restrain someone. I’d otherwise use unleash powers as described, for example if corralling someone into an environmental trap.
Bill Garrett That makes a ton of sense, actually. You can HIT them on a hit, but if you want to HOLD ON and deprive them of their mobility, that needs you to pick an option for it. Brilliant.
Jason Corley
I haven’t actually gm’d yet, but a player I played with has done this and it left the rest of us feeling useless and I could tell the gms were a bit flummoxed themselves. I don’t have an issue with the hit itself, just that they weren’t using any variety.
Mike Pureka
It was becoming a problem since they played as narratively high-power types like legacy and nova while team mates were narratively weaker as janus/beacon/delinquent, so enemies that we could get a hand on were susceptible.
Andrew Fish
These are all pretty good suggestions! I’d probably give the player some time to get a benefit from the grapple before allowing the villain to enact the response.
If I’m being honest, the player who inspired this question has something of a, uh, “thing” for playing huge powerhouse female characters who grapple everything so it’s partially to cut that particular magical realm off at the pass, partially to get a feel of appropriate responses to this sort of behavior.
Speaking From experience with the player who inspired this(I Was in one of the games Mentioned here), I don’t think that being a Grappler is the issue, I think the issue is being a Rules Lawyer and trying to abuse the rules of the game to get the experience of being truly overpowered, as the GM Tried to have a Villian Escape from this player but he explained that “I Got a 10+ and chose to take their Mobility from them, and Avoid their Blows, so they should not be able to get away from me or hurt me” Even though quite some time had passed since that sucessful roll. The player also had a habit of Rolling for burn when the GM was busy doing other stuff, and then Interrupting the GM in the middle of action saying things like “Well we aren’t gonna be hit by the arrows, Because I’m Gonna use Moat as soon as I see the Arrows being fired” Gm describes plot item getting away for future arc, “Suprise! I have Burn, So I Snatch it”. It’s all kinda a shame because he seems like a nice guy, he just has this odd “GM vs Players” Mentality that really messes stuff up for everyone.
Uuuuuugh.
I definitely wouldn’t allow “take something from them” to include “mobility.” Like, you should be taking AN ACTUAL THING from them, IMO. Their laser gun, their dead man’s switch, their selfie stick, etc.
Also, you can’t roll anything without saying that you’re doing it. Rolling Burn should be accompanied by a Dragonball Z style “powering up” description that makes everyone high five each other.
Jason Corley
I believe It’s actually mentioned in the main rule book that you can take “conceptual” things such as mobility. The issue comes when that tactic is combined with, like Joe Hudson Jr mentioned, a combatitive munchkin mindset, where the way the action was framed makes it hard for the gm or other players to do much of anything.
“Taking something from them means you can take something physical or conceptual from the threat. You could, for instance, take the Doomray they’re holding in their hands, knocking it out of their grip with one of your punches; or, you could take their footing, knocking them to the ground and giving you a chance to run; or, you could take their position in front of the controls for the Tachyon Cannon. This is your chance to use your attack to change your position and theirs.”
That said, yes, it sounds like the real problem is not “how to adjudicate grappling”, but more like “how to get the player in the spirit of the game”. I hear a lot of “make them not do the thing they say they want to do”. Without knowing the player in question it’s hard to suggest anything specific. But what happens if you just tell them “the way you’re playing isn’t really in line with how Masks is intended to work, so let’s talk about that”? The answer, some of the time, will be “well I don’t like that then” and that’s how it goes.
I guess ultimately, my response is that if they’re only hitting 7-9 then they can either take away the mobility OR resist the blows. They have to hit 10+ in order to do both. That shouldn’t be expected unless their Danger is 3+, in which case the GM should be having passersby shout “He’s a menace!” or the villain screams “you’re choking me, you brute!” and trying to shift the Label up c.o.n.s.t.a.n.t.l.y.
Well, the thing is on a 7-9 He Would Always Pick Reist/Avoid, and then Try again ASAP and repeat this until he got a 10+.
But is he never getting hit in the meantime? Isn’t he missing and the villain getting a slam dunk on him?
Unfortunately no, He Was Getting Insane Luck With R20’s RNG, Plus the GM was pretty new so all he did for fights was dish out powerful blows, which the player would always choose give ground in response to and immediately try to make up for said given ground. I Should mention that the GM of this Game Completely scrapped it after This Player tried to argue that his Biokinesis Would Prevent him from being cursed by this mummy villain, which the GM was clearly just trying to use as a hook for the planned arc.
Huh. A string of weird luck can happen of course.
Bill Garrett while a particular player inspired this question I had been hoping to get general answers on how to gracefully work both with and around similar players when I attempt GMing myself. I personally am not a very assertive person (I started playing to practice talking w/ people) so talking in private with them, while the most obvious answer was also the most dreaded one lol.
Joe Hudson Jr Ouch. Definitely sounds like a player who isn’t “getting” the game. Communication is key; he needs to know that what he’s doing is going against the spirit of the game. RPGs aren’t about winning, it’s about having fun.
Chesh Ameoba, I understand the problem. Being assertive doesn’t come easy to me either. 🙂
Unfortunately, part of being a GM is being an arbiter, and that means sometimes having to tell a player no.
Players don’t get to “reroll” without contributing to the fiction, and thus justifying why they are hitting the trigger again. In the meantime, the situation changes, the villains and other NPCs should be doing stuff, the other PCs should be doing stuff as they get spotlight.
If the player continues to move the fiction forward, and really does hit the trigger in the fiction, cool no problem. Seems to me like the GM (and other players) were letting him slide on one or both of those. Maybe someone needed to step in and say “hang on, you just hit him and dodged away, how are you getting back into position?” Or like, “Before you go back to the dice, describe how you directly engage for us.”
As for arguments about powers justifying fictional set ups… the PCs are kids, their powers are unpredictable. Make them roll Unleash if something strikes you as uncertain. “Sure you can normally superspeed down the hallway at school, but this is a stressful situation!” Maybe things go sideways sometimes.
In any case, Corley is spot on. Ok let them catch the bad guy… he or she will still punch them right in the feels.
What you have described suggests this player:
– hogs the spotlight
– focuses on rules over story
– makes other players feel their characters are useless spectators of his one-man-show
– makes the game not fun for everyone else
Why do you want to continue to play with him?
If you don’t have an answer to that, then don’t. Your games will be better off without him.
If somehow he is still worth playing with, you need to talk to him outside of the game and discuss how his behavior is toxic to everyone else’s fun. Get him to come up with things he can do differently by first highlighting the impact his current methods have on everyone else.
If he refuses to change so everybody at the game can have fun, ask again why you want to still play with him.
Grey Kitten yeah I am actually pretty new to playing and when I had played with this person I did not know they were something of a notorious name in the community (to the point other groups I know either remade to oust this person or collapsed in on themselves ) and will probably avoid playing with or allowing them into games I GM in the future.
But this thread has both given me good tips on gm moves/reactions to a “grapple” type hero and let me know that I may just unavoidably have to talk to certain players in private.
Talking to problem players outside the game to resolve problems is part of the deal you’re signing up for when you GM a game.
You can avoid some of that by speaking to the group up front:
– Set ground rules – by establishing boundaries up front, if and when someone crosses a line you can refer back to the ground rules instead of having to bring up an uncomfortable topic for the first time just because someone went there.
– For a PbtA game like Masks, talk about the Principles and Agenda – For Masks, you could just read out loud the text on page 8 “Tales to Astonish!” through 10 “Playing to Find Out” to make sure that everyone is on the same page for what type of game this is.
Read it out loud to the table. If you’re playing online via text chat, copy and paste the whole three sections for everyone to have it in front of them.
This is a step that is easy to skip for PbtA games that comes back to bite you if you do with people each having their own different assumptions about what the game is supposed to be, and those different assumptions pull the whole game apart.
Grey Kitten oh definitely. I plan on asking players about things they do/don’t want to see while also setting my own boundaries in that regard. I also plan to read out the pages you mentioned too, even if everyone’s already heard it. It’s a good grounding point.
Doyce Testerman From what little we got to play, they seemed the “loner, nothing getting under my skin” type so the few social situations we got to were a bit grinding, and my Bull who had them as a rival was a bit stymied in how to get a rise out of them…The player themselves got irritated when the gm inflicted a “hair falling out” curse that they couldn’t just biokinesis away and then the game imploded spectacularly.