How does a DM deal with players who look for these wild ideas?
I think it’s fine to think outside of the box and metagame. But does it end up in a slippery slope where it feels like the players just want to outthink every encounter where it’s just a rube Goldberg set of plays?
There isn’t anything to “deal” with. If you want your players to only give predetermined solutions to problems, you really need to play a different game.
But say by adventure 10, they’re still trying to beat the system. It feels exhausting trying to create a story like “A vampire council, but they have anti-magic doors so you can’t disguise yourself. And also no rats. And you can’t teleport in there. And summoning a devil or warping the castle is forbidden. And…”
In a world where magic exists and anti-magic countermeasures are a thing do you think any reasonably powerful person wouldn’t have them in place? It seems like you’re trying to come across as ridiculous but all of those sounds like pretty reasonable precautions in a magical world.
Agreed, it’s even comparative to our world. My local grocery store doesn’t have metal detectors, but the county court offices do, and then the white house has stuff way beyond even that. You can bet your bottom dollar that if wild shape was a thing that certain buildings would be built to uncover that kind of thing.
Imo this is firm “you can get away with it exactly once” territory. It’s clever, so it should be rewarded. But after the once every lord will mysteriously have anti-shape shifting wards.
They don’t need wands. It’s a first level spell that can be cast as a ritual. 2 guards with at least 1 level in Wizard can always have detect magic active.
Personally I think the players coming up with some cool new trick for each encounter sounds pretty good. The problem is when they find one cool new trick that works for everything. Like, casting Create Water in someone’s lungs sounds awesome the first time you do it, but you don’t want a whole campaign of just that. But even if the players agree that that would be boring, it’s hard not to do that without justifying why it wouldn’t work, and if it wouldn’t work every time, why would it have worked the first time?
If you’re not a fan of this type of behaviour, I recommend playing a TTRPG that isn’t D&D.
D&D has gotten a bit of an “LULLZRANDOM!!11!!” reputation, possibly because of the content creators needing something whacky to get views, or just because of how mainstream it is. If you need to stand out in a crowd of thousands being extreme, novel, or whacky has the lowest effort for the highest reward.
If everyone at the table finds the game fun, then you are playing correctly. I find this behaviour exhausting and would tell the players that it needs to stop unless someone else wants to GM.
How does a DM deal with players who look for these wild ideas?
I think it’s fine to think outside of the box and metagame. But does it end up in a slippery slope where it feels like the players just want to outthink every encounter where it’s just a rube Goldberg set of plays?
There isn’t anything to “deal” with. If you want your players to only give predetermined solutions to problems, you really need to play a different game.
If you’ve got the right DM for it, they lean into it, because everyone’s having fun.
But say by adventure 10, they’re still trying to beat the system. It feels exhausting trying to create a story like “A vampire council, but they have anti-magic doors so you can’t disguise yourself. And also no rats. And you can’t teleport in there. And summoning a devil or warping the castle is forbidden. And…”
In a world where magic exists and anti-magic countermeasures are a thing do you think any reasonably powerful person wouldn’t have them in place? It seems like you’re trying to come across as ridiculous but all of those sounds like pretty reasonable precautions in a magical world.
Agreed, it’s even comparative to our world. My local grocery store doesn’t have metal detectors, but the county court offices do, and then the white house has stuff way beyond even that. You can bet your bottom dollar that if wild shape was a thing that certain buildings would be built to uncover that kind of thing.
That’s just forbiddance. Just need 1 wizard with 6th level spells to ritual cast it once a day for a month.
Just don’t do that lol, let them do wacky hijinks, or play a system without the wacky hijinks
Imo this is firm “you can get away with it exactly once” territory. It’s clever, so it should be rewarded. But after the once every lord will mysteriously have anti-shape shifting wards.
Or guards with detect magic.
I immediately thought about guards with wands of detect magic. Then I realized we’ve reinvented the TSA.
They don’t need wands. It’s a first level spell that can be cast as a ritual. 2 guards with at least 1 level in Wizard can always have detect magic active.
Personally I think the players coming up with some cool new trick for each encounter sounds pretty good. The problem is when they find one cool new trick that works for everything. Like, casting Create Water in someone’s lungs sounds awesome the first time you do it, but you don’t want a whole campaign of just that. But even if the players agree that that would be boring, it’s hard not to do that without justifying why it wouldn’t work, and if it wouldn’t work every time, why would it have worked the first time?
If you’re not a fan of this type of behaviour, I recommend playing a TTRPG that isn’t D&D.
D&D has gotten a bit of an “LULLZRANDOM!!11!!” reputation, possibly because of the content creators needing something whacky to get views, or just because of how mainstream it is. If you need to stand out in a crowd of thousands being extreme, novel, or whacky has the lowest effort for the highest reward.
If everyone at the table finds the game fun, then you are playing correctly. I find this behaviour exhausting and would tell the players that it needs to stop unless someone else wants to GM.