Brock Savage
Cosmic Barbarian
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2019
- Messages
- 5,013
- Reaction score
- 14,554
I consider this behavior to be disrespectful and unacceptable at the table. When players start questioning a GM's judgement it starts a death-spiral that is almost impossible to avert. To put it bluntly, you are in a classic "throwing pearls before swine" situation.I’m particularly annoyed at myself for not putting my foot down with one of the players who is chronically disengaged. On his phone all the time, or on his computer working for fuck’s sake
You might just be better off scrapping the whole thing and sitting things out until you find some players that are better matched. There's no shame in it. I've have gone without running a game for years because I didn't have the right players to appreciate my vision. I used that time to improve my craft, hang out on gaming boards, and tinker around with new settings until the right players came along.
I recommend that you try rolling everything on the GM side in the open with no fudging. I realize that it sounds counter-intuitive for the kind of game you are trying to run but I find that rolling in the open builds credibility and trust with the players. Perhaps even more importantly, it generates tension and drama. If you play your cards right, you will regularly have the entire table standing up, intensely focused on the result of your next roll.