> This is very much not an improv-player attitude IME; improv-players mostly want in-genre things to happen Hardly. Everyone likes to pretend "they're just in

> This is very much not an improv-player attitude IME; improv-players mostly want in-genre things to happen Hardly. Everyone likes to pretend "they're just in it for the story", but in my experience, they just want to give themselves advantages in my experience. > And I note you skipped the Locate City nuke 3.5 is known to be pretty busted. I'm not aware of this sequence of events being possible in Pathfinder, which is my preferred crunch. There are certainly busted things in Pathfinder (see Summoner). But upon recognition, I talk with the player and we work something out. (see Summoner Unchained). If something is busted and truly too much for the system to handle, I stomp down as dungeon master. That's my duty above all, to ensure fairness in the game. ------- EDIT: Looking at the Locate City Nuke, it seems like the problem is solved if I just ban the Snowcasting metamagic feat from Frostburn. In general, my rule is: Do the players want me (the Dungeon Master), using the trick? If so, I use it on them. If not, then its banned. Generally speaking, I, as the dungeon master, can take advantage of these things far more than they can. So its in their best interests to keep the shenanigans in check. --------- Honestly, the "Locate City Nuke" sounds like a fun adventure setting, now that I read up on it. Its a complicated set of 7 metamagics applied to one level 1 spell The players, unlikely would be using this tactic, because its an evil action (indiscriminate killing). If this were "crunchier", and closer to level 5 or 4 spell, yeah, that's a problem. But with this much metamagic needed to make Locate City into an actual problem (plus the need for a very specific Sorcerer / class build to serve as "The Ritual focus"), "Locate City Nuke" follows the pattern of Magical McGuffin (Wizard tries to steal a Princess/Sorceror named Elsa, who has innate connection to Ice Magic) who then stacks 7x kinds of Metamagic to build a particular spell into devestating power. Alternatively, I patch "Locate City" so that it has no "Area" but only a "Range". Dungeon Masters are allowed to patch spells after all.