Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 283 - Saying No

Episode Date: September 6, 2026

Ever feel like your players' chaotic choices are steering your campaign off a cliff? In this episode, we explore the ultimate tool for protecting your game, your players, and your own sanity: the word "No" #rpg #ttrpg #dnd #pathfinder #gmtips #sayingno #no Resources: Buy Me a Coffee! - ko-fi.com/taking20podcast www.taking20podcast.com  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/taking20podcast  Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/taking20podcast

This week on the Taking 20 podcast. Saying no to one person's chaotic whim is often how you say yes to a cohesive, collaborative story everyone else showed up to tell. Thank you for listening to The Taking 20 podcast, episode 283, giving my beloved DMs out there, the confidence and the tools to say no. I want to thank this week's sponsor, Bikinis. I watched a documentary about bikinis, and I watched a documentary about bikinis, and it was in two parts, and very revealing, actually.

If you like this podcast, please follow, like, subscribe, and take a few seconds to comment on an episode. Every time you do so, it feeds back into whatever this mythical algorithm is and increases the chance that someone else who would enjoy this podcast can find it. Interesting news for those of us play Pathfinder. Paiso is partnered with Drive-Thru RPG to offer all of Paiso's PDF for sale for their Pathfinder and Starfinder products on the infinite marketplaces. There are now over 1,200 titles available with print options from Paiso coming soon.

Also, in the coming months, they're going to offer something called Paiso Connect that allows you to connect Paiso accounts with your drive-through RPG account and sync purchases across those two sites. Honestly, this is a great thing, because while I've loved Paiso ever since the 1E days, their web store was always kind of janky and a little outdated. So I think this is one of those collaborations that's going to benefit both companies. No other news this week. On to the episode proper.

You're getting ready to run Abomination Vaults. Your players are lined up. Session Zero is scheduled for next week. You've sent out your player guides with world lore and character limitations, and you've asked the players to email you their character builds and or character concepts before the session so you can vet what. they're wanting to play. Three of the characters are well within rules that you've set up,

and then there's Jonathan's character. Jonathan sends you a build that uses third-party products, contradicts the campaign lore you've established, it violates the player's guide, and you're pretty sure the calculations among the multiple skill bonuses are absolutely wrong. You take a deep sigh and dread what you're going to have to do next. You're going to have to tell the player, no, you can't play. play this character. It may be uncomfortable in the short term, but there are definite times when

no is the best answer you can give. Saying no isn't about denying players the right to have fun or shutting down avenues of role play. It's about protecting the game in all the ways you can, making it fun for all of the players and keeping the structure of the game you want to run. And lastly, frankly, it's also about keeping your sanity as a DM. Let's start with the obvious. No is a powerful tool, and to quote a former IT boss of mine, no is also a complete sentence. What that means is that when you decline a request, set a boundary for your game,

or refuse a player request, you don't necessarily owe anyone an explanation or long justification for the decision. A GM, I know you said that Dragon Lance, the world has no clerics, but can I run a cleric anyway? No is a fine answer to that, period. It makes no sense with the established lore that at this time in the Dragonlance world, there are no clerics. Ah, DM, this obscure deity is only present in other continents of the world, but I want to use it for min-maxing purposes elsewhere. No is an adequate explanation there.

It makes no sense in the world as built. I found this really overpowered cool class in a third-party book that it's like all the best aspects of a paladin, psychic, and monk. Can I use this in your campaign? No. I previously said that there's no third-party products allowed. Everything you build must come from the core rulebook or at least rule books from that same core rulebook publisher. In all three of those examples, you're welcome to just say no and ask them to make another choice. And to be perfectly clear, by the way, you're always allowed to use the word no to establish boundaries or protect the table or the other players. Saying no to one person's chaotic whim is often how you say yes to a cohesive, collaborative story everyone else showed up to tell.

You aren't just a robot running in the background. You are a player too if you're behind the screen. and your fun, your comfort is absolutely essential to the health of the game just as much as the other players. But Jeremy, you have encouraged DMs to accommodate players whenever possible, like working with them to compromise on character builds, helping them fit their character into the world, and even bend rules for the sake of fun. Yeah, I did and still agree that those are good tenants to live your GM life by. But notice, I didn't say that you,

you should give one player an advantage over the others, or bend the rules for one player and not anyone else, or allow PCs to completely disrupt the entire game world just to make them happy. In short, there are times when no should be a tool used by all of us DMs. Don't get me wrong, yes, accommodate choices when you can. For example, in a recent Pathfinder 2E campaign, I wanted to play an elf cleric from a distant part of the world for a reason that one of the deities in that remote region had a core belief of protecting the innocent,

which fit well into the campaign the GM wanted to run and the character that I wanted to play. And the GM, to his credit, basically said, OK, if you can come up with a reason why your elf would travel from that continent to be in this area of the world where the adventure takes place, I'll allow it. Otherwise, the answer is no. That's more than fair, by the way. The area of the world that Spore War takes place in is an area originally settled by elves and still has quite a few elven settlements in the area. The GM put the onus on me, the player, to come up with an in-world, in-lore reason why my character with that background would be in-that part of the world.

And that is my first tip for you. One way you can say no is to put the onus on the player to come up with an in-world reason why what they want to do makes sense. Sometimes they'll come up with a reason that would allow you to say yes, by the way, and if so, I encourage you to work with the player and allow their request or find a middle ground compromise. However, if what they are wanting would disrupt your game or disrupt your world or make you change a lot of the lore and history, like wanting to play a cleric in a world where clerics don't exist, then you absolutely should say no. And so, what can you say no to?

anything. It could be a character build. It could be a choice the character is making in the middle of the game. Could be a player expressing a desire to do something against the rules. It could be somebody trying to violate a line or veil. If you don't feel comfortable or if you think any of your other players wouldn't feel comfortable, then please, by all means, say no to that particular player's request. So when and why should you say no? I think there are three main reasons why. I think there are three main reasons why you should feel comfortable saying no to any player request. The first and most important reason to say no is to maintain the safety and comfort of your table.

If a player or character wants to do something that would make other players or characters uncomfortable, then you have every right, you have the onus, you have the absolute direction to say no to that player character. No, I'm not going to allow your character to do that. Imagine you've established lines and veils during your session zero, and one of them is no sexual activity between player characters. During downtime, the bard makes repeated attempts to seduce the cleric

and expresses his character's desire to make sexual advances towards the other character. That is beyond a line and veil that you have already established, and you should absolutely shut that shit down. Tell the Bard's PC that sexual activity and advances are not allowed at the table and to immediately stop. Yes, this might cause hurt feelings in the Bard's player, but you are preserving the integrity of the game that everyone agreed to when we established lines as veils. It does not matter the gender or orientation or any other characteristics of either player or character involved.

Unwanted sexual advances are always an opportunity for the GM to say no. It doesn't have to be sex that could be beyond the line or veil. It also could be violence or bloodshed or some other thing that makes another player or character uncomfortable. One of my players is very uncomfortable with large amounts of bugs. So one of the other players in that campaign wanted to describe a swarm of scorpions that they summon with the spell in great detail. And so what I said was, no, we're going to reflaver that spell as something besides insects. It could be mist, it could be ferrets, it could be gerbils, it could be any number of things

besides small insects that makes that one player squeamish. The stats didn't change, the way it's castes changed, the effects didn't change, but in session zero we'd established that as a line and veil that someone tried to cross, my immediate answer had to be no and to find another way for that spell to have an effect but not cross that line or veil. Another reason for a DM to say no is if a player ever starts harassing or bullying another player. The most common way I see this, by the way, the way it manifests, none of the guise of, well, it's what my character would do.

They tried to steal from other PCs. They try to lie to the other PCs. They try to act in a way that would ruin the fun for the other players. And they try to claim, well, that's what my character would do. My character would sell out to the big bad. My character would try to steal the magic items and run away in the night. That kind of thing. I've had that happen a few times with players in the past,

and every time I say, no, you make another choice for your character. If that is what your character would do and that's what you're determined that your character's going to do and you're not going to change your mind, great, your character just died, make another one that acts like a heroic member of the adventuring party and can work with others. I'm just role-playing my character.

It's not an excuse to act like a dick at the table. And you, my beloved GMs out there, if a PC starts acting that way, you should shut it down with a simple, no, you can't do that. A variant second reason to say no is anytime a player wants to break the social contract of RPG gaming. I've done episodes on the social contract of RPGs in the past. One of the parts of the social contract is that the team will work together

to accomplish whatever the goal of the adventurer is. So if all of a sudden one of the player characters wants to attack another character or assassinate another character in the night, you have every right to say, no, that doesn't happen in my game. You're working together. You're part of a team. Another aspect of the social contract of RPG gaming is that all of the players and their characters should have the opportunity to have the spotlight. People have widely varying personalities, and some people feel very comfortable in the spotlight. They're very talkative. They're even made very loud and boisterous and readily step into the spotlight,

sometimes at the expense of another player who may be willing to contribute, but not as forceful or direct or willing to do. jump into that spotlight and garner attention for themselves. If one player or character or even multiple players or characters are hogging the spotlight at the expense of other players and characters, you have every right to say, for example, hang on, Jessica, I want to hear what David's character has to say about this. By guiding other players into the spotlight, and you're in a way asking the more dominant players to take a just a slight, just a half step back, you're saying no to them, but for the benefit of everyone around the table

so that those who otherwise would go unseen have an opportunity to contribute. You should always feel comfortable using No to redirect the spotlight to a player or maybe who hasn't had it for a while. Another part of the social contract of RPG games is that loot and equipment and experience points get shared as equally as possible.

If you ever have a player who is hogging more than their share and not being a good member of the group. Then when they try to grab that magical staff that was just found in the loot, you have every right to say, no, hang on, no, no, no. I would like you to offer that to other player characters, or if you desperately want that staff,

what are you going to offer up to the rest of the party in exchange for it? By saying no in situations like this, you are doing your best to keep the loot and character wealth as equitable as you possibly can. That being said, It's nearly impossible to keep it fully even down to the gold piece, or at least it has been impossible in my past as a GM. Trust your gut on this one, by the way.

If it feels like one of the PCs is getting wealthy at the expense of the others, feel free to say no to that PC. Moving on from social contracts of the game, another reason to say no is any time a player attempts to exploit a rule. This is just a variant of a PC trying to gain advantage over the other PCs, whether they intend to or not. Tabletop RPGs have a ton of rules, some more than others. But there are always edge cases, no matter how many rules game systems may have. If you go back to D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder 1E, there are a ton of metric ton, a fuck ton of rules in those game systems. But still, weird scenarios come up, and there's always corner cases that are open to interpretation.

For example, in D&D 5E, you cast invisibility on yourself, and your appearance fades into nothingness. Great. No one can see you. Well, except the opposing wizard cast see invisibility. Now then, the invisibility spell has two effects listed in the spell description. One, you're impossible to see without the aid of magic or special senses. Great.

For your wizard opponent, that means you are possible to see because they have magical ability to see you. However, there's a second bullet in the invisibility spell that says that attack right, against you have disadvantage. So my question for the rules lawyers out there is, does that opposing wizard, who casts the invisibility, have disadvantage on attacks against this wizard that had cast invisibility on himself? I really wish I had a microphone on all my listeners, because I bet it's more split than you think.

Rules as written, the wizard still has disadvantage on the attack because there's nothing in the rules of C invisibility that negates that bullet. But I think rules as intended, I think the wizard loses that disadvantage on the attack roll, and attack rolls will be made normally because the wizard can see the other invisible one. I saw this come up at a friendly local game store a while back, and the discussion was loud and long, with about half the table arguing each side. I listened for a bit and then went about my day because it is not my place to try to step into somebody else's table and resolve disputes. but the point is that there's always edge cases

and a player may make a very passionate appeal for the rules to be interpreted in a way that's best for them. I'm not going to fault players for that, by the way, but you as the DM have the right to make the call on the interpretation of the rule and say no to the player's interpretation if you have to. Or in a Pathfinder 2e game I was running, there was some confusion about the way wounded and dying interacted with each other,

with one player vehemently arguing for an interpretation of the rule that in my mind was clearly incorrect but to their advantage. The rule was later eroded, by the way, which is one thing Paiso does really, really well with their rule systems. Their interpretation would have meant, by the way, that anyone who at zero hit points would be trapped in a wounding, dying death spiral that would be impossible to escape from. I explained my view and attempted to move the game forward, and when they brought it up again, I had to politely but firmly say, no, that rule has been interpreted, and that's how

going to be used at the table. I had to say no to shut down a continued argument that this one player just wanted to keep having. But I feel that's valid. When a player wants to interpret a rule in a way that you don't feel is right and you don't feel comfortable interpreting it that way, or would be a give them an advantage over their other players, no is a valid answer to that request. Finally, it is perfectly fine to say no when a player request breaks the rules of your campaign world in some way, big or small. It sounds very dramatic when I say it like that, but there are rules you establish when you create the RPG world where the PCs are going to be adventuring. Starting with the structure of the world, the government, the rulers, the economy, effectively

the how and why of the game world, it gets established by you, the DM. If the player makes the request that would break that structure, then GM should absolutely feel comfortable saying no to that player request. Imagine you're playing a game in a low magic survival-based setting where magic items and magic spells are extremely rare, maybe even viewed with suspicion or downright scorn. The PCs are in a remote fishing village far away from rich civilization and one of the players says they want to find a magic shop to buy a plus one kukri.

Not only would there not be a magical vendor in this cod-based backwater, if there were, they probably wouldn't want to run the risk of selling to people that aren't from around here. Imagine you had said yes, and there's suddenly a magic vendor where it makes no sense for there to be one. You've now just shattered the logic of the world, thrown the world into a bit of chaos, proven to your players that you're willing to break the narrative to acquiesce to their demands. Or imagine the country the PCs are in are ruled by a distant, aloof, hell, unreachable entity that's, hardly ever seen in public, much less interacting with the public at large. The PCs are arrested for a minor offense and demand to see the Empress, by the gods,

does she know who she's offended? For we are the PCs and we shall have an audience with the Empress Leora to read her the riot act. You guys are level two. And while you may be known in small circles in one town, the Empress neither knows who you are, nor does she give two craps about your existence. As far as the state knows, you're petty criminals. In a world as established, there's no way the empress would agree to such a demand. Allowing the PCs to dictate terms of how the world works would possibly be world and game-breaking even. Your world is built on, among other things, a certain tone, a certain lore, a certain logic, and a certain set of rules.

Any PC requests that would break or violate those people, pillars of your world should be denied to maintain the verisimilitude of your world, if that has any importance to you at all. While telling your players no can be uncomfortable, it's sometimes necessary to keep the inmates from running the asylum. Understandably, they have their desires and goals that while you should support when you can, saying no is an important part of keeping the game on track within boundaries set by the world and can foster cooperative environments while.

maintaining necessary limits. Using no to maintain the tone, lore, and logic of your world will make your game better, and ultimately, you and your players will have more fun doing it. Thank you for listening. If you have a topic idea,

please feel free to submit them to me, ideally even with a donation to my coffee, K-O-S-Fi.com or email me, feedback at taking-20podcast.com, or find me on social media, Links are in the description. Tune in next time when I'm going to give GM some advice to make their NPCs stand out

and, players, I have not forgotten you, how to use that same advice for your characters. But before I go, I want to thank this week's sponsor, Bikinis. One of my female friends once sat at a pool party that bikinis are like statistics. What they reveal is interesting, but what they conceal is vital. Love you, Lori. I hope you're listening, girl. This has been episode 283, giving DM some confidence to say, know, my name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 podcast is Copyright 2026 by Jeremy Shelley. The opinions or views

expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the host. References to game system content are copyright their respective publishers.