D&D General How to move a game forward?

[Micah Sweet]

Heh... it probably depends on who you ask. Some people's immediate reaction to any statement regarding working together towards narrative goals, or the Quantum Ogre problem, or occasionally fudging a number or die roll is "Why don't you just write a novel then?!?" For them it might as well be scripted and treat it as such, LOL.

To be fair, I'm not interested personally in any game where the players and/or the GM are working towards narrative goals outside of the PC's perspective unless the game rules themselves are clearly designed with that in mind, and even then I don't want to play D&D that way. Generally against Quantum Ogres and dice-fudging too, although I wouldn't consider any of that a script per say. I'm rather literal that way.

 

[DEFCON 1]

To be fair, I'm not interested personally in any game where the players and/or the GM are working towards narrative goals outside of the PC's perspective unless the game rules themselves are clearly designed with that in mind, and even then I don't want to play D&D that way. Generally against Quantum Ogres and dice-fudging too, although I wouldn't consider any of that a script per say. I'm rather literal that way.

True dat. I honestly think these kinds of players are few and far between anyway... but I've seen the refrain from them on a number of my posts of "Well, why don't you just write a novel then?!?" to make me think they might actually equate the two to a certain extent. Granted, I think in truth it's really just their exaggeration for effect, moreso than honest belief.

 

[Micah Sweet]

True dat. I honestly think these kinds of players are few and far between anyway... but I've seen the refrain from them on a number of my posts of "Well, why don't you just write a novel then?!?" to make me think they might actually equate the two to a certain extent. Granted, I think in truth it's really just their exaggeration for effect, moreso than honest belief.

Yeah, we all do it, especially on the Internet.

 

[S'mon]

Well I think good GMing involves a mix of improv and planning, and no railroading. I create a setting with a bunch of NPCs and adventures, and ways for the PCs to get into the adventures. I've never seen players demand a villain who always gets away!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What's the actual difference between these?

I, too, would like to know the difference.

 

[Raiztt]

The presentation of this question seems, to put it politely, ill conceived. The very framing of the "problem" is not one that I really understand.

"How do you move the game forward" - you don't, PC's move the game forward.

In my last completely-from-scratch-game, I prepared a continent, a vague/loose overarching plot of villains and motivations, and lots of interesting sights. I give the players a problem, and I let them proceed the way they wanted to proceed. If they did something unexpected, I adapted.

Maybe my players are just better and more engaged that bloodtide's and they don't require handholding?

 

[bloodtide]

What's the actual difference between these?

The classic Railroad is clumsy, it's just the DM doing and saying whatever they want to happen. So no matter what the player do the DM just says "nope". The DM does not even bother with 'rules', things just happen.

The metagame one is where the DM uses their "inside knowledge" to stack the game against the players, all by using the rules. This can fool at least half of the players as they will say "wow, amazing the foe had a Potion of Escape".

The last one is Hard Fun. The DM uses their skills, intelligence, game mastery, rules mastery, life mastery and such to simply out do the players. So the DM makes tough powerful NPCs or sets up hard game realities for the players.

Of course most bad players ignore all the above and just say "If I don't like it it's a Railroad!"

I have heard of scripting as in, the PCs storm castles until they find the one with the princess in it, but I have never heard combat scripted by round before. You have had some very interesting encounters with gamers, or just a vivid imagination.

I have seen this crazy scripted game more then once.....so it does have it's fans.

I'm confused by the title and what you've written- what is the actual question here?

"How to move the game forward?"

Present the situations.
Press for answers, what they want to do.
If they're hard pressed, present options. Recap what their characters should know.

Communication is important- I'm often too subtle, I can also be unclear... So I clarify to make sure we're all on the same page.

So you described what I call the random mess.

To move a plot or story forward in a meaningful way, events have to happen or not happen. You can't just have a random mess on top of a random mess. My way, and I think the best way, is for the DM to use Force to make things happen or not happen. Then I know of the scripted and Improv Quantum way......but what else is there?

This is why I gave the easy example: How to do a reacquiring villain? So, once Force is off the table, what else can a DM do?

"How do you move the game forward" - you don't, PC's move the game forward.

Yea, I'd just tell such players to stay home and write their novel.

 

[Charlaquin]

The metagame one is where the DM uses their "inside knowledge" to stack the game against the players, all by using the rules. This can fool at least half of the players as they will say "wow, amazing the foe had a Potion of Escape".

The last one is Hard Fun. The DM uses their skills, intelligence, game mastery, rules mastery, life mastery and such to simply out do the players. So the DM makes tough powerful NPCs or sets up hard game realities for the players.

These sound like the exact same thing. Maybe in theory the latter DM wrote down ahead of time that the foe had a potion of escape and the former did not, but from any perspective but the DM’s own the difference is imperceptible.

 

[Distracted DM]

So you described what I call the random mess.

To move a plot or story forward in a meaningful way, events have to happen or not happen. You can't just have a random mess on top of a random mess. My way, and I think the best way, is for the DM to use Force to make things happen or not happen. Then I know of the scripted and Improv Quantum way......but what else is there?

This is why I gave the easy example: How to do a reacquiring villain? So, once Force is off the table, what else can a DM do?

I'm confused. Do you play in, or run games, where everyone just sits around the table saying "so what are we going to do in D&D tonight?"

The whole basis for this thread seems like a humble-brag. "I hang out with a bunch of DMs and they all say how great my games are and everyone wants to be as great as I am, but I can't explain to them how to be as great as I am, woe is me."

I don't mean to sound harsh, but you described my answer, of how to "move the game forward" as you put it, as a "random mess."

I said "present the situations," I guess to you that means "force things on them." I think we're just using radically different language here, a real misalignment in communication.

But I'll try to answer your question.. "how to do a reoccurring villain."

Well, in my experience the first thing is to introduce the villain early. The players interact with them, and it's obvious through demonstration and description that the villain is beyond them- either because they're powerful, or because there are powerful consequences to harming/stopping them.

Have the players interact with minions of the villain, and have the minions either refer to or have commands from said villain.

If your question is "how do i have the players fight the villain but have the villain get away with out making it seem cheap," well, frankly if the villain gets away from the players when they're capable of defeating them it's going to feel "cheap" to the players because they wanted to kill the villain- but if it's done reasonably, feasibly, via spells or obvious magic items, then even though they might feel cheated they're going to hate that bastard even more and start thinking of ways to prevent them from getting away the second time. Counterspells, those manacles that prevent folk from teleporting, or a Forbiddance spell/trap.

Or you make it obvious that it's a one-time escape; "the ruby in their amulet shatters, enveloping them in magic and stealing them away." Next time they meet the villain, or see the villain, or scout the villain, they're going to ask "does he have another one of those amulets/rubies?"

Thirdly, you can make the character a foil, not a "villain"... at first. A great example of this is the Eberron dungeon magazines adventures featuring the famous Inquisitive. I know one of them is "Chimes at Midnight." There are several interactions with this famous inquisitive beating the party to the punch, or stealing credit from them, or being helpful but really annoying about it. Over the series of adventures, most players will really hate this guy but he's not actually doing anything wrong.
But then, he snaps and becomes a villain. And he's good at it. And the players finally get to take their frustrations out on him.

 

[S'mon]

I said "present the situations," I guess to you that means "force things on them." I think we're just using radically different language here, a real misalignment in communication.

He says it's important as GM to use force to get the desired outcome, to prevent a "random mess" of unexpected stuff happening. Obviously this goes against most GMing advice, which is to give the players the chance to make a meaningful impact on events through their choices.