Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Legends & Lore 09/03 - RPG design philosophy
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6008577" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I really was expecting this to end with "to have the disease you contracted cured". It was only when I got to the end of the second sentence that I realised "bites it" here is a term of art!</p><p></p><p>My own view is that that's not the only way, at least for negotiation. You can also set up fictional situations, in which the players are invested via their PCs, <em>which will be advantaged by negotiating rather than fighting</em>.</p><p></p><p>But setting up such situations, adjudicating them fairly and effectively, and drawing in the players, is not trivial. It's a GMing skill that can be developed like any other, but good advice can help.</p><p></p><p>(I don't think that you, CJ, will disagree with much of what follows - though perhaps I'm wrong on that. Rather, I think I'm treating "negotiation" more broadly than you had in mind.)</p><p></p><p>A simple example: In my game, the PCs fought a Torog cultist and her hired rabble. The rabblee include dockside heavies and wererats. Some of the wererats and one of the heavies escaped. The wererats went back to their base, a ruined temple of Erathis. The heavy went back to the docks. The PCs could easily have tracked down and defeated either or both in battle, but had better things to do with their time - and the players had better things to do to! So the PCs started court proceedings to get the wererats evicted as squatters - which ended up working, but the resolution of the courtroom skill challenge gave me the chance to put in a nice twist concerning the balance of power between secular and religious authorities in the town - and, once they'd retaken possession of the tower in the name of Erathis, defeated the troll, rats and gargoyles that the wererates left behind, and restored it as a temple, the party invoker-wizard tracked down the heavy and hired him as leader of the temple guard and tithe collectors.</p><p></p><p>Why did the players go this route? Well, they (and their PCs) were getting anxious about the bodycount in the town since their arrival (around 40, in a town of 5,000-odd, over the course of a few days) and didn't want to add to it. They wanted their PCs' re-establishment of the temple to be as legitimate as possible. And the temple is in the docks quarter, and the PCs wanted a reliable guard who would make the temple a site for the projection of power, rather than a victim of others' projection of power.</p><p></p><p>What are some of the GMing techniques that help lead to the players framing their choices in this way? Showing that death is not the only stakes, by having NPCs run away. Showing that negotiation is possible, by having former enemy NPCs agree to and keep to new terms (the recruitment of the dock heavy as a guard is only the latest such episode in the campaign). Making it clear - by overt communication, as well as practices of adjudication - that the PCs can get what the players want them to get by means that raise rather than lower the esteem of the PCs in polite society (winning court cases rather than killing and terrorising), and <em>making that social context itself matter for subsequent framings of situations</em> - for example, letting the PCs enjoy the modest but real benefits that flow from being esteemed, Paragon-tier saviours of a town.</p><p></p><p>Conversely, what are GMing techniques that can shut down these sorts of possibilities? Never having NPCs run away or surrender. When NPCs surrender and agree to terms, having them routinely break their promises - or, even moreso, having them routinely betray the PCs (I have seen [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] be especially vocal about this in the past). Having NPCs treat even high level PCs as hired rabble of no social consequence (published adventures have from the beginning been rife with this). Making it hard or impossible for the players to achieve goals for their PCs (eg treasure, status, McGuffins, whatever) without fighting for them (eg Gygax advised that NPC wizards will never agree to reasonable terms for sharing spells - this is practically inviting the PCs to slaughter and rob every NPC wizard they meat, in order to power up the PC magic-users!). More generally, making "0 hp" the only measure of finality for the GM: or in other words, the GM behaving as if s/he is free always to reopen some conflict, go back on a settlement, unless it was made final by death of one of the parties.</p><p></p><p>Some of these techniques are about GMing style. But some - like the issue of finality in non-combat conflict resolution - also go to mechanics.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6008577, member: 42582"] I really was expecting this to end with "to have the disease you contracted cured". It was only when I got to the end of the second sentence that I realised "bites it" here is a term of art! My own view is that that's not the only way, at least for negotiation. You can also set up fictional situations, in which the players are invested via their PCs, [I]which will be advantaged by negotiating rather than fighting[/I]. But setting up such situations, adjudicating them fairly and effectively, and drawing in the players, is not trivial. It's a GMing skill that can be developed like any other, but good advice can help. (I don't think that you, CJ, will disagree with much of what follows - though perhaps I'm wrong on that. Rather, I think I'm treating "negotiation" more broadly than you had in mind.) A simple example: In my game, the PCs fought a Torog cultist and her hired rabble. The rabblee include dockside heavies and wererats. Some of the wererats and one of the heavies escaped. The wererats went back to their base, a ruined temple of Erathis. The heavy went back to the docks. The PCs could easily have tracked down and defeated either or both in battle, but had better things to do with their time - and the players had better things to do to! So the PCs started court proceedings to get the wererats evicted as squatters - which ended up working, but the resolution of the courtroom skill challenge gave me the chance to put in a nice twist concerning the balance of power between secular and religious authorities in the town - and, once they'd retaken possession of the tower in the name of Erathis, defeated the troll, rats and gargoyles that the wererates left behind, and restored it as a temple, the party invoker-wizard tracked down the heavy and hired him as leader of the temple guard and tithe collectors. Why did the players go this route? Well, they (and their PCs) were getting anxious about the bodycount in the town since their arrival (around 40, in a town of 5,000-odd, over the course of a few days) and didn't want to add to it. They wanted their PCs' re-establishment of the temple to be as legitimate as possible. And the temple is in the docks quarter, and the PCs wanted a reliable guard who would make the temple a site for the projection of power, rather than a victim of others' projection of power. What are some of the GMing techniques that help lead to the players framing their choices in this way? Showing that death is not the only stakes, by having NPCs run away. Showing that negotiation is possible, by having former enemy NPCs agree to and keep to new terms (the recruitment of the dock heavy as a guard is only the latest such episode in the campaign). Making it clear - by overt communication, as well as practices of adjudication - that the PCs can get what the players want them to get by means that raise rather than lower the esteem of the PCs in polite society (winning court cases rather than killing and terrorising), and [I]making that social context itself matter for subsequent framings of situations[/I] - for example, letting the PCs enjoy the modest but real benefits that flow from being esteemed, Paragon-tier saviours of a town. Conversely, what are GMing techniques that can shut down these sorts of possibilities? Never having NPCs run away or surrender. When NPCs surrender and agree to terms, having them routinely break their promises - or, even moreso, having them routinely betray the PCs (I have seen [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] be especially vocal about this in the past). Having NPCs treat even high level PCs as hired rabble of no social consequence (published adventures have from the beginning been rife with this). Making it hard or impossible for the players to achieve goals for their PCs (eg treasure, status, McGuffins, whatever) without fighting for them (eg Gygax advised that NPC wizards will never agree to reasonable terms for sharing spells - this is practically inviting the PCs to slaughter and rob every NPC wizard they meat, in order to power up the PC magic-users!). More generally, making "0 hp" the only measure of finality for the GM: or in other words, the GM behaving as if s/he is free always to reopen some conflict, go back on a settlement, unless it was made final by death of one of the parties. Some of these techniques are about GMing style. But some - like the issue of finality in non-combat conflict resolution - also go to mechanics. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Legends & Lore 09/03 - RPG design philosophy
Top