Judgement calls vs "railroading"

pemerton · Apr 10, 2017

Lanefan said:
Each time you've used Greyhawk as a setting, regardless of whether the "stuff in this game ... conform to details of what happened or was established in the prior games" it's still conforming to the background Greyhawk canon as a whole (more or less, let's not open that can o' worms again), meaning any player familiar with Greyhawk will have some vague ideas of what to expect. This sets a whole series of baseline assumptions that whatever comes next can build on...and conveniently gets you off the "DM-driven" hook in this aspect as all you did was select that setting

Well, as per those other thread - I'm using GH for some maps and a S&S baseline (the ancient, magical [-]Acheron[/-] Suel empire; the knights of [-]Poitain[/-] Furyondy, etc).

The centre of the map is especially good, because it has knights, desert, Hardby (which we're using like the cities of Zamora), Greyhawk City, the Wild Coast and therefore mercenaries and pirates, etc, all in handy geographic proxmity.

The map is a device for giving colour and a bit of clarification to geography. Too date, at least, it hasn't acted as any sort of constraing on action declaration, because movement/exploration rules are abstract, not concrete as in (say) AD&D.

pemerton · Apr 10, 2017

Lanefan said:
Did this confrontation occur in the main area of the cathedral, where the altar would logically be? If yes, then why wouldn't the altar have been shown on the map? Or do you not use a grid/board/minis for combat?

Not in BW. It's basically TotM (in melee, distances are Outside Striking Distance, Lunging, Optimal and On the Inside; in missile skirmishing, ranger are Outside Range, Extreme, Optimal, and Too Close to Shoot; relative weapon length/range is one component of positioning checks).

One time, when the fighting was on the deck of a ship, we used a sketch map just to keep track of who was where, relative to masts, hatches etc.

As I think I mentioned upthread, one time when two PCs were doing slightly funky stuff in the death cultists' lair in the catacombs, I used a part of the Caves of Chaos map to give them a quick and rough sense of the geography, to help clarify some of the action declarations and therefore to help a bit establishing the fictional details of their resolution.

Lanefan said:
if someone declared they were going to visit the palace in the same city I might very well turn around and ask "what palace?" as I already know this particular city isn't the ruling centre for anything and doesn't have a palace.

Well, if (as GM) I think it's doubtful, that would be the time for (say) a City-wise check.

Lanefan said:
Say instead of just rolling a check to get through the catacombs they wanted to know their exact route (i.e. make a rough line map as they went, requiring a route description from you-as-DM so a player could physically draw out the map) so they could quickly retrace their steps later if they needed to beat a hasty retreat...or, in this case, so they could use the map to help figure out where they were going wrong.

Well, that's not really the rationale in the context of our game.

We're not really interested in how they went wrong. We're interested in the consequences of going wrong (ie that the wizard/assassin comes out of her drug-induced stupor).

If they needed to beat a hasty retreat that would be opposed Speed checks, perhaps with a disadvantage to the PCs because we've already established that they don't know their way through the catacombs. But there's no need for a map.

Manbearcat · Apr 10, 2017

pemerton said:
Thanks for the detail: I'm not across all the classes in DW (I know that Thru Death's Eyes is a fighter move; I assume that Connections is a rogue/thief move; the others I'm not sure about, but I'm guessing they are also class moves), and this plugs some gaps in my knowledge/exposition!

EDIT: I looked some of them up: Weather Weaver is Druidic; Heirloom is a fighter move; Wealth and Taste is a thief move. I didn't find the others.

(For anyone else following a long: a class "move" in DW is similar to a feat or other ability gained on reaching a new level in WotC-style D&D.)

My Love for You is Like a Truck is Barbarian (the DW Barbarian is probably the best incarnation of a D&D offering that would live up to the tropes of Conan in play).

Old Enemies and A Lover in Every Port is Dashing Hero playbook. Classic Zoro, Dread Pirate Roberts/Man In Black/Errol Flynn tropes. Its easily my favorite Dungeon World playbook. I did a two-off Sword and Sorcery/Swashbuckling mash-up with it and the Barbarian and it was glorious.

So question for everyone (especially [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] , [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] , [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] , [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] ). When you're running your D&D games (5e or whatever), do you guys "ask questions and use the answers." For instance:

GM: "An anxious looking fellow enters the tavern while looking this way and that. He runs headlong into a barmaid's tray due to his state. They both hit the deck and drinks spill everywhere. While he's sitting his head is still scanning left and right as he absent-mindedly mats the liquid into his soiled shirt. He locks eyes with you and breaks into a crawl which leads him unsteadily to his feet. He's making a bee-line for your table."

"Who is this guy? Do you know him?"

hawkeyefan · Apr 10, 2017

Manbearcat said:
So question for everyone (especially [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] , [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] , [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] , [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] ). When you're running your D&D games (5e or whatever), do you guys "ask questions and use the answers." For instance:

GM: "An anxious looking fellow enters the tavern while looking this way and that. He runs headlong into a barmaid's tray due to his state. They both hit the deck and drinks spill everywhere. While he's sitting his head is still scanning left and right as he absent-mindedly mats the liquid into his soiled shirt. He locks eyes with you and breaks into a crawl which leads him unsteadily to his feet. He's making a bee-line for your table."

"Who is this guy? Do you know him?"

I'll sometimes do that, or something very similar. I do it when we are either on a bit of a tangent to the main story, especially one spurred by the players in some way, or when I want to add some unknown or random element in order to change things up.

I find the first useful for allowing players to add their PC's goals and interests in a bit more if I haven't been incorporating them. So now and then they'll use such an opportunity to add an NPC or some story hook they want to explore. So I let them decide who it is (or what or where, etc.) and then we see how their choice influences things. I've had some really key elements of my campaign come about like this.

More often, though, I found them not using such an opportunity to further their own character's interest but instead someone else's, or just a story element that they thought would be cool to add. I really like that a lot, and that's the main reason I use it. They add something that I wasn't expecting...a person, place, organization, whatever...and I have to figure out how to incorporate it into the ongoing story.

My campaign uses a lot of classic D&D lore from all kinds of sources, as well as material from a homebrew world and the history of several campaigns we've played over the years. I've found that sometimes it's the random unplanned ideas that spring up which really become memorable. And I also think that I'm at my most creative when I'm given some seemingly unrelated story elements and I have to somehow bring them together.

Just the other night at our last session, I was describing a vision being relayed to the PCs through illusory images. This vision was very expository in that it relayed a lot of (dreaded!) secret history of the campaign. But as I relayed it to them, I left two elements entirely up to the players and asked them questions to provide the missing elements. They saw a powerful being in the image, and he was holding something in his hand....what is it?

I also provided a glimpse of someone watching the events of the vision...who is it?

The players decided both elements, so now I have some new canon to play with.

Lanefan · Apr 10, 2017

Manbearcat said:
So question for everyone. When you're running your D&D games (5e or whatever), do you guys "ask questions and use the answers." For instance:

GM: "An anxious looking fellow enters the tavern while looking this way and that. He runs headlong into a barmaid's tray due to his state. They both hit the deck and drinks spill everywhere. While he's sitting his head is still scanning left and right as he absent-mindedly mats the liquid into his soiled shirt. He locks eyes with you and breaks into a crawl which leads him unsteadily to his feet. He's making a bee-line for your table."

Seems cool to here. But I would not ask this:

"Who is this guy? Do you know him?"

Instead I'd more simply ask "What do you do?"

Chances are I wouldn't have time to ask anything, however, as on saying "he's making a beeline for your table" I'd probably - depending on situation context, of course - get several quick and unprompted responses as to how the PCs are reacting.

That said, it's ironclad guaranteed I'd be approaching it from a different angle than you.

In your case you're asking the players to give you the reasons why this guy is here, who he is, etc., where in my case I either already know who he is and why he's here or I'm making it up on the fly (and if I'm doing it right the players shouldn't be able to tell the difference).

This is a basic example of the game world coming to the PCs and forcing them into reactive mode, as opposed to the PCs proactively doing something (e.g. long before this guy appears they try to instigate a fight in the bar) and forcing me-as-DM into reactive mode.

And in any case, in the original example what happens next will evolve from the PCs' initial reactions; as I in turn react to what they do, coloured by whatever backstory (if any) has brought this guy here. Then they'll react to my reaction, lather rinse repeat until the scene is resolved in whatever manner comes about.

Lan-"I'm beginning to think D&D is a game of reaction most of the time and proaction much less of the time"-efan

Ilbranteloth · Apr 11, 2017

Manbearcat said:
My Love for You is Like a Truck is Barbarian (the DW Barbarian is probably the best incarnation of a D&D offering that would live up to the tropes of Conan in play).

Old Enemies and A Lover in Every Port is Dashing Hero playbook. Classic Zoro, Dread Pirate Roberts/Man In Black/Errol Flynn tropes. Its easily my favorite Dungeon World playbook. I did a two-off Sword and Sorcery/Swashbuckling mash-up with it and the Barbarian and it was glorious.

So question for everyone (especially [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] , [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] , [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] , [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] ). When you're running your D&D games (5e or whatever), do you guys "ask questions and use the answers." For instance:

GM: "An anxious looking fellow enters the tavern while looking this way and that. He runs headlong into a barmaid's tray due to his state. They both hit the deck and drinks spill everywhere. While he's sitting his head is still scanning left and right as he absent-mindedly mats the liquid into his soiled shirt. He locks eyes with you and breaks into a crawl which leads him unsteadily to his feet. He's making a bee-line for your table."

"Who is this guy? Do you know him?"

Not often. At least not the "Who is this guy?" approach. I tie things into backgrounds, or into things that the players may have said (and often don't remember), things like that all the time. My goal is to have them grounded in the campaign as much as possible, particularly the mundane aspects of life.

A lot of that has to do with the players themselves, most of them are looking for me to provide answers to questions like that. If a group is more receptive to having a greater amount of world-building from the player side, I'm open to experimenting. But it doesn't happen frequently.

I'm always asking them to feed me more information about their background and character's likes, dislikes, etc. I give them quite a bit of leeway on their background, along with input and guidance. This includes a willingness to consider out-of-class abilities, magic items, better equipment, etc., even at 1st level.

For example, my daughter loves dinosaurs and wanted a pet deinonychus. She also wanted a character similar to Arilyn Moonblade, among other non-D&D sources. So she's an elven druid of Selune, but started off in Evereska with her parents. Due to the attack by the phaerimm and some other (later found out to be distant family) concerns, her mother pushed her through a portal with her moonblade (with seven runes). She found herself alone in the jungles of Chult, unable to even touch the bare moonblade without taking damage. She met a druid who cared for her and trained her, until they were able to find a portal (about 10 years later) that returned her to the North (in Icewind Dale) where the campaign was starting. So she doesn't have a pet deinonychus, but she can change into one.

This was all for the start of the campaign, largely written by her, with my input into how it could tie together. So among the things she was immediately concerned with was to find out if her mother (and family) was alive, and to learn about this sword, and hopefully learn to wield it. Until then she couldn't even use it in battle. Things expanded as the campaign progressed, and then the character switched over to another campaign (same Forgotten Realms and time, just different players). She was also constantly concerned about keeping the sword, and herself, secret because she was concerned that there were others looking for her or the sword (and as time went on there was some evidence of that). She has a great imagination, so a lot of the twists came from her, even if she didn't always remember that she said them.

So I'm quite willing to give a lot of leeway, and go well beyond what would be considered overpowered for 1st level, or even higher level characters. The moonblade has a history of being used in her family to battle fiends and undead, and many of the abilities were related to that aspect. But until she was able to actually attune (and be accepted) by the sword, she used it in other creative ways. My (and her) favorite was when she "accidentally" dropped from carrying it on her back, so that a sorceress they were fighting would pick it up, taking damage in the process, and giving an opening for the others in her party to take advantage of.

Something closer to your question was when a new antagonist entered the campaign, the brother of the character's ex-wife (he had specifically added "divorced" to his character during creation). So he helped provide much of the backstory of the ex-brother, which I expanded upon. I will note that most of the time I expand on their stories quite extensively, way beyond what they probably think would be approved for the campaign. So I guess it occurred something along the lines of, "you recognize the man, as you know him quite well as your ex-brother in-law. Why is there bad blood between the two of you?"

The reason I wanted him to take the lead there, is that it gives me a more personal thing to work with - if I knew why he (the player) would think that there is bad blood there let me exploit it better in the future. I then tweak it from there.

Manbearcat · Apr 11, 2017

Lanefan said:
This is a basic example of the game world coming to the PCs and forcing them into reactive mode, as opposed to the PCs proactively doing something (e.g. long before this guy appears they try to instigate a fight in the bar) and forcing me-as-DM into reactive mode.

We'd need to know a lot more about the situation other than the contrived little bit of text I wrote above to determine (a) who is initiating the action versus who is reacting to it (maybe a player used a PC ability to call in a favor and this is the guy...but maybe he comes with some kind of cost or complication; eg it was a 7-9 move roll in Dungeon World, a failure by 1-2 in 5e, or an intra-Skill Challenge success in 4e that changes the situation but introduces a new obstacle/complication to the ultimate goal), (b) if its a bit of both for both sides, and (c) what it all means for play (the actual dynamics of the play conversation and the trajectory of the fiction).

Ilbranteloth said:
So I guess it occurred something along the lines of, "you recognize the man, as you know him quite well as your ex-brother in-law. Why is there bad blood between the two of you?"

This is what I'm talking about. This is good stuff.

Is there any reason why you don't do this more often (or much more often)?

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] , thoughts on Ilbranteloth's play excerpt above?

Xetheral · Apr 11, 2017

Manbearcat said:
So question for everyone (especially [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] , [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] , [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] , [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] ). When you're running your D&D games (5e or whatever), do you guys "ask questions and use the answers." For instance:

GM: "An anxious looking fellow enters the tavern while looking this way and that. He runs headlong into a barmaid's tray due to his state. They both hit the deck and drinks spill everywhere. While he's sitting his head is still scanning left and right as he absent-mindedly mats the liquid into his soiled shirt. He locks eyes with you and breaks into a crawl which leads him unsteadily to his feet. He's making a bee-line for your table."

"Who is this guy? Do you know him?"

The descriptive paragraph goes beyond what I'd do all at once: instead I'd spread it out a little to give the players time to interrupt or ask questions. I'd also probably intersperse information about other patrons to make the establishment seem more fluid, rather than forcing the focus on the newcomer.

But no, I'd never ask my players to tell me who the newcomer was. Honestly, it never would have even occurred to me to do so until reading this thread--that question is completely outside anything I've ever encountered in an RPG. Learning that there is much greater diversity in GMing styles that I ever knew about is part of what makes this thread so interesting.

That said, I think the giant gulf between the preferred styles of many of the posters is making communication difficult. When two games are so radically qualitatively-different, I'm not sure it's meaningful to try to measure them on the same axis. For example, I don't think it means much to say that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s or [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s style is more "player-driven" than the other, because I'm not sure that there is a definition of "player-driven" that makes sense in both contexts simultaneously. Their games are just too different.

Returning to the concept of "ask questions and use the answers", I think the very premise isn't compatible with my GMing style's emphasis on immersion and verisimilitude. And as a player, I don't see how I could maintain my IC focus when I'm confronted with an OOC request from the GM to add an element to the game world. I consider myself pretty good at switching back and forth quickly (I have to do it all the time as a GM), but what you're describing sounds extremely jarring--especially the part where after adding the element OOC, I'd need to immediately interact with the element I'd just created, this time from my character's perspective and while trying to forget about the OOC motives underlying my choice of what to add.

Are your players simply phenomenal at flipping back and forth from thinking as their characters to thinking as themselves? Or, alternatively, do your players add the requested elements in-character (i.e. the character, rather than the player, is choosing how the character knows the newcomer)? Or maybe roleplaying at your table means something different than it does at mine, in a way that makes the transition easier?

Campbell · Apr 11, 2017

[MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION]

I think we should be careful about confusing our methods with our aims. A given set of techniques might bring about that sense of being there in the moment for a given player while not being well suited for another player. That is not necessarily evidence of radically different aims, just of different approaches. I find answering these sort of questions if addressed to my character rather than me often helps me connect to the fiction and gets me primed for the actual play of the game. I mean this sort of exchange where we are teasing out the details of the fiction whether written down beforehand or not is not something I view as playing the game. We can't play in the fiction until we know what it is.

Another example of where different approaches might serve different players with the same aims is how abstract we describe things and whether we have rules for things like Willpower, Influence, Strings, or Beliefs. Exacting physical descriptions laid out in concrete measurements takes me so far out of the fiction I might as well be playing a board game. I can enjoy this stuff as a tactical exercise in the war game sense, but it brings me out of the moment. More relative measurements work much better for me because I tend to view the world much more abstractly. Rules like this NPC has influence over my PC tend to enrich the fiction for me, where it might bring others out of it.

Yet another thing that tends to bring me out of the fiction are dice rolls for perception, knowledge, and reaching a mutual accord. The rules of the game are making something tense for me as a player that are in no way tense for my character. It misaligns character and player interests.

Back to the original point - questions should be directed towards the characters. Address the characters, not the players. It should also be an opportunity, not an expectation. You are always free to throw iit back in the GM's corner if you do not think your character would know.

GM: Candros, you have finally tracked down Kiara Masura, the love of your life and mother to your children. As you move forward to embrace her and run your fingers through her smooth black locks she slaps you across the face. What did you do to deserve such a harsh greeting?
Me: Candros eyes lock onto Kiara's emerald eyes to see no remorse underneath. I don't know. I just do not know.
GM: Are you going to do anything about it? What do you do?

Now we can start playing for real.

Lanefan · Apr 11, 2017

Manbearcat said:
We'd need to know a lot more about the situation other than the contrived little bit of text I wrote above to determine (a) who is initiating the action versus who is reacting to it (maybe a player used a PC ability to call in a favor and this is the guy...but maybe he comes with some kind of cost or complication; eg it was a 7-9 move roll in Dungeon World, a failure by 1-2 in 5e, or an intra-Skill Challenge success in 4e that changes the situation but introduces a new obstacle/complication to the ultimate goal), (b) if its a bit of both for both sides, and (c) what it all means for play (the actual dynamics of the play conversation and the trajectory of the fiction).

I'm taking it at face value - some anxious guy wanders into a pub, trainwrecks the barmaid, sees the PCs, and beelines for their table. Naturally I assumed that if there was any more to it (e.g. the PCs are expecting someone to turn up but aren't sure who it'll be) you'd have included that in the write-up. The absence of any such inclusion told me this is just some random guy; and is an element of the game-world proactively coming to the PCs in order to generate a reaction.