D&D 5E Dm misadventures. Tales of woe. How long did your worse table arguement last?

Lanefan said:

That would be fine.

But in [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] world it seems you can't do this: your character has to go along with the plan and take that action even if in-character it otherwise wouldn't.

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A character "would" do what the player says it does. There is not some outside force determining what a character "would" do such that what the player has it do contradicts said outside force. This is all in your head.

Lanefan said:

When it comes to in-character discussions e.g. planning how to storm the castle, player and character should be exactly the same. In other words if you say it at the table, your character says it in the game.

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"Should?" Careful now. Not everyone thinks that way and nowhere it is written that this must be so.

Lanefan said:

And yes, stubborn people sometimes play stubborn characters. Non-stubborn people also sometimes play stubborn characters.

That said, you mention Roll20 which tells me you're gaming online rather than in person - a whole different thing. I only ever play in-person games.

Lanefan

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I game both online and in person. It's really not so different. I just don't have to smell anyone else's farts but my own.

redrick said:

I've seen it happen meaningfully with regards to taking a hook, or a character needing to connect a particular action to their own ideals and bonds. Potentially, this could be resolved between player characters. Some push and pull between player characters can be a good way to bring those characters to life, and I'm in favor of any role-play that doesn't have to be mediated by the DM.

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As I said, some is okay. But I've seen games where this is most of the interaction that goes on and it's not for me. As for hooks, I don't debate taking them as a player. I accept, always, so we can get on with it.

iserith said:

As for hooks, I don't debate taking them as a player. I accept, always, so we can get on with it.

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This would be where we diverge. In many of the groups I play in, probing the hooks is a big part of the "it." Obviously, I try and avoid this for one-shots at the store (generally by putting the hook in the past tense — here you are, tell me why you agreed), but for an ongoing campaign, hook shopping is part of the game, and is where a lot of our characters get fleshed out. The way we react to a particular quest-giver in session 1 could impact things many sessions down the road, and I believe one of the areas analog RPGs excel is that you don't have to just accept the main story mission if you don't want to.

And, yes, as a result, we don't necessarily have a super high adventure-pages-per-day in our group.

redrick said:

This would be where we diverge. In many of the groups I play in, probing the hooks is a big part of the "it." Obviously, I try and avoid this for one-shots at the store (generally by putting the hook in the past tense — here you are, tell me why you agreed), but for an ongoing campaign, hook shopping is part of the game, and is where a lot of our characters get fleshed out. The way we react to a particular quest-giver in session 1 could impact things many sessions down the road, and I believe one of the areas analog RPGs excel is that you don't have to just accept the main story mission if you don't want to.

And, yes, as a result, we don't necessarily have a super high adventure-pages-per-day in our group.

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As a player, I see a hook as a pointer to the DM's prepared content and I consider it a sign of respect for the DM's time not to ignore it. As a DM, I don't care though. I have fun preparing content.

iserith said:

As a player, I see a hook as a pointer to the DM's prepared content and I consider it a sign of respect for the DM's time not to ignore it. As a DM, I don't care though. I have fun preparing content.

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As somebody who DMs more than I play, I know that going off the rails is just the cost of doing business. If the players are engaging with what their characters would do in a given situation, and that takes them in a different direction than I had planned, so be it.

As a player, I used to try being polite and "follow the adventure signs," but some of my favorite sessions as a player came about when we just .. did what our characters felt was best, without worrying about saying, "oh, ok, that must be the hook for the adventure, so let's go there." The DM was able to find obstacles to put in our path and probably came up with an alternate hook to lead us into an adventure area that they had prepared. Furthermore, I've had situations as a DM where players have thought that they were following my "this way to the adventure" signs and actually wandered completely off the tracks of what I had planned.

It's important for a player not to monopolize the spotlight to the detriment of other players, and if their "character development" is making the game un-fun for all the other players, that's bad. But I don't think the players do anybody any favors by trying to make things easier on the DM.

There's a lot of discussion of "Yes, and..." being used to make the BIG campaign direction decisions. But I'd like to point out that where I see it used the most, and have the most positive change, is in small decisions.
eg. When presented with a suspicious door, reckless Character A says they're just going to charge up and kick it down. Cautious Character B adds to the plan with a quick protection spell cast on A, just in case, and self-centered Character C takes cover behind a pillar.
Later on, it's getting dark, and cautious Character B suggests the party makes camp. Reckless Character A might've wanted to press on, but will instead say he's going hunting for some dinner. A already had his spotlight moment earlier, so accepts the plan, even if it's not exactly what he wanted to do.

Valmarius said:

There's a lot of discussion of "Yes, and..." being used to make the BIG campaign direction decisions. But I'd like to point out that where I see it used the most, and have the most positive change, is in small decisions.
eg. When presented with a suspicious door, reckless Character A says they're just going to charge up and kick it down. Cautious Character B adds to the plan with a quick protection spell cast on A, just in case, and self-centered Character C takes cover behind a pillar.

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Where what I'm used to is that when reckless Character A says they're going to charge the door cautious Character B will either tell him to stop or reach out and grab him to prevent his charge. Character C would still probably dive for cover, though.

The problem with the system you have is that (in this case) once Character A says he's charging you're all committed to supporting that action no matter what the other characters want to do or how wise/foolish the initial action might be.

Later on, it's getting dark, and cautious Character B suggests the party makes camp. Reckless Character A might've wanted to press on, but will instead say he's going hunting for some dinner. A already had his spotlight moment earlier, so accepts the plan, even if it's not exactly what he wanted to do.

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You don't mention Character C in the second example. What if Character C also wants to press on, knowing there's a village with a comfortable inn just a few hours journey ahead? Can B be outvoted, or has B just committed the party to doing something neither of the other characters wants to do? Or would it just come down to whichever of B or C happened to speak first?

No, just can't get behind this at all - sorry.

Lanefan

It's hard to give examples for this because it's more of a philosophy. If all of the players trust each other not to put forth ideas in bad faith, then they have no reason to try and stop someone's suggestion.
The idea is that you should first be looking for what is good about an idea, before stepping in and saying why it's bad.

I think these kind of discussions often come up as a method of risk management. Perhaps the groups we play with are simply more open to risk. Maybe we have slightly different goals of play, which fit this playstyle easier.
By no means am I saying this approach is a sure fix or improvement for everyone's g