You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[Celebrim]

The problem here is that you are assuming a special needs player.

Well, yes. Because in my experience, if your gaming group is composed of a random selection of GM + 6-8 aquaintances from school or work or just people looking for a game who find each other, you always get people with special needs. If your group is limited to the GM + 2-4 players who have stuck with it and played together for years and this doesn't sound familiar, chances are your group is just players that all have the same needs.

Instead, today, I don't really feel like having a mushroom pizza and just would like not to have mushroom pizza rammed down my throat, if that's okay with you. I might feel like mushroom pizza tomorrow, but, right now? Sorry, not loving the mushroom pizza. I know we all really want that deluxe pizza though. We have been talking about that deluxe pizza all week and we REALLY want that deluxe pizza.

This now depends on unwinding what we mean by the 'mushroom pizza' and the 'deluxe pizza'. The problem with analogies is that they aren't also perfect to the thing they are representing (and usually aren't) and that you can end up arguing over the analogy rather than the thing it stands for.

The ingredients of play are thinks like fellowship, competition, exploration, self-expression, challenge, fantasy and so forth. Scenes offer different mixes of the ingredients of play through role-play, problem solving, tactical combat, simulation, mystery, and so forth. So the mushroom pizza corresponds to a scene with just one agenda - maybe exploration of setting or exploration of character. The 'deluxe pizza' is that rare scene were all the agendas of play are available together in the same scene. It's not easy to achieve, and more over it is also the scenario most likely to have something that at least one - and maybe all - of the players would rather 'pick off' and not engage with (often 'handing that topping' to some other player at the table). So what you are suggesting is that if a fresh mushroom pizza has just been put on the table which you don't really like, in your case exploration of setting, that the guy who really likes that should forgo it for something else - the possibility that the next scenario to come out of the oven will be the 'deluxe pizza' (the one that has those banna peppers he's really not fond of). You've made abundently clear you aren't the guy that prefers 'deluxe pizza'? (Just out of curiousity, do you really like deluxe pizzas, goat cheese, wild mushrooms, roast cloves of garlic, etc. on your pizzas, or are you usually a pickier eater?)

So, please, can we skip the mushroom pizza, just this once, and get to the deluxe pizza?

But Jane is loving the mushroom pizza? Her agenda is fantasy and exploration. She wants to feel like she is in a real world and discover its secrets. If it is just once that we skip her favorite, maybe so, but are you willing to skip the deluxe pizza to have a mushroom pizza or skip the pepperoni (challenge/tactical combat)? 'Just once'? Are you willing to eat the mushroom 'just once', or at least sit by quietly while Jane enjoys it?

But most importantly, as a player you can signal long term what pizza/scene you want coming out of the oven (and if the chef/GM knows his players he'll already know anyway), but you can't necessarily control what is on the table now, what is already in the oven and about to be presented, and what the GM has just put together to put in the oven. You can't really know how the GM is going to frame a scene. By engaging the desert, maybe the next scene will perfectly suit your agenda. Moreover, the player that truly loves 'deluxe pizzas' is precisely the sort that is happy with bacon and broccoli, garlic and carmelized peaches, goat cheese and olive, etc. because he just wants some of everything. Serve up challenge, abnegation, self-expression, whatever - he's looking forward to all of it.

Now here the analogy already stretched to a breaking point really starts to break down, because now have to extend it to describing the different sorts of 'restuarants' we could create. I'd rather not. I'd rather discuss those things directly rather than obscuring them behind an analogy. You could argue that we ought to have a restaurant where we order our food from the chef so that we each get what we want. That's true of restuarants but its not clear that its true of games.

For example, the equivalent game will if it really lets you order what you want tend to lack 'hidden knowledge', which means that some agendas just can't be satisfied by that game. The analogy equivalent is that for some players, not knowing what is going to be served next and instead leaving it up to the preference of the chef, is part of what makes the restuarant exciting. As a real world example of this analogy, one of my daughters prefers to eat her sushi this way - Omakase ("as the chef likes it"). If Omakase isn't available, she'll ask me to order for her, trusting I'm a better guide to knowing what she likes and what she will like than she is herself. The analogy of a restaurant falls apart when we consider we don't really have the option of eating off separate plates in the game, but we are all participating at once in a shared experience.

But, as soon as you're telling that player that he has to go along or he's a "problem player" then I strongly disagree and feel that it's more of a "problem DM" issue.

Feel free to make that a DMing philosophy if it's your table.

 

[MarkB]

A player should never feel obligated to eating anything he doesn't like, just to make the other players happy. If he chooses to do so, fine and dandy. But, as soon as you're telling that player that he has to go along or he's a "problem player" then I strongly disagree and feel that it's more of a "problem DM" issue.

Are you saying that it's bad DMing to ever ask a player to compromise for the sake of other players' enjoyment, or just that it's bad DMing to always expect him to do so?

 

[Greenfield]

Looking at the discussion so far, I'm seeing something that I didn't fully appreciate before: "Surprising the DM" may often translate into "Disappointing the DM".

If the DM spends time and effort crafting a carefully plotted encounter or challenge, and the whole thing turns into nothing because one PC pulls a rabbit out of his hat, that could be a bit of a letdown. And not just for the DM,but for the other players as well. I mean, they may appreciate the rabbits when they appear, but they didn't come to watch one player pull rabbits out of a hat. In rabbiting a scenario, we not only eliminate the challenge for ourselves, but we deprive the other players of a chance to play through it.

As has been pointed out, just because I would rather bypass a particular challenge doesn't mean that the other players want to. The reason we gather to play is so that *everyone* at the table can have fun.

 

[Celebrim]

Looking at the discussion so far, I'm seeing something that I didn't fully appreciate before: "Surprising the DM" may often translate into "Disappointing the DM".

And often, how well a DM deals with this disappointment is the mark of a good DM. One of the worst mistakes you can make as a DM is becoming invested in outcomes. Fantacizing about how a scene is going to play out is almost always counterproductive. Instead, prepare for the scene as if taking a short cut is a valid approach. If you haven't asked, "What happens if they approach this as a social/evasion/stealth encounter?", you are wasting your imaginative time. Don't settle on a 'right' approach. Don't hope for much less depend on the PC's using 'the right' approach.

If the DM spends time and effort crafting a carefully plotted encounter or challenge, and the whole thing turns into nothing because one PC pulls a rabbit out of his hat, that could be a bit of a letdown.

Heck yeah. I had an NPC that had been a reoccuring foil, but only indirectly. The PC's had been chasing him for a long time, but never been able to bring him to battle. Finally, there was a 'showdown in the OK corral' scene, with the PC party at one end and the foil and his minions down the other end of the street. I'd carefully designed this PC to be really nasty in combat. This was supposed to be a major mini-boss fight.

And he went down like a chump. Bad to hit rolls combined with a tactical mistake on my part and good rolls and good play by the PC's, and he just died like any minion never even scratching the players. I was bummed. But you roll with it. A younger me might have tacked on some hit points, but I've learned better. The moment I did that, the players would all start rolling 1's and I'd end up with dead players. It's better to just let them win. There is always another fight.

And not just for the DM,but for the other players as well. I mean, they may appreciate the rabbits when they appear, but they didn't come to watch one player pull rabbits out of a hat.

Timing is everything. If the player pulls the rabbit at the beginning of an encounter, chances are the other players will be just as disappointed - and they'll blame the DM for it. The DM is supposed to be 'clever' enough to stop that sort of thing. But if the player pulls a rabbit just as things are looking really tense, that gets talked about for years by everyone (and its fun as heck for DMs too). The DM that stops a rabbit pulling then is likely to be blamed too. Also, the player pulling a rabbit one time to save the day is 'cool'. Other players hate it though when the player pulls the same trick again and again to make everything easy. If that happens, there is a balance issue. Balance issues clobber other players far more than they do DMs. You want an unhappy table, just let one player be the center of attention all the time. The other players may even like the guy, but they'll hate him for taking spotlight in everything.

This thread started out as a gripe fest. "Surprising the DM" was a euphamism for, "Look how my bad DM crushed my fun." Some of those complaints where legit - especially some specific complaints against an ill-prepared tournament judge. But on the whole, I really think there is a lot going on here that the original thread just wasn't touching on. Hense, my 'thread-crapping'. Hope I haven't been too offensive, Green'. I'm a little bit disappointed that we are out at page 10 and we haven't even really started engaging the topic yet. That's my fault as much as anything, but I'm worried at this point noone not already involved is even reading. I may have to fork the thread to do some 'thread framing' of the questions I don't think I have full answers to, like for example, "Does a player with a rabbit have a responcibility to the table to only pull it when he knows it is going to be awesome for everyone?", or, "How should a DM handle being suprised by a player?", or "How should a player handle being surprised by a DM, given that the player's disappointment is likely to be real?"

 

[Hussar]

Suppose it were 4 to 1 in favor of crossing the desert or playing out the hiring of the extra muscle. What's the player's alternative to going along with it? Leave the game? I would expect that he'd have to adjust his expectations if he wanted to retain his seat at the table.

If you feel differently, then I guess you have finally achieved the aims of this thread. You've surprised this DM.

And there, Celebrim, exactly what I was talking about. There is no compromise. You are being obligated to follow what the table wants, regardless of what you want and the rest of the table does not care one whit about your preferences.

Either I go along or I get out of the game. The very notion of possibly skipping one scene is not even a consideration.

This, Celebrim, is exactly what I'm talking about.

 

[Celebrim]

And there, Celebrim, exactly what I was talking about. There is no compromise. You are being obligated to follow what the table wants, regardless of what you want and the rest of the table does not care one whit about your preferences.

Either I go along or I get out of the game. The very notion of possibly skipping one scene is not even a consideration.

This, Celebrim, is exactly what I'm talking about.

"But, I have no interest in playing with anyone who considers their fun to be more important than anyone else's at the table."

 

[Hussar]

Are you saying that it's bad DMing to ever ask a player to compromise for the sake of other players' enjoyment, or just that it's bad DMing to always expect him to do so?

The latter, of course. Which has been my point all the way along. If I am always expected to compromise, then that's not a compromise, that's flat out beating me over the head. I always thought that compromise meant give and take. Not just take all the time and give nothing.

 

[Nagol]

Looking at the discussion so far, I'm seeing something that I didn't fully appreciate before: "Surprising the DM" may often translate into "Disappointing the DM".

If the DM spends time and effort crafting a carefully plotted encounter or challenge, and the whole thing turns into nothing because one PC pulls a rabbit out of his hat, that could be a bit of a letdown. And not just for the DM,but for the other players as well. I mean, they may appreciate the rabbits when they appear, but they didn't come to watch one player pull rabbits out of a hat. In rabbiting a scenario, we not only eliminate the challenge for ourselves, but we deprive the other players of a chance to play through it.

As has been pointed out, just because I would rather bypass a particular challenge doesn't mean that the other players want to. The reason we gather to play is so that *everyone* at the table can have fun.

As a DM, I like rabbits appearing; it generally means the players are engaed and doing their best to succeed. The only time a surprise becomes serious disappointment is when a situation is rejected by the players.

Just as a DM has a responsibility to put interesting situations where players can find them, I feel the players have a responsibility to try to engage the situations in which they find themselves.

 

[Hussar]

"But, I have no interest in playing with anyone who considers their fun to be more important than anyone else's at the table."

Exactly. I know you took that to be ironic, but it wasn't.

Skipping a scene that almost everyone enjoys to go to a scene that everyone enjoys is not a bad thing, IMO. I'd much rather everyone at the table was having fun than most of everyone. And, if I know that some of the players are not having fun, and yet, I figure that just because I like what's going on, it's okay, then I would consider my fun more important than yours.

But, again, compromise seems to mean, "Do whatever the DM wants you to do and shut up!"

Like I said, I would not have fun at a table where I knew the guy sitting beside me wasn't enjoying the game. Wouldn't matter to me if I was or not. The fact that he isn't would mean that I wouldn't either.

Apparently though, it's perfectly okay for me to be totally selfish and put my fun ahead of anyone else's. After all, if I'm enjoying the scene and no one else is, should we skip it? Simple majority rules? No thanks. I game by consensus thanks. And, just to repeat, if I know that someone at the table isn't enjoying what we're doing, then I won't enjoy the game either.

So, no, I don't put my fun ahead of anyone else's.

 

[Hussar]

As a DM, I like rabbits appearing; it generally means the players are engaed and doing their best to succeed. The only time a surprise becomes serious disappointment is when a situation is rejected by the players.

Just as a DM has a responsibility to put interesting situations where players can find them, I feel the players have a responsibility to try to engage the situations in which they find themselves.

Ahh, but there's a difference here. If the player has actually tried and still rejects the situation, then what?