You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[Nagol]

I'm seeing this desert > siege > city discussion in two ways. Perhaps a visual?
QUOTE]


Don't forget the adventure had at least one other circle as well.

The get the MsGuffin you must travel to the City of X on the Abyssal plane of Y! <Cool>

You've reached the plane via Plane Shift which has a large known positional uncertainy. The city you seek lies across this desert. You must cross to reach your goal! <Unfun>

<inserted complication>
The city you're seeking is currently beseiged by an atack force you had no knowledge of. To get in you will have to engage it. <Cool>

 

[Hussar]

I'm seeing this desert > siege > city discussion in two ways. Perhaps a visual?

View attachment 56909

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Yeah, I'd say that's pretty spot on. The desert is not, in any way, related to the city, other than by the most casual - location. The fact that I have to cross a desert to get to Las Vegas doesn't make the desert relevant to Las Vegas. If, OTOH, there are a bunch of zombies trying to break in past the barricades to eat the brains of those in Las Vegas, I'd say that's pretty relevant.

Also note, that the siege is relevant for the entire time that we are in the city. Unless, of course, we decide to end the siege first, which is possible. But, in all likelihood, the siege will be a relevant complication for the entire scenario.

The desert only becomes relevant after we have interacted with it. And, once we have interacted with the stuff in the desert and reached the city, the desert stops being relevant.

And that's the primary difference for me. The desert is just a road block. It's dragging out the scenario for no purpose, AFAIC. There's nothing there that we want to engage with, although post hoc there could be justifications added later (hey, it's a good thing we stopped and talked to those random nomads, it let us know about that secret entrance). But, once it's been interacted with, it's done.

The siege is a major element linked and entwined with our goals. The desert is just one more roadblock on the way.

Does that make the difference clearer?

 

[chaochou]

I don't get it, still. The siege is at the city, but all its doing is stopping us from getting to our goal. The desert is on the way to the city, but all it's doing it stopping us from getting to our goal. The only difference that I see so far is backdrop.

Hi JC.

I've avoided this thread, but I guess I'll throw some thoughts out there because this seems reasonable and relevant.

I think scale is making this example more complicated than necessary. We could restate this example: You're trying to get to a barber's shop on the other sides of a busy street.

Well there's traffic. Okay, I wait until it is safe to cross.
Well, the police have stopped a motorist down the way. Okay, I wait to cross and go to the shop.
Well, there's this gang of youths outside a tattoo parlour. Well, I avoid them and go the the shop.

Are these the same complications as if we say:
The shop is boarded up?
The shop is on fire?
The shop has 'Police: Do Not Cross' tape all around it and chalk marks where the bullet casings fell on the pavement?

The street is 'place'. It's relation to the shop is purely one of proximity. It could be any street. It can have any cars, any pedestrians, any other shops, a postbox, street lighting. It's filled with all the things streets are filled with. None of which present any reason not to walk into the shop.

The shop is boarded up, on fire, a crime scene. This is a property of the shop and clearly changes how I'm going to interact with it. Now I can't walk into the shop.

What I think is interesting is that if I make my complication the police tape and bullet marks, or ablaze, or boarded up, now the player has an incentive to interact with the street... Call on neighbours to ask what happened, etc.

I could, possibly, do something like: "You see an old man on a bicycle get clipped by a car and knocked over. You see blood spilling onto the pavement." If in that situation the player had reason not to want to draw attention to their visit to the shop, then suddenly I've created a moral dilemma for the player - do they get involved? Give their name and number and location to the emergency services?

So it's not completely cut and dried. But I have to know the players very well and be very conscious of what pushes their buttons to go that route. Because they can refuse my moral dilemma and simply say 'Yeah, well, someone will call an ambulance - I go to the shop."

 

[N'raac]

And planned for in advance, I think? Unless it's a siege? I'm not sure, but I can't quite get why this is great universal advice, either.

I can’ grasp why it is viewed as great universal advice either. I’m trying to grasp it myself. But it seems some view it as self-evident

Right. It's just hard to peg. What he wants needs to be "relevant to the PCs" or their goals, I think. But it should be planned for, not improvised, I think. Unless it's a siege (or like event?), because then it's relevant to the PCs. But the desert crossing isn't relevant, unless it is, but then it's contrived, but the siege isn't, even though they're both improvised complications to the goal. I just can't follow the exact line of logic so far.

Pretty much sums it up for me as well. The only difference I see between Siege and Desert is that Pemerton and Hussar want to be OK with the siege, and are already on record as not being OK with the desert.

Darn! to get to the Mcguffin in the city we first have to cross this desert, unfair!

Darn! to get to the Mcguffin in the city we first have to get past this siege, cool!

Nagol just about summed up my thought process on it.

1) Our goal is in the city.
2) Desert stops us from getting to our goal.
3) This is not relevant, and should be skipped.

OR

1) Our goal is in the city.
2) Siege stops us from getting to our goal.
3) This is relevant, and is fine to play through.

I don't get it, still.

My perspective would run:

We are at Point A.

We want to do something at Point B.

There is a desert between us and Point B, therefore we must cross the desert, playing through whatever that entails.

There is a besieging force between us and Point B, therefore we must get past that besieging force, playing through whatever that entails.

The desert could be filled with engaging, exciting, relevant encounters, or it could be a boring slog (OK, another Ride check to see if you fall off – so far, that’s 78 successes remaining on the centipede, and 47 falls into the dust). Dealing with the besieging force could be filled with engaging, exciting, relevant encounters, or it could be a boring slog. (Ted, you slay one soldier with your axe and another advances to take his place. Bob, your mace strike lays a soldier low, and another advances to take his place. John, your Fireball burns 27 soldiers to ash and another 27 advance to take their place.)

Either one seems great if it’s filled with engaging, exciting, relevant encounters. If those run out and it’s a boring slog, not so great. But I don’t see any inherent value to the siege over the desert.

 

[Celebrim]

Well obviously I think that they are. One is complication on a success (spot invisble ink that will advance your goals). The other is complication on a failure (spot a ravine that will impede your goals).

You are familiar with the concept of stakes right? In normal process simulation, the stakes on something like a ride check are clear to all parties - I either stay on the horse, or I don't depending on the fortune result. In the case of a perception roll, it's usually something like "I either gain a bit of information, or I don't." In your game, that's exactly how you set the stakes on the perception check. The player knew the stakes ahead of time and knew that they would be resolved basically according to process. The player made a good check, and you decided that this should give more information to the player and you improvised a reasonable genera relevant hidden fact about the document. On that level, we can't distinguish your game from a standard simulation game. In both cases, the DM can decide that it is interesting for the hidden fact to be present, and in both cases the DM can improvise the fact based on player engagement with the setting. There are possibly but not necessarily some differences in motive, but mechanically things work the same.

I want to specifically point out some things that probably didn't think to do. You probably didn't think at the time, "If he fails the perception check, I'll improvise a contact poison on the document." Both you and your average sim DM would see that as being too antagonistic - 'Shrodinger's Trap' is probably a very bad idea. Both you and your average sim DM want to encourage engagement with the setting and the system, not discourage it. Likewise, it probably didn't occur to you to 'let it ride' and let the resolution of all the exploration hinge on this one roll, or to let failure on this perception roll indicate that no further clues could be found in the room. The reason is you knew implicitly or explicitly that the stakes being set was only, 'Is there something interesting about this document or not?'

I find this claim utterly baffling.

Because you don't understand it's basis. I'm arguing that while distinctive narrative play does exist, the "standard narrativist model" you keep linking to doesn't adequately or correctly describe its distinguishing features. Yes, it is certainly true that there are some sorts of play that don't fit into what I think is wrongly labeled "the standard narrativist model", but that isn't sufficient to prove that it is a good description. Before it is a good description it must fit all sorts of play we'd describe as 'standard narrativist' and exclude all sorts (not just specific sorts) that we wouldn't. I personally think the author makes the mistake of focusing too much on the mechanics of play, and too little on the techinique, agenda, and color of play. The mechanics of play themselves cover way too much ground and don't tell us much about what makes the games he is discussing unique in their core experience from lots of other games, including normal D&D play.

Dramatic tension is irrelevant to that sort of play.

On some level I agree, but I would point out that 'irrelevant' isn't the same as absent. Gygaxian play is often, indeed I would argue normally, played with dramatic tension.

Adventure path play does not fit that model either.

I've seen it fit that model. If you look back at the 1e advice on running a prepared module, there was an assumption that the text was incomplete and the skilled DM would expand upon it and incorporate it within his own game in an interesting manner. Have you ever played I6: Ravenloft, where as the player the town was attacked by giant zombies and you needed to organize the townsfolk into a militia to protect themselves before going on to confront Strahd? I have. Have you ever played I6: Ravenloft as the DM, where one of the inhabitants of the village was a young psionic assassin, who used his talents to hunt undead and protect the town, and one of your PC's fell in love with him and their romance - and the threat to the lover because of Strahd's jealousy - was part of the emotional basis for the conflict with Strahd? I have. But even if we don't talk about how skilled DMs will improvise on a modules text, what is the funeral scene in I6 but dramatic play? Or forget I6, because its not part of an adventure path, right? Well, what about the desert of desolution series? You can do the same thing in them. What about the DL series? You can do the same thing in them. Imagine how they play if the players use their own characters rather than pregenerated ones, and the DM tailors the stories dramatic conflicts to those characters rather than the pregenerated ones - not that using the pregenerated ones means the play isn't about drama. The same is also true of modern APs. You are right only in as much as you don't have to do this, but then I'd argue that its possible to play one of the games he describes in the manner he describes and largely make dramatic play irrelevant as well (or at least to the same degree).

So far from the GM going where the action is as established via PC building, the players have to take their PCs where the GM tells them that the action is.

No, they don't. The modules just have to assume that they do, because there isn't space available in the limited text to provide for every contingency of the players departed from the standard course of action. But, talk to the guys that turned DL into primerally a naval campaign based in the players taking the PCs where they thought the action was. Were they suddenly not playing D&D? Was it suddenly a narrativist game?

Which, at least to me, implied that MHRP is giving advice that you don't follow in your game. From which I infer that your play doesn't fit the model.

Again, not the same thing. Once you assume 'the model' doesn't adequately describe standard narrativist play, this sort of line of thought goes away. Yes, things obviously differ between my game and Manbearcat's, but we have to actually define that it is rather than assuming what it is. For that matter, I again argue that your assumption here that you and Manbearcat are playing the same sort of game doesn't totally hold up for me. Manbearcat's description of how he's handling stakes doesn't full correspond to your game. Moreover, I'd argue that you - like most good DMs - aren't playing a single purist game, but are instead pullling different tools in to fit different agendas of play in different situations. There is more here than exists in your philosophy. What I'm saying is that a) there are more different descriptors than GNS, b) GNS aren't separate buckets but continuims, and c) scene to scene and moment to moment in play, there can be different agendas on display and resolution systems being used and that this has always been true of D&D in actual play and even in the stated guidelines.

 

[N'raac]

@Jackinthegreen- it's not really a problem. Although, in our groups, knowledge checks tend to be initiated by the players, not by the DM. IOW, if I wanted to know something about the desert, I'd ask for a knowledge check.

So absent a request, you have no knowledge? I consider knowledge a bit less active, but que sera.

It was the (in my view) unnecessary tedium of a bunch of skill checks and needless simulation making saddles and falling off the centipede that I objected to. If the skill checks are so easy that we pass by taking 10, then they don't need to be rolled. If the skill checks are too difficult, then the plan becomes untenable.

I don’t disagree with either statement. However, I also think there is potential for success or failure, and the Ride skill is the appropriate determinant. So, to expand on your statements, I feel that:

1. If the skill checks are so easy that we pass by taking 10, then they don't need to be rolled until and unless they occur in a context where Taking 10 is not an option, such as fleeing a desert predator who loves this “full meal with hors d’oeuvres riding it” concept.

1. If the skill checks are too difficult, then the plan becomes untenable. In which case the plan was not viable and should be abandoned by the players, unless they can use their ingenuity to make those skill checks easier, and the plan viable.

Falling off the centipede every 50 feet isn't exactly the coolness factor I was hoping for.

Then you should proceed with the plan only if the skill checks make it viable not to fall off the centipede every 50 feet. If the mechanics don’t support your plan, that is not the GM’s fault any more than a PC’s death by Grell means the GM is a “bad GM” for letting the Grell defend itself, and requiring the PC’s roll to hit and damage against it, not just announce a cool victory against the Grell.

 

[Manbearcat]

Great post @chaochou The "where the immediately relevant action and player-challenging conflict/content is at" corrolary applies.

Why is the badlands where the snake-men cultists' temple is located in my game (with horse eating hyena packs, dangerously uneven terrain, flying artillery, gorges, sinkholes, and snake-men pursuers trying to get the idol back) an Action Scene?

Why is the travel through the forest via trail (that might have equally dangerous wolves or gnolls, lairs of dangerous beasts, impeding or hazardous terrain features...but doesn't have snake-men pursuers trying to get their idol back) back to the threatened village a Transition Scene?

The proximity of the "Snake-Men Badlands" is immediately adjacent to the forest where the threatened village lies on the far-side.

I think its likely that Desert in Hussar's game = Forest in my game (or at least Hussar's perception of it).

 

[Celebrim]

How hard is that? They want some decent hirelings. If in doubt, get them to roll a Gather Information or Profession (mercenary captain) or whatever the relevant 3E skill check is, and for every 5 points over 15 (or whatever the system-appropriate threshold is) guarantee the hirelings at least a minimum of 2, 3 etc hp per hit die.

I'd like to point out that I have no particular problem with this sort of resolution, and might use something similar depending on the circumstances. I also want to point out that I've suggested something very similar as a possible resolution - letting it all ride on a diplomacy check. I'd also like to point out that I've suggested that the results of a very good diplomacy check could be you recruit a bunch of zealous templars who are fanatical about killing grells and demand no pay.

I would also like to point out that Hussar has repeatedly asserted in the face of lots of evidence otherwise, that noone has has suggested making the 'complications' positive or favorable to the player. Yet there are dozens of examples to the contrary.

However, what I have claimed and do assert is that letting it all ride on a roll isn't the only or necessarily best way to play to things out. I'd also like to point out though that this sort of menial task - conducting interviews with low level hirelings, shopping, and the like - is something that once the PC's are sufficiently high level generally gets delegated as a task to loyal and reliable NPC, in which case it pretty much is always resolved by letting it ride on a single skill check (albiet, the NPCs). This is because even in cases when resolving something in detail is preferred by circumstance, it's seldom preferable to continue that model in the long term unless its very core to the player's agenda because everything becomes dull over time. We might interview low level hirelings when you are first level, but when you are 10th your relationship to low level hirelings has completely changed - at 10th the model of play is probably closer to the 'scouring of the shire' or the mustering of the Two Rivers under the banner of Mantharen in Wheel of Time. 'Interviews' as such are only going to be really played out with other great lords, and the players are unlikely to even recognize that what is going on is analogous to interviewing hirelings. We might play out crossing the desert in detail the first time, but each successive time we cross the same desert it becomes less interesting to dwell on the details.

The GM doesn't have to do this, because the GM can always choose not to introduce the unsavoury hireling into the encounter. Or, if the GM does decide that that would be a fun complication to introduce, there are literally dozens of other ways to have the players respond to or engage with that short of running the hiring episode that Hussar objected to.

Well, yes, exactly.

But anyway, my advice to any GM who wanted to avoid being dumped on, or more likely just dumped, would be to let the players hire a handful of competent merecenaries with a minimum of fuss. Or, if the GM doesn't want the mercenaries in the game - eg because resolving their actions will slow things down at the table, or just because the GM wants all the focus to be on and all the effort to come from the PCs - then make that clear to the players out-of-character, at the metagame level.

At my table at least, there is far more than that riding on the thematically significant moment of first obtaining a position where you are now a captain and commander of men. Or have you missed that from my description of setting?

You didn't describe a sandbox game. As per my quote just above, you described a game in which the GM knows that something is relevant because the GM has a prewritten scenario. That's what I described as a railroad.

Once again, you are using 'railroad' in a way that it is not defined, and which leads me to believe that you just use the term to mean 'badwrongfun'. 'Railroad' has to do with GM force, not with whether some details of setting are present before play.

 

[N'raac]

But, we would have no idea that there was any time pressure of the siege because we haven't been to the city yet. So, until such time as we go to the city, there can be no time pressure for the players. I suppose the nomads could tell us, but, that pre-supposes that we have any real reason for talking to random NPC's who happen to be met between A and B.

There is still no incentive for the players to interact with the nomads until after the fact.

My suggestion assumes there is some time pressure for you to get to the city and accomplish your task, which means crossing the desert is something the characters want to expedite. That is, five days in the desert rather than seven is important, even if either period would be played out in the same game/player time – ie “You arrive after X days”.

If there is no time pressure, then we can sit and wait for the siege to resolve without getting involved.

What makes you think that I would not accept failure? Is there anything I've written to give that impression?

Your diatribes against any suggestion that, perhaps, summoning a centipede does not spell autosuccess for a quick, easy desert crossing with no encounters. And for all your protests that your objection was simply to tedious, meaningless Ride rolls, you also vigorously opposed any suggestion that there were potential impediments that riding a centipede would not allow easy passage through, and encounters the centipede could not just avoid like a Warner Brothers Road Runner.

Your dread of a mercenary hire that may not perfectly match your expectations, or a horse that is lame, or a spear that is substandard. Your assertion that not permitting you to just hire the mercenaries.

All of these indicate you are not tolerant of failure.

Then why is every single example in this thread countered with a laundry list of complications? Why has not a single person even simply accepted that you can hire hirelings without complications? N'raac has specifically stated that doing so would be boring, for one.

Why do you not accept that your desire that a given task be accomplished without complications does not mean that it can, or even should, be? I have suggested the option of simply accepting that, sometimes, complications arise because they would not be avoided by anything but complete paranoia in every daily activity. Your responses indicate that such paranoia is the only reasonable reaction to the possibility that something might otherwise slip past and inconvenience the characters, such as a lame horse, defective weapon or undesirable hireling on occasions.

Not every time. Not even all that often. Perhaps once in a campaign - or hey, how about as often as you suggest a scene would be skipped by player demand?

 

[N'raac]

Wow. A player expecting to get what he asks for when he's asking for something expressly allowed in the rules - in this case a handful of hirelings. What a bastard player. If getting what you expect is your version of a "best case scenario", I'd hate to see your worst.

Celebrim has provided numerous rule cites that indicate a half dozen mercenaries willing to work for whatever pittance you pick from a price list for a day of risking life and limb to help you kill off a sentient creature they have never even heard of before meeting you would generally fall well short of automatic availability. Show me the rule cites that prove him wrong, please. I to acknowledge his cites are from much earlier editions, so maybe you have a rules cite that clearly states this is a mundane and simple task. Cite a page reference. Link to an SRD. Show everyone how clearly you are right and I am missing the boat.

The idea of Take 10 was brought up and it was mentioned that Take 10 gives you mediocre results. That's not true. Take 10 gives you successes. End of story. If a wall is DC 15 to climb and I have +5 to Climb, then I will not fall off when I climb that wall. I climb to the top without rolling anything. ((Note, I'm presupposing here that the DC is ACTUALLY 15 - please don't change that number))

If I have a +4, I cannot Take 10 at all.

Yes, you can. It fails. You make no progress up the wall. Unless you take steps to improve your roll. Which is where ropes around that centipede come in if Take 10 doesn’t cut it for the entire party.

But, if I apply that to hiring these mercenaries, I get people who are going to murder me in my sleep.

First, show me the cite setting a standard DC for hiring mercenaries. Second, you are the only one who makes this quantum leap from “I hired an unsavoury mercenary” to “everyone’s throats are slit in the night – make new characters”. There is a vast array of possible results falling between “the obedient hireling does exactly what you wish, risking or even losing his own life in the process, and departs happily with his pittance when you dismiss him, assuming he lives that long” and “the mercenary hireling slits all your throats in the night”. The latter, to me, would clearly be bad DMing. But the former strikes me as missing an opportunity to enhance the game.

Finally, if you choose to take 10, and that is not sufficient to meet the DC, you fail. You may not know the exact DC, so you make a judgment call about whether to take 10. Or you get paranoid and spend all that extra time, every time, just in case this is that one rare occasion where things go wrong.

We all know computers can fail, and we should make backups. Do we ignore that and take our chances? Do we take 10 (back up some stuff, once in a while) or do we take 20, and back up everything on the drive, every hour on the hour, because maybe this is the time we’re going to have a power surge?

Only if they literally obsess over never letting a complication come up. If they have to obsessively bypass any and all complications, they can go for it. It's not what most functioning adults do in real life, but they can play their characters that way as long as it doesn't hurt party cohesion, and it doesn't bore me.

Sums it up nicely

Are things you have no knowledge of relevant to you right now N'raac? Really? How? How can you possibly know that they are relevant to you?

If I have no knowledge that one of my very close friends that I live with and game with has some sort of disease, and that he's planning on selling his stuff and moving very soon, but I don't know that, is that somehow not relevant to me? What about a spouse considering a job offer they haven't shared yet? Someone who is planning on proposing to his significant other?

Things can be unknown and have a lot of relevance to me (whole "invasion of privacy thing" in there, I'm sure).

Lots of good comments in that post. I could add lots of “things relevant to you that you do not know” possibilities, but those seem to sum it up.

What if I make the players believe it is relevant, but it’s not? Rumours of that castle architect who fled to the desert turn out to be just that – rumours? My answer would be that this is certainly plausible – not all rumours turn out to be fact. My judgment on the game would stem from how entertaining the process of discovering the rumours were false – all that gameplay in the desert – was, not that the players/characters were chasing a dead end.