You're doing what? Surprising the DM

[Aenghus]

I think this incredibly long thread is essentially about who can set game goals and disposition of authority within the game.

In an old fashioned rpg, the referee controls everything except the PCs, and generally has approval over which PCs are accepted as well. Players have limited information, including possible red herrings and incorrect assumptions, and all information passes through the filter of the referee. Referees typically have goals for the game, but may not disclose some or all of those goals. Players can set goals for their PCs and attempt to achieve them, but given their flawed information their goals may be very difficult or impossible, and some referees won't give any indication of the difficulty of player goals. Some referees may take player goals into account when detailing the setting and plots, others may not.

Starting PCs tend to be weak and poor, and have limited ability to decide their own destiny. As they gain power and wealth, they may also gain more freedom of action if the referee allows them to. If there are multiple plots, they can decide to follow some but not others. Some referees will have very linear plots, others won't.

However, there are lots of other ways of distributing authority within a game. For instance, player goals can be given more importance within the game by mutual agreement, and more setting elements that are relevant to those goals feature in the game, while reducing the number of irrelevant elements and avoiding elements that contradict those goals. The detailing of the setting isn't neutral, it's designed.

Also referees can be more open to requests from the players on non-PC matters, such as skipping particular encounters and plotlines. Such requests are less likely to be accepted if the affected elements are referee goals.

I find a lot of players are conditioned to be passive, and it takes effort to show they can be proactive without being punished for it.(There's nothing wrong with being passive as a conscious decision, passive players suit some game styles, but I prefer players to have the option to be proactive). The most important feature in this retraining for me is providing them enough information to make meaningful decisions. Not all the information, but enough (an amount that's subjective and varies from person to person). Starving the players of information is the best way to shut down a game IMO. Obviously the players should work to get that information, but there are limits to how much work is reasonable, and I've seen ridiculous levels of pixelbitching and withholding of information obvious to the PCs but not to the players from referees in the past.

Then when they make decisions to attempt a macro-task, give them a reasonable chance of success, or if they have a very low chance of success signal that quickly, or just tell them out of character. Especially if the decision surprises me as referee, tunnel vision is often a sign of inadvertent railroading. Constant roadbllocks, massive situational penalities, universally obstructive NPCs etc are all conscious or unconscious signals from a referee to stop doing what you are attempting and get back to the approved plot. And succeed or fail, the experience should be rewarding for the player, even if the PC suffers.

 

[pemerton]

Aenghus, my XP well is dry but that's a good post!

I find a lot of players are conditioned to be passive, and it takes effort to show they can be proactive without being punished for it.(There's nothing wrong with being passive as a conscious decision, passive players suit some game styles, but I prefer players to have the option to be proactive).

<snip>

Constant roadbllocks, massive situational penalities, universally obstructive NPCs etc are all conscious or unconscious signals from a referee to stop doing what you are attempting and get back to the approved plot. And succeed or fail, the experience should be rewarding for the player, even if the PC suffers.

I agree with all this.

The point about player passivity is interesting. In one sense of passivity, the most player-passive game I know is Call of Cthulhu, which (at least as I've experienced it - one-shot/mini style rather than campaign style) is 100% referee driven, as far as plot/situation is concerned.

But as a player going into a CoC game I know that, and my job is to provide colour. And a good CoC GM will pick up on that, and weave that colour into his/her own narration. So even though the player is passive in the plot sense, they are still contributing something to the play experience.

It's the "just sit back and watch theGM's show" style that I'm really not into.

 

[pemerton]

If the PC's try to walk past the siege and enter the city, something will happen. If the PC's try to pass through the desert to get to the city, the nomads do something. The only difference I perceive in this regard is that the nomads will likely see the PC's first, while the PC's will likely see the encamped siege first.

This is true, but assume that the players are doing nothing but having their PCs walk by.

When the players learn about the siege, instead of walking by they can try and do something more active to engage the city. Not so with the (geographically distant) nomad blockade.

 

[JamesonCourage]

The difference is key, for instance, to classic D&D treatment of treasure and equipment. A player who spends character money to buy a sword at startup, for instance, is subsequently entitled to declar that his/her PC is making an attack with the sword. [SNIP]

The siege is a sword. The players know what it is, the PCs are fictionally positioned in respect of it, steps can be taken.

[SNIP]

That neither N'raac nor JamesonCourage appears to recognise this distinction, despite multiple attempts by others to articulate it upthread, beginning way upthread with Hussar's contrast between "following the GM's breadcrumbs" and a more player-driven approach, suggests to me that they approach RPGing quite differently from me.

[SNIP]

In the case of the siege, the players don't have to figure out "how to resolve the scene".

Well, of course I approach the game quite differently -my players would feel the need to gain information about either situation. This could be investigative (talking to the nomads / refugees, rolling Knowledge checks about the city the refugees might be from or about the nomads, etc.), or it could be with skills (scouting the siege to find out race or nation, rolling Knowledge checks about banners or leaders, etc.). Either way, I -as the GM- expect to be expanding on the situation. My players won't go "nomads, city folk yelling to me, and mercenaries? No idea what this is about" but say "a siege? We obviously know what this is about." No; in both situations, they'll investigate in-game, which takes times out-of-game to resolve while they get that "background" information. It is almost exclusively only after they have more information do they decide to act; they act quickly at times, but this is usually due to extreme time pressures or reacting to a threat of some kind.

But, again, Hussar's explanation of "player buy-in" and the seemingly inherent link to geography makes things much clearer to me. What Hussar has told me makes sense in its consistency. What you're saying here doesn't, since, in my games, both would be investigated. One situation is more straightforward, to be sure, but I don't see what that has to do with investigation prior to use (your sword and identify / wand example). As always, play what you like

Constant roadbllocks, massive situational penalities, universally obstructive NPCs etc are all conscious or unconscious signals from a referee to stop doing what you are attempting and get back to the approved plot.

I strongly disagree. I think you can be correct, of course. But, massive situational penalties may be applied because the situation calls for it, not because I have a plot in mind (I emphatically do not have one in mind for the party; too much work for my tastes). Constant roadblocks might be the way the world currently functions in this area (such as being in a very hostile area). Universally obstructive NPCs might be enemies with the goal of stopping you from completing your goals.

At no point are they in my game to simply get the players to act how I want them to. My game is entirely player-driven, in this regard. They go where they want to, I continue the world simulation, and we see what happens. This will call for situational modifiers (both bonuses and penalties), encounters (both convenient and inconvenient events), and interactions with NPCs (both helpful and hostile). I'm not trying to railroad them or knock them back on course when the bad stuff pops up.

I get how this could be the case, especially for a style of game that is a lot less "I'll run the world, and you guys play in it" style of game. However, I really can't emphatically disagree more with your generalization above. But, that's just my group; you're surely correct about many other groups out there. As always, play what you like

 

[N'raac]

When the players learn about the siege, instead of walking by they can try and do something more active to engage the city. Not so with the (geographically distant) nomad blockade.

well...

Well, of course I approach the game quite differently -my players would feel the need to gain information about either situation. This could be investigative (talking to the nomads / refugees, rolling Knowledge checks about the city the refugees might be from or about the nomads, etc.), or it could be with skills (scouting the siege to find out race or nation, rolling Knowledge checks about banners or leaders, etc.). Either way, I -as the GM- expect to be expanding on the situation. My players won't go "nomads, city folk yelling to me, and mercenaries? No idea what this is about" but say "a siege? We obviously know what this is about." No; in both situations, they'll investigate in-game, which takes times out-of-game to resolve while they get that "background" information. It is almost exclusively only after they have more information do they decide to act; they act quickly at times, but this is usually due to extreme time pressures or reacting to a threat of some kind.

Yup.

It depends on how both the siege and the nomad encounters are set up and run. There could be hints of either before we even set foot in the desert, or there could be no information until we stumble across it, for either of the two. Assuming some up front information, the players can be as proactive or non-proactive as they choose.

 

[pemerton]

It depends on how both the siege and the nomad encounters are set up and run.

Well, quite.

 

[Aenghus]

I strongly disagree. I think you can be correct, of course. But, massive situational penalties may be applied because the situation calls for it, not because I have a plot in mind (I emphatically do not have one in mind for the party; too much work for my tastes). Constant roadblocks might be the way the world currently functions in this area (such as being in a very hostile area). Universally obstructive NPCs might be enemies with the goal of stopping you from completing your goals.

Admittedly, signals are subjective and can be misinterpreted. Which I am prone to - when a referee is throwing up lots of roadbocks and reducing success chances to 25% or less, I find it difficult to tell if it's because the current task is very difficult or actually impossible. Depending on the penalties for individual failures, I'm likely to get discouraged and abandon the plotline, seeking another path of least resistance.

Constant failures can damage player morale and make them back off. When the referee wants the players to push harder, but the players just see brick wall after brick wall thrown in front of them and decide to back off, everyone involved may get frustrated and angry. I've seen this happen a number of times, especially with referees unwilling to step outside the game to discuss it or who blame the players for everything.

When players suprise the referee they are often taken aback, and if they think that a decision doesn't make sense or is a waste of time it's easy to assign larger penalties than perhaps are objectively called for.

And penalties have serious cumulative effects. On single die rolls the success rate will probably drop well under 50%, which will quickly move larger tasks requiring multiple successful rolls to highly unlikely.(two 30% in a row is a 9% chance, it gets increasingly worse with lower chances or more successes required). referees with less system mastery or math skills can easily make tasks practically impossible by accident by piling on penalties.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Admittedly, signals are subjective and can be misinterpreted. Which I am prone to - when a referee is throwing up lots of roadbocks and reducing success chances to 25% or less, I find it difficult to tell if it's because the current task is very difficult or actually impossible. Depending on the penalties for individual failures, I'm likely to get discouraged and abandon the plotline, seeking another path of least resistance.

Constant failures can damage player morale and make them back off.

This all makes perfect sense to me. I agree.

When the referee wants the players to push harder, but the players just see brick wall after brick wall thrown in front of them and decide to back off, everyone involved may get frustrated and angry. I've seen this happen a number of times, especially with referees unwilling to step outside the game to discuss it or who blame the players for everything.

Well, this ties into when I said things are player-driven, and that I have no plot in mind. I'm not trying to ever make them push harder, I'm just playing the world. Admittedly, it's a play style thing, but I'm not placing pressure on them just to place pressure on them. If there's pressure, it's because it 'makes sense' from more of a simulation-of-setting perspective.

When players suprise the referee they are often taken aback, and if they think that a decision doesn't make sense or is a waste of time it's easy to assign larger penalties than perhaps are objectively called for.

*Slow clap* Wow, you brought this all around to the original post? Great job. Colored me impressed

But yes, I'm one of those "it doesn't make sense, so it probably doesn't work" GMs. Can that go overboard? I guess it depends on your play style. If I'm simulating what I think makes sense for my campaign setting, it's fairly easy for me. If, however, the group is playing in a more drama-focused style, then perhaps it is easy to go overboard. I'd agree with that.

And penalties have serious cumulative effects. On single die rolls the success rate will probably drop well under 50%, which will quickly move larger tasks requiring multiple successful rolls to highly unlikely.(two 30% in a row is a 9% chance, it gets increasingly worse with lower chances or more successes required). referees with less system mastery or math skills can easily make tasks practically impossible by accident by piling on penalties.

Yeah, I agree with you. The question is one of play style; if something is that hard to do, I don't mind assigning that 9% chance of success. However, this isn't appropriate to all styles of play, and I can see how easily frustration could flow from players who aren't expecting this style of play. And, like you pointed out, I can see how GMs might think things aren't as punishing as they are, since that's likely an easier mistake to make than making things too easy. How many groups have had a party wipe under a new GM who accidentally misjudged enemies?

At any rate, great post (XP for you). Lots of meat to reply to, and, more importantly, for me to think about. Thanks for the thoughtful reply. As always, play what you like

 

[killem2]

I don't know how much of this is going to be a GOTCHA DM, reply, but I was a conjurer, who was working towards master specialists to malconvoker but I died.

Our party is very weak in terms of damage out put. We have a wizard who is still new at just what a wizard can really do, a Petal Psion who is learning fast but the damage out put is still weak, we have a half giant psychic warrior who is ran by a teenager who forgets to use his powers, and thus turns into a weaker fighter, a rogue who loves his skill checks but barley scratches anyone in combat.

Well, my conjurer was still more of a battlefield controller at this point rather than an all our damage dealer.

Now, I've created a Goliath Barbarian 1 Dungeon Crasher fighter 3, I've eeked every bit of power I can with the options he's allowed, which is pretty deep. Dragon Magazine, 3.0 and 3.5 official material.

I have all the works, good exotic reach weapon, that deals fabulous damage, knockback, and rocking str of 24, combat reflexes with a dex of 14, and was able to buy a pair of Gauntlets of Opportunity, with a huge version of my war pike, so when I get large, I deal just a bit more damage.

I may end up surprising the party more than the DM, since we always give him our sheets to make sure numbers and all are correct.

So, we'll see .

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Perhaps this blog might be worth a read? http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/a-way-out/

In short, D&D is trying to be too many things at once, and thus it suffers because in trying to cater to many, it doesn't specifically to any because it doesn't have the set in stone rules that everyone can agree on. That part was shunted off to the DM, but another problem is the game doesn't actually give the DM much to work with as far as nailing down certain mechanics goes. So of course you're going to get problems when people expect different things out of the same game.

Note a few lines:

At the core of both of these behaviors is a lack of trust.
“I don’t trust you enough to tell you how I feel about what I find fun” and “I don’t trust you enough to tell you the truth to make your own decisions about what you find fun”.