D&D 5E Character play vs Player play

[Zak S]

The PCs are entirely unaffected by scene-closing.

Incorrect: In the scenario you narrated you TOLD them they examined the situation and didn't have any new ideas. That affects them.


I am NOT saying you should't have done this. I AM saying this is a choker. Do you understand the difference?

You have to impose some kind of restriction or choker in nearly every game. I was merely pointing out there was one.

Whether you have to do that exact choker or else the game will be boring is a separate thing I have not adressed.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Incorrect: In the scenario you narrated you TOLD them they examined the situation and didn't have any new ideas. That affects them.

Hmmm. Perhaps this is a miscommunication then, because the way I wrote #840 isn't intended to be giving any new information to players. It's pretty common where I'm from to confirm a player's stated action while narrating the results.

Bob: I hit the orc with my axe. [rolls dice] 18.
DM: You swing your axe at the orc and hit him in the chest.

This isn't the DM telling Bob that his PC did anything. Bob is not forced to hit the orc. In #840 it was supposed to be clear that "the players are running out of steam" is implicit in the DM saying after ten or twenty minutes, "you wrack your brains to come up with a new lead or a new angle on the problem, but nothing comes to mind." Where I'm coming from, the DM wouldn't even be saying that unless it was clearly the case already. That's why it's more akin to action resolution than nudging; and it's not a choker as defined in your article. It doesn't restrict player freedom in the slightest.

I am NOT saying you should't have done this. I AM saying this is a choker. Do you understand the difference?

Of course I do. If you were saying, "you shouldn't have done this," I would just ignore your opinion. But we're discussing the factual claim about whether or not it constitutes a choker as defined by your article. I think it's clearly not one, but that may be due to miscommunication, as addressed above. That is, you may be imagining a different scene than the one I was describing.

 

[Zak S]

It's pretty common

We are miscommunicating if you think whether something is "common" or not makes it a choker. Chokers are common. And fine.

Where I'm from, it's implicit that the DM wouldn't even be saying that unless it was clearly the case already. That's why it's more akin to action resolution than nudging.

When you skip over a large period of time where the players _could_ have taken actions (I look under the desk--fruitlessly, I interrogate the butler--fruitlessly, I scrape paint off the wall and test it--fruitlessly) you're still nudging. Not necessarily in a bad way, but you are.

Action resolution is:

Player has an idea--->You explain whether the idea works

This was:

Players have an idea (investigate)-->You explain whether the idea works, then announce new actions FOR the players that are unrelated to the idea they had.

"You swing your axe" fits "I attack"

"You give up and go home after investigating" is the opposite of "We investigate"

Now, for the fourth time: this isn't bad by itself and is often necessary.

The point is simply people begin to feel railroaded when:

-chokers are consistently applied
AND IF and only IF
-these feel like an unwelcome restraint to them

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

We are miscommunicating if you think whether something is "common" or not makes it a choker.

Way to miss the point. I guess that's what happens when you stop reading in the middle of a sentence to hit Reply. That wasn't a sentence about whether or not something was a choker; that was a sentence about what I meant when I described the scene, and whether or not the scene I meant to describe was the same scene you imagined. What's "common" is relevant to that interpretive process because if common practice in your areas differs from common practice in my area, it could explain why you jumped to the wrong conclusion about what the hypothetical players in post #840 were doing.

Chokers are common. And fine.

When you skip over a large period of time where the players _could_ have taken actions (I look under the desk--fruitlessly, I interrogate the butler--fruitlessly, I scrape paint off the wall and test it--fruitlessly) you're still nudging. Not necessarily in a bad way, but you are.

Not as defined in your article. The DM is not preventing the PCs from pointlessly scraping paint off walls if the players want them to. He is not doing anything that matches the article's definition of "Nudging." This is orthogonal to whether nudging is "good" or "bad"--even if nudging was the best thing in the world, scene-closing still wouldn't be nudging or a choker. The PCs receive zero information about the "right" course of action.

This was:

Players have an idea (investigate)-->You explain whether the idea works, then announce new actions FOR the players that are unrelated to the idea they had.

No, this was, "Players have an idea (investigate). --> You explain whether this idea works. Players have another idea (interrogate). You explain whether this idea works. Players stop producing ideas. You observe this, restate it, and explain what happens next."

Anyway, I think we're done here. Clearly we disagree about what sandboxes are.

 

[Zak S]

Way to miss the point. I guess that's what happens when you stop reading in the middle of a sentence to hit Reply.

I did not and, of course, would not under any circumstances ever do that, ever. I merely isolated the mistake for clarity's sake.

Not as defined in your article. The DM is not preventing the PCs from pointlessly scraping paint off walls if the players want them to.

Then I misunderstood your scene.

You appeared to be saying that in a given case you would say "Ok you do this for several hours, think of no ideas and then go do something else" (which would appear to preclude all ideas they might've had if they'd gone through the scene slower.

Can you tell me which part of that I got wrong?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Then I misunderstood your scene.

You appeared to be saying that in a given case you would say "Ok you do this for several hours, think of no ideas and then go do something else" (which would appear to preclude all ideas they might've had if they'd gone through the scene slower.

Can you tell me which part of that I got wrong?

Since I'm not telepathic, it's hard to say without you describing your way at length. Are you describing a single-sentence response to the first idea suggested by players, or is there twenty minutes of roleplay leading to a gradual petering out of leads and ideas, followed by the sentence you suggest? If I had to suggest a single point of failure, I'd zero in on your use of the word "preclude". In my scenario, no preclusion occurs, so perhaps you're imagining something extra element.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Since I'm not telepathic, it's hard to say without you describing your way at length. Are you describing a single-sentence response to the first idea suggested by players, or is there twenty minutes of roleplay leading to a gradual petering out of leads and ideas, followed by the sentence you suggest? If I had to suggest a single point of failure, I'd zero in on your use of the word "preclude". In my scenario, no preclusion occurs, so perhaps you're imagining something extra element.

But you have to admit that if you didn't cut off the players, they might EVENTUALLY come up with new ideas. Like if you let them sit there for a couple of hours they might eventually come up with something new they wanted to try.

Let's say this was the scenario: The PCs have talked to virtually everyone they can think of, they've gone over the "scene of the crime" 3 times. They are now staring at each other and saying "Uhh....anyone have any other ideas?" and everyone else at the table stares blankly at the person who asked for 30 seconds. You then say "Being out of ideas, you settle in for the night and decide to try to come up with some new ideas tomorrow after you've gotten some sleep".

Now, it's certainly possible that the reason no one actually responded to the question is because everyone was wracking their brains to come up with something they hadn't thought up yet and that by allowing them 5 or 10 minutes to think, they MIGHT have come up with a brilliant idea that they hadn't tried yet. But the players accept your "choker" because they realize that you want to move on to the next day and they don't currently have any good ideas. They figure you know more than they do(being the DM) and you might have a plan to reveal more the next day.

Plus, they might have just said "Actually, now that I'm out of ideas, I'm just going to roam the street looking for people to beat up to work out my frustrations. I don't go to bed." But you've told them they go to bed with your narration, preventing them from doing what they want.

So, I see where you are coming from. You are saying that you don't ever use a choker unless it's clear that the PCs already want to do what your choker is saying. But by the very nature of using a choker, you are, in essence still guessing at what the players want to do. It's an educated guess and most often it helps the game. But it's still a guess.

For instance, if you say "You travel for three weeks toward Greyhawk and nothing happens along the way", you are assuming the PCs travel to Greyhawk. They likely stated that already. But it's possible that on day 18 that one of them changes their mind and decides to go somewhere else. But by narrating "You get to Greyhawk", you've kind of taken that choice away from them compared to if you narrated "You travel one day. Then you travel another day. Then you travel another day." Taking things slower gives the players more chances to react and change their minds.

Though, IME letting players change their mind only causes a lot of problems as games slow to a crawl when everyone overthinks their decisions. I love chokers and use them all the time in order to keep things moving. Before using them I normally say something like, "Alright, nothing more eventful happens to you today. Does anyone want to do anything interesting or eventful before we move on? No? Then the next morning, you all get a message..."

 

[Zak S]

Since I'm not telepathic, it's hard to say without you describing your way at length. Are you describing a single-sentence response to the first idea suggested by players, or is there twenty minutes of roleplay leading to a gradual petering out of leads and ideas, followed by the sentence you suggest? If I had to suggest a single point of failure, I'd zero in on your use of the word "preclude". In my scenario, no preclusion occurs, so perhaps you're imagining something extra element.

2 questions should sort this out:

1. After you announced that the players had no new ideas after racking their brains for hours and then went on to do something else, if the players went "Ok, wait, rewind, I want to go back and check under the floorboards, would you let them?"

2. Do you think that your summary, narration and capping of the situation gave the players the idea that there were no clues TO find in that situation and no matter how hard they tried and for how long?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

2 questions should sort this out:

1. After you announced that the players had no new ideas after racking their brains for hours and then went on to do something else, if the players went "Ok, wait, rewind, I want to go back and check under the floorboards, would you let them?"

Sure, why not? This isn't professional chess with a chess timer--as long as we haven't moved on too far, I allow retroactive action declarations. It's way quicker that way because the players don't have to be paranoid about dotting every i and crossing every t in every single interaction before moving on.

2. Do you think that your summary, narration and capping of the situation gave the players the idea that there were no clues TO find in that situation and no matter how hard they tried and for how long?

Since it's a hypothetical situation, it never happened. I've had somewhat similar situations occur in game, but there's never been a case where there weren't any clues to find, only cases where the players weren't picking up on any clues. I can only assume that they assumed there were clues that they could possibly find, theoretically, but they weren't making any headway and I wasn't about to insist that they keep at it when they weren't having fun any more--keeping the murder investigation "in scene" would have been railroadey IMO. So the short answer to your question is "No, when it happens they probably know that clues are in there somewhere, but just don't care that much."

 

[Zak S]

Sure, why not? This isn't professional chess with a chess timer--as long as we haven't moved on too far, I allow retroactive action declarations. It's way quicker that way because the players don't have to be paranoid about dotting every i and crossing every t in every single interaction before moving on.

Then the possibility of retroactive action suggests it's not a nudge

Since it's a hypothetical situation, it never happened. I've had somewhat similar situations occur in game, but there's never been a case where there weren't any clues to find, only cases where the players weren't picking up on any clues. I can only assume that they assumed there were clues that they could possibly find, theoretically, but they weren't making any headway and I wasn't about to insist that they keep at it when they weren't having fun any more--keeping the murder investigation "in scene" would have been railroadey IMO. So the short answer to your question is "No, when it happens they probably know that clues are in there somewhere, but just don't care that much."

I'm not exactly clear--I don't mean to be difficult I am just trying to get a handle on how you're GMing this--

Presumably if the players ceased to care and weren't having fun, they would walk out themselves.

The only thing that would prevent that is if they feared some in-game consequence if they failed to solve the mystery quickly.

Are you saying:

1. You were sensing they weren't having fun in a dangerous-immediate-consequence-free situation and so just kind of said what they were already thinking (nudging only in the most technical sense. They were about to give up anyway.)

Or...

2. There was originally a consequence for not solving the mystery but you removed it because they weren't having fun.

or...

3. Some other thing?