D&D 5E Boy, that escalated quickly...

[Raunalyn]

It is perfectly reasonable to treat the backstory as fixed. That's a valid style. And with 3 of the 4 participants who have been participating in the game being fine with it, that suggests it is Hussar's expectations that are out of step and most in need of adjustment to fit the group.

This...this exactly. Which is why I've been saying that he needs to talk to the party.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The GM is responsible for deciding what is in the chest, how whatever is in there might react if the chest is opened, and how the master might respond.

That's nearly tautological. The point being that "You trigger a trap that alerts enemies" is a reasonable thing for the DM to decide when you root around in strange chests in a wizard's basement. It was not "I'm out to bone the party" arbitrary behavior.

I'm pretty sure that by "saying yes" @Hussar means to refer to the GMing principle from Dogs in the Vineyard, Burning Wheel and some similar games: say yes, or roll the dice. That is, either action declaration succeeds, or - if the matter is a high stakes matter relevant to the goals and stakes of play - then a check is framed and the dice are rolled.

Dice were rolled to determine success because it was a high stakes matter, so that principle was adhered to, if that's what he meant. Given that he indicated that the principle wasn't being adhered to, I don't think that's quite what he meant.

Hussar seems to be saying that, when the real goal of play is to talk to the sister (? I think this is the reason for sneaking into the manor), then forcing check after check to see if the PCs even make it to the sister, and having many of those checks fail apparently because of decisions made about backstory by the GM, over which the players had no real control, isn't the only way to GM the scenario. And perhaps not the best way.

As a player, I don't expect the DM to allow me to control the movement of enemy troops or the conditions by which I'm allowed unfettered access to a dangerous zone. I wouldn't really want to play a game where I did have such control for any real length of time. I'd expect the DM to have a reasonable set of obstacles set between me and my goal, and I'd expect to either have to overcome those obstacles, or abandon the goal. In the situation, the route to the goal was given a complication because of a failed check.

 

[pemerton]

That's nearly tautological. The point being that "You trigger a trap that alerts enemies" is a reasonable thing for the DM to decide when you root around in strange chests in a wizard's basement. It was not "I'm out to bone the party" arbitrary behavior.

Fine. But a GM who does that surely shouldn't then be puzzled that things escalated quickly. S/he built that escalation into the situation.

It is perfectly reasonable to treat the backstory as fixed. That's a valid style.

Sure. But a GM who is running that style is (in my view) then takes a very high burden of responsibility to make things work out.

I think it also affects the proper focus of criticism. A lot of the criticism of [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has been in terms of in-fiction matters (eg his PC didn't scouting out the correct side of the manor). Whereas perhaps the criticism should be at the metagame level: he is establishing goals for his PC, and wants the fiction and the adjudication of the game to treat those goals as a priority, whereas that is not what the GM is interested in doing.

with 3 of the 4 participants who have been participating in the game being fine with it, that suggests it is Hussar's expectations that are out of step and most in need of adjustment to fit the group.

The group dynamics are for the group to work out - it's not really my place to express a view.

I did notice that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] described himself as a "goal oriented" player, whereas it seems that some of the other players may have greater enjoyment of "the play's the thing".

There also seem to be two "murder hobos" who (I gather) are quite happy for any given ingame situation to escalate (degenerate?) into combat. For those sorts of players, GM management of the backstory in the way that is being described in this thread presumably isn't an issue, as they are not all that focused on the backstory except insofar as they can leverage particular points of fiction to incite physical violence.

Well, the way that it seems that he wants to diffuse it is to remove any chance of failure and give him all the information without having to do any work. I'm really not sure how fun that will be for the rest of the party, though...

To me, it doesn't seem like that at all.

It seems that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] wants to get to what he regards as the interesting core of the action - talking to the sister(? the NPC in the noble house). The other stuff - crossing the peninsula, breaking into the manor, etc - is all purely instrumental in relation to that. So (at least as it seems to me) he feels that, having spent at least a couple of hours playtime taking that seriously, and thereby establishing a plausible account of how the PCs might get into the manor, that the focus of play could now move to the real issue.

For what it's worth, and as best I can judge, if I was in Hussar's shoes in this game I think I might share his frustration.

Dice were rolled to determine success because it was a high stakes matter

As I read [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s posts, he disagrees. Talking to the sister seems to be where he thinks the action is (or something like that - I'm not sure I'm quite across all the details of the scenario).

To me, from reading Hussar's posts, he seems to feel that he has been made to engage in quite a bit of play that is basically preparatory to getting to the real action, and is still not being allowed to get to the real action.

Hence the significance, here, of say yes or roll the dice.

And looking at this from another angle: if the GM did want to treat sneaking in as high stakes, and was adhering to say yes or roll the dice, then the failure should have been more dramatic: the PCs are spotted climbing the wall, and captured, and are brought before the sister to be interrogated/put into the same prison cell as the sister/etc - whatever makes sense given the context in which the sister is in the house, and which gives effect to the failure while still pushing towards the goal.

But, in fact, from everything both [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] and the GM of this scenario have posted, it's not a say yes or roll the dice game at all. It seems to be a very traditional game in which the GM establishes the backstory and the players then work there way through the scenario discovering what that backstory is, and if they don't, or they get it wrong, combat ensues.

As [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION] says, that's a valid playstyle, but if it is turning sour for a participant the GM can hardly put the blame on someone else's shoulders. In this sort of game, the onus is on the GM to make sure it all works out as fun.

As a player, I don't expect the DM to allow me to control the movement of enemy troops or the conditions by which I'm allowed unfettered access to a dangerous zone. I wouldn't really want to play a game where I did have such control for any real length of time. I'd expect the DM to have a reasonable set of obstacles set between me and my goal, and I'd expect to either have to overcome those obstacles, or abandon the goal.

Sure, in the traditional sort of "explore the backstory" game the players don't get to exercise control over the fiction via eg knowledge checks, I-meet-up-with-my-old-friend-Lando checks, etc. And the GM doesn't author or adjust the backstory in real time either, to reflect the dynamics of play or the goals of the players. And action resolution is done in terms of task rather than intent, so the players can be successful on their group Climb check (if that's what it was, for the first foray over the wall) yet find their way blocked by guards.

But it can't be a great surprise, then, that in such a game kicking in the door and killing everything comes to the fore as a mode of action declaration. Because it becomes the principal way in which the players can affect the fiction in a way that imposes some sort of finality. Which in turn seems to make it less than surprising that things might escalate quickly.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Fine. But a GM who does that surely shouldn't then be puzzled that things escalated quickly. S/he built that escalation into the situation.

Yeah. The issue for me is more to do with this perception of inevitability and other strategies for dealing with escalations.

As I read @Hussar's posts, he disagrees. Talking to the sister seems to be where he thinks the action is (or something like that - I'm not sure I'm quite across all the details of the scenario).

To me, from reading Hussar's posts, he seems to feel that he has been made to engage in quite a bit of play that is basically preparatory to getting to the real action, and is still not being allowed to get to the real action.

Hence the significance, here, of say yes or roll the dice.

And looking at this from another angle: if the GM did want to treat sneaking in as high stakes, and was adhering to say yes or roll the dice, then the failure should have been more dramatic: the PCs are spotted climbing the wall, and captured, and are brought before the sister to be interrogated/put into the same prison cell as the sister/etc - whatever makes sense given the context in which the sister is in the house, and which gives effect to the failure while still pushing towards the goal.

The failure is pretty effing dramatic. We're in the middle of a combat that, if we don't handle well, could call down an entire city on our party. We could fail to talk with the NPC entirely due to our actions. Those are significant, dramatic stakes. I don't know what more is required?

But, in fact, from everything both @Hussar and the GM of this scenario have posted, it's not a say yes or roll the dice game at all. It seems to be a very traditional game in which the GM establishes the backstory and the players then work there way through the scenario discovering what that backstory is, and if they don't, or they get it wrong, combat ensues.

Right, so we're back to my original usage of "Say Yes" to mean what improv classes teach on a daily basis: you accept the contribution. And that this was a great example of Yes, And, as the DM said "Yes, you climb over the north gate, AND this group of guards sees you!" There's no expectation that "say yes" means "My character accomplishes what I want them to accomplish."

But it can't be a great surprise, then, that in such a game kicking in the door and killing everything comes to the fore as a mode of action declaration. Because it becomes the principle way in which the players can affect the fiction in a way that imposes some sort of finality

I don't know that your claim follows from your assumptions, here. In terms of affecting the fiction, our attempt to sneak in through the back way, and our linking up with a local noble for a party, and the paladin buying us fancy clothes, and Hussar's character finding a safe house, and us checking one side of the manor for guards but not the other....all of those things happened in the fiction. So clearly our actions are affecting the fiction without combat. Combat affects the fiction, too, but it's got company.

 

[pemerton]

In terms of affecting the fiction, our attempt to sneak in through the back way, and our linking up with a local noble for a party, and the paladin buying us fancy clothes, and Hussar's character finding a safe house, and us checking one side of the manor for guards but not the other....all of those things happened in the fiction. So clearly our actions are affecting the fiction without combat.

Well, isn't [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s concern in part that it's not really affecting the fiction - that all these paths still lead to combat.

The failure is pretty effing dramatic. We're in the middle of a combat that, if we don't handle well, could call down an entire city on our party. We could fail to talk with the NPC entirely due to our actions. Those are significant, dramatic stakes. I don't know what more is required?

Again, from the point of a goal-oriented player, having to fight to get to the point of even engaging your goal can be a failure rather than a success in management of pacing and drama. Getting to the sister might be seen as prior to actually finding out whether or not the goal is achieved - in this case, presumably, getting something or other (information, endorsement, love?) from the sister.

 

[Hussar]

See, that's the thing - if you think that the inevitable outcome of every scenario is mass combat, you don't trust the DM. You're already convinced that every scenario is going to end in mass combat, so negativity bias kicks in and that's all you ever see.

No amount of careful DMing is going to diffuse that.

Heh. Just to jump on the other side of the fence for a second here, I'd point out that this is hardly a new issue. Way back when another player was DMing the group, the phrase "riding the Kank" was coined after a fairly spectacular failure on our part to infiltrate a garrison in a Dark Sun game.

Come to think of it, have we ever succeeded at any infiltration scenarios? In the past four years or so that we've been playing together, has a single infiltration scenario resulted in another other than a mass combat?

Is it negativity bias or simply recognising facts?

Have we, under three different DM's now, played out a single infiltration scenario that didn't end in mass combat?

And, just to be clear here, because Raunalyn appears to be getting pretty annoyed with me at the moment, the issue isn't so much about this specific scenario. Nor am i putting everything on the DM either. Like I said above, we've got rather a history for screwing the pooch when it comes to these scenarios. They pretty much always end in mass combat. The only reason I'm complaining now, well, there's two reasons. The first was because [MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION] asked why these scenarios kept ending in mass combat and the second, a fair bit of frustration because we've been doing nothing but infiltration scenarios for the past four or five months now and it's really kind of come to a head.

IMO, these scenarios end in mass combat because that's pretty much inevitable. There are just too many ways we can make mistakes and far too little leeway for mistakes. Our plans tend to be a lot more Austin Powers than James Bond. So, it becomes pretty much self fulfilling. We can't get enough information to make informed decisions, too little patience on our part (which is probably the main problem right there), and scenarios which do not have much in the way of wiggle room. It's a combination of a lot of elements which means that these scenarios play out the same way pretty much every time.

 

[Hussar]

That's nearly tautological. The point being that "You trigger a trap that alerts enemies" is a reasonable thing for the DM to decide when you root around in strange chests in a wizard's basement. It was not "I'm out to bone the party" arbitrary behavior.

Fair enough A trap is triggered when you root around in the chest does not equal, you open a chest and every single monster in the entire area attacks you at once though. There's no reason that every single monster triggered. I understand that the monsters in that room trigger - fine. But, why did every single monster activate at once? Why couldn't the encounters be kept separate?

As a player, I don't expect the DM to allow me to control the movement of enemy troops or the conditions by which I'm allowed unfettered access to a dangerous zone. I wouldn't really want to play a game where I did have such control for any real length of time. I'd expect the DM to have a reasonable set of obstacles set between me and my goal, and I'd expect to either have to overcome those obstacles, or abandon the goal. In the situation, the route to the goal was given a complication because of a failed check.

No one is asking for control over enemy troops. However, what's the problem with telling us beforehand where and what the troops are? I mean, 9 foot draconians, the second most powerful draconians out there (Sivak) are being used for night guards? Not just one, but, IIRC, three of them? Plus other troops? And, no one thinks this is strange or out of line? Not one person we talked to thought to mention, hey, the keep has a freaking army guarding it, you might not want to go there?

Because, I'll be perfectly honest, had I known that the house was guarded like this, I wouldn't have even bothered. We don't need to talk to this NPC. It's part of one player's backstory, but, it's not really central to what we're doing. This is a side quest. If it was a case of get in, talk to the guy and get out, then no worries. I'm right there, no problems. If it's "sneak past a small army that's fully alerted to your presence" then, no, why are we even here? It's largely pointless.

A minor side trek has now turned into the central part of the campaign and sucked up several weeks of play.

See, I agree with the expectation for the DM to have a reasonable set of obstacles set between me and my goal. No worries. I think where we're differing here is on the idea of "reasonable". To me, this is not a reasonable obstacle. Not when it sucked up that much time at the table.

 

[S'mon]

Come to think of it, have we ever succeeded at any infiltration scenarios? In the past four years or so that we've been playing together, has a single infiltration scenario resulted in another other than a mass combat?

My expectation would be that if you want to infiltrate while avoiding combat, you send in a single Stealth Rogue, not a 4-PC assault team with the armoured guys having disad on their non-proficient stealth checks. Your plans seem unrealistic and doomed to failure. Maybe the GMs should be kinder and point that out more explicitly - "The chances of your 4 PCs getting into & out of the heavily guarded enemy HQ without a fight are
infinitesimal".

I used to avoid stating the bloody obvious like this, because it went against the hard-Gamist instincts I learned running 1e AD&D. But kinder gentler GMing is ok too - I learned that after killing off droves of PCs in 3e. With 4e I started telling the players: "If you rest overnight in this goblin infested ruined town, the thousands of goblins you know are in the ruins will wake up and kill you." Initially this stuck in my craw, but eventually I've adapted - instead of killing off PCs for dumb player decisions, I tend to reward players with bonus XP for working this stuff out by themselves. For the others I give them low-DC INT checks to figure out the bloody obvious (to GM), then tell them "Your character knows that..."

I don't know if this would work with Hussar's group, but it might be worth a try and reduce Hussar's frustration.

 

[Caliban]

Come to think of it, have we ever succeeded at any infiltration scenarios? In the past four years or so that we've been playing together, has a single infiltration scenario resulted in another other than a mass combat?

Is it negativity bias or simply recognising facts?

Have we, under three different DM's now, played out a single infiltration scenario that didn't end in mass combat?

Well, the odds are stacked against you in any normal infiltration scenario in D&D (i.e. one that relies on stealth or guile). It's the nature of the beast - a group of heavily armed adventurers with eclectic skill sets are attempting to infiltrate a location that is ostensibly designed to be difficult to infiltrate.

Usually only one or two characters in a party are going to be designed for stealth, only one or two will be good at social skills needed to talk your way past guards and out of situations,etc. Then you are headed into a situation where everyone in the party is going to have to make multiple skill checks to succeed. Most parties don't like plans that require most of the characters to stay behind while the skilled character(s) do their thing, because it means their players are sitting around not participating. Don't split the party, etc.

The more skill checks you make, the more likely you are to fail a critical one (especially in 5e with it's bounded accuracy, but still holds true in previous editions). Plus, the enemy only has to succeed on a single opposed check (in most cases) for someone to be spotted (or their disguise seen through, or their cover story not believed) and then call down the guards.

5E has group checks, where as long as half the PC's succeed on a stealth check or similar skill check it is assumed the group as a whole succeeds. But even if your GM is using those, multiple group skill checks still stack the odds against the PC's.

Unless the whole group is composed of stealth-proficient characters or high-charisma social characters, scenarios that require all PC's to succeed on multiple stealth or social checks are going to fail far more often than they succeed.

Some players prefer relying on scenarios that involve skills all the PC's share. And the one thing that all PC's are assumed to be skilled at is combat. Hence - murder hobo's. "We wander the land doing odd jobs to survive (hobo). Most of those jobs involve killing people and taking their stuff (murder)."

 

[Hussar]

And, again, to jump on the other side of the table, I just want to clearly state that I am enjoying the heck out of both campaigns and both DM's really are fantastic. Two of the best DM's I've played with, ever, bar none. So, please, don't take my pissing and moaning to mean that I'm hating the game and think these guys suck. They don't. At all.

On a tangent, it does strike me that it's very difficult to give feedback to the DM that is both constructive, and, perhaps critical, without being a dick. I obviously failed my diplomacy roll in this thread.

But, how do you tell someone, "Hey, I don't like this one specific thing" without it coming out as "I hate everything you do"?