D&D 5E Consequences of Failure

[Tony Vargas]

Exploratory play - especially as found in D&D - requires techniques like time-keeping, mapping, wandering monster checks or similar threats/realities of resource attrition.

Heightened drama requires management of pacing, typically under the GM's control; and requires clear stakes that typically are established in response to player declared actions rather than as "neutral" outgrowths of an impartially-refereed environment.

The techniques are - in my experience, and for the reasons I've given - largely inconsistent with one another.

In other words, "exploratory play" is boring.

I mean, it's not like it's a complaint I've never heard from players - often all but the one player at the table raptly eliciting minutely detailed descriptions of the next door he checks...

... but, then, in other, other words: 'Heightened Drama' is the DM cheating.

But I agree that the two are not mutually exclusive: the DM can cheat and his game can be boring!


Seriously, though, the two styles can be at odds, sure. Even if the DM tries to stay open to the former, while maintaining dramatic pacing - say be using quicker resolution systems when moving things along to the next dramatic point - he'll be 'giving things away,' and thus undermining the exploration challenge (edit: as Campbell notes, below, not conducive to they Gygaxian ideal of 'skilled play').

You certainly could compromise between the two, but it'd be like any other compromise.

 

[Lanefan]

Because - as I explained in my post - those things are decided by me, the GM, as one aspect of making decisions about pacing and framing.

For instance, I decided that the relieving army arrived at the castle when it did because that suited the dramatic needs of play. I decided that the fleeing fiance arrived ahead of the relieving army, but only just, in order to raise the question of whether they would lower the drawbridge to let her in, or leave her to her fate, or - as it turned out, somewhat unexpectedly - to rescue her by climbing down to her on a rope outside the castle wall. (Had the drawbridge been lowered then I would have called for competing Battle command rolls to see whether it was able to be raised before the enemy force arrived.)

What do you mean the drama unfolds from there? If it's all being done in the mechanical fashion you suggest, then there is no guarantee that drama occurs at all.

Exactly - it either happens (in means and ways either expected or unexpected) or it doesn't.

Forcing it to happen via arbitrary decisions made by you-as-DM is in my eyes just another form of railroading: you're not being neutral, nor are you presenting the setting and events therein in a neutral manner. Instead you're tweaking these things in response to what the PCs do, in order to force drama upon them - drama which the PCs might prefer to avoid, mitigate, or pre-shape if they had the ways and means to do so that you have denied them.

For instance, if the players spend X time debating whether or not to lower the drawbridge, and then decide to, measurement on the GM's clock might determine that there is no way of lowering it and raising it in time to avoid the enemy force taking advantage of it. And so the dramatic decision-point in fact evaporates - instead of the dramatic decision-point the game consisted of the effluxion of time by way of debate.

Followed by the drama of whatever happens when the enemy force thunders in across the drawbridge...

Ron Edwards [... says some reasonable stuff... ]

Paul Czege [... says a bunch of stuff that boils down to 'cause and effect, or one thing leading to another, in the fiction is bad' ...]

My Prince Valiant game is (I'm certain) more laid-back than anything Paul Czege has ever run; but the basic points hold true. For instance, in deciding whether or not the smitten knight and the lady he is rescuing are able to make it from the castle to the coast (where they hid in a lighthouse to await the outcome of the battle between the castle's and the relieving forces) I did not worry about a map. Or a precise distance. Prior play had established that the distance from coast to castle was not too hard to cover mounted at night, and so the player's action declaration for his PC could certainly stand. (This is a geographic analogue to keeping NPC personalities somewhat unfixed, allowing retroactive justifications of how matters unfold.) What did matter was the Stealth check, because this resolved the dramatic focus of the action declaration, namely, did they avoid being seen?

Cool - though in my view geography in particular is something that absolutely has to be fixed* in place, and properly so.

* - unless one is in a dreamworld or similar where these things are not constant

I ran into this when reading through a published module the other day (forget which one now) where the very pretty maps had obviously been scaled to suit the specific goals of the adventure designer in different parts of the adventure...resulting in two specific locations being x distance apart on one map and y distance apart on another, according to the scales on the maps - where x and y differ by a factor of about 4.

Obviously the adventure designer wanted travel time between these two sites to be short when dealing with local stuff but much longer when dealing with regional travel.

As a trained geographer, I see this as abhorrent!

 

[Campbell]

Pretty much all play of roleplaying games concerns itself with making sure new contributions to the fiction are consistent with what has been established. This is as true for the indie games like Burning Wheel as it is for OSR games like Stars Without Number as it is for more mainstream games. In any roleplaying game there will be elements of exploring the fiction and there will be moments of dramatic tension even if they are inadvertent.

The question becomes what we choose to prioritize in any given moment of play, what set of techniques we employ, and how those techniques shape and direct play. These things matter. There are very real differences in play that arise from shifting the priorities that we use to make our decisions and using one technique instead of using another. When we choose to use one technique it is important to understand not just the benefits it brings, but also what we are giving up.

It is near impossible to exercise the sort of skilled play early Dungeons and Dragons is known for an environment where the dungeon is built over time through DM description according to dramatic needs or where there is a good deal of telegraphing. That does not make those techniques wrong or bad - just not suited to that sort of play.

There is no set of techniques that are perfect - that give us everything we could possibly want. It is impossible to prioritize everything equally when we make decisions as GMs. Something has to give. Something has to be more important in the current moment of play. Choosing what to prioritize is part what makes running games difficult. When we prioritize drama and tension over exploration of the fiction we are not like not caring about the latter, but we are definitely caring more about the former and that impacts the play experience. Our priorities might shift in other times, and that also impacts the play experience.

Having clear play priorities and owning them is like a good thing. It's what allows us to analyze our play, improve our skills as GMs, and generally bring it.

 

[Ratskinner]

Having clear play priorities and owning them is like a good thing. It's what allows us to analyze our play, improve our skills as GMs, and generally bring it.

QFT. My current group suffers a quite bit from not actually knowing what they like...or perhaps not admitting it. It puts us on a carousel of rules modifications and game changes that will never get us to where they really want to go. I've even tried to point it out to them with examples of how play went...and nothing.

 

[iserith]

It is near impossible to exercise the sort of skilled play early Dungeons and Dragons is known for an environment where the dungeon is built over time through DM description according to dramatic needs or where there is a good deal of telegraphing. That does not make those techniques wrong or bad - just not suited to that sort of play.

How do you define the "skilled play early Dungeons and Dragons is known for?" And how does telegraphing make it "near impossible" to achieve that "skilled play?"

Because to me, all telegraphing does is eliminate the perception of a challenge or consequence as a "gotcha" by the DM and gives the player just enough information to change their fate by paying attentions and making effective decisions. That is as opposed to following standard operating procedures in the face of a lack of information to mitigate risk which doesn't strike me as skillful play.

 

[Campbell]

How do you define the "skilled play early Dungeons and Dragons is known for?" And how does telegraphing make it "near impossible" to achieve that "skilled play?"

Because to me, all telegraphing does is eliminate the perception of a challenge or consequence as a "gotcha" by the DM and gives the player just enough information to change their fate by paying attentions and making effective decisions. That is as opposed to following standard operating procedures in the face of a lack of information to mitigate risk which doesn't strike me as skillful play.

For this post when I use "us" I am talking about the players.

The primary issue with telegraphing in this sort of play are that the referee is deciding for us what demands attention. The other issue is that it can involve deciding what is at stake before the players act. The referee is not supposed to decide what demands our attention or what the consequences will be before the players act. The referee has no way of knowing what is at stake because he or she does not know what our goals are or what we are trying to get out of any given interaction and we would not give an answer if asked.

In this sort of play the referee either prepares or selects a scenario that is meaningfully complete before play begins. As players we navigate through the game state as if it were something real we could touch, taste, and feel. The referee thoroughly describes the environment and as players we get to navigate through it with whatever aims we choose. We describe our actions and the referee adjudicates solely based on causality. We decide what is important and how we will deal with it, including who our enemies and allies will be.

The skill of play is navigating the fiction based on an imperfect understanding, choosing when and where to search with an awareness that searching might mean running into patrols or give dungeon denizens time to reinforce themselves or to move to other spots.Searching becomes a tactical consideration. It also involves carefully choosing actions which further our goals and not engaging in behavior that is contrary to our goals. All based on an imperfect understanding of the world around us. To understand more we actually have to interact with it in order to find out.

Much of this sort of play depends on what one person on the Story Games forum called the "No Paper After Rock" principle. Basically the GM goes first when they design the scenario. At no point during play are they allowed to make alterations based on what the players do except by following the causality of the fiction. Traps are where traps are. Monsters are where they are. Players navigate this tangible environment and based on the goals they set for themselves interact with.

It is not uncommon in play for players to ask the referee to step outside while they come up with a plan. When I am a referee I am happy to oblige. Not knowing can be exciting.

If the referee is performing their job in a principled way there is no gotcha GMing because they have no agenda. They are simply describing the environment and adjudicating player actions.

I have plenty of experience running games that utilize telegraphing, clear stakes, and a shared understanding of what the player characters are trying to achieve. Games which feature none of these things are fundamentally different in character. Making decisions in the face of imperfect knowledge, having to decide which parts of the fiction are important to our characters, and having to come up with a strategy to achieve our goals when no one at the table including the referee knows what is really at stake can be extremely exciting to me.

That being said this sort of game can get mired down in tactical considerations, planning, and reconnaissance. Consequences can be delayed and things are often anticlimactic. This is war gaming at its finest with all the benefits and hindrances therein.

Telegraphing is a great technique. It forms the foundation of many games that I love to play and run including Fifth Edition, Blades in the Dark, and Apocalypse World. It really helps to focus play, create tension and drama, bring a sense of immediacy to play, and cut down on all that planning and recon. What do you do (right now)? Sometimes I want that. Other times I want to focus on strategic play in the face of imperfect information.

 

[pemerton]

In other words, "exploratory play" is boring.

No. That's not what I said. Nor is it what @Campbell said.

Luke Crane, in his (now inaccesible?) Google+ posts about playing Moldvay Basic described it as (from the GM point of view) a combination of Telephone and Pictionary - the GM has to neutrally and dispassionately provide information which the players then (via their PCs) act upon.

That might be boring, or not, depending on one's preferences - Crane clearly didn't find it boring. But it's not "heightened drama". It's not about story creation. It's much closer to puzzle solving.

 

[Campbell]

QFT. My current group suffers a quite bit from not actually knowing what they like...or perhaps not admitting it. It puts us on a carousel of rules modifications and game changes that will never get us to where they really want to go. I've even tried to point it out to them with examples of how play went...and nothing.

I have no idea if this will help, but it's what worked for me : Our groups likes a lot of different things so instead of trying to find a game that perfectly fits the group we take games with clearly defined play priorities like B/X or Masks or Apocalypse World and fully embrace their priorities and run short 6 month games.

 

[iserith]

The primary issue with telegraphing in this sort of play are that the referee is deciding for us what demands attention. The other issue is that it can involve deciding what is at stake before the players act.

I disagree here and that means I'm basically going to disagree with everything else you say that follows. I suspect this may be because we may be operating from differing definitions of what "telegraphing" means.

In this sort of play the referee either prepares or selects a scenario that is meaningfully complete before play begins. As players we navigate through the game state as if it were something real we could touch, taste, and feel. The referee thoroughly describes the environment and as players we get to navigate through it with whatever aims we choose. We describe our actions and the referee adjudicates solely based on causality. We decide what is important and how we will deal with it, including who our enemies and allies will be.

The skill of play is navigating the fiction based on an imperfect understanding, choosing when and where to search with an awareness that searching might mean running into patrols or give dungeon denizens time to reinforce themselves or to move to other spots.Searching becomes a tactical consideration. It also involves carefully choosing actions which further our goals and not engaging in behavior that is contrary to our goals. All based on an imperfect understanding of the world around us. To understand more we actually have to interact with it in order to find out.

This sounds much like my own D&D 5e dungeon delves except that when, for example, there's a fire trap on the door, I'm going to describe the environment as including a scorch mark on the wall opposite the door. That is me telegraphing the trap hidden in the door. Maybe the players pick up on it and maybe they don't.

Much of this sort of play depends on what one person on the Story Games forum called the "No Paper After Rock" principle. Basically the GM goes first when they design the scenario. At no point during play are they allowed to make alterations based on what the players do except by following the causality of the fiction. Traps are where traps are. Monsters are where they are. Players navigate this tangible environment and based on the goals they set for themselves interact with.

Also very similar to how I would run a D&D 5e dungeon delve.

It is not uncommon in play for players to ask the referee to step outside while they come up with a plan. When I am a referee I am happy to oblige. Not knowing can be exciting.

Why would they ask the DM to step outside if the DM has no "agenda" and is "neutral?" Other than it potentially being more entertaining for the DM.

If the referee is performing their job in a principled way there is no gotcha GMing because they have no agenda. They are simply describing the environment and adjudicating player actions.

I think "gotcha" is more about the perception of the players as to the fairness of the game rather than a DM executing some sort of agenda to "get" the characters (or by proxy their players).

I have plenty of experience running games that utilize telegraphing, clear stakes, and a shared understanding of what the player characters are trying to achieve. Games which feature none of these things are fundamentally different in character. Making decisions in the face of imperfect knowledge, having to decide which parts of the fiction are important to our characters, and having to come up with a strategy to achieve our goals when no one at the table including the referee knows what is really at stake can be extremely exciting to me.

Which as I say above is possible to achieve while telegraphing.

 

[pemerton]

In this sort of play the referee either prepares or selects a scenario that is meaningfully complete before play begins. As players we navigate through the game state as if it were something real we could touch, taste, and feel. The referee thoroughly describes the environment and as players we get to navigate through it with whatever aims we choose. We describe our actions and the referee adjudicates solely based on causality. We decide what is important and how we will deal with it, including who our enemies and allies will be.

The skill of play is navigating the fiction based on an imperfect understanding

<snip>

Much of this sort of play depends on what one person on the Story Games forum called the "No Paper After Rock" principle. Basically the GM goes first when they design the scenario. At no point during play are they allowed to make alterations based on what the players do except by following the causality of the fiction.

Your reference to "imperfect information" occupies the same (analytical) space as Luke Crane's comparison to Telephone + Pictionary.

I know that you prefer Moldvay to Gygax from the point of view of GMing advice and methods. But I think Gygax's advice to players in the "Successful Adventuring" section of his PHB very much captures the feel of the sort of play you are describing here, including the need to plan in a context of imperfect information.

The referee has no way of knowing what is at stake because he or she does not know what our goals are or what we are trying to get out of any given interaction and we would not give an answer if asked.

<snip>

It is not uncommon in play for players to ask the referee to step outside while they come up with a plan. When I am a referee I am happy to oblige. Not knowing can be exciting.

This brings back memories of my old days of RM GMing - though that was a bit incoherent, as we were mostly aiming for stakes/drama-type play but were carrying a legacy of Gygax/Moldvay techniques. I would wander off to get a snack or chat to someone else at the club or whatever while the players would do their plotting and planning.

Having said that, this phenomenon is not confined to the distant past. 4e combat in particular also has elements of what you describe about neutral GM adjudication in the fact of player action declarations. From time-to-time we would have to finish a 4e session mid-combat (taking photos and making notes to preserve the situation for our next session). This would often be a sign of the combat taking a while to resolve, which in turn is an indicator of high stakes and high mechanical and tactical challenge. And I know that the players would have discussions that cut me out of the email loop in order to plan for how, in the next session, they would activate and optimse their resources to try to sntach victory from the seeming jaws of defeat.

What I found interesting about 4e combat - and I don't know how much 5e repicates it - is that at the "strategic" level it favours non-neutral active GMing, whereas at the tactical/resolution level it favours neutral adjudicative GMing. Here's an actual play example that (I think) illustrates this point a bit:

I'm not sure exactly what the artist intended, but to me it looks as if the central beholder is hovering over a chasm, with uneven rocky surfaces leading up to it (archer on one side, flaming sword guy on the other). I drew up my map similiarly, including with the side tunnel (behind the tiefling) which on my version ran down into the chasm, and the columns, stalactites, etc.

I didn't use four beholders, only 2 - an eye tyrant (MV version) and an eye of flame advanced to 17th level and MM3-ed for damage. And also a 15th level roper from MV, introduced on a whim when the player of the wizard asked, before taking cover behind a column, if it looked suspicious. (Response to result of 28 on the Perception check before adding the +2 bonus for knowing what he is looking for - "Yes, yes it does!")

In the past when I've referred to this episode of play other posters have characterised it as an unfair "gotcha". But in the 4e context I don't think that's right - scene framing in 4e, which in combat contexts includes selecting/introducing opponents, tends to suck when it's neutral whereas can really sing when it follows from active GMing that follows player leads/cues and pours on the pressure in response.

What would (by default, at least) be unfair in the context of 4e combat would be a monster ability that is not amenable to monster knowledge checks (thus depriving players of tactical information) or a power whose effect is very arbitrary relative to the level/tier of play (eg a 1st level creature with dominate (save ends) as an ability).

I find that division of GMing "layers" an interesting feature of 4e. As I said, I don't know how much it figures in 5e. The design of monsters seems in many cases to be less intricate, which might make the boundary between being in the scene and acting or being the target of action in the scene less crisp than it is in 4e.