D&D 5E 2 year campaign down the drain?

[Flamestrike]

The problem (and IMO mistake) with all of this lies in trying to pre-set the tone ("heroic campaign") yourself as DM at session 0 rather than just dropping the puck and letting the players take it wherever it goes.

Nothing wrong with the DM setting up some sort of storyline or plot in advance, if only to get things going and give the PCs a reason (or excuse!) to get out in the field.

But after that I see it as the DM's job to run with whatever the players/PCs throw at him-her, and to be able to hit curveballs such as the one in the OP. If they want to go heroic, let them. If they want to go murderhobo, let them. If they decide to switch sides and throw in with the enemy, let them. And (and this is why hard-line APs are always a risky choice) if they decide to chuck the prepared adventure and-or plot and-or path in favour of something else, let them.

Why bother wish session zero then?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well, yes, we're talking about that lack of experience. That you play Fate the same way you play D&D, as a GM decides game, and do not embrace player authority to introduce binding fictional elements has been clearly established. That there's other ways to play were players have authority to introduce binding fiction is what you seem to be missing and glossing over as 'same/same.' I play 5e as GM decides, and I play Blades in the Dark as absolutely NOT GM decides (I have very restricted fictional authorities as GM in Blades) and I can tell you they deliver rather different experiences. And, you cannot hack 5e to get to Blades without a LOT of houseruling.




Sigh. Again, if that's your reduction, you're missing the point. 5e is always going to be GM decides. It doesn't allow for player introduction of material that isn't approved by the GM. Players have no way to introduce binding resolutions on the GM without GM allowing it. The "flexible" exists only insomuch as the GM allows it. That's not flexibility, it's permission. It's like claiming that totalitarianism is a good form of government because you might get an enlightened dictator. It's a form of special pleading.

In other words, 5e is not flexible because it states GM decides is how it works. That's intransigent. If an individual GM decides to graciously allow players to have some input, subject to veto or alteration by the GM of course, that doesn't change the fundamental nature of the game.

And, that's not a dig. Lots of games work this way and are still fun. This is due largely to there being more enlightened dictator GMs out there, or at least a preponderance of GMs that try, compared to the smaller pool of tinpots. So, the game works, but it's not flexible. I does D&D super well and everything else poorly, if at all. You cannot run Ocean's Eleven in D&D without hacking the system, for instance.



It sounds like the group as a whole, you included, didn't embrace the core differences of the system. And, as you say, if you felt compels were unfair usurpation of the player's control, then you indeed miss a fundamental part of how that system works, so it's hard to blame your players for the failure. I'm sure they missed it, too, but you didn't do a great job teaching if you didn't grasp the system differences.

Also, iirc correctly, you stated beforehand that you did build adventures. Perhaps that was someone else, but I recall a description of a game that was as tightly scripted as a usual D&D adventure and that floored me. Willing to accept a misattribution, here.



It's a piece of cake to rerail that adventure. As others have noted in this thread, provide a different path to the information. You can make it a bit more painful to pay off the failed attempt, but it's trivial to find a way to place that information. Honestly, it's not much info, anyway, as the source of it is fiat killed before the juicy bits are served up anyway, so you just need to get the limited info out some other way. It's one of the poorer parts of that adventure, honestly, as it's written that this is the way to find out what's going on, but it's just another fiat cut-scene scripted to give just enough to move to the next section without any real answers. The PCs don't actually get real plot points until the next chapter, and, even then, it's limited. SKT is a huge adventure, spanning lots of area, with a great middle section that's an awesome sandbox. That middle part, though, is gated by a very linear, scripted adventure and then ends with more of the same. The middle part is tremendous, though.

I ran it (the only official adventure I've run in 5e, I tend to homebrew, but events led to the necessity to get into something quickly and that was new at the time), but I ended up with heavy revisions to the plotline.

@prabe
I'm going to pre-emptively apologize. I let a bit of frustration show here and was less than charitable. I have every confidence that you do your best by your players and yourself and have a great deal of fun playing how you enjoy playing. Arguing about how games work is no excuse for me to question your intents. I apologize.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's a very different style than FATE even. I've never played it but it looks cool. Just because there's a game that gives most of the control to the players and codifies it in the rules, doesn't mean that 5e can't involve out of character conversations regarding how things can play out. The two things aren't mutually exclusive. 5e doesn't codify out of character conversations regarding the direction of the plot, nor does it include rules to do so but it doesn't prohibit them. That's a choice the DM makes when they run a game. They choose whether or not to include the players in the decision making. It depends on your DM style how much control you want your players to have.

Of course 5e can involve discussion, and even agreement, between players and GM. Ultimately, though, that agreement is predicated on the GM allowing it. It's a feature of 5e -- the GM exercises control over the game like a director. And, like a director, he can allow and even encourage ad libbing and exploration of character. However, there's never a doubt that the GM does weild final authority over the fiction, just like a director. Good GMs, like good directors, get great games out of this, leveraging player engagement and allowing movement. However, a directed movie is never actually like improv theater, even if there's an occasional blurred line. Similarly, 5e, without hacks, is never quite like a game with strong player authorities to introduce binding resolutions.

Actually, there are mechanics that do exactly that. In fact, there's usually Campaign aspects that can be invoked and compelled and PCs can invoke or be compelled by any aspect on the scene. Players have agency because they can introduce new aspects as well. On the other hand, some aspects are only discoverable through play because the GM has put them on the scene but have not yet been discovered by the players. The OPs adventure was one where they weren't supposed to have weapons so a scene aspect of, "NO VIOLENCE ZONE" (or whatever, pardon my inability to be creative) would be reasonable and could have been compelled. But I digress.

That's not quite the kind of compel I was talking about (compelling a character aspect), but, yes, this is true. The kind of compel you're talking about is more on complicating the situation in general rather than encouraging a specific action from the player. For instance, if you did have a No Violence Zone aspect in play, then, well, it's going to be a pretty strongly framed situation already and the compel wouldn't be to direct a character's actions but to impose a condition that prevented violence. You can't make scene aspects part of a character -- they add complications, sure, but not because the character acts a certain way but because outside forces in the scene enforce the complication.

For instance, if you're going to have a no violence aspect to a scene, it's going to have to be strongly framed in the scene, with an obvious mechanism for it's enforcement. This clues in the players and provides the fictional underpinning to compel the aspect (or leverage it). In this case, if the PCs started to engage in violence, the compel to the aspect of No Violence Zone would leverage the established fiction to enforce the complication to violent acts, which couldn't be mitigated. This would have to be an overwhelming fictional device, though, and not a random or hidden aspect in a scene (if it were, it would be akin to railroading). I can image a few scenes you could do this in, but they all feature pretty heavy framing elements.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

There is some massive over-complication going on here.

The lord is dead.

The DM needs to come up with a new method to obtain clues to missing giant king.

I have only been skimming the thread and feeling my eyes glaze over from so many walls-of-text, but I think the OP/DM said he substituted in a diary that contained the information to replace the Lord who was murdered.

And even if he had not done that, he could have just had the Lord brought back to life, and then the PCs could have gone after him again. Now that would have been complicated. lol

Or instead, they have to sneak into the funeral home, or wherever the Lord's body is, and use a Speak With Dead spell on him, to try and get the information.

 

[prabe]

@prabe
I'm going to pre-emptively apologize. I let a bit of frustration show here and was less than charitable. I have every confidence that you do your best by your players and yourself and have a great deal of fun playing how you enjoy playing. Arguing about how games work is no excuse for me to question your intents. I apologize.

No need to apologize--I wasn't offended--but apology accepted. I apologize as well: I get at least a little prickly when told by people who weren't there how I ran Fate (and I'm not the one you remember running it as a highly-prepped game, exactly like D&D). I really didn't run it at all like I run D&D, but there's no way to prove that; I understand what Fate is doing, and I prefer at this point not to do things that way.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No need to apologize--I wasn't offended--but apology accepted. I apologize as well: I get at least a little prickly when told by people who weren't there how I ran Fate (and I'm not the one you remember running it as a highly-prepped game, exactly like D&D). I really didn't run it at all like I run D&D, but there's no way to prove that; I understand what Fate is doing, and I prefer at this point not to do things that way.

Accepted, and apologies for the mistaken identity. Fate is in a weird little area -- just a bit of player authority, but unless embraced it still looks like it should play more like a D&D style game with GM direction. It's not my favorite, as it doesn't commit one way or the other. I don't think it's a useful stepping stone between GM decides and more player authority, because it doesn't make what it's doing very clear. I'd suggest the PbtA games or Blades, if interested, because these do not dither.

My group is oddly passive when playing D&D. They wait for story to come to them, quite often. Yet, if we play Blades, this same group is fully foot to the floor driving like they just stole a car. Can't begin to explain it.

 

[Lanefan]

Why bother wish session zero then?

For a few reasons.

First and foremost, to go over new or changed rules. Our system is now about 85% homebrew and ever-evolving, and between campaigns is when the big changes usually come.

Also, in the event some of the players haven't yet met each other and-or don't know each other very well, they can now do something about it.

After that, it's roll-up night; where many dice meet the table.

If char-gen goes smoothly then things can roll right into session 1 where the PCs meet each other and maybe even get into the field.

All the stuff regarding telling players about the setting and campaign type and style and where we'll play and so forth is done long before this, usually on an individual basis if-when I'm considering inviting someone in to the game.

 

[Lanefan]

My group is oddly passive when playing D&D. They wait for story to come to them, quite often. Yet, if we play Blades, this same group is fully foot to the floor driving like they just stole a car. Can't begin to explain it.

Maybe that's because in Blades you can, if I'm not mistaken, actually put yourself in position to steal a car.

In D&D you can steal, what - a horse?

 

[prabe]

Accepted, and apologies for the mistaken identity. Fate is in a weird little area -- just a bit of player authority, but unless embraced it still looks like it should play more like a D&D style game with GM direction. It's not my favorite, as it doesn't commit one way or the other. I don't think it's a useful stepping stone between GM decides and more player authority, because it doesn't make what it's doing very clear. I'd suggest the PbtA games or Blades, if interested, because these do not dither.

My group is oddly passive when playing D&D. They wait for story to come to them, quite often. Yet, if we play Blades, this same group is fully foot to the floor driving like they just stole a car. Can't begin to explain it.

My own groups (both of which are playing D&D 5E) are pretty active and go out looking for things to do and ways to achieve whatever goals they're pursuing, willingly engaging with the present story and setting up future things for me to instigate. Some of these people, I've played with in enough different systems to say that's how they play, independent of system. These same people didn't particularly engage with Fate Points as a way to do anything other than re-roll or add bonuses--combined with my own reluctance to meddle with characters (motivated by how I'd react to having my characters meddled with that way) meant the Fate Point Ecnonomy was broken, which meant the game didn't work for us. My own issues with having a hard time keeping the setting coherent and consistent enough in my head to run it, using other people's ideas, are almost certainly not entirely (maybe not at all) anything to do with Fate.

I have not picked up Blades or anything PbtA. The couple of things I've looked through were somewhere between "no" and "hell no," probably because player authority over narrative seems to come with GM authority over player characters, and while I'm reasonably comfortable as a GM with the former I absolutely detest the latter as a player and therefore as a GM.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Maybe that's because in Blades you can, if I'm not mistaken, actually put yourself in position to steal a car.

In D&D you can steal, what - a horse?

Nah, no cars in Blades. Probably steal something car-like in Scum and Villainy, but it'd be cooler if you stole a starship.