No is just as important as yes though in my opinion here. If you the point is to give the player the experience of solving the mystery say, then their successes only matter if not succeeding is also a possibility.
I agree it’s about more than just yes or no. There could be degrees between those two ends. And I wouldn’t say that I would never say no. I just am aware that in doing so, I’m limiting the player’s options.
The question is “Is that limitation justified in some way?” The answer will vary.
You mention a mystery, and to me that’s an apt example. I tend to struggle portraying mysteries, because (generally speaking) they have one solution.
So the problem is conceived by the GM and then the only solution is also conceived by the GM. The players’ chance of success largely resides in playing things out as the GM has already determined.
This may absolutely be an engaging play experience. I find Call of Cthulhu games to often fall into this kind of style, and it can be fun. But it certainly leaves far less to the players.
Now, I know you don’t just have mystery stories in mind, but I feel that’s a good demonstration of how saying no in this way can impact play and player agency.
Absolutely. If I feel an NPC would respond negatively to something a player said, then that NPC will respond negatively and there is no need to roll. I only roll when the player says something and I genuinely don't know how the NPC would react.
I want to be clear I’m not advocating for boiling every social interaction down to one roll. It’s perfectly fine to play the NPCs in a way that’s appropriate to what’s been established.
What I’ve come to realize is that I don’t enjoy when there are details about the NPC that have not been established in any way and when those factors are what steers play. Because the GM is largely responsible for what I know of this NPC and then is also responsible for the NPC’s behavior and his response to the PCs’ actions.
All of this may be based on how this NPC would behave and may follow that logic perfectly. And yet for me as a player, I’m just bashing my head against this encounter, trying to find the one key that can open things up, and not even knowing what that key may be.
I hope that’s clear.
If there are limited ways to deal with a situation, they need to be signposted or otherwise introduced into the fiction. It’s easy this way to punish players for not finding the “right way” to deal with the NPC or situation.
This is, I believe, what
@pemerton refers to as puzzle-solving.
I think framing it as yes or no is part of the problem here. These are conversations. Most conversations are not a simple yes and no issue.
Sure, and that’s fair.
But wouldn’t you agree that, as a work of fiction, we can come up with any number of potential ways that things could go? Since we are, through the game, collectively authoring the fiction, it can go however we like? I mean, within what we’d consider acceptable according to genre and tone and so on.
If so, then the players should be just as likely to craft a solution to a problem as the GM, right? And I don’t mean by guessing the solution the GM had in mind.
The player should be able to say THIS is how I want to address this challenge. The GM should be able to then make that idea as logical as any solution can be.
And since it’s all made up, he can do that.
The more often you unilaterally say no to them, the less true this is, and the more the players are just the protagonists in the GM’s story.
, behave in a way that makes you feel you are smashing your head against the wall to get answers. Obviously this very much depends on the specifics surrounding the adventure and the interaction, but I never go into an encounter with NPCs thinking "they need to say this one thing". I try to be open minded when I run my NPCs and that open-mindedness is aided by knowing what my NPCs want.
