D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[Lyxen]

I think @Campbell is saying that if he's supposed to solve a mystery, he should be able to get it wrong, even if he's better at it than the GM.

Just a point there, nothing in what @Xetheral or myself is saying guarantees that the players will get it right ! It just means that whatever result they obtain in the end will (hopefully) be more entertaining and fun and/or make more sense storywise, or otherwise correspond to the theory of Maximum Game Fun.

But they might get it right, or might get it wrong, what matters is that they found the adventure fun.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

So you will allow revisionism for the actions and desires of the players. Then why not to make sure that they enjoy the game more overall, even if it's not specifically voiced ? Is there an arbitrary limit ? Why ?

I allow it for a number of reasons.

1. The player characters must remain as much independent agents in the game as can be allowed.
2. Most modules or adventure paths are poorly-written and rigid. Allowing the players to author the game produces more interesting and enjoyable outcomes.
3. My particular GMing style is based on personal preference and things I've taken from games as a player (positive and negative experiences).

I don't have any predetermined limits on this, but there's the assumption that the PCs are mildly heroic (at worst) and that there's going to be combat because it's D&D.

This, on the other hand, annoys me. Honestly, who do you think you are to make such a statement ? To re-label something that is clearly not only the way it's played by many players, but that is also clearly the way advocated by the rules and the designers intent themselves ?

I'm Helpful NPC Thom, I have opinions.

I'm not denigrating Critical Role or Matt Mercer (he seems a swell fellow), but he's crafting a performance for players and audience. That's how he makes his living.

 

[niklinna]

But the application of force and assertion of authority are neutral at worst; it matters entirely their implementation and the ends to which they are implemented.

Yes. Force can be applied just as much in the players' favor (whatever that means ). They might not like it if they find out the GM has been softballing them in such a way though!

 

[Maxperson]

I completely, 100% agree. As I told @EzekielRaiden, I think I totally get the kind of game he is playing (probably a variant of CaS), and in this case, I totally and fully support his way of prepping and running the game, no worries.

The only thing that I've been battling for is the fact that it's not inferior, nasty, bad, whatever to use different principles for running the game and to use "devious" methods if you have a different audience and a different aim in mind (fun before fairness if you will).

I've said repeatedly that if the players have agreed to it, it's all good. That "different audience" you mention is a group that is okay with illusionism or whatever, so it's not the kind of group I'm talking about when I say it's

And I will finally temper this by saying that it's not an unforgivable crime if a DM uses them "off-key" (rather than with nasty intentions, again, never met one), because for me it's the mark of a DM who needs help, who is in over his head, and who needs understanding from his players rather than having a door slammed in his face.

Assuming that I didn't agree in advance to them, if a new DM got in over his head and used one of these tools and I found out about it, I wouldn't be happy about it. If it was just a one time event because he was over his head, I also wouldn't slam any doors in his face. I'd meet with him outside the game and explain what he did, why it was bad(we didn't have buy in) and what he could have done differently. DMs who make mistakes should be helped, not shunned.

If it was an experienced DM who just runs games that way I'd walk away and not come back.

Are we good ?

I don't hold grudges. Hell, short of being called or implied to be a racist or something(happened to me here recently), I don't even get upset. If I'm on the verge of frustration over something, I'll bow out of the conversation like I did with you not long ago. Life is too short to be angry over an internet debate.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In other cases, if I "fudge" mechanics or the like, I always make it clear to the party that something weird is happening, and provide them with the opportunity to learn what it is, and how they can respond to it (whether learning to prevent it in the future, making use of it themselves, weaknesses induced by it, etc.) So, to use the classic "the party got a lucky string of crits and blew away the cool boss fight I made," if I felt it was that important to keep the fight around long enough for something to happen, I would make up something and the party would be able to observe it. E.g. if it's an evil wizard, "You land crushing, telling blows--the wizard is caught completely off-guard by your attacks. His face contorts into an ugly expression as you land what should have been a lethal wound, yet somehow, he still stands. He draws from his robe a golf ball-sized globe, which seems to be filled with fire and...possibly blood? He crushes it in his hand and you smell burning blood and the faint trace of brimstone. His wounds are knit shut by sutures of fire and his eyes glow with a baleful light. He's clearly determined to defeat you...no matter what it might cost him." That makes it so the players know their actions SHOULD have worked, but something got in the way (in this case, the powers of hell). It gives them the opportunity to learn, and later on, prepare.

Note that I used quotes above on "fudging." I do not consider this an example of fudging proper, because (a) it isn't secret, I'm telling the players something is happening, and (b) the players have the opportunity to learn from it. They might bungle that opportunity. Such is the nature of any dice-based game. But they have something to work with. It's very, very important to me as both a player and a DM that that opportunity exists.

So this is pretty blatant railroading. You deus ex extra resources for the enemy in order to force the outcome you want (longer battle in this instance.) If the players do not know you do this, i.e. they assume the wizard always had the orb and you didn't just make it up on the spot, it is illusionism, and as such will probably work fine. If the players know you just made it up to prolong the battle, it will make the battle tactics feel rather pointless; if they do well it will just result the GM conjuring extra resources for the enemies to compensate.

 

[niklinna]

Totally this. If the point of play is to solve the mystery. Sometimes (like in games like Apocalypse Keys) you might be solving a mystery in the fiction, but both the players and the GM know it's the other stuff surrounding it that is actually important. A lot of the games I play are like this. That's awesome too. It's when I'm confused about what we are doing.

The only problem here is that unlike a "real world" mystery, which is based in hard, well, reality, a mystery scenario is a constructed fiction, whether or not the GM fudges things or applies illusionism and force, and it's possible to construct clues to lead to a perfectly logical but "wrong" conclusion (since no course of events in real-world, incontrovertible fact, occurred).

Players can be happy or not about getting what the GM intended, but really there is no right answer—because there is no really. That said, individual players & GMs still have preferences over whether they have more fun figuring out what was intended, in spite of any slip-ups in scenario design or other confounds, or resolving things in a way that fits more logically (whatever that means ).

 

[Mort]

That was in one of the sandbox discussions, wasn't it?

For anyone curious here's the thread I was referring to.

 

[Campbell]

The only problem here is that unlike a "real world" mystery, which is based in hard, well, reality, a mystery scenario is a constructed fiction, whether or not the GM fudges things or applies illusionism and force, and it's possible to construct clues to lead to a perfectly logical but "wrong" conclusion (since no course of events in real-world, incontrovertible fact, occurred).

Players can be happy or not about getting what the GM intended, but really there is no right answer—because there is no really.

Absolutely. Mysteries in the Call of Cthulhu vein are really logic puzzles. It's definitely a particular type of fun. I enjoy this type of play sometimes.

A lot of the games I run and choose to play treat mysteries a lot more loosely, but players know they are not really expected to carefully reason out the mystery. They have tools to find out what's going on pretty easily and most of the important bits happen after they know who did what. The mysteries are not really what we care about.

It's being expected to use considerable mental resources to solve a puzzle changing beneath my feet I really dislike. It's the expectation of emotional investment and expending cognitive energy in something that ultimately does not depend on my efforts that gets to me.

 

[Lyxen]

I allow it for a number of reasons.

1. The player characters must remain as much independent agents in the game as can be allowed.

Im fine with this, I will just add that they have to be at the centre of whatever story is being told.

1. Most modules or adventure paths are poorly-written and rigid. Allowing the players to author the game produces more interesting and enjoyable outcomes.

And I agree there, it's just that I think that I go beyond this when allowing the actual path taken to modify even preparation if need be.,

I'm Helpful NPC Thom, I have opinions.

And an ego. ;p

Just joking, right...

I'm not denigrating Critical Role or Matt Mercer (he seems a swell fellow), but he's crafting a performance for players and audience. That's how he makes his living.

OK, I think that we are not looking at the same CR here. I must confess that I have only watched about the first 10 episodes of season 1, where I think they were still natural and less commercial, and certainly not making a living out of it. From what I've gathered, this has somewhat changed since then.

 

[Maxperson]

The only problem here is that unlike a "real world" mystery, which is based in hard, well, reality, a mystery scenario is a constructed fiction, whether or not the GM fudges things or applies illusionism and force, and it's possible to construct clues to lead to a perfectly logical but "wrong" conclusion (since no course of events in real-world, incontrovertible fact, occurred).

I'd just like to point out that we follow clues here in the real world to the logical, but "wrong" conclusion, wrongly convicting people an alarming amount of the time.