All i Really Care About is Interesting Choices

[Reynard]

Just an idle Saturday Morning Thought: as a GM, when I am running a game -- any game -- all I really care about is the players having meaningful choices to make at any given moment of play. It doesn't matter if it is at a dungeon intersection or shopping for potions or choosing sides in a draconic civil war. The whole point of the medium, to me, is to witness Player Agency and respond to it, in order to lead to more of it.

Note that I am not talking about complete player freedom (Matt Coville has a great video on the subject of Agency versus freedom). I think it is perfectly okay to constrain choices. in fact, in order to get meaningful choices, you HAVE to constrain them.

I often find myself cutting stuff out of play that others might consider "immersion" because there's no meaningful choice to be made. Roleplaying shopping is one good example: the choice of what resources to bring on an adventure will very likely be meaningful LATER, but at the moment of play it isn't so I don't bother spending time on the shopkeep interactions. Other times I remind myself to make otherwise arbitrary choices meaningful, like the dungeon intersection problem. There MUST be clues about what might lie in either direction, otherwise the choice is meaningless.

Like I said, just musing.

 

[R_J_K75]

I think if a scene is framed well enough it kind of takes care of itself. Sometimes framing a scene very loosely and letting the players ask questions to fill in the blanks works too. I ran pickup games around a player needing to go shopping for a short sword. Depends on the preferred play style.

 

[Reynard]

I think if a scene is framed well enough it kind of takes care of itself. Sometimes framing a scene very loosely and letting the players ask questions to fill in the blanks works too. I ran pickup games around a player needing to go shopping for a short sword. Depends on the preferred play style.

I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying shopping can be fun, or that it can be meaningful?

 

[payn]

I often find myself cutting stuff out of play that others might consider "immersion" because there's no meaningful choice to be made. Roleplaying shopping is one good example: the choice of what resources to bring on an adventure will very likely be meaningful LATER, but at the moment of play it isn't so I don't bother spending time on the shopkeep interactions. Other times I remind myself to make otherwise arbitrary choices meaningful, like the dungeon intersection problem. There MUST be clues about what might lie in either direction, otherwise the choice is meaningless.

I am with you on this. I do notice something funny with a few GMs I know. They too pass up shopping and less interesting activities, until they don't. Suddenly, if they take a sharp interest the players might be headed for a trap.

For example, I had a GM who never cared about carrying capacity, until he did. The group had to start doing inventory and putting stuff in a cart to leave with a hireling. Well, the GM did this all of a sudden because this idol we picked up along the way would have let us pass the temple guardians unmolested. I gave him the stink eye after he got us on that one. Afterwards, he said always be ready who knows what you might need. Never came up rest of campaign again.

The above isnt a rampant problem or anything, but something I think GMs should avoid. Unless you are playing an old school skill play kind of thing. I guess my point is be consistent with this kind of thing.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying shopping can be fun, or that it can be meaningful?

Resource management is meaningful choice. You only have so much gold, what do you spend it on? You can only carry so much weight, what do you carry? If you over-prepare and carry too much weight, you will move slower...and you will face more encounters. If you under-prepare and carry little weight, you will move faster...and you will be under-prepared.

While I agree with your OP that cutting out RPing the shopping scene is a good call, I don't think cutting out resource management is a good call. Not that you're saying it is. Just I really enjoy the meaningful choices that aspect of play represents.

 

[Reynard]

Resource management is meaningful choice. You only have so much gold, what do you spend it on? You can only carry so much weight, what do you carry? If you over-prepare and carry too much weight, you will move slower...and you will face more encounters. If you under-prepare and carry little weight, you will move faster...and you will be under-prepared.

While I agree with your OP that cutting out RPing the shopping scene is a good call, I don't think cutting out resource management is a good call. Not that you're saying it is. Just I really enjoy the meaningful choices that aspect of play represents.

I agree. Those choices matter, but the conversation doesn't. I get that some players appreciate that sort of inconsequential roleplay opportunity so I don't quash it if they initiate it. I just generally don't initiate it myself.

 

[R_J_K75]

I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying shopping can be fun, or that it can be meaningful?

Both. I used to run sessions based off the fact that players needed to resupply or buy something after coming back into a town or city after an adventure. It was easy to come up with a few hours of play having them track down an item and roleplaying what they came across, like stores, shop keeps, other patrons and street scenes. It usually worked better in larger cities like Waterdeep. There were tables in Cities of Mystery and City Systems from 2E which were good to roll up random encounters and street scenes. This isnt something I would do nowadays, and it definitely depends on what the group likes so its not for everyone but it can and has lead to some fun scenarios. This is something I would do to break up the monotony of adventuring from time to time and worked best when we used to play a few times a week.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Agree with the OP.

 

[niklinna]

Shopping can be made interesting, but it takes more work as most games don't provide explicit support for doing so: It's a common assumption that most goods are routinely available at standard prices, like shopping at Walmart. But even in a fantasy world with magic, things aren't "really" likely to be so smooth. Here again, of course, most game rules don't even think of what magic might exist out of adventuring & combat needs; Eberron kind of broke new ground there.

Anyhow, here are just some off-the-cuff ideas on how shopping could be more interesting:

• Item quality vs. availability & price: Sure those iron spikes are half the price at Pentti's Adventuring Emporium, but when they have a 1 in 3 chance of snapping under load, maybe you'll reconsider shopping there in future (hat tip to Mike Mignola's Zinco!). Or maybe higher-quality items are available that grant bonuses to checks, for a hefty surcharge. Maybe no one vendor has as much of the thing as you need, so you have to mix them up. Usually no rules support for this, but fairly easy to improvise. Downside: Mixed inventory tracking adds hassle.
• Item particularity: Maybe the PCs are looking for very specific things rather than commodity goods, and it will take some hunting.
• Merchant availability: Maybe your preferred supplier is out of stock, or out on caravan, or has some other issue. But a new merchant has arrived in town, maybe they're worth taking a chance on.
• Making deals: Basic haggling, but also things like merchants noticing your reputation, or who else you've dealt with (and their reputations), and adjusting their prices/availability/gossip (see below) accordingly. Lots of room for role-play of a particular kind here. Maybe the merchant hates bards and will only deal with fighters.
• Gossip, rumors, merchant reputation: On the flip side, getting the dirt on where to get the best deals and/or info, who can be trusted, etc., becomes particularly significant, and this can be fertile ground for quest/adventure hooks as well, whether planted by the GM or arising spontaneously through the conversations. More role-play, possibly actual crunchy adventure right in the market setting too.

Edit: Fixed a typo.

 

[R_J_K75]

More role-play, possibly actual crunchy adventure right in the market setting too.

My friend ran some adventures in Shadowdale in FR. There was only one shop in town iirc. I'm not sure if he made this up or if it was in the Shadowdale book in the revised FR campaign setting but a trade coster used to come through every other 10 day so we used to wait for that to come through to restock and pick up some oddities.