D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Micah Sweet]

Right, I think this is less really about 'player agency', though the narrowness of the scope of available options is notable, and more about "don't roll dice unless there are interesting failure options." Why was it possible for the PCs to fail to escape with the Cloaked Stranger if such a failure was not interesting? Clearly it was envisaged that the PCs would so escape, that it was the outcome desired by everyone at the table, and which was the only one that would lead on to whatever was intended to come next. So it should have simply happened, no questions asked, because failure was uninteresting! There's no point in putting forth 'player choices' where the only interesting choice is X. Don't roll dice when success is the only interesting result.

Oh, I don't know. What actually happened sounds pretty interesting to me.

 

[Vaalingrade]

And with my crystal ball

Don't use your crystal ball.

Don't guess. Don't think you know what they want. Don't think you know what's right for them.

If you want to continue running the game with them, there is only one powerful magic technique that matters:

Talking To Them.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, I have had no contact other then that single e-mail for the game. But it's not like I know the guy, anyway.

One player of the game did e-mail me to say how great he thought the game was, and he looks forward to "being on the run for the next game". He thinks the DM will be busy again this weekend...

So...maybe run the game again. I'm so tempted to start the game with Tyr coming down and ploymorphing all the PCs into deers and then seting a pack of wolves on them to rip them apart. Then maybe see if they want to play Munskin for the next couple hours.

But at my heart is a Teaching Railroad DM of horror...so, I have my forced game plan. Start off with the PCs hidding in the caves...and have some Dumb and Dumber bounty hunters after them(to set up some illusioniusm for the players). Then toss a nice...Adjustment Bureau, TVA, Timecop and "Put Things Right that Once Went Wrong" plot at them. Toss in some modrons "fixing reality" to attack the characters. Then have alternate copies of the PCs show up. They will claim to be from a "good" alt world where they are not murderhobos and are here to put right what once when wrong: The PC slaughter fest. And when the PCs fall for this....they discover the alt PCs are really from the "evil twin" world where the alts did the slaughter and are now out to slaughter all their alts across reality.

This lets me show them their characters made much better and like three times as more powerful. I can tell by looking they made their characters using only the 'core' 5E stuff. The players will either kill the double characters or, more likely have their characters killed by the doubles. Each way, they will see much better and more powerful versions of their characters.

If the characters die, and they players walk out...oh well game over for them. If they stick it out, I'll do the spin that they can "come back" as Alternative Alternative versions of their character, but offer them more class options, items, spell, ect to remake their character.

Maybe the players choose to Put Right What Once Went Wrong. Maybe they choose to run with their new and improved 'stealth' characters. Or something related......should fill up the game time.

Man, you always come across like you're running D&D in Juvie or something. Gotta teach these fool players a lesson! Do you know that the other people at the table are human beings, on an equal footing with yourself, with the same dignity, autonomy, and probably at least equivalent intellect, social senses, and capacity to both teach and learn? I often wonder if you are actually real or if one of my friends has made an amusing caricature of a GM from heck. lol.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Not what I was saying. Are you considering all those other possibilities fairly and objectively, or are you doing so because you want a plausible result that doesn't involve the party being wanted fugitives who people are trying to bring to justice on behalf of the wronged?

Well, this is of course where we get into the very large differences in our preferred GMing techniques and game selection. When I was running trad 2e games, 25 years ago or so now, then yes I would be heavily considering how the action would shape the trajectory of play, since I was the one in charge of that! I don't want to open up battles that have been hashed out in previous threads, but IMHO that is what ALL trad GMs do. They may cloak it in 'living world' or 'sandbox' or whatever, and play that trajectory more or less loosely, but ALL of them/us think about whether or not the game is going to play OK if NPC A reacts like X to situation N. It just comes with the territory.

As I say, this is why I don't run this sort of game anymore. In the sorts of games that I'm interested in running, the 'PCs get framed and go to jail' thing would be, probably a combination of some GM framing, and playing out consequences of low rolls, or something similar. There is simply no need for the kind of mitigations, nor the 'going off the reservation' type of thing that happened with the OP, it simply isn't something that is possible within the process of play of a game like Dungeon World. The narrative, up to a point, COULD take place, the PCs get framed, sent to jail, maybe get in trouble due to one of them panicking and trying to escape, and then hooking up with a stranger who gets them out. Failure at that last point, well, since it doesn't SEEM interesting, its unlikely to come up. Since these games are based around the characters, who they are, their relationships, contacts, entourage, etc. it would hardly make sense for one or all of them to simply start hacking up random people. I doubt the situation would actually present itself at the table, as scene framing would likely go from "OK, we agree to go with Stranger" to "OK, we're hanging with Stranger and dude is telling us what he wants..." there would be little need to pixel everyone's way through leaving the jail.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I mean... even in the high income parts of the world, the actual rate of solved murders and disappearances is abysmal.

Well, I expect that people look at things like the US, if a prison break with 20 dead guards happened, then 1000's of LEOs of all shapes and sizes would descend and cover the area, putting out APBs and everyone would cooperate until the miscreants were toast. In most of history/parts of the world, the government will crush you hard if you signal you are threatening to them, but with their limited means they have a lot of other things to deal with. Pulling 100 guardsmen off keeping the thief's guild in check will be a big problem, so local lord Flauntleroy will probably suffice to make sure the miscreants are chased out of town, put a big price on their heads, and MAYBE even arrange for a nasty bounty hunter to go after them, maybe. You better not show your face in our town again, but otherwise...

 

[Mort]

My intent is first of all to run a fun game, for everyone.

Great!

But why not just ask the group what they want and do that?

Rather than assume you know what they want, or assume you know what they want better then they know and somehow "trick them" into having fun. Seems like a much more complicated, and difficult way to go about it.

 

[iserith]

As I say, this is why I don't run this sort of game anymore. In the sorts of games that I'm interested in running, the 'PCs get framed and go to jail' thing would be, probably a combination of some GM framing, and playing out consequences of low rolls, or something similar. There is simply no need for the kind of mitigations, nor the 'going off the reservation' type of thing that happened with the OP, it simply isn't something that is possible within the process of play of a game like Dungeon World. The narrative, up to a point, COULD take place, the PCs get framed, sent to jail, maybe get in trouble due to one of them panicking and trying to escape, and then hooking up with a stranger who gets them out. Failure at that last point, well, since it doesn't SEEM interesting, its unlikely to come up. Since these games are based around the characters, who they are, their relationships, contacts, entourage, etc. it would hardly make sense for one or all of them to simply start hacking up random people. I doubt the situation would actually present itself at the table, as scene framing would likely go from "OK, we agree to go with Stranger" to "OK, we're hanging with Stranger and dude is telling us what he wants..." there would be little need to pixel everyone's way through leaving the jail.

Dungeon World, eh?

 

[bloodtide]

Man, you always come across like you're running D&D in Juvie or something.

In this case it is a Rec Center...no bars on the windows or anything like that.

Gotta teach these fool players a lesson! Do you know that the other people at the table are human beings, on an equal footing with yourself, with the same dignity, autonomy, and probably at least equivalent intellect, social senses, and capacity to both teach and learn?

I agree this is a theory, yes.

Don't use your crystal ball.

Don't guess. Don't think you know what they want. Don't think you know what's right for them.

If you want to continue running the game with them, there is only one powerful magic technique that matters:

Talking To Them.

Yea, see that is not me.

So right before the game starts I would say something like "we need to talk". And they won't care or even understand what I'm saying. So it will be a waste of time.

How else could this go:

DM: so in the last game you all slaughtered all the guards and townsfolk for no reason

Players(all)-Huzza!

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yea, see that is not me.

So right before the game starts I would say something like "we need to talk". And they won't care or even understand what I'm saying. So it will be a waste of time.

Then don't run the game. Missing a week of game is fine.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Still me.

You'd rather Tyr polymorph them all into deer and have wolves hunt them down? Or for alternate universe versions of the characters show up... more powerful versions, naturally... and beat them up and show them how to play right?

You'd rather that then a simple "let's wind back the clock on this and see if we could have handled things differently"?

Right, I think this is less really about 'player agency', though the narrowness of the scope of available options is notable, and more about "don't roll dice unless there are interesting failure options." Why was it possible for the PCs to fail to escape with the Cloaked Stranger if such a failure was not interesting? Clearly it was envisaged that the PCs would so escape, that it was the outcome desired by everyone at the table, and which was the only one that would lead on to whatever was intended to come next. So it should have simply happened, no questions asked, because failure was uninteresting! There's no point in putting forth 'player choices' where the only interesting choice is X. Don't roll dice when success is the only interesting result.

Yeah, agency isn't really a factor at all here.

I'm finding the failure to escape a real disconnect.

The players wanted to escape unnoticed. The DM, who was already pushing the players along a certain plot, clearly wanted the players to escape unnoticed.

So the DM, who was not hesitant to railroad, and the the players, who were not hesitant to follow the railroad wanted the same result (at least initially, before the murderhoboing got underway). Why didn't it happen?

The OP clearly knows. he was DMing! And yet that part is left unclear.

Really has me scratching my head.

I'm wondering, from what we know of the situation, what positive outcome do folks think was possible? The blaming of players by many here seems really odd to me.

They weren't really given any choices. How else was this supposed to go?