D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Oofta]

I think the locked door is a good example of approaches, which can apply to D&D and other games. Sometimes there's a locked door because it makes sense for there to be a locked door. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a locked door is just a locked door.

To some people such a door would be pointless, but honestly to me it's just part of making the world real. It's kind of like "open world" video games that are anything but. The only things you can interact with are things you're supposed to interact with. That's understandable in a video game world given limitations of design time and memory requirements. But when running a game on pure imagination, we can do better if we want.

I have ways of speeding up exploration for stuff like this that I generally use, but if I've zoomed into a location there can absolutely be things that are just there for color and background. On the other hand, perhaps there was something cool behind the door and they just can't get it. In general I don't put any campaign-blocking aspects behind a locked (or secret) door but there could be some treasure or something that would aid them. I don't ever guarantee success.

But these things are not pointless. The campaign still continues, people move on. But the world will feel more real, more lived in if occasionally stuff is just there because it makes sense for it to be there. I remember a Critical Role episode where there was a chair in the middle of an empty room where someone had been questioned. They became somewhat obsessed with the chair, investigating it, trying to figure out why it was special. The thing is, they had fun with it, and it was just a chair. You can watch the clip here because it's considered a highlight.

You don't have those kind of moments if everything has meaning. The chair didn't suddenly turn into a mimic, the ceiling didn't collapse because they spent time investigating and didn't find anything. It was just a chair. I like when those kind of moments just kind of organically happen as the players interact with the world.

 

[Lanefan]

So this rather ignores what I was saying, since it's obvious that if the players know those options are possible--and we are talking players here, not PCs, unless you're the type of DM to insist that a PC wouldn't think of those things because they've never encountered them before in-character, unless they first made an Int check or something--that if they find a door with a lock they couldn't pick, they would try a different method.

IME they try three things - picking the lock, Knock spell, and sheer brute force - after which they usually give up. It's very rare that anyone thinks of digging, for example, even when they've got characters and-or magic that would make it quite easy. And unless I've got an NPC in the group who (via an Int check, usually) happens to think of it, I'm not going to suggest it.

The point is, if you have a door you can't get past--and it doesn't matter if they can't pick the lock or break it down or teleport past it, or if they
or don't think to --then "nothing happens" is annoying and boring, and, honestly, indicates either that the GM didn't intend for the players to go in that direction and can't improv something, or that the GM is adversarial.

Well, first off it's supposed to be annoying; and if it's boring then so be it. If I'm the in-fiction builder of such a door I want it to discourage entry by any means possible, and frustrating attempted entrants to the point where they simply give up and leave is a nice non-violent way of doing so.

As for intent, even if I intended for them to get to the door it matters not to me if they get through it or not, and I'll be ready for what happens next either way. If that makes me adversarial then so be it; I don't take any offense to being called such, and they're not always going to succeed even if the "story" might want them to.

Especially since the question of if they get past the door relies almost entirely on a random die roll.

Which player-side in-character creativity can often mitigate or even bypass.

But that's up to the players to decide, not for the GM to force them to decide.

I-as-the-adventure force the choice on them. What choice they make is, of course, up to them.

It also begs another question: if it's "just not meant to be," then why is it there in the first place?

Many possible reasons, some of which overlap:
--- to pique their curiosity and-or greed
--- to keep them distracted and chew up in-game time while other things happen elsewhere
--- to annoy and-or frustrate them, maybe to the point where they do something rash or even turn on each other
--- to give them a longer-term goal and-or a reason for a side mission (that being to acquire the means of entry)
--- just for kicks.

What good does it do for either the adventure or the players? How does including it make the adventure better or more interesting? If it's possible to get past the door, then it is, in fact, meant to be. If it's not, then it means that you as a GM have wasted your time putting it there but not having it gotten past.

There's a difference between "possible", where only if that possibility fails (i.e. they maybe could have got through but didn't) it wasn't meant to be; and guaranteed-fail where it was never meant to be. My use of the phrase "not meant to be" was in reference to the former.

And hey, for all I know they might not even get to the part of the dungeon the door is in, or on arrival take one look at the door and say "Screw this, we're going somewhere else" and never even try to open it. It's not like I've never seen these before.

 

[pemerton]

Yeah, I'd rather set the scene and let the players interact with it. If they're trying to get past a door, I've thought about where they're trying to get and I'll consider if there's ways of bypassing or listen to their ideas if they make sense. But just like in life sometimes I can't get something to work and I have to try something else. That makes the game feel more realistic and enjoyable to me.

This describes every RPG ever, as far as I know.

 

[Lanefan]

Not worthless; pointless. Especially for something like a room behind a locked door in a dungeon.

Having a door there, and having "nothing happens" when the PCs fail to open it, means that the time spent in that section of the dungeon was wasted.

And maybe that was the point. They spent half a day trying to get through that door and in the meantime Baddy McBadly - having learned of their approach and realizing he couldn't handle the heat they were bringing - up and fled the dungeon with his minions and his loot.

Whereas having something happen--such as a monster being alerted to the noise the PCs make when they try to get past the door--means that the time spent isn't wasted, because something happens.

Which in fact wastes more time, in that now you've a probably-meaningless combat to play out - after which they're right back in front of the door where they were before, only with a fresh monster corpse as an added resource if it's at all useful to their efforts.

Except the camera doesn't switch to someone else so no, it won't just as easily be someone else. Unless you have a very unusual setting, the camera consistently focuses on this one group of people. Things may happen in the background, but they will never been seen by anyone other than you, the world-builder, unless you choose to bring them or their after-effects to the attention of the PCs.

I run multi-party campaigns, so...

 

[Oofta]

This describes every RPG ever, as far as I know.

Except there's no move, no response, no additional consequence on failure. But that's what this whole tangent is about, isn't it? That sometimes a door is just there and failing to open it means you just failed to open it. Was there anything worthwhile behind the door? Maybe, maybe not. All locks are meant to be open by someone so perhaps you'll find something later and come back. Or maybe I was just drawing up a keep this particular lord has a toad statue fetish that he'd rather keep secret so it's behind locked doors and if the group had opened it, it would have been a funny confirmation of a rumor they had heard.

 

[Faolyn]

And maybe that was the point. They spent half a day trying to get through that door and in the meantime Baddy McBadly - having learned of their approach and realizing he couldn't handle the heat they were bringing - up and fled the dungeon with his minions and his loot.

Well, this would be a perfectly logical thing to do in a PbtA game, provided that you had some way for the PCs to know this. In MotW, there's the Reveal Off-Screen Badness move for Keepers, which I would use, at least, to tell the PCs that while they're fiddling with the door, they can hear the sounds of things moving around, objects being dragged, the clink of metal coins being moved, someone shouting orders to retreat, then another door, further in, opening and shutting as footsteps moved away, thus letting the PCs know that their quarry is getting away (but maybe not for good).

But if you simply have Mr. McBaddy move away without the PCs knowing... at that point, there's no practical difference between him leaving and him never being there in the first place.

Which in fact wastes more time, in that now you've a probably-meaningless combat to play out - after which they're right back in front of the door where they were before, only with a fresh monster corpse as an added resource if it's at all useful to their efforts.

The tentacle attack is, of course, only one thing that could happen during this time. Here's the list of basic keeper moves from DW:

•  Use a monster, danger, or location move
•  Reveal an unwelcome truth
•  Show signs of an approaching threat
•  Deal damage
•  Use up their resources
•  Turn their move back on them
•  Separate them
•  Give an opportunity that fits a class’ abilities
•  Show a downside to their class, race, or equipment
•  Offer an opportunity, with or without cost
•  Put someone in a spot
•  Tell them the requirements or consequences and ask

As you can see, there are many possibilities besides a monster attack. When they rolled a 6 or less while trying to pick a lock:

• A needle trap could go off (Deal damage)
• A pit trap could open up underneath them (Separate them)
• The lockpick could break (Use up their resources)
• Their close examination of the lock saw signs that others had tried to pick it before and failed (Reveal an unwelcome truth)
• Their close examination of the lock causes them to hear movement on the other side (Show signs of an upcoming threat)

I'm willing to bet you do these things anyway in your D&D games--you just didn't consider them to be moves.

I run multi-party campaigns, so...

So you have a very unusual setting, then.

 

[Baron Opal II]

So you have a very unusual setting, then.

It didn't used to be, although I can accept that it is now.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The moves for each playbook appear in the rules. Character sheets are just an organizational nicety that puts commonly used information along with your ability scores and such together in one place so you can play easily. Its not like players have zero interest in how moves work, but then AFAIK a 5e rogue is pretty interested in how her abilities work too, and they're normally recapitulated in some form on the character sheet, right? Why the double standard? I mean, I could easily enough make a character sheet that has nothing but the move names, you'll just have to constantly refer to the rulebook when the GM says "OK, that sounds like Defy Danger".

Backing this up:

I've run the game, in the current campaign, for something like six or seven total people now, over the course of five years. (We've lost and gained a few along the way.) Of them, three players have always, always, always struggled to remember the specific details of several moves; I think Defy Danger is the only one they really know, and that's because most of the "work" for it is on my end--framing the "worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice" when they roll a miss. The ones that are mostly player-side, like Discern Realities and Spout Lore, need to be referenced every single time they come up. The players themselves are frustrated with their inability to remember these rules, and have said as much to me openly, because they feel it should be easy to remember, it just...doesn't stick for some reason.

So the moves are printed (or, in this case, pinned in Discord) for their convenience. They know when they've triggered the move; they just need the reminder on what to do once they have.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I didn't make the rules, but I did think the end result was a good idea.

I don't. Rules for solving conflicts are fine, as long as they get solved with a clear result rather than a wishy-washy compromise where no-one ends up happy.

The whole point of building consensus is to avoid both the Scylla of "wishy-washy compromise where no-one ends up happy" and the Charybdis of "everything blew up because we resorted to the nuclear option."

Hence why I talk so much about drilling down and finding out what people really care about, what their core motive is. Because oftentimes, conflicts with surface-level implementation can be completely resolved, to everyone's satisfaction, if you just dig down to the drive beneath that surface. The idea that "compromise" means everyone must accept a crappy substitute for their real desire is a wildly successful meme, but it is not actually fundamental to the nature of compromise--because conceding things does not mean surrendering. Sometimes, we can concede things we don't really care that much about, or even dislike but thought we needed.

Obviously, some of the time, conceding one thing you really care about in order to get something else you care about more truly is unavoidable. But I find that the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, when it comes to TTRPG things, neither the GM nor the player is in a position where they ABSOLUTELY MUST give up something they truly, deeply care about and will be upset to lose. Partly, this is because of the freedom of imagination: unlike with physical-world compromises, where some things really are zero-sum games and it is physically impossible to satisfy all sides, with a TTRPG we have nearly unlimited ability to produce new things within the imagined space. That goes a long, long way to making true, enthusiastic consensus achievable in most cases.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not worthless; pointless. Especially for something like a room behind a locked door in a dungeon.

Having a door there, and having "nothing happens" when the PCs fail to open it, means that the time spent in that section of the dungeon was wasted. Whereas having something happen--such as a monster being alerted to the noise the PCs make when they try to get past the door--means that the time spent isn't wasted, because something happens.

And that is something that has long been a part of D&D, as one of the many tips for making your games more exciting. It just got codified in PbtA games front-and-center in the core book instead of being stuck in the back of the DMG or in an issue of an old Dragon Magazine.


Except the camera doesn't switch to someone else so no, it won't just as easily be someone else. Unless you have a very unusual setting, the camera consistently focuses on this one group of people. Things may happen in the background, but they will never been seen by anyone other than you, the world-builder, unless you choose to bring them or their after-effects to the attention of the PCs.

That piece of advice for how to make your game more exciting does not interest me, regardless of how long it's been around or how prominently it is displayed in a particular rulebook.

And sure the camera can and will move. Characters die and are replaced, new games with new PCs happen in the same setting, and when they do, the camera moves to them. I myself have run multiple campaigns in two different setting in which more than one of PCs were in play in the same setting. Its one way to get the most out of your worldbuilding. A little show called Critical Role has done the same thing three times now, if you're looking for an example that's not me.