D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[hawkeyefan]

"Wants" is a different phrasing than "hopes" here; and there's nothing wrong with the DM quietly hoping they do something specific while still being ready and willing to run whatever they decide to do even if it's not what she hoped.

And if the DM were to be open about it, wouldn't that mmediately draw howls of "railroad!"?

Perhaps. But isn’t wanting them to go a specific route kind of leaning in that direction anyway?

Like if that’s what a GM wants to do, then just do it.

 

[Faolyn]

We do the same for in-game stuff but not for out-of-game stuff, e.g. where Caramon is Bob's character:

"Hey Bob, while you're at the fridge grab me a beer, will ya? Thanks!" vs
"Caramon, you just got hit for 5 points damage and you need a saving throw."

Same thing, isn't it?

I think, based on previous posts, the game log involving Alicia is from a one-on-one game but I can't remember whether pemerton was the GM or the player.

Not entirely. GMPCs are pretty much what the GM would be playing if they weren't being the GM; they're supposed to be treated exactly like the PCs are in every way, because they are a PC. They just happen to be played by the GM. Whereas NPCs, even the most fleshed-out of them, tend to be a bit more in the background than the PCs are and usually aren't used just like PCs are. GMPCs have a particularly bad reputation because a lot of GMs will use them to steal the spotlight, will give them extra powers or equipment, lets them break rules, or otherwise make them "cool" at the expense of the PCs.

If the players decide to get an NPC to come with them on their journey, and that NPC helps out in combat or healing occasionally, takes a turn at watch, or helps carry the loot, but otherwise mostly reacts to the PCs, they're an NPC.

If the NPC in question has their own quests and goals but actually could use the PCs' help to achieve them, and their goals are in line with the PCs' goals, and they do things on their own without the PCs around, they're a GMPC.

If the NPC has their own quests and goals, doesn't need the PCs help to achieve them but wants them along so the GM can narrate how awesome they are, is five levels higher than the PCs, carries twin godslayer of hit points greatswords which do more damage than any two of the other PCs combined, and gets all the babes, they're a really bad GMPC.

 

[AlViking]

Then it should not be used to excuse behavior that players find troubling.

That is how it has been used. Repeatedly, in this very thread. Indeed, every single time I have brought up a player being concerned about something the DM has said, you and numerous other people have said "wow, sucks you can't just trust people".

Nobody has said you have to put up with a bad GM, you are taking "Trust the DM" to an extreme that time and again we have said is not accurate.

Okay. I would say I think it's really important to not take an overly-generous definition of "small stuff" (and yes, I'm pretty much of the opinion that most folks here consider anything short of outright campaign destruction to be "small stuff"). But if we have a more reasonable definition, e.g. "a single, temporary ruling to get past a logjam 'cause nobody could find it in the book" or "a single weird description that totally failed to effectively communicate what the DM was thinking", then yes, leave small stuff for after the game.

That's why I gave my example of something that wasn't small stuff--and even then, the player waited and gave the DM a chance to work it out privately, rather than making a big public stink about it. And guess what? I was told that the DM straight-up stonewalling the player, refusing to give any response whatsoever beyond "nope, you just can't" to a perfectly reasonable course of action, and that the player SHOULD just trust them--regardless of their seemingly very railroad-y behavior.

What you're willing to put up with will vary and I'm not going into specific examples. But I don't expect any GM to run exactly the game I want no matter what the system.

Okay. How about what I said before?

In pithy form: Give your GM allowance, so they have time to earn your trust. Then, small issues are water under the bridge, and big ones you have a reason to stick around and listen.

That's the really nice thing about recognizing trust as something that is built and earned, not something that is automatic and guaranteed merely by putting on the GM's hat. (I like to think the non-autocratic GM would wear a tricorne as opposed to a "viking hat"--both nautical, but one much more jaunty than the other.) That is, when trust is something you build rather than something automatic, the player can look back and point at specific times where they were unsure, and the GM came through for them. They can know, from actual lived experience and not a dismissive "you just HAVE to trust me", that the GM actually puts her money where her mouth is, that she goes the distance, that when it isn't of critical importance she really will work with them to resolve an issue. Rather than taking all of that on total blind faith, rather than presuming that trust comes in two and only two states (perfect or shattered), it recognizes trust as something that grows and changes with time, something that can come in fits and starts or that can be damaged or weakened and later repaired.

I trust my GM until I don't. A plan of mine not working? I may not know all the reasons behind it but an individual incident here and there doesn't break my trust. An obvious and egregious betrayal of trust like @Hussar's jewelry heist example? That's probably something I'd want to discuss right then and there because that's pretty major. If the DM had simply stopped us when we brought up the idea of a heist? I might want to talk after game about what we both want out of the campaign and decide after that.

You do you.

Okay but now we're getting two conflicting standards which functionally add up to "never bring up anything".

Because on the one hand, we're supposed to never sweat the small stuff. Just let it go. We just had that from @AlViking.

And yet here, we also have never respond to big stuff, because then you're being a selfish jerk halting everyone's fun.

So...when exactly are problems supposed to be fixed? Because the message I'm getting here is "never ever during play, no matter what". And, as I've said multiple times now, things don't get fixed between sessions.

My general rule is that if you have a question you can always ask, but unless character's lives are on the line we'll only talk about it for a minute or two. It has to be really, really important for me to look up a rule in the middle of a session. In almost all cases we spend a minute or two, the GM makes a ruling and we move on.

In my experience if things aren't fixed between sessions it's just a fundamental difference of approach. Sometimes there is no resolution if I say X and the GM says Y, the GM has final say.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Okay but now we're getting two conflicting standards which functionally add up to "never bring up anything".

Because on the one hand, we're supposed to never sweat the small stuff. Just let it go. We just had that from @AlViking.

And yet here, we also have never respond to big stuff, because then you're being a selfish jerk halting everyone's fun.

So...when exactly are problems supposed to be fixed? Because the message I'm getting here is "never ever during play, no matter what". And, as I've said multiple times now, things don't get fixed between sessions.

I disagree with you that things can't get resolved after the session. That's the disconnect. You're operating on an assumption not shared by those with whom you are speaking. Saying it again and again won't change anyone's mind.

 

[pemerton]

Wait, one person not biting at a hook is dysfunctional to you? OK then... I mean, sure, that player was obnoxious, for that moment and for a few other moments, and I'm not sorry that he's playing in someone else's game instead of mine, but I wouldn't call that dysfunctional. In a "Dysfunctional Player" scale of 1-10, that particular moment was maybe a 1.5 at most.


I never said my hope was supposed to be determinative. I set up an encounter hook that didn't get bitten. It would have been cool if they bit, because I enjoy narrating horror scenes--I find GMing horror fun and evocative in a visceral way--but it's not the end of the world, or even the end of the session. It's just a monster going hungry in the woods.

To me, this just seems strange - there's a scene that you as GM are hoping to run, but you don't run it, because . . . a player made what seems like an arbitrary choice? Or (to describe it differently, but still I think accurately) a choice not to play the game?

I'll try and explain further by reference to this from Gygax's DMG (p 96), under the heading "The First Dungeon Adventure":

Assume that you have assembled a group of players. Each has created a character, determined his or her race and profession, and spent some time carefully equipping these neophyte adventurers with everything that the limited funds available could purchase. Your participants are now eagerly awaiting instructions from you as to how to find the place they are to seek their fortunes in. You inform them that there is a rumor in the village that something strange and terrible lurks in the abandoned monastery not far from the place. In fact, one of the braver villagers will serve as guide if they wish to explore the ruins! . . .

You inform them that after about a two mile trek along a seldom-used road, they come to the edge of a fen. A narrow causeway leads out to a low mound upon which stand the walls and buildings of the deserted monastery. One of the players inquires if the mound appears to be travelled, and you inform the party that only a very faint path is discernible - as if any traffic is light and infrequent. Somewhat reassured, another player asks if anything else is apparent. You describe the general bleakness of the bag, with little to relieve the view save a few clumps of brush and tamarack sprouting here and there (probably on bits of higher ground) and a fairly dense cluster of the same type of growth approximately a half mile beyond the abandoned place. Thus, the party has only one place to go - along the causeway - if they wish to adventure. The leading member of the group (whether appointed or self-elected, it makes no difference) orders that the party should proceed along the raised pathway to the monastery, and the real adventure begins.​

If, at about this point in the session that Gygax is describing, the "leading player" says No, sorry, this all looks to hard - we're going back to the village, that's not an interesting twist on the evening's events - it's a complete breakdown of the game! The whole premise of the game is that the players will have their PCs enter and explore the dungeon. Without that, there's no game.

Here are a couple of illustrations of my approach to framing the PCs into interesting/spooky encounters in the woods; both are from playing Greg Stafford's Prince Valiant RPG (the scenarios are from The Episode Book, which was published as part of the 2016 Kickstarter re-release):

The PCs decided that saving even a single soul is an important thing, and so decided to take the wise woman to the Abbey of St Sigobert before going to fight Saxons. As they were getting close to Warwick, and travelling in the dark still looking for a place sheltered enough to camp without a tent, they came across a weary old man in a blue cloak. (The scenario in the Episode Book is called The Blue Cloak.) A merchant, he had been set upon by bandits who had taken his mule and his goods. He knew the game trail they had travelled down, and asked the PCs to help him. Being noble knights, of course they agreed to do so! As they travelled through the woods and down the trail, he asked about their families - learning that one was the son-in-law of the Duke of York ("What an honour to be aided by such a noble knight"), and that the other was returning to Warwick to woo the Lady Violette - and told them of his own daughter and son-in-law living in Warwick. Then, as they could hear the lusty singing of the bandits at their camp, he asked the PCs to go on without him as he was too weary to continue. The PCs were a little suspicious (as were their players) but opposed checks of his fellowship vs their Presences (even with bonus dice for suspicion) confirmed his sincerity.

The PCs approached the camp, and Sir Gerran drew his sword and called on the bandits to surrender. Their leader - wearing a very similar blue cloak to that of the merchant - was cowed, as was one other, but the third threw a clay bottle at Sir Gerran (to no effect) and then charged him sword drawn (and gaining a bonus die for knowing the lie of the land in the darkness), only to be knocked almost senseless with a single blow, resulting in his surrender also ("When I insulted you, it was the wine talking!").

The wise woman and old man, who had been waiting up the trail with the merchant, then arrived at the camp to say that the merchant had (literally) disappeared! Which caused some confusion, but they decided to sleep on it. The next morning, in the daylight, they could see that the brooch holding the bandit leader's cloak closed was identical to that which the merchant had worn. Sir Justin suggested he no doubt had multiples of his favourite cloak and fitting, but Sir Morgath had a different idea - "When you left the merchant you robbed, was he dead?" His presence roll was a poor one, and the bandits answers that the merchant fell from his mule and hit his head and died, and that they had buried him and had intended to place a cross on his grave first thing in the morning. Sir Morgath doubted this - "You didn't give him a proper burial - his ghost came to us last night!" - and I allowed a second presence check with a bonus but it still failed, and the bandits simply muttered protestatins of innocence under their breaths.

Sir Justin received a vision from St Sigobert, and by plunging his dagger into the ground at the head of the grave was able to sanctify the ground. A cross was then placed there, and the group returned to Warwick with their bandit prisoners and returned the merchant's goods to his daughter.

The PCs and their warband continued their crossing south-east - and (as I narrated it) found themselves on the edge of a heavy forest somewhere in the vicinity of Dacia (=, in our approximating geography, somewhere in the general area of modern-day Transylvania - I haven't checked yet to see how butchering of the map this is).

I asked the PCs who would be with the four of them if they were scouting ahead to verify whether the band could pass safely through the forest, and they nominated their two NPC hunters - Algol the Bloodthirsty who is in service to Sir Morgath, and Rhan, the woman who had joined them at the end of the last session I posted about.

I was using the Rattling Forest scenario from the Episode Book, and described the "deep and clawing shadows [that[ stretch across the path, and the wind [that] rattles through the trees." The PCs soon found themselves confronted by a knight all in black and wearing a greatsword, with a tattered cape hanging from his shoulders, and six men wielding swords and shields, their clothes equally tattered. The scenario description also mentions that they have "broken trinkets and personal effects" and I described rings and collars that were worn, notched and (in some cases) broken. The description of the collars was taken by the players as a sign that these were Celts (wearing torcs), and I ran with that.

The scenario gives the following account of the Bone Laird and his Bone Knights:

The Rattling Forest is haunted and cursed, as the soldiers who died in the service of a forgotten lord restlessly roam its boughs. All who would travel through the Forest must deal with the Bone Laird and his Bone Knights.

There are two ways to remove the curse from The Bone Laird: by defeating him in a combat to the death; or if the Adventurers can convince him to leave his sword in the forest and travel away with them. In either case, the curse will be broken, laying the Bone Laird and all his Bone Knights to rest, as they forsake their eternal battle. . . .

The Bone Laird demands all who would traverse his forest first free him of the curse. If questioned, he does not know how such can be accomplished. . . .

If the Adventurers can bring the Bone Laird low . . . they will have done a great and good deed. Instead of defeating the Bone Laird in combat, they may convince him to leave his sword and the forest and break the curse. This is not an easy matter as the Bone Laird does not want to be tricked away from the forest. Still, here are the kinds of arguments the Adventurers can make to convince him:

*Convince him the answer to his curse is with Merlin and he should visit the wizard.

* Tell him he just needs to visit the Healing Waters found at the mouth of the river Glein.

* He must visit the seat of his former lord and receive forgiveness from its current occupant.​

Sir Justin was the first to speak, in (Old) English, and asked the black knight to let him pass. But the Bone Laird (being an ancient Celt) could not understand. I then had the Bone Laird address the PCs, telling him that they may not pass him and his men: his geas was to kill all who tried to go through the forest. Because he was speaking an ancient form of Celtish - not the British the PCs are fluent in - a roll was called for on Presence + Lore. Sir Morgath and Twillany succeeded. The ensuing back-and-forth established that the Bone Laird could not recall the origin of his geas; but Twillany tried to persuade him that he should lay down his burdens and let these good Celtic folk pass. I set the difficulty at (I think) 4, with 3 successes getting some of the way there (partial success is not an official thing in Prince Valiant, but is a device I've been using a bit). Three successes were rolled, and so the Bone Laird agreed to let the women - whom it would be dishonourable to fight and kill - pass. So Twillany (whose gender is indeterminate and whose sex is not known to anyone either in the fiction or at the table except her(?)self and perhaps the player) and Rhan were able to pass.

The players, and at least some of the PCs, had decided that there must be something in the forest that would be the anchor or locus of the curse, and Twillany's player spend the earlier-awarded Storyteller Certificate to Find Something Hidden ("An item which is lost, hidden, or otherwise concealed is discovered almost by accident by a character. The thing must be relatively close at hand, and the character must be searching for it at the moment.").

The published scenario doesn't say anything about this, so I had to make something up: as Twillany and Rhan were riding along the path deeper into the forest, Twillany's horse almost stumbled on something unexpected underfoot. Inspection revealed it to be a great tree stump that had been cut close to the ground, levelled and smoothed, and engraved with a sigil very like one that Twillany had noticed on the Bone Laird's cloak as the two women had ridden past him. It seemed to be a mysteriously preserved wooden dais of an ancient house or stronghold - and looking about it there were still visible signs of posts and postholes of a steading wall.

There is no player-side magic in Prince Valiant - as per the rulebook, "there is no magical skill available in the Adventurer creation process. This ensures that only you, the Storyteller, have access to effective magic in the game, should you want it." When Twillany's player declared that Twillany was trying to make sense of the dais and its sigil, I called for a Lore + Presence check, which succeeded. I narrated the images Twillany experienced, of a happy place in the forest welcoming and full of life, that had then been overrun by and suffered the depredations of Goth and Roman and Hun, with the upshot being sorrow and desolation.

The resolution here was unfolding fairly quickly, and I can't remember all the details. At one point there was a Poetry/Song check as Twillany recited a piece of appropriate verse (which Twillany's player was making up for the purpose). But the upshot was that Twillany's player decided that the curse couldn't be lifted simply by working on the dais - the Bone Laird would have to be brought back there to confront it (this was therefore our version of "He must visit the seat of his former lord and receive forgiveness from its current occupant").

Twillany and Rhan therefore returned to where they had left the Bone Laird, his warriors and the other PCs. But (as I stipulated) before they could get back matters there had to be resolved.

Sir Justin had the idea of converting these ancient Celtic ghosts to Christianity and the reverence of St Sigobert - "a Celtic saint" as he emphasised several times - and he also thought that their bones could be put in the reliquary that had been made for martyrs of the order a few sessions ago. Sir Morgath dispatched Algol to bring the reliquary back from the main body of the PC's band, while Sir Justin drew his blessed silver dagger of St Sigobert to begin the attempt. Unfortunately his roll was a bust, and the Bone Laird interpreted this as a threat and so attacked him. The resulting combat was brutal for Sir Justin, who was started with 13 dice (4 Brawn, 4 Arms, 3 armour, 2 for the magic weapon) vs the Bone Laird's 16 (7 Brawn for his supernatural strength, 4 Arms, 3 armour, 2 for his mystical greatsword). Sir Justin lost every roll until he was reduced to zero dice - and using the GM's fiat allowed by the system, I narrated this as a serious wound (the greatsword having thrust through a gap between breastplate and pauldron to inflict serious bleeding) and not mere stunning and exhaustion.

During this fight Sir Morgath's player made a roll to see if Algol had come back with the reliquary but this also failed (5 Brawn, -1 for no riding skill when trying to ride in haste, so 4 dice vs a difficulty of 3).

Sir Gerren made two Healing checks, one to stabilise Sir Justin and a second to restore 3 of his lost Brawn. I made it clear that I reserved the right to call for further checks if he was to try and fight again, to see if the wound reopened.

Twillany and Rhan then returned. This led to the final stage of the encounter with the Bone Laird, which went surprisingly long due to a long series of poor rolls by the players vs good rolls by me. Twillany persuaded the Bone Laird to come back to the wooden dais, but the Bone Laid's final two dice to resist social persuasion lasted through many many checks - I rolled many double successes, counting as three successes because the rules of the system are that if every die succeeds then the roll scores a bonus success, while the PCs repeatedly rolled none or one success getting ties at best. Which meant that Twillany's repeated explanations that the Celtic people had not been fully overrun by Romans and others, and continued to flourish in the west, were not calming him. And he interpreted references to his past in the forest and the old fortress as jibes and taunts. And so during the course of all this the angered Bone Laird beat Sir Gerran down to one die remaining, Sir Morgath down to one die, and sent Twillany - who at one point interposed herself between the Bone Laird and Sir Gerran - flying across the clearing reduced to zero dice. Sir Justin, who had got himself back into the action, also failed his social checks and ended up unconscious and bleeding again sprawled across the wooden dais.

It was only after a second roll for Algol, against a lower target number due to the passage of time, was successful - so that he returned carrying the reliquary - that the PCs triumphed: Sir Gerran persuaded the Bone Laird that he and his men would find rest and release from their geas if they acknowledged God and St Sigobert and their bones placed in the reliquary. The Bone Laird - physically unharmed to the last but with his social resistance pool finally reduced to zero - cut the heads off his companions and went to fall on his sword. Sir Morgath intervened at that point, persuading him that it would be more honourable for another to take his life - and so the Bone Laird handed him his greatsword and Sir Morgath made a successful roll to decapitate him.

The choicest bones were then placed in the reliquary. And Sir Morgath had a new magical but dangerous sword to replace the jewelled one that he had lost in the previous session.

I don't think my account of the Bone Laird episode quite does the actual play justice - in part because I can't remember all the intricacies and twists and turns - but it was really driven by two things: (i) the ability of the system to seamlessly integrate social and physical action; and (ii) the requirement that the players actually declare their moves, so that we had impassioned speeches, declarations of faith to St Sigobert, Twillany's player reciting verse and setting out her (?) vision of what Celtic honour required, etc. I guess also (iii) at least in my experience, dice pool systems increase the tension (compared to D&D-style roll and add) because even a large pool has a chance to come up with zero successes, and (again as I have experienced them) ties are more likely, which keep the action going while raising the sense of anticipation.

In both cases, you can see that the framing begins with an assumption that the players are ready to play the game - they are playing (in three cases) knights errant and (in the fourth) a wandering story-teller who travels with knights errant, and so when presented with opportunities for errantry as they travel, they take them up.

I guess that this is an illustration of trust, in the following sense: the players trust me as GM to present interesting situations that will allow them to make their choices as knights (or story-teller). Just as Gygax's players have to trust that the dungeon he has built will be a satisfactory one.

 

[pemerton]

Quietly hoping they do something but leaving them still able to do something(s) completely else is IMO far - as in light-years far - better than outright stating "this is what I hope you'll do".

Why?

Put another way, it's no crime if - while the DM leaves open all of options X,Y,Z, and the rest of the alphabet - she think to herself that choices N or R would be really cool to run while option J would leave her uninspired.

If the GM thinks that a particular thing would be particularly interesting, I don't see the benefit in keeping that secret.

EDIT: And this:

I think the point is more that IF the GM wants the players to do a specific thing or go a specific way, why not just be open about that? Why be coy about it?

The obvious reason seems to be because the GM wants them to think they can do whatever they like, but really wants them to do something specific.

Turning communication about what it is we're doing here together in the player of this game into a series of relatively blind moves within the game just seems very odd to me.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In @Hussar's example, the party planned for a heist and the GM went along with their plans until the following week, when the jeweler had vanished into thin air, leaving no trace. The PCs were completely unable to find out what happened, the GM apparently never said "don't do a heist" and no explanation was given to justify the jeweler's disappearance. This is railroading because they were simply not allowed to do the heist or find out what happened to the jeweler. And it was made worse, IMO, by the GM not telling the players to not plan a heist or that they hadn't wanted to run one.

In your example, the party needed to get information on a cult. Your particular background (being a paladin and being related to the pharaoh) didn't help, and two reasons were given--ancient enmity between your god and the guards' people (or possibly their god; I can't tell), and that the guard is too honorable to be bribed. This sucks that your background didn't help, but the party was still able to get the information. The party's goal wasn't blocked in the way it way it was in Hussar's example.

Well, the intent was: the ancient enmity was gone a long time ago. As in...I literally specified that the two gods in ancient scripture had resolved their differences...just like the real-world Egyptian religion believed that Set/Seth/Sutekh had fought with Horus, and then later resolved their differences peacefully and worked together from there on out, hence why Set was revered in Egypt for thousands of years, and why we had several Pharaohs named after him (e.g. the various "Seti" pharaohs). The Hyksos were a real people who did rule Egypt for a time, by force, but they really were integrated into Egyptian society and nobody seemed especially hateful toward them or Set (their deity since they were foreigners originally!)

Further, as I specifically said, the party never got their answer at all. They had to take a completely different route and never really accomplished what they had set out to do....which is specifically why it would be indistinguishable from railroading, because the party followed the breadcrumbs left by the DM rather than doing the very obvious thing.

Additionally, unlike in that example, the GM told you right away that the guard wouldn't budge.

I don't understand why being stonewalled right away is meaningfully better or worse than being stonewalled later. It's certainly a less...acute disappointment, I agree, but I don't understand why instant up-front stonewalling is better or worse.

It is possible that this hypothetical GM is a Bad GM because she was specifically targeting you or your character. It's also possible that she was railroading you away from the temple entirely.

The latter was intended to be 100% possible. Also, I wasn't meaning any "targeting"--just that this situation was evidence that the player's effort, approved backstory, in-character RP, and logical, "realistic" rationale for their actions....never mattered. The DM was taking an absolute hard stance against something that was...

• Entirely realistic
• Based on agreed-upon fiction
• Rooted in a sincere commitment to the campaign and its premise
• Following logically from what was already known
• Only discussed outside of session, privately, with clear opportunity given for a better answer
• Pretty much any other standard anyone has given for what "guides" DM decision-making in this thread

...and yet the DM still responded to it with...

• Stonewalling
• Refusal to provide any explanation at all other than "it cannot work"
• Directly and explicitly relying on "you just HAVE to trust me", which has now been said (by AlViking) as not something "Trust your DM" is supposed to mean/require
• Completely nixing the players' plans, including deflecting them away from the Hyksos-populated city and the priesthood of Sutekh-Garyx (who, as the guardian of Kemet aka fantasy Egypt, as "Kemet" is what the ancient Egyptians called their land, would/should be interested in protecting said land!) and ending up pushing them in a completely different direction
• Ignoring the player's clear, specific, and in no way petulant or unwarranted concerns

And I'm supposed to think my example is 100% perfectly fine, no notes, everything is okay, you have to see this A LOT, like numerous repeated times, before you're even ALLOWED to worry?

That's precisely why I see this as "my concerns will essentially always be dismissed, no matter how circumspect, no matter how serious". Doubly so when paired with the incredibly extreme stance that trust is either perfect or shattered and never anything else. Even if you believe the DM absolutely has to be given perfect trust to start with, surely there must be states somewhere between "perfect, unreserved trust" and "trust that is completely and irrevocably ruined"!

The only way to find out would be--as I said to Hussar--to look for a pattern of behavior. Does she frequently not let your character do things he should be able do because of his class, race, background or other character elements, but is fine when other players do similar things?

Why does frequency matter? I thought the standard was logic, "realism" (which folks have pretty clearly backed off to, as I have always insisted, "groundedness" even though they are always drawn back to "realism" like moths to the flame...), consistency, coherence with established fiction, etc. Now, it's not just that those things are the standard, but you need a long, repeated series of unequivocally really, really bad breaches of this process, you need a pattern of severe, egregious violations to even be allowed to start worrying.

If your party tried to sneak into the temple's library to look the info up themselves, would there be unrealistic levels of security done specifically to keep you out?

That was the idea, yes.

What would happen if you sent a different character into the same temple to ask?

The exact same thing. Nobody would be allowed. Ranakht was simply the party member most suited to attempting the task, because he is (functionally) a member of an alllied priesthood himself.

Well, I had a player who didn't want that plot hook. It's not like he rejected every plot hook.

Okay. It sounded like that was his standard response to plot hooks. If it was just him being really flippant, that's kind of rude and I would have asked him to change his behavior if I were his DM. "It's okay if you don't like the ideas I have, but I'd prefer a more respectful way of addressing it? I try really hard with this stuff" kind of thing.

Still, plot hooks in a sandbox are controversial, and that's been pretty well-established in this thread.

Maybe you missed my response to that.

Hussar said that other people who played with that GM said the GM didn't railroad them. My point is, the GM may not have "had" to railroad them because they wanted to go along with adventure's plot, while Hussar's group wanted to do something completely different from that (which from what I've read is "use the keep as a base camp and then go around killing monsters.")

And this is where we get the problem of the invisible railraod, which I've brought up several times.

It's still a railroad even if the players never realize it. Yes, the most deleterious consequences of being railroaded aren't present. But an invisible railroad is still not a sandbox--it's at best a rigidly guided tour where the tour-goers never happened to want to go anywhere but where the tour guide was leading them. To pretend that that is exactly the same as a tourist group having the freedom to visit any part of (say) London, a vast city where your pathways might not be infinite but they're so close as to be functionally so within the finite time of a vacation there, is to my mind instantly devaluing the term "sandbox" until it applies to functionally any campaign that isn't grossly, overtly, clumsily, aggressively railroaded.

And, since I apparently have to re-litigate all my past points over and over again, remember that I started in this thread with one of the very earliest assertions that "sandbox" and "rairoad" are two sides of a long spectrum, with various points in-between that are more-sandboxy/less-railroady or less-sandboxy/more-railroady. It isn't a hard binary (as some here have seemed to argue). But pretending that invisible rails make it a sandbox seems to undercut any real value the word "sandbox" could have.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I disagree with you that things can't get resolved after the session. That's the disconnect. You're operating on an assumption not shared by those with whom you are speaking. Saying it again and again won't change anyone's mind.

And saying your position again and again won't change mine.

You have to actually SHOW something. In my experience, changes outside of session are extraordinarily rare and almost always only in response to really, really, really serious problems, or to a single person taking a great deal of initiative. Otherwise, functionally, the only time stuff happens is in or around session. So telling me "just talk to me after" does not help. If the strategy is so terribly prone to failure, it needs some kind of supplement or backup. You can't just write off a really, really common problem as "well just don't play with those people". That would literally mean never playing, in my experience! And I'm hardly alone in this.

 

[pemerton]

And if the DM were to be open about it, wouldn't that mmediately draw howls of "railroad!"?

No. It's not railroading, when people turn up to bridge night, to start dealing cards.

It's not railroading, when people turn up to play classic D&D, to say - as per Gygax's example - "OK, you're at the dungeon entrance". (In a session that is not the first, the players may first want to do the sort of prep that Gygax describes in his Successful Adventures essay in his PHB.)

It's not railroading, when people turn up to play Prince Valiant, to tell them about the invitation to errantry that their knights have just encountered.

Perhaps. But isn’t wanting them to go a specific route kind of leaning in that direction anyway?

Like if that’s what a GM wants to do, then just do it.

This is where I think the failure to actually discuss play processes tends to cause some confusion (not necessarily on your part, to be clear - but in discussions of the dynamics of RPG play).

As this is an edit, I'll post it now, and then make a follow-up post to elaborate on what I mean.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

And saying your position again and again won't change mine.

You have to actually SHOW something. In my experience, changes outside of session are extraordinarily rare and almost always only in response to really, really, really serious problems, or to a single person taking a great deal of initiative. Otherwise, functionally, the only time stuff happens is in or around session. So telling me "just talk to me after" does not help. If the strategy is so terribly prone to failure, it needs some kind of supplement or backup. You can't just write off a really, really common problem as "well just don't play with those people". That would literally mean never playing, in my experience! And I'm hardly alone in this.

I DM a lot for randoms. I say in the session 0 that the first 15 minutes is for banter and the last 15 minutes is for meta discussions. I also say that you can walk in at any point during the first 15 minutes, but must stay for the final 15 minutes. So the meta discussions are mandatory. I even prompt each player for their thoughts during this time. As such, I see many issues resolved after the game during this 15 minutes.

Maybe the timing isn't the issue. Maybe it's a lack of commitment to actually having the conversation that's the issue. If we don't set that time aside, its easy to just not do as we say. Just a thought.