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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1893042" data-attributes="member: 7240">Hong, Let's try to see if we can, at least, identify the substance of our disagreement. There seem to be several issues at play. So, I'm going to try and identify them thematically:1. Campaign Narrative StructureWhenever I have used the term "climax," I have been applying it to the campaign as a whole. When you have used the term, you have variously applied it to individual episodes, perceived story arcs within the campaign, the campaign as a whole up to the current moment and the entire campaign. First, let me define campaign as I am using it here. If you wish to substitute another term you like better, feel free to do so. Just tell me what it is. When I say "campaign," I am referring to the period beginning with the characters agreeing to go on the quest and ending when the artifact has been repaired and returned to the gods. While there are, within this, climactic moments, the actual campaign only has one climax. To compare this to Lord of the Rings, while people can identify the victory at Helm's Deep as a climactic moment, it is not, itself, the climax. The climax of the story is when the ring is destroyed. So, when I use the word "climax," I am referring to a unique event in the campaign that has not yet taken place. Where we are right now is at a setback following a climactic scene. Let me again draw your attention to the Two Towers by way of comparison:Just before the end of the book, there is an exciting climactic battle in which Shelob is defeated. This is immediately followed by a significant setback, Frodo, naked, nearly dead and in the hands of the orcs. The book then ends. The term people typically apply to a setback situated as it is, right at the end of the narrative, is "cliffhanger." Is it your position(a) that what the GM has done somehow is not a cliffhanger?(b) that cliffhangers are inappropriate in RPGs and that therefore if setbacks are to take place, they cannot happen during the finale of an episode?(c) that cliffhangers are only appropriate in RPGs if they have no emotional effect on the players?Footnote: When I say "episode" I mean a single gaming session.If you feel that my omission of the "story arc" term from this discussion has harmed it, please let me know.You have also used the term "episodic campaign structure"; in the particular episodic campaign structure that I prefer, there are a lot of setbacks and cliffhangers. 2. Dramatic TensionYou and swrushing have taken the position that to wait for "several months" for a cliffhanger to be resolved is demoralizing. There are two essential problems with this position: (a) it does not describe the campaign we are discussing, (b) it is not true for most people.First of all, let's establish that this game runs weekly. That means that in a week, the process of recovering from the setback will begin. This is roughly the equivalent of a cliffhanger in a TV series where the viewer waits one week, two weeks and sometimes the whole summer to see how the protagonists are going to extricate themselves from this situation. So, what you are actually saying here is that while a week of fretting builds the dramatic tension for those of us wondering what Ethan has done to Claire and Charlie on Lost, this tension is a veritable cancer for D&D players. I just don't buy it. I don't have the highest opinion of people in our hobby but I do think that they have a more sophisticate relationship with stories than the average prime time ABC viewer. Of course, there are situations where after a terrible setback and ensuing cliffhanger, people wait as much as a year to see how it works out. Of course I'm thinking of the Lord of the Rings movies -- you know where people had to wait over 300 days to see what happened after Gimli declared, "the fellowship has failed" and the put Boromir's corpse in the Anduin. Most of the people who endured that year were young kids -- many older kids and adults who had not read the book went out and purchased it to deal with the tension. But the little kids waited a whole year. Of course there wasn't a book I could even read to discover what was going to happen after Han Solo was frozen in carbonite but I patiently waited for three whole years for Return of the Jedi to come out -- from when I was 8 until I was 11. Did I feel sombre or discouraged when I walked out of the theatre at the age of 8? Of course. Did this make Empire a bad movie? No. In my eight year old mind, it was the greatest movie anyone had ever made in the history of the human race.So, why is it Hong, that children watching movie serials can handle emotionally sombre cliffhangers and gamers can't? Why do you assume that because the players felt sombre right after the episode that this made them all want to quit the campaign?3. DM PrescienceYou have finally conceded that perhaps it is reasonable for the characters to lose the object of their quest under certain circumstances. But you argue that those circumstance occur only when the DM has thought through "all the possible consequences." I have to disagree -- it is only incumbent upon the DM to think through probable consequences. Perhaps you are unaware of all the choices your players can theoretically make and all of the emotional states that each and every one of them could experience at any moment of the game. I would suggest that if you truly understood how enormous (nigh infinite) a range of possibilities this is, you would revise your statement to be the same as mine: it is incumbent upon the DM to think thought probably outcomes. As we have already established, the DM did not expect his fiancee to react in this way. Having a high opinion of Ambrus and anyone he might choose to marry, I am inclined to think that this surprise was reasonable. 4. "It really sucks"This part of the argument belongs under the dramatic tension header but I thought I'd make a special section for it by way of emphasis. I think the question is what sucks. It sucks that "Frodo was alive but taken by the enemy." But that does not mean that the Two Towers sucked or that the chapter "The Choices of Master Samwise" sucked. It sucked that Han Solo was frozen in carbonite; this did not make the Empire Strikes Back suck.5. Testing Player ReactionsI am pleased that you have kindly provided (along with everyone but swrushing who steadfastly refuses) a reasonable set of criteria for evaluating whether a player's reactions are reasonable. Through no fault of yours, your criteria cannot, by themselves, deliver us a verdict on whether Noelani's reactions were reasonable. There are two main reasons for this:(a) None of your criteria are directly linked to the DM's performance; all simply measure player reactions without reference to what the DM has done. I might have included such things as: was there a deus ex machina or were rules misapplied? You have chosen not to take that approach.(b) Most of the questions you ask cannot be answered with the information posted to the thread. But here's a brief survey of what we can answer:1. By looking at the reactions of the other people around the table: This seems like a reasonable standard. We have the reactions all but one of the players. They indicate that the DM did not behave unreasonably. 2. By reexamining what emotional kicks (to use Robin Laws' terminology) that player likes (or says they like), and whether I'm providing them: Unknown.3. By talking to them, between sessions. Very often, just giving someone the chance to express their concerns is enough to take the heat out of the immediate situation: This is what precipitated the thread. By this standard, the DM did behave unreasonably.4. By going over past events in the time we've gamed together, how much they've complained before, and the outcomes in each instance: Unknown.5. By looking at whether that person tends to be a stubborn, argumentative type in the first place. Some people are naturally more high-maintenance than others, although they may be a stellar player in most other respects: Unknown.So, we have 3 unknowns, 1 yes and 1 no. Based on your own test, how can you possibly conclude that Ambrus behaved unreasonably?</blockquote>

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