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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6840142" data-attributes="member: 42582">Fine. But a GM who does that surely shouldn't then be puzzled that things escalated quickly. S/he built that escalation into the situation.Sure. But a GM who is running that style is (in my view) then takes a very high burden of responsibility to make things work out.I think it also affects the proper focus of criticism. A lot of the criticism of   [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has been in terms of in-fiction matters (eg his PC didn't scouting out the correct side of the manor). Whereas perhaps the criticism should be at the metagame level: he is establishing goals for his PC, and wants the fiction and the adjudication of the game to treat those goals as a priority, whereas that is not what the GM is interested in doing.The group dynamics are for the group to work out - it's not really my place to express a view.I did notice that   [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] described himself as a "goal oriented" player, whereas it seems that some of the other players may have greater enjoyment of "the play's the thing".There also seem to be two "murder hobos" who (I gather) are quite happy for any given ingame situation to escalate (degenerate?) into combat. For those sorts of players, GM management of the backstory in the way that is being described in this thread presumably isn't an issue, as they are not all that focused on the backstory except insofar as they can leverage particular points of fiction to incite physical violence.To me, it doesn't seem like that at all.It seems that   [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] wants to get to what he regards as the interesting core of the action - talking to the sister(? the NPC in the noble house). The other stuff - crossing the peninsula, breaking into the manor, etc - is all purely instrumental in relation to that. So (at least as it seems to me) he feels that, having spent at least a couple of hours playtime taking that seriously, and thereby establishing a plausible account of how the PCs might get into the manor, that the focus of play could now move to the real issue.For what it's worth, and as best I can judge, if I was in Hussar's shoes in this game I think I might share his frustration.As I read   [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s posts, he disagrees. Talking to the sister seems to be where he thinks the action is (or something like that - I'm not sure I'm quite across all the details of the scenario).To me, from reading Hussar's posts, he seems to feel that he has been made to engage in quite a bit of play that is basically preparatory to getting to the real action, and is still not being allowed to get to the real action.Hence the significance, here, of say yes or roll the dice.And looking at this from another angle: if the GM did want to treat sneaking in as high stakes, and was adhering to say yes or roll the dice, then the failure should have been more dramatic: the PCs are spotted climbing the wall, and captured, and are brought before the sister to be interrogated/put into the same prison cell as the sister/etc - whatever makes sense given the context in which the sister is in the house, and which gives effect to the failure while still pushing towards the goal.But, in fact, from everything both   [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] and the GM of this scenario have posted, it's not a say yes or roll the dice game at all. It seems to be a very traditional game in which the GM establishes the backstory and the players then work there way through the scenario discovering what that backstory is, and if they don't, or they get it wrong, combat ensues.As   [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION] says, that's a valid playstyle, but if it is turning sour for a participant the GM can hardly put the blame on someone else's shoulders. In this sort of game, the onus is on the GM to make sure it all works out as fun.Sure, in the traditional sort of "explore the backstory" game the players don't get to exercise control over the fiction via eg knowledge checks, I-meet-up-with-my-old-friend-Lando checks, etc. And the GM doesn't author or adjust the backstory in real time either, to reflect the dynamics of play or the goals of the players. And action resolution is done in terms of task rather than intent, so the players can be successful on their group Climb check (if that's what it was, for the first foray over the wall) yet find their way blocked by guards.But it can't be a great surprise, then, that in such a game kicking in the door and killing everything comes to the fore as a mode of action declaration. Because it becomes the principal way in which the players can affect the fiction in a way that imposes some sort of finality. Which in turn seems to make it less than surprising that things might escalate quickly.</blockquote>

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