Chumming the dungeon

[darjr]

Rob Heinsoo - Chumming the Dungeon

Discussing DMing with Robin Laws and Jim Zubkavich at the Calgary Expo, I found myself wanting a term to describe our practice of adapting the dangerous ideas our players muttered about fearfully, ideas that hadn't occurred to us before, but which, once spoken, could not be taken back. My players have no idea how many times their thoughtful or awestruck guesses about what might be happening in the campaign have either been adapted directly or translated into a new idea, better than both my original concept and their suspicions.

I hadn't come up with a good term. But I mentioned it at our game on Wednesday and Mike Fehlauer thought for a couple minutes, then came up with something that captures the phenomemon from the players' perspective: chumming the dungeon! Chumming the dungeon is when the players make worried or excited guesses about what's going on, allowing the dreadsharks of the DM's mind to churn the blood auguries, home in on fresh meat for the plotline with a smile of secret gratitude.

Thanks, chum!

....and if anyone else has a term to compete with 'chumming,' please share.

I read that and had to share. I do remember a campaign where the players threatened to never discuss the game, outside of the game, while I was around. They just had such great, awful, terrible ideas that I loved to make 'real'.

How often do you get to do this. How often do GM's zing off in the direction mentioned by the players during the game.

 

[Rechan]

Honestly, "Chumming the dungeon" makes me think of trying to draw the monsters out of their lairs so you can fight them where you want them.

Sort of like banging pots and pans together so they come to investigate.

 

[darjr]

I've had players and been in games with a party that I would have sworn that is exactly what they were trying to do.

 

[cmrscorpio]

Honestly, "Chumming the dungeon" makes me think of trying to draw the monsters out of their lairs so you can fight them where you want them.

Sort of like banging pots and pans together so they come to investigate.

Yeah, I had a group of players who had that brilliant idea. They found a goblin cave complex with 2 entrances. They created a cave-in to close one entrance, then waited at the other for them to come out. First a scouting party emerged, which was killed except for one goblin, which they allowed to go back in and tell the others that they were there.

True to the plan, every goblin warrior in the clan emerged from the cave, which was more than 50. The players then let them all come out before doing anything. I described the situation very thoroughly. I made sure to make it absolutely clear that, while many were minions, quite a few were not.

Then one of the players demanded to roll initiative. I face-palmed, then commenced the beat-down of their level 1 characters' lives.

In hindsight, I should have let the characters die, but I didn't because the goblins were notorious slavers. Three levels later and at the second incredible act of hubris on their part, I didn't make the same mistake.

 

[Jack7]

I agreed with Rechan about side-tracking first impressions of the term, though my initial impression was somewhat different. I thought of befriending the dungeon (earnestly, or as a deceptive ploy), trying to make an "old chum" of the dungeon.

But once you explained what you meant, I thought it a fantastic term. I like terms with multiple meanings, especially when those meanings are plays on a word.

By the way I have used things the players said they feared at the gaming table later on in an adventure. I always tried to change the form of the fear, or modify the nature of it, so it didn't appear obvious, but if they had a good idea, then yeah, I'd use it.

The Chum of Your Heart

Chumming the dungeon, I found the old knife
Which cuts both the wielder, and targets of strife,
For chums do by nature help slice aware cares
Yet covertly cutting, the wound tends to share,
And striking the waters to bloody the waves
The bait is best baited by culling the knaves,
So chum to give discord and racket your mark
And he will come running to see what may hark,
Or chum to be friendly and ply out your aims
But careful while at it for fools do the same,
For chumming imprisons while churning your fears
You're best then to hide them and forego the tears,
Though however by chumming you define the term
You get what you pay for, and buy what you earn...​

 

[Celebrim]

I would feel quite guilty if I did this to my players. I don't want them to feel like they can't communicate or speculate for fear of making things worse. I don't want to use my players imaginations against them. If I can't think of terrible horrible dastardly plots and situations, then why am I wearing the DM hat?

 

[Wycen]

Chumming the dungeon does not work for me. Hearing that phrase makes me think of either random treasure placed easily within reach in order to attract victims or dead bodies randomly thrown about to attract bigger monsters.

It wont find its way into my vocabulary.

 

[sev]

I would feel quite guilty if I did this to my players. I don't want them to feel like they can't communicate or speculate for fear of making things worse. I don't want to use my players imaginations against them. If I can't think of terrible horrible dastardly plots and situations, then why am I wearing the DM hat?

I don't use this tactic to make things "worse" for the players. I use it to make things fit together in ways that they can appreciate.

I've had too many games where I thought I'd liberally salted every encounter with plenty of clues as to the bigger picture, only to find that the players latched onto one particular idea, and missed or worse, misconstrued everything else.

Sometimes I just go ahead and let disaster happen. They mis-identified the forces of good and killed them, thinking they were forces of evil, and then had to watch the evil grow unchecked & overtake the region. (I think, six years and an edition-and-a-half later, they're still ticked off about that. About equal parts ticked off at me, and at themselves.) But sometimes it feels good for *everybody* if I just take some of their wild speculations and make them true. They get the satisfaction of having figured things out, and I get to enjoy having them in the story instead of trying to figure out how to communicate to them what I've somehow already failed to communicate.

I do it when their explanation for things sounds cooler than mine, or their fear of what comes next is more interesting than my plans. They're more likely to be prepared for what they fear than what I make up, anyway.

 

[Piratecat]

My players refer to this as "Rule One."

Rule One: don't give the DM any ideas.

I have one friend who is like a glorious canary in a coal mine: give her any scenario and she immediately imagines many possibilities that are far, far worse than anything I'd thought of. She's a DM's muse!

 

[darjr]

Rule one!

Well, the funny thing is that in a couple of ways the very thread title has cause others to think a bit like the PC's and imagine other things and state them out loud for the taking.

Neat.