DM Expectations = One Solution?

[Doug McCrae]

Kind of feels like falling down the stairs and landing on your feet.

Good way of putting it.

 

[Raven Crowking]

And the Tomb of Horrors?

Just for the record, there is a difference between (A) limiting all options except for the one(s) the adventure writer decided upon, and, (B) limiting some obvious options by placing limitations on how they work within a given scenario.

In the case of (B) you can be creative within the limitations, and, generally, those limitations exist to urge the players to greater creativity: If you cannot do the easy, obvious thing, what do you do?

In the case of (A), the goal is to limit the creativity of the players down the channel envisioned by the adventure writer, either so that (s)he doesn't have to "roll with" whatever options the players can envision, or so that (s)he gets to see the "cool story" (s)he envisioned play out.

Tomb of Horrors is (B), not (A).

(A) is justly criticized. (B) is fair dinkum. IMHO, anyway.



RC

 

[ExploderWizard]

Does C have to be a success?

Orcs guarding a door. The party may kill the guards and go through the door. The party may have a good bluffer, and so may try to lie their way past the guards and through the door. The DM can give thought to how this will work. The party may think of something else, but the DM figures one of these two options are most likely to be tried.

But then the PCs decide they'll surrender to the orc guards to get taken inside. If this tactic turns out badly, is it because the DM stuck to his list of "approved solutions" or is it because it was a bad idea?

The old phrase "just because it didn't work doesn't mean it was a bad idea" applies here. The answer to your question depends on how the situation was played out.

This can viewed several different ways. A feigned surrender could be seen as a bluff of sorts. The only real failure on the part of the DM here would be the assignment of autofail due to being unforseen. This is why motivations for NPC's are important. Suppose the orcs have a policy to strip and bind all captives then present them to chief who enjoys hearing pleas for mercy before slowly boiling the captives?

If the PC's surrender in this case then the likely result will be a slow death by stewpot with perhaps a tiny sliver of hope for an escape once they realize the gravity of their mistake.

On the other hand, what if the orcs are engaged in a bitter feud with some hobgoblins? The orc chief wants any non-hobgoblin captives disarmed but brought to him for possible discussions of an alliance. In this case the PC's get a meeting with the boss and a chance to discuss business or at least get a measure of him during the meeting.

Knowing about what drives the orcs plays a large role in deciding the success or failure on any attempted plan. If the PC's attempt to find out any information about the orcs then perhaps they will gain some insight about the likelihood of certain schemes working.

 

[Haltherrion]

Can you cite an example? What little castigation I've seen hasn't been that open-ended.

I'll save Bullgrit the trouble and quote his initial and my reply from a recent thread that I am pretty sure spurred this thread.

The PCs’ ship took off and headed into space. Soon they were intercepted by the enemy ship. The PCs’ ship had only one ranged ship-weapon, and the enemy ship had two ranged ship-weapons (each a little more powerful than the PCs’ ship-weapon). The PCs had only a few crewmen (low-level types, not even in the same league as the PCs), but the six PCs themselves were a formidable force. The enemy ship was loaded up with a bunch of low-level marines.

My thoughts on the encounter and campaign start was that the PCs would close on the enemy ship to fight man-to-man, and then have a fun battle with the enemy grunts. We’d get all the PCs involved in a grand battle. Then the PCs would capture the enemy vessel. When they got to Bral, they could pool their ship and the captured ship together and then buy a really cool ship that they chose for themselves. (They started with a basic flying cog.)

But that ain’t how it went down.

The enemy ship was trying to close on the PCs’ ship (to get in grappling range), but the PCs kept things at range, even though they were taking more damage than they were dealing out. As hard as I tried, I could not get the PCs to see the folly of their tactics, and could not get the ships together. The PCs even cheered at some of their successful grapple evasions.

Eventually, the PCs’ ship was whittled down to destruction. All that was left was for the enemy ship to sail in and capture the PCs from the wreckage. I stopped the game session at that point.

Me:

Second, in the tactical situation you described, you implied there was only one way out. That's usually a mistake in any encounter because the players often don't see things the way you do and it is better to be more flexible, design an encounter where you the ref forsee several solutions and then be flexible if they take approaches you did not think of. This allows the players to solve the problem their way (within reason). The alternative has the players casting around for "the right way that the referee thought of" which can be quite frustrating.

Re-reading it, it still strikes me as a situation where the ref may not have been as flexible as he could have been. For starters, why did they have to succeed in this battle? Getting captured is a perfectly fine outcome for a starting scenario. It's a great campaign start and if they fuss, you can remind them they were perfectly capable of winning that battle but didn't.

I appreciate that Bullgrit was trying to kick off a thread but he seemed to be laying a lot on the players when with what was written, there might have been some lessons for us refs in there as well.

Particularly in something as delicate as a campaign kick off in a setting that, despite any stated buy-in from players may not really be what they want to try, it is good to plan out the encounter with some contingency for the unexpected, including tactically challenged players (hey, we all have our stupid moments).




So for that first encounter in this campaign:

• As a ref, prepare oneself for flee, fight (at range), fight (board), capture and perhaps some chance of complete destruction although that can sure end a campaign quickly.
• Use the NPCs: a seasoned sailor who might say something like "they got better guns than we do, but their crews look weak, maybe boarding might be a better idea". And perhaps some flightier crew members who start panicking "they are clobbering us, we need to run!"

Maybe Bullgrit had it planned with more flexibility and left that out for brevity's sake but given the tone of the whole write up, that was far from clear. The thread was on short campaigns which naturally leads to why were they short and how can that be avoided.

 

[Bullgrit]

I'll save Bullgrit the trouble and quote his initial and my reply from a recent thread that I am pretty sure spurred this thread.

Yours was the most recent example, but there have been many through the years around here. Unfortunately, it's not a concept that gives many easily searchable terms, so it's not easy to find past examples. I wasn't making this thread to discuss one instance, no matter how recent.

Maybe Bullgrit had it planned with more flexibility

That's the thing: there was no "plan". There was expectation. A DM creates a battle encounter, and he expects the PCs to make it through -- is this not the standard expectation? How many DMs create a battle encounter and then actually prepare for a dozen different options the PCs might take? That way lies madness. A good DM can handle the change by winging it, but winging it doesn't mean "let any old idea work" just because otherwise he's railroading or forcing the Players to choose the "one solution."

Just like when a DM designs a big ol' dungeon, he expects the PCs will invade it. If they get hung up on a wandering monster outside in the wilderness, and then run off on some other unexpected quest, it's understandable why a DM would complain about things. "I just spent hours creating this dungeon, and they decide to chase off after some random wandering goblin raiders in the woods."

Sure, a good DM could and might pick up that story and run the PCs through it. But it still makes for some aggravation for the DM, no? And if he complains? He's told he should have made more and wider plans for what the PCs would do.

Bullgrit

 

[BrokeAndDrive]

Just like when a DM designs a big ol' dungeon, he expects the PCs will invade it. If they get hung up on a wandering monster outside in the wilderness, and then run off on some other unexpected quest, it's understandable why a DM would complain about things. "I just spent hours creating this dungeon, and they decide to chase off after some random wandering goblin raiders in the woods."

That's when you leave the dungeon on the back-burner. Until some time in the future when they want to explore somewhere underground. Then bring this out, change monsters as needed (room C2 had three level 3 orcs... replace with three level 7 orcs, or hobgoblins, or elven bandits, etc., done), and now the dungeon you worked so hard on is ready to be scraped clean!

 

[Raven Crowking]

That's the thing: there was no "plan". There was expectation. A DM creates a battle encounter, and he expects the PCs to make it through -- is this not the standard expectation?

Sorry, but

My thoughts on the encounter and campaign start was that the PCs would close on the enemy ship to fight man-to-man, and then have a fun battle with the enemy grunts. We’d get all the PCs involved in a grand battle. Then the PCs would capture the enemy vessel. When they got to Bral, they could pool their ship and the captured ship together and then buy a really cool ship that they chose for themselves.​

seems not only like a plan for the encounter, but a plan for how the encounter would sequence into the next incident (Bral).

My expectation is not that "A DM creates a battle encounter" but "A DM creates an encounter" that then becomes a battle encounter (or not) depending upon how it is approached (or avoided).

"There is an orc in this room. It is guarding a pie." is fine for the GM's notes, but when the PCs arrive and try to talk to the orc, the GM should decide what the orc should do, and that is not always "Attack the PCs".

"There is an orc in this room. It is guarding a pie." is a frame, but actually running an encounter is larger than the frame.

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In the Spelljammer example given, the DM had quite a few options available to him to salvage the encounter:

* Add another ship, such as a ship that is not friendly to the attacking ship's nation, but is neutral to the PC's nation, which renders aid simply to foil the attackers.

* Have the NPC sailors mutiny and surrender the PC's ship. The PCs can then still resist surrender, and try to fight the NPC enemy nation marines, capture the new ship, and decide what to do with the mutinous (but now abashed) crew.

* Allow the PCs to evade and escape. They will have to deal with this ship again -- either through combat or evasion -- to get to Bral.

* Allow the PC ship to be destroyed and the PCs captured. This changes what the game is about, maybe, but the PCs can always foster a mutiny, be ransomed, etc.

Of course, these solutions are acceptable to me primarily because this is the players' introduction to the setting. Once regular play has begun, I would just let the chips fall where they may.

There are many things the DM could have done, and none of them require that the players even realize that what happened was not "planned".

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The difference, IMHO, between the GM having "plans" and having "expectations" is this:

If things don't go to the GM's expectations, the GM rolls with it, and the game continues. If things don't go to the GM's plans, the GM tries to either force an outcome that meets his plans or the game ends.

If you find that you are either trying force an outcome that meets your expectations, or the game ends when your expectations are not met, then your "expectations" are really "plans".

IMHO. YMMV.

If they get hung up on a wandering monster outside in the wilderness, and then run off on some other unexpected quest, it's understandable why a DM would complain about things. "I just spent hours creating this dungeon, and they decide to chase off after some random wandering goblin raiders in the woods."

Sure, a good DM could and might pick up that story and run the PCs through it. But it still makes for some aggravation for the DM, no?

No.

The dungeon still exists; it can still be used at a later date. And the players are engaged with the world, which is, IMHO at least, the real goal.

And, thank you for calling me a good DM.



RC

 

[Odhanan]

Every time a DM posts an anecdote from their game and they say something like, "I expected the PCs to do this, but they did that," the DM gets castigated for making an encounter with one solution. I've seen this many times over the years, in this forum.

It's like if a DM has any expectation of what the PCs will do in the game, he is narrowly confining the "correct" options, and might even be railroading. It's like a DM is supposed to place an encounter and just clear his mind completely of what he thinks might happen.

This is absurd.

It's not.

For instance, if I put a dozen orcs in a room, guarding a treasure chest, my expectation would be that the PCs would attack the orcs and gain the treasure. This is how most PC adventurers handle such situations. And if the PCs in my game have always handled such a set up in that way, they have set the expectation.

But if the PCs try some other way of taking on the encounter, and it doesn't work (for poor dice rolls, by poor tactics, etc.), then the DM gets accused of having only one solution for the encounter.

Good example.

Yes, the DM fails in that example. If the DM is putting some kind of encounter that result in choices, die rolls and thus, a variety of outcomes from success to failure, and doesn't at least have an idea of the natural consequences of failure if it occurs, then he's not doing his job.

If you're putting a bunch of orcs in a room with a treasure, you shouldn't assume that the PCs will just get the treasure. They might fail, or ignore the treasure, or forge an alliance with the orcs, and so on, so forth. Planning for contingencies, and adapting for whatever occurs in the game, is part of the basic set of skills any DM should develop.

If some DM just puts orcs in a room and plans solely for success, it's not "bad design" on the game's part if the players fail! It's "bad design" on the module's part (if written by a third party) and "bad DMing" on the DM's part!

 

[ExploderWizard]

That's the thing: there was no "plan". There was expectation. A DM creates a battle encounter, and he expects the PCs to make it through -- is this not the standard expectation?

Not for campaign play round these parts.

How many DMs create a battle encounter and then actually prepare for a dozen different options the PCs might take? That way lies madness. A good DM can handle the change by winging it, but winging it doesn't mean "let any old idea work" just because otherwise he's railroading or forcing the Players to choose the "one solution."

Step 1: Do not prepare battle encounters. Prepare stats, agendas, and motivations. Battle happens when it happens. Once you have a decent grasp of the site conditions and the overall objective of the inhabitants then you don't need to drive yourself nuts planning for what the PC's might do.

Just like when a DM designs a big ol' dungeon, he expects the PCs will invade it. If they get hung up on a wandering monster outside in the wilderness, and then run off on some other unexpected quest, it's understandable why a DM would complain about things. "I just spent hours creating this dungeon, and they decide to chase off after some random wandering goblin raiders in the woods."

There is no reason to get upset by players meandering. I let the players freerange when they want to. This doesn't mean that the areas that I prepared sit in stasis until the PC's decide to explore. Events continue to occur in the background.

Sure, a good DM could and might pick up that story and run the PCs through it. But it still makes for some aggravation for the DM, no? And if he complains? He's told he should have made more and wider plans for what the PCs would do.

Bullgrit

No reason for aggravation. If the players are enjoying what they have decided to do then the game is a success. Of course the areas set up from the adventure hooks will have better rewards (loot, XP, etc.)

If players complain about a lack of said rewards then oh well, too bad. Loot is where it is, that magical weapon is there in the cave waiting to be discovered. It not going to "drop" from some goblin out in the woods simply because the PC's didn't want to enter the cave. If players want to reap the best rewards from adventuring then it pays to act on information in their possession.

 

[Nagol]

Thakn you for the example.

For that particular example, it doesn't look to me like a failure of expectation so much as a failure of player situational awareness. The players had various tactical options open to them, chose a poor one, didn't vary from it, and got stomped.

If I understand correctly, the players were outgunned at range, but were more impressive in close action. The DM knew this. Somehow the players thought otherwise. Either the players did not 'get' the relative strengths of ship armament and that ramaining at range was a poor tactical choice or the players did not expect to be so relatively powerful in close combat.

As a DM, it can be tricky to 'read' the play group's take on the situation and to offer correction when their assumptions/expectations are incorrect and the character should know it is incorrect. This is an area of weakness for me actually. I believe I've explained the situation clearly, but the players occasionally get a very different read on the environment than I thought I provided.