Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4691878" data-attributes="member: 40961">Look.&nbsp;The DM believes that he adequately communicated to the players that climbing up the pipe was a waste of time.&nbsp;But they didn't get the message, or else they wouldn't have climbed up the pipe and wasted time.&nbsp;Either this is the fault of the players for not listening or reasoning well, or, this is the fault of the DM for not communicating as well as he intended.&nbsp;I happen to think that the latter is more likely.&nbsp;This is no different from many other similar situations.&nbsp;The DM intends to communicate that a certain fight is too dangerous and the characters should retreat, they don't get the message, and a TPK occurs.&nbsp;The DM intends to communicate that a certain NPC is someone the characters can negotiate with instead of fight, the players don't get the message, and kill an important NPC.&nbsp;The DM intends to communicate that a certain plot element is frightening or dramatic, the players instead interpret it as hilarious, and the session suffers from the mismatched expectations.&nbsp;I could go on for a while here.&nbsp;All the fancy arguments about D&amp;D being inherently a waste of time or dead end pipes needing to be dead end pipes for verisimilitude are completely missing the point.&nbsp;The DM didn't intend for the session to go this way.&nbsp; The players were annoyed that it did.&nbsp; We know this because the argument spread to ENWorld, which is usually a pretty huge clue.&nbsp; Obviously a problem occurred.&nbsp; Even if everyone had a great time, a small problem still occurred, in the sense that the DM intended to communicate something to the players and the message was not received.&nbsp; Even if the results had been amazing, it would still indicate room for improvement.&nbsp;A freaking Knowledge: Architecture check, possibly prompted by the DM, could have nipped this whole thing in the bud.&nbsp; Never thought I'd hear myself saying that.&nbsp; &quot;You've seen this sort of thing before, its a waste pipe and its probably impenetrably barred from the inside.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Cadfan, post: 4691878, member: 40961"] Look. The DM believes that he adequately communicated to the players that climbing up the pipe was a waste of time. But they didn't get the message, or else they wouldn't have climbed up the pipe and wasted time. Either this is the fault of the players for not listening or reasoning well, or, this is the fault of the DM for not communicating as well as he intended. I happen to think that the latter is more likely. This is [I]no different[/I] from many other similar situations. The DM intends to communicate that a certain fight is too dangerous and the characters should retreat, they don't get the message, and a TPK occurs. The DM intends to communicate that a certain NPC is someone the characters can negotiate with instead of fight, the players don't get the message, and kill an important NPC. The DM intends to communicate that a certain plot element is frightening or dramatic, the players instead interpret it as hilarious, and the session suffers from the mismatched expectations. I could go on for a while here. All the fancy arguments about D&D being inherently a waste of time or dead end pipes needing to be dead end pipes for verisimilitude are completely missing the point. The DM didn't intend for the session to go this way. The players were annoyed that it did. We know this because the argument spread to ENWorld, which is usually a pretty huge clue. Obviously a problem occurred. Even if everyone had a great time, a small problem still occurred, in the sense that the DM intended to communicate something to the players and the message was not received. Even if the results had been amazing, it would still indicate room for improvement. A freaking Knowledge: Architecture check, possibly prompted by the DM, could have nipped this whole thing in the bud. Never thought I'd hear myself saying [I]that.[/I] "You've seen this sort of thing before, its a waste pipe and its probably impenetrably barred from the inside." [/QUOTE]

Verification