D&D 5E Forked from the Quasit Thread - Some DMing Advice Learned from my Mistakes.

[Hussar]

Was reading and posting in this thread:http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?554850-Warlock-in-party-with-Quasit-breaking-story and I had a bit of a thought that I figured I'd share. Take this with a grain of salt and a HUGE dose of "This is what works for me, take it or leave it, it's up to you."

Ok, disclaimers out of the way. Something that I noticed in the advice in that thread is a number of DM's who were suggesting that a possible solution to having a player do stuff that you don't really like is to change the parameters of the game so that the player can't do that anymore. And, at first blush it's not bad advice. The player is doing something that is making the game less fun for you; making him or her stop is going to make the game more fun again. Fair enough.

The thing is, IMO, that's very bad advice and something you should almost never do. The end result will only be frustrated players and bad sessions.

Personal anecdote time. I recently ran a module set in Primeval Thule - Night of the Yellow Moon. In the adventure, the PC's are hired to retrieve the son of a noble from a cult that is wandering around the countryside. The PC's quickly learn that the cultists are very bad and they're forcibly recruiting members while slaughtering anyone who doesn't convert. They chase down the cultists to a small village where the cultists are setting up their schtick - come in all peacefully, give folks drugged wine and murder everyone that doesn't convert.

Now, the PC's march up to the chieftain's hut and demand entrance. And they aren't subtle about it. The guards tell them that unless they have business with teh chieftain they can go pound salt. The PC's insist that they want to talk to the cult leader (who is in conference with the chieftain). They intimidate their way past the guards and burst in. They proceed to ignore the chieftain and try directly talking to the cult leader. Chieftain gets very pissed off, calls in the guards and kicks them out. The cult vastly outnumber the PC's, meaning direct confrontation without allies is out. The PC's learn that the person they are trying to rescue has moved on with a part of the cult so, they leave the village to its grisly fate.

The entire scenario was a complete flop. No one had any fun. I was trying to play the barbarians true to how I felt they would react and the players approach was pretty much the worst thing they could have done shy of outright violence.

But, and here's the thing. I could have salvaged things and turned it around. I didn't have to call in the guards. While calling them in was perfectly plausible, it's not like it was mandated for any reason. I could have rolled with what the players were trying to do - confront the cult leader and instead of my planned encounter where the PC's would be presenting their case to the chieftain and the cult leader would be trying to win her over - a sort of extended opposed skill check - I could have scrapped what I wanted, gone with the flow and everyone would have had a better time.

Reading over the Quasit thread, really hit that point home to me. There's no point in road blocking the players. It just causes everyone to be frustrated and well, that's no fun. Not that the players have to automatically succeed. That's no fun either. But, adapting and changing the challenge would have been a MUCH better solution. Step back, observe what the players are latching onto and roll with that. Instead of road blocking, just pave a new road.

Anyway, just something that's been on my brain for a couple of weeks.

 

[abirdcall]

Here's the thing, the DM is also a player of the game.

The DM also gets to have fun.

Changing things like that wouldn't be any fun for me as DM. Instead, I make it clear what is fun for me and what sort of game we're playing and go from there.

I do agree that changing the parameters of the game so that the player can't do that anymore is not the answer. The answer is not playing with that person or group anymore. Everyone should be having fun and should be playing the game they want to play. No sense playing a game you don't want to play.

 

[Harzel]

You've brought up an interesting situation of your own, so I don't want to derail your thread, but I feel your characterization of the advice given in the Quasit thread is unfair. I only skimmed back through the thread quickly, but I didn't see any that really suggested shutting down the player entirely. Instead most seemed to be suggesting either a) adjusting the game to be more in line with RAW regarding invisibility and the traits of quasit familiars; or b) introducing more varied challenges for the players. In both cases, these would trim back the effectiveness of the quasit scouting somewhat from the way it was being played in that DM's game, but still leave it a very useful tactic.

Anyway, sorry for the digression; back to your topic.

From your anecdote, the first thought that strikes me is that when "the players approach is pretty much the worst thing they could have done", very likely they are working from bad assumptions, which generally means they have either inaccurate or too little information. Maybe this is not along the main thrust of what you are thinking about, but did the PCs try to learn anything about the chieftain or the cult leader before confronting them? Was there any way they could have done so if they had wanted to? Did the guards give them any hints about what would happen if they just barged in? Did the chieftain let them know he was getting angry before calling the guards in? (I don't mean, "You know when you speak to the cult leader instead of me, I feel angry.", more like, "When you are in Umbrang's house, you speak to Umbrang! Otherwise, you leave!" )

Second thing is, maybe my imagination is failing me, but from what you have described, I have a hard time imagining how the PCs could have gotten a better outcome. How could you have "gone with the flow" in a way that would have had integrity? Even if they had not gotten thrown out, how was chatting up the cult leader a pathway to the success of their mission? Really, it seems to me that the PCs are fortunate that the cult leader did not dispatch a large contingent of cultists to follow and murder them.

I guess if you could have understood in the moment what assumptions the players were making and if those assumptions were 'fair' (for some definition of 'fair') based on their prior knowledge and efforts, then you could have altered your reality on the fly to reify those assumptions and let them proceed from there. That seems like a reasonable general procedure. But, as noted, I don't quite see how it could have applied in this case.

 

[Seramus]

This is important.

Some players want gritty realism, where they have to struggle and overcome the odds to feel good about their success. Some players want to bust through the door like pulp action stars and win easily. Some are in the middle. None of them are wrong.

I can sympathize with both the guy who wants to really struggle and feel like his clever ideas pay off, and with the guy who had a hard day at work and wants to just have fun. The important thing is talking to your players and seeing what kind of gaming style they enjoy (and you enjoy) and hope you have enough people who agree, or are at least willing to compromise.

 

[Croesus]

They proceed to ignore the chieftain and try directly talking to the cult leader. Chieftain gets very pissed off, calls in the guards and kicks them out. The cult vastly outnumber the PC's, meaning direct confrontation without allies is out.

I was running a different adventure from Primeval Thule, and had almost exactly the same situation. I modeled the chief along the lines of Shaka Zulu - violent, assertive, sensitive to slights, but also very shrewd and cunning. The PCs literally mocked the tribe and chief while talking to him, so he kicked them out of his realm. This should have derailed the entire adventure.

But I had already also set up a couple different factions in the tribal court. I had members of two different factions approach the PCs, suggesting various ways they could get back on the chief's good side (for the factions' own purposes, of course). One of the options was rescuing some captured villagers - the original adventure. The PCs chose that option and the adventure was back on track. If they had chosen the other option, that would have led them to another adventure I had prepared. If they had refused both options, then they better hope they get out of the tribe's territory by sundown...

So just because the players/PCs go out of their way to tick off NPCs, there are ways to move an adventure along. Not necessarily in the direction originally intended, but then again, that's half the fun.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[DEFCON 1]

When you say your group didn't have any fun... is that because their PCs are used to "succeeding" without any major difficulties and this time they didn't succeed; or is it because they just didn't find the actions of the chieftain, tribe, and cultists interesting? There's a big difference between the two, and the answer to which would lead me (as the DM) into two very different directions.

If the group just didn't find the encounter interesting... like because there was no change in the status quo, or no one made a move to have a fight, or because their actions were kept separate from what the chieftain and cultists were doing and thus their actions had no influence and it almost felt like they were watching a cut-scene to which they couldn't effect one way or the other... then in that regard I could see and agree with what you came away with to a certain extent. In that instance, you quite possibly didn't expect such a direct confrontation and thus were put back on your heels having to improvise some sort of reaction that you didn't have any plans expecting to make-- and oftentimes those improvs can be less than compelling. We often will devolve to what "makes the most sense" in the situation rather than "what will be the most interesting" for the scene. If they are in alignment with each other, then Yay! It's going to end up being an awesome and unexpected improvised resulting encounter. But if they aren't... then it could easily fall flat (which is what you appear to have felt.)

So in this instance you are absolutely right that *if* we can think "outside the box" when it comes to having to quickly improvise an idea and not just default to "what makes sense"... then the scenes have a better chance to being memorable. But then again... the downside of course being that there's just as likely a chance of the scenes being "silly" or "unrealistic" or "non-sensical" as we try to improvise "interesting" results. There's never going to be a catch-all method. Sometimes improvising off the beaten path in reaction to unexpected PC action will work like gangbusters and be awesome, and sometimes it'll just end up being stupid because their unexpected PC action just *was* stupid. "You can't always make chicken salad out of chicken crap" as they say.

Now of course if it was the former point, and your group just didn't have fun because they didn't get what they wanted... then you are well within your rights to tell them "Hey dudes, F-U. " If they make ridiculous decisions that by rights SHOULD blow up in their faces (like walking into an armed camp and completely thumb their nose at the chieftain of said camp)... and they get annoyed because it didn't work like they thought it should because "Hey! We're the PCs! We get what we want!"... then they as players need to have a little dose of reality slapped across their faces. And you are well within your right to tell them (or show them via play) "You don't always get what you want just because you want it to and are the PCs. You are still just a small part of this living, breathing world that doesn't just revolve around you." And the sooner they learn that there are always consequences to their actions and that they can't just run roughshod over your game... the better off they will be and the more interesting the campaign as a whole will end up being. A game with no challenges will inevitably end up flopping much more than one where the PCs actually sometimes have to think and fight and work for what they want, and sometimes, yes, poor decisions will yield poor results. Then they can learn from it and move on.

Best of luck with the rest of the campaign!

 

[iserith]

Now, the PC's march up to the chieftain's hut and demand entrance. And they aren't subtle about it. The guards tell them that unless they have business with teh chieftain they can go pound salt. The PC's insist that they want to talk to the cult leader (who is in conference with the chieftain). They intimidate their way past the guards and burst in.

So, here you telegraph to the players very plainly that they cannot enter unless they have business with the CHIEFTAIN. The players state they have no business with the chieftain and insist upon entering, attempting to intimidate the guards. To me, this means the chosen approach to their goal automatically fails - the guards do not let them pass, no roll. I mean, you JUST told them they can't enter unless they have business with the chieftain.

But somehow they manage to intimidate their way past anyway? How did that happen? Are you allowing players to choose to make ability checks? It seems to me if there was an issue with this scene, it started right there.

Your overall point about not blocking player ideas is a good one, however. As a player, I would not have seen you having the guards prevent our entry as blocking. You told the players what they needed to do up front (in so many words) and they didn't do it. The smart play would have been to lie to the guards about wanting to talk to the chieftain, then try to get access to the cult leader once past the guards.

 

[S'mon]

I was running a different adventure from Primeval Thule, and had almost exactly the same situation. I modeled the chief along the lines of Shaka Zulu - violent, assertive, sensitive to slights, but also very shrewd and cunning. The PCs literally mocked the tribe and chief while talking to him, so he kicked them out of his realm.

I'd have had him treat them like Leonidas treated the Persian ambassadors...

I don't understand why PCs would trash-talk vastly more powerful NPCs unless they think the GM won't punish them. My son could skillfully diplomatise NPCs at age 8*, how come adult players are so poor?

*Eg he had the DeGaulle/Obama trick of listening carefully, then repeating their own words back to them, down pat.

 

[Raunalyn]

Was reading and posting in this thread:http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?554850-Warlock-in-party-with-Quasit-breaking-story and I had a bit of a thought that I figured I'd share. Take this with a grain of salt and a HUGE dose of "This is what works for me, take it or leave it, it's up to you."

Ok, disclaimers out of the way. Something that I noticed in the advice in that thread is a number of DM's who were suggesting that a possible solution to having a player do stuff that you don't really like is to change the parameters of the game so that the player can't do that anymore. And, at first blush it's not bad advice. The player is doing something that is making the game less fun for you; making him or her stop is going to make the game more fun again. Fair enough.

The thing is, IMO, that's very bad advice and something you should almost never do. The end result will only be frustrated players and bad sessions.

Personal anecdote time. I recently ran a module set in Primeval Thule - Night of the Yellow Moon. In the adventure, the PC's are hired to retrieve the son of a noble from a cult that is wandering around the countryside. The PC's quickly learn that the cultists are very bad and they're forcibly recruiting members while slaughtering anyone who doesn't convert. They chase down the cultists to a small village where the cultists are setting up their schtick - come in all peacefully, give folks drugged wine and murder everyone that doesn't convert.

Now, the PC's march up to the chieftain's hut and demand entrance. And they aren't subtle about it. The guards tell them that unless they have business with teh chieftain they can go pound salt. The PC's insist that they want to talk to the cult leader (who is in conference with the chieftain). They intimidate their way past the guards and burst in. They proceed to ignore the chieftain and try directly talking to the cult leader. Chieftain gets very pissed off, calls in the guards and kicks them out. The cult vastly outnumber the PC's, meaning direct confrontation without allies is out. The PC's learn that the person they are trying to rescue has moved on with a part of the cult so, they leave the village to its grisly fate.

The entire scenario was a complete flop. No one had any fun. I was trying to play the barbarians true to how I felt they would react and the players approach was pretty much the worst thing they could have done shy of outright violence.

But, and here's the thing. I could have salvaged things and turned it around. I didn't have to call in the guards. While calling them in was perfectly plausible, it's not like it was mandated for any reason. I could have rolled with what the players were trying to do - confront the cult leader and instead of my planned encounter where the PC's would be presenting their case to the chieftain and the cult leader would be trying to win her over - a sort of extended opposed skill check - I could have scrapped what I wanted, gone with the flow and everyone would have had a better time.

Reading over the Quasit thread, really hit that point home to me. There's no point in road blocking the players. It just causes everyone to be frustrated and well, that's no fun. Not that the players have to automatically succeed. That's no fun either. But, adapting and changing the challenge would have been a MUCH better solution. Step back, observe what the players are latching onto and roll with that. Instead of road blocking, just pave a new road.

Anyway, just something that's been on my brain for a couple of weeks.

I am one of the players who was involved in this.

Now, since I wasn't near the group who did this (we broke the cardinal rule about never splitting the party...one group was going to talk to the Chieftain while the rest of us were looking for other clues), I didn't have a say in what was going on. Needless to say, this was the playing style of the player involved. He was a little upset that it went so poorly, but the rest of us blew it off.

I think that most of the party shrugged it off and realized it was a missed opportunity.