"Fun"

[med stud]

Doublepost.

 

[med stud]

So, what do you do when YOU'VE plotted out this cool fight with Winter wolves and goblins and an ice golem, and your players want to play Baba Wawa and interview every single random faceless NPC in the town?

I've found that encounters, especially non-combat encounters, write themselves. Anything the players choose to interact with *becomes* important, because they've chosen to interact with it. So if they decide o chat up the guards at the gate, the guards at the gate become vehicles for plot information, or tragic victims of the next orc raid, or corrupt cultists looking for sacrificial victims, or whatever. The DMG would have done better to discuss "How to make anything interesting" instead of "Decide what's interesting, and make sure the players don't wander off the rails".

One of my rules of DMing is, "If the players are convinced something exists, they will probably find it." If my plot doesn't have a secret network of underground tunnels, but the players waste half an hour looking for them, they're probably find them. This is the advantage of deep world building -- I know the world, and the rules of it, well enough that I can quickly build anything missing in my head. One reason I like 3x is that I know anything I make up on the fly, I can find mechanics for in the book pretty easily, or interpolate them as needed.

I agree 100%. I haven't read the DMG that carefully but I hope "roll with it" is somewhere in it. If your players mark an interest in speaking to people and you think it's fun, there is no reason why you shouldn't do it.

I also employ your model of letting the players invent parts of the setting. The creativity of five people is better than the creativity of one. Though I don't do extensive world building, I'm too lazy for that.

I suspect the DMG (I do a lot of suspecting on the behalf on the DMG in this thread ) is advicing for situations when the players don't give you any immidiate feedback. If your players are sitting passive during the ravings of the uncouth trapper in the inn, maybe you should drop the trapper. If they sit and wait for the action when you describe the seventh league of empty dwarven tunnels, it's likely time for a fast forward.

 

[Cadfan]

I'd have to disagree with you here, I think it depends on the DM.

I've run games where the pressures of running out of water in a desert environment has put a sense of desperation and urgency into an adventure, and even influenced PC's to make choices that led to more interesting play.

I think that falls outside the purvey of my comments, and outside the reasonable purvey of the DMG's comments.

I think that interpreting the DMG's comments to mean "No conversation with guards, ever, can be fun. All such conversations should be skipped. No plot elements should ever be linked to conversations with guards. If you do make the players talk to guards, you're playing D&D WRONG!" is uncharitable and unreasonable.

The DMG is clearly conveying the idea that rote tasks that add little or nothing to the game should be dealt with swiftly, so that the game doesn't bog down. This is easily understood by all but the most sensitive of souls. The only unfortunate aspect of the DMG's paragraph is that it opens the doors to the badwrongful police, who read it and immediately insist that it should have included countless caveats.

 

[Lizard]

Not that you said anything about your players.

Ah, but the DMG goes with the assumption all groups find the same thing "fun", which is odd, because they discuss different player types and needs earlier. Instead of saying "Talking with guards is No Fun", why not say, "Every group finds different things fun. Focus on the things your group enjoys, and fast forward through the things they don't care about."

 

[hong]

No it just claims this is the boring stuff and should be skipped.

It does no such thing, except to those who have apparently repeated the mantra "encounter == combat" so much that they can conceive of nothing else.

If I'm skipping every NPC that doesn't fit into my well crafted story how do players ever make the decision to form a connection with NPC's or determine who are their allies or enemies (outside of who I have determined beforehand).

They actively go out and talk to people, of course. This is why the DMG also has a section titled "Saying yes".

 

[Cadfan]

No it just claims this is the boring stuff and should be skipped. If I'm skipping every NPC that doesn't fit into my well crafted story how do players ever make the decision to form a connection with NPC's or determine who are their allies or enemies (outside of who I have determined beforehand).

Simple. There's a GIANT DIFFERENCE between 1) forcing the players to talk to the guards at the gate in a perfunctory and ultimately pointless exercise, and 2) refusing to permit the PCs to talk to the guards at the gate even if they want to do so.

Bad DMing 1:

DM: The guards at the gate stop you. There are two, one tall, and one short. "Name and business?" the tall one asks.
PC: I am [blah blah blah]
...
30 seconds of conversation passes
...
DM: They wave you through the gate.
PC: We head to the tavern.
DM: You're early for your meeting with the Scarlet Scoundrel, so lets roleplay another mandatory conversation with a faceless NPC that isn't likely to matter ever again and about whom you don't care in the least! Act out your drink orders at the tavern bar. NOW!

Bad DMing 2:

DM: You arrive at the city, and the guards wave you through the gate after determining your name and business.
PC: I'd like to ask the guards about...
DM: NO! The DMG says you're not allowed to talk to guards! Its not fun and you're not allowed to do it! I know because I read books the same way Amelia Bedelia pitches tents! Move on!

Good DMing 1:

DM: You arrive at the city, and the guards wave you through the gate after determining your name and business. You head to the tavern where you agreed to meet the Scarlet Scoundrel.

Good DMing 2:

DM: You arrive at the city, and the guards wave you through the gate after determining your name and business. You head to...
PC 1: Actually, I'd like to ask the guards some questions before we go into this.
DM: Oh, sure.
PC 2: And I have some investigation I'd like to do as well before we meet this guy.
DM: Alright, go ahead. *makes notes and secretly starts a skill challenge*

 

[TerraDave]

I agree 100%. I haven't read the DMG that carefully but I hope "roll with it" is somewhere in it.

Over and over again. Lean how to say YES! to your players.

That also gets old.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Ah, but the DMG goes with the assumption all groups find the same thing "fun", which is odd, because they discuss different player types and needs earlier. Instead of saying "Talking with guards is No Fun", why not say, "Every group finds different things fun. Focus on the things your group enjoys, and fast forward through the things they don't care about."

How about "Talking with guards usually isn't fun."

Which would mean this whole thread is an argument about the lack of one word in the DMG.

 

[hong]

Ah, but the DMG goes with the assumption all groups find the same thing "fun",

Wait, are you talking about me, or the DMG?

 

[med stud]

Ah, but the DMG goes with the assumption all groups find the same thing "fun", which is odd, because they discuss different player types and needs earlier. Instead of saying "Talking with guards is No Fun", why not say, "Every group finds different things fun. Focus on the things your group enjoys, and fast forward through the things they don't care about."

I think you (and many with you) view these issues too binary. There is no "...to the exclusion of everything else"- clause in the books. If you don't agree with something, you just think "I don't agree with this" and skip that part. The DMG isn't trying to boss you around or give you orders, it's giving suggestions.

The kind of advice that you would like instead doesn't really tell you anything. If you need concrete advice, "do what you find is fun!" isn't what you look for. It's assumed that people will try to have fun.