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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bastoche" data-source="post: 2752353" data-attributes="member: 306">First, I'm saying that players who's idea of "fun" is "get the story going", like myself, will consider that "false starts" and "setbacks" (by design. more on that later) is a tremendous waste of (real world) time i.e. boring. If the setbacks and false starts are due to poor tactics and poor rolls (bad luck) then it's OK. That's what the "taking the challenge" is all about and that's the concept on which all the treasure acquiring, XP gaining and leveling up is all about. (If you don't buy all that challenge rating stuff, then it's another game we're talking about). Playing "god-mode" is EXACTLY the perfect opposite of what I'm saying. God mode means you never fail a roll and never use poor tactics. In god mode, the only "setbacks" you can meet, is when "the DM says so" i.e. by design (more later <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ). In practice these setbacks are "PC failing to find the (or "a") plot hook". If you mix and match "false starts" with "failed rolls", the failure rate sky rockets and the campaign goes downhill. The player then get a DM vs players feeling. They feel like the DM is cheating. He is actually cheating if the players do not agree to such "storytelling" and it's not if the agree. IMO, these "false starts" and "setbacks" should not be played. They should be quickly narrated by the DM.If a setback takes an entire session to play, I find this VERY boring. And most players I game with do too. In a session, D&D players likes to get things going (and usually, the DM too).Now to setbacks by design: What I'm saying is that setbacks should happened because of failed rolls or poor tactics not because of the DM's "master plan" or the player's failure to "find the hook". And/or because the players expect to play one theme while the DM is enforcing another. An example of the later is the following. And suppose it's only one DM + one player just for sake of simplicity of the argument.Let's say the DM has a majestic idea for a super cool campaign involving a crazy chase in the underdark after an evil lich who's plotting to open a rift in the multiverse that would cause the destruction of the planet if he's not stopped. There's quite a few assuptions in regards to the play style with such a campaign. First, it's gonna be an underground campaign. So a player building a horseman/cavalier character is pretty much screwed. Second it's an epic quest (in the sense that failure = end of the world/campaign). Third it will be a long lasting one (1st level characters can't take up a lich). The assumptions themselves are irrelerant. What is relevant is that the player and the DM must agree beforehand of the direction the campaign is going. If the player insist on playing a cavalier, the DM will either have to forego the underground part of his idea or find another player. If they decide to ignore the issue and play, they will face a problem sooner or later. The DM will be frustrated that his player is unable to face his chalenges since the character is innapropriate and the player will be frustrated because his character fails not because he's "just" failing but because of a fault of design.Now return to the "open" vs "close" aspect. If a player expect to play a game in which he IS the one who "drives" the story via his choices, a DM who still wants "control" over the story will generate frustration. If there's a fuzzy line between "important" encounters vs "normal/realistic/setback/false start" encounter, the player feels cheated. Well at the very least, myself as a player feel cheated. Most players don't mind being cheated that way even if it bores them becasue they've never played any other way before. They may falsely conclude that is a "normal" bug of RPG and maybe it's charm. The misconception here is that you think that what I quote as "open ended" = chicken out from the DM's challenge. That's false. What I'm saying is if we are to play a game of challenges, I, as a player, should be able to identify them clearly. And success or failure should be a RAW thing: a failed roll or a poor tactic. So my whole point here is the following. IF your players really want open play and IF you want to provide it, numerous plot hooks is NOT open play and it will eventually bore the players once they figure out what annoys them. And I must emphasise that IT WILL NOT BORE EACH AND EVERY PLAYER. Only those who wants REAL open gaming.There is not much difference between a devious DM and a DM playing devious NPCs. It should not be a battle of wit between players and DM IMO. It should be about playing a challenging story. It's not fun for the DM to have the PC lagging for X minutes/hours/sessions because they can't find the "trick" behind the confusing input the DM gives just for the sake of confusing things. It similar to the DM being the guy pulling the string attached to a wallet the players are trying to pick up in vain.</blockquote>

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