That's something I don't get. It's what the game is ABOUT, for Fafhrd's sake! That didn't take much explaining 30 years ago, and it seems to me it should take even less now. Do these "players" just sit on their hands when they take places at the table for other games? "It's your move" means do something.
I wanna get back on the railroad
- Thread starter Noumenon
- Start date
Philotomy Jurament
First Post
Tell 'em it's part of their characters' motivation: they're driven to explore and seek the unknown. Or they're driven by a desire for fortune and glory -- so they'll go where the action and gold waits. They're "adventurers" because they seek adventure...
Philotomy Jurament
First Post
Nice essay.
Noumenon
First Post
Well, I just got done with another player-directed session. They told me which dungeon they were going to head to before the session. But first, the dwarf had had all his gear stripped last session (not bad DMing! I asked him first and it was supposed to punish the people who left him alone and helpless with all his Wisdom drained). So I had a quick encounter where the guy who stole them brought them to town and tried to sell them, and the deal went bad and the party found out.
Railroad version: they kill the smugglers, open the crates and find all the dwarf's stuff. The room is otherwise empty and they have to leave. Off to the dungeon.
Nonrailroad version: The room has two locked doors, the PCs got the impression the smugglers were dragging some bodies toward one of them (just to hide them in the dark hallway actually). So the party wants to pick the lock, and I flexibly have it open into the basement of the pirate-affiliated shipbuilder Blackjack's Hulls. It started out fun because the rogue came upstairs behind the counter and stole the entire till. Then the sheriff PC came up without hiding at all, asked them why they all looked so guilty (they're pirates, but the PCs didn't know that), and left. Then the pirates checked the downstairs and the rogue decided to kill them. Very chaotic, and probably evil, but I didn't think of any reason or way to stop him. Then the store owner ran out the door for help and the sheriff PC chased him down and marched him down the street to jail. This led to more scenes explaining things to the magistrate, the sheriff PC discovering the murder, and down the road the sheriff being stripped of his title and official armor.
So now we have all these massive consequences on the horizon with murder investigation, pirate retaliations, interparty alignment conflict, but since I was flailing so badly trying to react to all this that I had my players running the NPCs for me, we kind of ignored them and finally set off across the bay to the planned adventure. About three hours later than the railroad version would have taken. You can blame my players for taking such consequential actions in town, but I blame the freedom too.
OK, I wanted one or two scenes on the way to the dungeon. Railroad version: stormy sea requiring sailor checks or turning back for a new boat. One random encounter with a water elemental or something. Nonrailroad version: I randomly pick a random encounter with a shark (I don't have a table) and realize I'm not sure how it could get in the boat, so I have it circle the boat. Then I try the profession:sailor check and it's a 4, so a wave swamps the boat enough that the shark can attack people in it. All created on the fly, and there's a kind of fun encounter where the shark capsizes the boat, there's underwater combat, one character remembers he has shark repellent in his pack, another gets trapped under the sinking boat and uses a gaseous form potion to bubble to the surface and promptly be whipped away by the storm winds to the other side of the harbor. A wild chaotic and kind of fun encounter, but it ends up with the party having no boat, having to swim back to shore and one hitching a ride home with a fishing boat.
Then they gave up and just went to a different dungeon. And split up besides with one character just sitting outside guarding the entrance. I think being in what Chatty DM calls the "storming" phase is half my group's problem. But they didn't storm before I gave them their head and allowed the consequences of their actions to start determining what happened next in the session.
It's almost, kind of still fun, but I come out of it feeling half-consternated, not charged-up.
The worst part is one of my players said part of the reason he started causing so much chaos in town was he really wanted to leave the town and felt stuck. The one kind of freedom he really wanted, I still wasn't giving him. (I could start a whole 'nother thread about that, as the modules I was using originally were all different towns, but I moved them all to the same town because I like recurring NPCs. Other than that the experience is exactly the same.)
Railroad version: they kill the smugglers, open the crates and find all the dwarf's stuff. The room is otherwise empty and they have to leave. Off to the dungeon.
Nonrailroad version: The room has two locked doors, the PCs got the impression the smugglers were dragging some bodies toward one of them (just to hide them in the dark hallway actually). So the party wants to pick the lock, and I flexibly have it open into the basement of the pirate-affiliated shipbuilder Blackjack's Hulls. It started out fun because the rogue came upstairs behind the counter and stole the entire till. Then the sheriff PC came up without hiding at all, asked them why they all looked so guilty (they're pirates, but the PCs didn't know that), and left. Then the pirates checked the downstairs and the rogue decided to kill them. Very chaotic, and probably evil, but I didn't think of any reason or way to stop him. Then the store owner ran out the door for help and the sheriff PC chased him down and marched him down the street to jail. This led to more scenes explaining things to the magistrate, the sheriff PC discovering the murder, and down the road the sheriff being stripped of his title and official armor.
So now we have all these massive consequences on the horizon with murder investigation, pirate retaliations, interparty alignment conflict, but since I was flailing so badly trying to react to all this that I had my players running the NPCs for me, we kind of ignored them and finally set off across the bay to the planned adventure. About three hours later than the railroad version would have taken. You can blame my players for taking such consequential actions in town, but I blame the freedom too.
OK, I wanted one or two scenes on the way to the dungeon. Railroad version: stormy sea requiring sailor checks or turning back for a new boat. One random encounter with a water elemental or something. Nonrailroad version: I randomly pick a random encounter with a shark (I don't have a table) and realize I'm not sure how it could get in the boat, so I have it circle the boat. Then I try the profession:sailor check and it's a 4, so a wave swamps the boat enough that the shark can attack people in it. All created on the fly, and there's a kind of fun encounter where the shark capsizes the boat, there's underwater combat, one character remembers he has shark repellent in his pack, another gets trapped under the sinking boat and uses a gaseous form potion to bubble to the surface and promptly be whipped away by the storm winds to the other side of the harbor. A wild chaotic and kind of fun encounter, but it ends up with the party having no boat, having to swim back to shore and one hitching a ride home with a fishing boat.
Then they gave up and just went to a different dungeon. And split up besides with one character just sitting outside guarding the entrance. I think being in what Chatty DM calls the "storming" phase is half my group's problem. But they didn't storm before I gave them their head and allowed the consequences of their actions to start determining what happened next in the session.
It's almost, kind of still fun, but I come out of it feeling half-consternated, not charged-up.
The worst part is one of my players said part of the reason he started causing so much chaos in town was he really wanted to leave the town and felt stuck. The one kind of freedom he really wanted, I still wasn't giving him. (I could start a whole 'nother thread about that, as the modules I was using originally were all different towns, but I moved them all to the same town because I like recurring NPCs. Other than that the experience is exactly the same.)
howandwhy99
Adventurer
based on the original post, here's my advice:
1. If you are not going to railroad, "pacing" / speed and direction of play are up to the players not you.
2. You cannot make the players do anything. They decide their own actions. You relay the consequences of them. If you want to force the players to roleplay a certain way, you don't want to be a DM. Simply allow them to play the roles they've selected and win or lose as appropriate under the rules.
3. Start off with a goal everyone is going to want to achieve and then allow the players to determine their own from there. If the players do not wish to act as a team, then switch between them. Sometimes intra-party competition can be part of this split and that's fun too. Or if it is too difficult to DM or not fun for the players to play separate groups, let them know they need to decide whether they wish to stay together or play in separate games. Don't let "character motivations" get in the way. Those aren't relevant to roleplaying games. Give players the option to retire characters permanently or temporarily that the group has split from.
Also, if you find you need to keep "pulling stuff out of your butt" like the mephit, you may want to examine the modules you're running or the campaign design. Improv isn't really acceptable from a DM (when they're not playing an NPC).
1. If you are not going to railroad, "pacing" / speed and direction of play are up to the players not you.
2. You cannot make the players do anything. They decide their own actions. You relay the consequences of them. If you want to force the players to roleplay a certain way, you don't want to be a DM. Simply allow them to play the roles they've selected and win or lose as appropriate under the rules.
3. Start off with a goal everyone is going to want to achieve and then allow the players to determine their own from there. If the players do not wish to act as a team, then switch between them. Sometimes intra-party competition can be part of this split and that's fun too. Or if it is too difficult to DM or not fun for the players to play separate groups, let them know they need to decide whether they wish to stay together or play in separate games. Don't let "character motivations" get in the way. Those aren't relevant to roleplaying games. Give players the option to retire characters permanently or temporarily that the group has split from.
Also, if you find you need to keep "pulling stuff out of your butt" like the mephit, you may want to examine the modules you're running or the campaign design. Improv isn't really acceptable from a DM (when they're not playing an NPC).
Er, what?
howandwhy99
Adventurer
Improv isn't really acceptable from a DM (when they're not playing an NPC).
EDIT:
Even then, the DM is playing a different role than Referee, one called Auxiliary under roleplaying terminology. And those roles, NPCs, are pretty highly scripted too for an improvisational acting game. That's why professional actors are hired to perform auxiliary roles in cases of paid for roleplaying. (main link & roleplayUK)
Last edited:
Hairfoot
First Post
I've struggled with that for different reasons.
If the PCs are in a small town, there aren't any local bravos willing to face serious physical damage for the sake of ridiculing the party's dwarf. Momentary satisfaction VS a life without teeth. No brainer.
wedgeski
Adventurer
Can't agree with this. The ability to improv a scene, a whole encounter, or even a side-trek in order to enrich the choices made by the players is, IMO, a critical skill. It's one of many essential skills that's learned over the course of a DM's career behind the screen.
Sorry, but while the game make contain dungeons, and we may find dragons in them, for the people I've played with, it's never been about dungeon crawls. If we go into a dungeon, it's because we were solving a problem and the solution was in the dungeon.
To me, the game is about advancing my character in a fantasy environment.
"It's your move" is meaningless to me. When my PC gets started in a game session, I don't just "do something." I observe, find an opportunity, then act. For that to work, the GM has to be moving all the other pieces first. I expect him to, because for the GM to be running a realistic world, the other pieces must be going on about their daily business and pursuing their goals.
I don't pick fights in bars to make something happen. I don't just decide to work on becoming sherriff. I look to see what openings there are in the environment to advance myself as the town hero (if I'm playing a heroic PC).
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