I want my actions to matter

[pointofyou]

I don't know the OP personally, so I try to be as charitable as I can. There is nothing he has written that would make me think that I would have a problem playing in a game he ran. It seems he's been running games for a long time, I assume he's run games in the past with players he's enjoyed playing with. I think he just needs to get away from runnign games in the library and either put out a call for players on Meetup.com or try running a game online.

I see this whole discussion of players wanting their actions to matter to be the wrong thing to focus on. I would advise the OP to instead focus on finding players interested in playing in the type of game he wants to run.

I sincerely applaud your charity and I agree that the OP probably will need to look outside his current gaming circles to find a table he'll be happy at.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This comes up often in my games, and it came up on another thread here too.

When a player is asked what they want out of an RPG game, a very common answer many players give is that they "want their actions to matter". And, sure, as some blind general bomb throwing it does sound great. But how doe this work out in actual game play?

For example, one player says something like this "I want my actions to matter. That means that if I do something unexpected, the DM doesn't shut it down or just make it unimpactful if should have impact. Even if it's something the DM predicted might be done by me, let it still have the full impact that it should. It also means that if I wander away from a plot hook, it won't follow me and hook me against my will."

And sure, the above sound great. Except in game play where it does sound like the player just wants to be able to alter game reality on a whim. Of course, the player will snap back that is not what they mean. So, what DO they mean?

How does a DM "let a player do something unexpected" with out "shutting it down" or making it have "no impact". Assuming the player is being reasonable, they don't want to alter the game reality in their favor on a whim. So what do they want?

There is a vault full of gold, and the player wants to "unexpectedly" rob it. So, does the DM just say "your character now has a billion gold coins"? Because if the DM even says "well the vault is locked" then the player will whine they are being "shut down" by the DM.....right?

Another example player might say : "I want to make choices for my character that actually matter. My preference is a purely open-world sandbox. The players pick the direction and go, which direction they go actually matters. The players pick the quests, assignments, missions, etc. The players determine what they do, where they go, etc. I'm perfectly fine with the referee making the challenges difficult, opposition smart, etc but I'd rather read a novel if the referee is going to force feed us their precious story or linear plot."

It does sound great for the players to pick the quest, but once the players pick a path that does set a lot of things in the game.

Can anyone give me an example or two that make sense? How does a DM "allow a characters actions to matter" without just altering the game reality for the players whim and not even playing a game?

I think in the first count what works well for me is rulings or having a core system that is adaptable enough that I can fit what the players are trying to do to the particular situation by creatively applying the system

For the second, at least for me, the thing with sandbox is you have to be committed to letting them always be able to try veering in whatever direction they want. Even if they pick something as their goal, things can change a long the way. It helps in my experience not to plan out events or rails for any given scenario in a sandbox. Simply set up the situations, the NPCs, the locations, but don't start with hook followed by planned events or beats. Let things emerge more organically. In short don't think in terms of quests in sandbox, think more in terms of scenarios. It doesn't mean quests can't exist. But they shouldn't be ubiquitous and players should always be free to ignore them, decide not to complete them or even change 'teams' midway through a quest if they want

 

[Campbell]

Seems like these players would like to play a very different game than D&D. They'd probably be happier with a more narrative, collaborative story-telling indie game. I bet these annoying D&D players would be fun InSPECTRE players.

This presents a false picture of the way most games most folks consider "narrative" actually work. If you have trouble dealing with largely stake-less consequences like relatively small amounts of hp loss the much more personal stakes of someone gaining influence over you or telling your character who they are in Masks, relationship breakdowns and having your intentions thoroughly thwarted on failures in most indie RPGs will not feel good to you.

 

[MNblockhead]

This presents a false picture of the way most games most folks consider "narrative" actually work. If you have trouble dealing with largely stake-less consequences like relatively small amounts of hp loss the much more personal stakes of someone gaining influence over you or telling your character who they are in Masks, relationship breakdowns and having your intentions thoroughly thwarted on failures in most indie RPGs will not feel good to you.

True, though it depends on the game. InSPECTREs has mechanics that let the players basically say what happens on certain dice roles. But no game is going to solve a player who just wants to narrate his awesome PC through awesome success. Some people just want an audience instead of playing a game with others.

 

[Lanefan]

What does any of this have to do with players’ actions mattering?

If I say I want my actions to matter, it doesn’t mean I don’t want a challenge. I don’t even understand how you could interpret one for the other.

There's a (greatly in the minority, though I've DMed a few) number of players out there who, while they don't mind the principle of there being a challenge, get quite huffy it if-when by bad luck, bad planning, or bad design that challenge proves more than their characters can handle. Complaints about losing to bad design are fair enough, I get that; but if they lose due to bad luck or bad (or no!) planning on their part there's no excuse for complaint.

Which means, yes: for those players, "my actions matter" and "my character succeeds" are pretty much synonymous.

I've rearranged some of the quote bits below to batch related pieces together.

Neither of these two sides you suggest applied.

Bandits want to loot, yes, but they don’t want to die. They seek relatively easy prey. A group of adventurers in D&D is anything but easy prey.

To a gang of no-name bandits, knocking off a typical group of adventurers would represent one hell of a score if they could do it; so there's clear motivation there. The ultimate in high-risk high-reward banditry, that.

No, the GM doesn't "do nothing". The player rolls and depending on the result, the GM determines what happens. The GM is not free to just decide anything they want...it has to fit the result of the roll.
[...]
I think Persuasion applied because of the way the Bars approached the move. He explained to them that we had just slain a group of trolls, and that we’d had enough violence for the day.

But the issue isn’t the skill used. It’s that the DC wasn’t shared. We have no idea what the chances were, or if the roll actually succeeded. As I said, the fight seemed like a foregone conclusion… so we fought. And we mopped the floor with the bandits.

This is part of it as well. If players are going to know that their actions matter, it helps to be transparent about things like DCs and so forth before a roll is made.

Problem with that is that giving the players the DC (for anything, not just a persuasion check) also gives them meta-information their characters wouldn't know - to anywhere near that degree of accuracy, if at all - which IMO is bad GMing.

What we're not told here is how much effort the players put into roleplaying their attempts to persuade the bandits to stand down, or whether they just started with "We roll persuasion to talk them out of attacking".

Well, you seem to think it means that the players want an easy challenge. I don’t understamd why. I’ve never experienced anything like what you’re describing. Most of the time, players wanting actions to matter is about consequences as much as it is about achievement.

IME most players are like this, but as noted above there's a few who'd rather have the illusion of challenge rather than the reality.

They want to know what’s at stake and the odds beforehand, so then when they see how the dice land, they know how things will go, and more importantly, they know WHY things go that way.

This doesn't match my experience, for the most part. Knowing the specific numbers isn't high on most people's agenda IME; a vague idea will often do, and even that's not always necessary - "Never tell me the odds, kid".

The 'WHY' something went the way it did either becomes obvious after the fact (e.g. you realized the wall was greased only after you started trying to climb it) or it doesn't (you couldn't persuade the bandits not to attack because they knew their evil overlord might be watching through a scrying device); and if it's not obvious I'm not going to give it away.

 

[bloodtide]

I've only run into this issue when it comes to rules interpretations or expectations regarding whether a game is more thespian or crunchy tactical in style. The examples you give are so far outside of my experience IRL or online that I feel you must have stumbled into a strange pocket culture of players.

That even have die hard supporters right here on the boards too. Amazing how big the 'pockets' are....

I see this whole discussion of players wanting their actions to matter to be the wrong thing to focus on. I would advise the OP to instead focus on finding players interested in playing in the type of game he wants to run.

Seems like these players would like to play a very different game than D&D. They'd probably be happier with a more narrative, collaborative story-telling indie game. I bet these annoying D&D players would be fun InSPECTRE players.

For an even more fun oddity.....these are the Forever D&D type players. Even suggest another game, and they say "no".

I see this whole discussion of players wanting their actions to matter to be the wrong thing to focus on. I would advise the OP to instead focus on finding players interested in playing in the type of game he wants to run.

That is the whole point. I game with good players and make myself good players from scratch. Though this still leaves all the 'other' players out there: and half of them can be saved.

The hard way of saving gamers takes a lot of time and effort, I was just looking for some ways to help.

Does not come remotely close to equating to altering game reality on a whim. And it's the expected course for the DM to take. If the DM inappropriately shuts down something that should work, that's not a DM worth playing with. It's okay for something to work better than the DM expected and should be embraced by the DM, not shut down.

The problem is:

The DM: understands (the fictional) reality and common sense. And that some things might work or fail sometimes. And even if you do everything "right", you still might fail.

The Players: Everything I do must succeed every time for me to have "fun".

So see if you don't have the players doing the "must succeed", then there would never be a problem. When...a lot of the time....when the characters can't or fail to do something.....the players would just accept it.

Well, duh. Of course it should have the impact that it should. Again, a DM who is negating the impact of something inappropriately isn't worth playing with. And this is also not even close to equating to the player altering game reality on a whim.

See above.

This should be allowed unless the players agreed prior to the first session not to walk away from hooks. The DM should throw out plot hooks and if the players bite, they bite. If not, not. Also, players who come up with their own hooks should be embraced as well. If I don't want to chase down your murder clown and instead want to go north to become chief of the Icepoohbear Barbarians, that's still a hook you can run with.

As always, the vague stuff sounds fine.

Though this is another alter game reality thing. If the DM drops a 'hook' or any 'game event' or 'encounter' and the players just ignore it: it does not alter the game reality.

Like say there is a lich hunting and absorbing necromatic magic items. The players just shrug and ignore this saying "we are not goona take your hook DM". In a good game, this just leaves the lich 'out there' to be encountered at a later time. What does NOT happen is the DM is forced to alter game reality and say "oh, ok, you guys don't like that hook...so, um, the lich just fades away and never existed".

They want you to not shut it down or reduce the impact, which is by default, reasonable and NOT altering game reality in their favor on a whim.

They don't see to act this way rhough?

This is just flat out wrong. I'm pretty sure that just about every player would expect the vault to be locked. Not only locked, but have other defenses as well. If you don't have pre-set defenses(and that means you don't get to just invent counters to what they do as they do it) that can stop them, they should succeed and it's your fault if you put in a billion coins that are that easily obtainable.

This seems odd.

So if the players just pick a random place to loot. And it's a place the DM has not pre-set anything....then the characters get to auto loot the place? THIS seems to be a common thought among players. There must be a ton of DMs that do this.

And guess this little home brew side game makes sense in a all pre-set game. Where the players can go "haha we picked something to do that you did not prepare in pre-set DM and that means we get to auto succeed and get all the loot!"

Of course, it falls apart and makes no sense in any game that uses Improv. As the DM will always be making stuff up right in front of the players.

You keep using "whim" and "altering game reality" which none of the things you mention actually do. The Wish spell alters the game reality. My rogue climbing into the lord's house and stealing his wife's jeweled oil lamp to sell when you didn't expect it, isn't altering the game reality. It's engaging the game reality as it was set up. Even if you didn't expect that sort of engagement.

I guess I should be more clear on when the players want game reality to be altered on a whim, they want/demand their Buddy DM do so for them. And Buddy DMs can't wait to do whatever the players tell them to do.

The DM makes two Elite Royal Tower Guards who are 100% loyal to the royal family. When the characters wander over the players say "We wait for the guards to fall asleep and make a sneak check to get in". The players WANT the DM to change the guards into Dumb Sleepy Fool Guards.

Also, something you don't seem to be understanding with your post. Mattering does not equate to succeeding. The player can fail, and if he fails fairly and not because the DM is arbitrarily shutting the player down and/or inappropriately rendering the actions less effective, then that's fine.

Except it's not fine with most players. Bad players only sometimes even accept rolls.

Player: I Persuade the guard to let me loot the vault and get a total of 18.
DM: The guard is not persuaded
Player: What? But I got an 18!

And few players ever accept role playing:

Player: My character asked how much gold it would take to bribe the guard to kill the king
DM: The guard answers "no price, I will not betray my king"
Player- "Waa, no, Everyone has a price! "
DM- "Nope, not everyone. Good people do exist in the world".

I see this whole discussion of players wanting their actions to matter to be the wrong thing to focus on. I would advise the OP to instead focus on finding players interested in playing in the type of game he wants to run.

 

[Maxperson]

The problem is:

The DM: understands (the fictional) reality and common sense. And that some things might work or fail sometimes. And even if you do everything "right", you still might fail.

This is not a problem. It's okay for auto success, auto failure and rolling when the outcome is in doubt. That's how you play the game.

The issue is when the DM forces what he wants to happen, ignoring what should happen. You've said you engage in railroading. On a railroad the players' actions can't matter, since you are going to force what you want no matter what.

The Players: Everything I do must succeed every time for me to have "fun".

So see if you don't have the players doing the "must succeed", then there would never be a problem. When...a lot of the time....when the characters can't or fail to do something.....the players would just accept it.

See above.

So long as you keep saying "the players" you can't be correct here. Players in general don't believe that they must succeed. Some rare few probably do, but as a whole "the players" don't.

Though this is another alter game reality thing. If the DM drops a 'hook' or any 'game event' or 'encounter' and the players just ignore it: it does not alter the game reality.

Like say there is a lich hunting and absorbing necromatic magic items. The players just shrug and ignore this saying "we are not goona take your hook DM". In a good game, this just leaves the lich 'out there' to be encountered at a later time. What does NOT happen is the DM is forced to alter game reality and say "oh, ok, you guys don't like that hook...so, um, the lich just fades away and never existed".

Nobody is saying that the lich should just fade away like it never existed. Only that you shouldn't force the lich upon the players. You want a specific example, I'll give you one.

Several years ago the players didn't want to choose the them of the next campaign like they usually do and asked me to come up with something. So I did some work on a campaign where the boundaries between the prime plane on Faerun and the Abyss were weakening and demons were starting to slip through into the world.

During the first session the PCs encountered some weak demons near a graveyard and decided that demons popping out was too much. They decided to avoid the problem and head south to Amn to become pirates. Okay. Full reverse on my part. Letting their actions actually matter, they started traveling south. It's a long walk at low level, so I had time to work one a pirate campaign that the players really loved.

Anyway, the demons still kept coming through and I'd periodically roll to see how well other heroes were handling things. The problem became steadily worse and rumors of things would reach Amn. I wasn't going to force the demons onto the PCs/players, but the issue still happened in the background, adding to the depth of the world. They understood things were happening from beyond their control and influence.

So if the players just pick a random place to loot. And it's a place the DM has not pre-set anything....then the characters get to auto loot the place? THIS seems to be a common thought among players. There must be a ton of DMs that do this.

No. If they do something like that you have two choices. Improvise fairly, not as a counter to what they do, but what the organization would fairly have done. Pause to think ahead at what defenses they would have in place and then let the players begin their attempt. Or pause the game and let them know you need to prep for this since you weren't expecting it. Then they can encounter the defenses and plan ways around them.

The important part is not to force what you want(railroading) or to just come up with ways to shut down their ideas as they come up(adversarial DMing).

And guess this little home brew side game makes sense in a all pre-set game. Where the players can go "haha we picked something to do that you did not prepare in pre-set DM and that means we get to auto succeed and get all the loot!"

Or not, because it doesn't work that way.

I guess I should be more clear on when the players want game reality to be altered on a whim, they want/demand their Buddy DM do so for them. And Buddy DMs can't wait to do whatever the players tell them to do.

The DM makes two Elite Royal Tower Guards who are 100% loyal to the royal family. When the characters wander over the players say "We wait for the guards to fall asleep and make a sneak check to get in". The players WANT the DM to change the guards into Dumb Sleepy Fool Guards.

Just let them know that the guards don't fall asleep. My players wouldn't do that. They'd leave and buy potions of invisibility or passwall scrolls to bypass the guards. You know, planning to overcome the defenses.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Problem with that is that giving the players the DC (for anything, not just a persuasion check) also gives them meta-information their characters wouldn't know - to anywhere near that degree of accuracy, if at all - which IMO is bad GMing.

Ah, thanks for telling me I’m a bad GM. Happy Holidays to you, too, Lanefan!

But no, it’s not bad GMing. Given the option of sharing the DC and having the players know the odds (the horror!) or not giving them the DC leaving them to rely solely on a description that may or may not have given an accurate picture of the situation… well, to me, one of those is much more preferred than the other, both as a player and a GM.

I mean really… the idea that knowing the climb check is a DC 15 is problematic in any way… frankly, it’s silly.

The meta-boogey-man’s got you, Lan! You need to shake it off and realize he’s not real!!

 

[Lanefan]

Ah, thanks for telling me I’m a bad GM. Happy Holidays to you, too, Lanefan!

But no, it’s not bad GMing. Given the option of sharing the DC and having the players know the odds (the horror!) or not giving them the DC leaving them to rely solely on a description that may or may not have given an accurate picture of the situation… well, to me, one of those is much more preferred than the other, both as a player and a GM.

I mean really… the idea that knowing the climb check is a DC 15 is problematic in any way… frankly, it’s silly.

It's extremely unlikely the PCs would be able to assess the difficulty that closely without in fact trying to climb it; and the PCs' reality is the framework I try to use when describing things to the players. If I'm not clear enough they can always ask questions.

So when the Thief checks the wall over, while I might say something like "It looks reasonably climb-able for a trained professional like you", I'm never going to say "It's DC 15*".

Never mind if there's something about the wall they haven't yet seen or noticed (or even looked for) e.g. the top 10 feet of the wall has been greased to prevent climbing, or there's a disguised set of handholds that make climbing way easier after the first ten feet or so, why would I just give that away?

* - or system equivalent.

 

[pemerton]

If I were faced with that situation, I would say "your actions matter within the rules of the game and the logic of the fantasy world we are playing in. The door is locked for the same reason you probably lock the door to your home. Your actions matter, so much so that the game is making you take multiple actions to resolve this challenge. If you only want to take one single action and for it to be the one and only action that matters, well congratulations, you win. Please narrate how your PC solved the entire adventure. Then go find another group to play with as I expect that the other players at this table would like their actions to matter as well."

Rules of the game: (i) any number of checks (Pick Locks, Stealth, Search, etc) may lie between the starting point and resolving the situation; (ii) the DCs of those checks may be <whatever>; (iii) the result of any given check may be <whatever>.

The logic of the fantasy world: whatever the GM has decided, probably in secret, that (i) yields the fiction that makes sense to them, and (ii) has been used to fill in <whatever> above.

This is not a propitious starting point for the players' moves in the game to matter.