Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[Lanefan]

It's like the second. We want player interest to be focused on what's happening right now in the fiction, not the vagaries of GM technique. That's the space they play in. Our principles here are:

Make your move, but misdirect
Make your move, but never speak its name

The post I made upthread, covering the technique behind the use of soft and hard moves, goes into more detail.

That's cool. I was worried that the DM had to announce her moves as they were made, which really would butcher the immersion/fiction flow.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

But - unless I've misunderstood - (1) depend upon the PCs gaining information about their possibility in the course of play (eg talking to NPCs), and therefore (2) depend upon the GM deciding what is part of the fiction, what the various NPCs whom the PCs are in contact with know and might communicate, etc.

If the party have done their diligence and found 4 or 5 different possibilities for adventure and then decide as a party to ignore them all and instead go north to take over the barbarian tribes then - unless I in fact do want to railroad them for some reason - I'm DMing an attempted takeover of the barbarian tribes. And this might be all complete speculation on the players'/PCs' part - "Hey, lets go see if there's any barbarian tribes we can take over - we can make 'em into our own private army!" - without any actual knowledge of whether such tribes exist or if they do what they might have going for them.

But if just one character wants to do this while the rest would rather go and see what's up with Dumont tower then one of several things must happen:

1. Party goes to Dumont, single PC leaves party and goes north (and retires from ongoing play either temporarily or permanently, meanwhile I run Dumont); or
2. A deal is struck: you help us with Dumont and we'll help you with the tribes (in whichever order, I run both); or
3. The one PC manages to talk the party out of doing Dumont at all and convinces them to go north (thus I run just the tribes adventure); or
4. The party splits - some go to Dumont, some go north (I run one first [probably Dumont as it's closer*] while the other gets put on hold, then I run the other)

* - for game-world timing reasons I'd always want to run the closer one first; it's entirely possible the Dumont group finish their adventure (which is a mere 25 miles away) before the northern group even get to the barbarians who are hundreds of miles away. I'd meta-explain this to the players - never yet had any trouble getting buy-in on something like this - as there's always a chance, however tiny, that something done at Dumont may somehow affect those going north.

Lan-"and yes, barbarians are a race not a class"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

No. Driven by the DM and players both. I have yet to play with a player who is so self-centered that he expects me to run an entire second game just for him. The social contract has determined that this is a group game, not a 4 solo games run simultaneously.

For the real-world players it's a group game.

For the PCs it's whatever they decide in-character that it's gonna be. If a PC retires it's entirely reasonable the party might look for a replacement...and whoever just retired their PC is now short a character to play...seems like a logical fit to me. (and if the player wants to play something quite different than what was just retired that's fine too; the party might need to recruit an NPC to fill the gap left by the retiree while also taking in whatever new PC the player rolls up).

In other words, the fact that the real-world players are here as a group every Sunday night has no bearing on whether their game-world characters always have to remain as a group; and while it certainly helps if a majority of them stay together there's no expectation whatsoever that they all have to. As [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] says, it's not only possible to role-play yourself out of a party, it's sometimes desireable in order to maintain the fiction of your character doing what it would logically do in order to fulfill its own goals.

An example: I play a long-running character from a Roman-equivalent society. Her personal goal* has always been to eventually get onto the Senate after her adventuring career is done and then at some point after that make a play for Empress. Do I-as-player expect all the other players/PCs to help me with this? Of course not; and though one or two have indicated they will I've no right to expect the rest to give a flying fig. If it ever gets to the point of her leaving the party and doing this I'd retire her from adventuring and at some point the DM and I could sort her out over an out-of-session beer in the pub. Meanwhile I'd play a different character in the ongoing party.

* - a goal that's getting further and further away the more she adventures, for a host of reasons not least of which is that she's gone from looking like a purebred Roman to looking like a member of an enemy culture (still human) thanks to side effects from a reincarnation...

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

What makes you think that "OK, your PC is now an NPC and all that northern barbarian stuff is going to take place off-screen" is what I am talking about? What I am talking about involves the entire group going through many adventures and roleplaying opportunities where they shape things into that end goal. Once the goal is achieved the newly minted King will become an NPC and the rest of the group will move on.

For clarity: the northern barbarian stuff taking place out-of-session is in fact what I'm talking about; I'm assuming it to be something a particular PC wants to do that has little or no connection with any of the previous adventuring they've done as a group. Kind of like my Senate example from my last post before this one.

But the PC remains a PC, and if the player someday wants to know how it goes* we can roll some dice together in the pub and figure it out.

* - or if the main game needs to know e.g. the ongoing party is in the neighbourhood a few years later and wants to stop by and visit their old comrade.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Who said anything about a "second game"? Why is becoming a magistrate or a mercenary leader at odds with playing the first game? (It's not as if this is foreign territory for D&D - qv Lord fighters tc.)

No, but it's sure foreign territory for staying in the adventuring party, believe me.

My namesake character hit name-level quite some time ago and is (at long bloody last!!!) finally starting to dig in and set up his stronghold. Even a cursory glance at what's involved tells me he'll be retiring from adventuring (other than "clearing the hex" his keep will be in) quite likely for the rest of his life...unless clearing the hex turns out to be more than he and his wife (also a long-running adventurer) can handle, at which point they'd probably approach some old comrades and ask for a hand; this would turn into a full adventure most likely. Otherwise, adventures of all sorts will just have to go on without him.

Lan-"yeah, that's me in the not-yet-built castle"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

Because while player A runs the city as a magistrate, players B-D are going out into the world to continue adventuring. It would require the DM to run a separate game for player A who is now stuck in the city being a magistrate. That or run a separate game where player A is a wandering magistrate going from city to city, while players B-D go into the wilds and other countries adventuring. Players B-D didn't sign up to be a magistrate and aren't staying in 1 city forever, or just wander from city to city.

GAAAHHH!!!

You use "player" interchangeably to mean both player and character above...they are different things!!!

CHARACTER A runs the city as a magistrate. CHARACTERS B-D keep on adventuring. PLAYER A needs to roll up a replacement character if she wants to be involved in what characters (and players) B-D are doing.

Lan-"yes this is a pet peeve of mine - can you tell?"-efan

 

[Jacob Marley]

But if just one character wants to do this while the rest would rather go and see what's up with Dumont tower then one of several things must happen:

1. Party goes to Dumont, single PC leaves party and goes north (and retires from ongoing play either temporarily or permanently, meanwhile I run Dumont)[.]

With the prevalence of technology, I find it very easy to run multiple threads simultaneously. My players keep their character sheets on their iPhones or iPads. Text messaging and email work nicely for communication, and dice rolling apps help resolve challenges. We still run a four-hour session every other week, but modern technology has enhanced our ability to engage D&D in the interim. Now, players only retire their character when said character has completed its goal(s).

 

[Maxperson]

For clarity: the northern barbarian stuff taking place out-of-session is in fact what I'm talking about; I'm assuming it to be something a particular PC wants to do that has little or no connection with any of the previous adventuring they've done as a group. Kind of like my Senate example from my last post before this one.

But the PC remains a PC, and if the player someday wants to know how it goes* we can roll some dice together in the pub and figure it out.

* - or if the main game needs to know e.g. the ongoing party is in the neighbourhood a few years later and wants to stop by and visit their old comrade.

Lanefan

Sure, if the PC wants to go by himself to become king, that's how I would do it as well. What if the entire party had wanted to go along with the idea to set Cormam up as the barbarian king? Would you still have done it that way, or would you have just adjusted the direction of the campaign towards the north?

 

[Lanefan]

Your first example ~

>pokes head up, says 'hi', retreats into snow<

~ (copied below because the board doesn't do quotes in quotes)

[MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION], actually it does, but you have to hard-type the quote tags (including the "=xxx" where xxx is the person you're quoting) then cut-and-paste the text you want to include between them. That's what I did here - everything between the two '~' marks I hard-typed - just to prove it can be done.

So, to quote myself in the middle of quoting you I hard-type

and note the * needs to be replaced in each case by the appropriate bracket. In this particular case 'whoever' would be replaced by 'Lanefan' if I was the one being quoted.

Hope this helps!

Lan-"we now return you to our regularly-scheduled programming"-efan

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*