Keeping control of your game while keeping illusion of liberty

[Jeysie]

The best way to keep control of your players is to know them and their characters well enough that they *want* to follow your plot hooks/points because you have come up with ones they'll be interested in.

Peace & Luv, Liz

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

...it is to get them to believe that they decided to do modules A, then B, then C.

That is the lie to the players – people who are spending their time with you. That is the contempt of the players. They players are people who voluntarily choose to come and spend time with you and your response to this is to treat them like stock animals to be herded and handled. Making them think “your idea” was “their idea” is unnecessary to the function of a game but serves to batten your vanity by debasing the player’s rights and dignity as people. And that is why you do it that way.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

I did find this little tidbit from the article that I wanted to add to:

-Lava: Unless there’s a thick crust on the lava and that the player has good boots and is ready to run, there isn’t much chance for anyone to cross a lava filled area, the extreme heat of the lava will probably kill anyone who crosses it in a matter of second unless he has magical protection against fire and heat.

No Save.

 

[jaerdaph]

I did find this little tidbit from the article that I wanted to add to:

No Save.

You sir have my vote for RPG Editor of the Year!

 

[jaerdaph]

While I (both as a GM and a player) don't like railroading, specifically when it is the de facto way a GM runs every game session, this article isn't a total waste of electrons. My personal GM experience shows sometimes you do have to railroad or "nudge" players in a certain direction for valid reasons (real world or game world time constraints, and to insure everyone is having fun, come to mind), but I also know you can't run a successful adventure (let alone a campaign) if all you do is railroad.

I would file away the suggestions in this article to use sparingly and when absolutely necessary -- stick them in my GM's bag of tricks with my side treks and other toolkit items that you pull out when I see a good use for them.

 

[billd91]

That is the lie to the players – people who are spending their time with you. That is the contempt of the players. They players are people who voluntarily choose to come and spend time with you and your response to this is to treat them like stock animals to be herded and handled. Making them think “your idea” was “their idea” is unnecessary to the function of a game but serves to batten your vanity by debasing the player’s rights and dignity as people. And that is why you do it that way.

That's a pretty mean spin to put on it.

Let's face it. DMs don't have unlimited time to prepare their games and not every game group is suited to improvising. You don't want to blatantly railroad the players but there's only so much you're going to be able to work on for the game, so you set up the hooks and make sure that the adventure you want to run is the one that the PCs will, of their own free will, pick. Sure, the deck is stacked against them, and for most games IT WAS ALWAYS GOING TO BE in the first place. The players, agreeing to play in the DM's campaign, are already expecting the DM to set the initial pace and outline the main plotted encounter spaces. If they decided to not be "herded" they'd be playing somewhere else, running their own game, or not playing at all.

 

[Mallus]

DMs don't have unlimited time to prepare their games and not every game group is suited to improvising.

Of course not. But that's also besides the point.

What some posters are (vehemently) objecting to is the advice that it's better to try and manipulate the people playing D&D with you instead of just talking to them openly.

 

[jaerdaph]

That's a pretty mean spin to put on it.

Let's face it. DMs don't have unlimited time to prepare their games and not every game group is suited to improvising. You don't want to blatantly railroad the players but there's only so much you're going to be able to work on for the game, so you set up the hooks and make sure that the adventure you want to run is the one that the PCs will, of their own free will, pick. Sure, the deck is stacked against them, and for most games IT WAS ALWAYS GOING TO BE in the first place. The players, agreeing to play in the DM's campaign, are already expecting the DM to set the initial pace and outline the main plotted encounter spaces. If they decided to not be "herded" they'd be playing somewhere else, running their own game, or not playing at all.

I totally agree with this assessment because it's based on reality, not theory or ideals. As a GM, you're supposed to make it a fun for the players. That's Priority One. If that means faking a few roles now and then, building suspense by rolling a few dice behind the screen for no reason whatsoever than to keep players on their toes or shaking in their boots, and occasionally nudging the players in a certain direction, then by all means I'm going to do it. Still, I'd have no problem though telling someone, "yeah, I nudged you guys in that direction because I didn't have something prepared in the direction you wanted to go" if I felt it really needed to be said or if someone asked.

At the same time, I don't have the time to prepare for every single contingency or to guess at every possible choice the players might make. It's a social contract, and part of that is I try not to waste their time on game day and they try not to waste mine (which includes pre-game prep). I'm not lying to players because I get some sick thrill out of it or I want to boost my own ego. I have social skills, I'm relatively well adjusted, and I also have a life outside of gaming. I often wonder how so many people without social skills are attracted to RPGs, which have a big social interaction component (I'd like to think it's because they see this deficiency in themselves and want to do something develop those skills in a positive outlet). I don't normally know or game with people like that in my life, but if I were to have someone like that, say at a convention, I would do my best to use the social interaction component of RPGs to help that person develop those skills, both in the game and outside of it. Because ultimately, it's a game and meant to be fun.

 

[phindar]

Really though, if the GM wants to keep the pcs from doing something he hasn't prepped, he only has to stall them for (part of) one session. I mean, you're already playing the session so some of it has gone by, and once the session is over you have until next session to prep whatever you need to. Throwing up an impassable mountain range or a quarantined plague zone is a major campaign addition, its something that's going affect all their future actions (and it presumes that the GM hasn't already laid out the general terrain). It seems like having an impassable mountain range (or whatever) show up when you need it and then never be a factor again would be a bigger hit to verisimilitude than simply saying, "I haven't prepped that," or running a smaller encounter to eat up the rest of the session.

Its hard to keep the Illusion of Liberty while forcing your players to do stuff. Personally, I'm not wild about the terms "illusion" and "keeping the players on a leash". Letting people do what they want to do is usually a pretty big part of why we play role-playing games instead of computer games, because we are limited only by our imaginations. (Granted, this is a bigger limitation on some days than it is on others.)

However, total freedom is somewhat illusory. In a game of a certain level, encounters require prep to be mechanically satisfying. That's my opinion, anyway. I'm not capable of reliably pulling layered, complex and balanced encounters out on a moment's notice. I generally like to do the math beforehand.

The trick is, for me anyway, to not let this limitation get in the way of the player's freedom. The players give me some idea where they are going with their characters, and I try to prep that in addition to the stuff that interests me. Sometimes the players are very specific in what they want to do ("We're taking out the church of Nerull in Barnascus.") and sometimes they're vague ("We want action and loot.")

I don't particularly like just saying "No" though, if the pcs want to wander off the beaten track I have in mind. There's a lot of reasons, but the two that stick out for me are that its important for the players to have that freedom of deciding what their characters do (and have that decision be meaningful), and going in unexpected directions is good for the game, it makes the GM be more creative and its one of the main ways the game is a collaborative endeavor and not me telling my friends a story.

So, if the pc's want to do something I'm not ready for and I don't want to break the verisimilitude by saying, "Not prepped," I'm much more likely to improv what I can and throw in a few encounters (prepped or wandering monster-style) to eat up the session so I can prep what I need to by next session.

 

[buzz]

There's a new article called "Campaign Control: Keeping Them on a Leash" that helps Game Masters to keep the players in the plotted area while keeping the illusion of freedom to the players.

No offense, but this is pretty dated advice. I can't see good gaming coming from this.