D&D General No Fixed Location -- dynamically rearranging items, monsters, and other game elements in the interests of storytelling

[Curmudjinn]

I don't understand the DM did something wrong to constitute a fudge mindset. Generally, it has nothing at all to do with the DM.
If a DM has a long, fun 0-session(of course beers) with your party, planning characters out, tying together backgrounds and future goals, and your first conflict is 3 goblins who should be dead immediately. However everyone constantly rolls failures or botches, while the goblins either constantly hit and or crit. TPK, session 1.

There is no way I, as a DM, can say whelp tough luck. That is not fun. The end does not justify the means.
Those that think THIS IS THE WAY have such an alien mindset to what constitutes a fun RPG session, compared to my own mindset. Luckily in all of my years, I've only ran into a few like this and only a single person in my own games.
I'll just ask my group in similar game-changing situations if they want to restart before the combat, restart the combat, or start completely over. They never, ever have chosen to start completely over. In my 20+ years of offering. This isn't real life and decisions shouldn't, in my opinion, suffer such callous finality.

I do agree that sometimes you need to be rigid and other times flexible.

 

[Curmudjinn]

Sure. Problem is, one usually isn't surprised by something one sees coming. If I'd seen the blockage coming I might have had something prepared, or changed what I had prepared..

Sometimes those are the most memorable situations in a campaign. When you look at your players, scratch your head and smile.

 

[prabe]

Sometimes those are the most memorable situations in a campaign. When you look at your players, scratch your head and smile.

Agreed, and those awesome moments are never in my planning notes.

 

[iserith]

I don't understand the DM did something wrong to constitute a fudge mindset. Generally, it has nothing at all to do with the DM.
If a DM has a long, fun 0-session(of course beers) with your party, planning characters out, tying together backgrounds and future goals, and your first conflict is 3 goblins who should be dead immediately. However everyone constantly rolls failures or botches, while the goblins either constantly hit and or crit. TPK, session 1.

I would say the mistakes in this chain of events might be (1) investing so much time on the front end on apprentice-tier characters, (2) assuming that "3 goblins who should be dead immediately" is an expectation that is always true, and (3) presenting a scene that could result in PC death when that was not a result you were willing to entertain in the first place.

As an example of (3), I rewrote the sometimes deadly opening scene of Lost Mines of Phandelver to have it where the PCs are transporting mining tools and on the hook for any losses monetarily. So the goblins try to take out the PCs' oxen first, then rush up and try to steal stuff from the wagon and only attack the PCs if they can't get away. I effectively took death off the table for the PCs rather than fudge the dice. It made for a more interesting scene, too.

 

[Lanefan]

Haven’t we all been in a game (or run one) where we think we’ve done everything we need to, we’ve searched everywhere, fought everyone....yet something’s missing, the adventure is incomplete in some way. We look at the DM and he just shrugs.

Sure, we could shrug, too, and head back to town and pursue some other goal.

Sometimes this kind of deadend happens. I’ve been in the DM chair before where this happens and I’m wondering “how do they not realize where to go/what to do next?” And the truth is that what’s obvious to the DM and what’s obvious to the players are different things.

This is true.

Maybe the DM didn’t accurately portray the information that would help the players figure out their next steps? Maybe the “clues” just aren’t as meaningful as they would seem to be? Maybe it’s a combination of those and maybe meta concerns....it’s late and people are getting foggy?

All of these can happen now and then, but IME (both as DM and player!) what far more frequently happens is that while the clues have been presented reasonably well the players have either wildly misinterpreted something or latched on to a red herring, and run themselves into a dead end.

And I think that’s what’s key here. Set aside talk of railroads and sandboxes....there’s a goal in any situation. Find the treasure, clear the caves of monsters, slay the dragon, rescue the townsfolk....whatever it may be, there’s a goal.

The DM can fail to accurately portray that goal or the steps needed to reach that goal.

This brings up another situation that I've used numerous times in the past: they'll go out on an adventure with one goal in mind but there's in fact another goal they don't and can't know about until (unless!) they find it.

An example: I converted and ran the 4e adventure Marauders of the Dune Sea, using a backstory where one group of Hobgoblins talks the party into a mission: go into the endless sandstorm to find out and maybe stop whatever an enemy group of Hobgoblins is doing in there. (all the enemy group was doing in there was dying, but nobody knew that)

Unknown to anyone, the real goal of the adventure was to find and recover an artifact I'd placed in there which everyone in the desert - including both sides in the Hob war - was thus-far-unsuccessfully looking for. This was the lead-in to what turned out to be a six-adventure arc that, while not perfect, worked out more or less OK.

For me, a DM who’s willing to let everyone at the table shrug and then move on....I mean, does that sound like an engaging experience? One where everyone shrugs?

In this case, "that's what the character would do..." is the perfect defense.

 

[Lanefan]

To be clear, when I'm talking about "event-based (or plot-based) games," I'm referring to storylines like a group trying to play HotDQ and RoT or a homebrew in that fashion. When I'm talking about "location-based games," there is no storyline, just places to poke around and adventure. For the purposes of this discussion, I think that's a clear delineation that is necessary to understand each other's point of view.

Hmmm. IME it's not quite that cut-and-dried, as one can build one or more hard APs into what's otherwise a sandbox setting. How this works is if the players/PCs choose adventure A at a point where they seem to have a choice between A, X, Y and Z, it's almost certainly going to lead them directly into adventures B, C, D and E before they'll have another point of choice. (where had they chosen X it would have been a standalone; Y would have been beyond them, and Z would have just one follow-on adventure)

TBH I find the term "event-based" confusing; it makes me think more of a sandbox-type game - a series of somewhat standalone events - where "plot-based" makes me think of an AP-style situation.

 

[Curmudjinn]

I would say the mistakes in this chain of events might be (1) investing so much time on the front end on apprentice-tier characters, (2) assuming that "3 goblins who should be dead immediately" is an expectation that is always true, and (3) presenting a scene that could result in PC death when that was not a result you were willing to entertain in the first place.

As an example of (3), I rewrote the sometimes deadly opening scene of Lost Mines of Phandelver to have it where the PCs are transporting mining tools and on the hook for any losses monetarily. So the goblins try to take out the PCs' oxen first, then rush up and try to steal stuff from the wagon and only attack the PCs if they can't get away. I effectively took death off the table for the PCs rather than fudge the dice. It made for a more interesting scene, too.

I see no mistakes in the example, just parts to a game that are meant to be malleable. I'm also comfortable with it being that way and my group thoroughly enjoys that method over the Iron Fist grognard style. We've moved away from that years ago and are a much happier table.

 

[prabe]

TBH I find the term "event-based" confusing; it makes me think more of a sandbox-type game - a series of somewhat standalone events - where "plot-based" makes me think of an AP-style situation.

I have to admit I don't find either "plot-based" or "event-based" to fit the games I run. "Goal-based" seems more apt; the players/PCs choose goals and pursue them. It isn't wildly dissimilar from your AP/sandbox hybrid (though I don't always have all the follow-on things worked out).

 

[iserith]

Hmmm. IME it's not quite that cut-and-dried, as one can build one or more hard APs into what's otherwise a sandbox setting. How this works is if the players/PCs choose adventure A at a point where they seem to have a choice between A, X, Y and Z, it's almost certainly going to lead them directly into adventures B, C, D and E before they'll have another point of choice. (where had they chosen X it would have been a standalone; Y would have been beyond them, and Z would have just one follow-on adventure)

It's only as complicated as you want to make it, and my terms were meant to simplify things so people could understand how others do things. I also addressed the type of game you describe above in a subsequent post.

TBH I find the term "event-based" confusing; it makes me think more of a sandbox-type game - a series of somewhat standalone events - where "plot-based" makes me think of an AP-style situation.

"Event-based" is a term from D&D 5e that appears to describe plot-based adventures in contrast to location-based ones.

 

[iserith]

I see no mistakes in the example, just parts to a game that are meant to be malleable. I'm also comfortable with it being that way and my group thoroughly enjoys that method over the Iron Fist grognard style. We've moved away from that years ago and are a much happier table.

I wouldn't say it's an "Iron Fist grognard style." It's just recognizing that the rules and the dice serve the DM, not the other way around, and that there's no point in leaving outcomes to the dice you're not willing to accept. Fudging is just completely unnecessary if the DM understands these things.

 

[Lanefan]

I would bet that said people would say that frustration of the sort you describe is just part of the game.

Ayup.

Personally, I don't find that to be compatible with the goals of play laid out in the game which, as I mentioned above, are everyone having fun and creating an exciting, memorable story as a result of play.

Everyone having fun all the time? Call me cynical, but that sounds a bit pie-in-the-sky from here.

That, and some frustration and delay can make a subsequent breakthrough all the more satisfying and absolutely memorable. Example: a party in which I was a player once got to a door in a dungeon that for whatever now-forgotten reason it was vital that we get through. The only way - the only way, and believe me we tried everything! - we could open this door was to solve the riddle written upon it. (think of the Fellowship at the door to Moria)

Two entire sessions, plus some mid-week discussions, went by and we couldn't solve this bloody riddle.

Finally, in the third session my PC (as in, me) tried what seemed like a too-simple answer and >poof< the door vanished to a roaring cheer around the table.

I don't remember anything else about that dungeon or even that campaign, but I do remember that damn door both for the frustration of getting through it and the breakthrough when we finally did.

Therefore...

To my mind, frustration on the part of the players is to be avoided ...

I disagree with this statement.

 

[Curmudjinn]

I wouldn't say it's an "Iron Fist grognard style." It's just recognizing that the rules and the dice serve the DM, not the other way around, and that there's no point in leaving outcomes to the dice you're not willing to accept. Fudging is just completely unnecessary if the DM understands these things.

And that is 100% your opinion and the opposite of my own. Feel free to keep replying to everyone that disagrees with your method and beat a dead horse, as you have done for 27 pages of this topic. This is a fundamental difference in how we approach things and what we expect from and get out of a D&D session.
Good day.

 

[iserith]

Everyone having fun all the time? Call me cynical, but that sounds a bit pie-in-the-sky from here.

Easily achievable in my experience. Especially with booze.

 

[iserith]

And that is 100% your opinion and the opposite of my own.

So do you believe that the DM serves the rules and dice and that there is a point to leaving outcomes to the dice that you're not willing to accept? I'd be really interested in hearing why you think that, if indeed you do.

 

[Curmudjinn]

Good analogy. And sometimes I've been that stubborn general who stuck to the plan even when the players were bored. The last time this happened was during my Storm King's Thunder campaign a few years ago. The players had just reached a door leading into a dungeon when we called the session for the night. The players thought they were going to venture into the dungeon at the start of the next session, but the book had other ideas. The door they were standing outside was shut, and they had no way to open it.

I knew my players weren't going to like this. But as an experiment, I decided to run the adventure as written anyway. I thought maybe, just maybe, my instincts were wrong, and I was actually doing my players a disservice by helping them out in some way. Well, that wasn't the case. I thought my players would be frustrated and bored, and they were. They spent the first twenty or thirty minutes of the game tossing around ideas that I knew wouldn't work. It wasn't fun for anyone. And that's when I decided to never doubt my instincts again and to always adjust an adventure on the fly if it needed it. Because being bored and frustrated is not fun.

I'm of the same mind on this. One of my players was starting off DMing with a module last year(Each friend at my table runs a campaign and we just rotate depending on schedules). We all pitched in to help him get parts of the module in order and had long discussions during the game of how to move forward from certain actions or how a DM handles certain situations. His biggest fear was what you described above, being at a place where the group was at a wall, per the module or through bad luck.
When we explained, using your example, that the door can just be open to begin with, it was like a weight was lifted off of his shoulders. He had started playing with a group originally that disallowed any modifications. They were a strict Pathfinder group. It was rules-lawyering and hammering of RAW at all times.
Needless to say, he became a fun DM and has remained with us ever since.

 

[Lanefan]

Easily achievable in my experience. Especially with booze.

True, though how much of the fun has anything to do with the game does at some point become an open question...

...says he, at whose games beer and silliness flow free in equal measure.

 

[lordabdul]

I wonder if people's head would explode if they realized that an adventure/module is occasionally written from the start explicitly with "dynamic" content: "the key will be in the second closet the PCs inspect in this room", "if they fail to get the information from the blacksmith, the GM can introduce a beggar outside his shop, who will have overheard what the guards said", etc.

 

[lordabdul]

I also wonder if the refusal of "moving" things also includes events. Typically for investigation-based scenarios (like in CoC, for example), the GM/scenario only prepares a bunch of NPCs, factions, and places (a restaurant, a secret cult room, etc.), but what they do after the initial scene is up to the GM. An NPC might choose to stay hidden, or come out and attack the NPCs, depending on how the game is going. The scenario is probably orginally vague about it, but even if the NPC's agenda was clearly outlined in the text, the GM might choose to make them do something new, like strike an alliance with another NPC (even though that wasn't listed as a possibility in the text), because that would be a correct response to what the players did.

 

[iserith]

I also wonder if the refusal of "moving" things also includes events. Typically for investigation-based scenarios (like in CoC, for example), the GM/scenario only prepares a bunch of NPCs, factions, and places (a restaurant, a secret cult room, etc.), but what they do after the initial scene is up to the GM. An NPC might choose to stay hidden, or come out and attack the NPCs, depending on how the game is going. The scenario is probably orginally vague about it, but even if the NPC's agenda was clearly outlined in the text, the GM might choose to make them do something new, like strike an alliance with another NPC (even though that wasn't listed as a possibility in the text), because that would be a correct response to what the players did.

I guess what I said upthread bears repeating:

"It's probably important to differentiate the improvisation that all DMs must do to simply run the game versus the sort of improvisation that is being discussed in this thread where in the DM is moving stuff around behind the scenes to keep the PCs on the plot or, as some say they do, correct for flawed design or bad DM calls."

 

[lordabdul]

I guess what I said upthread bears repeating:

Yes, and that’s what I mean here: the GM is moving stuff around behind the scenes, making NPCs act in ways that aren’t necessarily mentioned in the adventure text.