PC actions vs. DM expectations

[Quasqueton]

DMs: Do your Player do what you expect them to do in a given encounter or situation? Do they tackle obstacles as you figured they would?

It has become a matter of fact in my game that my Players will not do what I expect. I used to look at an important or complicated encounter and try to figure how the PCs will approach and solve it. I did this to make sure I was up on the relevant rules, had thoughts on what will happen, and just in general would be prepared.

But my Players *never* *ever* enter an encounter and take it on in a way that I've expected or figured. It is not that they intentionally try to derail my expectations (they don't usually know my expectations), but somehow they completely surprise me.

I've thougt to myself that if I had a room with one door, one orc, and one pie, and I expected the PCs to enter the door, fight the orc, and take the pie, what would happen is:

The PCs would avoid entering the door, but would somehow attract the attention of a dozen orcs, and would miss the pie treasure completely.

By the way--- this is not a complaint or rant thread. I'm not complaining about my Players. Although it would make my DMing easier if they followed the path I expected in my head, it doesn't make me mad or anything when they do things differently.

But it is really amazing how they can take on things in an unexpected way *every time*. Not sometimes. Not occasionally. Not often. But *every time*. And their decisions do usually come logically from the information they have in game, so it isn't like they just do something weird out of the blue.

And its not like they are always doing something wrong or bad. Sometimes their way works out better for them. But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it isn't better or worse for them, just different from what I expected/figured. [At least twice, though, their unexpected method lead to a TPK.]

I'm just wondering if every DM sees this.

Quasqueton

 

[Pinotage]

I'd be a happy person if I was you. Imagine how boring it would be to DM a game where the PCs do exactly what you thought they would. The enjoyment for a DM comes from the surprises the party plays and the creative way in which they solve the problems you set. If my players didn't do things other than I expected, I'd enjoy DM'ing a little less. As it is, they're a lot like you describe, but then they have more minds put together than I have

Pinotage

 

[maddman75]

Nope, my players do this too. I've solved it by not expecting anything. I simply set up a situation and see how they handle it. Here's a recent example from my All Flesh Must Be Eaten game.

Zombies have taken over the world, and the PCs are among the remnants of the US military. Their base has been out of contact with the command structure, and the local commander seems to be setting himself up a private empire. There are three different bands of troops - gung-ho types loyal to the commander, some conspirators that are convinced the local commander has betrayed the President and his forces, and the deserters, who think there's no sense in staying here and ending up zombie chow.

I prepared for the three most obvious courses of action - joining with the commander as loyal soldiers, joining with the co-conspirators to find teh truth, or deserting to the wilderness. Of course they did none of the above. They escaped to a nearby university, where there was likely to still be an active internet node and communicated with command. The local commander was indeed part of a coup that was vying for control of the remaining military. Learning this they returned, managed to get both the deserters and conspirators behind them, and had a brief, mostly bloodless coup where one of the PCs relieved the commander of his duties and took up position as commander.

Now I just need to have zombies eat all his soldiers...

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Yes, all the time.

There is essentially one real good way to handle this issue and lots of so-so ways. Railroading is the most common workaround. Railroading (forcing the players to perform certain actions) works but you can only get away with it about once per adventure before the players get ticked off. Note when I say "once per adventure" I mean "once every three game sessions" (unless you game more than 8 hours in one sitting).

What I prefer to do is build settings that happen to contain adventure content. If you take this approach to design you have a better idea of what can go wrong and how to handle it. This is one of the reasons why I think Keep on the Borderlands and Hamlet of Thumble are such great modules. They look at the adventure as a setting and the DM has a broader range of information to pull from when things get wacky.

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil is another good example, however all the consequences of wacky behavior tend to be ... dire.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

Players do what you expect them to do?
They never do that!

It has gotten to the point, that when I create my own adventures, I lay out only the bare essentials and be open to anything they may try.

Now I just try to steer them in the direction I want them to go.
So if it helps, think of them like cattle.

Wait til your players get a teleportation spell or similar ability.

 

[Wombat]

I assume that my players will do something other than what I assume they will...

I have become used to the notion that players, especially as a group, will come up with creative notions, fly out in odd directions, and the like. Sometimes they come up with brilliant solutions; sometimes they flail madly.

My two fantastic examples this way: The Non-Mystery and the Dreaded One Sentence Adventure

The Non-Mystery: In this campaign (a swashbuckling musketeer game based on Flashing Blades!) my players claimed to love mysteries, yet they were terrible at solving them. I finally hit on one of the most important notions -- make sure the clues are in multiple locations (until discovered), make sure to give them hints (through NPCs) as to which other NPCs they need to talk to (even though the clues have already said this), and make the mysteries very, very simple. But in this adventure, a new guy joined us. Due to one thing and another, the New Guy was cut off from the rest of the characters and we had a mini-session just for him. During this one-on-one bit, the New Guy became fascinated with one of the NPCs he had heard of; unknown to him, this NPC was the villain of the current mystery. The New Guy proposed hiring himself to the NPC as a bodyguard -- looking things over, I could find absolutely no reason why the NPC would not hire him (other than simply stating the NPC would never hire the New Guy for stupid reasons). So... Instead of a long session slowly building to a climax, the New Guy was able to figure out what was going on and, working with the other PCs, planned an easy ambush of the NPC villain. No mystery, just a bushwacking.

The One-Sentence Adventure: The session began with telling Player A an important bit of information. Player A, however, became suspicious and paranoid -- there just had to be more to the situation than this! Thus he decided not to pass the info along to the other players, other than saying that the NPC who gave him the information seemed to have information. This NPC was a highly decadent nobleman. The PC gang, now knowing that he was important, decided to crash one of his parties in cognito. Although, due to the wider situation, they knew they had to keep a low-profile, the players went uber-over-the-top -- using illusion magics, they created the most ghastly, overt, memorable display of all time, including a male dwarf with rouged-nippled chained to the waist of an elven nobleman... After building all of this up, they finally got close to the decadent NPC. The NPC then told them exactly what Player A had been told at the beginning of the long, long, and very weird evening. At this point Player A jumped up and screamed, "That's IT?!?"
Everyone else at the table turned to him. "I knew that already!" "When did you know that?" "Wombat told my character at the beginning of the session!" "And you didn't tell us?" "I thought there had to be more to it..."

In my notes, this part of the adventure took up one whole sentence in a five page outline...

So, no, I never expect my players to do anything in particular. Sometimes, as GM, I am simply along for the ride...

 

[Henry]

My players do what I expect? HECK, NO.

DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE ATTENDING THE NC GAMEDAY!
In a recent 1E against the Giants game, they:
[sblock]were faced with a steading of partying/sleeping hill giants, with the front door unlocked and open. Did they enter? HECK NO! They waited for several hours, and it looked like they were going to wait for the giants to finish partying, sleep, and wake up sober! However, when they did infiltrate the place, they sent in a man with fire resistance, flying and invisible, floating down into an OPEN CHIMNEY! He took the fire damage, opened the door, and waved the others inside.[/sblock]

In short, they took the LOOONG way in.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I assume that my players will do something other than what I assume they will...

So since you assume they won't do as you assume, and they usually don't do as you assume, does that mean that the players usually do as you assume? Ow, I think I hurt something thinking about that...

My players are about 50-50. I can predict what they will do about half the time. I think in my group it has a lot to do with the individual players. Certain players are very predictable and if they take the lead in a situation, I usually have planned appropriately. A couple of my players usually do things unexpected, they are the ones that I both love and dread. Some of the most interesting and inspired moment come from these unexpected actions - along with some of the worst DM headaches.

 

[billd91]

Yeah, players certainly are weird that way. I've been running the Scourge of the Slave Lords and, so far, I've been really surprised at what the PCs have done twice (and one player was the main source of both plans).

First, a wizard character tried to set himself up as Safeton's representative to ransom back a captured noblewoman PLUS a native of Greyhawk willing to ally with the Slavelords and give them an in into the city once the ransom business was concluded.

Second, now that they've sacked the stockade, rather than travel to Suderham as the next stop to free the noblewoman, they are currently leading a rag-tag bunch of ex-slaves and wild tribesmen out of the Pomarj and into Ulek.

I think part of the challenge of being a DM is flexibility and willingness to put the hooks for the next adventure stages in front of them, even if they pursue different paths than the ones originally intended for them. In this case, since they kept making brief forays against the stockade, eventually burned it, and never did search the really choice areas for further evidence, I've planted the info with other people for whom such clues are reasonable. I also react to their plans with what I consider to be realistically in-character actions for their opponents to take. In the end, I don't expect them to take a linear path to any destination any more.
I think this thread helps me recognize and appreciate really well-written campaigns like Masks of Nyarlathotep more. In that CoC campaign, there is no set direction for the PCs to take and clues pointing in all directions. THere are, however, clues that tend to direct the PCs along stronger lines of evidence so they can prepare themselves for the nastiest segments better, but they don't need to follow them. There are also clues that interlock from multiple sources. The campaign is just brilliantly put together and should be looked at even if you're not that much into CoC, as an example of such adventure design if nothing else.

 

[Quasqueton]

Henry, that is exactly what I'm talking about. And then you have to figure out what the new set up is.

Quasqueton