D&D 4E Pemertonian Scene Framing and 4e DMing Restarted

[S'mon]

Funny, normally this discussion of problems with passive, wallflower, non-motivated players comes up in the context of sandbox play! Sandbox play where the GM improvs in response to player input sounds awfully, awfully like this apparently Dramatist approach. I'm starting to feel like the Yin of sandbox and Yang of dramatist play (here, PSF) are merely aspects of a great universal RPG truth!

On the general point re passive players - if Bangs are thrown at the party, the idea is that they have to respond somehow to the event, so the need for truly self-motivated players should be less than with sandbox play. With sandbox I find you only need one or maybe two real Instigator players in the group - in fact too many can make a single-party game really hard to run, because the PCs will always be shrapnelling off in different directions. I think PSF is even less demanding - the only way a group will fail at PSF is if they are all Turtles, or the group is dominated by a Turtle, who reject all offers, who find ingenious ways to avoid interacting with Bangs, etc. Turtle play really really sucks; it was my misfortune to once run a high level 3e campaign where a charismatic Turtle player got everyone else to go along with him, and it was a very unpleasant and draining experience.
But normally-passive players, the sort who have been trained by Adventure Paths not to think outside the box, are bad in sandbox games but I don't think are normally a problem in PSF play using Bangs. "Three orcs with swords come through the door - what do you do?!" - The normally-passive player will have no problem mustering a response (the serious Turtle will respond - 'That could never have happened, because...') - normally passive players just act as if they were on AP rails and give whatever they think the 'expected' response is, and that works ok.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Yeah, it's not like the Wallflower in my group doesn't react - he does - but react is all he does. Scene framing still works for me, and everyone else at the table, but I always want to try and find a way to help kick the game up a notch for everyone, even wallflowers. Anything I could glean from others on how to provoke him into some more proactive play would be a boon. Naturally, you can lead a horse to water and all that, but I want to be able to say I've done my best.

It's less of a problem for the other more passive player in the group. He has strong characterization and when I feed him cues, he grabs them. He does a lot of background stuff for me to tie into as well, it's really just his one character that causes potential issues in my wife's game. On top of that I think she's more keen on sandboxing and less on scene-framing, though after this thread and hearing from me about ad nauseam, she's eager to try some of the techniques to see if conscious application of them will endear her better to DMing 4e (she prefers running 2e).

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], in the situation you describe - provoke the passive player via Bangs - from the perspective of the passive player there is no difference between scene-framing and adventure path, is there? It's just that the other - non-passive - players are helping shape the experience for the passive player.

Which, rereading your post, is I think just a repeat of your last line.

 

[S'mon]

Re 'Player Flags'

Before heading out on an expedition, the PCs stock up on rope. Is this the players sending a signal that they want a climbing/pit/roping together scene? Or is it the players sending a signal that they don' want the GM to force them into a "trapped at the bottom of a pit/cliff" scene? Knowing which will be important to GMing that group effectively - otherwise you risk running a scene that they didn't want, or failing to run the scene that they did want!

Unlike Edwards, I value immersion and I'm always on the look out for things that threaten it. To me, a flag signals "We are interested in this thing, so spend time on it" - with the alternative being to elide over it quickly. But I won't introduce complications/threats unless the players signal for them in-world - if they signal in-world they want a bar fight, they likely get a bar-fight. In-world, buying rope is a sign "We don't want to be trapped at the bottom of the ciff!". It would be counter-immersive to introduce rope-based threats just because the PCs bought rope, so I won't do that. Rope based opportunities, OTOH... - those are A-ok. So if the PCs spend a lot of time equipping with rope, I might point out climbable looking cliffs, or other rope-based opportunities that they could engage with if they wished. Opportunities may of course lead to threats, but if player characters indicate in-world they are seeking to avoid certain threats I won't ever take that as a signal - "Aha! More of that for you!"

 

[S'mon]

[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], in the situation you describe - provoke the passive player via Bangs - from the perspective of the passive player there is no difference between scene-framing and adventure path, is there? It's just that the other - non-passive - players are helping shape the experience for the passive player.

Which, rereading your post, is I think just a repeat of your last line.

Yes, that's right. But depending on the degree of passivity, I think you can run an open-frame campaign fine with passive/reactive players - they react to each scene the way they think they 'ought' to, and it runs much like an AP, only with the GM laying down the tracks just ahead of the choo-choo train. So I want to distinguish normally-reactive players from dysfunctional-Turtle players. Turtles are the guys who will actively avoid/deny/reject your Scenes - but they may well subvert an AP too by refusing to go along with it. "I refuse to leave the Inn" is a typical Turtle response.

An instigator player might also refuse to leave the Inn, but because he's seducing the barmaid/working on a con/planning to steal the day's takings, and those guys are (a) usually obvious and (b) fine in PSF play - instigators (like me!) are only a problem in linear AP play, because they try to go off-track.

 

[S'mon]

Yeah, it's not like the Wallflower in my group doesn't react - he does - but react is all he does. Scene framing still works for me, and everyone else at the table, but I always want to try and find a way to help kick the game up a notch for everyone, even wallflowers. Anything I could glean from others on how to provoke him into some more proactive play would be a boon. Naturally, you can lead a horse to water and all that, but I want to be able to say I've done my best.

I would advise against trying to force the passive player to be proactive. I've had bad experiences trying to get a wallflower to 'step on up'. I think the 4e DMG is right that some players are just 'watchers', and that they can actually provide useful ballast to a group. Save the time you would have spent on that player for the other players and their PCs. If the wallflower doesn't like that and signals he wants to take a more proactive stance, then you accommodate that, but don't try to force it.

 

[pemerton]

Here is Edwards on turtling players:

I have met dozens, perhaps over a hundred, very experienced role-players with this profile: a limited repertoire of games behind him and extremely defensive and turtle-like play tactics. Ask for a character background, and he resists, or if he gives you one, he never makes use of it or responds to cues about it. Ask for actions - he hunkers down and does nothing unless there's a totally unambiguous lead to follow or a foe to fight. His universal responses include "My guy doesn't want to," and, "I say nothing."

I have not, in over twenty years of role-playing, ever seen such a person have a good time role-playing. I have seen a lot of groups founder due to the presence of one such participant. Yet they really want to play. They prepare characters or settings, organize groups, and are bitterly disappointed with each fizzled attempt. They spend a lot of money on RPGs with lots of supplements and full-page ads in gaming magazines.

These role-players are GNS casualties. They have never perceived the range of role-playing goals and designs, and they frequently commit the fallacies of synecdoche about "correct role-playing." Discussions with them wander the empty byways of realism, genre, completeness, roll-playing vs. role-playing, and balance. They are the victims of incoherent game designs and groups that have not focused their intentions enough. They thought that "show up with a character" was sufficient prep, or thought that this new game with its new setting was going to solve all their problems forever. They are simultaneously devoted to and miserable in their hobby.

My goal in developing RPG theory and writing this document is to help people avoid this fate.​

That's strong stuff, almost certainly over-generalising. But I can sympathise with the basic point - what is the turtling player doing turning up? What is s/he hoping to get out of the RPG experience?

A related question - for those who value immersion, and hence a leery of overt discussion of or mechanical regulation of the GM's role, how do you at one and the same time (i) avoid GM force that deprotagonises players while (ii) regulate the GMs application of pressure so as to provoke action without just running right over the top of the PCs?

 

[S'mon]

A related question - for those who value immersion, and hence a leery of overt discussion of or mechanical regulation of the GM's role, how do you at one and the same time (i) avoid GM force that deprotagonises players while (ii) regulate the GMs application of pressure so as to provoke action without just running right over the top of the PCs?

Well, I guess that's me!
I guess my approach is that opportunities arise via player signals of interest, including investment of resources, while threats arise with a very strong eye to plausibility. Even though with PSF I'm not using much procedural content generation (eg random encounter tables) I take a very hard look at what's plausible and what the players have signalled. So eg if the PCs have posted guards, I won't have an assassin at their bedside without very good reason. At most I might frame the scene:

"You wake up. Something doesn't feel right. It's quiet - too quiet. Old Bob, the sentry you posted outside your door - you can't hear his tread on the creaky wooden floor..."

That recognises the players' investment in taking precautions, combined with the high threat level of the assassin who has presumably just dispatched Old Bob.

Or if the PCs see the Ettin tracks (foreshadowing) and say "We head as fast as we can in the opposite direction!" I'm not likely going to have the Ettin then jump out at them from the bushes. Whereas if they continue to camp happily beside the tracks (as did happen) then I have no problem with the Ettin eventually turning up.

Edit: More generally, any Bang I use has to feel naturalistic - to have arisen plausibly within the world-fiction. There's the 'single coincidence' rule: last session in my new Punjar game, it turned out that an NPC villain was the mother of one of the PCs. Made for a really cool encounter with lots of drama and interest. Whereas if I had had two (or more) such coincidences within the session, it would have come across cheesy and silly. It's the difference between The Expendables and The Expendables 2.

 

[S'mon]

Also, I'm happy to prep Bangs that I then discard/never use, because they don't fit with prior PC action. For this reason it's important not to over-prep: player action
may often mean I don't use that cool scene I had in mind before the session. And that's fine - that's what open-resolution, non-railroaded play is all about. Pre-prepped scenes centred around a single PC are often the riskiest, especially with 4e's encounter-centric design. I once had a beautiful set up for a particular PC - she'd be in a country inn when she was recognised by the bad guys hunting her from her backstory, likely leading to an epic multi-level battle over 3D terrain, all of which I had lovingly prepared over several hours. Player did not turn up, never returned to the game (left the country!), all the material was unuseable and wasted.
Since then I've always tried to avoid heavy-prep scenes dependent on one PC. I was pretty worried on Tuesday when the Tiefling (Vialya) player was late that he wouldn't turn up, and my big dramatic scene with Vialya's Tiefling mother Zeb'oltha would go to waste - but the encounter would still have run as a regular combat between Zeb'oltha, her minions, and the other PCs, wasted prep would have been ca 15 minutes not 3 hours.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], thanks for the reply. Do you have a view on how (if at all) this fits into the "combat as war"/"combat as sport" dichotomy?

I don't accepct that dichotomy uncritically - for instance, I think it runs together elements of action resolution with elements of encounter building/scene framing that are, in principle, separable.

But if we focus just on the encounter building side of things, I think I'm on the CaS side - I have regard to metagame considerations (encounter budgets etc) in building my encounters, and I will step things up (or, less often, step them down) to reflect ongoing pacing/challenge considerations. In terms of my earlier post, I see this as "mechanical regulation of the GM's role". (Though not as strong as in Marvel Heroic - look at the way the Doom Pool works in that game to confine the GM in all sorts of ways. That said, it has next-to-no encounter building guidelines.)

But a naturalistic GM who also favours CaW seems to me to face some challenges (though maybe they just look like that to me because it's not my usual style): go all out and the NPCs have a good chance of winning; but what regulates your holding back, if not some sort of mechanical regulation of the sort that, ex hypothesi, you're eschewing? (This is where my worries about force come in - the PCs win or lose simply based on the GM's decision to hold back, which makes their apparent protagonism a mere illusion.)

Though from your post above this one [EDIT: two above this one], should I really infer that you're a CaS GM? (At least on the encounter building side.)