Providing Meaningful Choices?

[Plane Sailing]

If you've got the time, I would heartily recommend reading Sagiros Story Hour, for an excellent example of this kind of thing in practice.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-...our-returns-new-thread-started-5-18-08-a.html

and

http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-...res-abernathys-company-updated-5-18-10-a.html

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'm talking specifically about creating a scenario with a "Decision Tree". The DM presents a situation with some options. If PCs make choice 1, x occurs, and if they take choice 2, Y occurs. 1 and 2 have meaning, and X and Y have meaning.

The same way you would present a room with two doors and ask which they so choose. The same way with creating moral choices.

What I want is to, like the articles presented, make the players feel as though their characters are important and those decisions matter. Burning down a tavern doesn't really matter to the players, except the wanted. It's not an impact to the players or the overall story.

Decision trees work well for CRPG's but are much too limiting for tabletop. There is little point in mapping out a flowchart for decisions A B or C when the players may end up doing Z. Limiting the players to a pre-defined
list of options defeats the entire benefit of tabletop play with a live DM IMHO.

 

[Rechan]

The choices we present the PCs are more implied rather than overt. These aren't like the old Choose Your Own Adventure books with really strict decision trees. We just describe stuff, and the PCs can make choices at any time.

Some scenarios, by engineering, have a few solutions to solve it. Either due to time, to the unique situation, or to the fact you're put on the spot. Or you have a situation where PCs side with one faction over another, take one deal vs another, etc.

I'm going to give an example from the game Dragon Age: Origins.
[sblock]At one point, the player is presented with a problem. A boy is possessed by a demon. The demon isn't going to kill the boy, it wants to live in his body and experience the world, and in exchange the boy gets to do whatever he wants with the power the demon grants him. It's a symbiotic relationship, but the boy is using the power abusively to do wicked things and the demon isn't inclined to stop him.

The player's options are:

Let the Demon and Boy go free.
Kill the boy to kill the demon.
Enter a special plane to slay the demon on its home turf, saving boy. However, to do this, a human sacrifice is necessary. The boy's mother wants to sacrifice herself to free her son from the possession. (And if you go and face the Demon, the demon offers you power AND leaving the boy alone, in exchange for its life. Or you can slay it.)

Obviously if this were a tabletop game, the group might look for another solution. But they may not have the time for that. While they look for a better solution, the boy could do horrible things. Or he could escape, meaning they have to hunt him down. So in this situation it's an ultimatum.

To use a slightly less harsh situation, the players meet a man who poisoned the boy's father (putting him into a coma). He was paid to do it. This guy also happens to be the only one in the castle who can perform the human sacrifice ritual to get into the special plane. He is not responsible for the demon possessing the boy, and he wants to do everything in his power to help, knowing that it won't help him escape punishment. He wants to make it right.

After the fact, the player's option is to:

Ask for leniency on behalf of the guy. He helped, with no motivation for himself when he could have stood back.
Let the guy get executed. [/sblock]
If that's not the type of choices you give/want to give your players, that's fine. But situations where they have an Overt decision they need to Make and it's going to Impact things are the sort of things I'm looking for.

Basically how to create these situations, how to make them important/relevant, tie them to the story, etc.

 

[Rechan]

I completely disagree about "Dragon Age" not feeling like a railroad, because I felt pulled along the plot the entire time..

The decisions they're talking about are things like:
[sblock]"Do you kill all the mages in the tower to make sure any demons get out, or not?"
"Do you side with the Elves or the Werewolves?"
"Do you side with Blanka (and thus golems are created, souls shoved into them, and the anvil can potentially be abused as before) or the Golem Guy (The anvil is destroyed, but the object can no longer be used as a means to imprison souls)?"

These choices have reprecussions. For instance, if you cleanse the tower, Wynne fights you to the death. If you choose Blanka, you lose Shale (the character you get from the Downloaded Content).
[/sblock]

 

[Scribble]

Decision trees work well for CRPG's but are much too limiting for tabletop. There is little point in mapping out a flowchart for decisions A B or C when the players may end up doing Z. Limiting the players to a pre-defined
list of options defeats the entire benefit of tabletop play with a live DM IMHO.

I'd say the benefit of a live DM is he can both present option a&b and then adjust for when they pick option z...

 

[Fifth Element]

I'd say the benefit of a live DM is he can both present option a&b and then adjust for when they pick option z...

Indeed. There's a great deal of benefit in mapping out the results of certain choices, if it's a choice the characters are likely to have to make.

 

[Rechan]

Great STuff

Yes!

Those are great! The Point A and point B points are clear. But the decisions the PCs make have distinct impacts.

And to tie it back to my earlier post, it doesn't have to be so epic. It can be something as small and personal as letting a small evil take place in order to do a larger good.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

Rechan, your question is quite broad, and I suspect you may be overthinking the issue. I suggest you try simply making some of your players' incidental decisions tougher. Provide incentives, reasons, and motivations to deviate from the expected course of action.

Example: the default action upon defeating a villain is to slay him. Why might the players spare her? Don't go too far: make it a decision they must feel out through their characters.

Example: the default action upon finding a quest item for a patron is to return it for the reward. Why might the players choose not to complete the quest?

In short, make their minor choices more interesting. Then show them the consequences of their actions later. These don't have to pertain to the direction of your overall plot. The spared villain might help them in a later encounter. Handing the Ancient Tome of Evil Magick to a patron might make the common folk mistrustful of them. The goal of these decision points isn't to determine the course of your story, it's to breathe life into your world.

 

[Azgulor]

For this thread, I'm not interested in reactionary decisions. The old "I break the window, and come back, and the window is still broken" is obvious and assumed. That's a consistent world. That's old hat as far as I'm concerned. The PCs just deciding to set the tavern on fire is one they created, or one that was created spontaneously. I would expect that level of consistency. Not what I desire to discuss.

I'm talking specifically about creating a scenario with a "Decision Tree". The DM presents a situation with some options. If PCs make choice 1, x occurs, and if they take choice 2, Y occurs. 1 and 2 have meaning, and X and Y have meaning.

The same way you would present a room with two doors and ask which they so choose. The same way with creating moral choices.

What I want is to, like the articles presented, make the players feel as though their characters are important and those decisions matter. Burning down a tavern doesn't really matter to the players, except the wanted. It's not an impact to the players or the overall story.

In games like Dragon Age & Mass Effect, while the overall story is preserved, many of the decisions DO matter. As an example, your endgame success may vary from loss to victory but at great cost to victory with everyone surviving - all depending on how you treated allies & enemies along the way.

I tried the detailed flowchart but eventually chucked it as my players kept coming up with options I didn't forsee.

Depending on the story arc, I still use flowcharts but they are much broader. As an example, if I'm running a war campaign/story arc I figure out the stratagems and general events that will occur if the players do not interact with the story. Then as the story progress, events get tweaked or modified based on the players influence.

So if the Orc Hordes are marching on the kingdom on several fronts and the PCs find battle plans showing 2 settlements that are going to be hit. Unfortunately, they were pursuing a traitor that has critical information on the kingdom's defenses. How the players react will have meaningful impact on the game. Examples:

A. The PCs determine they can only aid/warn one settlement. The settlement they didn't choose is severely impacted (or overrun/destroyed) as a result.

B. The PCs decide to split the party and attempt to warn/aid both settlements. The potential to save both settlements now exists but at longer odds as they've divided their forces.

C. The PCs deem it too important to let the traitor slip away and don't aid either settlement. The impact to those settlements are much more severe and now the PCs may find themselves behind enemy lines when they return.

D. The PCs fall back to a lord's stronghold. The lord has magical means of alerting the settlements, so rather than being overrun, two long sieges begin but the enemy now has the information on the kingdom.

etc.

In all of the scenarios, the war proceeds and the orc hordes attack the two settlements. The outcome of those battles may vary significantly based upon the PCs choices & actions. The impact to the war & the likelihood of winning it may also be significantly impacted based upon those choices.

 

[Scribble]

Yes!

Those are great! The Point A and point B points are clear. But the decisions the PCs make have distinct impacts.

And to tie it back to my earlier post, it doesn't have to be so epic. It can be something as small and personal as letting a small evil take place in order to do a larger good.

Yeah- I think it's easier to have the A-B sequence be epic and not feel like a railroad... but it can pop up in smaller ways... Something we were talking about in another thread about meaningful choice basically meaning consequences...

So PCs know a Dragon is attacking... Defeating the dragon will be much easier with the Dragonlance, but the time it will take the PCs to get the lance is time the Dragon has to keep burninatin stuff and eatin dudes.