Providing Meaningful Choices?

[ExploderWizard]

I think you mean the anticipated success of the PCs in mind. In another thread, quite a number of people were complaining that many adventure modules don't give the DM enough advice about how to deal with a broad variety of potential PC reactions to a situation.

Both actually. Most structured adventures fall apart if the PC's decide to call an audible at a certain point and completely re-evaluate their approach.

 

[Rechan]

I do want to reply to Weem and Barastrondo's posts, because they are getting at what I'm trying to say. But first I want to address a big misconception I think is still hanging around.

Why not just be honest and tell your players its a railroad, although there may be different carriages and different services.

Because it's not a railroad. A railroad presumes certain responses.

Let me try to explain this one last time, because some people are still assuming I'm talking about response trees and pre-scripted choices/solutions. I poorly presented my initial OP.

Boiling it down to its essence, there are two things involved with what I'm talking about, the Question and the Answer.

The Question could be anything. Basically "What do you do to get your goal?" "Here's an obstacle. How do you overcome it?" "Here's a moral situation. What do you do?"

The Answer is the players' response. It's their decision and their action to the Question. It could be anything. The Answer is not scripted; the players could come up with a completely unique solution, and that is still an Answer to the Question. There is no "failure" or "success" in the Answer they choose (they could fail in their attempt, but their decision to make the attempt in the first place isn't a failure).

So far, when I say "How do you make the Question and Answer meaningful to the players", the response has been "Make the Answer have consequences". Which I'm not discounting. Of course it needs consequences.

But what about the Question? Because if the PCs do not attach any sort of meaning to the Question, then even if the Answer has consequences, it does not have as much meaning as if the Question and the Answer both had meaning.

Case in point, "An orphan stops you on the street and begs for a coin." To most players I would presume this is not a meaningful decision to give the kid a coin or not. The Answer though could have meaning: the kid could be a prince posing as a pauper, and reward the PCs. It could be a trick. It could later turn out that it was a test by a God of humility or generosity, or that the PCs run into the orphan later on and the orphan remembers the PCs. Those are consequences to the PC's actions. But the PC didn't care about the Question at all.

In some cases the Question is not tied to goals. It could be something like the Orphan situation - it's not Related to the Plot, it's purely a Question that would reflect on an individual's moral, ethical, or in essence who they are as a character. And it certainly can have consequences. If the PCs are rulers, and they are presented with the King Solomon "Split the baby in half" situation, the PCs answer could have consequences of how the public views them as a ruler, even if that doesn't impact any plot going on. But the question of the Baby must be given meaning so that it matters and is taken seriously by the players.

What I want to talk about is how do you come up with Questions, and how do you get the players to care about those Questions? How do you get the players to care about them? Where do you put them? Do you just use those related to Goals, or should you use the non-goal, moral/RP ones? Where do you put them? How do you tie them into your adventures successfully?

And then we get to the Answer, and how you make those consequences matter, and you bring them up. Should non-goal related Answers cross paths with Plot or effect the PC's Goals, or should they stay RP/attitude wise? How much impact should a consequence have, Goal or non-Goal oriented?

So far, some have suggested that to make the Question meaningful, you have to present Answers that have consequences. So that eventually, when players learn that an Answer has consequences, then they will pay more attention to the Question. But I would assume that some Questions should be able to have meaning before you have to condition your players to pay attention to the Questions.

 

[FireLance]

I really don't have anything more insightful to add than: know your players.

If you know what your players want and are interested in, you will be able to frame the choices and consequences so that (at least for the obvious choices, and barring any creative solutions on their part) each choice only gives them some of what they want.

As for getting the players to want something that they don't actually want right now, well - do you know anyone who works in advertising?

 

[Beginning of the End]

How have you provided choices? How DO you do it? Engineering a situation so that the players feel as though their decisions matter?

Three Clue Rule is the first step. Properly utilizing it allows the PCs to actually choose a path through the adventure: They're still likely to visit 90%+ of the locations you've designed, but they get to choose what order they'll go in and can even choose to deliberately bypass certain areas and feel a sense of accomplishment in doing so.

Beyond that, it's a matter of prepping scenarios instead of plots.

It's actually much easier to design scenarios like this. Particularly for tabletop play.

For example, the PCs are investigating a slavers' compound. In a lot of published modules you'll see this compound designed with a single entrance and then a series of essentially linear rooms leading up to the BBEG at the center of the compound. But instead of doing that, you can spend the exact same amount of time designing a permissive compound: Put in a front door, a secret back door, windows on the first and second floors, a secret sewer entrance. Let the PCs assault it from any number of angles; or disguise themselves as slavers to sneak in; or pretend to be customers; or even light the whole place on fire and force the slavers to run out into the street.

Note: Once you've designed a dynamic, non-linear scenario you don't have to prep extensive notes for the fire-burning option or the infiltration option. By simply designing a compound you've created a situation that the PCs can interact with however they choose.

Also be aware of making your scenario hooks permissive: For example, if the PCs are charged with "destroying the slavers", then their options are narrowed. But if you were to use a hook like "rescue our daughter from the slavers", then there are lots of ways to achieve that (including destroying the slavers).

The difference here lies in providing goals which don't dictate method.

Then, once you've created this permissive environment where the PCs are actually allowed to make choices, you'll find those choices will naturally have consequences. If they destroy the slaver compound, what happens to the slave trade that was feeding that compound? Does the local crime family try to fill the void left behind? Does someone higher up in the slaver chain of command come looking for revenge?

OTOH, if they quietly infiltrate the compound and leave the operations intact, what's the impact of the slavers continuing their operations? Does the local law enforcement come to them because of their inside knowledge? Have they accidentally incriminated themselves as slavers?

 

[ExploderWizard]

What I want to talk about is how do you come up with Questions, and how do you get the players to care about those Questions? How do you get the players to care about them? Where do you put them? Do you just use those related to Goals, or should you use the non-goal, moral/RP ones? Where do you put them? How do you tie them into your adventures successfully?

And then we get to the Answer, and how you make those consequences matter, and you bring them up. Should non-goal related Answers cross paths with Plot or effect the PC's Goals, or should they stay RP/attitude wise? How much impact should a consequence have, Goal or non-Goal oriented?

So far, some have suggested that to make the Question meaningful, you have to present Answers that have consequences. So that eventually, when players learn that an Answer has consequences, then they will pay more attention to the Question. But I would assume that some Questions should be able to have meaning before you have to condition your players to pay attention to the Questions.

Thank you for clarifying your meaning. What you are asking is how to communicate the significance of making a decision to your players before any decision or consequences thereof present themselves.

There are a few things to keep in mind when trying to do this. The most important consideration is player investment and attentiveness. Are your players involved and engaged with what is happening in the game
world or do they just wander about and need to be clubbed over the head with clues before anything of importance registers with them? Are the players keeping any notes about stuff going on or do they need
a recap to remind them what they are doing every time you play?

If your players (or at least some of them) are really into the campaign, take notes, try and draw connections between things (correctly or not) and think about their character's decisions and the impact of them then this will not be a problem.

If your players are not really engaged with the world then you will need to put up a neon sign and advertise every single decision that has any importance or they won't notice. This is clumsy and awkward but it is your only hope unless player engagement improves.

Lack of engagement might not be the DM's fault. Some players are very
casually engaged with the game and simply do not concern themselves with any thought about the game world and any impact their decisions might have on it. It can be frustrating for a DM when these players are your friends and getting a new group is difficult or undesired.

I can say from experience that interconnected plot threads and decision consequences are a waste of valuable time for a play group composed entirely of casual type players. It's important to get honest feedback from your players about what is important to them. You may find out that the type of campaign you want to run doesn't interest them.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Beyond that, it's a matter of prepping scenarios instead of plots.

Awesome link. This should be required reading for all DM's. Sadly I can't give you any xp right now.

 

[Scribble]

What I want to talk about is how do you come up with Questions, and how do you get the players to care about those Questions? How do you get the players to care about them? Where do you put them? Do you just use those related to Goals, or should you use the non-goal, moral/RP ones? Where do you put them? How do you tie them into your adventures successfully?

Well, I think what's hard about this question (ironic...) is that just like in real life there are some choices we make that we won't know are important until later, and there are some we know are important from the get go.

Many years ago I was out on a Saturday night... My friend and I went to another place then our usual spot because he was in a really foul mood. (About to be fired.) He ended up going home, and I was left with a choice... End the night early and go home myself, stay where I was, or head over to our usual spot.

Not a really life altering choice right? I mean one bar/club is as good as the next. Turns out my choice to go over to our usual hang out WAS a life altering choice... It was the night and place I met my wife.

Contrasted with- a few years later, my wife (gf at the time) is told her lab is moving across the country to CA, and they want her to go with... So now I had another choice but this time I knew whatever I chose would have big consequences. Do I tell her I can't go, and we split up... Do I beg her to stay? Do I quit my current job, and go with her? (I chose the last one.)

So I think if you want the choices themselves to seem like they should be cared about, you need to have readily visible consequences (they might not be the ONLY consequences, but they will be visible.)

In my first example, it wasn't a choice I really thought about. "This place is beat, I'm goin to the 7..." was pretty much my whole thought process. There weren't any readily apparent consequences... Both places had beer, women, and music, so they were essentially the same. It was only much later that I realized how important that choice actually ended up being.

In the second example, I knew from the get go the choice I made would have a dramatic change on my life, so the choice was much more involved.

I think both are good from a role playing standpoint.

So in the case of the begger child, if you want the choice to be thought about more, make some of the consequences more apparent. Perhaps they see the town guard about the haul a man away.. The child begs for a coin because that's the back taxes his father owes. Now the consequences are more apparent- without the coin the man goes to jail, and the kid is left without a father.

 

[Doug McCrae]

or even light the whole place on fire

The Steading is in a nasty damp area, where hard rain is a daily occurrence and wet fogs a nightly event. All wood in the place is very damp.

 

[billd91]

I think you mean the anticipated success of the PCs in mind. In another thread, quite a number of people were complaining that many adventure modules don't give the DM enough advice about how to deal with a broad variety of potential PC reactions to a situation.

There were a number of mods in the late 2e period, particularly Axe of the Dwarvish Lords that have extensive Troubleshooting sections that covered what the DM could do if the PCs fail at achieving the expected goals of that section of the adventure or deviated from standard expectations. Many of them cover ways to get the PCs back on track to succeeding at the adventure as a whole.
I've always found those sections to be pretty useful.

 

[MrMyth]

One thing of note is to always, always be prepared for the players to go with the decision you didn't expect.

In my epic game, the PCs were adventuring in Hestavar. The overall plot involved them fighting a war against a reborn Primordial - but right now, they were just investigating a mystery. Someone had murdered the Prison of the Winds, and the essence of Heur-ket the Primordial was raging out of control, threatening to destroy the heavenly city.

They finally discover the culprit - an Aspect of Vecna. His goal? With Hestevar destroyed, the three gods ruling it would remember the danger the primordials offered, and fully commit to the battle against the one that had been reborn. All the death and destruction would end up assisting the PCs ultimate quest. Like any silver-tongued servant of Vecna, he did his best to persuade them that his efforts should be allowed to continue.

And, to my surprise, the party almost went along with it. The party was, overall, more neutral than I realized, and largely felt the ends would justify the means. Adamantly so, for one character. Only one person held out, opposed to the thousands of lives that would be lost in this act.

For myself... I had set the situation up, put the choice before the party (intending it to be a tough moral decision) - but I really didn't expect them to be persuaded. Was I willing to do it? Yes, if I had to - I couldn't take the choice back, certainly!

But I was very, very releived when the one holdout convinced first one, then a second character, in order to win the majority needed to have the party agree to stop Vecna and save the city.

In the end, they used that act to persuade the deities of Hestevar to help them anyway, so it all worked out - but it definitely made me do a bit more planning in the future. And make sure that any time I offered the players a choice, I was ready for them to go either way.