Players noticing the use force is failure in a similar way than magician fumbling a magic trick so that audience realises how it is doen. But mistakes happen, it is understandable, not a big deal.
Yeah, that's not really how I like my games to work. I'm playing in a 5e game now (rotating GMs so it's kind of interesting to see how everyone takes the 5e rules and applies them differently) and I definitely notice some of this happening. I mean....it's baked in, right? But it can be limited.
I don't mind that 5e is very GM focused. But I do expect that the player be given at least some authority, especially those examples that are clearly defined in the book.
But you know how it works. The GM makes naughty word up and can alter things as they see fit. At least that's how D&D works. So if you agreed to play D&D, why would you expect anything else?
It's the "alter things as they see fit" part that causes issues, I think. As I mentioned way back earlier in the thread, I think people read certain passages in the books that they interpret to grant much more authority to the GM than I think is actually intended. I don't mind a GM exercising the authority needed for the game to function; I mind when the GM overrides the chance for a player to have some say because there's some gray area or because they feel they can alter things as they see fit.
I don't think that it's too much to expect the GM to allow for player input.
I really don't know how to answer this. Seems again to be fundamentally different way to see things. As a player I want to 'believe' in the illusion of objective reality of the game world, and as GM I try to maintain illusion of it. So I don't want the GM to say "Ok guys, the game is going nowhere, you need the macguffing and have spent hours trying to find it to no avail. It's behind the painting, go and take it so the game can progress" when they could just surreptitiously move the magguffing in the next place the PCs happen to look, the players would feel like they succeeded, and the game world would continue feel organic and real.
That's not what I meant. I think in both the examples of that scenario you've described it's basically a railroad. Thing has to happen in order to progress to next scene. It's predetermined.
I'd prefer that situation to be set up a bit differently so that if we failed to find the maguffin, then there were other things to do. Either other ways to engage the path we were on with some kind of consequence for not finding the maguffin (perhaps we have to find some other clue or information and as a result we've lost time, and so a threat has increased or timetable has progressed, etc.) or else some other thing to do.
Alternatively, in the way you've described it, I'd rather the GM just let us find the maguffin rather than leave it to chance that we find it. If i's necessary in order for the game to not grind to a halt, why risk that happening? Just say we found it after searching for a while. Maybe have a roll determine how much time is needed to find it, and then you can advance related factors accordingly.
This is the problem with gating things behind one roll and it's something I've tried to avoid since my earliest days as a GM.
I did see it. I definitely wouldn't have handled it that way. It seemed to go against the spirit of the ability, especially as you took steps to ensure that the farmers were trustworthy. I agree wit the opinions that some sort soft move where the farmers warn you that the Duke's soldiers are coming would have been appropriate. Though that you got the long rest out of it makes it less bad; at least your actions were not completely negated amounting to nothing.
Sure, sure. And I'm sure people express their opinions on message boards more fervently than they might in the real life.
Sure. I also think that simply discussing things makes them seem more fervent. "I like things to be X way" doesn't mean the same thing as "I never want to se things as Y", although sometimes it's read that way.
Player has authored a goal finding her sister that has been taken by a fiendish cult. Or did she join them? Whilst infiltrating the cults hideout, several things go awry, and would, if game rules were strictly followed lead to the sister perishing before he had a chance to talk to her. But GM uses subtle force to prevent this from happening. The sister survives, the character confronts her, dramatic reveals and some hard decisions follow.
This is not to say that the sister dying would have necessarily ruined things, it would have been a different sort of story. But if players are hyped about certain things coming to pass, I think it is fine for GM to use their tricks to help that to happen.
This is hard to say. I think that trying to bring forth things that the player cares about and has indicated they want to see come up in play is a desirable thing. I think how exactly it's handled would determine if Force was used or not. It really depends.
Like, I don't have a problem with a GM narrating what happens when two NPCs interact. I don't need them to roll everything out. In fact, I prefer they don't....although I think now and again something that can be determined by one roll is a good way to randomize things.
The reason I don't mind this is that what they're doing is setting up the scenario. So if they just narrate that the sister is in danger and then put it to the player to do something, that's fine. If the player somehow failed, and the sister's life was at stake, and so the GM softballs things and makes her not die.....that's not something I'd be crazy about.
I get it....it's a kind of sympathetic thing to do. But as a player I almost always pick up on that, and it's dissatisfying.
The issue is that if your normal practice is to give all that info upfront... and then you suddenly don't because things are not what they seem, you have already spoiled the surprise. The players now know that things are amiss.
Like I said earlier, looking the fictional description of the situation only, the reality of the kraken scene could be that the girl is a powerful chosen of the Elder Gods, mind controlling a hapless random man, in order to lure the PCs in to sacrifice them to the kraken. I think this clearly shows that divulging the mechanics gives the players information that their characters do not have, and removes possibility of any interesting surprises.
I didn't read that as giving all the information up front. I thought it was the NPC allies' info, and the types of creatures that the Kraken and its tentacles counted as. Certainly the types of creatures give us an indication....like as a Solo monster, the Kraken is likely to have a high number of hit points and so on. But I don't think the stat block of the monsters were shared.
Now, let's say the little girl is some kind of secret deity or higher being that just looks like a girl; how does sharing a stat block change that? Does it somehow prevent the GM from such a revelation later on if that's what's going on?
If that was the case, I'd simply expect some kind of hint that there was something more going on, and perhaps a roll of some kind to pick up on it, etc.
I don't think that saying "this girl is a minion and has the ability to avoid danger in this way" means "this is perfectly accurate knowledge and me giving you access to these stats is a contractual obligation on my part that they will never change or otherwise be revealed to be different".
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