Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9229027" data-attributes="member: 42582">Player: "How about we get the whole truth from her about everything that's going on?"GM: "How about 'Do you win her trust about some small matter?'"Where is the saying no? Nothing has been decided about whether or not the PCs can get the whole truth from her.DitV, pp 140-3:Follow the players’ lead about what’s important You present an interesting situation to your players, a town. It’s got a couple few conflicts already present in it, each with at least two sides, some facets and nuances to the moral questions it poses. You’ve made this cool, interesting thing, this town and its problems, so you show it to your players like, “look! What do you think?” Then you step back and wait to hear what they think - and I shouldn’t suggest that you have to actually wait at all. The truth is that they start taking sides the instant you start showing them what the sides are. It’s immediate and visceral. . . . There’s not a plot the PCs have to foil. You’re not providing judgment for the players the way you have to if you’ve pre-decided who the villain is. Instead, you’ve presented your interesting moral situation, the PCs can’t walk away from it, they have to cut through its knot somehow and leave the town better off. So, what do they think? They’ll surprise you. They’ll take sides you never expected. People just endlessly delight me and one of the reasons they do is because of their capacity to take surprising sides. Watch, you’ll see. . . . When the players take sides - from the first moment they begin to take sides - start complicating their lives. . . . In concrete terms, this point and the point before are about setting conflicts’ stakes. The point before says: let the players set the stakes. This point says: then, you set the stakes harder. Here’s an example: I’m the GM. I present to my players a situation: Brother Cadmus’ little brother wants the Dogs to tell him who to trust, but not to tell him to stop drinking whiskey. Brother Cadmus and Meg, his player, have noticed that there’s something he’s not saying, but they don’t know what yet. Meg has Brother Cadmus say, “I can’t tell you who to trust until you tell me what’s really going on.” I say, “Sweet! Let’s roll some dice. What’s at stake is, does he spill?” Notice that even though I’m the one who said what’s at stake, Meg’s the one who chose it. We roll dice, Raise and See back and forth, and (unsurprisingly) Brother Cadmus is winning. Now it’s my turn to set the stakes harder. How badly do Meg and her character want to know? I say, “he says, ‘y’know Cad, I come to you for advice and you grill me. Isn’t that just like you.’ He shoves past you. I’m escalating to physical.” I roll some more dice. Meg has to choose: does her character physically stop him from leaving, or give? How far is she willing to go for this? What if he throws a punch, will she still be willing to push him? Let’s say that yes, she’s willing to fight him for it. Then, what if he’s beating her? Will she have Brother Cadmus draw on his own brother? The GM's role is not to say no. It's to sharpen the focus, and to make it personal.</blockquote>

Verification