Save My Game - Goes off like a bomb!

[Ourph]

Mr. Nelson-Brown seems to be convicting this DM on pretty thin evidence. Why does he assume that the DM boxed these players into a situation where the only alternative was to guess what he was thinking? He suggests two possible alternatives to finding the trigger (use spells to get through the door, find an alternate means of opening the lock) and assumes that the DM is negating those routes. Why not assume that the players really are uncreative, as the DM is suggesting, and that they simply haven't considered those options.

If I found myself in the same situation as a player and didn't want to spend an hour figuring out which piece of furniture to move in order to get the door open I'd definitely be thinking the following....

1. Use some alternate means of getting through the door. (Knock)
2. Use some alternate means of figuring out how to open the door (Divination spells, capture a creature from the surrounding area that might know the secret)
3. Remove the door (take off the hinges, chop through it with an axe)
4. Bypass the door (find an alternate route)
5. Ignore the door (go do something else, perhaps come back to the door when I have more appropriate spells or information)

Not to Godwin the thread or anything, but it seems to me that, whatever the DM may be doing wrong (and I'm admitting the possibility the DM is at fault), the players are also at fault here, primarily of treating an RPG like a video-game. In most video-games, you can either go forward or quit playing. If there's a door in a room, you usually have to go through the door to keep playing the game. That's not true in an RPG. You can go up, down, sideways. You can even pick a completely different objective to pursue. If the players are playing D&D, but acting like they are playing Super Mario Brothers, it's probably not entirely the DM's fault.

 

[molonel]

Not to Godwin the thread or anything, but it seems to me that, whatever the DM may be doing wrong (and I'm admitting the possibility the DM is at fault), the players are also at fault here, primarily of treating an RPG like a video-game. In most video-games, you can either go forward or quit playing. If there's a door in a room, you usually have to go through the door to keep playing the game. That's not true in an RPG. You can go up, down, sideways. You can even pick a completely different objective to pursue. If the players are playing a "do anything" game like an RPG, but refuse to see it as anything other than a "do only what the processor chip is programmed to let you do" game, it's probably not entirely the DM's fault.

Do any of the people who make this constantly-heard charge actually PLAY video games, anymore?

One of the reasons I avoid WoW is precisely because it's too well-designed. I know it's going to stick a needle through my chest, and suck out my soul. I'm going to wake up three years from now with an additional eight inches on my gut, buried in potato chip bags and empty pizza boxes, and wonder where my life went. Some people have self-control where video games are concerned. I do not.

Video games, right now, have actually gained an edge on tabletop RPGs in design complexity and layeredness. There are problems that arise from people who play certain sorts of video games, but "Not thinking creatively" is not one of those problems.

I think we need to bury this charge that "Like a video game" equals "simple" or "simple-minded" because it reveals a lack of understanding on the part of the person making the comparison more than a firm grasp of the material.

 

[Voadam]

It always bothered my that adventures include these sorts of puzzles that require out of character knowledge to bypass (e.g. White Plume Mountain and the riddle posed by the Sphinx). In the case of puzzles, my players tend to not like them so I permit INT checks for the characters to figure out the problem.

Wasn't that a solve the puzzle or the sphinx attacks situation and not a solve the puzzle or the game grinds to a halt situation?

I only remember the first riddle off the top of my head about the night pearl, but I don't think it required any anachronisms or out of character knowledge to solve, it seemed the type of riddle a D&D sphinx would have that a D&D character could solve completely in character.

Unless you mean it relies upon the player figuring it out instead of the character stats affecting a die roll to deal with the problem.

 

[lukelightning]

You can even pick a completely different objective to pursue. If the players are playing D&D, but acting like they are playing Super Mario Brothers, it's probably not entirely the DM's fault.

The problem is that DMs who do the One And Only One Way To Open The Door scenario are also prone to railroading. No, You May Not Change The Quest. No, You May Not Leave The Dungeon.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

Mr. Nelson-Brown seems to be convicting this DM on pretty thin evidence. Why does he assume that the DM boxed these players into a situation where the only alternative was to guess what he was thinking?

I will agree with you that he seemed harsh on the DM asking the question. We don't know what the players did or dind't try. On the other hand we don't know that the players did NOT try any of those tactics and we don't know what hints were given by the DM. We just don't have enough info to pass judgement either way.

In the example given I can definately see letting the wizard role an INT check to see that "it isn't a magical lock so its likely to be mechanical" and/or "the trigger must already be in this room and likely can't be moved from its spot" kind of thing. The Bard might be able to get a Bardic Knowledge check and remember stories about "books in bookcases" or "torch holders that flip upsidedown" or something similar.

A way to try and get in character knowledge to trigger out of character thoughts.

"Pulling down the torch like in that movie! Hey, DM, how is this room lit?"

I usually play but I have DMed a few times. One of them was a puzzle dungeon that involved different rooms with different syles of puzzles (get across the floor, put stuff in order, etc) in order to get a piece of the McGuffin needed to get to the final room.

The players seemed to enjoy it. None of them were too hard but one of the things I tried was to write down all the ways to solve the puzzle I could think of in.. say... a minute. I would then build in blocks for most of those answers. If I came up with seven ways to get around the puzzle without actually solving I would probobly have five of them blocked (and written down ahead of time to show the players in case they asked - yes, I had these "cheats" blocked). If they came up with an eighth way through then they would get through.

It seemed to work for that one dugeon at least.

 

[Ourph]

Do any of the people who make this constantly-heard charge actually PLAY video games, anymore?

I actually edited my comments to make my point clearer. See above.

Video games, right now, have actually gained an edge on tabletop RPGs in design complexity and layeredness. There are problems that arise from people who play certain sorts of video games, but "Not thinking creatively" is not one of those problems.

I would argue that there are still plenty of console and PC games that require the "A then B then C then D" type of play where you have to jump a chasm, open a door, fight a monster, find a key, fight another monster, use the key, etc. all in that order as a requirement of the game. There's nothing wrong with that. I like those kind of games (Ratchet & Clank is one of my all-time favorites), but D&D is a different beast and if you play D&D like Ratchet & Clank or Super Mario Brothers or whatever, then you are being self-limiting, which is the point I was making above.

I think we need to bury this charge that "Like a video game" equals "simple" or "simple-minded" because it reveals a lack of understanding on the part of the person making the comparison more than a firm grasp of the material.

"Like a video game" equates to "limited" in my mind. It doesn't have anything to do with simple or simple-mindedness. You are limited in your actions/strategies/tactics to those actions/strategies/tactics that the processor has been programmed to process. Some video games are more robust than others, but the point remains that RPGs with a live DM theoretically offer infinite options and there's no computer or console game that can achieve the same thing (yet?). I think I have an adequately firm grasp of both the nature of video games and RPGs as well as extensive experience with players who get trapped in the habit of treating the latter like the former. The phrase "trapped in a video game mentality" isn't intended as an insult, it's merely diagnostic. Knowing the root of a player's dissatisfaction with the gaming experience is the first step in overcoming it and often it involves being told explicitly something that the player already thought he knew (but was in the habit of ignoring); i.e. the game is not being run by a computer, but by a person, so stop trying to guess what I'll "let you do" and start thinking about what you "want to do".

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Wasn't that a solve the puzzle or the sphinx attacks situation and not a solve the puzzle or the game grinds to a halt situation?

I believe so, though it's been a long time. The other player and I blew through the riddles with no problem, though we were pounding our heads on the table at how bad they were.

There's also a math riddle in there with these golems. I think they were next to the turnstile, which was much more of a crime than bad riddles.

Brad

"Honestly...who puts a turnstile in a dungeon?"

 

[blargney the second]

I think it was great advice for making the game more fun for everybody.
-blarg

 

[ruleslawyer]

Video games, right now, have actually gained an edge on tabletop RPGs in design complexity and layeredness. There are problems that arise from people who play certain sorts of video games, but "Not thinking creatively" is not one of those problems.

I don't want to open this can of worms, but I will say that I'm highly skeptical of this claim. The human imagination is pretty much limitless; I can introduce all sorts of random elements and plot twists on the fly that simply aren't possible for a programming team to have anticipated and added in advance. How do I know this? Because the programming team isn't sitting there adjusting things in real time, and doesn't have the technical capability to add an infinite variety of investments. If that were the case, things might be different. Not to say that video games aren't achieving significant complexity, but to my mind, there's a fundamental difference. It just isn't about punishing PCs for pushing random buttons in dungeons!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So, when people say D&D is like a videogame, they really mean D&D is like a narrowly defined subset of platformer console games (and not any of the many platformers that actually allow multiple solutions to puzzles)?

I second the need for the people throwing this charge around to play more videogames, preferably those made in the 21st century.