The Ethics of )(*#$ing with the PCs' plans

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm, generally for me it goes the other way - the PCs are messing with my evil plans....

And I'd have gotten away with it, if it weren't for those meddling kids!

Seriously though, I just have some contingency plans for what the PCs are likely to do - and the bad guys can adapt those plans on the fly, but they are not omniscient. If Larry the Lich has four wights as henchcorpses and splits them one at the back gate, one at the sally gate, and two at the main gate, then if the PCs choose the back gate that only has one wight and some skeletal minions guarding it then so be it.

The Auld Grump

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I'm not against a little bit of DM metagame in certain circumstances. I like to sometimes play off the players' fears and what they assume to expect in a dire situation. Lets face it, it's the 1 DM's mind against the mind of generally 4+ players, the come up with things in their little "think tank" that we sometimes do not. So I like to play off their fears and use things against them that will actually challenge them. I won't use something to TPK them to be a d!ck, but a bit of danger is always fun to me when I play and it seems to really get the creative juices flowing for everyone involved when they have to outsmart the BBEG or tactically think outside the box. As I recall, the best games I play in involved more danger and "on the edge" stuff that could come down to the last roll of the dice.

 

[Corathon]

I don't know about unethical, but its poor form and unfair IMO.

NPCs act according to what they know, not what I know. The opposition cannot change its plans based on foreknowledge of the PCs' plans unless they legitimately have that foreknowledge (e.g. a spy overheard the party, or the baddies were listening in with clairvoyance, or something of the sort).

 

[Gilladian]

The main thing I find helpful about listening to my PCs plot, has nothing to do with the enemies; I'm pretty much in the camp that the bad guys only react to what they could legitimately know... but I've often been able to correct misconceptions and misunderstandings of my players when I hear their plans.

"NO, it is NOT possible to blow up a standing wooden post 3' thick by strapping a small barrel of gunpowder to it. The blast is undirected and will just scorch this thick, sturdy, water-soaked post and the quay will NOT collapse and sink. Your dwarven engineer would KNOW this! And, no, you don't have the ability to invent shaped charges in 12 hours time, from scratch."

 

[steenan]

My notes and pre-session plans are generally much less detailed than my players' plans can be. Details of the situation are created when players interact with them. When they plan and investigate, I get an advance warning about what I need to prepare.

I definitely won't change facts already established in game to mess with my players. Without consistency of fiction, the game has no sense. But everything else evolves during each session. What I prepared before is only a sketch and is treated as such - typically, only about 50-60% is used as planned and the rest gets ignored or changed because I get a better idea during play, or my players do something surprising, or I just forget about something and need to improvise.

Another thing is that I'm not just "messing" with my players. If I wanted them to fail, they would have no chance. But I want to make things interesting. Sometimes, there is a nice surprise, an item or information that players didn't expect. Sometimes, a small part of an otherwise good plan goes wrong and they need to think fast and improvise. And sometimes something that would be a simple, boring failure becomes a complication with far-reaching consequences.

 

[The Shaman]

"Your dwarven engineer would KNOW this! And, no, you don't have the ability to invent shaped charges in 12 hours time, from scratch."

A dwarven engineer familiar with powder wouldn't be familiar with a petard?


But yes, I agree with your larger point, and I fill in this sort of thing quite often for the players on behalf of their characters.

 

[Gilladian]

A dwarven engineer familiar with powder wouldn't be familiar with a petard?

Had I, or the players, ever known what a petard was, I might have let him use one. Alas, none of us are medieval weapons experts. Sigh...

 

[haakon1]

I put myself in the head of the non-player characters in the campaign and act on what they know, rather than what I as the omniscient referee know.

Nod. I play some opponents smart, but other make rookie mistakes (on purpose) because they are dumb or inexperienced. So if I -actually- do something dumb, I can claim it was just roleplaying the monster.

For longer term plans of the bad guys (what do they do while the PC's slunk off to rest), I try to think it through based on the opponent's knowledge and inclinations (and sometimes disagreements among them). When I'm stumped or want a second opinion, sometimes I'll ask a gamer who isn't involved in the campaign what he'd do, if he were playing the monster in the situation and had X motivation in mind.