These boots are tough to fill

[LostSoul]

How did your old DM run things?

If he was the one running that game, and he wanted the priest to get away, would it have been possible for you to catch up with him?

 

[JoeNotCharles]

- emphasis mine

I love the irony.

What irony?

 

[Desdichado]

You think you have it tough? Our last DM wears glass slippers!

 

[Celebrim]

What irony?

Since you ask, you made two statements in quick succession.

1) You don't have to be 'old school' to insist that actions have consequences.
2) The DM blew it by making the player's failure actually feel like failure.

It seems to me that if you never have to feel like you failed and if whenever you fail there is an exciting consolation prize that lets you get right back on track shortly thereafter, then you really don't believe that actions have consequences except in the most trivial way.

They - the players - blew it. The players blew it in a really big an obvious way - stopping to take a 5 minute break instead of immediately pursuing (to say nothing of completing the combat with the minion rather than trying to push past it). Those choices had a very unpleasant consequence, "The priest got away.", which I gather that the original poster is not used to experiencing because he said:

"All through that sequence of events, I though the DM was basically saying, 'back off guys, you're not going to catch this priest', putting as many obstacles in our path as possible. I felt like we needed to continue because i'm stubborn and I wanted to prove a point.

But it turns out, he actually wanted us to capture him! That was what was 'meant' to happen, which I find pretty incredible. I guess we're just looking at things from different perspectives."

The perspective of the OP implies that the OP is used to playing in a game where the things that are intended to happen by the DM, generally do happen regardless of what the players do. In this perspective, you can blow off chasing the priest until you want to, and that trial never goes cold nor does the priest ever get a headstart sufficient to get away. And that is ultimately what you seem to suggest to when you say, "The DM blew it." and "You could have at least found a clear trail"

If the player actions only had the consequence, "The priest got away today, but you'll be given another chance to get him tommorrow.", then there is really no way for the priest to get away because 'catching the priest' is the intended result. The OP's DM however seems to be suggesting that sometimes when you make an error you might not be able to recover from it at all (much less quickly) and that sometimes actions have real lasting consequences.

 

[pawsplay]

Since you ask, you made two statements in quick succession.

1) You don't have to be 'old school' to insist that actions have consequences.
2) The DM blew it by making the player's failure actually feel like failure.

It seems to me that if you never have to feel like you failed and if whenever you fail there is an exciting consolation prize that lets you get right back on track shortly thereafter, then you really don't believe that actions have consequences except in the most trivial way.

Agreed. The players were provided with a meaningful choice. Either they didn't want to catch the priest that badly or they chose poorly.

 

[JoeNotCharles]

Since you ask, you made two statements in quick succession.

1) You don't have to be 'old school' to insist that actions have consequences.
2) The DM blew it by making the player's failure actually feel like failure.

It seems to me that if you never have to feel like you failed and if whenever you fail there is an exciting consolation prize that lets you get right back on track shortly thereafter, then you really don't believe that actions have consequences except in the most trivial way.

Yes. No contradiction here, unless you think "consequence" means "failure".

Blundering around until they finally decide that the priest must have gotten away is a highly unsatisfying way to spend a session. Either make it clear up front, almost immediately, that the priest got away, and that's the end of this part of the adventure, or have their blundering around looking for him have some further payoff. The DM just had them run a long way into a long dead end, and then have to backtrack out of it.

I thought it went without saying that, since the priest got away, "finding a clue" wasn't going to put them back to being one encounter behind him. It could take many more tough adventures to find him again now. The story's on a completely new track now, of tracking the priest down rather than nabbing him just after fighting his minions - that's a consequence. It doesn't have to be an unsatisfying one.

I mean, in-character the PC's failed, and NPC's should treat it that way. Out-of-character, the players haven't "failed" - they've made a choice to rest up instead of going after the priest immediately. If that's "failure" the DM should just say, "You chose poorly, and lost the game." But that's not the way D&D works.

 

[MrMyth]

Since you ask, you made two statements in quick succession.

1) You don't have to be 'old school' to insist that actions have consequences.
2) The DM blew it by making the player's failure actually feel like failure.

Hold up a second - I don't think those statements are opposed in any way. You can easily have a result of failure without it involving... the plot coming to a halt with no direction to go from there. As mentioned, you could have some alternate exciting encounter that is a direct consequence of their action (and may involve other in character problems).

But the thing to keep in mind - you never want to punish the players. If they make a bad call in character, by all means, have consequences. For the characters. Remember, you are playing a game, and the goal should also be that the players remain invested in the story, rather than being punished for a bad call with boredom and frustration.

 

[Celebrim]

Blundering around until they finally decide that the priest must have gotten away is a highly unsatisfying way to spend a session.

Well, possibly, that might be one of those non-trivial consequences I mentioned. Although, it's worth noting that one of the commentors in this thread was envious, because he's never been involved in a protracted chase scene like that. Which, you never would if people took this advise:

Either make it clear up front, almost immediately, that the priest got away, and that's the end of this part of the adventure, or have their blundering around looking for him have some further payoff.

Or in other words, the failure of the characters shouldn't carry anything but trivial consequences. And if the characters embark on some course of action that doesn't have a big payoff, they should be warned up front, right? So yeah, I do think the consequences of failure should be failure, and I don't think you believe that there should be consequences like I think there should be consequences.

The DM just had them run a long way into a long dead end, and then have to backtrack out of it.

You know what? Sometimes it happens. I've lost an adventure before. Your characters stand around and they are alive, but, you've still lost. The bad guys won, or at least, you didn't defeat them. You screwed up. It sucks. It makes you think, "Gee. That sucked. We really wasted our time here.", in character and out of character. But life is like that. The heroes don't win everything. Sometimes things happen that are downers. You buck up and you deal with it. The adventure after that was one of the best I've ever played, but we never did fix the mess we made of the previous one.

Now, by no means am I asking you to agree with me that this is the 'right' way to play. However, I think we can safely agree at this point that you and I don't agree on this aspect of how to run a game.

And that thing we don't agree on about what sort of consequences are possible: it's called 'old school'.

 

[JoeNotCharles]

Or in other words, the failure of the characters shouldn't carry anything but trivial consequences. And if the characters embark on some course of action that doesn't have a big payoff, they should be warned up front, right? So yeah, I do think the consequences of failure should be failure, and I don't think you believe that there should be consequences like I think there should be consequences.

You seem to think "big payoff" means "congratulations, you caught him". By "payoff" I mean anything at all interesting. Anything. An unrelated encounter. The kickoff to an unrelated adventure. A colorful NPC who tells them how badly they screwed up in entertaining terms. Anything but wandering around doing nothing for hours! (He described a bunch of stuff that sounded like it could have worked - the dwarf minion could have been that colorful NPC - but he sounds like he found it boring and frustrating so I guess they just weren't very interesting?)

My first example was some sort of clue they could use to pick up the priest's trail. I guess that was a bad example, because you seem to think I'm arguing they must be given another chance to catch the priest. I just picked that because it was the first thing that came to mind as a satisfying way to continue - making the priest's getting away a setback rather than a total loss. But if the DM wants this to be their only chance to catch the priest, that's fine - but for the game to remain fun, he should then replace the catching of the priest with something else that grabs the players attention and isn't total frustration.

It sounds like in this case the players honestly thought they were mere minutes behind the priest and had a chance to catch up - and if that was so, the DM should have given them some sort of interaction. If not, he should have made it clear somehow.

You know what? Sometimes it happens. I've lost an adventure before. Your characters stand around and they are alive, but, you've still lost. The bad guys won, or at least, you didn't defeat them. You screwed up. It sucks. It makes you think, "Gee. That sucked. We really wasted our time here.", in character and out of character. But life is like that.

The point is that's not what happened. They rode around thinking they had a chance to catch him and eventually realized that they didn't. They didn't definitively lose, it just petered out and they came to the conclusion that they must have lost, because if they'd won something would have happened by now.

Now, by no means am I asking you to agree with me that this is the 'right' way to play. However, I think we can safely agree at this point that you and I don't agree on this aspect of how to run a game.

No, I'm still working under the assumption that you're not getting what I'm talking about, because by taking the position opposite mine you're arguing that the appropriate response to the characters losing is to bore them for the rest of the session. That can't be what you mean by "consequence", can it?

 

[LostSoul]

The playstyle difference:

Am I willing to put up with frustration based on my own choices?

Emotional risk is part of that playstyle.