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Talakeal
2011-03-31, 05:43 PM
This story took place last year, and ended a promising campaign. Could someone please read the story and tell me what I did wrong here:

The setting is the player's are all playing evil characters who have been chosen by an elder evil to start establish an undead empire and destroy the world. In the short run their goal is to start a cult, wipe out the city they are in, and raise them as undead.

The villain for the story was a local good church who was trying to erase evil from the world. They had come into contact with a powerful local necromancer and working together came up with a ritual that uses a combination of arcane and divine magic to remove all the evil and violence from a person's soul. The church was planning on performing a ritual to strip the evil from the entire town and render it a perfect utopia. The necromancer was, unbeknownst to the church, channeling the evil energy into himself to become a stronger magic user, and after the ritual was completed was planning on killing the town (now unwilling to defend themselves) and then raise them as undead, starting his own undead empire using his newfound powers.

The players were working on starting their cult, forming contacts, and turning local organizations against each other. They did some very good role-playing and had some very clever plans, and I was very proud of them. However, they ignored the NUMEROUS adventure hooks I put in their path. They knew of the necromancer, and had been told by one of their contacts (a local heretic who dealt in black magic and spell books) that he was doing something suspicious with the church. Likewise they had run into numerous formerly evil or violent criminals who were now reformed and completely unwilling to defend themselves who pointed out a church ritual as their new look on life. The players never investigated or even questioned what I felt were numerous and obvious hooks.

Eventually the players succeeded in sparking a large riot that would destroy most of the town. At this point the church decided to enact their ritual prematurely to save the town. At that point I describe the effects to the player's (their characters are of course protected by their patron) on the rest of the town, how they suddenly stop their fighting and become peaceful, and the mystically inclined player's sense the magic heading to the church. Now they go investigate.

They get to the church and are told the story, how the necromancer has betrayed them, and they tell the player's they need to kill the necromancer while he is still recovering from the ritual.

At this point I think we have a solid "kill the bad guy" adventure for the next session, and afterwards the player's can take the necromancers stolen power and then either return it to the townspeople, or, more likely, keep it for themselves and kill the town them self. I think the session went pretty good. I was the only one.

After the session the player's ripped into me telling me that I was the worst GM ever. One of them told me that they spent the entire day coming up with a plan, but then I "pulled a giant **** you NPC out of *** to **** them over". She also told me that this was the second maddest she had ever been at a GM*. They refused to game with me at all for several weeks, and never wanted to play that campaign again, so it died. And honestly, I was completely mystified as to what went wrong.

This has been bugging me ever since, and the recent talk about GM's abusing their powers on this forum brought it to the front of my mind. So, can anyone here with more experience as a player tell me what exactly I did wrong, and what I should have done differently?


*When I asked what was the first I was told that their previous DM had, whenever a player rolled a dice, rolled a second dice in secret behind the screen and chose which of the two rolls was "real", his logic being that player's shouldn't know how well they did on every task.

Yukitsu
2011-03-31, 05:49 PM
In general, start these by explaining every little event, detail, player character and a full chronology. Things just sort of devolve over time when your outline is as general as this.

Sacrieur
2011-03-31, 05:50 PM
Nothing, the PCs were just really angry that their plans got foiled. Plans that they thought were foolproof.

Gorgondantess
2011-03-31, 05:54 PM
It's all in the execution. The only way to be an accurate judge is if you filmed the whole thing.
As is, I'll just ask: did you try pointing out all the hooks you dropped, saying that yes, you had been planning this from the start and they were just ignoring it?

arguskos
2011-03-31, 05:54 PM
Nothing, the PCs were just really angry that their plans got foiled. Plans that they thought were foolproof.
Yeah, this story is PC's being pissy for no real reason. Sucks man, that sounds like a hell of a game, I'd be pretty stoked about it.

Talakeal
2011-03-31, 05:55 PM
After they blew up at me after the game I did point out the hooks. I am not sure if they believed me though.

Gorgondantess
2011-03-31, 05:57 PM
Well, even then, though, what you did wasn't perfectly good DMing and such. Not terrible DMing, but not perfectly fine. It might've just been a good idea to toss out your previous plans and let them roll with theirs. Your job is to let them have fun: if they're having a blast, you've done your job right. And letting them pull off their plan likely would've resulted in that.
Being a DM is a balancing act between good planning and knowing when to throw out those plans. I think it was just unfortunate, in the end.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-03-31, 05:59 PM
Nothing, the PCs were just really angry that their plans got foiled. Plans that they thought were foolproof.


Yeah, this story is PC's being pissy for no real reason. Sucks man, that sounds like a hell of a game, I'd be pretty stoked about it.

Yeah, it could also be that they expected pure black and white (with the hunting down their necromancer ally thing), even though they were hiding the fact they were evil from the church.

KillianHawkeye
2011-03-31, 06:01 PM
Maybe they were mad because they didn't get to be the real villains? If I was playing in an evil campaign, I'd want to have heroes attempting to thwart my plans, not some surprise even-more-evil character take over the city I was trying to take over.

ericgrau
2011-03-31, 06:02 PM
There were never any rumours about how this ritual might make the whole town pacifists. That should have caused a lot of talking among NPCs and would have caught the riot-starting PCs' attention. Also not sure why "good" = pacifist, as every good adventuring party goes strongly against that.

And why was the ritual premature? Were they unable to affect the whole town? I mean if they were then they should have done it already. If not then the premature effort should have only been partially effective.

The short version is GM makes a railroad plot and instantly no roll auto-trumps anything the PC's do that isn't what they're supposed to do within that plot. Then the players get pissed. Dunno if they overreacted or not but that's how it is.

The solution is to have contingency plans for when players do things outside of their expectations, as they always will as this is a game not your novel, and that contingency should not be squash everything they do under your DM thumb. It should be ok, then that part causes a problem but the PCs can manage b/c they did X instead.

Kylarra
2011-03-31, 06:08 PM
I'm inclined to say that doomsday metaplots tend to not jive well with players that expect a sandbox.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-03-31, 06:11 PM
I'm inclined to say that doomsday metaplots tend to not jive well with players that expect a sandbox.

Yeah, they're playing evil characters, they probably think they can just go around killing innocent people.

Yukitsu
2011-03-31, 06:12 PM
Yeah, they're playing evil characters, they probably think they can just go around killing innocent people.

Wait, this requires evil? I'm confused. :smallconfused:

valadil
2011-03-31, 06:16 PM
The problem I can see though is that you've got a bait and switch. The players though they were the bad guys running the show. They got attached to their plans and you went and took their plans away and put an even bigger bad guy in the game.

I think the story you were trying to tell is perfectly reasonable. But as a game session it doesn't work. The problem is that you have to break the PCs' enthusiasm when the other necromancer takes over. They had all this momentum for playing one type of game, that they couldn't just reverse gear and go for a kill the bad guy story.

I had a similar player revolt once. I ran a story about them entering an adventurer's tournament. Another group cheated though and stole the win. The idea was that then I'd have this group of ready made villains that the players already hated. But the players bit into the tournament a little too hard. That was the adventure as far as they were concerned. When I took it away, the game was over for them. I still like the story I came up with, but if I try to run it again, I'd definitely have to clue the players into the idea that the tourney is part of the setup and not the adventure itself.

Sacrieur
2011-03-31, 06:17 PM
Wait, this requires evil? I'm confused. :smallconfused:

In D&D those are considered evil actions.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-03-31, 06:21 PM
Wait, this requires evil? I'm confused. :smallconfused:

I said innocent people. Otherwise I would be talking about every adventuring group ever. :smalltongue:

Talakeal
2011-03-31, 06:21 PM
There were never any rumors about how this ritual might make the whole town pacifists. That should have caused a lot of talking among NPCs and would have caught the riot-starting PCs' attention. Also not sure why "good" = pacifist, as every good adventuring party goes strongly against that.

It was a secret plan, I intended the players to investigate based on the clues they saw. No one outside of the church's inner circle and the necromancer had any idea they would be performing it on the whole town.


And why was the ritual premature? Were they unable to affect the whole town? I mean if they were then they should have done it already. If not then the premature effort should have only been partially effective.

They were testing to see if there were any side effects. Then when they saw the town was in a state of riot they decided that no side effect would be worse than waiting.


The short version is GM makes a railroad plot and instantly no roll auto-trumps anything the PC's do that isn't what they're supposed to do within that plot. Then the players get pissed. Dunno if they overreacted or not but that's how it is.


Not at all. I set the stage, and there are actions occurring whether or not the PCs intervene. Just because they don't care about something means it shouldn't affect them? If they wander into a town that is under siege by orcs and do nothing, the orc army should disappear into a plot hole rather than invade the town and spoil the player's tea party?
Or are you saying that the world should be entirely static other than to lose to the PCs, therefore rendering any sense of urgency or timing involved in any plot meaningless?
That outlook sure would have made my Dragonlance campaign easier for the player's, all they had to do was sit in the inn of the last home drinking ale and hitting on Tika and the dragon army would have been forced to sit idle for years on end lest it be called railroading.


The solution is to have contingency plans for when players do things outside of their expectations, as they always will as this is a game not your novel, and that contingency should not be squash everything they do under your DM thumb. It should be ok, then that part causes a problem but the PCs can manage b/c they did X instead.

I don't care what they did. The ignored the clues I put in their path, so I didn't force the issue. I didn't do ANYTHING to stop them other than have the already existing NPCs react realistically to the player's actions given their exiting motives and powers.'

Edit: Sorry if this comes off a bit overly defensive. I am aware I did something wrong, else I wouldn't have titled the thread as such, and I shouldn't be insulted when someone gives their opinion, but you seem to be stating your points in a manner that looks like you went out of your way to be offensive and I responded in kind.

Talakeal
2011-03-31, 06:23 PM
I'm inclined to say that doomsday metaplots tend to not jive well with players that expect a sandbox.

Actually, before the session the players were complaining that the storyline was too much of a sandbox and that they were bored with the freeform gaming and wanted a stronger storyline.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-03-31, 06:35 PM
After hearing that the ritual was secret, I think the reason they hated it was because they thought that you were railroading them with a deus ex machina for your side.

MickJay
2011-03-31, 06:58 PM
Have you included other hints, beside the two you've mentioned? Criminals saying they've been changed by the church to be good is not exactly a major hint, maybe the clerics are just very convincing? As for a heretic saying that the necromancer is doing something suspicious with the church - they might have simply dismissed that as a rumor directed against the church (he's a heretic, duh), or considered it a bit of fluff. If there wasn't anything else, then your players had no real reasons to even start suspecting something as major as the ritual you described.

Furthermore, if you see your players don't react to the clues you're leaving, just drop more of them, perhaps different ones as well (a letter on a body? accidentally overheard conversation? someone mistakes them for their contact and delivers a weird package to them?). And, as last resort - you did say the ritual was hastened - that alone would have been sufficient to make it work only partially, or make it botched, so that players' plans were not screwed up.

Finally, are your players visiting this forum as well? Perhaps one of them could say how they saw the whole thing - that would probably give you the best idea of why exactly they weren't happy with how things developed.

Talakeal
2011-03-31, 07:05 PM
Have you included other hints, beside the two you've mentioned? Criminals saying they've been changed by the church to be good is not exactly a major hint, maybe the clerics are just very convincing? As for a heretic saying that the necromancer is doing something suspicious with the church - they might have simply dismissed that as a rumor directed against the church (he's a heretic, duh), or considered it a bit of fluff. If there wasn't anything else, then your players had no real reasons to even start suspecting something as major as the ritual you described.

Furthermore, if you see your players don't react to the clues you're leaving, just drop more of them, perhaps different ones as well (a letter on a body? accidentally overheard conversation? someone mistakes them for their contact and delivers a weird package to them?). And, as last resort - you did say the ritual was hastened - that alone would have been sufficient to make it work only partially, or make it botched, so that players' plans were not screwed up.

Finally, are your players visiting this forum as well? Perhaps one of them could say how they saw the whole thing - that would probably give you the best idea of why exactly they weren't happy with how things developed.

I dropped hints more than twice, and dropped the same hints repeatedly with no success.

As far as I know they do not visit this forum. Also, I really really hope they don't, because I had one problem player whom it seems like 90% of my problems stem from and I am frequently told to boot from the group, and I can't imagine him seeing them wouldn't result in out of game violence.

Yukitsu
2011-03-31, 07:07 PM
Just ask Lanky what he'd do while kicking him, then do the opposite.

prufock
2011-03-31, 07:07 PM
As I see it you made 3 (possible) mistakes.

Mistake #1 - You set up two plot possibilities, and had one negate the other. The players' primary goal was to "start a cult, wipe out the city they are in, and raise them as undead." They made plans to do this by turning people against each other, causing riots etc. The secondary plot was the necromancer and the "happiness" ritual.

Plot-wise, there is absolutely nothing wrong in what you did. They were given the information, they were provided with the hooks, they should have had some clue that if there is a "happiness" ritual going on, this might interfere with turning people against each other. Everything tied together nicely.

However, from the players' perspective, the way things tied together dissolved all their hard work in formulating the riot plans and putting it in action, thereby negating their sense of self-determination. Players need to feel that what they do matters. Starting a riot and then having the ritual kick in is like saying "Sorry no" to their actions.

In hindsight, it may have been better to have the riot go on for a while, pile up a body count, THEN enact the ritual.

Mistake #2 - Not investing them in the secondary story. Did they ever meet the necromancer or the other trying to pull off this ritual? Other than getting screwed over from afar, were they given a reason to either like or dislike them? It's hard to tell from your description.

Mistake #3 - Gaming with a bunch of giant douchenozzles. Seriously, who behaves that way over a game?

Talakeal
2011-03-31, 07:11 PM
Yes, they had met the necromancer beforehand. He was the former master of the party necromancer, and they met their patron in his tower, where the elder evil had been summoned and deemed the necromancer an unworthy minion and chosen to wait for someone with real potential (i.e. the PCs).

Also, their riot plan was not perfect. Although it was a very good one, it wasn't going to actually destroy the whole city. They had also rolled a 1 on a very critical bluff roll, and alerted the local ruler as to their true motives in setting up the riot. The campaign never got far enough for them to see any of the fallout from that event, but if not for the necromancer's intervention their riot scheme would not have ended well for them.

KillianHawkeye
2011-03-31, 07:12 PM
As a rule, I suggest always having at least twice as many clues as you think you need to get your PCs into the plot, because some will not be found and others will be ignored.

Iceforge
2011-03-31, 07:19 PM
The problem is that you, obviously enough, view the game from your side of the screen with all the information that you have, which is more than the players usually have.

Now, the entire plot idea is good, and would most likely be enjoyed by most players if they was exposed to it and didn't know it is advance.

The execution of it, however, failed, and I got an idea about why it left such a bad taste in the players in the game's mouths and why they wasn't satisfied.

You, sitting with a pretty neat planned idea, was dropping hints for it in each session, trying to give them hooks and things to make them find out more, so you could expose them to this huge background plot you had developed and been planning.

In the first session, you probarly left, feeling maybe a little bit frustrated how your plot hooks was ignored, in favour of developing connections, and other things to benifit their plan, which you knew wasn't going to work out the way they was planning it.
Your frustration was just small and you just figured that for the next session, you'd plan some more hooks and try and make them more appealing and obvious.

In the second session, you left and again felt some frustration that none of your hooks had really got a hold of their interest, but again, you could handle that, you again probarly decided to make more obvious and better hooks for the next session.

This continues for X number of sessions, until you arrive in the final session of the game (or what ended up being the final session), in which the plot now surfaces and can't be ignored any longer by the players, who had been oblivious to all the hooks there was for it, but to your surprise, the players just got frustrated and angry, rather than excited about the surprise, what gives?

Now, from the players perspective, the story runs very differently.
Each and every session, they ignore some plothooks, which does not seem that interesting to them or not important anyway, because if they felt they was important or interesting, they would jump on them.
And while it sucks from your perspective when that happens, there is nothing to do really, as it can be hard to predict some times what will gauge their interests in the moment of play.
And while they are ignoring your hooks over many sessions, maybe more than originally planned, as you may have (I do not know if you have, but I suspect it) extended the time all the preparations took just to give them more time to bite on one of the hooks and find out about it, but in all those sessions, they are investing more and more into their plan, developing the connections they need for the plan, making the funds, the equipment, the allies and fooling those that needs to be fooled, to execute their plan.
With each passing session, the players get a higher and higher level of emotional attachment to their plan and all the things they accumolate in relations to the plan, and it is their focus in every session, making them less and less likely to bite on any external plothooks, even through they become more and more obvious from your side, their increased focus on the plan makes them seem less obvious and less important.

Then comes the clash of session X.
You reveal the plan you have had all along which you got a high emotional attachment to, which you find exciting (and it does sound cool, Im not denying that)
Your plan, however, completely ruins their plans and make everything they felt they worked on in the last many sessions feel pointless and wasted.

You said it yourself, they did very good roleplaying forming their cult (now pointless as all other members are turned from usefull pawns into useless drones), forming contacts (also useless drones) and turning local organizations against each other (also useless, as they are now at peace due to the effect of the spell)

So while you see a nested egg finally coming to fruition, they see a lot of planning, maybe more than a months work (real time passes quickly, depending on how often you play) being stripped away and that will make whatever it was replaced by, seem a lot worse and a lot less enjoyable than it might actually be.

The entire situaiton that you and your group worked youself into is very unfortunate.
You are sitting with a plan you are highly invested in, and feel a need to let it come into fruition, you have tried a lot of things to make the players find out about this plan so they could do something about it and feel justified that it is their own fault they haven't, which might be objectively correct.
But in their subjective view, you are stripping away all the worked on, and prioritizing your own investment over theirs, which always feels bad.

So while objectively, you was most likely justified to do what you did, what is objectively justified, usually matters very little and while it may seem unfair, the best cause of action in such a situation, if you manage to identify it in the future, would be to simply scrap your own plan and save it for later or alternate it a lot, so it doesn't ruin the plan of the PCs, for instance, maybe the necromancer noticed how well they had established themselves and infiltrated the organizational infastructure of the city, and had confided his ritual to them and how he had finished developing it with the help of the church, and suggested they rallied together against the church and they could help him do his ritual in other cities by using their new fully developed little cult for assisants to performing the ritual.

Then your plan and their plan would merge a bit, and then over time, as they go from city to city, make it obvious that the necromancer is getting increasingly stronger and stronger as they neutralize more and more cities and it is just a matter of time before he will be stronger than all of them combined, maybe he starts being more bossy and unpleasant, clearly starting to lack respect for them as his equals, and treating them more and more like his underlings, which will unavoidably lead to them backstabbing him, at least in my experience.

Edit: Just saw your reply where you say the riot would not have ended well for them, maybe you could have extended the riot to the point where it became obvious that their failed bluff check and other factors meant the riot was going to turn out agains their favour and then the ritual would kick in (the church having started it before they became aware how the riot would end either), then something mystical would have happened, but they would have known that this mystical thing was not the thing that was ruining their carefully made plans.
Sounds like you might have tried shielding them from experiencing their plan failing on it's own, and by doing so, you actually made their perceived loss of investment higher than it actually was.

Talakeal
2011-03-31, 07:31 PM
@Iceforge all good points and good advice, I see what you are saying. However, it wasn't that long in real time, maybe two of our weekly sessions.

Also, the people who were actually members of the cult were already either undead or dominated by the vampire in the party and were not affected by the ritual.

Also, while it was a good plan, it wasn't quite good enough because they had failed to involve the two "major powers" in the city (and given one of them knowledge that they were trying to manipulate them into battle), and had misunderstood the power structure of several organizations. I can't help but feel that they would have been disappointed in how their plan had panned out even without interference.

So a lot of the advice I am getting is to just abandon my plotline. Do you think that is right? I feel that if I place an NPC then removing them or having them not interact with the world around them is akin to cheating. True it is cheating on behalf of the player's, but the impression I get around here is that most players get even madder when a game master cheats in their favor as against it (see the 30+ page "There is no rule-zero" thread for plenty of examples where people say they walk out instantly if they see the GM pull a punch or fudge a roll to spare them.

Iceforge
2011-03-31, 07:36 PM
If it was weekly sessions, and 2 or 3 of them that this all developed and played out over, then their reaction is a strong overreaction unless there is something to the story that we are not getting.

Also, executing their plot should also be easier after what happened, they just got another task they need to perform, as suddenly people aren't fighting back agains them (their minions being undead and unaffected), and all they got to do is kill the necromancer who did the ritual, before he regain his (newly improved) power.

Talakeal
2011-03-31, 07:51 PM
If it was weekly sessions, and 2 or 3 of them that this all developed and played out over, then their reaction is a strong overreaction unless there is something to the story that we are not getting.

Also, executing their plot should also be easier after what happened, they just got another task they need to perform, as suddenly people aren't fighting back agains them (their minions being undead and unaffected), and all they got to do is kill the necromancer who did the ritual, before he regain his (newly improved) power.

That was what I was thinking at the time. Although maybe they thought it would have been impossible to take him out considering he was about twice their level, albeit alone and almost out of spells against an entire party at full strength.

Iceforge
2011-03-31, 07:56 PM
That was what I was thinking at the time. Although maybe they thought it would have been impossible to take him out considering he was about twice their level, albeit alone and almost out of spells against an entire party at full strength.

How could they know?

I, at least, would never let my players know the level of an enemy, they will have to guess his powerlevel.

All they knew, unless you explicitly told them, was he was one of PC group members' former mentor and he was in a weakened state and should trust you enough to know that you wouldn't make the encounter impossible, so can't really see that as being a factor.

Could be that they have vestigal negative experiences that colour their expectations, if they had previous GM's screw them over badly constantly, and pit them against impossible enemies, then I could see them expecting the same from you, but then thats is entirely THEIR problem and not something you can really do anything about, except gaining their trust over time.

Cerlis
2011-03-31, 08:11 PM
The reason they are mad is because, based on the fact that they didnt bite any plot hooks they wherent aware of some impending doom. Thus it looked like you saw their plan was too effective, so you decided to foil them by having the authorities stop everything with uber magic, and then a Mary Sue DMPC becomes the big bad villian they have to kill.

I'm not saying thats what you did. I'm saying from their perspective thats what it looked like. I believe you said they might not have believed you when you mentioned plothooks. thats cus Truth doesnt matter in real life or fantasy. Even if you told the truth, it wouldnt matter if they thought you where just pulling it out your ass to make it seem like you didnt just trump their plan.

----------
and no you dont need to abandon your plotline. Perhaps if you explain that what happned was planned and you didnt just try to one up the players you could finish.

what could have been done better is pretty much one thing i can think of. Its hard for a DM to figure out what clue is obvious. they thought of the clue, so not only do they know it, but it was their brain, their way of thinking, that thought of the clue. there are over 7 different ways peoples brains works, probably more. And various degrees of analitical and creative ability.

Point is just cus you put in hooks doesnt mean they will bite. They might not even realize they are hooks, that you are just spouting off information to flesh out your characters and all that. Dont overestimate your players. If they dont get it, they dont get it. For whatever reason.

If you see that subtlty isnt working, get more blunt. Perhaps the Shadow of Pelor spys found out what the PCs are doing and they send some holy assassins after them. That flat out says "hey the good guys are the bad guys". or maybe with the ritual being prepared, more than just a few reformed villians are being seen, perhaps there is a lethargy. Players cant even by lunch without some magically traumatized person on the other side of the counter. Or hell, go the direct route and have had the Necromancer come to the npcs and say "hey, these guys are going to do this ritual and when they do all the evil will go into me and get me power, so if you help me make everyone do evil stuff i will pay you lots of gold"...that would have definately tipped them off.

-------------

sorry it didnt turn out right, but sometimes being subtle and clever is a DMs worst move.

Talakeal
2011-03-31, 08:25 PM
During their tirade they demanded to know the power of the NPC in question and I decided honesty was the best policy and told them. The player in question, though, apparently hates challenge and always sees the glass as half empty though, and has an all DMs are killer DMs mentality, so maybe honesty wasn't the best policy.

Maybe this deserves its own topic...

Hiro Protagonest
2011-03-31, 08:29 PM
During their tirade they demanded to know the power of the NPC in question and I decided honesty was the best policy and told them. The player in question, though, apparently hates challenge and always sees the glass as half empty though, and has an all DMs are killer DMs mentality, so maybe honesty wasn't the best policy.

Maybe it's just that one player who's bad, like he wants it to just be easy coasting all along, and all the PCs have full plot armor, despite the books having rules for if your character dies.

icefractal
2011-04-01, 04:34 AM
Also, and I'm not sure if this is the case, but it may be differing game expectations. If they were all geared up to be the movers and shakers, plotting from behind the scenes, starting an empire ... then they might be disappointed in (what they perceive as) a shove back to typical "stop the BBEG's plot" style adventuring. Which may have been why they ignored the previous hints, as well.

caden_varn
2011-04-01, 07:13 AM
It sounds to me like the players got a number of clues and pointers to the plan, but nothing that had a real impact on them or their own plan - then suddenly it appears whole and complete, and stops all their plans (to their eyes at least).
If so, It would probably have helped for the NPCs plot to ramp up in intensity over time, so it started to have some noticeable impact for them (but not totally ruining their plans) to make them more inclined to investigate before it is too late to stop the main ritual.
Perhaps one of the gangs they were manipulating is subjected to the ritual - causing noticeable inconvenience to their plans. Perhaps if they are questioned, one of them says 'Soon all will know this peace', which should cause alarm bells to ring.

Finally, while not ideal, you can be a bit blunt OOC, reminding them that other things are going on that they ignore at their peril. This is best where you suspect the group is going to react negatively to the final outcome (to be fair, that doesn't sound like the situation here.)

Tyndmyr
2011-04-01, 07:25 AM
*When I asked what was the first I was told that their previous DM had, whenever a player rolled a dice, rolled a second dice in secret behind the screen and chose which of the two rolls was "real", his logic being that player's shouldn't know how well they did on every task.

This would be a problem, yes. Thankfully, that person isn't you.

My guess is what happened is the players didn't pick up on all your hooks as important. This happens quite frequently actually...use the rule of three. Whenever there's something that's important for the players to know, use three successive, different, increasingly easy clues. Odds become very good they recognize at least one of them, and having multiple clues pointing the same way is extremely helpful.

And don't worry too much. This is a fairly common thing to come up. It's extremely easy for the GM and the players to be considering different things as important. It's something you have to actively try to prevent. It's something most GMs face at some point.

Another good method for determining expectations prior to the game is a method stolen from 7th Sea called, the other hundred points. An explanation is spoilered for length.


Step 3: The Other Hundred Points

Player input determines the type of plots we create. There are five categories of adventure types; each PC should divide 100 points among the five categories. These categories are:

* Intrigue
* Action
* Romance
* Exploration
* Military


Example: Joe Bagofdoughnuts is very roleplaying oriented player and loves games that get into character. He puts 40 points into intrigue, 40 points into romance, and 20 points into Exploration. Susie Creamcheese is a very action oriented player and wants games that let her show off her swordsman. She puts 70 points into action, 20 points into military, and 10 points into exploration. Later when the GMs write plot, they see that Joe and Susie, as well as other players, have all ranked exploration rather highly and make sure there are enough exploration plots for everyone. They also note that while only a handful of players have marked romance, all those players have marked it very highly, so they make sure there is a romance plot, albeit one that only requires a few players to accomplish.

Asgardian
2011-04-01, 07:31 AM
I think the part that got to them is you changed the inherent nature of character. Purged of evil, they AREN'T the same characters they came to be attached and being pushed into a fight they seemed to be avoiding

Of course, purged of evil does not mean they are good. they could have landed at neutral

Gravitron5000
2011-04-01, 08:41 AM
This would be a problem, yes. Thankfully, that person isn't you.

My guess is what happened is the players didn't pick up on all your hooks as important. This happens quite frequently actually...use the rule of three. Whenever there's something that's important for the players to know, use three successive, different, increasingly easy clues. Odds become very good they recognize at least one of them, and having multiple clues pointing the same way is extremely helpful.


The rule of three seems to pop up in this sort of discussion a lot. The link below goes into a little more depth.

http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/three-clue-rule.html


I think the part that got to them is you changed the inherent nature of character. Purged of evil, they AREN'T the same characters they came to be attached and being pushed into a fight they seemed to be avoiding

Of course, purged of evil does not mean they are good. they could have landed at neutral

Their characters were given patron supplied plot immunity to the ritual, so the above doesn't really apply.

obliged_salmon
2011-04-01, 09:38 AM
Yeah, hard to say why exactly the players flipped out, but I'll tell you how I'd have Gm'ed this in your shoes. Perhaps it'll help?

First off, one of the PC's has this necro as his mentor. Great. The mentor confides his plan to the PC. Just let them know the whole deal from the get-go. That way they don't have to work to figure out something they have no interest or investment in. (Note, it's my experience from games like Shadowrun that when all the players are working toward something, they don't sit around and wait for plot hooks to grab).

Second, regarding the PC's plan to destabilize the town. It sounds like you put a lot of effort into designing this town, figuring out its politics and its factions. However, you also suggested that the PC's didn't understand these politics and factions correctly, which would have led to their downfall when the riot started. First, I probably would not have put any complicated interactions in effect beforehand, but rather let it come out in play. If the players wanted to turn two factions against eachother, I would've called for, perhaps, a gather info roll, with success meaning they could create two opposing factions to play against each other.

Third, assuming everything went the way it did up to the point the ritual occurred, I would've give the PC's at least one chance to stop it.

Concerning throwing out your plot for the players' sake, I say don't have a plot. The PCs are the game's plot. NPC's can certainly have and pursue their own goals, and the more players (not necessarily characters) know about those goals the better. When you open up these "secret" details, it allows everyone to participate and invest more fully in the game.

Tyndmyr
2011-04-01, 09:40 AM
The rule of three seems to pop up in this sort of discussion a lot. The link below goes into a little more depth.

http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/three-clue-rule.html


It's a fantastic rule. I plan to explicitly include it in the GM portion of the system I'm designing. I feel that many systems, D&D included, do not give sufficient information to help a new GM.

manyslayer
2011-04-01, 01:12 PM
Since they had their own plots/agenda, the best way to get them to pick up the hooks is to make it personally matter. As someone mentioned, make a gang/contact switch suddenly (particularly if they were a real sadistic SOB before).

Have something needed for the ritual be something they need as well that they suddenly find is sold out everywhere (why, some people from the church just bought everything I had in stock).

Have the ex-mentor need something the ex-apprentice has (item, notes in his spellbook, etc.).

Something like this brings the hook right into focus, but, more importantly, makes it something the PC wants to do (because now someone is messing with their plans).

Tyndmyr
2011-04-01, 01:28 PM
Having it be an x number of people per night doing the ritual would be probably better than the whole town at once. Gives them more chance to realize what it is and stop it.

And yeah, some people would need to be forced to attend. A contact that goes from screaming about not attending the ritual ever, and how terrible it is, before it gets dragged off...and then, next time they see him, being remarkably happy and mentioning that the ritual is the best thing that ever happened to him.

stainboy
2011-04-02, 04:02 AM
It sounds like your mistake was letting them expect the plan would work just because they really liked it. You said that even if the church thing hadn't happened, they based their plan on faulty information, right? Presumably they didn't try to gather information, they stated a plan and expected that because they were the PCs it would work. If that's not your DMing style you could have let them know.

You could have dropped hints while they were planning. "There's something you're not considering." "You don't know much about that, so you might want to investigate more." What you're really telling them is, "my game has an objective world that I don't change behind the scenes to accommodate you." Hopefully they would have taken the hint before they got so emotionally invested.

Anyway it sounds like at least one of your players is rude and impossible to please. Make that two, you're the one with the rogue friend who threw a fit over Mind Blank and True Seeing, right? Find a new gaming group.

The Big Dice
2011-04-02, 04:48 AM
Anyway it sounds like at least one of your players is rude and impossible to please. Make that two, you're the one with the rogue friend who threw a fit over Mind Blank and True Seeing, right? Find a new gaming group.
This is what it sounds like to me. Players being jerks and then blaming the GM is fairly typical behaviour for certain personality types.

Grendus
2011-04-02, 08:28 AM
I think the biggest issue is that it was a sandbox, and you hit them with a plot. Now add to this the fact that they had mentioned wanting more plot and less sandbox, and throw in what appeared to be a deus ex machina DMPC, and it looks like you not only threw them on rails, but ran over them with the train in response to their comment about not liking the sandbox as much. The fact that the plot was always there and they chose to ignore it didn't matter.

In retrospect, letting their riot start and fail would have been better. They were unaware of the macguffin, since they didn't even think one existed in this world, and when it showed up it looked like the DM pissing on their successes. Unfortunately, from your side of the screen you couldn't see that (it's tough to see, honestly, I would have missed it). Better luck next time.

Arbane
2011-04-02, 12:33 PM
I had one problem player whom it seems like 90% of my problems stem from and I am frequently told to boot from the group, and I can't imagine him seeing them wouldn't result in out of game violence.

So, why don't you eject him?

Talakeal
2011-04-02, 01:43 PM
So, why don't you eject him?

I did. But I still have to have contact with him because the rest of the group is still friends with him, and I don't want him seeing me airing his dirty laundry on the internet.

1of3
2011-04-02, 02:17 PM
The problem is that you jumped the shark, as they say.

Your players were expecting a game of D&D. There are certain assumptions as to what is possible in D&D. In D&D magic can kill people. It can restore people to life. But there is nothing that can change alignments on this scale.

It might have worked out, if the inner circle had some Storm Troopers that Necromancer Sidious secretly subverted. Then they could have fought them. They could have offered Sidious a deal. Anything.

What you did, you destroyed their faith that they were actually playing D&D. "If today a whole city is brainwashed in an instant, what will happen tomorrow? Why am I playing at all, if the game changes while I play it? What can be achieved, if it all comes done to that guy over there having a so called cool idea or not?"

You could have pulled it still. By making it clear beforehand that such things are possible. They could have found books in the library with such a spell. (And the librarian would have told them that just the day before someone was looking for that very book.) Their patron could have given them hints. It's a god, isn't it?

But what you did isn't possible in vanilla D&D. You needed to explain beforehand that your game differs in this respect.

Talakeal
2011-04-02, 02:21 PM
We weren't actually playing vanilla D&D, we were playing a very heavilly house ruled version of E6 in which all high level spells are custom made rituals.

Yukitsu
2011-04-02, 04:22 PM
Try not to make plot devices epic spell equivalents in E6 for the sole purpose of undermining what the players are trying to do. That's fine in a level 20 game, but not in E6.

Talakeal
2011-04-02, 04:39 PM
Try not to make plot devices epic spell equivalents in E6 for the sole purpose of undermining what the players are trying to do. That's fine in a level 20 game, but not in E6.

Clearly you didn't pay attention to my earlier posts, the spell was a plot device that was put in the game long before the player's ever came up with starting a riot. In fact that plot element actually existed when I was coming up with the initial ideas for the campaign before I had even proposed playing it to the players. It was hardly there for the "sole purpose of undermining what the players are trying to do".

And it isn't an "epic spell equivelent". Its a magic ritual which follows the standard rules we use for both PCs and NPCs. Any character of sufficient skill (which is far less than would require an "epic" character) could research and perform a similar ritual if they were willing to invest the time and resources.

Yukitsu
2011-04-02, 04:55 PM
You know what I'm refering to here. If it were done on time after the damage were done, it's not being used to undermine their efforts. If it's being rushed simply because of the players, and is somehow still fully effective, it is.

And that they can in theory do something "within the rules" that doesn't mean it was a ritual that far exceeds the capacity of what an E6 character should generally be dealing with. That spell was far and beyond what a caster in standard 3.5 can be expected to do, and honestly, ritual or not, useable by the party or not, E6 shouldn't include those sorts of plot elements, and instead focus on ones that are more in tune with what a level 6 or below character should be working on. That includes things like scheming, plotting, putting enemies against one another. It's not a system designed to have magic "win" buttons.

E6 is a different game from D&D. It's not designed for the cataclysmic battle between 4 people and some city shattering all powerful individual. The expectations from it aren't the same, and I think by introducing a boss following standard 3.5 story logic, you were pretty badly muddling their expectations of what the system is about, what the story was about, and what they were supposed to have been doing that entire time.

Talakeal
2011-04-02, 05:07 PM
Just because you don't use something under the optimal conditions doesn't mean it is going to fail. They performed the ritual earlier than they were planning on, that doesn't mean it wasn't finished, nor does it mean it was put in the campaign solely to screw the PCs, it is just a logical reaction to their actions.

For example, if an evil wizard was planning an alliance with a red dragon and they were planning a joint attack on city of good in one week. If the players perform a surprise attack on the evil wizards citadel while the dragon is still there negotiating the allegiance they will have to face the dragon at the same time as the wizard and likely fail. Does that mean the dragon was put in the campaign solely to disrupt the player's attack on the evil wizard?

The magic system in my campaign is not what we discussing here . I use a magic system which is the same across the board for all characters both PC and NPC, and allows mages to wield as "earth shattering" powers as plot devices if they prepare it as a ritual, but not as a standard fighting power which reduces the game to dragon ball z style throwing around massive energies that crush lesser men and invalidate martial characters like high level D&D. Trust me, the magic system is not the problem here.

Edit: Honestly, I thought E6 was about playing d&d at the lower mid levels when all characters and monsters were roughly similar in power level and the game was neither overly complex or overly random. I didn't realize it was designed so that you couldn't run a standard adventure. Personally I think it works better for that, as you could run Lord of the Rings without Gandalf invalidating the rest of the part or the balrog simply dropping everyone dead with a single blasphemy.

erikun
2011-04-02, 05:24 PM
Well, since you are focusing on what went wrong, I can thing of three things.

First of all, the mass-ritual seemed to come out of nowhere. I mean, literally nowhere - it's like the cleric and necromancer sat down for a round and just cast a spell together. Something like that, which was supposed to cover the entire town, would likely have been a public event or something that required a large number of supplies, something that any layman in the city would note being brought to the church. A premature ritual should either not have worked, or only worked on parts of the city.

What's more, it directly nullified the players' actions. Yes, it would be reasonable for the church to want to nullify a riot, but the way it was presented sounded more like "Okay, your riot suddenly stops. You should go to the church now and fight the boss!"

Which brings up point two. No, I'm not going to complain about the Big Bad. Quite the opposite - I think the second problem was that you gave them a chance to win. At that point, the party should have, by all rights, lost everything. Nercoboss used the ritual. He had ultimate power. He had the ability to turn the entire town into controlled zombies. And yet... after taking ten minutes to run through town and up to the church, they see him just chilling around and waiting to fight them before becoming an Overlich. And as I said before, it sounds like you basically told them to go to the church to fight him, as opposed to letting them figure out why every rioter and city guard spontaneously started picking daisies.

If it was at that point in the game, all the townsfolk turning into undead and attacking should have been a big enough hint that something was wrong. The party could have gone to the church, or to their hideout, or just left town at that point - but at least they would have had the choice in what to do.

And finally, the third would be something that others have mentioned already: you presented the game as evil-vs-good, but turned it around into the evil party fighting the bad guy and saving the town. I thought they were planning on killing everyone and turning the town into skeletal mosh pit. What do they care if the bodies are still on the street or in the graveyard? They probably didn't care about murderers turning pacifist or necromancers working for the church because none of it mattered to any of their plans or goals. It's like not understanding why the standard adventuring party doesn't pay more attention to the changing flower arrangements in the local inn - it hardly matters to adventurers which aroma of flower they smell today, and is mostly a background detail.

Simply put, the rituals the church was engaged in never affected the party in any way (until the end), and so they pretty much ignored what the church was doing.

Talakeal
2011-04-02, 05:32 PM
That might have been a problem. I told them they were playing an evil party, I never told them it would be good vs. evil. They might have gotten that idea, but it is a pretty dark world where controls most of the planet evil is not a unified force, and I would be surprised if they didn't think that they would be fighting evil or neutral forces at least as often as good.

The necromancer had not killed or turned anyone undead yet. His own personal power was exhausted by the ritual, and he had only what had been stolen to act with. He was resting to replenish his own energy before wiping out the town and raising everyone, and someone in the church pointed out that this would be a good time to kill him. I never forced the PCs into killing him, I just presented that as what seemed like the simplest and most direct option to resolving the situation.

erikun
2011-04-02, 05:40 PM
If the ritual was as powerful as you make it out to be, I'm surprised that the "stolen power" wasn't sufficient anyways. Or at least, that the necromancer didn't make himself very scarce if he knew he was in need of a rest.

Also, note that you have a perfectly passive, violence-free NPC tell the party that now would be the perfect time to murder someone while they cannot properly defend themselves. It looks rather funny.

Talakeal
2011-04-02, 05:49 PM
If I recall correctly the priestess in question had been one of the hooks which the players were ignoring, who they had knocked unconscious for eventual interrogation and indoctrination into their cult. I think she was within their players sanctum and therefore immune to the ritual itself, and once she woke up the vampire dominated her and she told them the full story. It has been a while since the actual adventure, so I don't remember the exact details.

Yukitsu
2011-04-02, 06:12 PM
Well, if you honestly think the magic wasn't the problem, just ask the players. I'm assuming they have a better bead on what was irritating about what happened than we do, since they have the full story, but the point of no return seems to have been based around the execution of that ritual.

Talakeal
2011-04-02, 06:17 PM
Oh, the execution or the specific form of the magic may well have been the problem, but the fact that large scale ritual magic exists in the game at all has never been an issue for the group in all the years we have played with it.

Yukitsu
2011-04-02, 06:28 PM
It's possible that problems from it just hadn't come up yet. How often do you use massive, setting changing rituals? How often do they? If it's common, then sure, the player's were probably more irritated by the execution and the inclusion of a very powerful evil antagonist that "showed them up." but if those sorts of spells aren't often used, it's reasonable to say the lack of an upper boundary to rituals is a problem.

Accersitus
2011-04-03, 01:06 PM
They knew of the necromancer, and had been told by one of their contacts (a local heretic who dealt in black magic and spell books) that he was doing something suspicious with the church. Likewise they had run into numerous formerly evil or violent criminals who were now reformed and completely unwilling to defend themselves who pointed out a church ritual as their new look on life. The players never investigated or even questioned what I felt were numerous and obvious hooks.


1.A good church working with a necromancer when they were planning on getting everyone in the town killed and raise them as undead.
2.Rumours about hardened criminals who became pacifists after being influenced by the same church when they were trying to incite violence and riots.

Ignoring these 2 plots that both have a huge possibility of interfering with their plans, sounds like a rather bad oversight from the players.

Did the players investigate the city before starting their plan to identify potential problematic groups in the city (like churches, thieves guilds, capable city watch, or other powerful organisations located in the city)?
If they did, was the church mentioned as a possible hindrance?
If they didn't, do you feel you gave them enough hints to be worried about the church?

If you got the impression the players had no idea about the church and what they were up to(before the ritual), postponing their ritual might have been the best option, as powerful magic appearing out of the blue can seem like railroading.

It all depends on what kind of game the players are expecting. Personally I prefer playing in a world where the environment actually reacts to the players actions, and where there are other people looking out for their own interests.
Sure it means you can end up screwing up because you failed to think of a possible problem.

If the players are supposed to break in to a high security building, and plan for all the doors, sensors, and cameras, but then get annoyed that a security guard on patrol notices a sign that there are intruders and pulls the alarm ruining their plan, they have just made a mistake in their planning (not anticipating that there would be a guard, even though there was a guard room on the plans of the building), or they made a mistake that left a sign alerting the guard(even though they prepared a route that would avoid direct contact with the guard).

Skaven
2011-04-05, 09:17 AM
How much effort did they go through to start the riot?

I can imagine players getting very annoyed if they spend 3 hours roleplaying and starting a riot, then getting told 'a big wash of white light stops it with no saving throws'.

Did the church have to stop the riot then and there? Isn't stopping a riot more the role of the town guard? Is it really a good act to take away peoples free will? There's a lot of things that can be seen as wrong with this setup.

From a certain perspective you have to be flexible and run with the flow of the game. If you keep rushing things towards a big master plan regardless of what the players do a lot of players will get upset. It might have been wiser to stop the whole ritual thing and focus on what the players were doing. I personally only keep a vague outline of things that are to happen as players can and will deviate from any pre conceived notions of what is going on. To me it sounds like the players got annoyed at being people secondary to the plot. Nothing they did mattered. I can only think of a bomb and an earthquake as being stronger than a riot to stop this plan. There was going to be a ritual to move the train along the tracks no matter what they did, and they saw it. You could have let their actions matter: the riot could have stopped the self admittedly not ready uber no saving throw ritual from working. Thus the players efforts could have mattered and they could still fight your big bad guy who could show up and monologue that they stopped his planned ritual and have to pay the price roll initiative etc etc. Its little things like this that help the players feel involved and like what they do matters.

Sipex
2011-04-05, 01:58 PM
I would say your biggest problem was you didn't give the players a chance to stop the ritual once it started, sort of a last ditch thing. Maybe they have an informant say something like "Hey, the church is setting up a ritual right now that they claim is going to calm the riots."

Mind, your PCs still blew it completely out of proportion.

Talakeal
2011-04-05, 02:34 PM
How much effort did they go through to start the riot?

I can imagine players getting very annoyed if they spend 3 hours role-playing and starting a riot, then getting told 'a big wash of white light stops it with no saving throws'.
Did the church have to stop the riot then and there? Isn't stopping a riot more the role of the town guard? Is it really a good act to take away peoples free will? There's a lot of things that can be seen as wrong with this setup.


There was a saving throw, but most ordinary townspeople are going to have little or no bonus to their will save, so the vast majority won't succeed on a spell from a powerful caster. There also is no town guard in the city in question, it is a border town between three warring nations and any official government in the city gets taken down pretty quickly, so criminals rule the city.
As for whether it is good or not, I can't say. It is an issue that philosophers have debated for a long time. I wouldn't do it, but I can certainly find it plausible that others would.



From a certain perspective you have to be flexible and run with the flow of the game. If you keep rushing things towards a big master plan regardless of what the players do a lot of players will get upset. It might have been wiser to stop the whole ritual thing and focus on what the players were doing. I personally only keep a vague outline of things that are to happen as players can and will deviate from any pre conceived notions of what is going on. To me it sounds like the players got annoyed at being people secondary to the plot. Nothing they did mattered. I can only think of a bomb and an earthquake as being stronger than a riot to stop this plan. There was going to be a ritual to move the train along the tracks no matter what they did, and they saw it. You could have let their actions matter: the riot could have stopped the self admittedly not ready uber no saving throw ritual from working. Thus the players efforts could have mattered and they could still fight your big bad guy who could show up and monologue that they stopped his planned ritual and have to pay the price roll initiative etc etc. Its little things like this that help the players feel involved and like what they do matters.

I don't understand quite what you are trying to say here. The players did nothing to stop the ritual, if they had they probably would have succeeded, I expected them to try and stop it, or at the very least pervert it for their own ends.
Are you saying that if the players ignore something it should simply disappear? How do you make a consistent campaign world where nothing occurs without the player's direct involvement, even if you have already established it happening? If I throw out the plot hook that "If you don't destroy the one ring Sauron will destroy Gondor" and the PCs ignore it for 10 years, then come back to Gondor, they should find the city still standing unharmed with Sauron still staring at them from Mordor marshalling his forced as he has for a decade? That strains my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, and as a player I am pretty sure I would questioning if not outright mocking the storyline if a game I was in was run that way.
You also seem to be implying that the player's came up with the ritual to stop the ritual and that the riot had no impact on the storyline, both things couldn't be further from the truth and I don't know how you inferred them from my post.
And as for the player's interrupting the ritual, that would have basically put them in the same boat. Either way they would need to fight the bad guy, but now after the fact they can use the ritual and its effects for their own ends, or even reverse it should they so choose.

Skaven
2011-04-05, 03:16 PM
You simply asked what you did wrong to garner the players reactions, I simply gave a viewpoint on what could have gone wrong based on looking at what you wrote as happened and trying to think on it from a players perspective.

I'll admit, I had to think on it a while to come up with something. There is evidently a problem here, whether only merely a clash of playstyles or a misunderstanding.


If I throw out the plot hook that "If you don't destroy the one ring Sauron will destroy Gondor" and the PCs ignore it for 10 years, then come back to Gondor, they should find the city still standing unharmed with Sauron still staring at them from Mordor marshalling his forced as he has for a decade?

We probably run in different styles. I don't run a story with players in it. I run a game for the players and craft a story with them. My notes are always very loose. If this happened I would likely drop the entire shebang or find a way to keep the players in it, likely by having them hounded by enemies after their ring.

Talakeal
2011-04-05, 03:25 PM
You have very different players than I do. Any time I run a sand box style game they end up wandering around bored and pissed off. I have found that the more I railroad (storyline wise) the more my players enjoy the game. The only time they get mad at me for railroading is when they find some gimmick to bypass encounters entirely and I try and stop them, which has nothing to do with the storyline at all.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-04-05, 04:15 PM
So a lot of the advice I am getting is to just abandon my plotline. Do you think that is right? I feel that if I place an NPC then removing them or having them not interact with the world around them is akin to cheating. True it is cheating on behalf of the player's, but the impression I get around here is that most players get even madder when a game master cheats in their favor as against it (see the 30+ page "There is no rule-zero" thread for plenty of examples where people say they walk out instantly if they see the GM pull a punch or fudge a roll to spare them.
It's not a matter of abandoning your plotline - it's a matter of adjusting your plotline to suit your Players.
From reading your posts, it seems that most of the game consisted of you throwing plot hooks at your Players and then being bewildered when they didn't take them. There is little mention of what your Players were doing or what they were focusing on - just that you gave them hooks and they ignored them.

But the Players weren't just ignoring your plot hooks - they were focusing instead on things that interested them. What you did wrong is not try to incorporate those things into the overall plot. Your Players clearly had a story they were working with, but it was a story that you, as the DM, simply weren't engaged in. This may be the reason why your Players were so angry when you suddenly forced your plot into the game they were playing and destroyed the plot they were building.
To avoid these sorts of situations in the future it is important to pay attention to what your Players are interested in, and make the game about that.

For your particular situation, it would have been better to introduce the opposition in a more active role earlier on. They should have been interfering with the PCs actions from the get-go, not just at the end of the story. By placing key bad guys in the face of your PCs, they are more likely to incorporate them into their plans - or at least interact with them. Then be ready to adjust your story to mesh with the story they're telling - instead of being a story about "discovering the BBEGs' secret plan" it could be "rivals fight for the souls of the city."

Also: it does sound like your Players flew off the handle, but it's always hard to tell the emotional states of people involved when listening to a story second hand. For what it's worth, it's good that you have taken an interest in improving your DMing style.

TL;DR - listen to your Players and run the sort of game they're interested in playing.

Jamin
2011-04-06, 02:19 PM
Just because you don't use something under the optimal conditions doesn't mean it is going to fail. They performed the ritual earlier than they were planning on, that doesn't mean it wasn't finished, nor does it mean it was put in the campaign solely to screw the PCs, it is just a logical reaction to their actions.

For example, if an evil wizard was planning an alliance with a red dragon and they were planning a joint attack on city of good in one week. If the players perform a surprise attack on the evil wizards citadel while the dragon is still there negotiating the allegiance they will have to face the dragon at the same time as the wizard and likely fail. Does that mean the dragon was put in the campaign solely to disrupt the player's attack on the evil wizard?



This kinda of thinking makes me think you will never understand why your players disliked your campaign. Using secret information that a player does not know to screw over their well-thought out plan is railroading in the highest degree. They most likely felt that you were robbing them of success which you were. If the players don't know something about your world it is your fault never theirs. All they can ever know about your world and your plot is what you tell them. If the players don't know that dragon may be there it is only because you never hinted it might be. If I was DMing I would not have the dragon there because it really would only be there to stop their plan from working. It is okay to keep secrets form your players but these should never be used to stop the players actions from having an effect on the world. If I was a player and my DM told that because of something I had no idea about my actions have meant nothing
I wouldn't play with them again.

Talakeal
2011-04-06, 02:53 PM
Guys, I don't mind people who disagree or criticize me, that is what the thread is for, but please PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT I POST.

I DID NOT PUT THE NECROMANCER THERE TO STOP THE PCs PLAN. HE WAS ALREADY THERE AND MERELY ACTED ACCORDINGLY. THE ONLY THING I DID WAS NOT REMOVE HIM WHEN THE PLAYERS CAME UP WITH A PLAN THAT HE COULD INTERFERE WITH.

How many times have I said that the ritual was planned months (both in and out of game) before the players ever even considered their plan. It was NOT an attempt to screw over their plan (which as I said wouldn't have worked anyway), nor was it an excuse to "railroad them" to some higher plot, which at that time didn't exist. There missions was to destroy the city one way or another, and there was no set "plot" or "path" for them to do it, only certain obstacles in their way and NPCs with goals and plans of their own.

You imply that I didn't give them hints that the NPC was there, when I have already stated I had given them over half a dozen hooks, some of which were blatantly obvious.


Likewise, in my dragon example, the dragon is not their "to stop the players plan" he is there because my adventure notes placed him there long before I or the players had any intention of them attacking the wizard's tower a week early, and didn't at the last second handwaive him away through DM fiat.

If I did that, wouldn't that be every bit as bad as if they, for example, ambushed the sleeping evil wizard when he was out of spells and reduced a boss fight to simply beating up a helpless old man, and then I decided to challenge them by having a second dragon appear out of no where?


But , are you really saying that anything they don't know about shouldn't be able to stop their plan? If their plan is to raid a dungeon for treasure, you should tell them in advance about all the monsters and traps in the dungeon, because those things "only exist to stop the player's from getting the treasure".

[QUOTE=Jamin;10718065]If the players don't know something about your world it is your fault never theirs. QUOTE]

That may be the most one sided and ignorant statement I have ever heard on these forums.

I have never heard ANYONE suggest that the DM must reveal all plot elements to the players before they occur, especially if the players don't take the time or effort to investigate what clues they are given.
Railroading, as it is normally defined, is going out of your way to preclude all possibilities but the path you have ahead, not merely having an obstacle or surprise.

By your logic these are all perfectly rational lines of player thought:
Why bother with search, spot, listen, sense motive, or gather information skills, what we don't know can't hurt you!
Why bother paying attention when the DM is talking, he won't dare use this knowledge against us later.
Why bother reading the sign that says "warning dragons ahead", after all, if a dragon attacks us and we don't know about it there is no way the DM should let it hurt us!
Why bother taking notes, if we forget something important it is the DM's fault, hell why even bother thinking about that plot?
Hell, why bother investigating anything at all? The DM has to tell us everything relevant regardless of our actions or he is a bad DM!


A great many adventures, including most published ones I have seen, involve secrets and detective work. If you actually believe secrets are incapable of negatively affecting players, and that it is the GM's fault even if he spoon feeds them obviously clues, I have no idea what type of game you are playing.

And you know what, even putting aside clues and investigation, sometimes surprises happen. Sometimes it is simply MORE dramatic and fun to have a dramatic reveal, and sometimes things go wrong for reasons no one could have expected, both in stories and in real life. Not at all saying that is what happened here, it most certainly wasn't, but your blanket statement denies the possibility of such things being fair or fun.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-04-06, 03:03 PM
A great many adventures, including most published ones I have seen, involve secrets and detective work. If you actually believe secrets are incapable of negatively affecting players, and that it is the GM's fault even if he spoon feeds them obviously clues, I have no idea what type of game you are playing.

And you know what, even putting aside clues and investigation, sometimes surprises happen. Sometimes it is simply MORE dramatic and fun to have a dramatic reveal, and sometimes things go wrong for reasons no one could have expected, both in stories and in real life. Not at all saying that is what happened here, it most certainly wasn't, but your blanket statement denies the possibility of such things being fair or fun.
...did you tell the Players they were supposed to be playing detective? From the sound of it, they thought they were in a sandbox game where they were supposed to figure out a way to take over the town. People get upset when their expectations are violated.

Have you any opinions on my previous post? IMHO the violation of expectations is what caused your Players to revolt. It's a simple thing to fix for the future and a painful lesson to have to learn twice :smallsmile:

Talakeal
2011-04-06, 03:15 PM
Sorry Oracle, Jamin's statements flew in the face of everything I have ever heard about GMing so dramatically that it kind of overwhelmed your more reasonable points.

Ok, it was supposed to be a sand box style game. But, not without plot points. In my mind a sand box game involves more detective work on the player's part, not less, as they do not have a "mysterious old man" come and offer them a briefing on their mission all wrapped up in a neat package.

I had a city laid out, complete with NPCs who had motivations, goals, and abilities of their own, and they were going about them. If the PCs plans affected them, they took that into account, if the PCs plans didn't affect them they went on their way.

The players eventual goal was to destroy the city and raise its population as undead. In my mind they had a good plan, but one that didn't take into account numerous factors, and could not have succeeded. In essence they jumped the gun. The necromancer was the first to react to their actions because, in my mind, it was an intercession that they could easily deal with and even use to their advantage as their furthered their plan.

I see what you are saying about their expectations though. Honestly, the posters in this forum have given me great insight into their thinking simply by how off base they are. Most of them are ignoring what I write and instead assuming I simply threw in something to shove them onto the plot train, which is what I think my player's also assumed at the time.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-04-06, 03:44 PM
Ok, it was supposed to be a sand box style game. But, not without plot points. In my mind a sand box game involves more detective work on the player's part, not less, as they do not have a "mysterious old man" come and offer them a briefing on their mission all wrapped up in a neat package.
That is not the classic definition of Sandbox for Pen & Paper RPGs. In this case we're talking about Wide Open Sandboxes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WideOpenSandbox) - you have a setting, and some basic direction; now have fun. The presentation of your plot suggests just this kind of game - your PCs were not expecting, nor looking for, some secret plot to discover. They were expecting to make their own.


I see what you are saying about their expectations though. Honestly, the posters in this forum have given me great insight into their thinking simply by how off base they are. Most of them are ignoring what I write and instead assuming I simply threw in something to shove them onto the plot train, which is what I think my player's also assumed at the time.
To be fair, I think most of them were trying to channel what your Players felt at the time. Since it doesn't actually matter what you intended in regards to your concern ("what I did wrong here?") I think they were more concerned that you weren't understanding how it looked from your Player's perspective.

To be honest, it is more common to find people on the Internet seeking justification for their opinions rather than ways to actually address problems. I'm glad to see that you've reached some sort of understanding though, and I hope you took all of this as a valuable learning experience :smallsmile:

Talakeal
2011-04-06, 04:07 PM
Normally I see a sandbox game as something like the Elder Scrolls or Fallout games. There is a loose overall plot, some events are time sensitive, and some encounters will find you, but generally the settings exist on their own moving along, and will only react to the players if acted upon first.

This was my initial plan for the campaign. My players actually seemed to be getting bored of the sandbox setting and seemed to be frustrated looking for stuff to do, so I was actually trying to consolidate the sandbox into a more standard plot when these events occurred.

Now that I think about it, maybe the problem was mixed signals. Maybe they thought it was a "wide open sandbox" rather than a traditional closed sandbox, and they were trying to make the best of it, and when I interfered they god mad at me for hypocrisy.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-04-06, 04:17 PM
Oracle, a bit of clarification; are you saying my campaign was more "wide open" than my player's wanted, or not "wide open" enough?
What I'm saying is that your game wasn't what it appeared to be to them.

The game you set up - publicly - appears to be a Wide Open Sandbox. You placed them in a town, and told them to set up a cult somehow. They had a basic plot and a city to explore.

In truth, you placed the PCs in a city to discover the Secret Plot of the Church and the Necromancer, so that at the end of the day they would face them down in a final showdown. This is no Sandbox; this is a basic adventure plot - that is to say, it has rails. Video games, by necessity, generally have these sorts of plots but that's OK - we understand that the medium does not allow for total freedom. Pen & Paper games can be more than that and be true Wide Open Sandboxes.

In any case, the true error was not paying attention to what your Players wanted to do. When they ignored all your hooks you should have taken it as a hint that they were interested in doing something else and adapted the game to suit. Instead, you brought the Secret Plot crashing down on their heads in the final act of "their" game. A rude awakening indeed.


This was my initial plan for the campaign. My players actually seemed to be getting bored of the sandbox setting and seemed to be frustrated looking for stuff to do, so I was actually trying to consolidate the sandbox into a more standard plot when these events occurred.
Not all Players like sandboxes - to be sure - but the way to fix this isn't with Secret Plots; particularly when the Players are finally having fun doing their own thing. You ostensibly did the right thing here: you gave your Players a somewhat limited sandbox to play in (one town) and a basic direction to pursue (build a cult). Sometimes that's all a "bored" group of Players need to to get interested in a sandbox and start making their own plot.

To be honest, Sandboxes are the hardest games to run. My first Sandbox - which I ran after decades of DMing more traditional games - ended in flames for the same reason yours did: I didn't listen to my Players. I set up a neat Political Intrigue story and kept poking my Players with hooks; in the end they took an excuse to jump through a one-way portal to an Epic Dungeon (when they were barely Paragon!) because they wanted to loot some dungeons, not arrange a succession :smallfrown:

Jamin
2011-04-06, 04:37 PM
I am not saying you should reveal your plot in advance at all. What I am saying is that revealing something unknown in such a way that it screws over the players' choices is bad DMing in my book. There should be secrets that only the DM knows(clearly) but if you use these to undermine player choice which is what I think your players felt you did(if you meant to or not is not the point). Things can and should go wrong in the most perfect of plans but they should be things that the players could have foreseen happening(or what is the point ). What I am saying is that to me it felt like you had a grand plot going on that the players had no idea about. This is not a bad thing. It can be a great thing. However the way you revealed it was.

Talakeal
2011-04-06, 04:47 PM
I am not saying you should reveal your plot in advance at all. What I am saying is that revealing something unknown in such a way that it screws over the players' choices is bad DMing in my book. There should be secrets that only the DM knows(clearly) but if you use these to undermine player choice which is what I think your players felt you did(if you meant to or not is not the point). Things can and should go wrong in the most perfect of plans but they should be things that the players could have foreseen happening(or what is the point ). What I am saying is that to me it felt like you had a grand plot going on that the players had no idea about. This is not a bad thing. It can be a great thing. However the way you revealed it was.

Darn you for being reasonable! Everything you just said I can agree with, I wish you had phrased it that way the first time. I didn't feel that it was revealed in a way to screw over the player's plot, I felt it was merely an obstacle in their path, but I do see how they could have seen it that way. Honestly though, it wasn't a grand plot. It was just a (relatively) minor adventure which would have been resolved in a single session if the players hadn't flipped out.

Thorcrest
2011-04-07, 12:50 PM
Frankly, I don't think you did anything wrong. From what I have read here, which, albeit, is just your perspective, it appears that the players were woolheaded fools that focused too much on what they were doing, and not on what was happening.Allow me to explain.


First: We have the old Necromancer, who happens to be in the town. Many people have suggested that he should have made a deliberate attempt to tell the players if they just weren't getting it; that would be illogical. From what you have said, he was turned down by these Elder Evils in favour of the PCs. Knowing this, he would seek to destroy the PCs. He therefore acted properly in all that he did. The players did not. Knowing he was in town, they should have dealt with a known enemy rather than making plans with other agents and then just hope the enemy they know about would disappear or do nothing.

Second: Perhaps they just didn't get the clues, this is always a possibility, but before they play out a plan with consequences for the WHOLE CITY, when something strange is happening in the city repeatedly for some time, they should not ignore it, or at least halt their plans to see what the hell it is.

Third: Their plan is rather foolish... to assume pitting people against eachother would end everyone is irrational beyond all belief. Beyond the flaws you had mentionned, the failed roll and what not, one side would have emerged victorious and the other side given into submission before everything was destroyed and everyone dead.

Fourth: The Church knowingly wanted to be rid of all Evil in the City. From your description of the ritual, it appears that they did not mean to change allignment, but to pacify people into working together and being peaceful, maintaining any allignment. I would say some form of mass charm or some such. Knowing they actively sought the removal of Evil through Peace, as they had informants to tell them, they should have acted on the church and known that they would definitely try to stop riots at the very least.

Your players appear to be stubborn mules that seem to come up with one plan and then assume it will work, which I find odd if the one has a Killer DM mentality. They then stick with that plan, and do not act on any information of other events going on in the city which, based on this type of plan, should be important regardless.

Now, the issue of the rushed ritual working that way is entirely up to your magic system, which I am not familiar with, but if all players knew that that was possible given the rules, then it seems perfectly valid. Being told that the caster would be drained is not force railroading, it is a statement of the rules as they are understood by the people in the town.

As to the issue of this being just a sandbox... a sandbox can have movers and shakers beyond the players, as I understand it, and these people will try to enable their plans, even if it opposes the players or else you get a video game where only the player ever does anything and there is no sense of urgency as no one can act. This makes it clear that any events put in motion in the town before they arrived will occur, unless dealt with by the players, which they did not even attempt to do.

In my opinion you are in the right here, and I would have played the same way... now, as a player, assuming I did the exact same thing as they, which would not have been my plan, but that is not important, I would be upset that my plan has failed, but it is only the focus of two, maybe three sessions, that is not nearly long enough to quit a game over, especially if they stil had options. As I understand it, the town was merely passified, which means they simply had to remove the competition, i.e. the necromancer, and then do what they wished, and this would have been reasonable to me. (As a note, I have some anger issues and like to yell and curse over things, but it usually is based on bad dice rolls... I swear, those dice are Evil! :smalltongue:)

TL;DR, you were in the right, they made the error of assuming the world was static.

Talakeal
2011-04-07, 01:48 PM
I want to explain the nature of the ritual:

In my campaign setting magic is linked to the caster's feelings, each school to a different emotions. Anger is evocation, and Hatred is necromancy. The necromancers ritual was designed to steal the anger and hatred from the subject, augmenting his caster level in those two schools and leaving the subject unable to feel those emotions, and as a result will be unlikely to commit evil or violent acts. Essentially it is a controlled lobotomy.

In my campaign I use a spell points system, and, to limit magic, I use a roll to cast system. For high level effects, which are mostly plot devices, I use a system similar to, but not identical to, the epic level spells in the ELH and the ritual variant in UA.

The necromancer had already completed the ritual, and had already testing it. They were preparing to perform the ritual a few days later, on the full moon (which would have slightly lowered the spell point cost), but instead chose to perform the ritual early to calm the riot. As the ritual had already been researched and tested, and the acolytes trained, the only difference in doing it early was that he had fewer spell points left afterwards and was thus in a weakened state (which I thought would be a nice little bonus for the player's setting up the riot, but they didn't see it that way).

Thorcrest
2011-04-07, 01:52 PM
Knowing this about your magic system, I feel that my above point entirely stands. Thanks for clearing up how it worked, since many people seem to have made quite a fuss over the ritual.