Game Time for Plots

[Zarrgon]

This comes up every couple of games or so, thought I'd see what others think.

The players sit down for the game, that they know nothing about. That is the GM has not taken the hour to go through with each player about ''how they would like to play the game''. Each player has made a character, but has said very little about the game other then ''I want to have fun''.

So the GM has a simple adventure lined up to fill the five hours of gaming. For example: A thief has stolen an important item and the players need to find the person and retrieve the item.

So the game starts and the players get the background and that ''the most likely thief, Dorn, is often found at the Low Tavern.'' The GM has a couple of set encounters, random encounters and such to fill up the five hours of gaming. In other words the adventure is planned to take more then ten minutes.

But then enter the players. They head right to the Low Tavern and expect to find Dorn just sitting right there waiting for them. And should Dorn not be in the tavern, the game just fizzles to a stop. The players will complain that ''they have no way to find Dorn'' and that they ''can't play''. Somehow, they just can't grasp the concept that they could say ''search the town'' or ''talk to NPC's'' to try and find Dorn, unless the GM out right tells them.

So why do players even think that the ''problem/mystery'' of an adventure should be solved in like ten minutes? If things worked out the way the players expected, what exactly did they figure they would do for the next four and a half hours?

[W3bDragon]

Thankfully I've not run into this problem myself. There are times when my players seem stuck on what to do next, but when I take 10 minutes or so and let them sound out what the story has been like so far, they eventually get it and start doing something, not always the right thing, but something.

As for your specific problem, maybe try to define the adventure a bit more before they play, so they know what to expect. Instead of saying its "a simple adventure", you could say its "an adventure about tracking someone down." That way they know what skills to start using, things like Gather Information and Track perhaps.

If you expand on it, saying its "an adventure about tracking someone down in his own town where people will be helping him more than you," then they might start preparing stuff like Detect Thoughts/Lie and start looking for opportunities to use them.

Finally, if they're really hopeless, then you can define it as "Its an adventure about tracking down a cowardly, slippery thief in his own town where people will be helping him more than you." That way you drive home the point that fighting him isn't really the challenge, finding him is.

The idea is to pitch the adventure to them in a way that explains that there is some leg work to do before getting to the BBEG or find the Macguffin.

Oh and good luck with those players, I'm sure it would drive me crazy dealing with things like that.

[ArcturusV]

That's weird. And not really my experience, EXCEPT when I deal with someone who wants to get into Tabletop Roleplaying, and their own real experience with the concepts of RPGs is from Video Games. Then that sort of thing makes sense. Because most video games just blatantly throw things at you. They tell you explicitly where to go. When you get there something there blatantly tells you what to do next, etc. You're lead around like the guy writing the plot has hooked your nose and is tugging constantly.

One of the things I found useful to break that "there's nothing to do, it's impossible" thing is to point out to players a few simple things they may not be aware of. Even if it is generally a No-No to show your DM notes to players, I will to make a point. And this is usually my "Living Setting" sort of notes. Things like random rumors and lore you can find around town is the usual example I use. I show them it, not let them study it, but just see that it exists. Let them know this suggests the setting is a living place. That there is always something going on, the player's only have to step out and try to get involved in it. They have to feed me some input. Say they are going to a place to talk to guys for a few hours, get some gossip and rumors. Shake down a pickpocket they find on the street for information, talk to the local Law and see if they can tell you anything about the criminal, etc. I always try to make sure I can give them several suggestions that would fit a wide range of characters. So that what they do is less "The DM told us to..." and more "... which of these options best fits the character/story I want to use?"

[Rhynn]

Lazy players are lazy. That's not any kind of systematic problem, you've just got defective players. You can train them, but overt/direct training rarely works. You need more subtle/indirect training, which usually means encouraging/rewarding desired behavior while making it pretty clear what that behavior is.

I prefer to throw less "sequences of encounters" and more "environments and circumstances" at the PCs. If they're that unfocused and unmotivated, a good one is the traditional one: a dungeon. Create a small dungeon to start with, maybe 20-40 rooms (that figure includes monsters in 25-33%, treasure in 25-33%, some traps and interesting features, no strict overlap; if you want it tighter, use less rooms), 1-2 levels, with an option to add levels. "Explore dungeon for treasure" is a simple, easy concept. Putting it within a day's travel, or even right under, your city/town is a good idea.

Then, put in hooks to other stories in the dungeon. The thieves' guild uses it to hide loot or passes through it to some sub-level they use as their base. Cults gather there for vile worship. Maybe the PCs overhear a plot being plotted against someone in the town/city. They rescue someone, who might have information about a larger threat. Things that start in a classic dungeon can end up going anywhere, and when they run out or the PCs get stuck or plain bored, they can come back to the dungeon.

If you give your dungeon its own internal mysteries, possibly with ties to the outside world, and make it both an "ecology" (or society) of its own, and integrate it into the broader world with activities (other adventurers visit it; evil beings pass through it or seek something in it; etc.), the dungeon becomes vibrant, interesting, and can serve as a centerpiece of a years-long campaign. That's what Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and Forgotten Realms with its Undermountain started out as.

[GnomeFighter]

I guess they expected to find Dorn and him not be the right person, or some such.

What I would do in that case is have the barman over hear this (Even if it is OOC) and say something like "I hear your looking for Dorn"... "Yes, he drinks here, but I haven't seen him for days. I suggest you search ***Somewhere***" or some such. Even if the barman just says "You look like your looking for someone. Can I help". Sometimes players need a shove in the right direction.

[NichG]

The thing that tends to do this is absolute dead ends more than just 'lack of immediate success'. Think about a TV show. Generally they won't show something that is a complete dead end. Instead either by eliminating a possibility it reveals something about the mystery, or somehow there's a linear trail to be followed.

In other words, if its just 'the thief isn't and never was here - try something else' then the players will get discouraged. If on the other hand there is, as was suggested by an above poster, information to be gained from e.g. the bartender or whomever, then that creates the feeling that progress is actually being made. The problem of course is that to some agree this is like a text adventure with 'guess the verb' issues - if the players don't think of 'how to find the next step' then they'll just get stuck. There's no moving past it if the table discusses it and no one has any ideas. Contrast this with a combat or other kind of scenario, where if the players screw up then there are immediate consequences (hitpoint loss, death), but the game moves on.

So an investigative game like that can benefit a lot from a timeline. Basically, bad things happen the longer the mystery goes unsolved, but each bad thing injects many more clues into the scenario and can get the players back on track (or at least dealing with a different 'scene'). The problem _there_ is if the players feel 'there must be something here, we're just too dumb to find it!' then they'll get frustrated and hold up the advancing of the time line up to the point where new clues show up. To avoid this I'd suggest certain DMing techniques. Ask each player in a row what they do or what they look for. Go around once, let them talk for no more than 10 minutes, go around again, etc. If you go around and no one has a productive action or feels like trying anything (e.g. if they're stuck) just say "you spend the rest of the night working on the mystery, but discover nothing" and advance the timeline to the next event by hand.
narrate the passing of time

[Synovia]

This comes up every couple of games or so, thought I'd see what others think.

The players sit down for the game, that they know nothing about. That is the GM has not taken the hour to go through with each player about ''how they would like to play the game''. Each player has made a character, but has said very little about the game other then ''I want to have fun''.

So the GM has a simple adventure lined up to fill the five hours of gaming. For example: A thief has stolen an important item and the players need to find the person and retrieve the item.

So the game starts and the players get the background and that ''the most likely thief, Dorn, is often found at the Low Tavern.'' The GM has a couple of set encounters, random encounters and such to fill up the five hours of gaming. In other words the adventure is planned to take more then ten minutes.

But then enter the players. They head right to the Low Tavern and expect to find Dorn just sitting right there waiting for them. And should Dorn not be in the tavern, the game just fizzles to a stop. The players will complain that ''they have no way to find Dorn'' and that they ''can't play''. Somehow, they just can't grasp the concept that they could say ''search the town'' or ''talk to NPC's'' to try and find Dorn, unless the GM out right tells them.

So why do players even think that the ''problem/mystery'' of an adventure should be solved in like ten minutes? If things worked out the way the players expected, what exactly did they figure they would do for the next four and a half hours?

You need to do some scene framing. Prompt the PCs.

Here's an example: Have a waitress/wench/whatever come up to the PCs and ask them what they're doing in town.

Remember, the PCs only have the info that you give them. If you don't tell them there's a bar wench, there probably isn't one. If you don't tell them that there's a shady character in the back corner who might know about thieves, there isn't one. If you don't tell them, it doesn't exist.

[ArcturusV]

Though the flip side to Synovia's point is that experienced (Or naturally decent) players will go out of their way to add those details in. You'll have things like the Thief character saying, "Oh yeah, I used to do jobs in this city a few years back with a crew out of the local guild. I bet a couple of them are still around so I wanna go look for Shady McGee and ask him what's going on", or the guy who's the party Face will go and say that he's trying to strike up conversation with some of the more liquid lubricated tongues or exasperated servers who might respond well to a friendly face, etc. They don't necessarily have to be prompted. But some groups do.

Once you get players in the mindset of thinking that way, of using who their character is, and what they do to solve a dead end or create a new path to follow, you generally don't have that issue anymore. The only problem is rewarding players who do think this up. Never say "no" to ideas like that or let them fail. Have them succeed in some fashion. The thief finds Shady McGee, Shady McGee might not know what is going on with his mission, it's not his area of expertise, but he can point them towards who can for a bribe, or a favor, etc.

[mjlush]

This comes up every couple of games or so, thought I'd see what others think.

The players sit down for the game, that they know nothing about. That is the GM has not taken the hour to go through with each player about ''how they would like to play the game''. Each player has made a character, but has said very little about the game other then ''I want to have fun''.

So the GM has a simple adventure lined up to fill the five hours of gaming. For example: A thief has stolen an important item and the players need to find the person and retrieve the item.

So the game starts and the players get the background and that ''the most likely thief, Dorn, is often found at the Low Tavern.'' The GM has a couple of set encounters, random encounters and such to fill up the five hours of gaming. In other words the adventure is planned to take more then ten minutes.


This could be a case of players second guessing the GM too much... I'll wildly guess that there 1st level D&D. I could see the thought processes go something like

"OK I know nothing about this city so I assume that I'm new here ... Right a tavern I'm a newcomer, how can I get any of these crusty old coves to tell me anything? Well a place like this I'm not likely to get the time of day.. ask about a regular like Dorn there more likely to tip him off than give me anything useful... Dorn is probably a member of the Thieves Guild so I may just wake up dead... What else can I do? Well I could say something like 'I search the city' but the GM is just going to say how are you going to do that? I've got nowt in investigation skills I thought we were going to do adventuring "

[Synovia]

Though the flip side to Synovia's point is that experienced (Or naturally decent) players will go out of their way to add those details in. You'll have things like the Thief character saying, "Oh yeah, I used to do jobs in this city a few years back with a crew out of the local guild. I bet a couple of them are still around so I wanna go look for Shady McGee and ask him what's going on", or the guy who's the party Face will go and say that he's trying to strike up conversation with some of the more liquid lubricated tongues or exasperated servers who might respond well to a friendly face, etc. They don't necessarily have to be prompted. But some groups do.

More experienced roleplayers, yeah, but this is the sort of thing that D&D as a game really doesn't encourage. Most players (and most DMs) get into the "DM makes the world, the players just live in it" mindset and get beat down by DMs so many times that they don't think they can just make things up in the world, they think thats the DM's job.

Rather than "Theify McTalky knows Shady McGee, hes gonna go find him" you get "Does my character know anyone around here?"

[Rhynn]

Rather than "Theify McTalky knows Shady McGee, hes gonna go find him" you get "Does my character know anyone around here?"

That's just a good DM away from awesomeness. "Yeah, you know [random name]. Tell me about him and how you know him."

[Synovia]

That's just a good DM away from awesomeness. "Yeah, you know [random name]. Tell me about him and how you know him."

Oh, I agree. But having to constantly ask the DM about scene details or having to be fed scene details by the DM breaks players out of the constructive mindset.

They stop thinking "what could be here" and starting thinking "what am I being told is here"

[mjlush]

That's just a good DM away from awesomeness. "Yeah, you know [random name]. Tell me about him and how you know him."

This is also a few steps from game hell where some players narrate their way to success (been there, not pretty to watch)

One way to encourage player created content is to charge for it! (spend a character point/XP) and you can add a fact to the game. That way it becomes a right, not a privilege.