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Altair_the_Vexed
2021-03-31, 03:20 PM
What do you do when your players are committed to their playing characters (good!), but so much so that they avoid conflict and shy away from drama and action (argh!)?

Like, we've all been playing for a long time, characters are getting to mid-level awesomeness. The GM puts a bunch of big shiny plot hooks out, baited with what they think are interesting and exciting dramatic stories - and the players go into hiding and avoid the bait and hooks earnestly.
You start a bar-room brawl, and the party all back off and leave.
You confront the party with a parallel universe alternate reality where they are mistaken for their own evil twins, and they put all their efforts into hiding and avoiding the conflict.

... Or whatever - you know: they avoid excitement, adventure, and the cool things you've thought of to entertain them and yourself.

Any tips?

(BTW I'm not looking for specific solutions to a particular problem here, just general insights into how other gamers have dealt with the same.)

gijoemike
2021-03-31, 03:29 PM
Have those various plots play out. And make it obvious that the PCs could have discovered the cult much earlier when they were less powerful, stopped the thief, prevented the murder of a related npc, revealed the spy, etc. Hurt the PC's allies, base, town in some why. It may just be economic, it may be loss of limbs, or death to multiple important npcs.

Have terrible things happen. Make it obvious the PCs could have delayed or stopped it. Then present new plot hooks. Hindsight and bad lessons are an excellent teacher.

BRC
2021-03-31, 04:03 PM
So, a lot of what this comes down to is kind of a group desire to make the "Correct" play, plus the natural roleplay inclination to do what a reasonable person would do, which is often try to keep themselves and their friends safe.

Part of the key is to make sure you understand the PC's Goals, and build your plot hooks around those goals. Don't just present "here is an interesting, Dangerous thing!" to the PC's and expect them to jump on it because it's interesting and dangerous. Start with "What are they trying to do", and then make doing that thing exciting and fun.

The Danger isn't the bait, it's the Hook. The Bait is whatever goal the PC's are already pursing. Absent a solid reason to engage with something, people are going to default to hiding.


This is especially the case in a group game, because nobody wants to be the one person to ruin the game for everybody else.

If a barroom brawl starts, and one PC joins in, all the PCs will feel obligated to join in to help their friend, whether or not they wanted to do so. At the very least, the game will drag to a crawl while the combat resolves. Even if every player kind of wants to jump in, they might be unwilling to make that decision for the rest of the table.

While the PLAYERS might be here to see drama and action, they're playing characters, who are often trying to achieve their goals and keep themselves safe. Unless the PC's are explicitly adrenaline junkies,

Bugbear
2021-03-31, 04:56 PM
This is a fairly common problem. Basically happens when the DM is running a game different then what the players like or want.

In most cases the players will say so, but you don't mention that...so maybe they have said nothing.

If the players really want to play the "hide game", they need to find a DM that wants to play that same game. If that is not you, then you need to have a talk.

Telok
2021-03-31, 05:15 PM
Sorry, can't help you. My players always bite on hooks baited with bigger guns, better armor, or treasure piles. Their problem is more of a continual series of "Well we can never go back there again. What's the next city / country / planet / solar system on the list?

Quertus
2021-03-31, 05:36 PM
This is… complicated.

Most of the OP, I look at, and respond with, "they're role-playing? That's awesome!"

There is one exception, though: "The GM puts a bunch of big shiny plot hooks out, baited with what they think are interesting and exciting dramatic stories - and the players go into hiding and avoid the bait and hooks earnestly."

At this point, you (probably) don't have a game. Even if you do, it's clear that a) your effort was wasted; and b) your players / their charters have different ideas about the game than you do. It doesn't matter how good a story could be if nobody wants to play it.

Now, let's be honest: a lot of the time, "what makes for a good game" and "what a remotely sane person would do" don't match up very well. "Being a D&D Adventurer" is generally on that list; "continuing to be a D&D Adventurer after you've earned enough to retire" definitely qualifies.

Some characters - like Bilbo - are a little more sane than others. They need a bit more of a push out the door. Which is just a special case of the general, "the adventurers hooks and rewards need to match the PCs".

So, if you don't know how to make adventures that hook the PCs, talk to the players. Explain the hooks you had set up, find out why they didn't bite, and what kind of hooks they *would* bite.

Maybe the hooks weren't right for the PCs. Maybe the players didn't notice them. Maybe they were metagaming, and thought that they were *supposed* to ignore those hooks. Maybe they were looking for a completely different type of game.

Maybe maybe maybe. Easy way to find out? Talk to your players.

Lacco
2021-04-01, 02:22 AM
Had this happen to my group twice (noticeably):
1st was my "core" group. The game was Riddle of Steel - which means high lethality of combat, with good combination of system mastery and lots of options. City campaign, the players rolled a pair of assassins - and they played rather stealthy. At certain point, a full-fledged mob/assassin war started.

And I had this vision for a game session, where they run through the city, saving citizens, helping out their compatriots in combat, had various groups prepared.

They ran around the roofs, avoided all combat with stealth and cunning. They basically speedran the whole session, jumping right into final boss.

Interestingly, the original idea was to tire them out, spread them out a bit thin - this way the final battle was a rightful curbstomp. The boss stood no chance.

They enjoyed it immensely, especially after I have shown them what they avoided. They enjoyed it because that's the way they wanted to play.



2nd was a one-shot with a friend-of-a-friend group. I was asked to GM by one of the players. She requested an epic game - no "rags to riches", no "you start here and become epic heroes after some time", but "you are legends and you'll face legendary threats".

Only two players were able to handle the kind of game - because the others were too afraid their characters couldn't manage the threats (including the one who requested the game). They spent most of the time devising plans similar to those level 1 characters devise when facing superior foes, while they could plow right through them without any issues.

After the session, I took time to find out what happened. They couldn't break out of their usual mindset and thought the enemies were level-scaled. Which they were not - there were few actual threats, but they were properly signalled.

The two that immensely enjoyed the game were a total newb (a girlfriend of one of the players) who mainly used the reputation of her character for intimidation tactics and her crazy sneaking skills to basically disappear any time she wanted batman-style, and a guy who discussed their character with me a lot - a priest of ancient, lost race, wielding an artifact of power and capable of actual miracles. He went all-in and was the one who moved the story forward.

So the issues were twofold: failure in communication (both sides) and failure to recognize the power level (more on my side).



Now for the "successful" one: the core croup's original characters were highly compatible with the style of play I wanted to do. They were able to avoid some threats, but they always did it knowingly and enjoyed the actual game of cat & mouse (e.g. noticing patterns in game to see an ambush was coming => they flip the ambush and destroy the opponent) and sometimes walked in to the trap knowingly (the fact that party leaders played a proud barbarian and overconfident fencer helped a lot).

We usually held a feedback talks after each session, with them telling me what they enjoyed/missed and I informed them about some of the missed content I prepared - we also talked a lot about expectations, so I knew what was the game they wanted to play and they knew what I could deliver/wanted to GM.

In some cases, I had to resort to some not so popular GM tactics:
- OOC asking one of the players to hold the idiot ball for a moment to allow for epic content later (requires immense amount of player/GM trust)
- handing out bennies for actions that were more in line with the genre/story/character (RoS has this baked into rules, so it's actually a valid game mechanic to provide motivation; e.g. if the overconfident fencer just accepts the duel instead of trying to avoid it)
- just explaining what they were going to miss (minor spoiler alert) and discussing why their characters did what they did (I don't mind certain level of metagame, but prefer if they work within their character).

Once I was asked for some kind of tense, dread-filled dungeon. I presented one - and when I told them they feel like something inside does not want them to enter, they decided to turn their backs and leave. I warned them I had only the dungeon prepared and would have to wing the rest of the session. They did not mind - they were not ready for the dread and even in-character, their explanation matched their characters. So I went with it.

They retreated, swore to never talk about it ever and went to nearest town, I took some random encounters out of my unused preparations and we had lots of fun that evening.

Sneak Dog
2021-04-01, 07:15 AM
Had this happen to my group twice (noticeably):


Excellent post.

As player I've encountered this when there was a perceived discrepancy of risk/reward. Big risk, low reward. Heck, if the risk is that big, why would we, as random chumps, be the ones to solve it? Why not have those that would actually be affected and have more resources than us go fix it?
Risking one's life is generally no small matter. It's a tricky thing to balance.

Alternatively, we, as chosen ones, aren't equipped to handle it. lacco36's post has this covered in the second example.

Segev
2021-04-01, 08:54 AM
I think one of the keys is to make the consequences for withdrawing obvious and high. As has been mentioned, you need to know what the PCs' goals are, and what they value. What do they want to accomplish, and what do they want to protect?

Even if the only thing they care to protect is "themselves," you can demonstrate to them that their lives get harder to protect as they cede ground to the threat.

"Make it personal" isn't always good advice, but if the PCs are truly unmotivated by anything external to themselves, you need to make their sense of "self" be on the line. Don't have evil doppelganger twins be a distant threat: they're actively seeking to replace the heroes' lives. If that isn't enough, the doppelganger twins need to steal crucial pieces of gear from the PCs to achieve their goals. Whatever of those attempts succeed will motivate a lot of players and their PCs to go after the bad guys to get their stuff back.

When they back off from a barroom brawl, have rumors spread that they're cowards and have toughs look for excuses to intimidate them. It's IC for the thugs: they feel like big and powerful people by making others back down before them. And the PCs are "safe marks" for this, due to their rumored cowardice.

If Eragon had not decided rescuing the elf-girl and avenging his father were important to him, he could have taken his dragon into hiding and gone on the run from Galbatorix...and the plot still would have had him chased down by the bad guys. Things he values would be taken from him and he would be driven from hiding place to hiding place, because that's what the bad guys do.

Even if Aladdin hadn't crushed on Jasmine at first sight and gotten involved with rescuing her, Jafar's spell would have divined him to be "the diamond in the rough" and he would've sent the guards to capture him anyway.

If Starlord stopped his various jobs and grifts and explorations, and played it safe by trying to hide out on an empty planetoid, he'd eventually starve, freeze, or suffocate to death. He has to make a living somehow. And keep his ship running. Given GotG2, even if he'd retired to Earth and taken a very safe job running a gas station convenience store, and even if he'd just played it safe with all the threats that came to Earth and made sure his ship was never found, he'd have had his Dad show up to drag him to adventure.

In short, I think you're looking for the trope termed, "The Call Knows Where You Live. (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive)"

kyoryu
2021-04-01, 10:39 AM
This is why I don't like "plot hooks".

I define plot hook as something that looks innocuous or interesting, but, once bitten, will drag the players off in a given direction. Cagey players learn to distrust these things.

Also, why would these players get involved in a tavern brawl? What gain could they get? It's all downside, so of course they're going to dodge that.

The key is to figure out what the players/characters actually care about and then either give them that, if it's a thing they wanna do, or can impact it positively or negatively if it's a thing in the world. Preferably in a way that can't really be ignored.

Sneak Dog
2021-04-01, 11:08 AM
I think one of the keys is to make the consequences for withdrawing obvious and high. As has been mentioned, you need to know what the PCs' goals are, and what they value. What do they want to accomplish, and what do they want to protect?

I don't like it as a default solution yet to this problem. It works wonders for setting the stakes, but does it motivate the PC's to actually answer the call? The players? Does it solve the underlying issue the OP is having?

Because just thugs and doppelgangers wrecking stuff you're trying to protect isn't very motivating to all players. To me that sounds like just a pain to deal with, lets get it over with so we might actually go do something fun and interesting.

As for PC's, it'd motivate them to deal with the punishment. They think we're easy marks because we didn't care about the barfight? Lets just arbitrarily maim the next thug bothering us, that's the punishment dealt with and the call doesn't matter. Oh, there's now a never-ending horde of thugs being sent at us by Badguy to steal this worthless MacGuffin keepsake and they're threatening to kill us over it? Just throw the Macguffin in a nearby volcano.

I'd suggest a reward. Show them a golden +4 flaming rust-immune flame-resistant anti-stick magical spatula, for the victor of the zero-to-meal cook competition. See what happens, don't force it. More importantly, talk to the players and see what they think the reason why they ignore the plot hooks is.

Segev
2021-04-01, 11:32 AM
I don't like it as a default solution yet to this problem. It works wonders for setting the stakes, but does it motivate the PC's to actually answer the call? The players? Does it solve the underlying issue the OP is having?

Because just thugs and doppelgangers wrecking stuff you're trying to protect isn't very motivating to all players. To me that sounds like just a pain to deal with, lets get it over with so we might actually go do something fun and interesting.

As for PC's, it'd motivate them to deal with the punishment. They think we're easy marks because we didn't care about the barfight? Lets just arbitrarily maim the next thug bothering us, that's the punishment dealt with and the call doesn't matter. Oh, there's now a never-ending horde of thugs being sent at us by Badguy to steal this worthless MacGuffin keepsake and they're threatening to kill us over it? Just throw the Macguffin in a nearby volcano.

I'd suggest a reward. Show them a golden +4 flaming rust-immune flame-resistant anti-stick magical spatula, for the victor of the zero-to-meal cook competition. See what happens, don't force it. More importantly, talk to the players and see what they think the reason why they ignore the plot hooks is.

Perhaps my examples were poor, because you seem to have missed my point.

The point was not "punishment." The point was that the characters' choices should always have consequences. Even when they choose to disengage or do nothing. There's a fine line to tread, here: you don't want to railroad them. (If you do want to railroad them, then you should just come out and tell them that the premise of the game requires their PCs to be the kind of people who'd go do XYZ to get things started.) But some plots are aggressive. They will be doing things even if the PCs aren't responding. Make the things they're doing matter to the PCs.

A reward is a way to get people onto something, but with sufficiently paranoid players/PCs, the offered reward will seem like a trick and they'll avoid that, too.

Part of it needs some OOC discussion, as others have noted. The other part is to make sure that the Call to Adventure is going to reach them. Know their goals, and give incentives to fulfil them coupled with threats that may hamper them that need dealing with. If they don't deal with the threats, then their goals get hampered. If they don't take opportunities, they don't progress towards their goals.

Frogreaver
2021-04-01, 11:47 AM
What do you do when your players are committed to their playing characters (good!), but so much so that they avoid conflict and shy away from drama and action (argh!)?

Like, we've all been playing for a long time, characters are getting to mid-level awesomeness. The GM puts a bunch of big shiny plot hooks out, baited with what they think are interesting and exciting dramatic stories - and the players go into hiding and avoid the bait and hooks earnestly.
You start a bar-room brawl, and the party all back off and leave.
You confront the party with a parallel universe alternate reality where they are mistaken for their own evil twins, and they put all their efforts into hiding and avoiding the conflict.

... Or whatever - you know: they avoid excitement, adventure, and the cool things you've thought of to entertain them and yourself.

Any tips?

(BTW I'm not looking for specific solutions to a particular problem here, just general insights into how other gamers have dealt with the same.)

In no particular order:

Bring the adventure to them.
Ask the players why they aren’t engaging with the plot hooks.
Ask the players if they are having fun.

Also out of curiosity what are the characters goals?

Sneak Dog
2021-04-01, 12:58 PM
Perhaps my examples were poor, because you seem to have missed my point.

The point was not "punishment." The point was that the characters' choices should always have consequences. Even when they choose to disengage or do nothing. There's a fine line to tread, here: you don't want to railroad them. (If you do want to railroad them, then you should just come out and tell them that the premise of the game requires their PCs to be the kind of people who'd go do XYZ to get things started.) But some plots are aggressive. They will be doing things even if the PCs aren't responding. Make the things they're doing matter to the PCs.

A reward is a way to get people onto something, but with sufficiently paranoid players/PCs, the offered reward will seem like a trick and they'll avoid that, too.

Part of it needs some OOC discussion, as others have noted. The other part is to make sure that the Call to Adventure is going to reach them. Know their goals, and give incentives to fulfil them coupled with threats that may hamper them that need dealing with. If they don't deal with the threats, then their goals get hampered. If they don't take opportunities, they don't progress towards their goals.

Negative consequences for your actions are a form of punishment. The action here being deciding to not engage with/start the offered quest. The punishment being the negative consequences for your action as figured out by the GM, who runs the entire world save for the PC's.
This post doesn't really change how I see your previous post? Sorry. We're probably miscommunicating somewhere.

Mind, I am all for negative consequences and punishment in general. But for this issue I don't think it's the right starting point. I don't think it's a good way for the call to adventure to reach them because I'm not sure the OP knows the current goals to provide the rewards. Hence a chat with the players, figure stuff like that out. Or dangle some different rewards and see if they bite for any of them.

Quertus
2021-04-01, 01:08 PM
This is why I don't like "plot hooks".

I define plot hook as something that looks innocuous or interesting, but, once bitten, will drag the players off in a given direction. Cagey players learn to distrust these things.

Also, why would these players get involved in a tavern brawl? What gain could they get? It's all downside, so of course they're going to dodge that.

The key is to figure out what the players/characters actually care about and then either give them that, if it's a thing they wanna do, or can impact it positively or negatively if it's a thing in the world. Preferably in a way that can't really be ignored.

Well, I can't say as I like hooks as you define them, either… but, despite the evocative visual, I don't *think* that that's the current common usage of the term.

What do you mean by, "in a way that can't really be ignored"?

Segev
2021-04-01, 01:58 PM
Negative consequences for your actions are a form of punishment. The action here being deciding to not engage with/start the offered quest. The punishment being the negative consequences for your action as figured out by the GM, who runs the entire world save for the PC's.
This post doesn't really change how I see your previous post? Sorry. We're probably miscommunicating somewhere.

Mind, I am all for negative consequences and punishment in general. But for this issue I don't think it's the right starting point. I don't think it's a good way for the call to adventure to reach them because I'm not sure the OP knows the current goals to provide the rewards. Hence a chat with the players, figure stuff like that out. Or dangle some different rewards and see if they bite for any of them.

Fine, but it's not about punishment. It's about the players having the game happen in front of them, and following them to their hiding places. Maybe they back down from a barroom brawl and, as the only people not thrown in prison for it that night, the guards ask them for their version of what happened. Whatever was supposed to trigger because of getting involved in the brawl might trigger here, instead.

kyoryu
2021-04-01, 02:02 PM
Well, I can't say as I like hooks as you define them, either… but, despite the evocative visual, I don't *think* that that's the current common usage of the term.

What do you mean by, "in a way that can't really be ignored"?

Can be ignored: "You're hearing rumors about orcs gathering in numbers on the frontier. Folks on the frontier are worried that they might attack!"
Can't be ignored: "Orcs have gathered and are marching on your town. They'll be here in three days."

"Can't be ignored" just means that, in some way, something is in fairly short order going to happen that the players care about, one way or the other. Like, in this case, they can respond to the orcs in any of a dozen ways, but "do nothing" isn't really an option.

The less tied the players are to the world, the more direct you need to be. As they've been playing a while in your world, the more subtle stuff can work as well or better.

False God
2021-04-01, 02:30 PM
Kinda sounds like the wrong action and the wrong drama for the party.

Their solutions aren't illogical. A bar fight started that did not directly involve them, so they removed themselves from the situation. They found themselves in a parallel universe where their counterparts were evil, so they hid out.

The common thread in both of these situations is that they had nothing to gain and everything to lose. In the former, if they get involved in the fight, they run the gamut from being arrested to being killed, or arrested and then killed, depending on the laws of the land. In the latter they run similar threats by being mistaken for their counterparts, and any redemption they do of their name ultimately stays with the counterpart and has no bearing when the party returns home.

If you want them to get involved, they need to have some kind of reward to balance out the risk. It doesn't always need to be gold or jewels, but your players clearly did a cost-benefit analysis of the situation and found out what I did by even the most casual glance: success is minor to meaningless and risk is high and dangerous.

Or maybe they're just not very "action" oriented. Have you considered more exploration and investigation-based hooks? Murder mysteries? Political intrigue? Ancient artifacts? Lost treasures in distant lands? Plot hooks where violence is more of a last resort, a failure (so to speak) of other angles of success?

I would look back on what your players HAVE hooked on, and give them more of that.

If they just avoid everything, even with fair rewards, don't forget to show them what they missed. Have the local tavern bards singing of the people who did stop the bar fight. Have the townsfolk talking about the heroes who did stop the "evil party". The renown those people gained. The titles they earned. The new quests they're off on now (that are of course, no longer available to the party) because they've proven themselves.

NichG
2021-04-01, 08:18 PM
There's a gaming group composition thing here, which is that it's great to have cautious, thoughtful players but you need at least one person whose immediate reaction when faced with a big red button is the press it, not to talk with the others about what they should do or consider the consequences. I think you want exactly one of these players in any given gaming group. If you don't have someone who is naturally like that, you can discuss with the group having one player be the one to play a character like that in each campaign, the same way you'd discuss how to remedy an unbalanced party composition.

Also, beware the Abilene Paradox. It's not every group, but sometimes you'll have a group that is so conscious of involving each-other or making decisions as a group that people won't bite on personal plot hooks because it might force the other players to be involved in a plot that they're uninterested in - e.g. to get to a mindset where actually doing things feels subtractive like they're stealing time from someone else (even if the alternative is doing nothing), rather than additive where following personal lines creates things for others to become involved in or interested in.

icefractal
2021-04-01, 09:36 PM
This is a situation where you're best off talking to the players OOC, because there are multiple reasons for this behavior that don't all have the same solution.

A) The players want to do it OOC, but they don't see a reason that makes sense IC.
In this case, "there'll be problems if you don't" works fine, as does "there could be rewards if you do".

B) The players don't want to do it.
In this case, causing problems for their inaction can feel more annoying than motivating, and threatening their family/friends as part of that will likely cause their next characters not to have family or friends.

C) The players individually want to do it, but are collectively unsure, as NichG mentions.
While you could solve this IC, simply making people aware of it OOC will work better and easier.

Also, different people enjoy different things, and not everyone likes playing "things are chaotic and you're in trouble!" scenarios. I notice both the ones listed in the OP fall into that category, so if people aren't biting maybe they don't want that type of action.

Tanarii
2021-04-02, 06:08 AM
The Danger isn't the bait, it's the Hook. The Bait is whatever goal the PC's are already pursing. Absent a solid reason to engage with something, people are going to default to hiding.That seems back to front. Or at least, the hook is definitely the PC's solid reason to engage with something, the bait isn't necessarily "Danger". :smallamused:


Perhaps my examples were poor, because you seem to have missed my point.

The point was not "punishment." The point was that the characters' choices should always have consequences. Even when they choose to disengage or do nothing.If you're intentionally targeting the player's soft spots with negative consequences for failing to engage without prior agreement, that stops being consequences and starts becoming punishment.

Which is what 5e Bonds are by the way. It's not as explicit as it should be in the PHB, but they are supposed to be "thing my DM can target to make my character care".


Negative consequences for your actions are a form of punishment.
Nope. Punishment requires intent on the part of an authority inflicting it, and its usually to elicit a change in behavior, although sometimes it's just to cause retributive pain and suffering. Naturally occurring negative consequences for your actions are consequences, not punishment.

However, in this case, explicit targeting by the DM of players or PCs soft spots in an attempt to motivate the players into to action, rapidly becomes intentionally inflicting negative consequences to elicit a change in behavior. Not naturally occurring negative consequences for actions taken.

How can you tell the difference? It's pretty easy in this case. Is the DM intentionally targeting the PCs specifically, and why is the DM having the negative consequences occur? If the answer is "to motivate the players to start engaging" then it's punishment.

kyoryu
2021-04-02, 10:03 AM
So, a lot of what this comes down to is kind of a group desire to make the "Correct" play, plus the natural roleplay inclination to do what a reasonable person would do, which is often try to keep themselves and their friends safe.

Part of the key is to make sure you understand the PC's Goals, and build your plot hooks around those goals. Don't just present "here is an interesting, Dangerous thing!" to the PC's and expect them to jump on it because it's interesting and dangerous. Start with "What are they trying to do", and then make doing that thing exciting and fun.

The Danger isn't the bait, it's the Hook. The Bait is whatever goal the PC's are already pursing. Absent a solid reason to engage with something, people are going to default to hiding.

Right.

People don't engage in dangerous activities unless there's a good reason for them to do so. Expecting them to do so "just because" is going to fail, every time.

Especially when you're going to "reveal" the cool story as a GM, you know how cool it is but the players don't and can't. So all they see is a bar fight, and they have nothing to gain from it, so they avoid the bar fight.

You see: "This bar fight will start off this SUPER COOL STORY with all these COOL THINGS! Why won't the players do the bar fight? Don't they want the SUPER COOL THINGS???"

They see: "This is a bar fight about nothing you care about. If you lose, you get beat up and thrown in jail. If you win, you get not beat up and maybe still thrown in jail. If you get involved in this, the best that you can hope for is to not lose anything. There's no upside."

It's basic empathy - seeing things from the POV of others. In this case, your players.

Grod_The_Giant
2021-04-02, 10:33 AM
A lot of the time when I see this sort of thing it seems to be linked to paranoia-- in one way or another, the players are afraid you'll be the sort of killer GM who delights in screwing them over. When they think that one wrong choice could lead to death, they're going to do their very best to avoid danger, especially if it doesn't seem immediately related to what they see as their current goal. Even if that's just "staying alive."

And it's not necessarily the GM's fault--sometimes it's just a setting thing. I saw a lot more of this sort of behavior when I was running Curse of Strahd than, say, Out of the Abyss, even though I ran both games similarly. Other times its bad experiences with past GMs, or new players who have heard too many stories of Gygaxian GMs and expect that to be how all RPGs work. Hell, sometimes it's a system thing, where high-risk combat mechanics put even experienced players on the defensive.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to how the players feel like they fit into the setting. If NPCs treat them as powerful figures, if they get a steady trickle of easy encounters where they can just show off their big numbers and cool powers, they'll be more confident about kicking down doors and biting at plot hooks. If the setting emphasizes that they're little fish in a vast ocean, and that there are vast, sinister forces at work in the background, they'll be more inclined to put their heads down and over-analyze everything.

Quertus
2021-04-02, 02:40 PM
Their solutions aren't illogical. A bar fight started that did not directly involve them, so they removed themselves from the situation. They found themselves in a parallel universe where their counterparts were evil, so they hid out.

The common thread in both of these situations is that they had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

+1 this.

As cool as it might be for the players, for the PCs, these are "all risk, no reward" scenarios.


you need at least one person whose immediate reaction when faced with a big red button is the press it, not to talk with the others about what they should do or consider the consequences. I think you want exactly one of these players in any given gaming group.

Not only do you really not *need* such a player, I've been in several groups where such a player would get kicked out as disruptive.

So what *do* you need? Hmmm… perhaps for the group's net "push shiny button" index to roughly match the GM's expectations / requirements?

I mean, I've been blessed with groups where, if I throw out a dozen threads, they'll follow 6 of them. All I really need is for them to follow at least 1, -or- make their own thread.


Also, beware the Abilene Paradox. It's not every group, but sometimes you'll have a group that is so conscious of involving each-other or making decisions as a group that people won't bite on personal plot hooks because it might force the other players to be involved in a plot that they're uninterested in - e.g. to get to a mindset where actually doing things feels subtractive like they're stealing time from someone else (even if the alternative is doing nothing), rather than additive where following personal lines creates things for others to become involved in or interested in.

Ouch. Should I ever encounter this, how does one go about fixing it?


If you're intentionally targeting the player's soft spots with negative consequences for failing to engage without prior agreement, that stops being consequences and starts becoming punishment.

Which is what 5e Bonds are by the way. It's not as explicit as it should be in the PHB, but they are supposed to be "thing my DM can target to make my character care".


Nope. Punishment requires intent on the part of an authority inflicting it, and its usually to elicit a change in behavior, although sometimes it's just to cause retributive pain and suffering. Naturally occurring negative consequences for your actions are consequences, not punishment.

However, in this case, explicit targeting by the DM of players or PCs soft spots in an attempt to motivate the players into to action, rapidly becomes intentionally inflicting negative consequences to elicit a change in behavior. Not naturally occurring negative consequences for actions taken.

How can you tell the difference? It's pretty easy in this case. Is the DM intentionally targeting the PCs specifically, and why is the DM having the negative consequences occur? If the answer is "to motivate the players to start engaging" then it's punishment.

I want to explore that more for a moment, because I'm curious.

So, suppose that the GM *is* intentionally targeting Bonds, and the objective *is* (in part) to get the players involved (but also because, while other things are *also* Simulationist logic being targeted, the GM figures that the PCs will notice and care about these things), but the *consequences* aren't *strictly* negative. Is it still punishment?

Man_Over_Game
2021-04-02, 02:50 PM
Players actively pursue "success", even that means having less fun. If someone is playing a video game that's too easy, that player would rather not enjoy their time playing it than they would handicapping themselves (like wearing worse gear) in order to enjoy it more. Winning is more important than fun.

Players then avoid failure because they believe failure results in losing. So the trick is to associate "failure" with "winning".

This shifts with experience, as experienced players stop associating that character's success as their own personal success. A character is temporary; it's the time spent with the players, and how much fun you have doing it, that determines how "successful" it is. But you can't just expect a game to be good after everyone becomes a veteran.


FATE handles this well. Acting out something that's tactically stupid, but realistic for your character, rewards a bonus that you can use for a tactical benefit later. 5e tries this with Inspiration (but it's too vague, temporary, and inconsistent to be used).

There was another system (Can't remember the name) that made it so that those that supported others or leaned on their faults got more experience than those that performed well and hogged the spotlight (creating a negative feedback loop, where the ones doing well need less assistance).

That's it. Reward your players for recklessness and even failure.

strangebloke
2021-04-02, 03:27 PM
Everything can be fixed with a good session zero: If you say "This is going to be a heroic high fantasy thing" then you can rightfully chide your players for being greedy scumbags, because they're not following the agreed-upon premise. Similarly if you say "Swords and Sorcery Sandbox," then you'll know to plan for them doing... whatever they feel like doing.
You should always plan for failure: If its impossible for the heroes to fail, there are no stakes. If its impossible for them to win, they'll hate you. So always plan for both. Maybe if they fail the investigation into the cult, the cult ambushes them with an extra-hard encounter while they're investigating. Maybe if they succeed extra well they find a coded book that informs them of the cult's plans and allows them to set an ambush instead.
Be Very Clear with Your Hooks: If the random shadowy stranger in the bar is the last son of the king and they're supposed to talk to him, make it very very clear that they're supposed to do so, perhaps even offer separate hooks for them to get engaged.

NichG
2021-04-02, 03:27 PM
Not only do you really not *need* such a player, I've been in several groups where such a player would get kicked out as disruptive.

So what *do* you need? Hmmm… perhaps for the group's net "push shiny button" index to roughly match the GM's expectations / requirements?

I mean, I've been blessed with groups where, if I throw out a dozen threads, they'll follow 6 of them. All I really need is for them to follow at least 1, -or- make their own thread.


The shiny button player is like a safety valve for getting stuck, because ultimately you only need one person to start moving for momentum to build.



Ouch. Should I ever encounter this, how does one go about fixing it?


I don't have a great answer for this unfortunately (other than finding a shiny button player to add to the mix...). I've tried discussing the issue with the group directly (but because it's a habit, people found it hard to suppress) things like 'everyone put what you personally want to do next session into a box whenever you come up with an idea, and we'll draw randomly' (sort of worked, but felt forced especially when it revealed that people did have preferences over what NOT to do), using systems that explicitly identify characters as having different personal needs/win conditions (current experiment, seems to be going alright so far actually), asking one player/the group to put forth at least one shiny buttoneer (also have this currently). The game system may make a lot of difference here too - the important thing I think is for lots of decisions to feel personal rather than things the group should have a say in.

One recent issue was that the party had accumulated a fair amount of raw cash for their level ($40kgp around Lv6 or so) but literally no no one took anything out of the party chest to gear themselves for three levels (this is a fairly low-combat campaign and it has a lot of shipboard stuff where they can use the ship's weapons, so the gear absence wasn't so strongly felt). So they ended up having a boss fight at Lv9 using their characters' starter gear, someone dropped in the first round, and that finally inspired a 'okay, let's actually talk about what our gear wishlists are' session.

I've been mostly having cash (well, sellable loot) and crafting component payouts in that campaign since one of the players is building towards a crafting-focused PC (and there's no XP cost for crafting in this system). But I didn't imagine that they'd not actually end up crafting because no one wanted to be the one to ask for fungible resources to be consumed or game time to be spent on that discussion.

Probably means I should have had more gear loot rather than cash loot, to prime the pump and get people thinking about what they could use.

Tanarii
2021-04-02, 06:15 PM
So, suppose that the GM *is* intentionally targeting Bonds, and the objective *is* (in part) to get the players involved (but also because, while other things are *also* Simulationist logic being targeted, the GM figures that the PCs will notice and care about these things), but the *consequences* aren't *strictly* negative. Is it still punishment?Probably not. There are different words for positive incentives.


But compare and contrast to the "lack of a reward is not a punishment" thread in my sig, where many people were incorrectly considering a natural negative consequence without intent to be a punishment. That was my real point. No intent = not a punishment.

Man_Over_Game
2021-04-02, 06:49 PM
Ouch. Should I ever encounter this, how does one go about fixing it?

Bind two character's plots together. Have more than one reason to pursue a plot point.

Maybe you find out that the mysterious entity that destroyed the barbarian's village and the culprit behind the theft of the monk's spirit blade are linked somehow when they find a familiar path of destruction that leads to a vault of magical items that's missing only a single item.

Drascin
2021-04-03, 02:57 AM
I have a question:

What has happened before?

See, a thing I've noticed, is that very often, people running away from plot hooks is a trained reaction. If you try to do things and get your ass smacked down, you will be reluctant to do so again. I've personally had to use actual techniques I learned on my teaching degree on some oldschool gamers to get them to DO things, because years of playing with DMs that punished them for not being prepared for things caused them to approach everything with a degree of caution and paranoia that, plain and simply, made it impossible to play anything resembling a fun game.

So the first thing you need to do, when this happens, is look back on your own campaign from as detached a perspective as possible and ask yourself, "okay, what has been the ratio of positive gain to being screwed over, for taking daring action in my campaign?". Because it's often really easy to fall into "well, it's only logical consequences!", but the thing is, "logical consequences" can take a lot of shapes, and for some reason as GMs we often default to the shapes that more or less end up giving out the message of "it's stupid to do things". And once you give out that message to people, undoing it is going to take literal months of work.

Tanarii
2021-04-03, 09:36 AM
I've personally had to use actual techniques I learned on my teaching degree on some oldschool gamers to get them to DO things, because years of playing with DMs that punished them for not being prepared for things caused them to approach everything with a degree of caution and paranoia that, plain and simply, made it impossible to play anything resembling a fun game.
Since old school gaming required getting loot out of a dungeon with a small amount of killing creatures to gain levels, which mean purposely putting yourself in extreme harms way with sensible precautions to avoid being dead, I'm assuming you don't find the challenge of somehow staying alive despite everything in the rules being stacked against you fun? :smallamused:

Personally I've had to "retrain" any number of "modern" D&D players who have only played with "modern" DMs to understand that a minimal amount of precaution is necessary, because it is in fact possible to die in TTRPGs.

Of course, it'd be easier to just play almost any other TTRPG, because for the most part only modern D&D comes with training wheels. But D&D is the game to play if you want to run games.

---------
(Speaking of which, I think it's high time to coin the Playgrounders-fallacy Fallacy - assuming people assuming D&D is some kind of fallacy when it's the game that most people have to play if they want to play at all.)

kyoryu
2021-04-03, 11:34 AM
FATE handles this well. Acting out something that's tactically stupid, but realistic for your character, rewards a bonus that you can use for a tactical benefit later. 5e tries this with Inspiration (but it's too vague, temporary, and inconsistent to be used).


Another reason this works well with Fate is that the players write these things, and specifically put them out there for these "stupid" decisions (or events).

If your "Trouble" is "my kid sister", you're explicitly telling the GM "yes, I want my kid sister to be a thorn in my side." You can discuss what that means, but you're basically giving the GM a flag that "this is a kind of trouble I'm interested in." If you have a grandma in your backstory but Grammy isn't actually an aspect, then you haven't sent that signal up... at that point she's not necessarily off-limits, but isn't a primary hook the GM is supposed to use.

In general, whether that mechanism or another, figuring out the kinds of things the players want to get involved in is a good idea, and then give that to them. If the players want to be monster hunters ala Supernatural? Give them monstrous mysteries to solve. If they're not getting involved at that point, they're just being rude.

It's kind of what I was alluding to earlier - if the PCs want to save the kingdom, don't give them an old lady's missing cats. That's not what they wanna do, even if you know that the missing cats lead to saving the kingdom. Be up front about the stakes and what's going on with your plots. Don't do things that "lead to" the real problem, because those things are probably less compelling than the actual problem.

Or, have an OOC discussion with your characters and get them to agree to bite your hooks out of trust.

Yora
2021-04-03, 04:41 PM
If players don't want to do adventerous things, ask them what they would want to do instead.

erikun
2021-04-03, 06:39 PM
If players want to avoid the encounter, then perhaps make "avoiding the encounter" the encounter they have to deal with.

When a bar room brawl breaks out, and the PCs start making for the back door, have somebody in the fight yell out, "Hey, get the boys in here!" and some skinny kid rush by them out the door they are headed towards. What's the party going to do? Are they going to ambush the kid and stop them? Are they going to run out the door at full speed, with people outside looking for a fight? Are they going to try to communicate to a bunch of angry folk that they aren't looking for a fight and to just move on by? Are they going to try to hide in a closet? Even if it isn't particularly dangerous - they aren't likely to get into a big fight unless they stand their ground and don't let the group pass - it's still a measure of excitement and a sudden complication thrown into the mix.

When the party is in another dimension and everybody thinks they are evil clones, the party decides to hide out. Make hiding out and staying hidden the goal. There is an active hunt for them, so they need to cover their tracks. They need to find someplace safe, someplace their evil versions aren't likely to check. They need to get supplies without immediately being identified, perhaps by people who they know - but only know their evil versions. Most likely the way home will be in the hands of the evil counterparts - or maybe even the heroes of this dimension - and now the party needs to plan a stealth mission to get access to it. If they way to hide out, then make hiding out the goal, and set challenges towards making it achievable.

Basically, it is the "Yes, but" school of GMing. Allow what they want, but throw a challenge or roadblock that they need to overcome to achieve it. Maybe the party would rather face the original challenge (sounds good!) or maybe they keep trying to think more and more elaborate designs at avoiding conflict until they eventually work their way out of the situation. Either way sounds good, better than just "And then the party just walked away."


Otherwise, other people have already pointed out the difference between what the plot hook looked like to the GM and to the players. It's easy to see why heroes fighting heroes over some multidimensional mixup would be an exciting fight, but it's not easy to see why a group would intentionally want to attract attention and start a big heroes fighting heroes encounter. The GM needs to provide the reason why, in unavoidable terms ("You must confront them to get away" rather than "They are just trying to find and confront you.") if you want the encounter to still happen.

kyoryu
2021-04-04, 11:09 AM
I'm against forcing players into things.

I'm in favor of the game being about things the players are interested in, so they naturally do the stuff in front of them.

A lot of times the key to that is stakes - what do they get if they get involved in this?

Quertus
2021-04-04, 12:47 PM
If players want to avoid the encounter, then perhaps make "avoiding the encounter" the encounter they have to deal with.

When a bar room brawl breaks out, and the PCs start making for the back door, have somebody in the fight yell out, "Hey, get the boys in here!" and some skinny kid rush by them out the door they are headed towards. What's the party going to do? Are they going to ambush the kid and stop them? Are they going to run out the door at full speed, with people outside looking for a fight? Are they going to try to communicate to a bunch of angry folk that they aren't looking for a fight and to just move on by? Are they going to try to hide in a closet? Even if it isn't particularly dangerous - they aren't likely to get into a big fight unless they stand their ground and don't let the group pass - it's still a measure of excitement and a sudden complication thrown into the mix.

When the party is in another dimension and everybody thinks they are evil clones, the party decides to hide out. Make hiding out and staying hidden the goal. There is an active hunt for them, so they need to cover their tracks. They need to find someplace safe, someplace their evil versions aren't likely to check. They need to get supplies without immediately being identified, perhaps by people who they know - but only know their evil versions. Most likely the way home will be in the hands of the evil counterparts - or maybe even the heroes of this dimension - and now the party needs to plan a stealth mission to get access to it. If they way to hide out, then make hiding out the goal, and set challenges towards making it achievable.

Basically, it is the "Yes, but" school of GMing. Allow what they want, but throw a challenge or roadblock that they need to overcome to achieve it. Maybe the party would rather face the original challenge (sounds good!) or maybe they keep trying to think more and more elaborate designs at avoiding conflict until they eventually work their way out of the situation. Either way sounds good, better than just "And then the party just walked away."


Otherwise, other people have already pointed out the difference between what the plot hook looked like to the GM and to the players. It's easy to see why heroes fighting heroes over some multidimensional mixup would be an exciting fight, but it's not easy to see why a group would intentionally want to attract attention and start a big heroes fighting heroes encounter. The GM needs to provide the reason why, in unavoidable terms ("You must confront them to get away" rather than "They are just trying to find and confront you.") if you want the encounter to still happen.

I'm so glad that the "yes, but" line of thought wasn't introduced to me this way - if it had been, I would have rejected it wholesale.

"Sure, you can post to GitP, but because that's too easy to accomplish, you break your hands before making the attempt, and have to press the keys by holding a toothpick between your lips."

I cannot condone this style of response to the players having their characters take a reasonable course of action.

OTOH, if the GM is good at making a game out of what actually logically follows, that can be good. For example, making the game about *how* the PCs exit the fight: Gandhi may meekly bow out, possibly changing their rep, the tenor of the fight, or even the convictions of some of those involved; the Tough may intimidate a path to the door (or, possibly, just to the bar, or to the restroom); the Ninja might disappear in a puff of smoke; the Wizard might turn into a mouse and desperately scamper across the floor to escape; the Rogue might grab the barmaid and head back to her room; Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, might just sit there in a bubble of force, calmly finishing their dinner; Batman Bruce Wayne might buy the place; Princess Jasmine always has the *option* to reveal her true identity, but, until she does, she has to be careful to keep her face concealed; etc. Each of these methods of exiting the fight have a different feel, help characterize the character, should produce different results. Not be overridden by a desire to make the escape an appropriate "yes, but" challenge.

Similarly, there's just so many things the party could do if their evil twins (and the rest of that alternate reality) *aren't* aware of their existence, that it'd be a shame to ruin the possibility of that fun by forcing one particular set of challenges.

While there may be ways to use "yes, but" to produce an engaging, fun game, I don't think that removing the players' agency to choose a reasonable course of action, and have it produce reasonable results is the best way to go about that. Especially when it replaces the opportunity for them to characterize their characters with the characterization of "fate is a *****", and encourages them to have their characters go even deeper down the rabbit hole of paranoia in search of actual "safe" answers.

GloatingSwine
2021-04-05, 01:45 AM
Fine, but it's not about punishment. It's about the players having the game happen in front of them, and following them to their hiding places. Maybe they back down from a barroom brawl and, as the only people not thrown in prison for it that night, the guards ask them for their version of what happened. Whatever was supposed to trigger because of getting involved in the brawl might trigger here, instead.

Whether it's "about" punishment in your mind as the GM or not is irrelevant, because if this sort of thing is happening the GM's mind is already on a different page to the players. Doing things that will open that gap wider is going to be counterproductive whatever you think about it at the time.

As the GM your primary role is to provide stuff to do. If the players are not interested in the stuff you're providing, provide stuff they are interested in or you won't have any players, don't point and go "See! You should have done what I wanted you to, now your puppy's dead!".

Jornophelanthas
2021-04-05, 07:52 AM
Let me tell you a story from the perspective of a group of players who avoided the DM's plot hooks.

There was this one campaign where the DM had us choose at the very start (before character creation) between about 8-10 organizations. Our characters would start out as members of that organization. The options included, among others, a (legal) mercenary guild, an (illegal) assassin's guild, the nation's cabal of wizards, a dragon cult, and two factions in a civil war that we were told was about to start.

We chose a good-aligned semi-religious order dedicated to protecting civilizations from monsters and extraplanar threats. (Semi-religious meant that while the order was run by followers of a specific deity, its members did not have to adhere to that religion as long as they were dedicated to the order's goals.) So we were very motivated to stamp out monstrous evil threats.

However, the DM then proceeded to throw plot hooks at us that just did not match our organization's interest, including:


Godlike extraplanar entities approaching us with pacts to hurt other godlike extraplanar entities;
Petty squabbles between local nobles/dignitaries;
A crime lord requesting us to assassinate an honest businessman
More extraplanar pacts
Both sides in the civil war trying to recruit us to their cause;
Mistreated children requesting assassinations of the adults who wronged them (more than once);
A necromancer and his undead army asking us to overthrow the emperor


There were a few plot hooks that involved monstrous threats to civilization, but about half of these ended up with the monsters trying to strike a deal with us in exchange for them no longer terrorizing the local town.

And then there were the "save the world from an evil extraplanar god trying to invade" crises that we were very motivated to deal with - except that these somehow always needed to be solved by making a pact with a different extraplanar god-like being, and never by opposing any evil god head-on. (This dilemma usually happened at the end of the dungeon crawl where we slaughtered the evil one's minions, of course.) From a certain point onward, we always had two of these crises hanging over our heads, with a new one popping up right when we solved one crisis. I suspect the DM did this because he had finally found a plot hook that worked on us.

---

The main point I'm trying to convey is to ask yourself if your plot hooks match the characters' goals and motivations.

Quertus
2021-04-05, 08:07 AM
I've personally had to use actual techniques I learned on my teaching degree on some oldschool gamers to get them to DO things, because years of playing with DMs that punished them for not being prepared for things caused them to approach everything with a degree of caution and paranoia that, plain and simply, made it impossible to play anything resembling a fun game.


Personally I've had to "retrain" any number of "modern" D&D players who have only played with "modern" DMs to understand that a minimal amount of precaution is necessary, because it is in fact possible to die in TTRPGs.

Hmmm… I'm curious whether y'all have opposing views, or whether you agree, and are coming from opposite directions.

Much like how balance isn't a point, it's a range, so, too, is "expected level of preparedness" a range.

Now, me? I'm oldschool. Oldschool isn't "prepare until you've trivialized the encounter". No, because you haven't read the module / the GM's notes, and don't know *for sure* exactly what the encounter is. No, oldschool is preparing until you can trivialize every possible encounter you can imagine, and having contingency plans for when you misread the encounter, or encumber something new and unexpected.

For me, that *is* the game. "Rolling dice" is what you do when you've failed. It's like one of the mistakes 4e skill challenges made: "rolling dice" isn't "playing the game" - "making meaningful decisions" is.

@Drascin, I suspect that you would say that my style makes it " impossible to play anything resembling a fun game.". But that's what I find fun.

Well, sort of. That's what I find fun, limited to this particular train of thought. But what I most enjoy in an RPG is role-playing. If all my characters were just "the Determinator", that would be samey and boring.

So, most games, I actually play somewhere in the middle, with a character who realizes that the world is dangerous, and wants to survive, but doesn't know all the tricks (like how to become Pun-Pun), and has to scrape by with their limited understanding of the universe.

Typing this, I can't help but feel that, while I was enabled in certain dimensions, the groups I gamed with really held me back in others. "Tippyverse" was never going to happen at any of my tables, nor was "you are my quest" ever going to fly. I realize that my 3e growth really feels stunted.

Most gaming at most tables happens somewhere in the middle ground, away from the extremes at both edges.

Balance to the table (and the module). Match tone to the table (and the… whatever). And now… prepare to the table (and the balance range, and the spotlight, maybe?).

EDIT: because it feels potentially useful for this thread:People who want Combat as Sport want fun fights between two (at least roughly) evenly matched sides. They hate “ganking” in which one side has such an enormous advantage (because of superior numbers, levels, strategic surprise, etc.) that the fight itself is a fait accompli. They value combat tactics that could be used to overcome the enemy and fair rules adhered to by both sides rather than looking for loopholes in the rules. Terrain and the specific situation should provide spice to the combat but never turn it into a turkey shoot. They tend to prefer arena combat in which there would be a pre-set fight with (roughly) equal sides and in which no greater strategic issues impinge on the fight or unbalance it.

The other side of the debate is the Combat as War side. They like Eve-style combat in which in a lot of fights, you know who was going to win before the fight even starts and a lot of the fun comes in from using strategy and logistics to ensure that the playing field is heavily unbalanced in your favor. The greatest coup for these players isn’t to win a fair fight but to make sure that the fight never happens (the classic example would be inserting a spy or turning a traitor within the enemy’s administration and crippling their infrastructure so they can’t field a fleet) or is a complete turkey shoot. The Combat as Sport side hates this sort of thing with a passion since the actual fights are often one-sided massacres or stand-offs that take hours.

I think that these same differences hold true in D&D, let me give you an example of a specific situation to illustrate the differences: the PCs want to kill some giant bees and take their honey because magic bee honey is worth a lot of money. Different groups approach the problem in different ways.

Combat as Sport: the PCs approach the bees and engage them in combat using the terrain to their advantage, using their abilities intelligently and having good teamwork. The fighter chooses the right position to be able to cleave into the bees while staying outside the radius of the wizard’s area effect spell, the cleric keeps the wizard from going down to bee venom and the rogue sneaks up and kills the bee queen. These good tactics lead to the PCs prevailing against the bees and getting the honey. The DM congratulates them on a well-fought fight.

Combat as War: the PCs approach the bees but there’s BEES EVERYWHERE! GIANT BEES! With nasty poison saves! The PCs run for their lives since they don’t stand a chance against the bees in a fair fight. But the bees are too fast! So the party Wizard uses magic to set part of the forest on fire in order to provide enough smoke (bees hate smoke, right?) to cover their escape. Then the PCs regroup and swear bloody vengeance against the damn bees. They think about just burning everything as usual, but decide that that might destroy the value of the honey. So they make a plan: the bulk of the party will hide out in trees at the edge of the bee’s territory and set up piles of oil soaked brush to light if the bees some after them and some buckets of mud. Meanwhile, the party monk will put on a couple layers of clothing, go to the owl bear den and throw rocks at it until it chases him. He’ll then run, owl bear chasing him, back to where the party is waiting where they’ll dump fresh mud on him (thick mud on thick clothes keeps bees off, right?) and the cleric will cast an anti-poison spell on him. As soon as the owl bear engages the bees (bears love honey right?) the monk will run like hell out of the area. Hopefully the owl bear and the bees will kill each other or the owl bear will flee and lead the bees away from their nest, leaving the PCs able to easily mop up any remaining bees, take the honey and get the hell out of there. They declare that nothing could possibly go wrong as the DM grins ghoulishly.

Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Combat as War: The PCs make knowledge checks, and prepare for the encounter, using their abilities intelligently, and having good teamwork. Realizing that bears raid honey trees in nature, one character contracts ursine lycanthropy, while another prepares Summons spells to summon bears. They also consider how to utilize the smoke that beekeepers use to collect honey, and, while discussing holding their breath and establishing escape routes even in smoke, realize that Undead have DR, and neither breathe nor can be poisoned. With cooperation, and every advantage, they roflstomp the encounter, without taking damage, and reconsider their plan to kill the Queen Bee. Instead, they leave her alive, and vow to return to get even more free money later. The GM congratulates them for a game well played, and for exceeding both his expectations on how much they'd net (given the lycanthropy strength boost, and that the undead added their carrying capacity to the party), and his expectation of this being a one-shot cash cow.

Combat as Sport: the party blunders straight into the encounter as always, declaring that nothing could possibly go wrong as the DM grins ghoulishly, but there’s BEES EVERYWHERE! GIANT BEES! With nasty poison saves! The PCs don't even consider running for their lives, or that they don’t stand a chance against the bees, because they know that the GM will make everything a fair fight. But then the Fighter stowed his magical sword in favor of his hammer, because nobody uses swords against bees IRL, and hammers smush bees, right? The barbarian decides now, while he's distracted and won't be expecting it, is the perfect time to take revenge on the Wizard, and power attack leap attack shock troopers him into a thin red paste. On a series of unlucky rolls, aided by their poor tactics, the Fighter and Barbarian succumb to the poison. The Rogue, who was hiding the whole time, attempts to flee, using a zigzag pattern (because bees have problems with zigzag, right?), and dies to the maximum number of AoOs. The GM face palms as the party suffers yet another TPK on an encounter his 7-year-old brother was able to solo.

Sound familiar?

whether / the extent to which the GM builds balanced encounters
Strategical impact
Tactical impact
Player competence
Following rules vs going outside them
GM malice
Player confidence issues (over, under)

My original contention is that the only axis that matters in evaluating CaW vs CaS is the ability of the players/PCs to use the strategic layer to manipulate the specifics (including and especially the difficulty) of the encounter.

Tanarii
2021-04-05, 09:46 AM
Hmmm… I'm curious whether y'all have opposing views, or whether you agree, and are coming from opposite directions.
I absolutely agree that anyone who played unhouse-ruled and no-DM-handholding BECMI or AD&D 1e with less than 2 characters each was likely to become highly paranoid, especially if they were playing in the modules.

But 4e and 5e D&D already do everything possible to make dying incredibly hard. A player has to stick their neck out to get it cut off. Or, if the DM/adventure path author controls encounters in a linear adventure, they have to put in a fairly ludicrous "mandatory" encounter. And yet many DMs still hold the player's hands to an extreme degree.

Very old school "killer" DMs either bred super-paranoid players or just put them off gaming. Very new school "anti-PC-death" DMs breed players with no concept of basic sanity in the face of danger.

Telok
2021-04-05, 10:40 AM
I'm reminded of the old AD&D DMG "what is an encounter" section. It had some examples... memory, work, maybe... two PCs walk through a dungeon, roll saves, trap crushes one. Not an encounter because the players didn't get to make any decisions. Party is suddenly attacked by weak enemies, no warning, no parley, no retreat, no clues, no loot. Not an encounter because the outcome was predetermined and does nothing but take up time. Party sees a dust cloud on the horizon moving towards them. That ones an encounter, they can make meaningful choices and the outcome may matter.

Max_Killjoy
2021-04-05, 10:40 AM
This is why I don't like "plot hooks".

I define plot hook as something that looks innocuous or interesting, but, once bitten, will drag the players off in a given direction. Cagey players learn to distrust these things.

Also, why would these players get involved in a tavern brawl? What gain could they get? It's all downside, so of course they're going to dodge that.

The key is to figure out what the players/characters actually care about and then either give them that, if it's a thing they wanna do, or can impact it positively or negatively if it's a thing in the world. Preferably in a way that can't really be ignored.


I'd add to this -- don't make players feel like they're being trapped, tricked, or hit with a "gotcha!" when they go for the thing you've put in front of them.

I had a GM where just about every plot hook did literally feel more like "that's bait, don't bite that" than an opportunity, because any move we made felt like he was going to turn it into a giant risk. And eventually he caught on to what was happening, and started ranting that "it's supposed to be a challenge!" and "you need to stick your neck out!" and so on... when as players we felt like any chance we took would result in getting slapped in the face by the events of the game.

We ended up feeling punished for not taking chances, and punished for taking chances.

Max_Killjoy
2021-04-05, 11:05 AM
Another reason this works well with Fate is that the players write these things, and specifically put them out there for these "stupid" decisions (or events).

If your "Trouble" is "my kid sister", you're explicitly telling the GM "yes, I want my kid sister to be a thorn in my side." You can discuss what that means, but you're basically giving the GM a flag that "this is a kind of trouble I'm interested in." If you have a grandma in your backstory but Grammy isn't actually an aspect, then you haven't sent that signal up... at that point she's not necessarily off-limits, but isn't a primary hook the GM is supposed to use.

In general, whether that mechanism or another, figuring out the kinds of things the players want to get involved in is a good idea, and then give that to them. If the players want to be monster hunters ala Supernatural? Give them monstrous mysteries to solve. If they're not getting involved at that point, they're just being rude.

It's kind of what I was alluding to earlier - if the PCs want to save the kingdom, don't give them an old lady's missing cats. That's not what they wanna do, even if you know that the missing cats lead to saving the kingdom. Be up front about the stakes and what's going on with your plots. Don't do things that "lead to" the real problem, because those things are probably less compelling than the actual problem.

Or, have an OOC discussion with your characters and get them to agree to bite your hooks out of trust.


When I see things like "Trouble" in RPG systems, it pokes at my general distaste for personal drama getting mixed into my mystery or crime solving setup, or action story, or whatever.

At this point it just feels trite and predictable. When John McClain's wife is in the building, we know that eventually the terrorists will figure out the connection, and she'll be put in direct danger by the end of the movie. Yawn, blah, whatever. I loath the way that so much fiction treats personal connections as ways to "up the stakes" for the protagonist or crank up the "drama" dial -- both because of the predictability, and because it tends to reduce characters, often female characters, to vulnerable walking plot levers.

The "trouble" my characters -- RPG or fiction -- are mainly going to get into is the direct trouble of the issue at hand -- the mystery, the crime, the task or challenge, the threat.

BRC
2021-04-05, 11:19 AM
When I see things like "Trouble" in RPG systems, it pokes at my general distaste for personal drama getting mixed into my mystery or crime solving setup, or action story, or whatever.

At this point it just feels trite and predictable. When John McClain's wife is in the building, we know that eventually the terrorists will figure out the connection, and she'll be put in direct danger by the end of the movie. Yawn, blah, whatever. I loath the way that so much fiction treats personal connections as ways to "up the stakes" for the protagonist or crank up the "drama" dial -- both because of the predictability, and because it tends to reduce characters, often female characters, to vulnerable walking plot levers.

The "trouble" my characters -- RPG or fiction -- are mainly going to get into is the direct trouble of the issue at hand -- the mystery, the crime, the task or challenge, the threat.

Ideally, a "Trouble" of that sort should be something that affects how the character approaches the main plot.

For example "My kid sister" isn't a great trouble by itself. All it really establishes is that you have Kid Sister, but she can really only be a "Trouble" if she gets pulled into the plot directly or threatened by a villain.

If you're not planning to run the sort of game where "Your character has a kid sister" can become a problem without warping the plot around it.

For example, if Your Kid Sister is in debt to the Mob, and so your character is now approaching the central mystery with an eye towards that, that works better. Maybe you prioritize getting some money to help pay it off, or your character doesn't have much money because they had to help their sister cover her debts.

or, heck, you're trying to solve a mystery, but the Mob is already familiar with you through your sister.


All things that can cause complications beyond "You have a kid sister that exists, and somebody might hold a gun to her head".

kyoryu
2021-04-05, 12:34 PM
Ideally, a "Trouble" of that sort should be something that affects how the character approaches the main plot.

For example "My kid sister" isn't a great trouble by itself. All it really establishes is that you have Kid Sister, but she can really only be a "Trouble" if she gets pulled into the plot directly or threatened by a villain.

If you're not planning to run the sort of game where "Your character has a kid sister" can become a problem without warping the plot around it.

For example, if Your Kid Sister is in debt to the Mob, and so your character is now approaching the central mystery with an eye towards that, that works better. Maybe you prioritize getting some money to help pay it off, or your character doesn't have much money because they had to help their sister cover her debts.

or, heck, you're trying to solve a mystery, but the Mob is already familiar with you through your sister.

All things that can cause complications beyond "You have a kid sister that exists, and somebody might hold a gun to her head".

All of this. And taking the "kid sister" trouble means you may need to discuss what it means, and the GM or table may say "no that's not the game we're playing."

And if you don't want "Kid Sister" drama? Don't take it. Take being an alcoholic. Take the corruption that your dark powers give you if you wanna go edgelord. Tkae the fact that your cybernetics make you feel detached from reality. Take the favors you owe the mob. Whatever you think works for the game you're playing in.

(Note that Fate does kind of presume that who you are is interesting, and that your character isn't really a blank pawn going through a situation that isn't really related to them in any meaningful way)

But either way, the Kid Sister issues should be woven into what's happening, not random asides.

icefractal
2021-04-05, 01:58 PM
What I like about listed Complications (in Hero, for example) is that it clarifies the difference between a background element and an intended drama source.

Like - some players make characters with family/friends ... because those are normal to have; it doesn't indicate they want trouble connected to them, they just didn't picture the character as an orphan. Other players do want any NPCs they create to be the focus of the spotlight, probably by being in trouble, and would be let down if they weren't. The problem as a GM is that's it's not always obvious which is which.

Listing it explicitly solves that, and also lets the GM spot conflicts right at the start: "Wait, all of you have multiple personal enemies who show up very frequently - that's not going to leave room for anything else."

Jay R
2021-04-05, 09:25 PM
A. Run a game that they want to play. [This requires the DM to care what they want to play, and to find out what it is.]

B. Put an item or other goal that they want in your planned plot. There's a paladin in the group? Make sure they know the BBEG captured a Holy Avenger last year. Or have the BBEG capture a generous Duke or Duchess or a sage they wish to consult or some other person they want to rescue.

C. Have the raiders attack the town or village while the PCs are there.

D. Have the army cut off the supply route from the town where X is made -- some rare but necessary material component.

...

Z. When all else fails, you can introduce bounty hunters or assassins that have been hired to kill the PCs. The PCs don't have to pick up the plot hook; that's the bounty hunter's job.

kyoryu
2021-04-05, 09:34 PM
A. Run a game that they want to play. [This requires the DM to care what they want to play, and to find out what it is.]

B. Put an item or other goal that they want in your planned plot. There's a paladin in the group? Make sure they know the BBEG captured a Holy Avenger last year. Or have the BBEG capture a generous Duke or Duchess or a sage they wish to consult or some other person they want to rescue.

C. Have the raiders attack the town or village while the PCs are there.

D. Have the army cut off the supply route from the town where X is made -- some rare but necessary material component.

...

Z. When all else fails, you can introduce bounty hunters or assassins that have been hired to kill the PCs. The PCs don't have to pick up the plot hook; that's the bounty hunter's job.

The rest of the list is just a rephrasing of A.

Max_Killjoy
2021-04-06, 11:31 AM
All of this. And taking the "kid sister" trouble means you may need to discuss what it means, and the GM or table may say "no that's not the game we're playing."

And if you don't want "Kid Sister" drama? Don't take it. Take being an alcoholic. Take the corruption that your dark powers give you if you wanna go edgelord. Tkae the fact that your cybernetics make you feel detached from reality. Take the favors you owe the mob. Whatever you think works for the game you're playing in.

(Note that Fate does kind of presume that who you are is interesting, and that your character isn't really a blank pawn going through a situation that isn't really related to them in any meaningful way)

But either way, the Kid Sister issues should be woven into what's happening, not random asides.

I guess there's a blurry line in there between "you're involved in this because your kid sister got tangled up with the mob" and "you're fighting the mob, and now your kid sister 'just happens TM' to get caught up in things.

Fiction seems to LOVE the latter for some reason, and it becomes a matter of "a tool used badly so often and so repeatedly starts to look like an inherently bad tool".

kyoryu
2021-04-06, 12:57 PM
I guess there's a blurry line in there between "you're involved in this because your kid sister got tangled up with the mob" and "you're fighting the mob, and now your kid sister 'just happens TM' to get caught up in things.

Fiction seems to LOVE the latter for some reason, and it becomes a matter of "a tool used badly so often and so repeatedly starts to look like an inherently bad tool".

Well there's also the third option of "you're fighting the mob, and that drags the kid sister into it."

Like anything, it can be done poorly. But I don't think that means you throw the tool out - you just figure out how to do it well. Done well, it's something that can get a lot of good mileage.

I mean, we've got people on this forum arguing for DMPCs because they're not always done poorly.... :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

Kid Sister is done well, I think, when her involvement happens as a natural consequence of her personality. It's done poorly when it's just "and of course they grab her." IOW, when you treat her as a reasonably well-developed character in the first place with her own motivations, it's more likely to be done well. Start by figuring out who she is and what she wants, and then use that to weave her into the story just like any other NPC. Don't treat her as a passive hook to drag the players down a given path.

BRC
2021-04-06, 01:00 PM
I guess there's a blurry line in there between "you're involved in this because your kid sister got tangled up with the mob" and "you're fighting the mob, and now your kid sister 'just happens TM' to get caught up in things.

Fiction seems to LOVE the latter for some reason, and it becomes a matter of "a tool used badly so often and so repeatedly starts to look like an inherently bad tool".

I'd say it originates with, Superman, where a villain will grab Lois Lane to raise the stakes.
And yeah, it's overused (especially with female characters) as a way to add an external weakness to a character. The Character has no weaknesses, except that he cares for somebody else. Grrr, manly.



That said, as far as weaknesses go for RPGs, I'd argue that it's pretty bad, because it's pretty all-encompassing.

Compared to an internal weakness, like a strict code of honor, or gambling debts they're desperate to repay, "I have a kid sister" is an irrelevant detail until the kid sister actually gets grabbed. It doesn't INFLUENCE the way the character engages with the story so much as it dictates it.

And it's not a Trouble for you, the character, to deal with, it's a trouble for the whole party equally, unless somebody is playing a sociopath who doesn't mind letting the mobsters shoot the sister.

Jay R
2021-04-06, 05:47 PM
I'd say it originates with, Superman, where a villain will grab Lois Lane to raise the stakes.

“… originates …”? No, not really. In the Three Musketeers (1844), Richelieu grabs Constance to raise the stakes for D’Artagnan. In the Knight of the Cart (12th century) Gwenevere is abducted to raise the stakes for Lancelot. In the Iliad (roughly 2800 years ago, and based on an earlier story), Paris grabs Helen of Troy, which raises the stakes for the Greeks.

Tanarii
2021-04-06, 06:26 PM
And it's not a Trouble for you, the character, to deal with, it's a trouble for the whole party equally, unless somebody is playing a sociopath who doesn't mind letting the mobsters shoot the sister.
Which seems like about half the players I've played with and run games for ...

Xervous
2021-04-07, 06:43 AM
Which seems like about half the players I've played with and run games for ...

Maybe Grigori had the right of it in grabbing Fournivald. The surest route to assault a PCs heart may be through their metaphorical wallet or fancy bag of toys.

KineticDiplomat
2021-04-07, 08:09 AM
Well, one option is the simple shove. No one likes a railroad, but sometimes a stalled engine needs a spark...

Have a random bar-fighter smack a PC right in the face. Or have the local law start questioning the PCs about the bar fight. Have the players witness some Figure-of-power-and-authority issue an inter dimensional warrant for their deaths based on their evil twins. You get the idea.

In some cases this would be bad, but done with a light touch you can let the players get right back to doing their thing...albeit with the story now running. Again, you’re not trying to lay down the path of rails for how that story runs, just jump starting it to set the stage.

If you feel bad about it, consider that while in the real world most people are not as off-the-chain-risk-loving as PCs, they are also not perfectly calculating beings of optimal risk ROI

GloatingSwine
2021-04-07, 08:40 AM
To be honest, I think a bar fight is a bad idea for an action scene for (D&D) PCs.

Bar fights are all about flying fists and an occasional improvised weapon, not the sort of battlefield weapons and protection adventurers tend to be toting, so at low levels unless there's a monk or a wizard who prepared Sleep this morning basically nobody is getting to do the very narrow range of things the system is built for them to do yet. And at high levels where they can easily absorb any penalties for fighting outside their wheelhouse a bar fight is so far below their pay grade they shouldn't even need to get out of their chairs.

Doesn't mean you can't have one happen, but it should be the background to something else that anchors them to the scene (for example as it all starts kicking off a wealthy looking merchant runs to the PCs and asks them to protect him from the assassin that incited the fight as cover. The party is given an anchor that keeps them present, a promise of reward, and a specific goal that's not related to the bar fight but uses it as background.)

NorthernPhoenix
2021-04-08, 09:04 AM
This is another one of those issues where i think trying passive aggressive "in game solutions" is a poor substitute for the out of game solution. I don't know what game this is, but if it's at all some sort of premise based action game, which it seems like it is, you need to ask your players to create characters that have a reason to engage with the core concept of the game. A lot of new DMs make the mistake of telling people they can make literally any type of character (stay-at-home-baker in a classic DND game, to use an extreme example), when in reality this is very counter-productive.

Another new DM mistake i think helps create this problem is springing the premise on players after they have decided or even after they have made characters. If i was running Vampire: A whole lot of talking, it would probably be helpful to let my players know that ahead of time so that people can create appropriate characters.

I'm sure there's other honest and easy to make mistakes that can lead to this kind of situation too. I've found newer RPG books are slightly better about addressing these things, but even in 5e this information isn't all in one place like it should be.

kyoryu
2021-04-08, 10:38 AM
This is another one of those issues where i think trying passive aggressive "in game solutions" is a poor substitute for the out of game solution. I don't know what game this is, but if it's at all some sort of premise based action game, which it seems like it is, you need to ask your players to create characters that have a reason to engage with the core concept of the game. A lot of new DMs make the mistake of telling people they can make literally any type of character (stay-at-home-baker in a classic DND game, to use an extreme example), when in reality this is very counter-productive.

Another new DM mistake i think helps create this problem is springing the premise on players after they have decided or even after they have made characters. If i was running Vampire: A whole lot of talking, it would probably be helpful to let my players know that ahead of time so that people can create appropriate characters.

I'm sure there's other honest and easy to make mistakes that can lead to this kind of situation too. I've found newer RPG books are slightly better about addressing these things, but even in 5e this information isn't all in one place like it should be.

Sure. The fundamental issue is the GM trying to get the players to do what the GM wants them to do, when they don't want to.

You solve this by aligning the two. Either that's "get the players to agree to do the GM's thing" or it's "GM figures out what the players want and gives them that". Or, possibly, some sort of meeting in the middle.

My preferred way to do this is in session zero, or even before. Instead of "hey let's play D&D", I prefer "hey let's play a game about <x>", and getting player buy-in on that in the first case. As you said, then players can also build characters for that premise.

I also think "bar fight" is a terrible plot hook, for all the reasons I mentioned above - it's not actually interesting, has terrible stakes for the players, and basically exists only to "suck the PCs into" the "actual" story. ("bar fight" getting people into the "real story" is pretty much the definition of "plot hook" as I described above, which some people pushed against)

fof3
2021-04-11, 04:58 AM
Lots of good points re session zero, talking to players RE what they want to do, appropriate plot hooks for the PCs and player training. Not much to add other than
- I have played in groups where the PCs were scared of everything and never bit on the plot, this is because the DM was inconsistent with threat and required attitude (e.g. scout scouts ahead and nearly dies, then the DM is surprised that the PCs are scared to explore).
- Mid level gaming: maybe the PCs are too powerful for "kill goblins" or "bar fights" but too weak for "save the world from ultimate evil". They're the PC equivalent of teenagers, they don't know what they want and and are not ready for it. You need different plot for levels 1-6 as for levels 7-12 as for levels 13-20.

Beleriphon
2021-04-13, 12:30 PM
Fiction seems to LOVE the latter for some reason, and it becomes a matter of "a tool used badly so often and so repeatedly starts to look like an inherently bad tool".

A poor craftsman blames his tools. The adage applies equally well to authors and GMs. Using the wrong tool is never the fault of a tool, it always the fault of the person that chooses it.

With FATE the Trouble Aspect is something that is specifically character defining, in a way that gets the character into trouble. The examples in the FATE Core rules have Trouble of the examples characters as The Manner of a Goat, Tempted by Shiny Things, and Rivals in the College Arcana. Two are personal flaws, one is a relationship. FATE is a bit of outlier in that it assumes you're going to have a discussion as a group and make characters together with input from the GM and other players. So "Kid Sister" isn't a good trouble, but "My Kid Sister, the Rebel" works better since is means by default you want your Kid Sister, the Rebel, to do stuff that you'll have to get involved with.

kyoryu
2021-04-13, 01:34 PM
Yeah, Kid Sister by itself is good. At the minimum there should be a discussion about what that means. Aspects reflect the truths, they don't define them, after all.

Quertus
2021-04-14, 03:36 PM
A poor craftsman blames his tools. The adage applies equally well to authors and GMs. Using the wrong tool is never the fault of a tool, it always the fault of the person that chooses it.

With FATE the Trouble Aspect is something that is specifically character defining, in a way that gets the character into trouble. The examples in the FATE Core rules have Trouble of the examples characters as The Manner of a Goat, Tempted by Shiny Things, and Rivals in the College Arcana. Two are personal flaws, one is a relationship. FATE is a bit of outlier in that it assumes you're going to have a discussion as a group and make characters together with input from the GM and other players. So "Kid Sister" isn't a good trouble, but "My Kid Sister, the Rebel" works better since is means by default you want your Kid Sister, the Rebel, to do stuff that you'll have to get involved with.

"Tool blame" is a complex subject.

Suppose I tried to add a 50-lb, 2-meter long tool to your toolkit.

If it's a jackhammer, that's your *only* tool, and you're using it to apply makeup? Then you should feel justified in blanking your tool.

OTOH, if it's a fully functional Universal Translator, and the only way to communicate with the incorporeal beings that it's you mission to engage in a "first contact" scenario? Blaming the failure of your diplomatic efforts on the tool is likely to be met with scepticism.

Of course, I think that the point of my comments, relative to yours, is that it isn't always the *artisan* who is choosing the tools.

Beleriphon
2021-04-15, 11:40 AM
"Tool blame" is a complex subject.

Suppose I tried to add a 50-lb, 2-meter long tool to your toolkit.

If it's a jackhammer, that's your *only* tool, and you're using it to apply makeup? Then you should feel justified in blanking your tool.

OTOH, if it's a fully functional Universal Translator, and the only way to communicate with the incorporeal beings that it's you mission to engage in a "first contact" scenario? Blaming the failure of your diplomatic efforts on the tool is likely to be met with scepticism.

Of course, I think that the point of my comments, relative to yours, is that it isn't always the *artisan* who is choosing the tools.

If the only tool you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. That doesn't mean the tool is appropriate, and blaming the tool for being used is a sign of a poor craftsperson. Knowing if you have the right tool, and how to use them, is a skill; a skill that has to be learned.

Nobody in their right mind would use a jackhammer to apply makeup. In fact it highlights my point, blaming a jackhammer of caving in somebody's skull when you said you were going to apply makeup is blaming the tool versus your own ability to determine this tool is completely inappropriate. Your second scenario is exactly what I mean. Failure to use the tool appropriately is the fault of the person using it.

Max_Killjoy
2021-04-15, 12:15 PM
Absolutisms are almost always wrong.

Telok
2021-04-15, 03:39 PM
If the only tool you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. That doesn't mean the tool is appropriate, and blaming the tool for being used is a sign of a poor craftsperson. Knowing if you have the right tool, and how to use them, is a skill; a skill that has to be learned.

Nobody in their right mind would use a jackhammer to apply makeup.

Applying makeup with a hammer is a bit hyperbolic. Since this is rpgs it's probably more like picking a brush and medium for painting. While using a house painting brush on minis is an obvious no-go the differences between enamel and acrylic on the mini, or choosing between oil and watercolor for a portrait, are things that may not be obvious to beginners. When a beginner gets upset that something like a cloud won't paint right it might be them, or it could be the kit included a fan brush instead of a 2" wide and their instructions just said 'use a big brush'.

Max_Killjoy
2021-04-15, 03:46 PM
When it comes to RPGs, you have the phenomenon of people in the community, both locally and in online venues, insisting vehemently that a jackhammer is in fact the perfect tool for applying makeup.

Quertus
2021-04-16, 05:33 PM
When it comes to RPGs, you have the phenomenon of people in the community, both locally and in online venues, insisting vehemently that a jackhammer is in fact the perfect tool for applying makeup.

Oh, it's hard to type when the phone won't stop shaking. Thanks for the laugh! :smallbiggrin:

PhoenixPhyre
2021-04-16, 07:21 PM
When it comes to RPGs, you have the phenomenon of people in the community, both locally and in online venues, insisting vehemently that a jackhammer is in fact the perfect tool for applying makeup.

Of course you also have the phenomenon of people claiming that a makeup brush is a jackhammer because they don't like the shape of the brush.

Telok
2021-04-16, 11:48 PM
When it comes to RPGs, you have the phenomenon of people in the community, both locally and in online venues, insisting vehemently that a jackhammer is in fact the perfect tool for applying makeup.


Of course you also have the phenomenon of people claiming that a makeup brush is a jackhammer because they don't like the shape of the brush.

As amusing as the makeup jackhammer mental image is, could you please provide an rpg example? I'm coming up blank on that one.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-04-16, 11:51 PM
As amusing as the makeup jackhammer mental image is, could you please provide an rpg example? I'm coming up blank on that one.

I was mostly just riffing on the common trait of people making huge claims about how bad/broken/horrible things are, when come to find out it's really that they don't like that style. It works fine for its intended purpose, but that purpose isn't what they wanted. So it must be awful.

And having fun inverting and stretching the metaphor. Because I like messing with words.

Max_Killjoy
2021-04-17, 07:56 AM
As amusing as the makeup jackhammer mental image is, could you please provide an rpg example? I'm coming up blank on that one.

For mine, an example would be "No matter what you want to play, just reskin the classes and use D&D, it's great for every setting, genre, etc."

For PhoenixPhyre's an example might be "D&D sucks because it can't handle gritty realistic science fiction and that's what I like to play" or maybe "D&D sucks because it's not GURPs."

Tanarii
2021-04-17, 08:40 AM
For PhoenixPhyre's an example might be "D&D sucks because it can't handle gritty realistic science fiction and that's what I like to play" or maybe "D&D sucks because it's not GURPs."
"BECMI D&D sucks because all it's good for is dungeon and hex crawling, and domain rulership."
"Apocalypse world sucks because the MC is supposed to follow rules, that's not storytelling!"
"5e resting sucks because I like to have one big encounter per session, the rest of the time we're just talking to NPCs pointlessly with no goals, direction, or anything to make meaningful decisions about."

Lacco
2021-04-17, 02:02 PM
For mine, an example would be "No matter what you want to play, just reskin the classes and use D&D, it's great for every setting, genre, etc."

What I like about the toolbox metaphor is the idea that the system is your basic off-the-shelf toolbox. I know almost no one that uses theirs and keeps it in the "off the shelf" state for too long - most people take out the stuff they do not use and modify it to suit their needs.

A jackhammer has its place in one's toolbox when you plan to use it - but if you want to apply make-up with it, the recipient should be aware of this, should know it and be happy with it. After all, there are people, who would say "Hold my beer!" and would go for it just for the views. BUT that does not mean it's a universal tool.

D&D is good for dungeon and hex crawling, and domain rulership - not for a complex romance & murder-mystery-at-king's-court-type adventure where the only weapons allowed are intrigues, oratory skills and blackmail-through-PC's-rebellious-sister. Can it be played? Yes, sure.

But you should have the agreement of all players, otherwise someone's going to end up applying make-up on NPC face via magical equivalent of jackhammer.

Damn. Messed up the metaphor.

Almost any system is universal if you tinker with it for long enough. But if there are better tools for your job, you should try them out.

Looking at project (game) as the players & GM envision it and then taking the correct toolbox, adding few tools, leaving few at home - that's how it should work. Even if the jackhammer is fun, it sometimes makes sense to leave it at home.