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Pauly
2021-11-14, 03:57 PM
I”m sure most of us have done this at some point or another. I’m not talking about the players deliberately breaking the campaign or going murderhobo, I’m talking about playing the game in good faith and in the process wrecking the GM’s carefully laid out plans. Technically it’s possible to wreck a campaign in session zero by building a party that can’t complete the campaign as written.

My examp,e is we started a StarWars campaign. The set up was we met in a bar and then the Imperial Navy recruiters turned up and press-ganged everyone into the Navy.
So we started a riot and made our escape. Then we worked our way to the docks and found a suitable ship to steal. After stealing the ship a large force of TIE fighters was sent to stop us, and after letting the initial attack run take down the shields we bluffed the TIE fighters into believing we were Intelligence agents and their attack was part of the show to convince the watching rebels we were genuine.
Session ends with us hyperjumping to the outer rim, selling the stolen ship and buying another ship.
High 5s all around and congratulating the GM on such a great start to the campaign and we can’t wait for next week.

At which point she tells us their ain’t gonna be next week. Her campaign plan for session one was that we were supposed to be:
- press-ganged,
- get contacted by rebel spies who would sneak us out, then
- be chipped suicide squad style
- be given a rebel ship with an embedded tracking device
- be sent on the first of our a series of missions which would end with us stealing the plans for the Death Star.

We had killed the Rebel spymaster in the riot turning the rebels against us, got our records flagged by both the Imperial Navy and the Imperial Intelligence making undercover work in the Imperium nearly impossible and had acquired our own ship with a clean record..

She’d spent 2 months building the campaign and we were so deep in the weeds she had no prepared material suitable to follow on from where we had ended session one. And that’s where the campaign ended.

OldTrees1
2021-11-14, 04:17 PM
Sounds like a great lesson about improving communication.

The premise of the game could be communicated better and thus get the player buy in rather than risk them blindly derailing.
The players could have communicated how their characters would react to the lynchpins. This helps identify conflicts early.
The player's plans could be communicated better so the GM could foresee the derailing earlier.
The GM could have communicated the risk of exiting the campaign. For example in Curse of Strahd I told the PCs the campaign would end shortly after they gain the ability to escape Barovia.

Well hindsight is 20/20. Have you considered switching attention to a new party of rebels that are being sent on the suicide mission because the mercenaries were not available to be chipped?

Pauly
2021-11-14, 08:52 PM
Sounds like a great lesson about improving communication.

The premise of the game could be communicated better and thus get the player buy in rather than risk them blindly derailing.
The players could have communicated how their characters would react to the lynchpins. This helps identify conflicts early.
The player's plans could be communicated better so the GM could foresee the derailing earlier.
The GM could have communicated the risk of exiting the campaign. For example in Curse of Strahd I told the PCs the campaign would end shortly after they gain the ability to escape Barovia.

Well hindsight is 20/20. Have you considered switching attention to a new party of rebels that are being sent on the suicide mission because the mercenaries were not available to be chipped?

Well the campaign was sold as a Scum and Villainy setting. The twist was supposed to be getting coerced into working for the good guys, like Suicide Squad or the Dirty Dozen. We weren’t trying to derail the plot, we thought we were supposed to escape from the clutches of the imperium. We broke the campaign before the initial plot twist/subversion of expectations occurred, and then we broke the GM’s 3 or 4 attempts to get us back into the box.

The GM ran it for another group and they had about a year and a half of fun before completing it.

We started a new Traveller campaign which was supposed to be for 3 or 4 weeks to allow the GM to come up with new material, but we ended up enjoying that so much the Star Wars campaign got put on the backburner and the group never returned to it.

HidesHisEyes
2021-11-15, 01:52 AM
OP, I have an article to share for your gm to read.

https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots

This is at least the second time I’ve shared that article on this site and I feel like some mad preacher, but it really did transform how I GM. The tldr is that it’s possible to design scenarios without relying on the players doing a specific sequence of things - which in a RPG is something you simply can’t rely on. A campaign can be a series of scenarios designed like this, instead of being planned out from the start. I would recommend your GM learn this style, then the problem you encountered in your first session can no longer happen.

Glorthindel
2021-11-15, 05:07 AM
I ran a very successful Dark Heresy campaign a few years back, that derailed at what I intended to be the end of the first "chapter" of the story.

If anyone is familiar with the TV series Alias, I based the story on the general plot of the first couple of series (main character works for their countries intelligence service, discovers the organisation is actually a terrorist cell impersonating the intelligence service, and works undercover for the real intelligence service to dismantle the organisation from the inside). Being Dark Heresy, this organisation was the 40k Inquisition. So the party were recruited by an "Inquisitor" who was in fact a traitor masquerading as one, and spent the initial first act believing they worked for the Inquisition.

Due to the set up of the organisation (the Inquisition is big on secrets), I assigned each party member an official role (Party leader, Political officer, Technology Specialist, Psionic Specialist, etc). At the start of each mission I gave the party a general heavily-redacted briefing for the mission, and each specialist/officer an additional briefing packet relating to their specialisation. It was in these special briefing packets that I slipped the clues that their boss was sliding off into heresy, and assumed that my players would very quickly start comparing notes, spotting the lies and inconsistencies, and start piecing things together. Furthermore, the nature of the missions was deliberately brutal and at times unpleasant, and I expected an eventual revolt due to the string of assassinations, kidnappings, terrorism, theft, and industrial sabotage I was sending them off on. And finally, a couple of months in, I caused a 'chance' meeting with a genuine Inquisitorial agent, who took notice of them, and tried to intervene to reveal the truth to them of the deception.

But to my complete surprise (my players are not normally the sort to do this) the players kept their secrets to themselves, and followed their leader like the obedient little drones the Imperium treasures. And these weren't small things - the party leader knew about a captive Daemon being used to gain illicit intelligence, the political officer had papers authorising the immediate execution of the party leader if the officer thought the leader was showing disloyalty to their Inquisitor (not the Imperium itself, just the Inquisitor), the weapon specialist knew about a cache of highly illegal xenos weaponry kept in the armoury, the Tech Preist knew the cells armourer had been saved from execution by their leader for his membership in an heretical sect that worshipped the Necrons, and the melee fighter was weilding a blessed weapon that he knew the leader was 'uncomfortable' trying to weild, so let him keep. They just shrugged off the nature of the missions, all under the belief that the "greater good" was worth the "minor" acts they were committing. And finally, they took an immediate dislike to the real Inquisitorial agent, and went out of their way to decieve and misdirect him, even deliberately leading him into near-fatal traps, under the belief he was just a jealous rival of their own leader.

What was meant to be a 4-6 month opening act turned into a two year campaign of destruction and terror. It was kinda glorious. Eventually, I exerted enough pressure that one of the players cracked, and came to me saying he wasn't enjoying what the campaign was making his character become, and he was thinking of retiring his character and making up a more bloodthirsty character so he didn't have the moral issues with the missions - I gave him a grin and said, maybe his character should be having moral objections to the missions. It was like a light bulb went off on the player, and the dominoes started falling into their correct place finally. The looks on the players faces was priceless when they finally realised the truth, and each character started revealing the "minor" transgressions they each knew about (but were keeping from each other to prevent rocking the boat or sowing discord), which together added up to a terrible whole.

We never ran the intended acts 2-3, because the players were agreed there was no way they were going to take this cell down slowly from inside, that their actions had let everything go on so far, and the only solution was taking the whole thing out in an spectacular display of carnage (the party were seriously out for blood and a little bit supercharged by their shame at being duped so thoroughly).

The campaign had gone seriously off the rails, but oddly enough, became a much more memorable campaign that my players talk about fondly, and probably a much greater success than if it had stayed anywhere near the original rails.

KorvinStarmast
2021-11-15, 08:53 AM
OP, I have an article to share for your gm to read.

https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots

This is at least the second time I’ve shared that article on this site and I feel like some mad preacher, but it really did transform how I GM. The tldr is that it’s possible to design scenarios without relying on the players doing a specific sequence of things - which in a RPG is something you simply can’t rely on. A campaign can be a series of scenarios designed like this, instead of being planned out from the start. I would recommend your GM learn this style, then the problem you encountered in your first session can no longer happen.
+ many to this.

King of Nowhere
2021-11-15, 09:44 AM
your dm made a mistake in planning with such detail, but especially she made a HUGE mistake when she had the whole plot depending on you getting captured.

you can't try to capture the pcs in a roleplaying game and expect them to just go along with it. you can't build your whole plot on your pcs getting captured without figthing. if you do build your plot around that, you must make sure to bring in enough power that they have no chance to get out of the rails.

now, your dm is not a bad one. a truly bad dm would have railroaded you guys back into being captured1. she should take it as a learning experience.

and yes, that article is a good one. instead of preparing a plot, prepare goals. have a villain with an agenda and resources. have the villain push forward his agenda. have the players stumble upon it and start twarting it. have the villain react by using his resources to bring his agenda back on schedule. provided that the players bite on the basic premise of wanting to get involved in that plot, there's no way to derail that.

Heck, my players just did a huge derailment when they accidentally uncovered the major villain of my campaign - by a combination of a miscommunication between us that cast suspicion on a friendly nymph, followed by a very high roll on sense motive. followed by the party assuming that said nymph would be a double agent for a big bad, trying to capture her, and seeing all their best attacks negated with ease. but it made for a very fun session, full of "oh crap" moments and improvising a way out of them.
they managed to escape, mostly by luck
But the campaign goes on. the crazy nymph was always supposed to be ready to destroy the nearby city. she was merely waiting until she developed better bioweapons. now that she's discovered, she decided to move on her timetable and attack the city right now. she won't have those more advanced bioweapons, though, so that's a win for the players. on the other hand, this sequence of events was not supposed to happen until the party was level 20, and they are still 12; the original plan was that this nymph had enough power to defeat the party the first time, but they would learn her special tricks and find ways to counter them, and then come back better prepared and win. Now instead the party stands no chance to stop the crazy nymph, and their mission shifts from defending the city to evacuating as much as possible from the city. After that, the villain's plan will move on slowly enough that it can be mostly ignored while i find ways for them to level up and get loot to stand a chance in a fight.
if the party had been captured, or even killed, i had ways to bring them back too.

i can't imagine how my party could derail a campaign in a way that could not be saved. Well, unless they decided to actually go work for the bad guys or something, or unless they screwed up completely and lost.



I ran a very successful Dark Heresy campaign a few years back, that derailed at what I intended to be the end of the first "chapter" of the story.

If anyone is familiar with the TV series Alias, I based the story on the general plot of the first couple of series (main character works for their countries intelligence service, discovers the organisation is actually a terrorist cell impersonating the intelligence service, and works undercover for the real intelligence service to dismantle the organisation from the inside). Being Dark Heresy, this organisation was the 40k Inquisition. So the party were recruited by an "Inquisitor" who was in fact a traitor masquerading as one, and spent the initial first act believing they worked for the Inquisition.

What was meant to be a 4-6 month opening act turned into a two year campaign of destruction and terror. It was kinda glorious.

great job fooling your players. it's always the best way to introduce a villain, when you can fool the players to mistake him for an ally. I managed it once, this guy would give them "secret information" that would point them to a quest, and in those quests they'd always find enemies to wait them - twice they lost fights and had to flee, once it even killed two party members - and they always thought their enemies were prepared and must have a mole somewhere.
One of my favourite villains ever. in the end he got a redemption arc and helped the party (for real, this time) against the greater scope villain of the campaign. even the players like him

Here i tried to do a repeat, and it didn't work. when attempting to fool the players, it's obviously best to prepare and alternative plan in case it doesn't work


1) didn't i just advocated bringing in enough power that the players can't escape? isn't that the same thing? no. there is a subtle, but huge difference between "the villains moved enough resources for this that there is no chance for escape" and "by all logic you guys should escape, but i'm going to pull stuff out of my *** to bring you back". as a player, i can easily accept that the empire has plenty of troops and can easily bring enough to take no risk when they take me; it's ok, they can't always focus so many resources for a menial task, i will find chances to escape eventually. i can't instead accept the dm making stuff up on the spot to keep me on the rails.

Telok
2021-11-15, 03:20 PM
Perhaps not a derail at session 1, but close enough.

Last Dungeon the Dragoning campaign I ran the players through a starter mission. You know, give them a backup & out, some easy fights, work up to a hard fight, feel out how comfortable they really are with social combat, get them used to average stats succeding at average tasks. The usual stuff when doing an unfamiliar system.

At the end of the starter mission I had a spaceship battle planned. Extremely bare bones & basic, PCs in a massively powerful ship (as officers/crew, not owners) against three fairly weak gnomish marine biologist space pirates. Thats not supposed to make sense, we were trying out bits of a new system.

They safely kicked the ever-loving crap out of the pirates. Much more safely than I'd thought they would. The last pirate ship was crippled but not destroyed when its captain set the self destruct charges. Like, maybe 10/150+ crew, leaking air, half the guns down, etc. Since it was close enough to maybe damage their ship the players decided to teleport aboard & disarm the self destruct...

"Ok, lets call the game for tonight and I'll have something figured out next week."

Lucky that space combat time is "variable undefined" but generally 15-30 minutes per round. The next week I had deckplans for the '84 remodel of the USS Iowa with some bits renamed, a boss fight, miniboss, hordes of zombie minions (boss was a necromancer), and how to disarm the self destruct. They had 15 minutes of game time to dungeon crawl a damages ship & disarm or escape. They did it in 8... Ok, now they have a ship...

Next week: Ok, now they're in jail for attempted piracy while docked at Sigil...

Next week: Ok, now they're wearing bomb collars and in a penal battalion headed for Carceri...

Rails? Plot? I'm the DM and I don't even have a compass or a map any more. I'm just trying to stay a session ahead of a pack of rampaging looney psycho kleptomaniacs.

Cerrita
2021-11-15, 04:22 PM
I played in a campaign that lasted for all of three sessions. The DM has a whole cold war era spy game planned out, and we knew what it was going into it, the basic premise had been made abundantly clear to us prior to session one.

The problem fundamentally did not lay with the DM or his prep in any given session, it was the fact that a party of seven went into a spy thriller with nary an int score between us. The highest the party had was a 14, and it belong to the dragon wyrmling companion that got itself stuck in a vending machine.

The party ultimately decided it was a good idea to storm the villain's super secret spy base during the night, forgo stealth, and use a breath weapon on the falcons patrolling the area. The next week we started a spelljammer campaign and the lowest int was a 14...

kyoryu
2021-11-15, 05:19 PM
At which point she tells us their ain’t gonna be next week. Her campaign plan for session one was that we were supposed to be:
- press-ganged,
- get contacted by rebel spies who would sneak us out, then
- be chipped suicide squad style
- be given a rebel ship with an embedded tracking device
- be sent on the first of our a series of missions which would end with us stealing the plans for the Death Star.


Rookie GM mistake.

Never give players freedom that you're not willing to let them have. (Note that I'm not in favor of railroading, quite the opposite).

If that's what you want the campaign setup to be, have that be the pitch. Session One is the last bullet point, not the rest of the stuff.

Jay R
2021-11-15, 05:26 PM
In FGU's Flashing Blades, I sent some French PCs as emissaries to the Spanish Governor in the Caribbean. I had several political adventures planned, involving the governor's daughter, a slave revolt, a feud with a Spanish captain, etc.

Within three episodes, they had captured a ship and were pirates.

Pex
2021-11-16, 12:18 AM
I'll just say I hate fool the players campaigns. I need to be able to trust the DM. If I can't then there's no game for me. The BBEG can be Evil all he wants, plot and maneuver. He can be the unknown mastermind of it all revealed in ACT III, but he can't have been our "friend" from the beginning. The DM is the players' eyes and ears of the gameworld. To trick the players is to be an adversary, and I loathe DM vs Players campaigns.

Telok
2021-11-16, 01:47 AM
In FGU's Flashing Blades, I...

Within three episodes, they had captured a ship and were pirates.

What is it with PCs, ships, and piracy? They snag a ship and if there's any freedom in the plot its 7/10 times they start hunting a bigger one, 2/10 it blows up or burns down, and bloody 1/10th the time they actually do something legal & normal like travel. Sci-fi, historic, fantasy.... actually I don't know about supers games, those might well be closest to normal.

Cerrita
2021-11-16, 02:07 AM
What is it with PCs, ships, and piracy? They snag a ship and if there's any freedom in the plot its 7/10 times they start hunting a bigger one, 2/10 it blows up or burns down, and bloody 1/10th the time they actually do something legal & normal like travel. Sci-fi, historic, fantasy.... actually I don't know about supers games, those might well be closest to normal.

Funny story, but that's how our spelljammer campaign began an inevitable descent to cancellation. We were "good" space pirates who had made bank on ghost rock (also left an entire train car of it in Himalayas which is now super haunted). We commissioned an enormous ship, the Silver Eagle, that could carry our previous ship, which was then blown up on its maiden voyage by splitting the party three ways during combat with a mobster and the imperium simultaneously by making a series of poor judgment calls that got 12 of our 15 NPCs killed...

We are a good party, but we have our moments.

Batcathat
2021-11-16, 02:35 AM
I'll just say I hate fool the players campaigns. I need to be able to trust the DM. If I can't then there's no game for me. The BBEG can be Evil all he wants, plot and maneuver. He can be the unknown mastermind of it all revealed in ACT III, but he can't have been our "friend" from the beginning. The DM is the players' eyes and ears of the gameworld. To trick the players is to be an adversary, and I loathe DM vs Players campaigns.

By that logic, no NPC should ever lie to or deceive the PCs in any way. I can agree the GM shouldn't use their GM "powers" to trick the players but as long as there's only in-universe trickery (and not, say, the GM describing something the characters are experiencing in a inaccurate way) I don't see a problem with it. I don't see why having the NPCs lie to the PCs is any more adversarial than having the NPCs attack the PCs.

HidesHisEyes
2021-11-16, 03:27 AM
By that logic, no NPC should ever lie to or deceive the PCs in any way. I can agree the GM shouldn't use their GM "powers" to trick the players but as long as there's only in-universe trickery (and not, say, the GM describing something the characters are experiencing in a inaccurate way) I don't see a problem with it. I don't see why having the NPCs lie to the PCs is any more adversarial than having the NPCs attack the PCs.

I think you’re right but what Pex is getting at is also a real issue imo. Maybe I lean too hard on this as the cause of every problem but I think it’s a railroading issue. The problem isn’t when NPCs lie to the PCs per se, it’s when the GM has a plan for the narrative that relies on the PCs being deceived, and so makes damn sure they won’t get a chance to see through the deception. And in that case, really, the problem is that the GM has a plan for the narrative at all.

Batcathat
2021-11-16, 04:49 AM
I think you’re right but what Pex is getting at is also a real issue imo. Maybe I lean too hard on this as the cause of every problem but I think it’s a railroading issue. The problem isn’t when NPCs lie to the PCs per se, it’s when the GM has a plan for the narrative that relies on the PCs being deceived, and so makes damn sure they won’t get a chance to see through the deception. And in that case, really, the problem is that the GM has a plan for the narrative at all.

Well, sure. Railroading is bad, but that's true regardless of whether it's about making sure the characters are tricked, captured, killed or something else. That said, I don't think the GM having a plan for the narrative in the sense of what's probably going to happen is a problem, as long as they're okay with it going some other way and able to adapt.

King of Nowhere
2021-11-16, 05:09 AM
I think you’re right but what Pex is getting at is also a real issue imo. Maybe I lean too hard on this as the cause of every problem but I think it’s a railroading issue. The problem isn’t when NPCs lie to the PCs per se, it’s when the GM has a plan for the narrative that relies on the PCs being deceived, and so makes damn sure they won’t get a chance to see through the deception. And in that case, really, the problem is that the GM has a plan for the narrative at all.

If it referred to my case, then the fact that my players ended up unmasking the villain when they weren't supposed to shows it's not the case.

It's less about betraying the pcs, and more about setting up hidden villains. Like, there is this important npc who's apparently a reasonable authority figure, but he's secretly a mastermind with a plan for world domination and he's only waiting for the right opportunity to start. Generally the opportunity is some kind of strife that would weaken the villain's enemies.

I prefer to have a cohesive world with established powerful factions, and have some of them enact evil plans, rather than introduce a new villain out of nowhere and then forgetting his followers the moment they're not relevant anymore. It enables better immersion and better characterization.

Also, the players aren't necessarily supposed to befriend those people. They represent political factions, and the pcs will have dealings with them, and those can go in many ways.
There was only one time i intentionally made a friend (a cohort) of the pcs turn traitor; and i was planning for the pc to win npc loialty over time, so that she would not betray the party and instead help them at the critical time.
Instead, the party did the following
- got her killed in their first fight toghether
- used a lower quality resurrection spell on her, making her lose a level, to save money
- gave her sub-par equipment
- used her as expendable meat shield
So, she went on with the betrayal. It wasn't my original plan.
Since then, the party was much more nice to cohorts

The vast majority of the npcs, though, are never intended as villains and traitors. I don't want to play in a grimdark crapsack world where the pcs have to kill everyone before they are killed. Most allies will be steadfast.
But wouldn't it be boring if every npc was always reliable?

MoiMagnus
2021-11-16, 05:53 AM
By that logic, no NPC should ever lie to or deceive the PCs in any way. I can agree the GM shouldn't use their GM "powers" to trick the players but as long as there's only in-universe trickery (and not, say, the GM describing something the characters are experiencing in a inaccurate way) I don't see a problem with it. I don't see why having the NPCs lie to the PCs is any more adversarial than having the NPCs attack the PCs.

The problem often rely on miscommunication of table conventions.

I will take an example: a friend of mine played in a "giant LARP Clue" where there was a big deception about the murder being investigated not being actually a murder. The problem was that one of the major clues was that the same typewriter was used for two different letters. This fact was very visible because the characters had very unique irregularities. However, the players immediately though "well, obviously it's the same typewriter, the GM only owns one of them, and it's not like those are common nowadays". And when the solution was revealed at the end, the players didn't felt betrayed by the characters, they felt betrayed by the GM, as they tried to be nice with him by ignoring imperfections, and were punished because those imperfections were deliberate.

And the same can happen for RPGs. The GM might be intending for the characters to deceive the PCs, but in the end players might feel betrayed by the GM rather than by the characters, because they assumed "obvious" table conventions that were not true.

EDIT:
It's like unreliable narrators in fiction. Sometimes it feels fair and it increases the depth of the story, sometimes it feels like a betrayal from the author.

Batcathat
2021-11-16, 06:20 AM
EDIT:
It's like unreliable narrators in fiction. Sometimes it feels fair and it increases the depth of the story, sometimes it feels like a betrayal from the author.

I agree, which is why I differentiated between the GM using their GM powers to deceive the players (that is, the narration is lying to them) and NPCs using their in-universe abilities to deceive the characters (and probably their players as well).

It's a good point about table conventions though, but in most cases I don't think this kind of plot requires breaking or subverting them. The GM is supposed to present the world as the players' characters experience it, if someone is attempting to fool the characters, it's entirely possible that the players are fooled as well even with the GM playing fair.

Something I think should be avoided is the players seeing through the ruse but the GM insisting that their characters are still tricked (which is why tricky NPCs with social skills can be hard to handle, a lucky die roll might fool the PCs but not the players). Of course, if the players realize the truth for some OOC reason, it also doesn't make sense for their characters not to still be fooled, which might make for kind of a lose/lose situation.

KorvinStarmast
2021-11-16, 02:25 PM
What is it with PCs, ships, and piracy?
Adventure, swashbuckling, and rum. (To badly paraphrase Winston Churchill).

They snag a ship and if there's any freedom in the plot its 7/10 times they start hunting a bigger one, 2/10 it blows up or burns down, and bloody 1/10th the time they actually do something legal & normal like travel. Sci-fi, historic, fantasy.... actually I don't know about supers games, those might well be closest to normal. I saw it work like that in original Traveller as well. We always wanted to try and upgrade our vessel ...

speaking of pirate ships, in our first ever D&D 5e session, we took the commission to head up to yartar and vadenfal to sort out problem at an old dwarven mine and the second morning we all woke up bound in the forecastle, having been fed a roofie/mickey/poisoned wine the night before for dinner. (I was life cleric, sailor background). We ended up with that river boat as our first possession once we broke out of the forecastle and took the ship over. later in life we sold it.

Jay R
2021-11-16, 05:14 PM
What is it with PCs, ships, and piracy? They snag a ship and if there's any freedom in the plot its 7/10 times they start hunting a bigger one, 2/10 it blows up or burns down, and bloody 1/10th the time they actually do something legal & normal like travel. Sci-fi, historic, fantasy.... actually I don't know about supers games, those might well be closest to normal.

There are really only three things you can do with a ship -- be a merchant (which is boring), be part of a navy (which is under some admiral's command), or piracy.

The essence of adventuring is doing something suspenseful and dangerous on your own. Piracy is the only option with a ship that meets that goal.

icefractal
2021-11-16, 06:12 PM
The problem often rely on miscommunication of table conventions.
...
This. I'd say that the problem is not in having a deceptive NPC, but in having that NPC be the first "quest giver" type they talk to. Because in that case, the OOC convention of "players shouldn't refuse to bite the initial plot hook" is concealing the deception.


Same issue with PCs who are secretly working against the party. I feel like unless the campaign is established to be a PvP one, they're effectively abusing the social contract to hide their deception even if IC the PCs would and should have a chance to discern it.

The social contract there being the "Hello random person, you look trustworthy, how about joining our adventuring party?" introduction for new PCs. Like, realistically IC, it shouldn't work like that. There should be an attempt at vetting the new person, checking their references, the party votes on it (and maybe rejects them!), they start as provisional members and don't get told all the secrets, etc, etc. But all of that is a pain in the ass if the new player isn't being deceptive and actually just wants to join the party, so many groups leave it out.

Yes, that means that IMO, if a campaign has already started with a "non-PvP" attitude, you're just not practically able to introduce a traitor character, because you'd have to announce the shift to "PvP is on the table" and the timing would be kinda obvious. Suck it up and wait for a new campaign. Or play the long game by making that statement and then introducing a totally legit character, enduring the suspicion, proving yourself, then find an opportunity to die or leave the party. Your next character after that is the deceptive one.

Pex
2021-11-16, 06:55 PM
By that logic, no NPC should ever lie to or deceive the PCs in any way. I can agree the GM shouldn't use their GM "powers" to trick the players but as long as there's only in-universe trickery (and not, say, the GM describing something the characters are experiencing in a inaccurate way) I don't see a problem with it. I don't see why having the NPCs lie to the PCs is any more adversarial than having the NPCs attack the PCs.

The typical king's vizier can lie to the PCs. The Mayor. The town's cleric. The guard. Whomever NPC BBEG or Lieutenant or minion the party has just met and we don't know yet is the villain for that particular adventure arc. Not the party's Patron who has been the party's ally, friend, and confidant from levels 1 to 12 or whatever high level when the Big Reveal happens.

Pauly
2021-11-16, 08:07 PM
Rookie GM mistake.

Never give players freedom that you're not willing to let them have. (Note that I'm not in favor of railroading, quite the opposite).

If that's what you want the campaign setup to be, have that be the pitch. Session One is the last bullet point, not the rest of the stuff.

Don’t know why so many people think the GM was in error. She’s a very good, very experienced GM. It’s just that the party when met with overwhelming force on 3 occasions managed to get out. She did everything possible in game to get us back on the rails. By rights the party should have been captured.


What is it with PCs, ships, and piracy? They snag a ship and if there's any freedom in the plot its 7/10 times they start hunting a bigger one, 2/10 it blows up or burns down, and bloody 1/10th the time they actually do something legal & normal like travel. Sci-fi, historic, fantasy.... actually I don't know about supers games, those might well be closest to normal.

In campaigns I’ve been involved in the PCs capturing a ship leads inevitably to a mercantile campaign.

Duff
2021-11-16, 09:08 PM
In the case of the OP, the rook GM's mistake was to start with a session that had to unfold a certain way. Excellent session.
Should have has session 0 starting with characters who are already caught.
Maybe even narrate a cut scene of being processed, chipped and shown around their new ship before character gen.
Or, less prep into the "after they get caught" bit and some thought into "what if they don't"

Hopefully a learning experience and not discouraging future GMing

False God
2021-11-16, 09:13 PM
I”m sure most of us have done this at some point or another. I’m not talking about the players deliberately breaking the campaign or going murderhobo, I’m talking about playing the game in good faith and in the process wrecking the GM’s carefully laid out plans. Technically it’s possible to wreck a campaign in session zero by building a party that can’t complete the campaign as written.

My examp,e is we started a StarWars campaign. The set up was we met in a bar and then the Imperial Navy recruiters turned up and press-ganged everyone into the Navy.
So we started a riot and made our escape. Then we worked our way to the docks and found a suitable ship to steal. After stealing the ship a large force of TIE fighters was sent to stop us, and after letting the initial attack run take down the shields we bluffed the TIE fighters into believing we were Intelligence agents and their attack was part of the show to convince the watching rebels we were genuine.
Session ends with us hyperjumping to the outer rim, selling the stolen ship and buying another ship.
High 5s all around and congratulating the GM on such a great start to the campaign and we can’t wait for next week.

At which point she tells us their ain’t gonna be next week. Her campaign plan for session one was that we were supposed to be:
- press-ganged,
- get contacted by rebel spies who would sneak us out, then
- be chipped suicide squad style
- be given a rebel ship with an embedded tracking device
- be sent on the first of our a series of missions which would end with us stealing the plans for the Death Star.

We had killed the Rebel spymaster in the riot turning the rebels against us, got our records flagged by both the Imperial Navy and the Imperial Intelligence making undercover work in the Imperium nearly impossible and had acquired our own ship with a clean record..

She’d spent 2 months building the campaign and we were so deep in the weeds she had no prepared material suitable to follow on from where we had ended session one. And that’s where the campaign ended.

Your DM made the same mistake that a lot of DM's make. You played through the intro.

The intro is not for playing unless the DM is open to these sorts of things happening. The intro is for introducing things.

Getting press-ganged? That's story.
Getting contacted by spies? That's story.
Getting chipped suicide-suqad-style? That's story.
Getting a ship for your first mission? That's story.
Being sent on your quest? THAT is where her game actually started.

Everything leading up to that? That's introductory story that the DM should give you before turning over the reins and letting the players start rolling dice.

The DM should be absolutely prepared for their game to take an immediate left-turn the moment they let players start rolling. That's not to say it will, luck and chance may conspire to make it work just as planned. The DM may be really good at making the railroad look like an open-world, the players may be really interested in the story laid out before them.

But a lot of DMs and a lot of games make this exact mistake. They let people start playing before they actually should.

kyoryu
2021-11-16, 10:48 PM
Don’t know why so many people think the GM was in error. She’s a very good, very experienced GM. It’s just that the party when met with overwhelming force on 3 occasions managed to get out. She did everything possible in game to get us back on the rails. By rights the party should have been captured.

because....


In the case of the OP, the rook GM's mistake was to start with a session that had to unfold a certain way. Excellent session.
Should have has session 0 starting with characters who are already caught.
Maybe even narrate a cut scene of being processed, chipped and shown around their new ship before character gen.
Or, less prep into the "after they get caught" bit and some thought into "what if they don't"

Hopefully a learning experience and not discouraging future GMing


Your DM made the same mistake that a lot of DM's make. You played through the intro.

The intro is not for playing unless the DM is open to these sorts of things happening. The intro is for introducing things.

Getting press-ganged? That's story.
Getting contacted by spies? That's story.
Getting chipped suicide-suqad-style? That's story.
Getting a ship for your first mission? That's story.
Being sent on your quest? THAT is where her game actually started.

Everything leading up to that? That's introductory story that the DM should give you before turning over the reins and letting the players start rolling dice.

The DM should be absolutely prepared for their game to take an immediate left-turn the moment they let players start rolling. That's not to say it will, luck and chance may conspire to make it work just as planned. The DM may be really good at making the railroad look like an open-world, the players may be really interested in the story laid out before them.

But a lot of DMs and a lot of games make this exact mistake. They let people start playing before they actually should.

Exactly these points.

OldTrees1
2021-11-16, 11:37 PM
Don’t know why so many people think the GM was in error. She’s a very good, very experienced GM. It’s just that the party when met with overwhelming force on 3 occasions managed to get out. She did everything possible in game to get us back on the rails. By rights the party should have been captured.

When did she talk out of character to the players about the risk of ending the campaign by escaping?

It is okay for GMs to make mistakes. Even very experienced GMs can make mistakes. In this case there was insufficient communication from both the players and the GM. That is okay. That is a learning moment.

Next time the party escapes 2 overwhelming forces, maybe the players and GM will both initiate communication asking whether captured was vital to the campaign.

Next time the party escapes 2 overwhelming forces, maybe the GM has a solution for how to continue the campaign even if the party avoids capture.

Next time the party escapes 2 overwhelming forces, maybe the players start to be more transparent about their plans so the GM can better anticipate them.

Telok
2021-11-17, 01:50 AM
There are really only three things you can do with a ship -- be a merchant (which is boring), be part of a navy (which is under some admiral's command), or piracy.

The essence of adventuring is doing something suspenseful and dangerous on your own. Piracy is the only option with a ship that meets that goal.

I dunno. I started them out on a 3km long super luxury cruise liner as an elite entertainment/security/things-explode group will full medical & legal cover, hanging around some of the richest & tax evade-est people in known space, with a mysterious captain nobody has seen for 300 years. I had tons of potential trouble to throw at them there.

They dumped that for a banged up old 150m long boat they could barely afford to repair and had to deal with leftover zombies crawling out of the plumbing. Twice. Then they tried to hijack a low end cargo ship smuggling molassis for the halfling mafia. Except it was docked at the biggest trade hub in the galaxy with serious stick-in-bum shoot-first paramilitary security forces.

They could have gone exploring. There were literally places in the setting write-up to find lost-tech, alien-tech, super-bio-tech, ultra-magi-tech, the planet where tarasques are basically equal to turtles and the owners manual for all creation is just laying around on the ground, a star system that spawns baby space kaiju you can "farm". They did eventually do exploration. Wildly dangerous & profitable exploration. One got super rich, another got a 2km long lost-magi-tech ship will meter thick gold anti-magic hull plating. The illithid federation gave them letters of recommendation and commendation, the uber-vampire council and the cocaine wizards guild both owed them favors. Piracy? Banal.

Batcathat
2021-11-17, 02:29 AM
The typical king's vizier can lie to the PCs. The Mayor. The town's cleric. The guard. Whomever NPC BBEG or Lieutenant or minion the party has just met and we don't know yet is the villain for that particular adventure arc. Not the party's Patron who has been the party's ally, friend, and confidant from levels 1 to 12 or whatever high level when the Big Reveal happens.

Are all villains also mandated to twirl their mustaches and laugh maniacally at regular intervals? If the above is the unstated rule at your table that's fine, but it's definitely not a universal thing.

HidesHisEyes
2021-11-17, 07:49 AM
Don’t know why so many people think the GM was in error. She’s a very good, very experienced GM. It’s just that the party when met with overwhelming force on 3 occasions managed to get out. She did everything possible in game to get us back on the rails. By rights the party should have been captured.



In campaigns I’ve been involved in the PCs capturing a ship leads inevitably to a mercantile campaign.

In my view she was in error for having rails to begin with. But I realise that’s a rather extreme position. If you disagree with it then I guess my response to this is just that she should accept that this will happen sometimes, no harm no foul. You said she had run this campaign successfully so it’s not like the work that went into it was wasted.


If it referred to my case, then the fact that my players ended up unmasking the villain when they weren't supposed to shows it's not the case.

It's less about betraying the pcs, and more about setting up hidden villains. Like, there is this important npc who's apparently a reasonable authority figure, but he's secretly a mastermind with a plan for world domination and he's only waiting for the right opportunity to start. Generally the opportunity is some kind of strife that would weaken the villain's enemies.

I prefer to have a cohesive world with established powerful factions, and have some of them enact evil plans, rather than introduce a new villain out of nowhere and then forgetting his followers the moment they're not relevant anymore. It enables better immersion and better characterization.

Also, the players aren't necessarily supposed to befriend those people. They represent political factions, and the pcs will have dealings with them, and those can go in many ways.
There was only one time i intentionally made a friend (a cohort) of the pcs turn traitor; and i was planning for the pc to win npc loialty over time, so that she would not betray the party and instead help them at the critical time.
Instead, the party did the following
- got her killed in their first fight toghether
- used a lower quality resurrection spell on her, making her lose a level, to save money
- gave her sub-par equipment
- used her as expendable meat shield
So, she went on with the betrayal. It wasn't my original plan.
Since then, the party was much more nice to cohorts

The vast majority of the npcs, though, are never intended as villains and traitors. I don't want to play in a grimdark crapsack world where the pcs have to kill everyone before they are killed. Most allies will be steadfast.
But wouldn't it be boring if every npc was always reliable?

I don’t think my last post was directed at you, no. And I broadly agree here. I try to think of deceptive NPCs the same way I try to think of everything I put in my campaigns: I’m throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. If we reach a point where an NPC might betray the PCs, then maybe they attempt to. If an NPC is deceiving them from the start then I’ll include some kind of clue towards that and at least give the players the opportunity to figure it out. My only real point here is that I don’t like the idea of saying “this NPC WILL successfully deceive the PCs”. And it’s just a specific case of the fact that I don’t like saying that anything at all WILL happen. I don’t want to know what’s going to happen any more than the players do.


Well, sure. Railroading is bad, but that's true regardless of whether it's about making sure the characters are tricked, captured, killed or something else. That said, I don't think the GM having a plan for the narrative in the sense of what's probably going to happen is a problem, as long as they're okay with it going some other way and able to adapt.

Yeah that’s my point, the deception thing is really a particularly sensitive case of the general no railroading rule, for me. And in principle I agree it’s fine to have an idea of likely outcomes, but personally I try to avoid even that since for me it’s a slippery slope from there to railroading. I’ve improved my games so much by adhering to “hold on lightly” and “play to find out” through cast iron discipline, that now I’m paranoid about it. Again, completely idiosyncratic point about my personal style, not a prescription.

icefractal
2021-11-17, 05:56 PM
Are all villains also mandated to twirl their mustaches and laugh maniacally at regular intervals? If the above is the unstated rule at your table that's fine, but it's definitely not a universal thing.I think the key thing in that sentence is "from levels 1". I think it's fine for anyone to be potentially deceptive, if it's also fine for the players to refuse any quest and/or refuse to trust any person, including the very first hook that starts the campaign.

Personally, I've played in campaigns like that, and it sucked. We spent multiple sessions just getting most (not all) of the party working together, and even then there was a lot of carefully probing NPCs for information (which mostly wasn't shared with the other PCs) and very little taking any action, because we didn't know who could be trusted or whether any info we had was correct.

So now I prefer: "You can trust your fellow PCs and you can trust the initial hook, and neither of those will bite you in the ass IC. After that, maybe choose more carefully." Because then at least we build up some momentum and connections before slowing down.

MoiMagnus
2021-11-17, 06:17 PM
I think the key thing in that sentence is "from levels 1". I think it's fine for anyone to be potentially deceptive, if it's also fine for the players to refuse any quest and/or refuse to trust any person, including the very first hook that starts the campaign.

Personally, I've played in campaigns like that, and it sucked. We spent multiple sessions just getting most (not all) of the party working together, and even then there was a lot of carefully probing NPCs for information (which mostly wasn't shared with the other PCs) and very little taking any action, because we didn't know who could be trusted or whether any info we had was correct.

So now I prefer: "You can trust your fellow PCs and you can trust the initial hook, and neither of those will bite you in the ass IC. After that, maybe choose more carefully." Because then at least we build up some momentum and connections before slowing down.

That's also why I prefer non-hostile deceptions. Just because you're initially a pawn in a greater game, and that the NPCs are hiding their true motives, doesn't mean that this will bite you eventually. In general, any campaign that includes climbing ranks in a secret society of some sort will start with a currently deceptive NPC which will most likely be a future ally (unless the PCs decide to play double agent for another organisation).

Pex
2021-11-17, 07:29 PM
Are all villains also mandated to twirl their mustaches and laugh maniacally at regular intervals? If the above is the unstated rule at your table that's fine, but it's definitely not a universal thing.

I never said it had to be universal. I just said I hate DM tricking players campaigns because of its adversarial nature.

Forum Explorer
2021-11-17, 08:11 PM
I never said it had to be universal. I just said I hate DM tricking players campaigns because of its adversarial nature.

I like the idea of running that in reverse (might not be the best word for it). Yeah, the villain is the guy giving the quests. But he's not betraying you, he's trying to recruit you. These mission are all about fulfilling his evil plan and yeah, you might be pawns. But you're valuable pawns.

And then the 'reveal' isn't so much a sudden betrayal, but him testing you to see if you are truly loyal and ready to be promoted to evil LT. And you turning against him is the real betrayal here. :smalltongue:

Of course the usual caveats of giving the PCs opportunities to figure this all out beforehand, and letting them spring their betrayal early, or even letting them come up with an elaborate plot to overthrow the BBEG at the last second. You know, however they want to play it out.

King of Nowhere
2021-11-17, 08:26 PM
Yeah that’s my point, the deception thing is really a particularly sensitive case of the general no railroading rule, for me. And in principle I agree it’s fine to have an idea of likely outcomes, but personally I try to avoid even that since for me it’s a slippery slope from there to railroading.

on the other hand, if i have a good idea of what's likely to happen, i can prepare for that and make better material than i could if i was improvising. i mean, i have a pretty clear idea of how the world is made, which are the powerful factions, what kind of resources they have, and which of them have some nefarious plan secretly going. I am good with the big picture.
but the small scale eludes me. I learned to improvise decently well, and I am lucky to have good players that will help me by asking the right questions, but I'm much better if i can prepare in advance.

Last time, with the party uncovering the final villain too early, I had to call the session to an early stop to prepare. I knew the villain, being discovered, would move up her timetable and attack the main city that served as the pcs base of operation, and steamroll it. But I needed to prepare some good narration, because introducing a major villain must be done properly to make the villain memorable, and I knew there were a lot of details I had to convey and I would forget some if improvising. And I had the villain statted in advance, but i didn't have her minions statted. and finally, i wanted to provide opportunities for the party to run around the invaded city, fighting monsters at the outskirt of the major fights, to save their friends and their stuff. again, a lot of miniquest i had to prepare.
on the plus side, it was a memorable session and everyone was happy with the result.

Duff
2021-11-17, 08:45 PM
Your DM made the same mistake that a lot of DM's make. You played through the intro.

The intro is not for playing unless the DM is open to these sorts of things happening. The intro is for introducing things.

Getting press-ganged? That's story.
Getting contacted by spies? That's story.
Getting chipped suicide-suqad-style? That's story.
Getting a ship for your first mission? That's story.
Being sent on your quest? THAT is where her game actually started.

Everything leading up to that? That's introductory story that the DM should give you before turning over the reins and letting the players start rolling dice.

The DM should be absolutely prepared for their game to take an immediate left-turn the moment they let players start rolling. That's not to say it will, luck and chance may conspire to make it work just as planned. The DM may be really good at making the railroad look like an open-world, the players may be really interested in the story laid out before them.

But a lot of DMs and a lot of games make this exact mistake. They let people start playing before they actually should.

That is so much more elegantly put than I said it!

Saint-Just
2021-11-17, 08:49 PM
I like the idea of running that in reverse (might not be the best word for it). Yeah, the villain is the guy giving the quests. But he's not betraying you, he's trying to recruit you. These mission are all about fulfilling his evil plan and yeah, you might be pawns. But you're valuable pawns.

And then the 'reveal' isn't so much a sudden betrayal, but him testing you to see if you are truly loyal and ready to be promoted to evil LT. And you turning against him is the real betrayal here. :smalltongue:

Of course the usual caveats of giving the PCs opportunities to figure this all out beforehand, and letting them spring their betrayal early, or even letting them come up with an elaborate plot to overthrow the BBEG at the last second. You know, however they want to play it out.

Sounds like exactly what was supposed to happen in Glorthindel's campaign. The players were supposed to turn on their boss.

Duff
2021-11-17, 08:59 PM
I think the key thing in that sentence is "from levels 1". I think it's fine for anyone to be potentially deceptive, if it's also fine for the players to refuse any quest and/or refuse to trust any person, including the very first hook that starts the campaign.


Those are not at all equivalent. If PCs don't accept the hook, the adventure doesn't happen. This isn't a moral or rules thing. This is entirely practical.
Not trusting the first quest giver is entirely appropriate. Even good roleplaying. Take the job, but also, cast detect alignment/do some research/keep the emails

"A well established patron has to deal fairly and honestly with the party" is a table rule you should probably check if you ever join a game at a table you don't know.
Especially if the GM has ever played Shadowrun

Forum Explorer
2021-11-17, 09:02 PM
Sounds like exactly what was supposed to happen in Glorthindel's campaign. The players were supposed to turn on their boss.

That was a pretty amazing story. And this is much the same idea, just with the BBEG being more aware of the PCs allegiance

georgie_leech
2021-11-17, 11:47 PM
Especially if the GM has ever played Shadowrun

Thank you for succinctly identifying why I never seem to trust anyone acting as a quest giver anymore :smallamused:

Batcathat
2021-11-18, 02:03 AM
I think the key thing in that sentence is "from levels 1". I think it's fine for anyone to be potentially deceptive, if it's also fine for the players to refuse any quest and/or refuse to trust any person, including the very first hook that starts the campaign.

Personally, I've played in campaigns like that, and it sucked. We spent multiple sessions just getting most (not all) of the party working together, and even then there was a lot of carefully probing NPCs for information (which mostly wasn't shared with the other PCs) and very little taking any action, because we didn't know who could be trusted or whether any info we had was correct.

So now I prefer: "You can trust your fellow PCs and you can trust the initial hook, and neither of those will bite you in the ass IC. After that, maybe choose more carefully." Because then at least we build up some momentum and connections before slowing down.

I don't really see the point of this sort of meta-reasoning. Yes, the players should be able to trust the GM not to screw them over but that doesn't mean the characters need to be able to trust their patron not to do it. Just look at Glorthindel's story – the characters were probably very upset about their employeer using and tricking them but the players seems to have been completely okay with the situation.


I never said it had to be universal. I just said I hate DM tricking players campaigns because of its adversarial nature.

That's fine, but I still don't understand why the GM having NPCs attack the PCs isn't adversarial but having the NPCs lie to them is.

Pex
2021-11-18, 03:06 PM
That's fine, but I still don't understand why the GM having NPCs attack the PCs isn't adversarial but having the NPCs lie to them is.

Not just any NPC. The NPC the DM spent the whole campaign up to that point as the party's friend and mentor only for the Big Reveal to be AHA! he was the BBEG all along and tricked you.

Lacco
2021-11-18, 03:23 PM
Not just any NPC. The NPC the DM spent the whole campaign up to that point as the party's friend and mentor only for the Big Reveal to be AHA! he was the BBEG all along and tricked you.

This is actually a good point for many GMs. If you spend time setting up this big goofy good mentor friend and then pull the rug from under the players' collective feet, you are basically inviting them not to trust anyone.

There need to be countless small hints.
Big hints.
Folks that are afraid of the "good mentor".
Allies that will try to warn them not to trust him.
People who actually say something bad will disappear.

Basically, a rugpull is no good unless the players have a solid chance to figure it out before you do it, and unless they trust you, as a GM.

And even then it can backfire. Also, it should not be the end of the campaign: getting revenge should be the end.

Batcathat
2021-11-18, 03:27 PM
Not just any NPC. The NPC the DM spent the whole campaign up to that point as the party's friend and mentor only for the Big Reveal to be AHA! he was the BBEG all along and tricked you.

Right, I understand what's happening, just not why it'd be such a big no-no. Granted, pulling off such a reveal takes some skill and probably planning (compare the ending of the Sixth Sense to some of Shyamalan's later mandatory big twists, for example) but I suspect that's not what you're referring to. Again, I agree that the GM must absolutely play fair, the NPCs can lie to the PCs, but GM can't lie about what they are experiencing.

Glorthindel
2021-11-19, 06:40 AM
Just look at Glorthindel's story – the characters were probably very upset about their employeer using and tricking them but the players seems to have been completely okay with the situation.


Oh absolutely, the session when it all came out is possibly the best session I have ever been involved in, and is probably the only time I've had absolutely no idea how something was going to play out. At one point the party were in a full mexican standoff with each other, and the players were checking with each other that there would be no hard feelings if they just started shooting.

I will admit, the session could have definitely gone the wrong way with a different group of players, but our group is about 20 years old at this point, have been close friends away from the table for as long, and we don't carry grudges away from the table with us. With a less solid group of friends, it might have gone differently.


This is actually a good point for many GMs. If you spend time setting up this big goofy good mentor friend and then pull the rug from under the players' collective feet, you are basically inviting them not to trust anyone.

There need to be countless small hints.
Big hints.
Folks that are afraid of the "good mentor".
Allies that will try to warn them not to trust him.
People who actually say something bad will disappear.

Basically, a rugpull is no good unless the players have a solid chance to figure it out before you do it, and unless they trust you, as a GM.

And even then it can backfire. Also, it should not be the end of the campaign: getting revenge should be the end.

Agreed. I made sure to never have my Inquisitor be the parties friend. He was always a looming presence who was focussed on "his mission", and treated the party like expendable underlings who should be treated like mushrooms. In hindsight, my big mistake was doing this in the Warhammer 40k setting, as the players interpreted this as normal good guy behavoir for that setting (and I suppose they aren't wrong there...).

Batcathat
2021-11-19, 06:52 AM
Oh absolutely, the session when it all came out is possibly the best session I have ever been involved in, and is probably the only time I've had absolutely no idea how something was going to play out. At one point the party were in a full mexican standoff with each other, and the players were checking with each other that there would be no hard feelings if they just started shooting.

Sounds like fun. One of my own more memorable RPG experiences also involve the party in a Mexican stand-off. We had some disagreements over whether to kill a prisoner or not, if I remember correctly it ended with the prisoner dead and one party member (non-fatally) shot. That was a fun party, my PC was the self-appointed party leader and it was like herding cats. Murderous, impulsive cats with no regard for their own or anyone else's safety... :smalltongue: If the GM did have a plan for that campaign, it was probably derailed within the first ten minutes.

Lucas Yew
2021-11-19, 07:21 AM
A minor case in my (as of now) only 5E campaign ever played, though not a Session 1 scenario.

1. My DM unleashed a solo devil combat encounter (late T2).
2. My GOO Warlock fires a banish spell as the very first action.
3. It's super effective! :smalleek: The supposedly impressive devil popped away...

While I, the DM and everyone in the group were (most probably) reasonable adults so let the mess-up pass for that time, the shell shock was clear enough that for all other banishable future encounters, the DM had pointed out excuses in form of hints why this was not repeatable and I obliged for the group's shared fun...

----

Edit: Not the 1st session, actually, but I think this would have been a minor derail if either me or the DM were not a polite person...

HidesHisEyes
2021-11-19, 07:51 AM
on the other hand, if i have a good idea of what's likely to happen, i can prepare for that and make better material than i could if i was improvising. i mean, i have a pretty clear idea of how the world is made, which are the powerful factions, what kind of resources they have, and which of them have some nefarious plan secretly going. I am good with the big picture.
but the small scale eludes me. I learned to improvise decently well, and I am lucky to have good players that will help me by asking the right questions, but I'm much better if i can prepare in advance.

Last time, with the party uncovering the final villain too early, I had to call the session to an early stop to prepare. I knew the villain, being discovered, would move up her timetable and attack the main city that served as the pcs base of operation, and steamroll it. But I needed to prepare some good narration, because introducing a major villain must be done properly to make the villain memorable, and I knew there were a lot of details I had to convey and I would forget some if improvising. And I had the villain statted in advance, but i didn't have her minions statted. and finally, i wanted to provide opportunities for the party to run around the invaded city, fighting monsters at the outskirt of the major fights, to save their friends and their stuff. again, a lot of miniquest i had to prepare.
on the plus side, it was a memorable session and everyone was happy with the result.

I suppose I just value the organic, flexible quality that comes from being as improvisational as possible over the detail, consistency etc that comes from planning for a specific eventuality. When I used to do the latter I often found that the cool moments I had planned fell flat, and I’ve had that experience as a player with other people’s cool moments too. I think it’s because, for me, what makes an RPG moment truly cool is precisely that it wasn’t planned, that we all just ended up there together.

I’m not saying I don’t prep at all, btw. I just stick to prepping modular elements that I can wheel out or combine with what the players give me as needed.

Easy e
2021-11-19, 12:44 PM
Thank you for succinctly identifying why I never seem to trust anyone acting as a quest giver anymore :smallamused:

+1 to this!

Pex
2021-11-19, 01:50 PM
A minor case in my (as of now) only 5E campaign ever played, though not a Session 1 scenario.

1. My DM unleashed a solo devil combat encounter (late T2).
2. My GOO Warlock fires a banish spell as the very first action.
3. It's super effective! :smalleek: The supposedly impressive devil popped away...

While I, the DM and everyone in the group were (most probably) reasonable adults so let the mess-up pass for that time, the shell shock was clear enough that for all other banishable future encounters, the DM had pointed out excuses in form of hints why this was not repeatable and I obliged for the group's shared fun...

----

Edit: Not the 1st session, actually, but I think this would have been a minor derail if either me or the DM were not a polite person...

Instead of banning the spell by proxy the better solution was for the DM to learn the lesson of not having a solo devil encounter and instead have multiple foes encounters and let everyone feel good when you banish one of the stronger enemies to make the combat easier for everyone. That's why the iconic UberBBEG monsters have Legendary Resistance. It's to allow them to be solo fights without one spell ending the fight on Round One. Lair actions and Legendary actions are so the players don't defeat them in Round Two due to action economy.

Quertus
2021-11-20, 11:01 PM
Only time I remember ever intending something, I intended a character to act as the BBEG. Party took them as an ally / quest-giver.

Building a complex plot that requires a session to go a particular way is a rookie mistake.

Even if that way is "oppose (rather than join) the BBEG".

HidesHisEyes
2021-11-21, 06:08 AM
Only time I remember ever intending something, I intended a character to act as the BBEG. Party took them as an ally / quest-giver.

Building a complex plot that requires a session to go a particular way is a rookie mistake.

Even if that way is "oppose (rather than join) the BBEG".

Yep yep yep.

Telok
2021-11-21, 11:32 PM
Building a complex plot that requires a session to go a particular way is a rookie mistake.

Even if that way is "oppose (rather than join) the BBEG".

Building a simple plot that requires the PCs to just not be suicidal anarchist psycho-murderers has also failed several times for me.

Pex
2021-11-22, 12:34 AM
Building a simple plot that requires the PCs to just not be suicidal anarchist psycho-murderers has also failed several times for me.

The only time that happened to me was at a gaming convention, but I was inexperienced to know what was happening at the time and they were doing it on purpose. It was a group of friends who arrived. One would leave without me realizing it until 30 minutes into the game. The rest just started a combat for the sake of having one. They fought until their characters' died then congratulated themselves on ruining the game and left the table. The game wasn't ruined because what they fought wasn't important, and I continued the game fine with everyone else who were there to play and weren't even in the fight. I would learn later they did the same thing to another DM at a miniatures wargaming table. The DM went to the bathroom, and when he returned half his players were gone preventing the game from being played. Nothing was stolen.

Sometimes people are just donkey cavities.

Altheus
2021-11-22, 07:52 AM
....She’d spent 2 months building the campaign and we were so deep in the weeds she had no prepared material suitable to follow on from where we had ended session one. And that’s where the campaign ended.

And that's why you don't plan more than a session or two ahead.

gijoemike
2021-11-23, 01:08 PM
And that's why you don't plan more than a session or two ahead.

I good GM should always outline the campaign and various major NPCs. That could easily take a group of PCs 10 or 12 sessions to encounter. This isn't every single detail corridor and piece of loot, but just the high level stuff.

Easy e
2021-11-23, 03:51 PM
I good GM should always outline the campaign and various major NPCs. That could easily take a group of PCs 10 or 12 sessions to encounter. This isn't every single detail corridor and piece of loot, but just the high level stuff.

I think you will find strong disagreement about what makes a "Good GM".

False God
2021-11-24, 12:03 AM
And that's why you don't plan more than a session or two ahead.

The GM's issue wasn't one of overplanning.

I'd argue, it was in fact, a lack of planning.

Session 1, above all others, will contain the highest number of probable outcomes. From there on out, planning far ahead is fairly simple. You've got an idea of what hooks the characters, what hooks the players, and where they're going. Since they're interested in these elements, they're more likely to see them to completion, rather than just bounce all over the board. So you can plan out what they're interested in, instead of guessing at what might catch their attention.

Once you know where the party wants to go, planning far ahead is easy, and you won't even have to railroad, because the party WANTS to do this thing.

HidesHisEyes
2021-11-24, 02:37 AM
The GM's issue wasn't one of overplanning.

I'd argue, it was in fact, a lack of planning.

Session 1, above all others, will contain the highest number of probable outcomes. From there on out, planning far ahead is fairly simple. You've got an idea of what hooks the characters, what hooks the players, and where they're going. Since they're interested in these elements, they're more likely to see them to completion, rather than just bounce all over the board. So you can plan out what they're interested in, instead of guessing at what might catch their attention.

Once you know where the party wants to go, planning far ahead is easy, and you won't even have to railroad, because the party WANTS to do this thing.

Not in my experience. I might be able to rely on the players staying interested in the same broad elements long enough to plan for them, but I found that the further ahead I planned the more I had to rely on them making specific decisions on a more zoomed in level. And if they really have agency then they’re able to make specific decisions that can alter the course I had planned. At that point I need to either find a way to shut down their decision and get them back on track, or spend hours reworking my prep between sessions (which I don’t have time or energy for). So rather than do either of those things, I started constraining myself to just prepping the immediate scenario and letting go of all preconceptions about where the campaign would go - and I’ve never looked back.

kyoryu
2021-11-24, 11:25 AM
So now I prefer: "You can trust your fellow PCs and you can trust the initial hook, and neither of those will bite you in the ass IC. After that, maybe choose more carefully." Because then at least we build up some momentum and connections before slowing down.

I think that's fair, though I do like the addition of "initial quest givers may not be completely honest and there may be other layers to what they're doing, but they're not going to betray you."

I also personally like getting an agreement about what hte game is "about", in broad terms, before you start playing. Then everybody knows what the game is, is on board with it, and is willing to "bite", since it's what they signed up for.

If people sign up for "food", and you bring them a hamburger, they may or may not want to eat it. If they ordered a hamburger, you can be pretty sure they'll be willing to take a bite.


Not in my experience. I might be able to rely on the players staying interested in the same broad elements long enough to plan for them, but I found that the further ahead I planned the more I had to rely on them making specific decisions on a more zoomed in level. And if they really have agency then they’re able to make specific decisions that can alter the course I had planned. At that point I need to either find a way to shut down their decision and get them back on track, or spend hours reworking my prep between sessions (which I don’t have time or energy for). So rather than do either of those things, I started constraining myself to just prepping the immediate scenario and letting go of all preconceptions about where the campaign would go - and I’ve never looked back.

Yup.

I do think getting pre-game agreement on what the game is about, generally, is a good idea. But really, I find that pre-planning too much harms the enjoyment I get out of games, on both sides of the table.

I find the best games happen when the GM's ideas and the players' ideas come together in ways that neither could imagine. Usually this is done by me through PC actions and player assumptions, rather than explicit "writer's room" type stuff, but it still happens. As a player, I want to know that the choices I make have a real impact - that another group playing from the same scenario would get a different experience, presuming they didn't make all the same choices. And from a GM's POV, I have the most fun when I don't know what's going to happen and I see events unfold.

But to do that right (I believe) requires a lot of skills that most games don't do a very good job of teaching. (Start with - "what is a story question?", and my answer is here (https://www.reddit.com/r/FATErpg/comments/na2fvd/on_story_questions/))

Trafalgar
2021-11-30, 10:57 AM
I”m sure most of us have done this at some point or another. I’m not talking about the players deliberately breaking the campaign or going murderhobo, I’m talking about playing the game in good faith and in the process wrecking the GM’s carefully laid out plans. Technically it’s possible to wreck a campaign in session zero by building a party that can’t complete the campaign as written.

My examp,e is we started a StarWars campaign. The set up was we met in a bar and then the Imperial Navy recruiters turned up and press-ganged everyone into the Navy.
So we started a riot and made our escape. Then we worked our way to the docks and found a suitable ship to steal. After stealing the ship a large force of TIE fighters was sent to stop us, and after letting the initial attack run take down the shields we bluffed the TIE fighters into believing we were Intelligence agents and their attack was part of the show to convince the watching rebels we were genuine.
Session ends with us hyperjumping to the outer rim, selling the stolen ship and buying another ship.
High 5s all around and congratulating the GM on such a great start to the campaign and we can’t wait for next week.

At which point she tells us their ain’t gonna be next week. Her campaign plan for session one was that we were supposed to be:
- press-ganged,
- get contacted by rebel spies who would sneak us out, then
- be chipped suicide squad style
- be given a rebel ship with an embedded tracking device
- be sent on the first of our a series of missions which would end with us stealing the plans for the Death Star.

We had killed the Rebel spymaster in the riot turning the rebels against us, got our records flagged by both the Imperial Navy and the Imperial Intelligence making undercover work in the Imperium nearly impossible and had acquired our own ship with a clean record..

She’d spent 2 months building the campaign and we were so deep in the weeds she had no prepared material suitable to follow on from where we had ended session one. And that’s where the campaign ended.

Sounds like the GM was writing a novel instead of GMing a TTRPG. Hopefully she learns from this.

HidesHisEyes
2021-11-30, 11:12 AM
Yup.

I do think getting pre-game agreement on what the game is about, generally, is a good idea. But really, I find that pre-planning too much harms the enjoyment I get out of games, on both sides of the table.

I find the best games happen when the GM's ideas and the players' ideas come together in ways that neither could imagine. Usually this is done by me through PC actions and player assumptions, rather than explicit "writer's room" type stuff, but it still happens. As a player, I want to know that the choices I make have a real impact - that another group playing from the same scenario would get a different experience, presuming they didn't make all the same choices. And from a GM's POV, I have the most fun when I don't know what's going to happen and I see events unfold.

But to do that right (I believe) requires a lot of skills that most games don't do a very good job of teaching. (Start with - "what is a story question?", and my answer is here (https://www.reddit.com/r/FATErpg/comments/na2fvd/on_story_questions/))

Yeah absolutely it’s a great help to know what the campaign is going to be roughly about. I think of that as “premise”. Eg in my current campaign we sorted out the broad strokes of the setting and the premise of “freelance monster-hunter team” in session 0, and went from there. Everything that happens will fit that setting and premise, but within those restrictions the possibilities are still basically infinite.

Oh and I prefer to work out what happens from within, rather than writer’s room, once the campaign gets going. But I do like the meta conversation to be available if we need it. For example I once had a situation where the party got themselves arrested and charged with murder, and rather than let that take over the campaign for a few sessions, I asked if they wanted to zip over it with a general approach and a few rolls. That worked fine. Obviously the same tactic is useful for steering clear of things some players might find upsetting etc, or just aren’t interested in, so I like players to feel that they can pick up the meta conversation at any point, it’s just not the default mode.

I’m not a big fan of FATE, at least so far, but I’ll read your story question post when I have time, looks interesting.

kyoryu
2021-11-30, 12:08 PM
I’m not a big fan of FATE, at least so far, but I’ll read your story question post when I have time, looks interesting.

Agreed with your main post.

Happy to talk Fate some time. I may be able to change your opinion ;)

Milodiah
2021-12-01, 02:56 PM
One thing I'll add here that's different, but on a similar topic, is that I had a rather inverted experience with one of my groups. We rotated GMs which was cool, wish that happened more often, but our "main" GM had this particular obsession with the (what I gather to be in anime) "Isekai" trope. By which I mean I can comfortably say that more of our games with him were the characters being thrown into an entirely different setting against their will, than the characters remaining residents of the setting we found ourselves in at the start of the game. Obviously this would get old, but the worst part was that when he would run it in some systems (ie rifts) some characters would be far better suited to getting "Isekai'd" than others. The party was a mage, a cyberknight, some sort of supernatural creature, and myself, a Coalition States Navy SEAL equivalent.

This was one of the first times he did this, so I wasn't expecting it and it was kinda fun, except there's something you need to know about rifts if you don't already- normal baseline humans are utterly HELPLESS against so-called "megadamage creatures" without super advanced weapons, because Rifts has this weird conceit about everything being incredibly overpowered to the point where it's kinda sorta balanced against itself because most things aren't dramatically MORE overpowered than others (ie high tech laser guns versus magic wands versus mystical martial arts versus psychic powers). Except I'd built my character to use the first of those four examples, and was transported with nothing but workout clothes and a pocket knife to a world where only the other three things existed. The first encounter was with a monster I had no hope of harming, but the other players could easily, so I spent most of the first session evacuating the villagers while they did the slaying. The cyberknight can conjure a psychic sword out of thin air, the mage still has all his magic, and the supernatural creature was no less supernatural. But I'm a dude in basketball shorts and a sweaty tank top, with a water bottle and a mostly harmless knife I actually had to argue the GM to let me have. I was the only one who could neither deal nor take damage in this new world.

Eventually we're introduced to the king of this medieval fantasy nation, and he's very interested in us outsiders and wants to bring us into his court. I smell the chance to make my non-combat skills useful, because this naval commando officer of mine happens to have an extensive knowledge of naval history and sailing ships as a hobby skill. I ask excitedly if perhaps I could be assigned to the kingdom's navy, only for the final shoe to drop:

The GM dropped us into an entirely landlocked nation.

Why? Why would he let me choose to be a navy commando who specializes in future tech sniper rifles when he's going to drop me into a setting where neither sniper rifles nor navies exist? Couldn't he have at least given me a vague hint that this character wouldn't be a good fit?


That's not the last time he'd done that, in fact the last time he did it (while I was in the group anyway, I moved, but I suspect he probably still does it), it was a pathfinder game where we were all explicitly members of a peace force desperately trying to keep order in a sprawling planar city in a massive demiplane that happened to have the chaotic descriptor, so it was an uphill battle indeed. All our characters are set up to operate with that in mind, and we were kinda ecstatic about the idea because it sounded unique and cool, and when he lays out a specific plan of what the campaign will be, he usually doesn't do that thing.

Then, second session, he did the thing. Some super important NPC gets kidnapped, we see the abductors open a portal and jump through, we get urged on by our npc commander to follow, and it closes up right when we go through. Now we're in a forest somewhere, near an idyllic country village that wouldn't be out of place in Lord of the Rings.

God dammit, man. Did you seriously do all the prep work laying out that elaborate city just as a bait and switch? We were really pissed off, because some of our characters (mine especially) just didn't gel with the "standard" D&D experience of going from village to village, clearing dungeons, meeting kings, slaying dragons, all that. We were cops because we were explicitly instructed to make cops. And sure, it could have been interesting to see how it played out, but how did he not see we were genuinely enthusiastic about the first setup, and how visibly disappointed we were as players when we realized he did the thing again?

Long story short, its a bit of a two way street with not derailing the campaign in the first session, and the need for communication definitely applies to situations like this. You don't have to lay out the Big Twist ahead of time, but at least advise the players that this one will be "special" or "different" in some way. And if one of your PCs will not tolerate that Twist well, please, tell them something. Sure, it can be fun to adapt to new challenges like that, but don't knowingly let the player deprive himself of virtually all tools to do so.

GloatingSwine
2021-12-02, 05:30 AM
Not just any NPC. The NPC the DM spent the whole campaign up to that point as the party's friend and mentor only for the Big Reveal to be AHA! he was the BBEG all along and tricked you.

I think this is a case of good twists vs bad twists. A bad twist is one you could not have seen coming, a good twist is one you kick yourself for not seeing it coming.

If it comes out of the blue to the party because the GM presented absolutely no way for them to have possibly discovered it before the Big Reveal, then it is bad.

If there were plenty of clues and hints and the players could have come to their own conclusions about the friendly NPC in advance of the GM dropping the charade then it is fine. Essentially the "Big Reveal" if you're doing that plot is the point where the GM is despairing that you'll ever notice the bleedin' obvious.

Quertus
2021-12-03, 11:59 AM
"Isekai"

Obviously this would get old,

, a Coalition States Navy SEAL equivalent.

" without super advanced weapons, because Rifts

was transported with nothing but workout clothes and a pocket knife to a world where only the other three things existed.

But I'm a dude in basketball shorts and a sweaty tank top, with a water bottle and a mostly harmless knife I actually had to argue the GM to let me have. I was the only one who could neither deal nor take damage in this new world.

Couldn't he have at least given me a vague hint that this character wouldn't be a good fit?

This feels anti-thought-through, especially since you had to argue even for your knife. If you'd have had your sniper rifle, you could have at least contributed. This definitely sounds like a scenario where a clue-by-four and I would have taken the GM aside for a little chat. I'm sorry your table wasn't packing. Any idea what the GM thought your character would do?

Personally, I've never had Isekai get old (not that I've gotten to do it much), nor do I see why it would. Care to explain why it seems obvious to you that it should?

Milodiah
2021-12-03, 02:43 PM
This feels anti-thought-through, especially since you had to argue even for your knife. If you'd have had your sniper rifle, you could have at least contributed. This definitely sounds like a scenario where a clue-by-four and I would have taken the GM aside for a little chat. I'm sorry your table wasn't packing. Any idea what the GM thought your character would do?

Personally, I've never had Isekai get old (not that I've gotten to do it much), nor do I see why it would. Care to explain why it seems obvious to you that it should?

That's the thing, you haven't gotten to do it much. If it's an unexpected change from the norm I'm sure it would be fun, and if not for that particular spoiled point the first one certainly would have been. But when you come to the table trying to second guess what kind of random ass world your GM is going to toss you into, and pretty much have to build an entirely self contained general purpose character because there's no guarantee that a specialized character of ANY SORT will be useful (he could have just as easily thrown us into a no-magic world, and the mage would have been the useless one instead of my commando, for example). Why should I put any points into computer skills when there's only like a one in four chance they'll even exist in whatever world we end up being sent off to? Why waste points on any foreign language skills when surely the fantasy world of the week has no concept of French or Cambodian or Arabic and its only by GM fiat that we can communicate with them at all? Why bother becoming an expert automobile driver, when the place we'll probably end up in is just as likely to rely on horses, or sailboats, or airships, or starships? One of the players, when it was GURPS, specifically sat down with the intent of creating a character with as many disjointed, random skills as possible to make him competent at something pretty much no matter what; he settled on Hollywood stuntman, since that's a great way to explain away being versed in horse archery, driving, classical fencing, judo, freediving, and a whole lot of other random "adventure-y" skills, and he ended up using that last very last point of a random skill he picked that a stunt actor might know to impress some tribals with Hawaiian fire poi dancing. He didn't have that skill because it was central to his character, or because it fit with the campaign or setting, or anything like that. It was just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what stuck.

Plus, most of our table has a fondness for creating characters whose backstories mesh well into the world and provide context for our actions and desires. It all just becomes the reason why you're trying to escape this cavern system, or this rainforest, or this medieval fantasy world. Your family you took as dependents aren't here, the military you swore allegiance to can't be reached, your father's killer probably isn't even on this plane of existence unless the GM pulls a second ass pull, etc. There's only so many times you can go through the motions of "oh no, where are we? Let's try to get back home or at least assimilate into this new place, I guess" within a couple of months before its just phoning it in.

Really it boils down to two points- the GM clearly not being able or willing to understand what his players wanted, since we were TELLING HIM we were tired of this, and the GM not having enough of an attention span to keep one of these games going long enough to actually LET us try to get home or assimilate, since on average every fifth session was him telling us to roll new characters and start the whole cycle over again when he was on one of his Isekai binges. He was more than capable of running a long term campaign when it was a "normal" game, and I enjoyed several of them, but then it was like a switch flipped and he's wanna do this **** again. Like I said, we were rotating GMs, so fortunately someone would usually break the cycle and take over for a bit, but you know...it does get tiresome when you can't actually get attached to anything at all. I don't remember any of those characters except for the ones who didn't fit in at all because I remember how frustrated I was. I started learning his tells and when it was gonna be one of Those Games so I might as well slap together some cliche character and experience the whole thing again with a new archetypal guy, since there wouldn't be time for character self exploration or development.

He didn't take it well when we tried to explain our grievances, either, since he got defensive and assumed we had problems with his GMing style itself rather than the specific elements we tried to explain.

So, yeah, I kinda wonder how that group is doing now that I moved and don't keep in touch anymore. I did have a lot of fun, I don't want it to sound like I just sat there and suffered the whole time, but every group has highs and lows and these scenarios were the lows.

Easy e
2021-12-03, 05:49 PM
Sounds like it is time for you to volunteer to GM.

Milodiah
2021-12-04, 02:23 AM
Sounds like it is time for you to volunteer to GM.

...I've been GMing exclusively for the last three years straight, and was one of the aforementioned rotating GMs. Thanks for the advice.

King of Nowhere
2021-12-04, 09:11 AM
Plus, most of our table has a fondness for creating characters whose backstories mesh well into the world and provide context for our actions and desires. It all just becomes the reason why you're trying to escape this cavern system, or this rainforest, or this medieval fantasy world. Your family you took as dependents aren't here, the military you swore allegiance to can't be reached, your father's killer probably isn't even on this plane of existence unless the GM pulls a second ass pull, etc.

this, above all. it's like taking every character backstory and throwing it into the trash bin. very bad manner towards the player's efforts.
the whole isekai thing could work for a few sessions, if you can come back to your world later. having your whole character premise being taken away from you

the dm getting tired of a campaign after a few sessions and telling the players to make a new one... that's something i never heard of

i think you should not have let that guy dm anymore, after the second or third time. not everyone is suited to the task

False God
2021-12-04, 10:48 AM
This feels anti-thought-through, especially since you had to argue even for your knife. If you'd have had your sniper rifle, you could have at least contributed. This definitely sounds like a scenario where a clue-by-four and I would have taken the GM aside for a little chat. I'm sorry your table wasn't packing. Any idea what the GM thought your character would do?

Personally, I've never had Isekai get old (not that I've gotten to do it much), nor do I see why it would. Care to explain why it seems obvious to you that it should?


...snip for brevity...

He didn't take it well when we tried to explain our grievances, either, since he got defensive and assumed we had problems with his GMing style itself rather than the specific elements we tried to explain.

So, yeah, I kinda wonder how that group is doing now that I moved and don't keep in touch anymore. I did have a lot of fun, I don't want it to sound like I just sat there and suffered the whole time, but every group has highs and lows and these scenarios were the lows.


this, above all. it's like taking every character backstory and throwing it into the trash bin. very bad manner towards the player's efforts.
the whole isekai thing could work for a few sessions, if you can come back to your world later. having your whole character premise being taken away from you

the dm getting tired of a campaign after a few sessions and telling the players to make a new one... that's something i never heard of

i think you should not have let that guy dm anymore, after the second or third time. not everyone is suited to the task

Replying to this conversation generally as someone who runs a lot of isekai games, aside from the other obvious DMing issues with Milodiah's past DM; one of the clearest issues, which most isekai animes just skip through these days because it's the issue I stressed in my original post, was that you all started rolling dice before you really should have.

The core concept of an isekai is that you start out as mundane. Sure, you may have family, or a good job, or friends and a whole life, but ultimately you're just a normal person. Maybe a person with some skills like a scientist or a soldier or a business owner or something, but you're NOT a werebeast, you're not a wizard, you not a super-soldier, you're just a regular person. And then you get hit by a truck, or trapped in a video-game or you fall through a portal or whatever.

In some of these you become the character you made. In some of these you become someone or some thing else, in some of these you just get to be yourself in a new world. But you don't play through the intro. The game starts after you get hit by a truck, or stabbed on the street, etc... once you wake up on the other side.

So, once again, an FYI for everyone who wants to try running an isekai, or any game in general, and I know it's hard because even a lot of published or "official" games don't do it right; know when your game really starts. Because otherwise you're running some form of railroad gotcha where you pretend there are choices, and you pretend the dice matter, but they really don't because it all comes down to a single door at the end where if the party somehow manages to escape, avoid, or break through the nearby wall, the game you set up just plain doesn't happen.

Also, ya know, just be clear with players. Yes, the players may be "in on it" but they're there to play the game right? Worry less about the players knowing game secrets and more about having a fun game. Especially in games (not just isekais) that rely heavily on tropes.

GloatingSwine
2021-12-04, 11:04 AM
The core concept of an isekai is that you start out as mundane. Sure, you may have family, or a good job, or friends and a whole life, but ultimately you're just a normal person. Maybe a person with some skills like a scientist or a soldier or a business owner or something, but you're NOT a werebeast, you're not a wizard, you not a super-soldier, you're just a regular person. And then you get hit by a truck, or trapped in a video-game or you fall through a portal or whatever.

Eh, the genre is way past that at this point. I mean there's one where the red ranger from a sentai team gets isekaid and all his henshin powers still work (it wasn't as good as the concept makes it sound don't bother).

But the other side, which your examples needed, is that when truck-kun comes to someone who isn't painfully generic the isekai world will bend itself to accommodate whatever they are good at and make that the key to saving the world and getting the harem

False God
2021-12-04, 11:43 AM
Eh, the genre is way past that at this point. I mean there's one where the red ranger from a sentai team gets isekaid and all his henshin powers still work (it wasn't as good as the concept makes it sound don't bother).

But the other side, which your examples needed, is that when truck-kun comes to someone who isn't painfully generic the isekai world will bend itself to accommodate whatever they are good at and make that the key to saving the world and getting the harem

Yes, there are a lot of different isekais out there, some with more or less success than others. Which gets back to the issue of communicating with your players, if they all KNOW they're about to get isekai'd and the world they are about to go into will/won't be able to support their chosen class (IE: magic doesn't exist, lasers don't exist, etc...) they'll make characters appropriate to that. A lot of complaints about people making characters "not appropriate to the game" stem from (aside from troublemakers) poor communication about what the game is going to be.
-Which is the other issue we see in the OP. I'm sure if the OP's DM had sold the game as "You're all captured by the Empire and sent on various suicide-missions ala Suicide Squad." They wouldn't have had such of a left-turn, because well, the left turn wouldn't have existed.

So I should say the typical formula for an isekai is that you start out as mundane (to some degree). It's also the one I've found the most success with. I've done it the other way, but it's much harder to balance (not that being OP isn't totally a staple of the genre...unless you're in a type D).

The biggest issue with turning an isekai into a game is that the "rules" of anything on TV or in a manga or whatever exist only to accommodate the plot, whereas the actual rules of a TTRPG game exist to enable a certain style and power-level of gameplay. (some systems may or may not be better than others for some types of isekais). Beyond that, the usual issues of taking a story with an (often) singular protag and including other characters.

Milodiah
2021-12-04, 12:30 PM
The core concept of an isekai is that you start out as mundane. Sure, you may have family, or a good job, or friends and a whole life, but ultimately you're just a normal person. Maybe a person with some skills like a scientist or a soldier or a business owner or something, but you're NOT a werebeast, you're not a wizard, you not a super-soldier, you're just a regular person. And then you get hit by a truck, or trapped in a video-game or you fall through a portal or whatever.

The funny thing is these are totally mundane people in the world of Rifts :smalltongue:
That's kind of the draw of the setting, to be honest, is that pretty much traveling one hundred miles in any given direction is a total genre shift, because every trope exists somewhere on the planet of Rifts Earth. The backstory is practically a reverse isekai, though I'm sure there's a better term, in that Magic **** Happens in the future and rather than it being a gradual awakening like Shadowrun, it's this insane cataclysmic opening of interdimensional rifts (hehe name drop) to pretty much everywhere in the multiverse. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table walked out in England, dinosaurs charged into the Carolinas, China got turned into a Land of Mist ruled by the ancient immortal masters of the afterlife, vampire hiveminds stalked into Mexico, aliens landed in Peru, Atlantis popped up because how could it not, and those are just the first few examples that come to mind. So now you have this absolutely ****ing insane blending of mythological creatures, space aliens, magicians, psychics, superheroes, cyborgs, demons, ninjas, psychic cyborg demon ninjas, ANYTHING.

The guy behind the counter at the deli could be an eight armed cyclops, the cop arresting the carjacker outside might be a chemically perfected superhuman who could take Captain America out with an ear flick but that's reasonable because the carjacker is the son of a demigod, the mayor making pleasant small talk with you while waiting in line might be a dragon, and once you get your cut of mammoth steak weighed you'll walk outside to your giant fighting robot and hop in to go home to your spouse, a plant person.
So really it's not even surprising to us that we're dealing with a totally different world, which really reduces the impact to the characters.

False God
2021-12-04, 12:46 PM
The funny thing is these are totally mundane people in the world of Rifts :smalltongue:
That's kind of the draw of the setting, to be honest, is that pretty much traveling one hundred miles in any given direction is a total genre shift, because every trope exists somewhere on the planet of Rifts Earth. The backstory is practically a reverse isekai, though I'm sure there's a better term, in that Magic **** Happens in the future and rather than it being a gradual awakening like Shadowrun, it's this insane cataclysmic opening of interdimensional rifts (hehe name drop) to pretty much everywhere in the multiverse. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table walked out in England, dinosaurs charged into the Carolinas, China got turned into a Land of Mist ruled by the ancient immortal masters of the afterlife, vampire hiveminds stalked into Mexico, aliens landed in Peru, Atlantis popped up because how could it not, and those are just the first few examples that come to mind. So now you have this absolutely ****ing insane blending of mythological creatures, space aliens, magicians, psychics, superheroes, cyborgs, demons, ninjas, psychic cyborg demon ninjas, ANYTHING.

The guy behind the counter at the deli could be an eight armed cyclops, the cop arresting the carjacker outside might be a chemically perfected superhuman who could take Captain America out with an ear flick but that's reasonable because the carjacker is the son of a demigod, the mayor making pleasant small talk with you while waiting in line might be a dragon, and once you get your cut of mammoth steak weighed you'll walk outside to your giant fighting robot and hop in to go home to your spouse, a plant person.
So really it's not even surprising to us that we're dealing with a totally different world, which really reduces the impact to the characters.

Not familiar with Rifts so thanks for that, and yeah, definitely seems like the whole isekai concept is a bit wasted there. Why go to another universe when you can just go Queens?

King of Nowhere
2021-12-04, 01:20 PM
A lot of complaints about people making characters "not appropriate to the game" stem from (aside from troublemakers) poor communication about what the game is going to be.
-Which is the other issue we see in the OP. I'm sure if the OP's DM had sold the game as "You're all captured by the Empire and sent on various suicide-missions ala Suicide Squad." They wouldn't have had such of a left-turn, because well, the left turn wouldn't have existed.

seen from that light, it's a fun story. there's many instances of dm with problem players that make characters inappropriate to setting. here, the dm is lucky enough to have good players with good characters for the setting... so he changes the setting on the fly to make the characters inappropriate.

False God
2021-12-04, 02:22 PM
seen from that light, it's a fun story. there's many instances of dm with problem players that make characters inappropriate to setting. here, the dm is lucky enough to have good players with good characters for the setting... so he changes the setting on the fly to make the characters inappropriate.

The irony is palapable.

Pauly
2021-12-04, 03:30 PM
-Which is the other issue we see in the OP. I'm sure if the OP's DM had sold the game as "You're all captured by the Empire and sent on various suicide-missions ala Suicide Squad." They wouldn't have had such of a left-turn, because well, the left turn wouldn't have existed.
.

The game was sold as scum and villainy, and all the plot hooks and missions ran through the seedy underbelly of the empire.

The DM”s choice was correct. In order to feel that something (your freedom) has been taken away you have to have it first. That’s why the Count of Monte Christo starts with Edmond Dantes as a ship’s officer, Captain Blood starts with Peter Blood as a surgeon and The Running Man starts with Ben Richards as a police helicopter pilot

We’ve done the “you wake up with a neck bomb” device and it’s hard to get invested in that plot device.

Milodiah
2021-12-04, 04:01 PM
I mean, the thing is that the mean right hook of that plot twist happens probably at the end of session one, maaaaybe into the second or third session if the GM is playing it slow. We all know campaigns have an extremely unpredictable lifespan, but even then, you're risking people's enjoyment with the storyline overall by not communicating well on purpose in order to keep this one not-entirely-unpredictable twist a secret. Since this GM seems intent on preserving the plotline of Suicide Squad to the point of yanking the GM fiat chain, rather than admitting your escape was pretty genuine and maybe bringing that hook back a bit later into the campaign after a few sessions with an even more impatient Imperial officer who stages an even more dramatic capture party and says something like "You chaps sure are hard to find, I don't know what my higher ups see in you but they INSIST on your cooperation". An in-universe solution to camouflaging the admittedly pretty undesirable amount of railroading, but the GM is pretty intent on this particular train route so just saying "screw it" doesn't seem to be an option.

It does admittedly boil down to personal preference as to how much of a roadmap the GM hints at in order to ensure understanding between the parties. I've gone so far as to obfuscate what SETTING we were playing by running a GURPS modern police procedural game that's really Call of Cthulhu in disguise, because if I showed up with Call of Cthulhu character sheets then my veteran players would certainly know what's up and the sheer shock of suddenly finding the dimensional shambler hiding in the closet of the suspect's apartment is lost. Still, though, that was only for a shorter mini-campaign, rather than a long term commitment.

I think that kind of GM deception should be the exception, not the rule; I find that trying this hard on concealing a plot twist at the expense of potentially impairing your players' enjoyment usually focuses a lot on the destination, and not as much on the journey, which is what I find joy in while playing or running RPGs. I'm a firm believer in the idea that if you have a rich enough world, your players are gonna FIND a storyline that resonates with them, whether you meant for them to or not, and it's just unfair to rip them off of it if it's not the one YOU picked.

King of Nowhere
2021-12-04, 08:23 PM
That’s why the Count of Monte Christo starts with Edmond Dantes as a ship’s officer, Captain Blood starts with Peter Blood as a surgeon and The Running Man starts with Ben Richards as a police helicopter pilot

We’ve done the “you wake up with a neck bomb” device and it’s hard to get invested in that plot device.
yeah, funny thing, what works in a book or movie won't work in an rpg. in a story you can control your characters and make sure the plot goes as it should. in an rpg, you cannot; hence you must either be more flexible with your plot, or railroad hard, or hope the party will just get along. railroading has a lot of downsides, and hoping the party just does what you want them to... doesn't always work.

you'll also notice that in movies the heroes are always weaker that the enemy, and they barely win. whereas in rpg they are stronger, otherwise they'd die the first time the dice roll against them

GloatingSwine
2021-12-04, 09:46 PM
Yes, there are a lot of different isekais out there, some with more or less success than others. Which gets back to the issue of communicating with your players, if they all KNOW they're about to get isekai'd and the world they are about to go into will/won't be able to support their chosen class (IE: magic doesn't exist, lasers don't exist, etc...) they'll make characters appropriate to that. A lot of complaints about people making characters "not appropriate to the game" stem from (aside from troublemakers) poor communication about what the game is going to be.


Oh yeah, in the isekai case at best the GM made a rod for their own back by not specifying what kind of characters would be able to operate in the setting and the best was a far stretch away. A sane way of handling that would be to get the party to co-operate to make the same type of characters then isekai them all into a world where their characters worked but in an unconventional manner. (like, eg. the Navy SEAL would still have a lot of survival and SERE skills, they should still have an active combat loadout but those would be super limited magic spells, basically. Devastating when used but be aware how you're using your ammo, you don't know when you're getting resupply)



-Which is the other issue we see in the OP. I'm sure if the OP's DM had sold the game as "You're all captured by the Empire and sent on various suicide-missions ala Suicide Squad." They wouldn't have had such of a left-turn, because well, the left turn wouldn't have existed.

Oh yeah, OP's GM didn't realise that the game started on the last bullet point. "You're all in Task Force X, how did you get here" should have been in the session 0.

Pex
2021-12-04, 10:41 PM
The game was sold as scum and villainy, and all the plot hooks and missions ran through the seedy underbelly of the empire.

The DM”s choice was correct. In order to feel that something (your freedom) has been taken away you have to have it first. That’s why the Count of Monte Christo starts with Edmond Dantes as a ship’s officer, Captain Blood starts with Peter Blood as a surgeon and The Running Man starts with Ben Richards as a police helicopter pilot

We’ve done the “you wake up with a neck bomb” device and it’s hard to get invested in that plot device.

Characters in stories do not have free will. They all must obey the desires of the author. The enjoyment of the reader or viewer is knowing the plot and wanting to know what happens. They already know the character will be railroaded (pun intended) into an unfun for them situation. The enjoyment is in the journey of the hero getting out of the situation and seeking revenge. Players have free will and are not wrong to vehemently object when the DM pitches a campaign only to change the whole thing by surprise in addition to making the players' characters now worthless in game mechanical effects to influence encounters. Players are not wrong to object being tricked/fooled.

False God
2021-12-04, 11:32 PM
The game was sold as scum and villainy, and all the plot hooks and missions ran through the seedy underbelly of the empire.

The DM”s choice was correct. In order to feel that something (your freedom) has been taken away you have to have it first. That’s why the Count of Monte Christo starts with Edmond Dantes as a ship’s officer, Captain Blood starts with Peter Blood as a surgeon and The Running Man starts with Ben Richards as a police helicopter pilot

We’ve done the “you wake up with a neck bomb” device and it’s hard to get invested in that plot device.

But those are stories. It's impactful because it's well written but follows a path. Edmond Dantes never had a real choice for anything else to happen. The same is true for the rest.

The character's freedom was still taken away. But it being taken away was necessary for the rest of the story (in this case the game) to happen. The OP's DM could have narrated all the points up to to where the game actually started with exactly the same effect. Because ultimately, you either care about Dantes or Blood or Richards or your character, or you don't. Everything up to where the book begins or the game starts is an illusion.

If the player doesn't care about their character because they never got the chance to roll die and randomly generate their freedom (or lack thereof) and can't simply imagine that they were free before the game started, they're going to have problems with any game that is anything more than "Okay, you're all in Townsville, what do you do?" But then really the problem is with the player and not the DM.

Easy e
2021-12-06, 11:18 AM
...I've been GMing exclusively for the last three years straight, and was one of the aforementioned rotating GMs. Thanks for the advice.

Thank goodness I updated it to Blue text then. Carry-on and good luck.