Players characters evading direct questions

[Talakeal]

Go ahead and dig in your heels.
If we go from page 1 to now, we see the usual pattern emerging.
I don't know if anything that was posted in the past few pages will help you at your table, but I hope that some of it does in your future sessions. Happy Gaming.

Insisting that someone's argument is wrong because they used the wrong terminology to describe it is the textbook example of a semantic argument.

I will dig in my heels about having semantic arguments with random people on the internet is pointless. And yes, I agree, such pointless arguments will do nothing to help me at my table.



I didn't post this thread because I was having a gaming horror story and needed help with my game; I posted it because I noticed a trend of players screwing themselves over by refusing to answer direct questions from NPCs whom they have no reason to distrust and then not being able to explain why they did so. My players were mildly frustrated that they failed at their objective, but there was no big drama or anything, and it allows the game to go on in an interesting direction rather than following my script, so what is the problem?



Now, the broader issue which this thread has degenerated into (as many of them do) boils down to the spectrum with the "killer GM" on one side and the "railroad GM" on the other; don't hold the PCs hands enough and they will get frustrated because they are losing but hold their hands to much and they will get frustrated from a lack of control. And the problem is, that exactly where this line is very hard to gauge, as players have different preferences, and even the same player's preferences change based on the situation and their current mood. And, when you have 3-8 players at the table, it is often the case that there is no right path, because one person's tolerance for "killer GMing" and another person's tolerance for "railroading" may actually overlap!

An interesting exercise is to take the behavior seen here, assume it is seen at his table (a reasonable assumption), and ask if there is a reasonable explanation that just requires that Talakeal behaves the same way at his behavior that he does in this forum.

I... think there is.

Can you explain to me what exactly this behavior is?

Because AFAICT its just Vahnovoi making a big deal over the language I used and me telling him that arguing on the basis of semantics alone is bullcrap and he needs to actually attack my argument itself rather than the terms I use to explain it. And no, I can't recall that ever happening at my table.