Talakeal's Campaign Diary (1 Day without a horror story!)

[Talakeal]

I guess what I'm questioning is something like, if no one much really cared about these statues, why would their default personality be something just perfect to act as a tomb guard but also just slowly changing enough that playing on the form-function relationship is beyond PC timescales. As opposed to e.g. the primary spiritual echo being a volcanic extrusion 100000 years ago that gave rise to the rock being on the surface...

Like from a meta sense, why did you decide on specific details which extended the puzzle's challenge compared to other choices you could have made?

Because its more interesting to talk to a statue than to a rock, and in the few seconds I had to come up with a personality for them I didn't foresee the players shutting down

Again though, its weird to think of this as a puzzle; there were no clues or expected solutions; the players could have trivially gotten through this in dozens of ways with zero effort in or out of character.


Oftentimes I feel like running a game feels a lot like having a contest of wills with a small child.

[NichG]

Because its more interesting to talk to a statue than to a rock, and in the few seconds I had to come up with a personality for them I didn't foresee the players shutting down

Again though, its weird to think of this as a puzzle; there were no clues or expected solutions; the players could have trivially gotten through this in dozens of ways with zero effort in or out of character.

Oftentimes I feel like running a game feels a lot like having a contest of wills with a small child.

Well, there were things which would have worked and things which would not have worked, and the players had to figure out what to try. So that's really the simplest example of a puzzle. That scene could have gone 'Hey, great idea, you start to talk with the stone. In a slow and mumbly voice it describes the whirlwind that the last few millenia have been for it, being forced out of a warm and close place and strewn out over the land, with this persistent thing sizzling through its form and wearing it away, and then finally being struck repeatedly until it shattered and then carefully chipped into this shape that it doesn't understand the point of. Why did it need to be hollow? Why take other stones from other places and join them together into these sort of fake matrices in conditions with millions of times less pressure than needed to actually make it feel right.' etc etc. Which would basically be 'The puzzle was to find some way to know how to access hidden things in this room. You had a good guess that the statues would be connected, and figured out an ability that you have which let you get at that information. Congratulations, you solved it!'

But your instinct was somehow to push to extend the challenge. That's what I want you to inspect.

[Talakeal]

Well, there were things which would have worked and things which would not have worked, and the players had to figure out what to try. So that's really the simplest example of a puzzle. That scene could have gone 'Hey, great idea, you start to talk with the stone. In a slow and mumbly voice it describes the whirlwind that the last few millennia have been for it, being forced out of a warm and close place and strewn out over the land, with this persistent thing sizzling through its form and wearing it away, and then finally being struck repeatedly until it shattered and then carefully chipped into this shape that it doesn't understand the point of. Why did it need to be hollow? Why take other stones from other places and join them together into these sort of fake matrices in conditions with millions of times less pressure than needed to actually make it feel right.' etc. etc. Which would basically be 'The puzzle was to find some way to know how to access hidden things in this room. You had a good guess that the statues would be connected, and figured out an ability that you have which let you get at that information. Congratulations, you solved it!'

But your instinct was somehow to push to extend the challenge. That's what I want you to inspect.

Yeah, and I assume that's the sort of thing my players expect as well; because I can hand them an automatic victory that I must hand them an automatic victory.

That's not any sort of game or any sort of narrative I would want to be a part of on either side of the screen though.


And in your example above, I would explicitly be denying my players agency, and there is a very good chance that they would call me on it and refuse to go along on principal. Heck, I don't know how many time-skip travel scenes have turned into long complicated ordeals with tons of bad blood because players insist their characters would never set foot on a boat.


But let me emphatically again that this was not supposed to be any sort of a "challenge", it was basically just dungeon dressing that the players decided to throw a fit over because they rolled 1 on their first attempt and refused to try an alternate attempt.



Edit: Actually, this is a bit of a tangent, because the issue is the dice. The game isn't "succeed or fail based on DM fiat"; the game is about rolling dice when success in in question. So they searched the room; rolled the dice, failed, cast a spell, rolled the dice, failed, and then pouted for an hour rather than trying a third approach.

[NichG]

Yeah, and I assume that's the sort of thing my players expect as well; because I can hand them an automatic victory that I must hand them an automatic victory.

That's not any sort of game or any sort of narrative I would want to be a part of on either side of the screen though.

This isn't a situation that you planned in advance for. It's not like you'd be making it easier for them artificially by choosing that the stone was in a helpful state of mind rather than an obstinate one. Both were equally valid ways for things to be given the established fiction and your notes. So this is a marvelous place to look at the principle of 'you have the ability to choose differently'. If one choice makes the game get stuck and the other has things go forward, and it really is a free choice that isn't being demanded by existing information, then when you choose the method that gets the game stuck it also means you could have chosen different and prevented the game from getting stuck.

And the thing about 'the dice should be involved' is even more worrying. If you consistently pick the thing which is harder for the players time and time again, especially if you find ways to justify it like 'they should have to pass a roll', then it's completely understandable to me that your players would feel frustrated and like nothing they come up with matters. After all, if they came up with an idea that they think should just work, and every single time you find a reason why they have to jump through an extra hoop or succeed in some roll, why bother trying to come up with ideas any more? I'm not going to say they're great players for this or anything like that, but it makes some sense for them to just sit back and ask "Seriously, how much do you actually want game to go forward?" and hand it back to you to make something happen.

It'd be better if they had an alternate idea of how to go forward on a failed roll, sure. But it'd be better if whenever you introduce a roll, you make sure that the game has a way to go forward and sustain momentum on both sides of that result.

[Talakeal]

This isn't a situation that you planned in advance for. It's not like you'd be making it easier for them artificially by choosing that the stone was in a helpful state of mind rather than an obstinate one. Both were equally valid ways for things to be given the established fiction and your notes. So this is a marvelous place to look at the principle of 'you have the ability to choose differently'. If one choice makes the game get stuck and the other has things go forward, and it really is a free choice that isn't being demanded by existing information, then when you choose the method that gets the game stuck it also means you could have chosen different and prevented the game from getting stuck.

And the thing about 'the dice should be involved' is even more worrying. If you consistently pick the thing which is harder for the players time and time again, especially if you find ways to justify it like 'they should have to pass a roll', then it's completely understandable to me that your players would feel frustrated and like nothing they come up with matters. After all, if they came up with an idea that they think should just work, and every single time you find a reason why they have to jump through an extra hoop or succeed in some roll, why bother trying to come up with ideas any more? I'm not going to say they're great players for this or anything like that, but it makes some sense for them to just sit back and ask "Seriously, how much do you actually want game to go forward?" and hand it back to you to make something happen.

It'd be better if they had an alternate idea of how to go forward on a failed roll, sure. But it'd be better if whenever you introduce a roll, you make sure that the game has a way to go forward and sustain momentum on both sides of that result.

That doesn't really seem like a game to me, that just seems like a bad railroad. It also presumes that I can tell in advance when the players are going to pout and stall out the game.

The statue was absolutely in a helpful state of mind, just not a servile one, and so I left whether or not barking orders at it would work up to a roll of the dice.

All the spell does is allow someone to speak to stones. Would you say that if, for example, they had been elves, simply speaking elven should have "just worked" and that no roll should be required to get them to help?

Not quite sure what you mean by "consistently pick the thing which is harder for the players". Could you please elaborate for me?

[NichG]

That doesn't really seem like a game to me, that just seems like a bad railroad. It also presumes that I can tell in advance when the players are going to pout and stall out the game.

The statue was absolutely in a helpful state of mind, just not a servile one, and so I left whether or not barking orders at it would work up to a roll of the dice.

All the spell does is allow someone to speak to stones. Would you say that if, for example, they had been elves, simply speaking elven should have "just worked" and that no roll should be required to get them to help?

Not quite sure what you mean by "consistently pick the thing which is harder for the players". Could you please elaborate for me?

So there are things which are established in advance which might make things easier or harder for players to get where they want to go. But there are also things that haven't been decided in advance, where as the GM you have to make a choice about them. Choosing something that is good for the players there or choosing something that is bad for the players there are, a priori, equal. Neither is forced or fake or 'making things artificially easy' or 'making things artificially hard' or whatever - you have a choice and the choices are equal, and if you generally go either way equally often then there's no real bias. However if when that happens your instinct is to find a 'but' rather than find an 'and', then that's no longer equal. You might not even do it consciously or intentionally. But when a player proposes something, if you find yourself more frequently thinking about why it wouldn't work rather than why it would work, then you're consistently biasing the game to be against the players.

So as far as what I'd do... for a Speak with Stones spell I'd probably take a sort of animistic interpretation that the fact that the character even has that spell means that in some sense they're on good working terms with the spirits of things for whatever offscreen reason - if they weren't, they wouldn't be able to cast such a spell. So when they start to speak with stones, I would need quite a strong reason for the stones to actually refuse to say something to the caster even after they've invested whatever build resources in having the spell, and whatever adventuring resources in casting it. Depending on the group and circumstances I might do that 'extend the challenge' move, but I'd almost always do a 90 degree turn than a 180 degree resistance - the stones say 'we can't tell you the secret of this room, a spell binds our tongues, its source is to the east' or 'the stones speak of two structures they were once part of and the empty spaces and connections of them, but are which of the two structures corresponds to this tomb' or 'the stones are willing to tell you of the secrets of this room, but they want a piece of themselves to be carried away from here' or whatever. Since this is a spell to speak with something that can't speak, I wouldn't pay any mind to what language the party used and what race the statues were depicted to be - the wizard is speaking Spirit and the stones understand Spirit, and that's fine.

And as far as designing rolls so failures fail forward, a simple example here would have been that if the party really did manage to piss off the stones enough they don't refuse to talk, they actively lie in a way that encourages the PCs to go to some room where they will be ambushed or trigger a trap or get involved in some other events. Or the stones shout 'There are tomb raiders here! Help! Help!' or whatever.

[Morgaln]

Because its more interesting to talk to a statue than to a rock, and in the few seconds I had to come up with a personality for them I didn't foresee the players shutting down

Again though, its weird to think of this as a puzzle; there were no clues or expected solutions; the players could have trivially gotten through this in dozens of ways with zero effort in or out of character.


Oftentimes I feel like running a game feels a lot like having a contest of wills with a small child.

I want to point out that you were the one who called this a puzzle when first describing it to us, but that's just an aside.

Far more importantly, you're telling us that the players could have gotten through this trivially easy with zero effort. NichG's posts afterwards are basically pointing out that you could have made "Speak with Stone" one of those trivially easy ways. But you didn't and keep telling them that this would be "bad railroading" and "handing out automatic victories".
So what ways would there have been that would have been trivially easy, and why do they not count as automatic victories? Why did you decide that "Speak with Stones" would not be one of those trivially easy ways? You did demand your player come up with additional ideas, after all, so this one wasn't zero effort.

[Talakeal]

I want to point out that you were the one who called this a puzzle when first describing it to us, but that's just an aside.

Well... I'll be a monkey's uncle, so I did. I get upset by people referring to obstacles as puzzles, and there I go and do the exact same thing. My apologies.

Far more importantly, you're telling us that the players could have gotten through this trivially easy with zero effort. NichG's posts afterwards are basically pointing out that you could have made "Speak with Stone" one of those trivially easy ways. But you didn't and keep telling them that this would be "bad railroading" and "handing out automatic victories".

I am having trouble parsing this bit; does the "them" in the last sentence refer to NichG or my players?

The railroading part is telling the players how their characters act. For example, if I say "Excuse me, may I please have a cookie," that could be an automatic charisma test, whereas "Hey bitch, gimme that!" would be significantly less likely to have a much higher difficulty. BUT, the latter might be much more characterful, and I would not enjoy a game where the GM treated the latter as the former.

Which, I think, is probably where the disconnect is coming from. I see each scene as an opportunity for the player's to express their characters and explore the world, while my players see them as obstacles standing between them and the loot / XP.

The rules of the game are that when success is in question, roll a dice. I find that the DM declaring automatic success OR failure to be overstepping their bounds for anything which is not trivial or impossible. It is also a form of railroading as you are negating the players decisions both in play and in character builds as any action they take propels them forward.

I have never played in a table with a "yes and" GM, but I can't imagine it would be any fun; it honestly sounds super stressful, and I think I would just default to murder hobo mode to give myself a break.

So there are things which are established in advance which might make things easier or harder for players to get where they want to go. But there are also things that haven't been decided in advance, where as the GM you have to make a choice about them. Choosing something that is good for the players there or choosing something that is bad for the players there are, a priori, equal. Neither is forced or fake or 'making things artificially easy' or 'making things artificially hard' or whatever - you have a choice and the choices are equal, and if you generally go either way equally often then there's no real bias. However if when that happens your instinct is to find a 'but' rather than find an 'and', then that's no longer equal. You might not even do it consciously or intentionally. But when a player proposes something, if you find yourself more frequently thinking about why it wouldn't work rather than why it would work, then you're consistently biasing the game to be against the players.

But as I said, my default is, "that could work, roll for it." Not sure how that is biased in either way.

And as far as designing rolls so failures fail forward, a simple example here would have been that if the party really did manage to piss off the stones enough they don't refuse to talk, they actively lie in a way that encourages the PCs to go to some room where they will be ambushed or trigger a trap or get involved in some other events. Or the stones shout 'There are tomb raiders here! Help! Help!' or whatever.

As I said upthread, they already want to murder helpful NPCs because they took a bad offer from a pawnshop seventeen years ago; I can't imagine that NPCs feigning helpfulness and then leading them into a trap would lead anywhere good.

[NichG]

But as I said, my default is, "that could work, roll for it." Not sure how that is biased in either way.

Every time you add a roll, you decrease the overall chances of success. Neutral would be that you decide that an idea is good enough to bypass a roll or introduce fail-forward mechanisms as often as you add rolls which gate whether the players can continue down a path they've started or hit a wall.

Compare these two cases:

1. Player: I want to journey to this temple in the jungle. GM: Okay, roll a difficult Survival check [with a 40% chance of success given your stats] to see if you prep correctly, find your way, deal with the hazards of the jungle, etc and eventually get there safely or not.

2. Player: I want to journey to this temple in the jungle. GM: Okay, first lets talk supplies. How do you deal with that? Player: I'll go and buy them. GM: Okay, roll an Appraise check [80% chance of success] where failure means there's something wrong with the supplies. Player: *rolls* Okay, I want to leave town through the gate. GM: There are some guards there who are looking for criminals or contraband, roll a Diplomacy check or Bluff check to get past [80% chance of success]. Player: *rolls* Okay, traveling to the temple now... GM: Alright, lets see if you get lost. Roll a Survival check [80% chance of success] to see if you're on track the first day. Player: *rolls* I keep on going. GM: It's the first night, roll a Search check [80%] to find an appropriate camp site. Player: *rolls* Okay, I camp, wake up, keep on going. GM: Now the second day, see if you keep on track [80% chance]. Player: Okay, *rolls*. GM: Did you get a disease from going through the swampy terrain? Roll an easy Fortitude check [80% chance of success] or you might have to turn back. Player: *rolls* Do I find the temple yet? GM: Good point! Roll a Search check to see if you can locate the Temple in the dense jungle [80% chance]. Player: *rolls* GM: Alright, you found the temple.'

In the first case it might be a hard check, but it's actually much easier than the second case which, because the GM cut things finely and injected a roll every time there was some kind of aspect of the journey that they thought 'could work, roll for it' about, the actual overall chance of success becomes 0.8 ^ 7 = about 20% if all rolls are 'go/no-go' types of things.

So every time you add a go/no-go roll to a process, e.g. one where that particular avenue dead-ends on failure rather than fails forward, you increase the chances that basically that avenue is just not going to go forward at all. If your instinct is to increase the number of steps along a given avenue or approach and to find justifications for adding rolls (or just to think of what rolls you could add to the approach), it will tend to make things fail more often than if you looked at things at a higher level of abstraction.

Edit: This why things that are designed to have lots of rolls, e.g. stuff like 4e skill challenges, use stuff like 'need 3 successes before 2 failures' or 'need at least 50% of rolls to be successes' or other ways of compounding rolls than via sequential gates. Those are patterns designed so that changing the number of rolls doesn't change the difficulty.

As I said upthread, they already want to murder helpful NPCs because they took a bad offer from a pawnshop seventeen years ago; I can't imagine that NPCs feigning helpfulness and then leading them into a trap would lead anywhere good.

They might not be happy with the result, but the game would move on rather than getting stuck with hours of thumb-twiddling.

[Talakeal]

Every time you add a roll, you decrease the overall chances of success. Neutral would be that you decide that an idea is good enough to bypass a roll or introduce fail-forward mechanisms as often as you add rolls which gate whether the players can continue down a path they've started or hit a wall.

Compare these two cases:

1. Player: I want to journey to this temple in the jungle. GM: Okay, roll a difficult Survival check [with a 40% chance of success given your stats] to see if you prep correctly, find your way, deal with the hazards of the jungle, etc and eventually get there safely or not.

2. Player: I want to journey to this temple in the jungle. GM: Okay, first lets talk supplies. How do you deal with that? Player: I'll go and buy them. GM: Okay, roll an Appraise check [80% chance of success] where failure means there's something wrong with the supplies. Player: *rolls* Okay, I want to leave town through the gate. GM: There are some guards there who are looking for criminals or contraband, roll a Diplomacy check or Bluff check to get past [80% chance of success]. Player: *rolls* Okay, traveling to the temple now... GM: Alright, lets see if you get lost. Roll a Survival check [80% chance of success] to see if you're on track the first day. Player: *rolls* I keep on going. GM: It's the first night, roll a Search check [80%] to find an appropriate camp site. Player: *rolls* Okay, I camp, wake up, keep on going. GM: Now the second day, see if you keep on track [80% chance]. Player: Okay, *rolls*. GM: Did you get a disease from going through the swampy terrain? Roll an easy Fortitude check [80% chance of success] or you might have to turn back. Player: *rolls* Do I find the temple yet? GM: Good point! Roll a Search check to see if you can locate the Temple in the dense jungle [80% chance]. Player: *rolls* GM: Alright, you found the temple.'

In the first case it might be a hard check, but it's actually much easier than the second case which, because the GM cut things finely and injected a roll every time there was some kind of aspect of the journey that they thought 'could work, roll for it' about, the actual overall chance of success becomes 0.8 ^ 7 = about 20% if all rolls are 'go/no-go' types of things.

So every time you add a go/no-go roll to a process, e.g. one where that particular avenue dead-ends on failure rather than fails forward, you increase the chances that basically that avenue is just not going to go forward at all. If your instinct is to increase the number of steps along a given avenue or approach and to find justifications for adding rolls (or just to think of what rolls you could add to the approach), it will tend to make things fail more often than if you looked at things at a higher level of abstraction.

Fully agree there. But that isn't what is happening here, indeed, its almost the opposite.

They only need a single success to move on, and are allowed an arbitrarily high number of rolls.

Its make a search check, if succeed move on, if fail make a larceny check, if succeed move on, if fail make a stoneworking test, if succeed move on, if fail make a persuade test...

Now some of these rolls might have a cost to them (for example attempting to persuade the stones requires a spell slot first), but ultimately only a single roll is needed.

They might not be happy with the result, but the game would move on rather than getting stuck with hours of thumb-twiddling.

Here's the thing though, the game doesn't actually get "stuck" so much as we end up with a contest of wills.

The players know how to progress, they just refuse to do so because they don't like the cost. They might need to spend gold, or a spell slot, or risk damage, or compromise their ethics, or admit they are in over their heads, or even talk in character, and they refuse to pay those costs.

Thus it comes down to a matter of pride / stubbornness where they dig in their heels like a mule and demand I provide some sort of deus ex machina that will bypass the costs.

Also, if I break character and try and give them advice, they blow up at me because I am "making them feel dumb".

Changing things to "fail forward" is just taking away their choices and throwing consequences at them, and I don't think that will make them happy.

[NichG]

Fully agree there. But that isn't what is happening here, indeed, its almost the opposite.

They only need a single success to move on, and are allowed an arbitrarily high number of rolls.

Its make a search check, if succeed move on, if fail make a larceny check, if succeed move on, if fail make a stoneworking test, if succeed move on, if fail make a persuade test...

Now some of these rolls might have a cost to them (for example attempting to persuade the stones requires a spell slot first), but ultimately only a single roll is needed.

Every failure requires a new viable idea though, which are finite and indeed for this group as you've put it, limited in number to 1.

So in practice you're using a different group in your head to model whether an approach is reasonable than the one in front of you.

Given that they only ever really come up with single ideas, design a schema that works for that reality.

For example, pass = move forward with benefit / fail = move forward with penalty. Or pass = move forward for free / fail = move forward with resource expense.

Here's the thing though, the game doesn't actually get "stuck" so much as we end up with a contest of wills.

The players know how to progress, they just refuse to do so because they don't like the cost. They might need to spend gold, or a spell slot, or risk damage, or compromise their ethics, or admit they are in over their heads, or even talk in character, and they refuse to pay those costs.

Thus it comes down to a matter of pride / stubbornness where they dig in their heels like a mule and demand I provide some sort of deus ex machina that will bypass the costs.

Regardless of the reasons, stuck is stuck.

Rather than engaging in a power struggle, design things so that non-action is an active choice and moves things forward.

"Last call for ideas for this room, anything, no? Moving on then..."

They have a choice. By doing nothing, they're choosing inaction. Skipping over two hours of glowering at each-other OOC is not removing their choices or railroading them. If someone is willing to declare their action to be 'I stay in the room and keep trying' let them, but prioritize keep the game going for everyone else doing other things.

[BRC]

Every failure requires a new viable idea though, which are finite and indeed for this group as you've put it, limited in number to 1.

So in practice you're using a different group in your head to model whether an approach is reasonable than the one in front of you.

Given that they only ever really come up with single ideas, design a schema that works for that reality.

For example, pass = move forward with benefit / fail = move forward with penalty. Or pass = move forward for free / fail = move forward with resource expense.



Regardless of the reasons, stuck is stuck.

Rather than engaging in a power struggle, design things so that non-action is an active choice and moves things forward.

"Last call for ideas for this room, anything, no? Moving on then..."

They have a choice. By doing nothing, they're choosing inaction. Skipping over two hours of glowering at each-other OOC is not removing their choices or railroading them. If someone is willing to declare their action to be 'I stay in the room and keep trying' let them, but prioritize keep the game going for everyone else doing other things.

I mean, there needs to be a failure condition of some sort (usually "Expend a resource") otherwise what's the point.
Like, this is exactly why "Take 20" used to be a thing.

But if the consequence for Failure is "Proceed with a cost" and the Players just...won't pay that cost, that's a stopping point.

[Lord Raziere]

But if the consequence for Failure is "Proceed with a cost" and the Players just...won't pay that cost, that's a stopping point.

Then the game is dead either way. At least by forcing the issue you make sure it dies quickly so you can move on.

[NichG]

I mean, there needs to be a failure condition of some sort (usually "Expend a resource") otherwise what's the point.
Like, this is exactly why "Take 20" used to be a thing.

But if the consequence for Failure is "Proceed with a cost" and the Players just...won't pay that cost, that's a stopping point.

The consequence wouldn't be 'choose whether or not to expend a cost in order to proceed', it would be 'you proceed and must expend a cost'. Basically, the choice whether to risk spending the cost should be when you initiated the action that led to the roll, not after the roll concludes.

In the case of the Speak with Stones spell, since this is basically spirit diplomacy you could do it something like this: The caster can force the spirits to give them the information they want, but that would cost a 'favor point', which is basically that some time in the future the GM can require a condition of them before they can refresh one of their spell slots / before they can prepare this spell or cast this spell again in the future. If they can convince the spirits to give the information without force, they avoid having to spend the favor point. Before casting the spell in the first place, you have to decide whether you're willing to spend the favor to force the issue if you fail to persuade them because it determines details of the casting.

[Talakeal]

The consequence wouldn't be 'choose whether or not to expend a cost in order to proceed', it would be 'you proceed and must expend a cost'. Basically, the choice whether to risk spending the cost should be when you initiated the action that led to the roll, not after the roll concludes.

In the case of the Speak with Stones spell, since this is basically spirit diplomacy you could do it something like this: The caster can force the spirits to give them the information they want, but that would cost a 'favor point', which is basically that some time in the future the GM can require a condition of them before they can refresh one of their spell slots / before they can prepare this spell or cast this spell again in the future. If they can convince the spirits to give the information without force, they avoid having to spend the favor point. Before casting the spell in the first place, you have to decide whether you're willing to spend the favor to force the issue if you fail to persuade them because it determines details of the casting.

And the end result is that the game stalls out earlier when the players refuse to cast the spell in the first place.

[NichG]

And the end result is that the game stalls out earlier when the players refuse to cast the spell in the first place.

Again 'any more interactions with this room? Last call? No, then moving on."

You have players who default to inaction, so don't make games where inaction can paralyze the table. One method is to build everything with timers of events going on around, so if the players stall out, you just trigger the next timer. Another method is to stop asking the group and go in a circle asking each player 'Do you have an action here? What do you want to do now?' and if you make a full circle with no one saying they have an action, move on.

Letting one or two players freeze the game because you want to get into a contest of wills with them and as a result forcing everyone else to sit there is a disservice to your other players.

[tyckspoon]

Also, if I break character and try and give them advice, they blow up at me because I am "making them feel dumb".

Changing things to "fail forward" is just taking away their choices and throwing consequences at them, and I don't think that will make them happy.

I am coming around to the idea that for at least some of your players the actual game they are playing isn't .. well, not D&D, whatever you refer to your customized system as, but they're not there for the RPG. They're playing "have a stupid argument with Talakeal" and showing up for the RPG session is how they sucker you into starting to play their game instead. I have no idea how to fix that, and I would like to be wrong about it, but if that is the motivation for a player or players that is the kind of situation that often is resolved with 'next game don't invite them.'

That or you have people with the maturity of children and if you want to continue running a game for them you will in fact have to adjust your decisions to coddling children who can be easily provoked into having a tantrum.

[Talakeal]

Again 'any more interactions with this room? Last call? No, then moving on."

You have players who default to inaction, so don't make games where inaction can paralyze the table. One method is to build everything with timers of events going on around, so if the players stall out, you just trigger the next timer. Another method is to stop asking the group and go in a circle asking each player 'Do you have an action here? What do you want to do now?' and if you make a full circle with no one saying they have an action, move on.

Letting one or two players freeze the game because you want to get into a contest of wills with them and as a result forcing everyone else to sit there is a disservice to your other players.

I try, its just hard to preserve verisimilitude. If there is no mystery / defense, its hard to rationalize how this tomb could have existed for 800 years without someone else plundering it.

Also, I am not quite sure what you mean by wanting to get into a contest of wills with one or two players; I consider this a fail state rather than a goal, and every time I hope and pray that one of the other players will come up with something to break the stalemate.

I am coming around to the idea that for at least some of your players the actual game they are playing isn't .. well, not D&D, whatever you refer to your customized system as, but they're not there for the RPG. They're playing "have a stupid argument with Talakeal" and showing up for the RPG session is how they sucker you into starting to play their game instead. I have no idea how to fix that, and I would like to be wrong about it, but if that is the motivation for a player or players that is the kind of situation that often is resolved with 'next game don't invite them.'

That or you have people with the maturity of children and if you want to continue running a game for them you will in fact have to adjust your decisions to coddling children who can be easily provoked into having a tantrum.

IMO that's close to the truth, but not quite.

There are some very fragile egos at my table, and I think a big part of what they want out of the game is sort of an "actualization fantasy"; they like to imagine that they are the smartest, strongest, richest most important, most powerful, etc... heroes around to give their egos a boost that real life rarely does. But then, when something in the game happens to challenge that fantasy and deflate their ego, they either become sullen and withdrawn or explode in rage.

[NichG]

I try, its just hard to preserve verisimilitude. If there is no mystery / defense, its hard to rationalize how this tomb could have existed for 800 years without someone else plundering it.

Also, I am not quite sure what you mean by wanting to get into a contest of wills with one or two players; I consider this a fail state rather than a goal, and every time I hope and pray that one of the other players will come up with something to break the stalemate.

You set things up where basically in order for game to continue, you have something you want the players to do - come up with a better argument to convince the stones, change their tone when interacting, come up with alternate plans, spend resources, etc. Those are things that they don't want to do. So you end up stuck against each-other where the winner of the power dynamic is the one who can make things miserable enough at the table that the other side backs down. Whether it's for sake of verisimilitude or because of instincts or driven by pride or ego or whatever doesn't matter, the end result is that you get into a state whose exits all consist of 'someone backs down'.

Again this has something to do with choices you're implicitly making. You were the one who chose to imagine a tomb which would require a lot of justification in order to be the people who got to plunder it. Instead figure out something that in your head it would make sense for these players and this party to accomplish given how they play. And play lightly, don't commit so much that things become blocking points. If you want to have a rare and hard-to-loot tomb exist in the flow of things, you can have it so long as the party gets a short amount of time OOC to try to figure it out, and then must move on and allow game to continue. If they don't get it in the first few ideas, don't keep pushing them to come up with new ideas, just make a habit of setting up things so that there's only time or opportunity to try a few ideas and then if nothing worked, move on.

[Quertus]

Talakeal, how did up ever manage to put together a group composed exclusively of members who would fail kindergarten? I'm not sure if even the… failing my "Descendants" lore roll… fairy godmother?… teaching remedial cooperation could make this work.

On a lighter note,

The obvious side consequence is that bards can probably seduce the rocks.

That brings new meaning to the phrase… never mind.

Anyway, on this specific issue…

I can fully appreciate Talakeal's desire for a consistent world. I don't like it, but I can even agree with the idea of "I came up with their personalities on the fly", and the personalities the statues had, *if*

• it's established lore that world physics work this way
• the character knew that works physics work this way *or* had an established really **** good reason not to know this
• the player understood what their character knew about world physics here.

But, even so, Talakeal, you really need to understand that you gave your players nothing to work with here.

Do you understand that? Do you understand the difference between something to work with, and nothing to work with?

Yes, yes, the *scenario* had plenty of solutions. Except, they weren't "solutions", they were "roll for chance of solution". Now, despite the flak you're getting over that, I not only don't inherently disagree with you, I'm generally on your side there, from a versimilitude angle. That is, if it's *reasonably* possible to fail, it's possible to fail. I'm fine with that.

Your players aren't.

So, up to that point, I say you're running a perfectly fine game, and it just sounds like you need a good player. Well, two, in case one is having an off night. Two good players, and your game would be fine.

You don't have that.

But that's just a (horrible, meltdown-inducing) mismatch between your style and your group, nothing inherently wrong with your style.

With me so far?

However, when you gave the statues personalities? That's where you gave the party nothing to work with.

Oh, sure, you gave yourself lots of cool, spontaneous notes about how they worked. But none of that was player facing. None of what you told your players was anything they could build off of. It's a Scrabble board with no open letters.

But wait, you might say, what if I had inquisitive players, who talked with the statues, to learn about their personalities? Well, sure, if that didn't risk costing them more resources, or failing at more rolls, that might be a valid option… for players other than the ones you have. But it still means that you didn't give them anything to work with to begin with.

And I'm not even saying that's *wrong*. I'm just saying that you need to see the difference.

How, if you had a statue of a guard RP sternly stating, "halt, who goes there", or a hero commenting on their homeland, or a small child statue saying, "hey, mister, can I eat that girl's liver", it gives your players something to build off of, clues them in to potential motivations.

On the flip side, I'm all about the concept of Wizards impressing spirits with their power. That's a perfectly cromulent trope in my book. To "fail forward" there, I could absolutely see, "you failed your roll by 17 - would you like to spend 17 mana to cowl the spirit, or attempt a different social strategy?" In fact, were I a player at your table, and had taken those actions, I probably would have requested that solution.

And, for "cool GM" bonus points, think about what cool, "doesn't bite the party" extra things could happen because of that power expenditure. For "doesn't bite the party", kinda like how you rejected the "lead them into a trap" option.

Never forget, this is who you're dealing with as players:

They really, really hate making mistakes, or even looking like less than geniuses, to the extent that they'd rather assume a situation is impossible than admit they didn't instantly grok how to solve it?

Yet you've designed a system that gives them lots of opportunities to fail. That's a bad match for your players. They need win buttons, abilities that just work. Like a "speak with stone" spell that just accepts orders. Or an "investigate" ability that just returns "here's what you found". No rolls, no chance of failure for choosing the correct answer.

Do you disagree?

[Batcathat]

Talakeal, how did up ever manage to put together a group composed exclusively of members who would fail kindergarten? I'm not sure if even the… failing my "Descendants" lore roll… fairy godmother?… teaching remedial cooperation could make this work.

I'm also very curious about this, but it's only my second biggest question — the largest is about Talakeal's claim that when he's tried playing with other people, it's been even worse. I don't exactly have a high opinion on humanity in general, but I'm still pretty convinced that Talakeal actually lives in some sort of parallel jerk dimension, connected to ours through these forums.

[Talakeal]

I'm also very curious about this, but it's only my second biggest question — the largest is about Talakeal's claim that when he's tried playing with other people, it's been even worse. I don't exactly have a high opinion on humanity in general, but I'm still pretty convinced that Talakeal actually lives in some sort of parallel jerk dimension, connected to ours through these forums.

Sad but true.

Although to be fair, most groups I have been a part of have fine players, but a crazy DM, where one person sours the whole thing.

Talakeal, how did up ever manage to put together a group composed exclusively of members who would fail kindergarten? I'm not sure if even the… failing my "Descendants" lore roll… fairy godmother?… teaching remedial cooperation could make this work.

Its weird, but for some reason being a PC chops your IQ in half. I find the same thing is true when I am a player, its just really hard to think for some reason.

And I know I am not the only one who has this problem, I see plenty of gaming meme's about replacing clue bats with clue 2x4s and DMs prepping by reading books about logic puzzles for preschoolers.

I can fully appreciate Talakeal's desire for a consistent world. I don't like it, but I can even agree with the idea of "I came up with their personalities on the fly", and the personalities the statues had, *if*

• it's established lore that world physics work this way
• the character knew that works physics work this way *or* had an established really **** good reason not to know this
• the player understood what their character knew about world physics here.

But, even so, Talakeal, you really need to understand that you gave your players nothing to work with here.

Do you understand that? Do you understand the difference between something to work with, and nothing to work with?

Yes, yes, the *scenario* had plenty of solutions. Except, they weren't "solutions", they were "roll for chance of solution". Now, despite the flak you're getting over that, I not only don't inherently disagree with you, I'm generally on your side there, from a versimilitude angle. That is, if it's *reasonably* possible to fail, it's possible to fail. I'm fine with that.

Your players aren't.

I would say the players gave themselves nothing to work with by refusing to engage with the statues in any way; not even a "Hello, what's your name?"

But wait, you might say, what if I had inquisitive players, who talked with the statues, to learn about their personalities? Well, sure, if that didn't risk costing them more resources, or failing at more rolls, that might be a valid option… for players other than the ones you have. But it still means that you didn't give them anything to work with to begin with.

They had already cast a speak with stones spell though. The resources and rolls are in the past. Why would they cast a spell and then refuse to use it?

On the flip side, I'm all about the concept of Wizards impressing spirits with their power. That's a perfectly cromulent trope in my book. To "fail forward" there, I could absolutely see, "you failed your roll by 17 - would you like to spend 17 mana to cowl the spirit, or attempt a different social strategy?" In fact, were I a player at your table, and had taken those actions, I probably would have requested that solution.

That's actually already a rule in my system.

Keep in mind, the problem is not that they players are "stuck", its that the players refuse to expend more resources than are absolutely necessary to solve the problem.

Yet you've designed a system that gives them lots of opportunities to fail. That's a bad match for your players. They need win buttons, abilities that just work. Like a "speak with stone" spell that just accepts orders. Or an "investigate" ability that just returns "here's what you found". No rolls, no chance of failure for choosing the correct answer.

Even win buttons need to be chosen correctly. I can't just magic missile a wall and expect that to make it rain.

You set things up where basically in order for game to continue, you have something you want the players to do - come up with a better argument to convince the stones, change their tone when interacting, come up with alternate plans, spend resources, etc. Those are things that they don't want to do. So you end up stuck against each-other where the winner of the power dynamic is the one who can make things miserable enough at the table that the other side backs down. Whether it's for sake of verisimilitude or because of instincts or driven by pride or ego or whatever doesn't matter, the end result is that you get into a state whose exits all consist of 'someone backs down'.

Again this has something to do with choices you're implicitly making. You were the one who chose to imagine a tomb which would require a lot of justification in order to be the people who got to plunder it. Instead figure out something that in your head it would make sense for these players and this party to accomplish given how they play. And play lightly, don't commit so much that things become blocking points. If you want to have a rare and hard-to-loot tomb exist in the flow of things, you can have it so long as the party gets a short amount of time OOC to try to figure it out, and then must move on and allow game to continue. If they don't get it in the first few ideas, don't keep pushing them to come up with new ideas, just make a habit of setting up things so that there's only time or opportunity to try a few ideas and then if nothing worked, move on.

You aren't wrong per se, I just wish I could run a normal game.

Also, it isn't that its supposed to be hard to loot, as that was not the focus of the adventure in any way. What frequently happens is I put the absolute minimum amount of obstacles I can in the player's way to avoid breaking verisimilitude, and that still ends up being a huge stumbling block for them.

[Xervous]

They had already cast a speak with stones spell though. The resources and rolls are in the past. Why would they cast a spell and then refuse to use it?

My guess is they didn’t view the spell how you viewed it. The spell being rather generally defined, and your narration of all other spells being yes/no/number, I wouldn’t be surprised if they expected it to just work. “It speaks with stones, clearly for getting information. It doesn’t have any spelled out failure clauses. Most other spells that lack failure clauses just work. So presumably this spell just works too. “

[NichG]

You aren't wrong per se, I just wish I could run a normal game.

Also, it isn't that its supposed to be hard to loot, as that was not the focus of the adventure in any way. What frequently happens is I put the absolute minimum amount of obstacles I can in the player's way to avoid breaking verisimilitude, and that still ends up being a huge stumbling block for them.

Yet you said that you had difficulty believing that it would have gone un-plundered unless there were obstacles. So even if it 'isn't supposed to be hard to loot', you wrote yourself into a corner where you couldn't believe them looting it unless there was some minimum amount of friction they had to go through to deserve to do so. So you're not actually putting the 'absolute minimum amount of obstacles' here, or rather you're choosing game elements which force you to put obstacles instead of choosing game elements which don't force you to do that to preserve verisimilitude.

Also, a lot of this is going to be training these players with even worse habits. If they had targeted a brick in the wall rather than the statues, would you have still needed them to come up with some kind of way of convincing it to give out the information? If they hadn't actually RP'd at all and just said 'I use the spell and ask it to tell me about the room', would you have required a roll, or was it just because the caster was rude? If ignoring the actual detailed stuff and not risking actually saying anything has a higher probability of success, then players are basically being rewarded for being less and less connected to things.

[Lacco]

Its weird, but for some reason being a PC chops your IQ in half. I find the same thing is true when I am a player, its just really hard to think for some reason.

And I know I am not the only one who has this problem, I see plenty of gaming meme's about replacing clue bats with clue 2x4s and DMs prepping by reading books about logic puzzles for preschoolers.

It actually does not chop your IQ in half. It just removes 4 out of 5 senses in most cases, and leaves the player with only the input from the GM. If the input - and the communication - does not flow the right way, then yes. It is hard to think.

Imagine your living room being in RPG. You, the GM, have to describe it in a paragraph. How many things would you have to omit for it to be "palatable" for a player? And possible for you to say without having to spend hours on? There are just so many details that a player has to imagine - that the GM has to convey - for the player to actually "be" in the scene that it's almost impossible. So we reduce. That's the first bottleneck.

Second one is communication.

So when you give a reduced information (reduced by the player not actually seeing/hearing/feeling/tasting/smelling the location, reduced by the time requirement) using imperfect communication, you are basically creating a situation where the player has to make a conscious decision based on insufficient data. And that is when most brains just switch to emergency systems.

Obviously, at that point they do not work at 100% capacity.

The point is: you as the GM "see", "feel", ... the location. You are there, in your mind. You know the solutions, because you see everything clearly.

If your players saw the same as you, they would most probably work on a different level.

Or not. Because Talakealverse works differently But I'd be very interested in you describing an encounter, like you do at a table.

[BRC]

I mean the impression we get from Tala, possibly tainted by bias (No offense Talakeal, removing ones own bias from recollections of events is basically impossible, and also sometimes people ARE just obstinate jerks) is that Talakeal's players enjoy the pattern of challenge -> overcome challenge -> Success, but get frustrated and lock up easily when their first try doesn't work, and have a habit of resorting to throwing accusations or sulking/checking out when asked to deal with failure, including a reluctance to spend the sort of resources that exist to turn marginal failures into successes.

[Talakeal]

Yet you said that you had difficulty believing that it would have gone un-plundered unless there were obstacles. So even if it 'isn't supposed to be hard to loot', you wrote yourself into a corner where you couldn't believe them looting it unless there was some minimum amount of friction they had to go through to deserve to do so. So you're not actually putting the 'absolute minimum amount of obstacles' here, or rather you're choosing game elements which force you to put obstacles instead of choosing game elements which don't force you to do that to preserve verisimilitude.

Yeah, like I said its hard. My players want a game which is impossible to fail, but also where they are treated like the greatest / smartest / richest / most powerful / most famous people in the land, but they also want it to be so easy that they can't possibly fail, but also don't want to be railroaded.

I personally don't enjoy games without world-building and immersion.

It is really really hard to satisfy all of those things at the same time.

Also, a lot of this is going to be training these players with even worse habits. If they had targeted a brick in the wall rather than the statues, would you have still needed them to come up with some kind of way of convincing it to give out the information? If they hadn't actually RP'd at all and just said 'I use the spell and ask it to tell me about the room', would you have required a roll, or was it just because the caster was rude? If ignoring the actual detailed stuff and not risking actually saying anything has a higher probability of success, then players are basically being rewarded for being less and less connected to things.

Again, all the spell does is allow speech with rocks. Just like I wanted let a "tongues" spell auto-succeed on all charisma checks against people, it doesn't force compliance.

And 'I use the spell and ask it to tell me about the room' is basically exactly what they did, and I gave them a straight charisma roll to see if it works. If they had come up with a better plan the DC would have been much lower.

I agree that punishing players for bad plans isn't good policy; but at the same time some players like being allowed to make things more difficult for themselves as a matter of pride, immersion, expression, or just the sense of freedom, I know I do.

It actually does not chop your IQ in half. It just removes 4 out of 5 senses in most cases, and leaves the player with only the input from the GM. If the input - and the communication - does not flow the right way, then yes. It is hard to think.

Imagine your living room being in RPG. You, the GM, have to describe it in a paragraph. How many things would you have to omit for it to be "palatable" for a player? And possible for you to say without having to spend hours on? There are just so many details that a player has to imagine - that the GM has to convey - for the player to actually "be" in the scene that it's almost impossible. So we reduce. That's the first bottleneck.

Second one is communication.

So when you give a reduced information (reduced by the player not actually seeing/hearing/feeling/tasting/smelling the location, reduced by the time requirement) using imperfect communication, you are basically creating a situation where the player has to make a conscious decision based on insufficient data. And that is when most brains just switch to emergency systems.

Obviously, at that point they do not work at 100% capacity.

The point is: you as the GM "see", "feel", ... the location. You are there, in your mind. You know the solutions, because you see everything clearly.

If your players saw the same as you, they would most probably work on a different level.

Or not. Because Talakealverse works differently But I'd be very interested in you describing an encounter, like you do at a table.

That's pretty common wisdom, but I don't think I agree with it.

The same puzzle written down as a forum anecdote or as a lateral thinking riddle doesn't engage my additional senses, but is still exponentially easier to solve than it is at the table. Especially when, at the table, you can ask for clarification and additional context.

I personally think it has a lot more to do with the additional cognitive load of trying to keep in character, imagine the scene, and the pressure of whatever stakes are on the line.

I mean the impression we get from Tala, possibly tainted by bias (No offense Talakeal, removing ones own bias from recollections of events is basically impossible, and also sometimes people ARE just obstinate jerks) is that Talakeal's players enjoy the pattern of challenge -> overcome challenge -> Success, but get frustrated and lock up easily when their first try doesn't work, and have a habit of resorting to throwing accusations or sulking/checking out when asked to deal with failure, including a reluctance to spend the sort of resources that exist to turn marginal failures into successes.

This is 100% correct afaict.

[tyckspoon]

Yet you said that you had difficulty believing that it would have gone un-plundered unless there were obstacles. So even if it 'isn't supposed to be hard to loot', you wrote yourself into a corner where you couldn't believe them looting it unless there was some minimum amount of friction they had to go through to deserve to do so. So you're not actually putting the 'absolute minimum amount of obstacles' here, or rather you're choosing game elements which force you to put obstacles instead of choosing game elements which don't force you to do that to preserve verisimilitude.

In fairness here 'dungeons full of treasure that are just challenging enough to make it fun to loot them but not challenging enough that you can't successfully loot them' are basically axiomatic to a certain genre of game, which is to say they must exist for everything else to work and you can build the rest of the system off them.. but you can't justify their existence from anything else. If you worry too much about the reason and sensibility of them then they stop existing - there'd be no treasure left or the defenses would be excessively lethal or any of the myriad of reasons why the traditional dungeon as an adventure site makes no sense.

[Wintermoot]

I remember a published module from my youth in which the dungeon contained such multitude as room one: five goblins play poker. room two: two cockatrices. room three: seven gnolls on a hunting patrol.

There was no logic how this happened or why. How the cockatrices lived in the tiny room and no gnoll or goblin had ever mistakenly opened the door between rooms and turned to stone.

And, as a kid playing the game, no one cared.

Now, as an older kid, I try to use some kind of logic when building my own dungeons. But I never forgot the lesson from my youth which is that a LOT is forgiven as long as you are having fun.

[NichG]

Again, all the spell does is allow speech with rocks. Just like I wanted let a "tongues" spell auto-succeed on all charisma checks against people, it doesn't force compliance.

And 'I use the spell and ask it to tell me about the room' is basically exactly what they did, and I gave them a straight charisma roll to see if it works. If they had come up with a better plan the DC would have been much lower.

You had said somewhere upthread that in particular it was because the caster was very rude and insulting in how they interacted with the stones that you thought it was a negotiation that had a chance of failure. In particular I think it was to do with the idea that you felt that ignoring the fact that they were so brusque would be railroading them by making their RP not matter, or something like that.

In fairness here 'dungeons full of treasure that are just challenging enough to make it fun to loot them but not challenging enough that you can't successfully loot them' are basically axiomatic to a certain genre of game, which is to say they must exist for everything else to work and you can build the rest of the system off them.. but you can't justify their existence from anything else. If you worry too much about the reason and sensibility of them then they stop existing - there'd be no treasure left or the defenses would be excessively lethal or any of the myriad of reasons why the traditional dungeon as an adventure site makes no sense.

This might be violent agreement?

My point was something like, Talakeal is saying 'I have no choice but to do things this way because of all of these mutually exclusive constraints I'm operating under.' and I'm saying 'You had a choice, but you made the choice at a different moment in the process than the moment you think is the one where you have to choose.' E.g. by building the world differently, it'd be possible to make something that would be easier to run for this kind of group without trampling verisimilitude so much. Basically I'm pushing back against the 'I'm so helpless here' narrative. Talakeal isn't helpless here, they've just systematically made choices that accumulate difficulty - retaining the two particular problem players, letting them set the pace of the table as a whole as far as things like not providing GM assists because those players will call 'railroading!', making particularly epic stories which require clever heroes to seem reasonable when the players aren't willing or interested in actually trying to be clever and avoiding chosen-one types of setups where the cleverness could just be a number on the players' sheets rather than something that has to be provided OOC (or again being afraid that it will be called 'railroading' and cause the players to have a fit), etc.

The ability to change a situation originates from recognizing what choices you have the power to make, so I don't want to leave excuses that abandon potential agency that Talakeal could assert on the table unaddressed.