[4e] Why do my players DODGE conflict?

[Dragor]

Right, so I recently just purchased the PHB and MM after anticipating 4th Edition greatly for a while now. I love how it's turned out, I rolled a few characters, etc. I got my friends together and we decided we'd get a game rolling. I offered to DM because I'd read it the most and basically had memorised it (and I had a line of quests in mind).

The premise: it's very simple, this is only level 1 anyway. The villagers of Berry, on the far west of the feudalistic Human kingdom I designed, have hired the PC's to rid them of their Goblin problem in the nearby mine, because they need the iron to survive as a village (it is practically their only trade surplus; they barely have enough food to eat). The PC's agree to do this.

First Day: the PC's organise the village, and assemble those who are able to do manual labour and fight. After grabbing forty or so, one of the PC's tells them to build pitfalls and traps outside the village palisade. Fair enough, I thought. The Halfling Wizard, being a senile old man, potters around a bit doing nothing. The Elf Ranger, rather daringly, goes to the Goblin mine to sneak around and see their defences.

He sees several Goblin patrols, kills the obvious patrol leader of one group, and flees back to the village.

Day Two is where it gets bad.

Day Two: The PC's seem adamant that they're not going to take the Goblins on head on. Again, fair enough, but it does make for more exciting DM'ing, use of the battlegrid, and letting the PC's get into the groove of their powers and letting me know what their playstyle for 4th Ed is going to be like.
In what is probably a poor decision, I decide to send the Goblin tribe (numbering forty or so) over to the village for 'diplomatic talks'. What they really want to do, however, is coax out the village elder so they can kill him, invoking the PC's wrath.

(NOTE: Yes, you can call this railroading. It is. This quest was merely intended to be the truckstop on the highway to fun.)

The PC's- specifically, the Human Fighter- decided that they should sort it out diplomatically. The humans of the village (IE- all of them) exclaimed they would not work with the little pests, who had taken their land which they'd rightfully bought, calling the Goblins evil. The Goblins said they wouldn't work with humans, because they 'lived to betray' and that the mine had been their tribal right given to them by the gods.

By this point, I had to go home. The human Fighter player, just as I was about to leave, started laughing hysterically, exclaiming to me, "We really ruined your quest, didn't we?" I almost felt like giving him the finger and storming off, but I smiled as much as I could and left, an angry man.

My point is: what's the point of waiting for players to make combat-specific PC's, with NO ranks in Diplomacy between them, when all they're going to do is go out on a limb, determined to go off the beaten track constantly to put a spanner in the works? There's creative play, and then there's being douchebags to annoy the DM just because he made a quest- as proven by the comment by Mr. Human Fighter.

I'm very possibly over-reacting. But between the Hafling Wizard being a useless ****, the Human Fighter of Diplomacy, and the Elf Ranger of 'Oh-I-Wish-I-Was-Dante-Or-Possibly-Nero' (from Devil May Cry, that is! It'd be a sorry state of affairs if it wasn't), I was at the end of my tether. NOW I know why I stopped playing 3.5 with my friends. I was hoping 4th Ed would be a change. Apparently not. I'm not blaming 4th Ed, I'm just disappointed with my group.

Sorry for the rant. Feel free to smack me with a glove and challenge me to a duel.

Or Icky Thump! me.

Your choice.

[Deepblue706]

I think you're looking into Mr. Fighter's comment the wrong way. I think that he realized he was "ruining" things because of your reaction to what happened. It doesn't necessarily mean that was his goal.

Really, I don't see the problem here. I might have done the same as any of these players, myself. Sometimes it sucks that things don't go according to plan, but hey - this is what comes with being a DM.

[disorder]

I read the story several times...I'm still not seeing the problem.

[Gnomish Lab]

But doing things in a way that the DM did not foresee is half of what the game is about!

[Mastikator]

Honestly, I'd kill for players like that. I love players that take charge of the quest like that rather than just passively move alongside the railroad.

[Dragor]

I think you're looking into Mr. Fighter's comment the wrong way. I think that he realized he was "ruining" things because of your reaction to what happened. It doesn't necessarily mean that was his goal.

Really, I don't see the problem here. I might have done the same as any of these players, myself. Sometimes it sucks that things don't go according to plan, but hey - this is what comes with being a DM.

I understand this, and I can understand your view. But this was really a primer quest; one to let the PC's understand their abilities (as well as myself; I have not even had a spat of combat experience with 4th Ed yet) rather than simply rolling Intimidate checks to make the leaders agree.

This sounds selfish on my part, but the Wizard especially was getting bored and wanted something interesting to happen- he himself is quite an impatient player, and likes it when the action was flowing. Now this does sound like an excuse, but the quest seemed perfect to keep him interested, the Ranger happy with doing a few cool tricks and acrobatics, and the Fighter generally kicking ass.

I know it's a perfectly realistic response. In fact, they're (mostly) Good, so this is the sort of thing to do. I may just need to go back and rethink it.

It just threw me a bit, you know? I know that sort of thing happens, and that I've heard the general advice is to say 'let me time out, and sort this out'. I don't know why, but that just isn't viable to me. It makes ME look like a bit of a fool for not expecting them to do it, and I don't like being a laughing stock. Plus, Team America was on TV and that was a large distraction. I WAS going to say, "Turn it off, guys," but that'd just make me look like a spoilsport.

[Torchlyte]

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask them to turn off the TV.

[Covered In Bees]

It sounds like you're part of the problem. You're too concerned about how you look to take a time out? To tell them to turn the TV off (this one's just BASIC)? I don't think you wound up looking very good despite that.

I mean, geez. They decided to sort it out diplomatically. This is great! Let them! Take two minutes to put together a complexity 2-3 "Starting Negotiations" skill challenge to convince the goblins and the humans to talk things out! Let them try and come up with a solution that makes everyone happy!

Of course, no solution makes everyone happy, so you splash in some action in the form of goblins trying to assassinate their chief (for negotiation with the humans, which is "weak") or the PCs. Do the players want to side with the existing chieftain, who's willing to negotiate, and protect him while they convince him to work with the humans? Do they want to strike a deal with his son, who agrees to make peace with the humans (with much smaller demands than the existing chief) if the players assassinate his father and bring him back the crown (to make him the chieftain)? Do they encourage infighting among the goblins to set them at each others' throats and then wipe them out? What are the humans doing in the meantime?

And as this happens, you figure out (after the end of the session) how to work the other stuff you were railroading them towards in for future sessions.

Instead, you pretty much called the game because they decided to step off your railroad tracks. Players don't like being railroaded. Part of being a good DM is learning to adapt. Another part is working in the things you had planned despite the players doing whatever it is they are, just slightly altered to fit the situation.

Here's an idea for you, on top of actually running some damn negotiations. Maybe the goblins think the mine is given to them by their deity because there's some object they consider a relic of their god in there, but the religious wing of their tribe refuses to move it. Voila, the PCs now have the option to wade into the mine, massacre the fanatical goblins with Scorching Bursts and Twin Strikes, bring back the fingerbone of Saint Ghurble the Goblin or whatever, and make it into a pretty necklace for the chief, who will then relinquish the claim to the mine in exchange (let's say that havng the fingerbone gives him authority over the religious factions in his tribe he couldn't otherwise command). See what I did there? You're still getting to use all of your "goblins in the mine" combat encounters this way--you're just changing the reason to fit what the PCs are doing.

Fortunately, you have time to prepare for next session, so you can use some of this stuff. The bit of Cliche DMing Advice that applies here is to try and always say "yes" or "yes, but" rather than no. If the players aren't getting to do what they want, they're not going to enjoy the game as much (or even at all), and will instead get their fun by watching TV, talking about whatever games they play... or ******* around with you. "He wants to railroad us? This sucks. Let's see how we can wreck the train!"

[Kiara LeSabre]

You know, you can make them roll Diplomacy checks while they do all of this. Even if their reasoning is logically sound, their delivery may be utter, rotting garbage. Two people can tell the same joke and get totally different reactions from the same audience. Likewise, two people can deliver a would-be diplomatic speech and get totally different reactions.

If they wanted to be diplomats, maybe they should have built their characters accordingly?

That doesn't, of course, mean there's anything wrong with what they're doing, setting aside the fact that their characters aren't any good at it. Rather than fuss at them for trying to be creative, I'd take the opportunity to, in-game, demonstrate how their valiant efforts fail not necessarily because they tried to think outside the box but because they tried to do something their characters just aren't good at.

Who knows? Maybe in the future, they won't so readily ignore social skills. It could even eventually lead to more interesting, deep games.

[Frost]

You know, 4e seems like the perfect edition for you. I can see why you hated 3.5, I mean in that PCs had hundreds of ways of not being railroaded, now they only have a few.

Seriously, the only problem I see is that your players can't find a DM that doesn't want to just play Monster Den.

[Covered In Bees]

You know, 4e seems like the perfect edition for you. I can see why you hated 3.5, I mean in that PCs had hundreds of ways of not being railroaded, now they only have a few.

Except, wow, does this ever not have anything to do with the edition at hand.

[Tsotha-lanti]

But doing things in a way that the DM did not foresee is half of what the game is about!

First rule of Gamemastering: Whatever you planned for, the PCs won't do it.

In this situation, though, you should have expected the results. You set them up for Seven Samurai, and that's what they did. They'll still get to fight - just on their terms - which is what smart people do anyway.

Edit: If you noticed a player wanted more action, and you wanted it yourself, why the heck didn't you provide it? You had a bunch of goblins ready to attack at any time. The power is yours, man - you're the DM.

[AKA_Bait]

First rule of Gamemastering: Whatever you planned for, the PCs won't do it.

In this situation, though, you should have expected the results. You set them up for Seven Samurai, and that's what they did. They'll still get to fight - just on their terms - which is what smart people do anyway.

Edit: If you noticed a player wanted more action, and you wanted it yourself, why the heck didn't you provide it? You had a bunch of goblins ready to attack at any time. The power is yours, man - you're the DM.

This. Also Covered In Bees gave you some very solid advice.

Basically you set up a situation where the PCs reacted in a reasonable and realistic way and now you are upset about it? Your players seemed to be following the railroad tracks... you just didn't seem to realize where those tracks were actually going. If you send people to negotiate, expect the PCs to attempt to... well... negotiate. If you ask them to defend the town... expect them to, you know, defend the town.

Of course, they might just hit the goblin delegation in the face with a flaming sphere anyway. My players have been known to do that. But then you get the combat you wanted right?

Also, turn the damn TV OFF! If your players are distracted because of TV or video games, and, given your comment about it being 'team america' and not wanting to turn it off yourself, you probaby were too, then you really have no one to blame. If you want to watch a movie with your friends, watch a movie. If you want to play D&D, play D&D. Either's fine. Just don't expect a functional session with both.

[Dragor]

You know, 4e seems like the perfect edition for you. I can see why you hated 3.5, I mean in that PCs had hundreds of ways of not being railroaded, now they only have a few.

Seriously, the only problem I see is that your players can't find a DM that doesn't want to just play Monster Den.

Thanks. Thanks a lot. This made me feel really, really great. You've added a lot to the matter at hand. [/sarcasm]

Thanks all (except for the one quoted above). I think I was unreasonable and in a bad mood. Covered In Bees, I love your suggestions. We're going to have another (longer) session tomorrow, so I'll put your ideas into practice, if you don't mind!

Thank you again all for the suggestions.

Another Edit: I'll let you know how it goes. I've been an OK DM in the past (I guess so, anyway). I was usually the one advocating AGAINST railroading, and there I was doing exactly that. I'm a total douche, plus hypocrite.

I'll let the Diplomacy go ahead. It's a happy-ever-after for both the Goblins and Humans if they succeed, and if they don't... well, spells will start flying, as well as body-parts, probably. But such is life.

[wodan46]

You know, if you really felt like it, you can just say that the goblins attack. The best way to do this is that during the negotiations, make it so that a goblin sniper or two tries to sneak up on the players or past the players and to the town leader. When the snipers are spotted or attack, all the other goblins attack as well, and you can have a nice little battle between the PCs with villagers supporting as minions and the 40 or so goblins. Make most of the goblins minions and the battle should run pretty easily.

[Arbitrarity]

I had a case with a PC party who wanted to attack the area they were starting in. Fun, but they didn't actually follow through. Luckily, I actually had statted out important NPC's in the area, and the defenses of the town, beforehand.

[carowsell]

This will happen. . . there`s only one way to make them attack for sure. Attack them. . . have some rogue goblin huck a spear at him with sneak attack damage. That`ll spur them into action.

[Skjaldbakka]

Isn't it kinda silly for a 4E adventuring party to be at all concerned about a horde of goblins?

I was under the impression that 4E uses a mechanical representation of the reverse ninja rule.

[kamikasei]

Isn't it kinda silly for a 4E adventuring party to be at all concerned about a horde of goblins?

I was under the impression that 4E uses a mechanical representation of the reverse ninja rule.

If the horde are all regular goblins and not minions, or if they're minions but there are enough of them, then no.

[Bryn]

Isn't it kinda silly for a 4E adventuring party to be at all concerned about a horde of goblins?

I was under the impression that 4E uses a mechanical representation of the reverse ninja rule.

The monsters would only become weaker with numbers if the DM decided to use the minion rules to represent their relative frailty, which isn't necessarily a given. A big bunch of non-minion goblins is, naturally, a tougher threat than a small group of the same goblins.

In addition, every playtest I've seen has said that groups of minions are more threatening than the standard monsters, so I guess it's kind of an inverse inverse ninja rule

[Alchemistmerlin]

What?!

Your players don't understand that anything with green skin is evil, tainted, and inferior which needs to be eliminated to make room for the superior races of the fantasy world?!

*shock*
*horror*
*smarm*
*sarcasm*

In all honesty, they did the right thing. You would have been better to simply have the goblins attack them when they came for "negotiations" if that's really how you wanted it to go down.

Also: TV during D&D? Seriously?

[valadil]

I think you need to trade players with this guy.

[batsofchaos]

First off, I agree with the advice given here, but there's one point that was not touched on elsewhere that I feel is important enough to mention: talk to the players about what sort of game you are wanting to play. This mission was a springboard adventure; it was designed to get the players used to combat in 4e and introduce the general rules to move towards an actual campaign. Role-play and unique plans are to be encouraged in the campaign at large, but this was just a primer and that's all it was meant to be. Is there a reason why this couldn't be shared with the players? Let them know!

If they weren't on board and didn't care about testing the water on combat then they could have told you then and saved you the frustration; you could have gotten used to the idea of running the adventure without kid-gloves and it would have probably played more organically.

If they were on board for a hack-fest, well, there you go. It would have played out as such.Either way, everyone would have been on the same page and no one would have been frustrated or disappointed.

[Yakk]

Player Authorship.

Set up the world in a particular way. Have your possible path set up, and include clues.

When your players pick a different path, don't force them away from it. If you want your players to be heroic, make that new path seem like the right one all along. Make them seem clever for having figured out that attacking the Goblins would have been the wrong idea!

You can add in complications later on (it turns out that the Goblins made the deal, only to backstab the humans later), but by being flexible and making any non-stupid act of the players into a retroactively reasonable one by changing details of reality that they haven't experienced, you can get rid of railroad instincts.

The trick is not to make this too ridiculous.

You can also sit down and talk to your players about the theme of the campaign or adventure before hand, and agree on what kind of game they want to play. This is a different flavor of player authorship.

...

So they want to negotiate with the Goblins. Have it happen. Possible offers by the Goblins:
1> They are here besieging and negotiating with a different Goblin (or other monster-ish) tribe, which is deeper in the mine, and has something they want. Both tribes are here to get at an ancient relic of their people, which is located deep in the earth near the mine. If the PCs get the relic from the other tribe, or clear the other tribe out, this tribe will be happy to move on!

2> This territory was taken from the Goblins 10 generations ago (about 100 years), and they have returned to claim it. When their scouts approached, the human guards attacked them. The human village controls access to their ancient burial grounds. By taking over the mine, they hope to drive the humans away, and get access to their sacred burial grounds.

No, they won't tell you where the ancient burial grounds are.

3> The goblins are here to mine the mine, and send caravans south over the mountains to trade for their other resources. They need gather resources to pay a ransom to an Ogre tribe who is lording over their nest back home. The price the goblins get isn't that good, due to the long trade route, and the goblins are really good at mining compared to the humans...

...

The wonderful part of this kind of trick is that it makes the players think that you had an adventure planned that took their choices into account, while you get the feeling of making the game reality shift under their feet to it fits their footsteps!

[Dragor]

I think you need to trade players with this guy.

Advocating that I don't like role-playing just because I wanted some combat seems a bit silly. I love role-playing as much as anyone who plays D&D. I make backgrounds, react as realistically as possible, and try to inject personality into my character. Thank you.

Hmm... one thing I do want to avoid is doing the 'The villagers are in fact evil, and the Goblins are the good guys' trick. I've played that one (albeit with different critters) a few times before, and I think the PC's will roll their eyes at me.

[Yakk]

Meh -- the Goblins can have an argument why they deserve to be there, and a way to non-violently get them out of there, without being "good".

And the villagers could still be "good" and innocent, even if the Goblins have a decent argument why they should be there.

If 100 years ago the Kingdom kicked the Goblins out, does that mean that the Goblins can come in and starve out the people? To the Goblins, it is justified -- but to the Villagers, all of whom where not involved in that war, it sucks!

Then toss in the Goblins doing a betrayal at some point (even if they have a reason to be here, doesn't mean they don't want all of these Humans dead dead dead), and you have a proximate reason for the PCs to kick some Goblin ass.

[Dragor]

Meh -- the Goblins can have an argument why they deserve to be there, and a way to non-violently get them out of there, without being "good".

And the villagers could still be "good" and innocent, even if the Goblins have a decent argument why they should be there.

If 100 years ago the Kingdom kicked the Goblins out, does that mean that the Goblins can come in and starve out the people? To the Goblins, it is justified -- but to the Villagers, all of whom where not involved in that war, it sucks!

Then toss in the Goblins doing a betrayal at some point (even if they have a reason to be here, doesn't mean they don't want all of these Humans dead dead dead), and you have a proximate reason for the PCs to kick some Goblin ass.

The argument so far for the Goblins is that the mine is their ancestral home, and their's by right. The humans need the mine to survive as a community.

The idea I came up with just now was to have a young injured Goblin guard manage to meet up with the entourage and tell the Goblin elder that... something has broken into the mine. Whether the PC's will encourage a union between the races so they can tackle it together, go it alone with guts for glory, or simply encourage an integration of the communities so they can gain extra surplus from other goods (this had been suggested by the Fighter), who knows?

Does that sound any good?

--MOAR edit--

I had this idea for a conversion of this thread, wanted to see if it was viable to edit this thread into this, or if I should create a new one.

"I've had the brainwave to make this thread a little less negative by making a 'Input Your Ideas Into My Game' thread. By no means put this on the account that I'm uninventive; well, okay, you can if you like. I thought it'd be an interesting element that, every week, I will take ideas from GitP'ers and put them into the game, and after every session I will tell you how your ideas went. Whether you're just experimenting with new ideas and want a test session but can't get a group together, or you're simply interested in general, post and I'll see if I can get the ideas in. I can only squeeze a certain amount in, though."

[Storm Bringer]

if they want to talk, and you want them to fight, then I can see several options and ideas that may help:

The goblin leader is willing to negotiate, but has a problem: Several of the goblin warriors in his band are tempory members lured by the prospect of loot. He needs to provide some form of saleable rward to those members if he is to get them to leave without a fight.

A senoir member of the tribe is the sibling of the goblin the ranger killed before. He wants blood money at least, or prefferably the rangers head on a plate.

the goblins are simply after Iorn ore. If the players can talk the village into it, they would settle for leaving with the processed pig iorn in the village and let them have the mine back. the downside is the village would loose trade for a while as it would have no ready stock of iorn for sale.

The goblins have been forced out of their previous home by an expanding goblin warlord. if the players can help them defeat this warlord, they would happily return to their former lands.

the talks take place, but a young goblin, seeking glory, attacks the players and forces a fight agianst the will of the chief. (this may be seen as a cop out option, so beware).


edit: it might be possible to reach a stable end state with the goblins in the mine. If the smelting and refining elements of the the iorn working trade were in the village (where they could access a stream for a waterwheel), then a trade link could be set up, with the villagers buying the unrefined ore of the goblins, smelting it, then selling some the processed pig iorn back to goblins. that lets them keep the mine and the villages have a livlyhood.

[elliott20]

I'm curious how the second session will go. A lot of it you're gonna just have to learn to not take personally. The players are probably honestly trying their best to resolve a situation. they saw an opening, they took it.

you've already got plenty of good advice here so I won't repeat it. run with what they chose, make it difficult, throw in complications, and see how they react. Interactive story telling, my friend.

[erikun]

Okay, I am NOT typing all that out again. Needless to say, I think this is a great opportunity for you to add something interesting into your game. As I've said before: don't let the PCs' odd actions cause you problems; let them cause problems for your PCs to fix!