Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 sigkapouro Nov 02, 2014 11:48:56	Hello there,   I have been playing this adventure with my friends for two sessions now. They started off as mostly neutral chars who had bonds with the city. However, they did not do much to help the city, mostly stayed in the sidelines and left everyone to die...   What went wrong?
#2 Coredump00 Nov 02, 2014 17:09:55	Your players didn't want to play....   I would ask them what they want out of the game, if they are not planning on taking part.
#3 Theros Nov 02, 2014 17:19:16	Hard to say without knowing more.
#4 BuddhaKai Nov 02, 2014 17:59:17	They may not have wanted to play, though I'd question them on (assuming they made their characters and weren't handed pre-gens) Why did they go through the trouble of making their characters if they had no intention of playing the game to begin with.  This just makes your group sound like a buch of assholes.   If they are intent on playing the game, here's what I'd do.  You said they are mainly neutral characters.  Neutrality is fine, but you need some sort of driving force behind their character to have motives that drive their character forward.  Neutral good or Neutral evil would suffice, even Chaotic Neutral is fine, but it sounds like your party is playing True Neutral, and if they are, then they are assholes, no doubt about it.  Nobody can, or should, play true neutral (just Neutral in 5e).  These types of characters would willingly jump from side to side durring a combat (they play on the underdog's side constantly, so if the town guards they are allied with begin to beat the Orcs they are fighting, the party will jump over to the orc's side until the guards are either dead or begin to lose.)  This is not optimal gameplay, and this shouldn't really be how D&D is played.   If they perposfully let the townspeople die for whatever reasons, then you could (I would) describe how they let their friends and family down, and how they personally allowed these people to die.  If your player characters have ties to the town, use them to tell a story; a story of how the PCs let down their families and home town, or use whatever other connection to the town against them like this.  Let the PCs know they failed at being heroic.  Being a Hero is what playing a character in D&D is about.  They had the oportunity to be the heroes they needed to be, to be the heroes the town diserved (no batman pun here, your party legit sounds like horrible heroes, or they want to play villains).  They missed that chance, and if they are still intent on playing, and if they had these sorts of ties to the town, then they should matter to their characters.   Ultimately, IF your party wants to continue the game, there could possibly be a surrvivor of the town who could get the party's attention to get them back on track.  You may need to pay the party an outrageous ammount of gold (I've had players who wonuldn't even consider being heroic unless they were paid hundreds of gold), or bribe them some other way.  You need to set them straight.  Either they play D&D, or you lose to playing their game.
#5 bawylie Nov 02, 2014 19:11:01	Defective adventurers. Players in my game are required to submit characters for approval. If they're defective - that is, if there's any major flaws or they're unmotivated to actually engage the adventure, they can't get into the game.   Of course I tell them about this requirement before play.
#6 iserith Nov 02, 2014 19:35:19	Yep, defective adventurers. Check out the links for players in my signature. Some articles may be of use to you (and them).
#7 kalil Nov 02, 2014 21:10:10	There is another option here than "deffective adventurers". The HotDQ intro at Greenest is kinda crazy. You are supposed to death-defyingly launch yourself against a rampaging horde numbering in the hundreds plus a bleedin dragon, at level one! I think your players made the sane choice to keep their head down. Perhaps you would be better off running adventures of your own design. Possibly with more appropriately scoped challenges.
#8 Theros Nov 03, 2014 3:47:45	To be fair you have a lot of backup for the dragon and you only need to deal 40 damage or so before it runs away. You'll definatly need to sit down with you players and talk about their characters motivations before moving on however. If they go no motivation then get them to roll new characters.
#9 iserith Nov 03, 2014 4:44:13	kalil wrote:
(Reply to #7) Coredump00	kalil wrote:
(Reply to #10) Bloodscythe	Coredump00 wrote:
#12 kalil Nov 03, 2014 7:44:12	I do not think avoiding an obvious suicide mission (I know it isnt a suicide mission, but it can very easily be perceived that way) makes you a deffective adventurer. A PC should be ready and willing to play the game, but there is a huge difference between "playing the game" and taking on over one hundred cultists plus a dragon at level 1. The players dont know that they only have to tickle the dragon.   One nice way to "play the game" here would be to stay in the shadows, help injured escape and maybe snipe a few straggling cultists. That is mostly what my group would do, and they certainly arent defective adventurers. You (the DM) just need to stay on top of your game when player character dont reenact the scenario exactly as planned. For many published modules that involves a bit og reengineering because they are often terribly framed.
#13 iserith Nov 03, 2014 7:54:10	kalil wrote:
#14 kalil Nov 03, 2014 8:05:11	iserith wrote:
#15 iserith Nov 03, 2014 8:09:14	Yes, the constructive option is direct communication of expectations, specifically, that this game is about bold adventurers confronting deadly perils. If the characters they created aren't going to do that, then they need to change or create new characters.   There may be an issue of DM telegraphing here, but I'm inclined to think that's not the case. It's an epic scene - and the battle is already lost - so really it's about salvaging what you can in the face of overwhelming opposition. If the players don't think their characters would confront such deadly perils, then new characters are in order.
#16 kalil Nov 03, 2014 8:20:09	What does the characters have to do with it really? Isnt this more a player behaviour thing? As such I very much doubt that rolling new 1st level PCs would solve much of anything. Properly telegraphing that there are other options than direct confrontation on the other hand might work wonders. Put emphasis on the deepening shadows and thick smoke. Let cries of agony be heard to suggest people may need assistance. Let slip a notion that there may be plunder among the smoldering ruins. That kind of thing.
#17 iserith Nov 03, 2014 8:22:25	It is player behavior, but you'll note my use of "if" in the final statement of my last post.
#18 Eugee Nov 03, 2014 8:41:45	kalil wrote:
#19 Bloodscythe Nov 03, 2014 8:42:27	sigkapouro wrote:
#20 sleypy Nov 03, 2014 9:06:05	I think this is more likely a case of a defective adventure. Just like Murder in Baldur's Gate, created by the same people, the adventure starts with the assumption that the party is motivated by mostly good reasons; the intro falls appart otherwise. A proactive player character could be motivated by greed, a staple D&D motivation, and spend the time take advantage of the situation. There are even background flaws that say that a character should run away when faced by an overwhelming force. The PHB has rules to supposedly create functional characters, so the characters created should work in a published adventure.   IMO the whole scenario is designed to weed out a particular type of player and create conflict without doing much to promote characters being proactive. The creators of the adventure were joking on a podcast how this will teach players how dangerous the game is and that it was okay since the characters are only level one anyway.  Can't remeber if it was the tome show interview or the wizard podcast. I'll update the post when I find it.
#42 LupusRegalis Nov 04, 2014 7:55:19	I disagree, Iserith.   You'll note I never said anything about sitting in the Tavern, either.  What I did say is not everyone's character is going to act like HotDQ expects a 'Hero' to act.  I did say it is the DM's role to find the motivations to get a PC involved from their own affairs.  Many of my Players are quite content to go about their own affairs gathering Wealth, Power, Knowledge, Influence or whatever else motivates them, on their own.  They will definitely 'Adventure', and in the most unexpected ways.     My point, which I've already stated, is that crying 'defective adventurer' is an easy and often mistaken answer.  Especially if playing a module like HotDQ straight as presented, with no adaption for your Table.  There is little buy-in, and that's what a DM and Players need to be working towards.  Evil and Neutral PC's aren't going to charge in to save the City, and not all Good characters will simply charge either.  All of them may come at the problem side-ways, to borrow an analogy from firefly.
#43 iserith Nov 04, 2014 8:07:38	LupusRegalis wrote:
#44 bawylie Nov 04, 2014 8:28:19	@Lupus,   A defective adventurer isn't defined as one who takes their own approach to a problem or pursues their own goals.    A defective adventurer doesn't have goals, or ambitions. The player of a defective adventurer forces the rest of the players to engage in the mini-game "convince me to care: get me to play the game we sat down to play."   The defective adventurer label isn't a club to use on people who don't play MY WAY. It's a club to use on people who sit down to play and then don't play.    "Well, my character is a mercenary and he's not going on any adventure unless he's paid." Ok - Tom sits out. Anyone else?   "My guy thinks fighting the dragon is suicide, but I can't sit back and do nothing while people die. Is there anyway we can help?" Alright, Tom's playing! Anyone else?   "My guy is an evil mercenary. I wonder if the cult of the dragon is hiring. Maybe the town's mayor is - he's gotta be pretty desperate. I'm going to get bids!" Tom, that's evil,
#45 bawylie Nov 04, 2014 8:29:36	Darn mobile eating website.    Point is this. Defective Adventurers aren't just people who don't play the way I want them to play. Defective adventurers are the ones who won't play.
#46 iserith Nov 04, 2014 8:33:50	bawylie wrote:
(Reply to #42) Bloodscythe	LupusRegalis wrote:
(Reply to #45) Bloodscythe	bawylie wrote:
#49 BRJN Nov 04, 2014 14:01:33	When I read through the Dragon Dive-bomber scenario in Chap. 1, my first thought was "All True Elves to the Walls !  Quartermaster - we need your stocks !"  You see, every single one of us is proficient with the longbow.  So we should be able to get in a shot (or two?) as the Dragon closes into range of his Breath.  Duck behind the wall - this is what arrow slits are for after all - in between shots.  Somebody on the opposite side of the keep can tell us what he's doing / where he's going.  He thinks he's got an easy sitting target (the refugees hiding inside) but I will engage him in an artillery duel to approach.
#50 iserith Nov 04, 2014 14:38:17	BRJN wrote:
(Reply to #40) Vesuya	LupusRegalis wrote:
#52 Noon Nov 04, 2014 17:47:56	Bloodscythe wrote:
#53 Noon Nov 04, 2014 17:56:50	iserith wrote:
#54 iserith Nov 04, 2014 17:58:34	Noon wrote:
#55 Noon Nov 04, 2014 18:11:20	bawylie wrote:
#56 Noon Nov 04, 2014 18:18:23	iserith wrote:
#57 iserith Nov 04, 2014 18:21:31	Noon wrote:
#58 Ansbach Nov 04, 2014 19:23:15	If we tap the breaks on all the theorycrafting and look at the actual context of the adventure, I think that assuming adventurers who don't participate in defending the town in HotDQ are defective is jumping to conclusions:   First, the hooks for the adventure are barely given mention.  They tell you to see the appendix, which is nothing more than an optional random table of bonds that you can add to your character - one of which even encourages you to lay low in hiding from the cult.   Second, one of the encounters in defending the town (as 1st level adventurers) is an attack by an adult blue dragon, using his (88 damage) breath weapon to drop enemies by the dozen?!?!?  Kind of hard to fault PCs for wanting to sit out of that fight. The module says things like "don't attack the PCs at first", but they wouldn't know that.   Third, from the module itself:   It's assumed that when characters first see the fighting in Greenest, they will rush to its defense.  If they don't and they're travelling with others, then the NPCs they are travelling with suggest that an immediate attack might turn the tide or at least save many lives.  If characters still sit out of this fight, they see about half of the attackers leave around midnight, with the rest retiring in small groups over the next few hours.
#59 Bloodscythe Nov 04, 2014 19:20:16	To Noon:  I'm not sure we have the same definition of railroading.  That aside though, I want to present you with an example:   You're one of 4 players at my table.  I present to you HotDQ.  I would then read to you the back of the book which reads: "The Sword Coast is under siege!  In an audacious bid for power, the cult of the dragon, along with its dragon allies and the Red Wizards of Thay, seeks to free Tiamat from her prison in the Nine Hells to bring her to the Forgotten Realms.  The cult's forces are sweeping from town to town, laying waste to all who oppose them and gathering a hoard of riches for their dread queen.  The threat is so dire, factions as disparate as the Harpers and the Zhentarim are banding together to battle the cult.  Never before has the need for heroes been as desparate." If the group of people, including you, likes the description of the module enough, they may select it... let's assume we've agreed to play this module.  So then, we'd move on to backgrounds as presented in the module in Appendix A: You would create a character and per the bonds listed in Appendix A, you'd roll a 1d10 and consult page 87 of HotDQ.  Let's say you rolled a 5: "You have heard rumors that your close childhood friend, half-elf named Talis, has been kidnapped by a strange group of dragon cultists.  Your investigations into the cult have led you to hte town of Greenest.  You must save her!"   Now you effectively have two hooks already.  To seek out your friend in the town of Greenest and thwarting the Cult of the Dragon from bringing Tiamat into the world.   So let's begin.  We all sit down at the table ready to play the game. I read the following: "For the past several days, you have been traveling a road that winds lazily across the rolling grasslands of the Greenfields.  Sundown is approaching when you top a rise and see the town of Greenest just a few short miles away.  But instead of the pleasant, welcoming town you expected, you see columns of black smoke rising from burning buildings, running figures that are little more than dots at this distance, and a dark, winged shape wheeling low over the keep that rises above the center of the town.  Greenest is being attacked by a dragon!"   What do you do?  At this point you only have one of two options: either approach the town or avoid the town.  If you avoid the town, you are not playing your character.  Your character is motivated to seek their childhood friend and their only lead takes them into Greenest.  Avoiding the town is literally contrary to the character.   Choosing to approach the town results in the first encounter: "Without warning, five humans dash out from between two buildings on your left.  A limping man and three young children race across the street into more shadows, and a woman carrying a round shield and a broken spear turns and faces back in the direction from which they came.  Eight kobolds stream out of the alley on the family's heels and fan out around the woman, who looks determined to delay the creatures for as long as possible."   You are not required to help this family.  You can watch them die.  It even says as much in the book.  Let's assume the party decides to avoid this encounter.  The kobolds ignore the party and kill the woman and then kill her husband and children.  The party may have stuck around to watch or moved on and just heard the screams.  Your character should still be motivated to seek answers within this town, either by capturing cultists or by finding people in the town you might be able to answer questions, and depending on their alignment/personality, they may now be haunted by the screams of the dying that could have been saved, if only the character had been brave enough.  Avoiding trying to find your childhood friend is contrary to your character and is not playing the game.  If you aren't pursuing your bond, you are not playing your character.  If you are pursuing your bond, you will run into cultists and townsfolk.  Any townsfolk you run into will stick with you.  Strength in numbers after all.  And as you pursue your bond/motivation, you help the town of Greenest, at least to some degree.  You may never make it to the Keep.  You aren't required to.  In fact, requiring the party to make it to the Keep would be an example of railroading.  The story can progress without the party making it to the Keep, and the story should, otherwise the DM is railroading.   So I guess my question is, if you as a player, say "I'm just going to sit outside of town while it's destroyed" when asked "What do you do?", how do you justify dismissing your bond/motivation and acting contrary to your character?  That is bad roleplaying.  If your character doesn't have a bond/motivation to explain why they'd even be in the adventure, it's a defective character.  The module was agreed upon by everyone at the table, and everyone involved should've created a character with a bond/motivation directly linked to the module.  Your character has a reason to go into the town, assuming they're not defective.  Choosing to not participate in the adventure is choosing to not play the game.  That is a defective player.   Questions or issues?
(Reply to #58) Bloodscythe	Ansbach wrote:
#61 Ansbach Nov 04, 2014 19:50:08	Bloodscythe wrote:
#62 Ansbach Nov 04, 2014 19:54:25	Bloodscythe wrote:
#63 Noon Nov 05, 2014 0:13:35	iserith wrote:
#64 Noon Nov 05, 2014 0:32:35	Bloodscythe wrote:
#65 iserith Nov 05, 2014 4:35:11	Noon wrote:
#66 sleypy Nov 05, 2014 4:52:51	Ansbach wrote:
#82 iserith Nov 05, 2014 16:50:18	Noon wrote:
#83 Noon Nov 05, 2014 17:01:18	iserith wrote:
#84 Noon Nov 05, 2014 17:18:23	iserith wrote:
#85 iserith Nov 05, 2014 17:05:31	Noon wrote:
#86 Noon Nov 05, 2014 17:33:02	iserith wrote:
#87 iserith Nov 05, 2014 17:34:49	Noon wrote:
(Reply to #55) bawylie	Noon wrote:
#89 Ansbach Nov 06, 2014 18:13:57	Bloodscythe wrote:
#90 bawylie Nov 06, 2014 18:56:49	If you can choose NOT to stick to it, it isn't a railroad. Not all linearity is rail roading. Nor is all railroading bad, come to that.
#91 Ansbach Nov 06, 2014 20:38:41	I'm not sure I follow your point - if you chose not to stick to the module as written, it's not a railroad?  If as a GM you aren't sticking to it to break up some of the linearity for your players, isn't that a given?   All decent adventures have some measure of linearity to them - you need it to have story.  Personally I do think all railroading is bad, because I see "railroading" as the pejorative term that descibes the point at which there is too much linearity for an individual's liking.  It is therefore at a different threshold for each individual.  It is a subjective term because it's based on the feeling an individual gets that they don't have any input in how things are turning out, or that thier choices don't matter.  Some players could care less how linear the story is, they just want to kill stuff.  Some players are going to be fine going from A to B, as long as they have meaningful choices to make within A.  Other players aren't going to be happy unless A can lead to either B or C based on what choices they make.   Because railroading is subjective by nature, that also means it depends significantly on both GM skill and the way the players are influencing each other.  One GM's session might make A -> B -> C feel like a straight jacket, while another makes it flow so naturally that the players don't even notice the linearity and they feel like they had total agency all along.   Regarding HotDQ - in addition to the plot hook issues, I struggle to see any meaningful choices for the players to make in Episode One and think it needs some GM intervention, so I won't stick to it as written.  It's too linear and railroad-y for my tastes.  I haven't run it yet and have only read through Episode Five, so maybe it finishes stronger.  Don't know yet.
#92 iserith Nov 06, 2014 21:43:15	Railroading requires that the social contract with regard to agency be violated. If the players have agreed to play the module, then they are not being railroaded no matter how linear the plot is as long as they have the choices and freedom to do what they want to the agreed upon limits of the module's scope.
#93 kalil Nov 06, 2014 21:47:29	iserith wrote:
#94 iserith Nov 06, 2014 21:50:54	kalil wrote:
#95 kalil Nov 06, 2014 22:09:57	iserith wrote:
#96 iserith Nov 06, 2014 22:12:25	kalil wrote:
#97 Ansbach Nov 06, 2014 23:39:53	iserith wrote:
#98 Ansbach Nov 07, 2014 0:12:30	iserith wrote:
#99 sleypy Nov 07, 2014 5:10:53	The thing is in a module a player can have a lot of agency. The issue is that there is exactly one plot point that they will likely never have full agency over; the last one. There are dozens or more plot points along the way that players have almost complete control over. It just seems odd that a single point in an adventure were players only have limited agency makes the entire thing a railroad.
#122 iserith Nov 07, 2014 8:13:59	Ansbach wrote:
(Reply to #115) bawylie	kalil wrote:
(Reply to #119) bawylie	Ansbach wrote:
#125 Ansbach Nov 07, 2014 8:52:47	bawylie wrote:
#126 bawylie Nov 07, 2014 8:55:48	I mean, kind of. But I don't want to get I to semantics on this particular thread.
#127 Ansbach Nov 07, 2014 9:06:11	Sounds good.  I think I get where you are coming from, though - that too much just gets chalked up to playstyle instead of people taking responsibility for making better design or play decisions.  In general I agree with that.
#128 iserith Nov 07, 2014 9:07:53	Ansbach wrote: