What Makes it Okay to Put Them in a Spot? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

What Makes it Okay to Put Them in a Spot?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
iserith
Sep 25, 2012 14:14:17 [Moderators: I'm posting his here as well as "What's a DM to Do?" forums in hopes that I'll get input from players who might not visit that forum.]

When is the DM “allowed” to put player characters in a dangerous or complicated situation? Consider the following opening scene, framed by the DM:

DM: “Dangerous and complicated thing X happens.”
P1: “What about my ability that prevents X from happening?”
P2: “What about realism that says X wouldn’t happen?”
P3: “I’m not even there for X to happen to me.”

In a game of fantasy adventuring, ostensibly, players want DMs to put them in trouble. After all, they’ve willingly chosen a career and lifestyle that will put them in trouble on a regular basis. This is the game we have chosen to play. Otherwise, we'd be playing some other game, right?

I have noticed on occasion, however, that players will object to being put in that danger and asked to figure a way out of it. Now, we’re not talking about (in this scenario) the DM negating a player declaration purposefully. In other words, the DM is not saying you’ve pulled a lever you never said you pulled (or specifically said you avoided) and caused said dangerous and complicated thing to occur. The dangerous or complicated situation must follow what’s gone before. Where nothing has been declared or established, however, the DM has taken liberties and established elements that create compelling action.

Or is that not cool? What justifies whether or not a DM’s dangerous or complicated situation flies with the players? What hoops does the DM need to jump through to make it “okay” to put the characters in a spot like that? As a DM, would you be okay if the players modified the scene the DM established to bring it in line with something they find more palatable? As a player who would seek to do that, would you make the dangerous or complicated situation easier on yourselves? If so, why?

(Note: If you could put your responses in terms other than “it’s just my preference,” that would be very helpful to the discussion.)
#2
Neutronium_Dragon
Sep 26, 2012 2:11:59 The primary problem with those scenarios is that they tend to be the start of the railroad. As with the example in the other thread - "you're all in jail" - that usually heads right into "and now NPC X will demand that you do this-or-that for them to earn a pardon, or you'll rot in your cell!" and every step thereafter is similarly forced. Unfortunately, this sort of thing seems to come up a lot in published adventures (in all editions), which sets a very bad example.
#3
iserith
Sep 26, 2012 9:28:20
The primary problem with those scenarios is that they tend to be the start of the railroad. As with the example in the other thread - "you're all in jail" - that usually heads right into "and now NPC X will demand that you do this-or-that for them to earn a pardon, or you'll rot in your cell!" and every step thereafter is similarly forced. Unfortunately, this sort of thing seems to come up a lot in published adventures (in all editions), which sets a very bad example.

Good point - these sorts of situations do often signal the start of a railroad. But I think it's important to note that they don't have to, especially in a game like mine where there is no plot or storyline at all (and thus no railroad).

It's very easy to get the feeling you're being "railroaded" in these scenarios if the complication being served up in media res (discussed a bit in the other thread) didn't precisely stem from the last action you took, but rather something the DM took a little license with to up the drama. If you've been trained in your gaming experience to think that such liberty by the DM leads to a railroad, you might rightly kneejerk and assume you're being railroaded, even if that's not the case.

It's certainly something to consider, from the player's perspective.
#4
Centauri
Sep 26, 2012 11:04:10
The primary problem with those scenarios is that they tend to be the start of the railroad. As with the example in the other thread - "you're all in jail" - that usually heads right into "and now NPC X will demand that you do this-or-that for them to earn a pardon, or you'll rot in your cell!" and every step thereafter is similarly forced. Unfortunately, this sort of thing seems to come up a lot in published adventures (in all editions), which sets a very bad example.

Scenarios like that can be handled well, and I think they were always offered with good intentions, with the hopes that the scenarios would play out in interesting ways, like in books and movies, but we have all witnessed the opposite.

It's the recurring issue of "interesting failure." Death or capture (while they can be made interesting, or turn out to be interesting on their own) are generally pretty boring, and players instinctively shy away from circumstances that could open up the possibility of either. Until a group (I have no hope for the hobby as a whole) learns and trusts that the DM's interest is in setting up a cool scenario - railroad or not - rather than a boring outcome, they have no incentive to go along with anything without making full appeal to their characters' abilities, the rules, reality, or basic fair play.

So, I'd say it's only okay to put players in a bad spot when they trust the DM, and believe that a bad spot is not blocking them or deprotagonizing them, but offering them an interesting opportunity.
#5
Noctaem
Sep 26, 2012 15:50:56 Considering that iserith created two topics to discuss this, considering that the goal of me playing a LIM was learn what it was like and to then post the recordings and my impressions for others to review and read... I feel I should chime in here as the person who caused iserith to post, at least partially, these threads.

I am the one who approached iserith about his plans for the encounter at the start of the next session. The reason why I approached iserith was not to change his plans but to share, as a person learning a new style of play, my concerns that iserith was making decisions about how to begin the next encounter that resembled a form of forced results or railroading so that he could achieve what he wanted at a cost to the players.

We dicussed it together in private and he explained what he was trying to achieve was to create complications or interesting events for the PC's to deal with. Here's what he had planned:

*** note that this will contain spoilers for the ending of the last batch of recordings posted in the thread for this LIM, you have been warned.***

At the end of the last session we had reached the camp of Captain Burrp and successfully managed to reach a shaky agreement with him not to murder us. We had brought him back his daughter and given him a very, very large amount of treasure. Unfortunately an emissary of the toad people (the gippli if memory serves), had already reached the Captain and had begun to negotiate themselves. It seemed against the hero's alliance with Captain Burrp which led to it eating a bullet to the face and Puff chomping on it. When this happened a large amount of croaking erupted from the forest and the sounds of a large creature began to approach the beach. We cut it pretty much here.

After the session we discussed options among the group where I suggested we could have the ship of the Captain fire its cannons at the large creature when it reached the beach and during the encounter.

Now iserith decided to begin the next session by having the large mother toad already on the beach, having killed off members of Captain Burrps crew AND having taken his daughter hostage. And he stated that the PC's would then get to act.

This is why I spoke with him in private about the set up he had chosen. It sounded like his plan was to take away all of the choices, options, reactions, roleplay that would have occured in between where we left off last session and where he wanted us to start. So me, not used to LIM's decided to ask why he was doing as he was. I explained that it felt like being railroaded by him so that he could achieve the complications he wanted without giving his players a chance to interact with the set up of the complications. I further explained that Snag had spent almost the entire last session protecting and would have continued to do so since she's his ticket off the island. At the first sign of danger which would have been the sounds of a large creature coming towards the beach had we kept going last session, Snag would have hidden her away in a tent or the safest place he could muster. The problem I was having was that iserith's set up took away that roleplay opportunity, the other players included and so on. He explained that there would be a Q&A at the start of the session so that we could say what we did in between the time we ended and begun again. But that didn't fix my issue. I should also point out again that my goal was not to make iserith change his plan but to better understand his reasoning for going about it the way he was planning to. Iserith himself decided to change his plans without my asking that he do so.

What do you guys think of the situation he presented ?
#6
Sir_Joseph_the_Crowe
Sep 27, 2012 12:39:02
Considering that iserith created two topics to discuss this, considering that the goal of me playing a LIM was learn what it was like and to then post the recordings and my impressions for others to review and read... I feel I should chime in here as the person who caused iserith to post, at least partially, these threads.

I am the one who approached iserith about his plans for the encounter at the start of the next session. The reason why I approached iserith was not to change his plans but to share, as a person learning a new style of play, my concerns that iserith was making decisions about how to begin the next encounter that resembled a form of forced results or railroading so that he could achieve what he wanted at a cost to the players.

We dicussed it together in private and he explained what he was trying to achieve was to create complications or interesting events for the PC's to deal with. Here's what he had planned:

*** note that this will contain spoilers for the ending of the last batch of recordings posted in the thread for this LIM, you have been warned.***

At the end of the last session we had reached the camp of Captain Burrp and successfully managed to reach a shaky agreement with him not to murder us. We had brought him back his daughter and given him a very, very large amount of treasure. Unfortunately an emissary of the toad people (the gippli if memory serves), had already reached the Captain and had begun to negotiate themselves. It seemed against the hero's alliance with Captain Burrp which led to it eating a bullet to the face and Puff chomping on it. When this happened a large amount of croaking erupted from the forest and the sounds of a large creature began to approach the beach. We cut it pretty much here.

After the session we discussed options among the group where I suggested we could have the ship of the Captain fire its cannons at the large creature when it reached the beach and during the encounter.

Now iserith decided to begin the next session by having the large mother toad already on the beach, having killed off members of Captain Burrps crew AND having taken his daughter hostage. And he stated that the PC's would then get to act.

This is why I spoke with him in private about the set up he had chosen. It sounded like his plan was to take away all of the choices, options, reactions, roleplay that would have occured in between where we left off last session and where he wanted us to start. So me, not used to LIM's decided to ask why he was doing as he was. I explained that it felt like being railroaded by him so that he could achieve the complications he wanted without giving his players a chance to interact with the set up of the complications. I further explained that Snag had spent almost the entire last session protecting and would have continued to do so since she's his ticket off the island. At the first sign of danger which would have been the sounds of a large creature coming towards the beach had we kept going last session, Snag would have hidden her away in a tent or the safest place he could muster. The problem I was having was that iserith's set up took away that roleplay opportunity, the other players included and so on. He explained that there would be a Q&A at the start of the session so that we could say what we did in between the time we ended and begun again. But that didn't fix my issue. I should also point out again that my goal was not to make iserith change his plan but to better understand his reasoning for going about it the way he was planning to. Iserith himself decided to change his plans without my asking that he do so.

What do you guys think of the situation he presented ?

If the toads had already reached the captain, I can see them suddenly attacking and killing some of the crew. If the player has been protecting the captain's daughter up to this point, that was railroading and a bit unfair to simply dismiss the character's actions.

Looks like iserith realized this and changed his plans to accommodate that fact. Take 002! Action!

As far as what the rest of the captain's ship does? I'm not sure they should be as helpful as you say if your alliance was only shaky to begin with, but they might try killing the froggies anyway. And if the frogs DO manage to run off with the captain's daughter, they may not care so much what happens to the party.

Generally, I've found it best to pickup from a cliffhanger session exactly where I left off. Players generally seem more happy with that. As a player, I prefer it too. Every time a DM tries to 'skip ahead', they say "well, not much your character could have done to keep it from happening this way, anyway" to which I can generally give three ways they hadn't considered. In this case, the daughter was guarded, so unless something unusual prevents the guard from doing his duty, it's a bit of a rip-off to simply have her taken hostage. If it happens in the heat of battle and the guard rushes off in the heat of the moment because he is itching to fight... different story.
#7
Centauri
Sep 27, 2012 12:57:06
Generally, I've found it best to pickup from a cliffhanger session exactly where I left off. Players generally seem more happy with that. As a player, I prefer it too. Every time a DM tries to 'skip ahead', they say "well, not much your character could have done to keep it from happening this way, anyway" to which I can generally give three ways they hadn't considered. In this case, the daughter was guarded, so unless something unusual prevents the guard from doing his duty, it's a bit of a rip-off to simply have her taken hostage. If it happens in the heat of battle and the guard rushes off in the heat of the moment because he is itching to fight... different story.

This is true, and this is usually how things go, but it winds up being limited. The rules aren't designed to bring about interesting and dramatic situations or reversals of fortune. Those can happen sometimes, but generally it requires someone stepping in and making a ruling or declaring something to be the case. If a PC guard rushed off from protecting an NPC and the NPC was then shivved, I would fully expect some kind of pushback, some reason why it should not have or did not have to go down that way and the DM was trying to force the game or story in a certain direction.

The only way to bring about certain situations is for them to be brought about outside of the rules and the fiction. If the DM does this unilaterally, there's likely to be pushback. Better to suggest the situation, or express a desire to add a complication and then work with the players aboveboard to create the sort of complication they'd enjoy.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 iserith Sep 25, 2012 14:14:17	[Moderators: I'm posting his here as well as "What's a DM to Do?" forums in hopes that I'll get input from players who might not visit that forum.] When is the DM “allowed” to put player characters in a dangerous or complicated situation? Consider the following opening scene, framed by the DM: DM: “Dangerous and complicated thing X happens.” P1: “What about my ability that prevents X from happening?” P2: “What about realism that says X wouldn’t happen?” P3: “I’m not even there for X to happen to me.” In a game of fantasy adventuring, ostensibly, players want DMs to put them in trouble. After all, they’ve willingly chosen a career and lifestyle that will put them in trouble on a regular basis. This is the game we have chosen to play. Otherwise, we'd be playing some other game, right? I have noticed on occasion, however, that players will object to being put in that danger and asked to figure a way out of it. Now, we’re not talking about (in this scenario) the DM negating a player declaration purposefully. In other words, the DM is not saying you’ve pulled a lever you never said you pulled (or specifically said you avoided) and caused said dangerous and complicated thing to occur. The dangerous or complicated situation must follow what’s gone before. Where nothing has been declared or established, however, the DM has taken liberties and established elements that create compelling action. Or is that not cool? What justifies whether or not a DM’s dangerous or complicated situation flies with the players? What hoops does the DM need to jump through to make it “okay” to put the characters in a spot like that? As a DM, would you be okay if the players modified the scene the DM established to bring it in line with something they find more palatable? As a player who would seek to do that, would you make the dangerous or complicated situation easier on yourselves? If so, why? (Note: If you could put your responses in terms other than “it’s just my preference,” that would be very helpful to the discussion.)
#2 Neutronium_Dragon Sep 26, 2012 2:11:59	The primary problem with those scenarios is that they tend to be the start of the railroad. As with the example in the other thread - "you're all in jail" - that usually heads right into "and now NPC X will demand that you do this-or-that for them to earn a pardon, or you'll rot in your cell!" and every step thereafter is similarly forced. Unfortunately, this sort of thing seems to come up a lot in published adventures (in all editions), which sets a very bad example.
#3 iserith Sep 26, 2012 9:28:20	The primary problem with those scenarios is that they tend to be the start of the railroad. As with the example in the other thread - "you're all in jail" - that usually heads right into "and now NPC X will demand that you do this-or-that for them to earn a pardon, or you'll rot in your cell!" and every step thereafter is similarly forced. Unfortunately, this sort of thing seems to come up a lot in published adventures (in all editions), which sets a very bad example. Good point - these sorts of situations do often signal the start of a railroad. But I think it's important to note that they don't have to, especially in a game like mine where there is no plot or storyline at all (and thus no railroad). It's very easy to get the feeling you're being "railroaded" in these scenarios if the complication being served up in media res (discussed a bit in the other thread) didn't precisely stem from the last action you took, but rather something the DM took a little license with to up the drama. If you've been trained in your gaming experience to think that such liberty by the DM leads to a railroad, you might rightly kneejerk and assume you're being railroaded, even if that's not the case. It's certainly something to consider, from the player's perspective.
#4 Centauri Sep 26, 2012 11:04:10	The primary problem with those scenarios is that they tend to be the start of the railroad. As with the example in the other thread - "you're all in jail" - that usually heads right into "and now NPC X will demand that you do this-or-that for them to earn a pardon, or you'll rot in your cell!" and every step thereafter is similarly forced. Unfortunately, this sort of thing seems to come up a lot in published adventures (in all editions), which sets a very bad example. Scenarios like that can be handled well, and I think they were always offered with good intentions, with the hopes that the scenarios would play out in interesting ways, like in books and movies, but we have all witnessed the opposite. It's the recurring issue of "interesting failure." Death or capture (while they can be made interesting, or turn out to be interesting on their own) are generally pretty boring, and players instinctively shy away from circumstances that could open up the possibility of either. Until a group (I have no hope for the hobby as a whole) learns and trusts that the DM's interest is in setting up a cool scenario - railroad or not - rather than a boring outcome, they have no incentive to go along with anything without making full appeal to their characters' abilities, the rules, reality, or basic fair play. So, I'd say it's only okay to put players in a bad spot when they trust the DM, and believe that a bad spot is not blocking them or deprotagonizing them, but offering them an interesting opportunity.
#5 Noctaem Sep 26, 2012 15:50:56	Considering that iserith created two topics to discuss this, considering that the goal of me playing a LIM was learn what it was like and to then post the recordings and my impressions for others to review and read... I feel I should chime in here as the person who caused iserith to post, at least partially, these threads. I am the one who approached iserith about his plans for the encounter at the start of the next session. The reason why I approached iserith was not to change his plans but to share, as a person learning a new style of play, my concerns that iserith was making decisions about how to begin the next encounter that resembled a form of forced results or railroading so that he could achieve what he wanted at a cost to the players. We dicussed it together in private and he explained what he was trying to achieve was to create complications or interesting events for the PC's to deal with. Here's what he had planned: * note that this will contain spoilers for the ending of the last batch of recordings posted in the thread for this LIM, you have been warned.* At the end of the last session we had reached the camp of Captain Burrp and successfully managed to reach a shaky agreement with him not to murder us. We had brought him back his daughter and given him a very, very large amount of treasure. Unfortunately an emissary of the toad people (the gippli if memory serves), had already reached the Captain and had begun to negotiate themselves. It seemed against the hero's alliance with Captain Burrp which led to it eating a bullet to the face and Puff chomping on it. When this happened a large amount of croaking erupted from the forest and the sounds of a large creature began to approach the beach. We cut it pretty much here. After the session we discussed options among the group where I suggested we could have the ship of the Captain fire its cannons at the large creature when it reached the beach and during the encounter. Now iserith decided to begin the next session by having the large mother toad already on the beach, having killed off members of Captain Burrps crew AND having taken his daughter hostage. And he stated that the PC's would then get to act. This is why I spoke with him in private about the set up he had chosen. It sounded like his plan was to take away all of the choices, options, reactions, roleplay that would have occured in between where we left off last session and where he wanted us to start. So me, not used to LIM's decided to ask why he was doing as he was. I explained that it felt like being railroaded by him so that he could achieve the complications he wanted without giving his players a chance to interact with the set up of the complications. I further explained that Snag had spent almost the entire last session protecting and would have continued to do so since she's his ticket off the island. At the first sign of danger which would have been the sounds of a large creature coming towards the beach had we kept going last session, Snag would have hidden her away in a tent or the safest place he could muster. The problem I was having was that iserith's set up took away that roleplay opportunity, the other players included and so on. He explained that there would be a Q&A at the start of the session so that we could say what we did in between the time we ended and begun again. But that didn't fix my issue. I should also point out again that my goal was not to make iserith change his plan but to better understand his reasoning for going about it the way he was planning to. Iserith himself decided to change his plans without my asking that he do so. What do you guys think of the situation he presented ?
#6 Sir_Joseph_the_Crowe Sep 27, 2012 12:39:02	Considering that iserith created two topics to discuss this, considering that the goal of me playing a LIM was learn what it was like and to then post the recordings and my impressions for others to review and read... I feel I should chime in here as the person who caused iserith to post, at least partially, these threads. I am the one who approached iserith about his plans for the encounter at the start of the next session. The reason why I approached iserith was not to change his plans but to share, as a person learning a new style of play, my concerns that iserith was making decisions about how to begin the next encounter that resembled a form of forced results or railroading so that he could achieve what he wanted at a cost to the players. We dicussed it together in private and he explained what he was trying to achieve was to create complications or interesting events for the PC's to deal with. Here's what he had planned: * note that this will contain spoilers for the ending of the last batch of recordings posted in the thread for this LIM, you have been warned.* At the end of the last session we had reached the camp of Captain Burrp and successfully managed to reach a shaky agreement with him not to murder us. We had brought him back his daughter and given him a very, very large amount of treasure. Unfortunately an emissary of the toad people (the gippli if memory serves), had already reached the Captain and had begun to negotiate themselves. It seemed against the hero's alliance with Captain Burrp which led to it eating a bullet to the face and Puff chomping on it. When this happened a large amount of croaking erupted from the forest and the sounds of a large creature began to approach the beach. We cut it pretty much here. After the session we discussed options among the group where I suggested we could have the ship of the Captain fire its cannons at the large creature when it reached the beach and during the encounter. Now iserith decided to begin the next session by having the large mother toad already on the beach, having killed off members of Captain Burrps crew AND having taken his daughter hostage. And he stated that the PC's would then get to act. This is why I spoke with him in private about the set up he had chosen. It sounded like his plan was to take away all of the choices, options, reactions, roleplay that would have occured in between where we left off last session and where he wanted us to start. So me, not used to LIM's decided to ask why he was doing as he was. I explained that it felt like being railroaded by him so that he could achieve the complications he wanted without giving his players a chance to interact with the set up of the complications. I further explained that Snag had spent almost the entire last session protecting and would have continued to do so since she's his ticket off the island. At the first sign of danger which would have been the sounds of a large creature coming towards the beach had we kept going last session, Snag would have hidden her away in a tent or the safest place he could muster. The problem I was having was that iserith's set up took away that roleplay opportunity, the other players included and so on. He explained that there would be a Q&A at the start of the session so that we could say what we did in between the time we ended and begun again. But that didn't fix my issue. I should also point out again that my goal was not to make iserith change his plan but to better understand his reasoning for going about it the way he was planning to. Iserith himself decided to change his plans without my asking that he do so. What do you guys think of the situation he presented ? If the toads had already reached the captain, I can see them suddenly attacking and killing some of the crew. If the player has been protecting the captain's daughter up to this point, that was railroading and a bit unfair to simply dismiss the character's actions. Looks like iserith realized this and changed his plans to accommodate that fact. Take 002! Action! As far as what the rest of the captain's ship does? I'm not sure they should be as helpful as you say if your alliance was only shaky to begin with, but they might try killing the froggies anyway. And if the frogs DO manage to run off with the captain's daughter, they may not care so much what happens to the party. Generally, I've found it best to pickup from a cliffhanger session exactly where I left off. Players generally seem more happy with that. As a player, I prefer it too. Every time a DM tries to 'skip ahead', they say "well, not much your character could have done to keep it from happening this way, anyway" to which I can generally give three ways they hadn't considered. In this case, the daughter was guarded, so unless something unusual prevents the guard from doing his duty, it's a bit of a rip-off to simply have her taken hostage. If it happens in the heat of battle and the guard rushes off in the heat of the moment because he is itching to fight... different story.
#7 Centauri Sep 27, 2012 12:57:06	Generally, I've found it best to pickup from a cliffhanger session exactly where I left off. Players generally seem more happy with that. As a player, I prefer it too. Every time a DM tries to 'skip ahead', they say "well, not much your character could have done to keep it from happening this way, anyway" to which I can generally give three ways they hadn't considered. In this case, the daughter was guarded, so unless something unusual prevents the guard from doing his duty, it's a bit of a rip-off to simply have her taken hostage. If it happens in the heat of battle and the guard rushes off in the heat of the moment because he is itching to fight... different story. This is true, and this is usually how things go, but it winds up being limited. The rules aren't designed to bring about interesting and dramatic situations or reversals of fortune. Those can happen sometimes, but generally it requires someone stepping in and making a ruling or declaring something to be the case. If a PC guard rushed off from protecting an NPC and the NPC was then shivved, I would fully expect some kind of pushback, some reason why it should not have or did not have to go down that way and the DM was trying to force the game or story in a certain direction. The only way to bring about certain situations is for them to be brought about outside of the rules and the fiction. If the DM does this unilaterally, there's likely to be pushback. Better to suggest the situation, or express a desire to add a complication and then work with the players aboveboard to create the sort of complication they'd enjoy.