Haven't dropped by this forum in a few months for various reasons and I get back to find that you're still asking "how far can I go with invalidating player decisions before the posters here will complain?" questions.  Makes me feel right at home.

Quote from: rgrove0172;934925The players decided (perhaps wisely) to get an early start and attack during the day.

Smart move surely, but... well it sure puts a dampner on the scene don't you think?

No.  No, I don't.

Quote from: rgrove0172;934925As a GM do you go along and make 'realistic' changes to the Boss's defenses based on daylight, creating a pretty unconventional final battle. Or do you implement some delaying tactic to hinder the players until night falls?

"Attack the vampire during the day" is such a bloody obvious decision for the players to make that, as a GM, I would have already worked out, at least in general terms, how the BBEG's defenses differ during the day vs. at night.  And it's also bloody obvious in-setting, so (assuming the BBEG is of at least average human intelligence, or more than a couple years old) the daytime defenses would be as solid as possible, since it knows that's when it's vulnerable and would prefer not to be attacked then.  This could include (in-character, not deus ex machinated) delaying actions, traps, well-fortified resting places, etc.  The defenses would be realistic, but not "changes", as they would have been part of the original plan.

Quote from: rgrove0172;934925If you do this, is it fair?

"The players made a choice I don't like, so I'm going to warp the reality of the game world to invalidate their choice" is never fair, as far as I'm concerned.

Quote from: rgrove0172;934925What if they refuse to assault, turning around and leaving rather than brave the evil one on his own turf?

Fine by me.  Just gives the bad guys more time to hunt the PCs down and bring the fight to them, on the enemy's terms.  Exactly the same as the PCs are trying to bring it on their terms.

Quote from: rgrove0172;934925Is it proper to simply tell the players that this is the big show in the campaign. Part of the fun is enduring the dramatic, scary, conditions and surviving them.

If "dramatic, scary conditions" are agreed to be a desired part of the game, then, sure, go ahead and tell the players that you think that goal would be better served by waiting and attacking at night.  But if they still choose to launch a dawn raid, then so be it.

Quote from: rgrove0172;934925Sure, its reasonable to assume intelligent people might figure a way to avoid them but what fun is that?

The fun of being allowed to make meaningful choices and see the resulting consequences play out.

The fun of trying to outwit the opposition, fair and square.

The fun of events unfolding without a script.

Quote from: nDervish;936341Haven't dropped by this forum in a few months for various reasons and I get back to find that you're still asking "how far can I go with invalidating player decisions before the posters here will complain?" questions.  Makes me feel right at home.



No.  No, I don't.



"Attack the vampire during the day" is such a bloody obvious decision for the players to make that, as a GM, I would have already worked out, at least in general terms, how the BBEG's defenses differ during the day vs. at night.  And it's also bloody obvious in-setting, so (assuming the BBEG is of at least average human intelligence, or more than a couple years old) the daytime defenses would be as solid as possible, since it knows that's when it's vulnerable and would prefer not to be attacked then.  This could include (in-character, not deus ex machinated) delaying actions, traps, well-fortified resting places, etc.  The defenses would be realistic, but not "changes", as they would have been part of the original plan.



"The players made a choice I don't like, so I'm going to warp the reality of the game world to invalidate their choice" is never fair, as far as I'm concerned.



Fine by me.  Just gives the bad guys more time to hunt the PCs down and bring the fight to them, on the enemy's terms.  Exactly the same as the PCs are trying to bring it on their terms.



If "dramatic, scary conditions" are agreed to be a desired part of the game, then, sure, go ahead and tell the players that you think that goal would be better served by waiting and attacking at night.  But if they still choose to launch a dawn raid, then so be it.



The fun of being allowed to make meaningful choices and see the resulting consequences play out.

The fun of trying to outwit the opposition, fair and square.

The fun of events unfolding without a script.

Who said vampires?

Quote from: rgrove0172;936344Who said vampires?

Does it matter?

Quote from: rgrove0172;934925The players decided (perhaps wisely) to get an early start and attack during the day.
Smart move surely, but... well it sure puts a dampner on the scene don't you think?

Well if they are narrative roleplayers, or storygamers, for whom Roleplaying means roleplaying within a shared collaborative story, then they certainly should not do the smart thing, they should be OOC 4th wall breaking, and be genre-aware, and their characters should act like idiots like every horror movie person ever and show up to the party just as the BBEG is at the height of his power because that is what is expected from the Genre Tropes of the Story they are helping write.

If they are actual roleplayers, then their characters should be completely ignorant of the 4th wall, and the conventions of Genre and Trope.  They should do what any actual human being wants to do - live, and if in conflict - win.  Thus they should definitely not show up at Night, or 10 minutes before Dusk, but just as Dawn rises, so they get all day to deal with the BBEG without him having his great advantages.  

It might put a damper on "Grove's Planned Scene", but it sure as hell won't put a damper on the characters.  They will be more than happy to kill the fucker and reap the rewards of their brilliant planning.

Quote from: rgrove0172;934967Absolutely but I'm betting many here would declare that just as manipulative.

Not if you have established ahead of time that the villain is not one to act foolishly. In fact that may be all the more reason to try and go after them when they arent at full tilt. But no its not manipulative to have the villain have some contingencies. Personally I prefer to come up with them ahead of time and stick to them. Such that if the players outmaneuver those plans then so be it.

Simple fact. Sometimes the big showdown isnt big and the players can feel just as elated in the fact that they outwitted and/or totally trounced the villain who would otherwise have given them hell. Not every climax has to be dramatic. Or at least not dramatic in the way some think. Tension can instead come from plotting to weaken the villain. Did they miss anything? Is the timing right? Is their information even correct?

Big showdowns are great. But do not have to be the cap on every adventure.

Though as a player I like both. I love a good showdown. But I also enjoy the jockying for advantage that may mean that I have the upper hand or a guaranteed win even. And I love gloating to the villain about how miserably they underestimated me. But I also love gloating to the villain about how they just got pounded by someone weaker than them.

Quote from: Omega;936367Big showdowns are great. But do not have to be the cap on every adventure.

This.  God yes, this.  I hate the whole contrived "boss fight" idea.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;936372This.  God yes, this.  I hate the whole contrived "boss fight" idea.

With you on this.  It seems to be imported from computer games.  I rarely have a "boss fight" scenario.  There may well be a "boss" or more likely multiple leaders of different factions and the players (1) avoid the leader; (2) seek them out immediately to cut off the head; or rarely (3) come across them in a random encounter.  No set piece battles, the adventure does not "lead" to the leader, and the leaders do not go mano-y-mano with the PCs unless there is no other option.

I used to think it would suck if my players circumvented whatever dramatic climax I conceived. Then I changed my mind and decided it's more fun to be surprised along with the rest of my friends at the table.

Well, sounded like Rove asked his players what they wanted and they chose the sunset show down which he apparently suspected to begin with.

I think exactly one sentence in this post explains one of the major differences between Rgrove and most of the rest of us here.

Quote from: rgrove0172;934925Sure, its reasonable to assume intelligent people might figure a way to avoid them but what fun is that? How many movies would have been ruined if the heroes had acted intelligently?

The fun of taking intelligent decisions that others might not have taken? Do I need to explain it to you?
OK, I will.
When I was first invited to play an RPG, I was told several things. One of them was "it's like a gamebook, but the reactions aren't scripted".

Another was "it's like you being the stars in the movie, but remember when you thought the characters were behaving like idiots? Well, now you can try and do better".
My reaction to the combined pitch* was "sounds cool, let me try!"
Acting like a normal person would? I'm playing RPGs to do exactly that.
As for what would happen to the GM's story? I don't give a flying fuck. I can pay $20 plus shipment and have a better edited one delivered to my doorstep (or less if I'm buying a PDF, more for hardcover), and it wouldn't require me to go out of my home every week at a time and date that might not be entirely convenient for me.

*Had I been told it's "like collaborative story creation", my answer would have been "cool, but what do I need you for?" (No, I'm not kidding, I was writing at that age, and didn't see any need for a co-author).

Quote from: CRKrueger;935040The Other!

Seriously though, Agency and Choice are Uber Alles, Super Omnes, Imprimis, etc. Above.Fucking.All.

However, being a BBEG who has an obvious weakness, he probably has way to mitigate that weakness.
So, you can do both.  You can respect player choice and have a smart BBEG.  Sure it might be dramatic to face the villain where the deck is completely stacked in his favor...but if the players choose to stack the deck in their favor, then let them make the attempt.

The key is stopping them with the Villain, not stopping them with your GM fiat powers.

If the Villain has the means to detect, prevent or mitigate the player's plan, then let the Villain attempt to do so.
Just because the players want him in sun doesn't mean he is, just because he wants to be in total darkness doesn't mean he is.

Use the rules of the setting and the game to judge, and judge fairly, without putting your extremely heavy narrative thumb on the scale.

What the Green One said.

Quote from: -E.;935563Telling me to do something my character wouldn't do because of genre conventions would ruin the game for me -- it would yank me right out of the story, and would undermine exactly what having the climax at night is supposed to create: a sense of fear and suspense.

Even worse: if the GM came up with bullshit reasons because he wanted to force an outcome.

Running things with a sense of verisimilitude means sometimes having an anticlimax, but I think that's preferable to the other options.

I do think it's okay to set up a situation where an outcome I prefer is very likely but be willing to bin it if it's not working out.

I ran a game a few years ago where the characters were cyborgs and unknowingly agents of a divine power.

They were across the border in Mexico about to assault a narco-terrorist's fortress full of child-soldier cultists; they were going to meet some Mexican Federal police who were on -- essentially -- a suicide mission to try to stop the terrorists.

I wanted the action to roughly parallel the biblical versus Joshua 5:13-6:27, with
* The PCs standing in for the agent of God, meeting the other-wise doomed Federales, and helping them complete their mission
* Taking down the walls of the armed compound 'miraculously'
* Killing a much larger and extremely well armed force inside (killing everyone, taking no prisoners)
* I also really wanted the initial interaction between the the PC's and the Mexican Police to parallel the Biblical meeting in the desert where the Angel tells Joshua's army that he is on "neither" side and tells them to remove their footwear, for they "stand on holy ground."

I could arrange for the incredibly miraculous coincidence of the PC's finding a decades-old cache of explosives and heavy machine guns -- one of the PCs had chemical sensors that could detect explosives and would identify the Comp B buried under the roadside shrine that was their meeting point.

What I couldn't do, of course, was insure that he'd use his sensors. And -- also -- I couldn't force any specific words to come out of their mouths.

I could have the FBI agent helping them with the operation set things up so it would be likely that things would work out: they weren't to identify themselves, and should disclaim any affiliation and be as uncommunicative on that matter as possible. The agent also suggested that they secure the area, check for IEDs (e.g. scan for explosives), and if they were safe advise the Mexican police to rest after a long foot march (e.g. take their boots off).

The odds of it working out perfectly were low and I saw absolutely no point in trying to force anything -- if I'd prompted the PCs to "say this" or "do that" it the outcome would have had exactly zero power.

As it happened, it worked beautifully. The PC's arrived and realized they were well under-prepared for a siege and fight against an small army. Still, they scanned the area and discovered the unexpected and game-changing cache of weapons.

While obviously a set-up by the GM, it was also a set-up by the forces in the game, one of the earliest ones that couldn't be dismissed as a coincidence.

But the real payoff came after the NPCs approached and wearily asked the unknown PCs whose side they were on -- the Federales, or the Narcos? And the one of the PC's tersely said "neither" but "we have a message for you. Rest by this shrine, and when you are ready, we're going to kill the narcos."

The passage from Joshua and the slaughter at Jericho had been meaningful earlier in the game, and one of the PCs made the connection and was like... "WOAH." The parallels were direct and obvious, and while there were clearly in-game forces manipulating things supernaturally, their role in the discussion was completely natural and without any railroading.

Very gratifying. Very unlikely. And while I obviously set things up so the outcome was likely there was absolutely no guarantee that it would work out (or work out as well as it did). If things had gone differently (frankly, what I expected), I'd have been happy to let them.

Cheers,
-E.

And that's how you do it right;).

Quote from: nDervish;936341Haven't dropped by this forum in a few months for various reasons and I get back to find that you're still asking "how far can I go with invalidating player decisions before the posters here will complain?" questions.  Makes me feel right at home.

No.  No, I don't.

"Attack the vampire during the day" is such a bloody obvious decision for the players to make that, as a GM, I would have already worked out, at least in general terms, how the BBEG's defenses differ during the day vs. at night.  And it's also bloody obvious in-setting, so (assuming the BBEG is of at least average human intelligence, or more than a couple years old) the daytime defenses would be as solid as possible, since it knows that's when it's vulnerable and would prefer not to be attacked then.  This could include (in-character, not deus ex machinated) delaying actions, traps, well-fortified resting places, etc.  The defenses would be realistic, but not "changes", as they would have been part of the original plan.

"The players made a choice I don't like, so I'm going to warp the reality of the game world to invalidate their choice" is never fair, as far as I'm concerned.

Fine by me.  Just gives the bad guys more time to hunt the PCs down and bring the fight to them, on the enemy's terms.  Exactly the same as the PCs are trying to bring it on their terms.

If "dramatic, scary conditions" are agreed to be a desired part of the game, then, sure, go ahead and tell the players that you think that goal would be better served by waiting and attacking at night.  But if they still choose to launch a dawn raid, then so be it.

The fun of being allowed to make meaningful choices and see the resulting consequences play out.

The fun of trying to outwit the opposition, fair and square.

The fun of events unfolding without a script.

And that's what I would have prepared. The search parties would be worse if the Evil Boss (of Evilness) knew the characters are after him, too.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;936372This.  God yes, this.  I hate the whole contrived "boss fight" idea.

The only games that require a "boss" fight are Fight! The Fighting Game RPG and Shonen Final Burst:D!
And maybe (genre) westerns. But I'm not sure about those, so feel free to enlighten me, I'd just accept it.

Quote from: rgrove0172;936344Who said vampires?

Yeah, I kinda expected that to be part of your response.

Didn't expect it to be the whole thing.

And, as darthfozzywig hinted, it's completely tangential to my entire post.  Feel free to replace the word "vampire" in my earlier response with "arbitrary creature of the night which may or may not be at least marginally weaker during the day", if you like.  It has precisely zero impact on the content or meaning of what I said.