Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 25, 2020, 12:15:40 PM

Quote from: Theory of Games on December 25, 2020, 09:51:20 AM
Also, is it better to avoid using literary elements in adventure design (e.g., foreshadowing, dramatic irony, and theme)?

I would say, literary elements can inform the adventure, but they shouldn't be the game.

Often, there's a final room in a dungeon with some kind of boss. This replicates the climax of a story, where it's saved for the end, and is the resolution of some kind of conflict. (Rescue the princess, stop the cultists, whatever)

But don't expect a specific outcome. The characters are going to answer that dramatic question in how they play the game.

Really, like the Alexandrian article says, I don't think the content of an adventure changes that much when you switch from prepping plots to prepping scenarios. A cave full of orcs is still a cave full of orcs. What's different is how you approach and use the material.

I do expect the players to succeed in most scenes and maybe my experience of seeing the dice betray them has led to my more linear adventures. I think maybe I'm playing a game versus dice outcomes rather than against player choice. Because the dice provide a greater barrier to success than I do. I'm just trying to figure it all out. The whole paradigm of human choices weighed against dice rolls.

It's tricky.

Quote from: Itachi on December 25, 2020, 12:16:27 PM

Quote from: Theory of Games on December 24, 2020, 05:53:09 PM
I read Apocalypse World and hated certain Moves. It felt too "out there" for the kinds of players and adventures I would run.

Is it bad? Sh*t no. Great overall system and I love "Spirit of '77" and "Uncharted Worlds". But, the Moves can be limiting in ways I, as GM, am uncomfortable with.

You missed the forest for the trees. You shouldn't look at moves but the most important advice the book gives: don't prep plots, prep situations. Think what the antagonist agenda is and create a countdown clock representing it concretizing said agenda, with steps for what happens as time progresses. Then let the players deal with it at their own pace and volition. And always, always tell them the possible consequences of their actions before they commit. By making informed choices they can see where they're steering the adventure to in a transparent way, givinc little space for GM illusionism, gotchas! , or other bullshit.

You mentioned PACE. I'm realizing that the overarching metric of my GM style is my faster pace. Our combats are much quicker but, yes, I can see myself rushing players through social interaction. The idea of giving players their own pace is useful. But passive players would need something of a "push"?

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 25, 2020, 03:48:13 PM
I've been letting this simmer in my brain for a bit and I'm bumping up against a base problem with meaningful choice in an adventure. Not only should a GM allow opportunities for meaningful choice by the players in the adventure, but the players need to be willing to make those meaningful choices. If you create a scenario where the player characters are at a tavern and overhear a conversation about a plot to kill the king to usurp the throne, but instead of acting upon that they decide to go bang the barmaid instead - it isn't the GMs fault as it is equally the players fault.

I agree that players need to engage the game with meaningful choices. That to me gets established in Session 0. Within the premise of the adventure/campaign, the players will need to make choices that define the destiny of their character.

Quote from: Opaopajr on December 25, 2020, 03:56:30 PM
Simple, your nine acts are really only three repeated in ever-increasing scale. Basically an arpeggio of tension, never really coming to release, safety, or self-motivation, the cresting waves leave your players reacting. In a word, it's stuck.

Try giving them things to juggle. And then more things to juggle. And then more and more around the setting, until they start dropping what they don't want to juggle and decide what they want to keep juggling. Finally ask them what else they want YOU to throw at them to juggle and from what direction!

And now you've retrained your players from being reactive to your tense circus act into pro-active deciders of their own show. They then may surprise you and themselves what sort of performance they can handle and what they wanna show!

I like your "juggling" idea very much. And yeah, I'm a fan of "story tension". Stole it from my love of John McTiernan's films (Die Hard, Predator, True Lies, Basic): If I squeeze the characters, the players tend to bond together to find their way to victory. The players, faced with pressure, realize all the answers aren't on their individual character sheets. They have to work together.

I won't abandon that tactic, but I will give them more choices. More alternatives.

Quote from: Itachi on December 25, 2020, 04:26:32 PM

Quote from: Theory of Games on December 25, 2020, 12:06:46 PM
Well, damn.

You folks are suggesting what I was doing was okay. To an extent.

But, I like how in some videogames choices the players make have an impact down the road. Do any of you do this? How do you do it? Do you have an adventure template for "if a PC does X, Y happens later"?

This will happen organically in your game as long as you don't railroad your players, and instead make the world respond to their actions in logical fashion.

Did they side with the raiders? Now their faces are on "wanted" leaflets all around the realm and bounty-hunters will come for them.
Did they ignore the Marshall plead for help? Good, next time they visit the place it's a ghost town full of corpses.
Etc, etc.

Full agreement here.

Quote from: estar on December 25, 2020, 04:45:53 PM

Quote from: Theory of Games on December 24, 2020, 05:24:08 PMGive me notes, folks: HOW DO YOU create meaningful change with tabletop RPGs? How do you give scenes and settings to players in such a way that's TRANSFORMATIVE and enjoying? I have no clues, but I want to get better ....

I don't, my players do. I describe the setting, talk to them OOG about their character so I focus my work on the details things they will likely be interested in.  Then they make it transformative and enjoying because they are doing what they want to do in a place that has interesting things to discover and adventures to pursue.

THIS is where I want to go. Thank you.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 25, 2020, 05:50:36 PM
That's the mental block I ran into that I mentioned earlier in the thread. It's impossible to plan for every contingency, and a GM shouldn't. I think there's a certain amount of buy-in that players should expect to engage with.

My first adventure in a campaign is usually pretty linear. I also try to seed that adventure with leads for further adventures. Maps and journal pages and lore items. Once the players decide on what to follow up on, and I prep accordingly.
If I'm willing to roll with the player's choices, I expect the players to reciprocate and work with the material I prep for them. Somewhere in the middle, hopefully, we can get a game where the players feel they have agency while we have enough structure to make GMing as smooth as possible.

That relationship between your adventure/campaign and the players' intentions is crucial. Session 0 stuff. I always prep player expectations. They know I'm throwing insanity at them. We're nerds and so media saavy. I tell them to expect ANYTHING, but I wasn't giving them the space to DO anything. Your advice is phenomenal.

Quote from: Aglondir on December 25, 2020, 07:30:27 PM
I'm working on a concept called Storybox, an attempt to merge the two ideas. First, you need to create 5 factions. Each has a goal. Then the players create relationships with different factions. Or not, it's a free world. Here's a very simple example:

5 noble houses

House A and H hate each other
House P is idealistic and wants peace
House M cares only about money
House F is conducting illegal experiments into forbidden tech
   
So:

If the PCs kill the young heir to house H, house A likes them.
If the PCs kill the young heir to house A, house H likes them.
If the PCs kill either heir, house P does not like them, since they are prolonging the war.
If the PCs kill either heir, house M likes them, since war is good for their business.
If the PCs steal money from M and give it to F, they might get some sweet forbidden tech.
If the PCs turn in F to the authorities, they might get status in the eyes of P.
Etc.

That's not: If they do X, Y happens later (but it could be.)  More like: If they do X, then their relationship with all 5 houses changes. And it's definitely not this, which is the usual storygame: At the end of the movie (er, game) House A defeats House H, regardless of what the PCs do.

The closest I have seen to this idea is Icons and Relationships in 13th Age:

https://www.13thagesrd.com/icons/#Players_Determine_Your_Icon_Relationships

This is deep. I'm stealing it. You're welcome.

Quote from: estar on December 25, 2020, 11:43:38 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 25, 2020, 11:01:10 PM
Well, that was my point. If the party decides to bang the barmaid, then there isn't going to be much of an adventure, is there? Sure, we could spend the entire game session with Fade to Black moments (I don't due graphic sex scenes in my games), but why waste valuable game time for that?

That one on you reflecting what you think the player ought to be doing. Instead of going with what the players find interesting about your setting.

However the specific example of banging the barmaid over x is so atypical to be nonsense. Far more common is something like deciding to build an inn rather continue life as a mercenary company. Thus rendering a bunch of prep useless about opportunities for mercenaries. That I personally seen referees get bent about.

OK, I get your point.

A big question is: What do you mean by the word, "Adventure!"?

That's the pre-game talk (even before session zero) where people talk about what they wanna escape into. This gets into pitch and premise. Here you hammer out interests which suggests the coming desired values -- such as scale, scope, tension, atmosphere, etc. -- and try to come to an agreeable point on them.

If having fun with barmaids is what appeals versus another save the kingdom quest, you can ask either in-game or out-of-game why the response. "The Talk" has to open up because any previous Pitch and Premise didn't stick the landing. Air the dirty laundry out, you are asking for trust, so you need honest feedback -- even if it is "yeah, whatever the group wants as long as it seems cool and I don't have to think hard."

You target that 'cool' word, just like 'adventure', and ask them to define that, as it means to them.  We are not expected to read minds. (And part of the fun of RPGs is the DIY aspect that ends up being interpreted differently in others' hands, like books, scripts, and theater!)

Can barmaid fun be turned into adventure? Absolutely! It'd often assume a more localized scale, but that might be the unspoken (or even unaware!) IC ask. Maybe there is Player desire to explore Adventure! about new pimps muscling into town, or jealous lovers ready to throw down, or crazy barmaid cat fights over the same PC. Whatever it is, that is where the Same Paging over Pitch and Premise needs to work on again.

Quote from: estar on December 25, 2020, 11:43:38 PMThat one on you reflecting what you think the player ought to be doing. Instead of going with what the players find interesting about your setting.

However the specific example of banging the barmaid over x is so atypical to be nonsense. Far more common is something like deciding to build an inn rather continue life as a mercenary company. Thus rendering a bunch of prep useless about opportunities for mercenaries. That I personally seen referees get bent about.

I do have a player a bit like that. Which means my adventure hooks have to cover the bar staff and other background characters just in case. But it does provide an exploitable flaw which I have trapped him with on several occasions.

Quote from: Opaopajr on December 26, 2020, 08:17:10 AM
A big question is: What do you mean by the word, "Adventure!"?

That's the pre-game talk (even before session zero) where people talk about what they wanna escape into. This gets into pitch and premise. Here you hammer out interests which suggests the coming desired values -- such as scale, scope, tension, atmosphere, etc. -- and try to come to an agreeable point on them.

If having fun with barmaids is what appeals versus another save the kingdom quest, you can ask either in-game or out-of-game why the response. "The Talk" has to open up because any previous Pitch and Premise didn't stick the landing. Air the dirty laundry out, you are asking for trust, so you need honest feedback -- even if it is "yeah, whatever the group wants as long as it seems cool and I don't have to think hard."

You target that 'cool' word, just like 'adventure', and ask them to define that, as it means to them.  We are not expected to read minds. (And part of the fun of RPGs is the DIY aspect that ends up being interpreted differently in others' hands, like books, scripts, and theater!)

Can barmaid fun be turned into adventure? Absolutely! It'd often assume a more localized scale, but that might be the unspoken (or even unaware!) IC ask. Maybe there is Player desire to explore Adventure! about new pimps muscling into town, or jealous lovers ready to throw down, or crazy barmaid cat fights over the same PC. Whatever it is, that is where the Same Paging over Pitch and Premise needs to work on again.

I get your point as well, but when anything that the players' characters do leads to an "Adventure!" then it removes the meaningful choice that the players could have had. Without some kind of success or failure mode for the choice, the choice becomes irrelevent.

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 26, 2020, 10:50:30 AM

Quote from: Opaopajr on December 26, 2020, 08:17:10 AM
A big question is: What do you mean by the word, "Adventure!"?

That's the pre-game talk (even before session zero) where people talk about what they wanna escape into. This gets into pitch and premise. Here you hammer out interests which suggests the coming desired values -- such as scale, scope, tension, atmosphere, etc. -- and try to come to an agreeable point on them.

If having fun with barmaids is what appeals versus another save the kingdom quest, you can ask either in-game or out-of-game why the response. "The Talk" has to open up because any previous Pitch and Premise didn't stick the landing. Air the dirty laundry out, you are asking for trust, so you need honest feedback -- even if it is "yeah, whatever the group wants as long as it seems cool and I don't have to think hard."

You target that 'cool' word, just like 'adventure', and ask them to define that, as it means to them.  We are not expected to read minds. (And part of the fun of RPGs is the DIY aspect that ends up being interpreted differently in others' hands, like books, scripts, and theater!)

Can barmaid fun be turned into adventure? Absolutely! It'd often assume a more localized scale, but that might be the unspoken (or even unaware!) IC ask. Maybe there is Player desire to explore Adventure! about new pimps muscling into town, or jealous lovers ready to throw down, or crazy barmaid cat fights over the same PC. Whatever it is, that is where the Same Paging over Pitch and Premise needs to work on again.

I get your point as well, but when anything that the players' characters do leads to an "Adventure!" then it removes the meaningful choice that the players could have had. Without some kind of success or failure mode for the choice, the choice becomes irrelevent.

I think the failure state of not having adventures is worth the removal of that level of agency.

Basically the GM gets to play too. They are not a CPU, they are a major contributor by being host. So incompatible ideas of what Adventure! and Cool~ means is perfectly expected.

The next task is to find common ground of those definitions, and who will host them. If no real agreement can be made, be it disagreement or indifference, then you amicably part ways. Or if the issue is not as important to them, then the host ask those who don't want to host (indifferent players) to hold their peace... basically stop being disruptive or step up and be an active participant.

It may feel confrontational, but that doesn't mean being forthright is heated argument. It is opening communication channels. Sometimes the group's desires take precedence and they hash out what event and where, other times the host's desires take precedence and they hash out invitations and receive RSVPs. And if the party is starting off on the wrong foot you as host are within your responsibilities to clarify what you saw as the agreed upon reason to start.

It's a gentle call back to, "Are we playing what we agreed to or not? You are still free to back out of what I wanted, and agreed to, run."

Quote from: Theory of Games on December 24, 2020, 05:47:28 PMI can't fight the SJWs at my gaming table (much). They (kinda almost) have a point that I, as GM, shouldn't 86 their PC without good cause. The fiction they've been reading/watching suggests "Plot Armor", so why did they fall? Why Evil GM?

Tell em to get their brains scrubbed of the stupid and that 90% of the time "plot armour" is a hallucination of the even more stupid. Stop being stupid. Think of the children.

No. You are not being a "bad DM" for "letting" the PCs die on encounter one. This is a game, not a novel. Get with the program or hit the road Jack.

ahem.

All that said you can have a structured adventure and still have choice. Look at alot of the older more structured TSR modules for ideas on that. They very often offered options if the DM was not OK with outright railroading. And a few do not.

Personal favourite example is Dramune Run for Star Frontiers. There is a point in the adventure where the villain ambushes the PCs and initiates boarding. The PCs are supposed to lose, be captured, and end up on the villains station and proceed from there with more railroading one way or another. The adventure was fine up till then and as the GM I was having none of this and so allowed the players to try and figure a way out of the initial trap if they could. They came up with a series of daring maneuvers and succeeded against all odds to escape. That meant the least third of the module was defunct now right? No. I just had NPCs at their destination offer the PCs a hefty reward if they could use the information gained to get to the villains base and take it out. They could have said no. And I was rather expecting it. Instead they agreed, prepped, went in with a plan, and actually pulled it off.

Everyone had a blast. But good golly that last 3rd as presented was a relentless railroad. The villains WILL take out the escorts, they WILL capture the Gullwind, the PCs WILL be captured, the PCs have NO chance of escape till rescued. Sure it made sense in context. But it is no fun for me to have the outcomes so pre-determined.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 26, 2020, 01:43:44 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 26, 2020, 10:50:30 AM

Quote from: Opaopajr on December 26, 2020, 08:17:10 AM
A big question is: What do you mean by the word, "Adventure!"?

That's the pre-game talk (even before session zero) where people talk about what they wanna escape into. This gets into pitch and premise. Here you hammer out interests which suggests the coming desired values -- such as scale, scope, tension, atmosphere, etc. -- and try to come to an agreeable point on them.

If having fun with barmaids is what appeals versus another save the kingdom quest, you can ask either in-game or out-of-game why the response. "The Talk" has to open up because any previous Pitch and Premise didn't stick the landing. Air the dirty laundry out, you are asking for trust, so you need honest feedback -- even if it is "yeah, whatever the group wants as long as it seems cool and I don't have to think hard."

You target that 'cool' word, just like 'adventure', and ask them to define that, as it means to them.  We are not expected to read minds. (And part of the fun of RPGs is the DIY aspect that ends up being interpreted differently in others' hands, like books, scripts, and theater!)

Can barmaid fun be turned into adventure? Absolutely! It'd often assume a more localized scale, but that might be the unspoken (or even unaware!) IC ask. Maybe there is Player desire to explore Adventure! about new pimps muscling into town, or jealous lovers ready to throw down, or crazy barmaid cat fights over the same PC. Whatever it is, that is where the Same Paging over Pitch and Premise needs to work on again.

I get your point as well, but when anything that the players' characters do leads to an "Adventure!" then it removes the meaningful choice that the players could have had. Without some kind of success or failure mode for the choice, the choice becomes irrelevant.

I think the failure state of not having adventures is worth the removal of that level of agency.

I disagree. No gaming is better than bad gaming.

Some adventures are just "go to this location and accomplish that," with maps and everything there laid out.  Players can go wherever and do whatever and hopefully manage to reach their goal.  That's an easy non-railroad.

For something less constrained, say an adventure with encounters all over a city, here's what I do.

First a create a notional plot, which would be a railroad.  If the players make all the choices I expect, there are about 10 encounters of various types that occur, then they hit the goal and finish.  I start creating a plot-map.  Each point on the map is an encounter, numbered to correspond to the appropriate description.  Lines connect the points, marked with decisions that move the players from one encounter to the next.  The initial map is dots in a straight line connected by arrows.

Next I create alternate choices for each encounter on my plot map.  Say the PCs are after a gang boss for whatever reason as a goal and they've tracked a lieutenant to his house.  I expect them to fight the guy and coerce him into giving up some information.  My straight-line map leads to a an encounter at a warehouse for stolen goods.  What if they kill him?  What if they just spy on him?  What if they follow him?  These could all lead to the same next encounter, but I want multiple choices.  So if they wait a messenger shows up that they can follow back to the gang's magic practitioner.  And if they search the place, they'll find written notes about a guard who is on the take who might know something.  The new encounters become points on my map with decision-arrows leading to them.  The desired outcome of this process is that the players have multiple choices after each encounter and meaningful information with which to make a decision between them.  In this case if they PCs beat the lieutenant, intimidate him into giving up info, search the place, and while they're doing so the messenger arrives, they have three options that I've planned for.  Various choices may skip forward or back several steps on my initial line, go off on side lines, or loop back.

Last, in the game be prepared to ad-lib.  The players are going to do things that are not on the map.  In my entire gamemastering career there has been exactly one time when the players followed my straight-line plot.  When they make a different choice, it may be reasonable to send them to one of the plot points, but sometimes you just need to ad-lib an encounter.  If I have to ad-lib an entire encounter, I will present choices that will bring them back on the map, which they may or may not follow.

The downside of this approach is that I will often prepare twice as much material as is needed.  The upside is that players have choices, and I'm prepared for them.  I can and do ad lib during my games, but I find the game is more fun if I've put some prep time into encounters.

Quote from: Opaopajr on December 26, 2020, 04:33:44 PM
Basically the GM gets to play too. They are not a CPU, they are a major contributor by being host. So incompatible ideas of what Adventure! and Cool~ means is perfectly expected.

The next task is to find common ground of those definitions, and who will host them. If no real agreement can be made, be it disagreement or indifference, then you amicably part ways. Or if the issue is not as important to them, then the host ask those who don't want to host (indifferent players) to hold their peace... basically stop being disruptive or step up and be an active participant.

It may feel confrontational, but that doesn't mean being forthright is heated argument. It is opening communication channels. Sometimes the group's desires take precedence and they hash out what event and where, other times the host's desires take precedence and they hash out invitations and receive RSVPs. And if the party is starting off on the wrong foot you as host are within your responsibilities to clarify what you saw as the agreed upon reason to start.

It's a gentle call back to, "Are we playing what we agreed to or not? You are still free to back out of what I wanted, and agreed to, run."

Dude, I know this. I jettisoned my last ad hoc game group because of this.

What you are not acknowledging is that a game group should gather to have fun playing RPGs, and that includes the GM.

I had a group playing Star Wars and while the original agreed upon purpose of the group was to be a freelance Force-using independent SCP Foundation, what it ended up being was a bad reenactment of Red Dwarf in the Star Wars universe. While this was fun for the players, I was getting bored. I talked to them a couple of times about it and they had no desire to move in one direction (often the players would be at cross purposes to one another) while claiming to want to be part of the original purpose. It came to a head when a player bought a Kowakian monkey-lizard and let it run loose in their newly acquired junker starship - causing continual problems in game. The game stopped being fun for me and started to be drudgery.

So, after 7 months of weekly games, they had not tried to encounter a single SCP entity but had fumbled into a hundred bad comedy situations. So I called it and stopped the 'campaign' since they just kept on jumping at anything else but what they said they wanted and thus what I had prepped for. That was a case where the players made meaningful choices, but ones that were failure modes for me as GM, and talking through it to come to an amicable solution did not work.

Or should I have just continued with the drudgery?

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 26, 2020, 05:35:38 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 26, 2020, 01:43:44 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 26, 2020, 10:50:30 AM

Quote from: Opaopajr on December 26, 2020, 08:17:10 AM
A big question is: What do you mean by the word, "Adventure!"?

That's the pre-game talk (even before session zero) where people talk about what they wanna escape into. This gets into pitch and premise. Here you hammer out interests which suggests the coming desired values -- such as scale, scope, tension, atmosphere, etc. -- and try to come to an agreeable point on them.

If having fun with barmaids is what appeals versus another save the kingdom quest, you can ask either in-game or out-of-game why the response. "The Talk" has to open up because any previous Pitch and Premise didn't stick the landing. Air the dirty laundry out, you are asking for trust, so you need honest feedback -- even if it is "yeah, whatever the group wants as long as it seems cool and I don't have to think hard."

You target that 'cool' word, just like 'adventure', and ask them to define that, as it means to them.  We are not expected to read minds. (And part of the fun of RPGs is the DIY aspect that ends up being interpreted differently in others' hands, like books, scripts, and theater!)

Can barmaid fun be turned into adventure? Absolutely! It'd often assume a more localized scale, but that might be the unspoken (or even unaware!) IC ask. Maybe there is Player desire to explore Adventure! about new pimps muscling into town, or jealous lovers ready to throw down, or crazy barmaid cat fights over the same PC. Whatever it is, that is where the Same Paging over Pitch and Premise needs to work on again.

I get your point as well, but when anything that the players' characters do leads to an "Adventure!" then it removes the meaningful choice that the players could have had. Without some kind of success or failure mode for the choice, the choice becomes irrelevant.

I think the failure state of not having adventures is worth the removal of that level of agency.

I disagree. No gaming is better than bad gaming.

I disagree that the choices are no gaming or bad gaming.

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 26, 2020, 06:17:04 PM
Or should I have just continued with the drudgery?

When I pick a setting for a campaign, I am prepared to deal with anything within the setting. While I may prepare some details that have adventure potential. I am head off the issue you describe by making sure that the setting as a whole is something I would enjoy regardless of what the player choose to do.

With my Majestic Wilderlands I am a bit spoiled in that most of the regions been visited by so many player in different campaigns so much of the possibilities have been player tested so to speak. But with setting I don't run as often like the Third Imperium of Traveller, Star Trek or Harn. I makes sure I read up on it see if the the alternatives are things I enjoy. For those three they generally are.

Finally how I would handle the situation you described is figure out how the Red Dwarf crew would fare in the Star Wars Galaxy and that would the player's challenge. Keeping in mind that going that route means they won't show up the next session as you are not catering to their whim. That your presentation of the Star Wars Galaxy is not a place they find fun or interesting to adventure in.

Which has happened to me several time.

The first Cthulhu game I ran, one of the characters decided to pick a gangster. To make it work with the other players we decided that he must be looking to get out of the mob and find a more lawful career. So when setting up the introduction I added an NPC that was the adventure hook and this character has been tasked to carry out a hit on him. I naively assumed that since we'd discussed his character background he'd take this opportunity as his call to adventure. But instead he immediately whacked the NPC as instructed and effectively derailed the introduction within the first ten minutes of the game.

I was stumped. But, we played on, and the PCs found alternative ways to source the information.

In a more recent published D&D game, an encounter began with a party of ghosts turning up to warn the players about a dragon in the dungeon. The moment the ghosts appeared, the party cleric turned them. If the dragon had wiped them out, I would have had their characters' ghosts turn up to warn the next characters they rolled up. As it happened, they survived. Just.

Quote from: estar on December 26, 2020, 07:46:02 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 26, 2020, 06:17:04 PM
Or should I have just continued with the drudgery?

When I pick a setting for a campaign, I am prepared to deal with anything within the setting. While I may prepare some details that have adventure potential. I am head off the issue you describe by making sure that the setting as a whole is something I would enjoy regardless of what the player choose to do.

With my Majestic Wilderlands I am a bit spoiled in that most of the regions been visited by so many player in different campaigns so much of the possibilities have been player tested so to speak. But with setting I don't run as often like the Third Imperium of Traveller, Star Trek or Harn. I makes sure I read up on it see if the the alternatives are things I enjoy. For those three they generally are.

Finally how I would handle the situation you described is figure out how the Red Dwarf crew would fare in the Star Wars Galaxy and that would the player's challenge. Keeping in mind that going that route means they won't show up the next session as you are not catering to their whim. That your presentation of the Star Wars Galaxy is not a place they find fun or interesting to adventure in.

Which has happened to me several time.

That is all well and good, but the Players told me that they wanted to be freelance Force-using SCP Foundation types (which is what I prepared for) and then played their characters as if they were in a badly done Star Wars sitcom instead of what they had told me they wanted. It was not a problem with the setting, but a problem with the players being all over the place and unable to choose a direction.

In this case, the meaningful choice was to not make any choices and therefore not commit to doing anything except comic relief. After seven months of this, I got tired of catering to their whims and wanted some equal fun for myself because it had become a chore for me.

I'm reading that both you and Ratman_tf are advocating for the players, but I am saying that the GM should have equal consideration as the players for fun otherwise why GM at all?


EDIT: And to get back to the subject of the OP, this was a case of meaningful choices being presented to the players and then the players deciding to never make any (which, in and of itself, was a meaningful choice in that it was a game ending one).

(Oddly enough, if they had just chosen a direction and punctuated the dramatic horror with their brand of "for the lulz" comedy, it would have been incredibly fun. All the lulz, all the time, tends to suck the comedic value right out of the game because there is nothing to balance it out. )