Quote from: JesterRaiin;909468If you were to specify some vague "reasonable plans" to "brace for troubles, guys" ratio, as presented by your gaming group(s), what would it be?

My players have no discernible plan whatsoever.

As a GM, I'm letting them come with the plan they wish, and then adjudicating based on what makes sense.

As a player, I'm more likely to default to practical solutions, whether they imply extreme violence or multiple sessions of no-combat diplomacy. If anyone wants to have fun, let them have fun with our achievements!

Quote from: JesterRaiin;909468the majority of plans suggested lately by PCs I control, consists of some mix of NPC abduction, arson (diversion) and similar atrocities, with saner solutions like diplomacy being usually considered "the last resort". Now, I don't want it to sound pretentious, edgy, or something, it's just that I perceive complication and getting into even more troubles far superior to merely solving the puzzle, surviving the scenario, saving the world and such.

It's just that when we gather and attempt to form a plan, I'm gonna probably suggest something dangerous, challenging, but - in my opinion -leading to more entertainment, rather than something that allows us to "solve" it and move on to either next stage or next session.

So, is the havoc-plan more fun because it causes more stuff to happen at the table? A scene with a burning castle is way more thrilling than a lengthy negotiation scene.

It seems like you're replacing the goal "succeed at the game" with the goal "make the most entertaining thing happen". At least, for some values of entertaining. Maybe "Make the most trouble happen" would be a better characterization...?

I'll agree with CRKrueger here: If your idea of more fun is to burn the scenario, rather than play it, then you're not fully engaging with the game. There's a disconnect somewhere.

Now of course, in an ideal game, causing the most chaos WOULD be interfacing properly with the game. Gee, I wonder if anybody is working on that game, right now...?

Quote from: JesterRaiin;909468Yet, I'm curious, how things look like in your groups? If you were to specify some vague "reasonable plans" to "brace for troubles, guys" ratio, as presented by your gaming group(s), what would it be? If you care to answer, please provide the game/setting you're playing the most (assuming it applies).

Of my two players, my friend Ryan leans about 85% towards caution (With a healthy 15% of "fuck it!"). My wife's favorite character was an Infernal Exalted that once shouted at a guy so hard his flesh was flensed from his bones. So she's about a 90% "Brace for trouble" kind of player.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;909580My players have no discernible plan whatsoever.

My players are like that.  I'm trying to ease them into a different mindset.

One of the challenges I've had in my campaign is getting players to truly understand their own capacity for agency.  They have a big hex map of the region, with a few interesting sites marked from information they've come across.  I have a whole bunch more that they could hear about through rumors, especially when passing nearby.  I recently had to break through the fourth wall to mention to them that if they felt like an adventure was too hard or outside their wheelhouse, they should turn around and go somewhere else.  

In fairness, several of them are newbies whose ideas of RPGs have been shaped by video games, and one of them has been corrupted by 4ed.  One just likes to turn his brain off a bit and kick down doors, so he doesn't do a lot of planning, but I respect that he has a clear vision of what he wants to accomplish.  Fortunately, at least one of them gets it, and the others are starting to come around.

When they get the whole agency thing down, I'll worry about their random murderhobo tendencies.

Quote from: Edgewise;909732My players are like that.  I'm trying to ease them into a different mindset.

One of the challenges I've had in my campaign is getting players to truly understand their own capacity for agency.  They have a big hex map of the region, with a few interesting sites marked from information they've come across.  I have a whole bunch more that they could hear about through rumors, especially when passing nearby.  I recently had to break through the fourth wall to mention to them that if they felt like an adventure was too hard or outside their wheelhouse, they should turn around and go somewhere else.  

In fairness, several of them are newbies whose ideas of RPGs have been shaped by video games, and one of them has been corrupted by 4ed.  One just likes to turn his brain off a bit and kick down doors, so he doesn't do a lot of planning, but I respect that he has a clear vision of what he wants to accomplish.  Fortunately, at least one of them gets it, and the others are starting to come around.

When they get the whole agency thing down, I'll worry about their random murderhobo tendencies.

The videogame comment surprises me, as one of the things Videogame RPGs tend to do very well is encourage exploration and alternate options. Most RPGs actually have a layered set of options for quests: 1) Evil hilarious option (least amount of XP, usually the "easiest", maybe more money), 2) Combat only option (medium XP, medium difficulty, medium rewards), 3) Exploration heavy diplomatic option (most XP, usually the hardest to do, usually only way to get the best gear and ending). Since the missions are designed for a long time before release, they tend to actually be more layered in options than most pen and paper games. Dishonored is a great example of this, for those familiar. Depending on your player's experiences, you might want to remind them of this indirectly (think like you were playing Fallout), as well as maybe having one or two quests fit that option trope scheme to push them into the mindset of looking to determine all the options before moving forward.

I prefer complications to arise naturally out of the actions the players take - through failure or otherwise.  If it happens because it's in character for the PC to do so?  That works, too.  (Think Drax in GotG calling Ronan).  Though even that, if it goes overboard, starts getting annoying.

What I don't personally care for is people deliberating doing "crazy" stuff to create complications.  Known character issue?  Great.  Is it mechanized in a system which allows for that via Traits, Disadvantages, Flaws, Aspects, etc?  Totally cool.  Just throwing wrenches in stuff to see things burn?  Not so much.  

And believe me, bad rolls will generate enough complications on their own - the dice don't need help.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;909766Most RPGs actually have a layered set of options for quests: 1) Evil hilarious option (least amount of XP, usually the "easiest", maybe more money), 2) Combat only option (medium XP, medium difficulty, medium rewards), 3) Exploration heavy diplomatic option (most XP, usually the hardest to do, usually only way to get the best gear and ending).

Well, I could grumble long and hard about how sandbox video games work hard and fail at providing an illusion of choice.  Take a game like Deus Ex, often held up as a paragon of open-ended solutions.  It's really not.  The real test of an open-ended problem is when the player is able to come up with a viable solution that wasn't planned by the developer, without it being a glitch.  In Deus Ex, Dishonored and other games like that, they give you three or four ways to pull off a mission, but it's really a choice of paths, and after the third mission or so it becomes very formulaic, and you can play off the genre conventions.  Like you sort of say, they end up having several boilerplate options, rinse and repeat.

I try to run my game with a minimum of hand-holding.  For me, the holy grail of GMing is when my players come up with an approach to the situation that I didn't think of at all.  Ideally, their plan will mostly work, adding a certain amount of emergent complication.  On those occasions where my players come through with something unique and chaotic, I experience a moment of transcendent joy.

Quote from: Edgewise;909792I try to run my game with a minimum of hand-holding.  For me, the holy grail of GMing is when my players come up with an approach to the situation that I didn't think of at all.  Ideally, their plan will mostly work, adding a certain amount of emergent complication.  On those occasions where my players come through with something unique and chaotic, I experience a moment of transcendent joy.

I definitely agree that this is a good end state. However, for a lot of newer RPG players, or even those used to straightforward dungeon crawls, they aren't really going to be ready for this style of play. Thus, you could use the boilerplate "options" structure as a way to ease them into far more free flowing plan and actions. You don't need to make it blatant, but it's easy to work in "quest items" that your party acquires or "I would support you, but this is going on..." organically, which could form points around which your party could structure their approach.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;909808I definitely agree that this is a good end state. However, for a lot of newer RPG players, or even those used to straightforward dungeon crawls, they aren't really going to be ready for this style of play.

That's why I'm easing them into it.  The nice thing about drawing up a sandbox is that you have plenty of hooks you can choose to throw at players, if they don't go looking for them on their own.  I'm about to give them a quest to bolster the tower on the Old South Road, which will be their entry point into The Sanctuary Ruin and Ironwood Gorge.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;909468This is HIGHLY circumstantial and certainly doesn't apply to just about ANY setting, any scenario, any group, but as observed in entirely different discussion featuring yours truly, the majority of plans suggested lately by PCs I control, consists of some mix of NPC abduction, arson (diversion) and similar atrocities, with more saner solutions like diplomacy being usually considered "the last resort". Now, I don't want it to sound pretentious, edgy, or something, it's just that I perceive complication and getting into even more troubles far superior to merely solving the puzzle, surviving the scenario, saving the world and such. It's also not that said plans are usually accepted by the rest of the group - I (as in "my PC") rarely defend them to the last drop of blood.

It's just that when we gather and attempt to form a plan, I'm gonna probably suggest something dangerous, challenging, but - in my opinion - leading to more entertainment, rather than something that allows us to "solve" it and move on to either next stage or next session.

I'm sure pretty much everyone did the same at some point at least once, so it's not I'm reinventing the wheel.

Yet, I'm curious, how things look like in your groups? If you were to specify some vague "reasonable plans" to "brace for troubles, guys" ratio, as presented by your gaming group(s), what would it be? If you care to answer, please provide the game/setting you're playing the most (assuming it applies).

Thanks.

The short answer is: they player their characters. Some are aggressive and seem problem as a nail to be hammered, others are more subtle. But overall they avoid random wanton violence and excessive force based on the situation as their characters are generally "good guys" or trying to be decent. And avoiding violence for the same reason real people do: violence hurts. I'm fine with that. I want them to interact with the world as if it were real and play their characters as such. Its my job (or the lion's share of it) to keep that world interesting. And there's more than enough opportunity for mayhem at the very least when those other plans go sideways

As a player I'm the same way, I try to run my character as I think they'd react to the world around them. Interestingly, I've played several characters are plot objects by nature and see violence as the primary solution to problem.Usually the others players reign them in when required and they go along with that with more or less protest based on the situation. I find that style of play to be the most fun. One of the most fun sessions we had involved a scenario resolved with a single combat. But run and gun sessions were fun too as long as they cane about "naturally" as a result in character actions and consequences.

Personally, if my players felt like they had to make choices to liven up the session then I am not doing or failing miserably at my job.