[D&D] Hot elves, morality, and the missing initiative roll
Meramec:
NN: Yes, I’d like rules that help all players create things in the world and know ahead of time the sorts of results that can come from certain actions (outside of it being up to the DM’s judgment.) The “underwritten” nature of B2 is actually more of a feature than a bug to me—it’s a setting that provides just enough content to create so many different types of game experiences. The problem is that I don’t have rules to help me do things with the game that I want to do, not that the module is deficient.
In this game the hirelings help solve the problems. The dungeon is too dangerous for the 3 PC’s alone, so they solve that issue by enbiggening the party. So, the hirelings act very much like a resource to be managed. The equipment charts give rules for managing many resources through cost constraints. The spellcasting rules dictate how to manage other resources through different constraints. This would be another resource, and I want a table (what’s it with me and tables?) that says “Rolling Yonder Die on This Here Tableau Shall Be the Determinant of the Class, Race, Sex, Ability Scores, and Personality Traits of Just Such Hireling as the PC Shall Recruiteth” and the roll is modified in a way knowable to the players. Maybe you get +1 to the roll for every 10 gp you spend in searching for a recruit. Maybe if you are a cleric you have access to a special table where you can get religious zealot hirelings. Maybe if you are from the Barbarian Lands of Zuugut you get access to crazy half-stag guys with antler guns. Or whatever. I want the players to know that the availability of this resource—hirelings—is not just determined at the whim of the DM. I want there to be rules that as a DM I can use to help guide the acquisition of this resource. I am not creative enough during play to do all of this and enjoy myself. But I am creative enough to take the seeds given by the table and run with them.
I love your characterization of Lizardius! What a wonderful way to evolve his character! He was fun to play and over the top. I had him insist that the party split up to assault the lizard men and it was fun to see them try to convince him that such a plan would lead to their certain death.
It comes down to two things: (1) wanting the play experience to be a “game” where there are fixed encounters that can and do stop the progress of PC’s when they are not adequately solved and (2) wanting to have enough freedom to riff off of things and force the game to go places that add to the play experience. Sometimes these work at cross-purposes. A normal encounter is easy to write to satisfy (1) but then when I am making stuff up to respond to, say, the consequences of a moral dilemma, if I have no rules to follow then it is all (2). I want to be able to say “OK, you lied to the good priestess, therefore the consequences will be determined in part by Table XXII. You chose to drink all night instead of helping the peasants stop the flood from ruining the fields, therefore your consequences will be determined in part by Table XVII.” I want these tables to provide some direction, some measure of severity and type of consequences, that the players know about ahead of time and choose to endure due to their actions. It could be because they make a reasoned game decision that the value of the gems they steal from the blind merchant is worth the consequences given by Table IX, or it could be because they just want to see what happens when a gluttonous character runs rampant with no care in the world.
(Also, the rules don’t actually have to be tables per se. I’m just stuck in table mode right now. Could be lots of other things—the point is that dice need to be thrown (a) in a way the players can predict and (b) which help me resolve things creatively and within given parameters (say stealing from the local cobbler has different scale consequences than stealing from the Most Luminous Luwana who sits beneath the Tree of Precious Light in sacrifice for the misdeeds of the entire Nation of Olrathe.) Now, maybe it’s obvious that these things should have different consequences, but it would be good if there were rules to help. I mean, it’s also obvious that a Red Dragon is harder to kill than a Kobold, and yet we still have HD and saving throw rules.)
I am not seeking rules that cover every situation or dictate exactly what happens every time. I want them to hint at what happens and provide just that bit of direction that I need in order to help the game take flight.
I think the existence of such rules is important for two reasons. One, my creativity often requires some basic elements which I can then combine. A randomly generated fighter who is “courageous and talkative” could be realized as a noble leader recalling stories of his childhood lessons from his grandfather, the great general who defeated the Scourge. He could also be realized as a boisterous drunk going on and on about his licentious conquests and always dragging the party into trouble by charging ahead. The exact realization is determined by my creativity on the spot, but the seed content is the same either way and without any seed content all I can typically manage is “Yup, it’s Bob the Fighter. He’s Bill the Fighter’s brother.” I want the game to give me some seed content. I want rules to generate this so that during play I can use it.
The other reason it’s important is that it helps frame these “moral dilemmas” as an actual part of the GAME. Often my players look at the exploring and fighting as “the game” and the other stuff as “the role-playing” and they participate in the latter just for kicks and get irritated when others are taking too long. I want them to see the “role-playing” part as equally within the game. I want them to have fun inventing stuff to do in town and getting excited when faced with a moral dilemma as well as finding a thrill in surviving the Dread Sorcerer’s Exotic Trapped Mansion and rolling that crucial 20 to fell the golem about to deliver a TPK. And, at least in my experience, if the “role-playing” aspects are not covered by any sort of rules, then they are de-emphasized by some players and the players who do go all out for them end up siphoning fun from the players who don’t.
Perhaps this is all just a “well, a good DM could handle this” thing, in which case this entire meditation is for my own benefit in running a game. But I think it’s possibly more than that. I think it could be a useful structure for organizing an approach to play a bit more generally. But, since I am just me and not other GM's I don’t really know for certain.
Thanks again for the great responses! I’ve worked through a lot of my own thinking about how I want to run these games by writing the above. Sorry if it’s a bit of a ramble at times—I’m pretty much processing aloud here. The more I read around this site the more I think I like it. Thanks!
All the best, and game on!
John
Daniel B:
Hello John,
loved your account! :) Hope this thread isn't over, because I have questions for you, on something you wrote in response to Callan. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm putting you on the spot; I'm genuinely curious.
Quote from: Meramec on February 02, 2010, 10:02:41 PM
Callan:
<snip>
I see moral dilemmas in these games as another sort of problem to solve, albeit one that sometimes can have a longer postgame resonance . The only issue is that the contraints are all self-imposed by the individual player. Without rules for what happens when you make one moral decision or another, you could have one player who takes these questions seriously and another who decides to steal from the collection tray because he needs 10 more gp’s to buy some armor. You’d effectively have two players at the same table playing different games. And this isn’t even necessarily a bad situation, it’s just something that needs to be understood and perhaps made explicit (at least in the mind of the DM (at least when I’m the DM.)) My response below to Ron’s alignment question contains an experience of mine where forcing moral dilemmas did indeed lead to problems, but I don’t think it has to even when the players involved aren’t necessarily there to explore such things.
I think if I’m being completely honest with myself, I’d admit that I had the lizardfolk women carrying the treasure precisely because I wanted to force this issue. So I think it’s relatively straightforward to generate such situations from the DM’s chair, but you don’t want to do so if the other players don’t like such play. (But, this applies to everything—you don’t run a game of court intrigue with a group itching for dungeon exploration. My players used to sing out “Da-da-da-da-da, Inspector Gadget…” whenever there was even a hint of a mystery in an adventure…)
I wish there were a way for the players to generate these situations, though. They can direct so much of the action and make the game their own through choosing where to explore in the game world, whether to settle down or lead a bandit horde or serve the Goddess of Goodness and Light (at least when you play D&D in an open-ended setting-based way.) But they can’t force these sorts of dilemmas themselves, because they require DM and other-player buy-in. They could possible create them in the way the player created the hot elf, but it seems to me it needs a bit more support than that.
<snip>
You mentioned that having two players at the table playing different games (e.g. one taking moral questions seriously and the other treating it more video-gamey) is not necessarily a bad thing. I happen to agree with you, though I wouldn't want to make it explicit to the players (as it would be like someone standing up during a movie and yelling "You're watching a movie!") It sounds to me like you're actively going about confronting the issue of player-buy-in as a GM but that, in the past, you have dealt with it only during the game as it's come up. This is as opposed to wondering about it in hindsight.
My questions are: How have you been dealing with it? How successful has it been? After this actual play post, with everyone else's responses, will you be making any changes in the future?
Next, I just wanted to point something else out: you also expressed a wish that the players could generate the really juicy in-game situations on their own, but I think you answered that wish in the same response.
I would again want to make these situations creep into the game subtly, so as not to ruin the experience. Obviously the players are going to be aware of stuff they introduce themselves, and even of the potential for conflict, but what they won't see is the precise manner in which things will go so, so badly. How to make this happen? I think the trick is to motivate the players to introduce "damaged" but "substantial" content into the game, because such content will invariably lead to some interesting conflicts in the game. Bregens McDrinkerton. Why in god's name did they choose him?! Clearly a tactically bad choice, and yet.. a far more interesting one, as your post demonstrates.
If this "substance" is worked into the game currency and made cheaper than "tactics", you'll get a more interesting game in the long run. (I'm actually building a game .. I've been trying to keep this principle in mind, but your post has reminded me I've gone off-track a bit.)
Thanks again for your post.
Daniel B
Meramec:
Hi Daniel, thanks for your response. I want to give it full consideration and get back to you, but right now I can only post the following thought I had about giving context to the way-too-long post about the table resolutions. Although what I have to say here does touch a bit on how I am seeking to engage players who are interested in different aspects of the game. I love your bit about adding "damaged" content and how that may mirror the choice of the lazy dwarf over the brave dwarf even though that choice was tactically inferior.
Here is a more refined version of what I’m talking about when I say I want the rules to help me resolve dilemmas. Give moral dilemmas a sort of stat line like monsters. They would have a Severity, Scope, and Persistence score. Then there is a table which gives creative bits to work with. One entry may be “a disgruntled swordsman; a bloody necklace; and a broken, wasted dream.” So in a high Severity, Scope, Perisistence resolution this could become a high-level warrior, clutching the last memory of his wife who was murdered as a direct result of the PC’s misdeed, who is going to remain a thorn in the side of the PC for a while. In a low Severity, Scope, and Perisistence resolution it could be an 80-year old beggar who gave up his adventuring ways too early who is jealous of the PC’s status and who interferes with him in some personal way, perhaps calling the local guard on him accusing him of stealing a necklace.
The table provides the seed content to aid my creativity, the stat line for the dilemma itself provides the parameters for the resolution to help give my creative decision regarding its interpretation some boundaries that everyone playing understands BEFORE the action is undertaken (this is the part that is vital to making this part of “the game” and not just “OK, John is doing his own thing now, when are we getting back to the adventure?”)
Then, the players would be all like, “OK, setting lizardfolk children afire, what are the stats on something like that?” And I’d go, well, Severity is pretty high because it’s wrong, but Scope and Persistance could be low because it’s a remote area and they are Chaotic after all. Then they go “OK, great, the treasure’s worth it! Burn ‘em!” And I get to roll on the table and they look forward to the resolution because now it’s an actual part of the game and not just the DM imposing his own unpredictable sense of justice on their character’s actions while detracting from the “real game” of exploring the world and problem solving.
This gives those who are not interested in moral dilemmas a way to engage them through resource management and it allows those who do like to engage them to be confident that their choices will be reflected in the game.
And then you make the table work out somehow so that the outcomes aren’t always purely negative so that "doing bad things" isn't always equivalent to "bad tactics", and you have yourself a new way to completely engage the players in activities traditionally relegated to “oh, that’s just role-playing and DM judgment.” Now decisions made outside of combat and skill check type situations involve rolling dice to determine in part what is imagined next, just like decisions made during combat involve rolling dice to determine in part what is allowed to be imagined next.
John
Callan S.:
Perhaps you could just assign a budget for each act? And each time you introduce element based on their seedy or goody two shoes past, you spend some of your budget. How much is each point of budget worth? I'd probably leave that to A: trying to be consistant as GM in this, B: Watching the audience and if they think you got too much for too little and use up a few more points of budget if so and C: Keep in mind gamist players will still look a little pouty if it gives them even a chance of reducing budget/their obstacle/the thing in the way of them winning.
Another thing might be to make budget bitter sweet - yes, it brings adversity in, but make it that each point used also grants players XP. That way they don't quite know whether to hate it or love it (ha, cop that, players!)
Finally, to avoid 'John is doing his own thing and assigning himself whatever budget he wants' per act it'd be interesting to have a scaling chance of zero budget, based on how much budget you assign the act. So you have a tiny percentile chance of getting no budget at all, and the more budget you declare for the act, the higher that percentile roll gets.
Also that, to me, makes for a sometimes chilling world, where you burn the children and...there are no consequences...this challenges the GM as well, as sometimes inside he might be screaming that there should be consequence, but there is not. What to make of such a world, eh?
athornton:
My response is, "but dude, a good DM DID make this awesome."
Let me unpack that a little:
1) if you want rules that tell you what should have happened when you set noncombatants on fire to get some loot, then OD&D is the wrong game system for you. D&D 3+ is probably a better fit. (there are ways to cheat: like, use Microlite 20/74, which gives you a very fast-and-loose experience, but, hey, it's still d20, which is to say 3E, which is to say, feel free to drag whatever you want back in). But, really, if you want to play a rules-light system, then, well, yeah, you don't get to complain if the rules don't help you with your rulings. That said, hey, you rolled with it and you did fine. So why sweat it?
2) So, you got something to happen that your players were talking about. That's kinda the point. Your job is to facilitate the players' having fun. Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of that--especially if you get wrapped up in conceptions of how the story arc *should* go, or where this set of encounters must go in order to make the philosophical point you're going for or in order to drive the plot to the Big Uber-Conclusion you're looking for. But really, you're there to create a space for people to have fun (which can itself sometimes be memorable--and it's GREAT to hear people say "hey, remember that time when..." *decades* later).
3) Players make their own fun. Sometimes, really, you're just there to roll dice and nod. I had a great example of this last week in my own game, when a random item I'd never meant for anything other than minor dungeon dressing, plus a random bit of description to add color to the game session, led to a way for 3d-level characters to defeat a massively-more-powerful vampire. I was in no position to deny the power of the story one of my players created out of random scenery, because *her story was way more compelling than mine*. So sometimes you just sit back and let the narrative win. The description of that session is at: http://athornton.dreamwidth.org/3930.html
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