Biasing the moment; also mechanical spines (rather than organic ones)
Anders Gabrielsson:
I've had similar problems in face-to-face games: as GM, I want to draw attention to some detail that I'm not sure the players have fully grasped or a decision they may not have considered the full implications of, but I don't want to do that in a way that makes them think I want them to act on that detail or change their decision. I find it very difficult - I know that as a player it's damned easy to miss a vital detail, or not remember something the GM described three sessions earlier (which, at least with our bi-/tri-weekly play schedules, can be a couple of months ago). I don't want to make a decision that from my character's point of view would be idiotic because of that kind of mistake while I do want to have the option of making decisions that another character might find idiotic while they make sense to my character (assuming the social contract allows for that), and I also know how annoying it is when the GM tries to "nudge" you towards a certain path by dropping hints that "if you don't do this things will go badly" while meaning "if you don't do this you will upset my carefully laid plans", effectively a kind of railroading.
What may have happened with your players is that they are used to that kind of GM behavior: if the GM draws attention to something it means the characters are supposed to do something about it, not that the players are supposed to just find it interesting or think about it and then go on to do whatever they were doing; a kind of dysfunctional play coping mechanism, I guess. Or maybe they just hadn't realized what was going to happen, or had misunderstood the "tone" of the game to be one where leaving an NPC to die was the expected behavior, or something completely different.
masqueradeball:
Ah, I see what I did, I was trying to link the two points together some how... okay: here a reply:
1) Yeah, so it goes. I wish I had some sort of insight into making this work. All I know is I have a friend whose GM style is to sit their blank faced and to take everything you do at face value, so if you say it, you do it, and here are the consequences. I know I don't like this, I feel like I'm constantly being misunderstood or misrepresented.
2) I think thats a really good idea, making the game move forward regardless of what the fiction is doing, but I think it would require that the people playing learn how to pace the fiction with the forward-motion mechanic, which might be difficult to learn (at first), but sets a good real world time constraint and if everyone's in on it, makes sure the pacing happens... which can be a hard thing to accomplish. It seems like it would also make players set their priorities more, like, I know I only have three posts left, and man, I do want to go buy that +2 Sword of Swording, but I would rather get a chance to RP a scene with my character's dying grandmother or whatever... which I think is excellent. Infinite story economy seems to mean that most people are lazy about how they spend their in game time.
wild_card2007:
One way to handle the "I'd like to bring this to the players' attention" issue without it either interrupting game-play or leading to (perceived) railroading is to have a post-mortem after play. It's an opportunity for both players and GM to bring up what they liked or thought sucked, what they'd like to see happen next, who needs to bring pizza next time.
In a GM-fiat game I don't know of a good solution for "the players miss a crucial bit" that doesn't involve GM nudging. I've been on both sides of that coin, and don't care for it either way.
Masqueradeball: "Infinite story economy seems to mean that most people are lazy about how they spend their in game time." Yes, yes, yes. Just as bad is artificial scarcity: where it feels like there is pressure to succeed quickly and use your (character in-game) time well, but due to GM-fiat or group CA failure has no real repercussions. "Ah, we weren't able to rescue the kingdom tonight but nothing really bad happens because we'll get another chance to save the kingdom in the next session."
Thomas
Roger:
Just speaking to the first point: It's a tricky business. I've certainly had players who were really indoctrinated into the "Are we doing what the GM wants us to do?" mindset, which can be extraordinarily difficult to snap people out of.
With your particular situation, I might be inclined to try to set up some sort of anonymous comments pile, where the players and GM can speculate about whatever is on their mind, free and clear.
Cheers,
Roger
oculusverit:
Still on the first point, concerning the GM-given bias. I know I'm still pretty new at using these terms, specifically Agendas, but I'm going to give it a shot--therefore, please give me feedback if I'm using them the wrong way.
The whole "GM will give you hints or make it easy on you if you make the 'wrong' (otherwise known as 'off the rails') choice" scenario has two participants: the player who has been conditioned to believe it, and the GM who has been conditioned (or conditioned him/herself) to do it. There is not much that can be done about the one if you're not the others, but in a game where the GM has as much power as in yours then it's that GM's responsibility to change their behavior. IMHO, this models the way the game will go and, though it might initially cause some problems for the characters in the story, the players will then learn the GM's new behavior and model theirs to match.
(Here's where the Agenda talk begins, so forgive me in advance!)
It seems to me that it's very important here for the GM (and everyone else) to be made aware of what the Agenda is for the game. If it's more of a Narrativist game, then all of the players are there to investigate some themes. Therefore, the GM should inflict consequences on the players that fit in with this sort of thematic exploration. For example, if the players leave the NPC to die and the game is about heroism, then the fate of the NPC should teach them something about what happens when you don't engage that heroism... if the theme is something else, like "the fine line between good and evil", then their actions should have some sort of corrupting consequence. (Or something like that... I hope you'll forgive my bad examples).
If the game is instead a Simulationist game, then the GM should really have no position as to what they're doing or why. If the NPC would reasonably die from this, the NPC should die and the characters do not receive the information they would otherwise have had. This may or may not affect them later, if they needed that information.
If you as the GM decide to take it "easy" on the players and keep the NPC alive or give them a second chance at a choice, and it does not have a clear Narrativist purpose behind it... well, in my opinion that's Illusionism, and not of the functional kind.
P.S. My signature below gives my name, Kinch, but a lot of people have been missing it :P
Again, open to feedback on my use of these terms!
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