Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2013 23:02:54 GMT -8
I am running an alternate timeline in the Game of Thrones universe. At the end of each session I ask them how did it go, what would you like more of? They told me that they want more of an obvious direction that is the correct path. I infer this means that they want rails to run on so they can stay the course, not have to think too hard and hack and slash their way to the end of the video game. There are a lot of problem in the setting and every direction they travel will face them with different challenges because there is a civil war breaking out (set at the onset of Robert's Rebellion). I have been playing this game wide open and have been ready to roll with any compass direction they travel. I am the main GM for my group and a reoccurring complaint is that I give them hard situations to deal with that do not have an easy or clear answer. I have used the savage worlds action/adventure deck and there is a card that says, "The GM gives you a hint on what the best course of action is for the given situation". They played that once and I was not able to provide them with much help, "Uhhh the window on the roof seems like a weak point". I make the problems and when they generate the solution, I am flexible and allow it to work. I try to not create a solution myself so that I do not guide them into that path and take away their agency in creating the story. We always have a great time but in reflection I often hear complaints about how I always give them fucked up situations with no clear easy answers. Example: *** The villain has a knife to your sisters throat. You have been fighting his men and he appears with her in the middle of the camp. He demands for your surrender or he will harm her. He tells you to drop your weapons. (I do not have a solution on how this should end but I am ready to roll with whatever they give me.) They continue to fight and kill his men. The villain threatens to slice off her hand (her hand was offered to him in marriage so he sees it as just that he takes it given the circumstances). They do not surrender, continue to fight his men and kill them. Villain cuts her ring finger off. They do not surrender. Villain gives last chance, oh hold with knife to throat. Archer in the group aims at his hand and shoots. I give him a ranged disarm chance, the damage will be the str DC for him to hold onto the knife. He hits, Storks the damage roll horribly doing nothing. Villain on hold now acts and kills the PC's sister. The player whose character had his sister die was visibly upset out of character. "What did you expect us to do surrender?!?". I told them that it would be disingenuous to create a situation without carrying out the natural consequences that have been set up. Without the consequences being real victory cannot be as sweet. *** So I am a douche bag who creates situations without easy endings or obvious solutions or direction. If I GM like this is a game of Mario and all you have to do is travel to the right it will be far less fun for me. My group always wants me to GM and they all really enjoy my games. I believe this is because I do not give them anything easy, there will be consequences, and they are forced to come up with direction and own their own paths and destiny. In writing this I have seemed to come to my own conclusion to keep running things as I have been but perhaps I am fixed in my perspective to be able to have an unbiased viewpoint. So what do you think? If you want more information let me know.
|
|
D.T. Pints
Instigator
JACKERCON 2018: WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY June 22-July 1st
Posts: 2,857
Currently Playing: D&D 5e, Pathfinder, DUNGEONWORLD, Star Wars Edge of the Empire
Currently Running: DUNGEONWORLD, PATHFINDER
|
Post by D.T. Pints on Jun 24, 2013 23:29:18 GMT -8
Sounds like you are running a game where there are no easy answers. My players love this stuff. I think Game of Thrones is so immensely popular because it is a complex story devoid of easy answers.
I think players may get frustrated but if they get moments of victory amidst the dark times, and the story involves complex thought they'll keep coming back for more.
|
|
maxinstuff
Supporter
Posts: 1,939
Preferred Game Systems: DCC RPG, Shadowrun 5e, Savage Worlds, GURPS 4e, HERO 6e, Mongoose Traveller
Favorite Species of Monkey: Proboscis
|
Post by maxinstuff on Jun 24, 2013 23:33:19 GMT -8
Give them the RAILS OF DEATH.
|
|
daniel
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 217
|
Post by daniel on Jun 24, 2013 23:34:22 GMT -8
It is very possible that your just giving to much signals and options so the players just want to know what the "real" story is. If your reaction to this is "Fuck them" well then you might have more of a problem then just giving to meany signals
The described scenario *Shrug* no idea, they might have seen the situation differently, surrender seems like a horrible option anybody in SoIaF who surrenders gets fucked badly.
Is the PCs loosing a continua theam? if it is maybe your just being to hard on them, maybe they just want a clean victory once in a while? SoIaF is also kind of a specific thing, it is possible they just want a more Fantasy game?
|
|
maxinstuff
Supporter
Posts: 1,939
Preferred Game Systems: DCC RPG, Shadowrun 5e, Savage Worlds, GURPS 4e, HERO 6e, Mongoose Traveller
Favorite Species of Monkey: Proboscis
|
Post by maxinstuff on Jun 24, 2013 23:41:27 GMT -8
In all seriousness though - what if you gave them a patron to provide some direction for them and get the momentum going.
Make them LESS important, by giving them some tasks instead of decisions. Eventually you can try to turn them against the patron (he aligns with the mad king) or have them take the lead (patron gets killed). But only after clear motives and goals for the characters are established.
In SoIaF the 'protagonists' are very reactionary until old mate gets killed - then they go apeshit and take the lead. Follow that same principal.
|
|
|
Post by guitarspider on Jun 25, 2013 0:05:24 GMT -8
Maybe all you need to change is the set-up of the problems so they seem less coercive to your players? Maybe they get the impression you're trying to push them in certain directions with your problems. Seems to me that your players are fighty people too, which doesn't really fit ASoIaF. So that's another issue right there.
I had a very similar situation just a few weeks ago, it was Dogs in the Vineyard and a mountain people chieftain held a woman hostage at knifepoint, one of the Dogs had a not-so-secret crush on her. They negotiated and he promised the chieftain all kinds of things to get her free. When they were back he went to church to pray and came out having decided that he was not going to keep promises he was forced to make to a heathen to save a life and if that meant he would be killed, fine. Also, he was still completely unable to voice his love to the woman he had just saved and was now potentially dying for. It was awesome. Point being, that player resolved the situation rather ingeniously and created further conflicts instead of socking the chieftain's guards in the face until his crush was dead (which he could have done). If your players don't think that way, it's always going to be difficult.
|
|
|
Post by Kainguru on Jun 25, 2013 1:19:10 GMT -8
I think I can simplify the advice : having a Goal isn't the same as having Rails. Eg: 'you must take the one ring into Mordor' is a goal. 'No you can't get across the misty mountains unless you go thru Moria, no you can't ask the Eagles for lift to Mordor, bloody hell no WTF do you mean you're claiming the ring as your own and assuming the title Dark Lord??' are rails. Aaron
|
|
|
Post by The Northman on Jun 25, 2013 4:23:00 GMT -8
The biggest thing I see is the need for consequences to be real, which it seems like you're already doing. You could say that's the driving theme behind the entire book series. If the antagonist says he's going to do X...X happens.
"Stop or I'll kill her!" They don't stop. He kills her.
Hell, you gave them way more chances than I would have. As my best friend famously yelled in the middle of our FLGS when talking about the series...This Ain't Muthafuckin Dragonlance. Just because your 'villain,' is using schemes and tactics that make life difficult for the PC's or limit their acceptable choices if they, say, don't want their sister killed, doesn't mean you're being unfair. They're trying to take advantage of you if they think they can just kill willy nilly as they please in that situation and have nothing bad happen. Are they familiar at all with the setting they're playing in?
Ahem...
You're playing in a complicated, morally gray, gritty setting. Choices should be hard, and consequences should be harsh. Railroading is surrounding them with crossbows in that situation and forcing them to all stop fighting or be insta-killed. It sounds like you're running the game exactly as it's mean to be run. Just make sure that's the game your players are interested in.
|
|
daniel
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 217
|
Post by daniel on Jun 25, 2013 5:03:20 GMT -8
@the Northman - i think your missing the point ware maybe that's not the kind of game the players want, at least in my opinion.
|
|
|
Post by The Northman on Jun 25, 2013 5:23:47 GMT -8
I specifically ended with:
because it seems like they're getting upset over the GM's adherence to the themes and rules that separate GoT from most traditional fantasy.
|
|
|
Post by greatwyrm on Jun 25, 2013 5:28:40 GMT -8
We always have a great time but in reflection I often hear complaints about how I always give them fucked up situations with no clear easy answers. Those can make for interesting points in a game, but a steady stream of them can be torture. If everybody sat down looking to play a tragedy, that's fine, but it doesn't sound like that's what you have.
|
|
|
Post by Kainguru on Jun 25, 2013 5:39:41 GMT -8
But they did sit down to play 'Game of Thrones' . . . certain tropes are given at that point: like 'everybody dies', 'everybody dies horrible visceral deaths', 'everybody has a personal agenda', 'incest and/or severe inbreeding is common', 'the world is a hard place and out to get you', 'Morality and choice and clear answers don't exist' . . . etc etc If they wanted to play a game BASED on aspects of GoT (eg: Monty Python's Holy Grail meets the GoT) that'd be different . . . Aaron
|
|
|
Post by The Northman on Jun 25, 2013 5:51:26 GMT -8
We always have a great time but in reflection I often hear complaints about how I always give them fucked up situations with no clear easy answers. Those can make for interesting points in a game, but a steady stream of them can be torture. If everybody sat down looking to play a tragedy, that's fine, but it doesn't sound like that's what you have. That was the point I was trying to make, as echoed by Kainguru. It's a feature, not a bug. The only possible 'fault,' that lies with the GM is maybe not having explained the concepts of the world well enough, assuming he's playing with people who were unfamiliar with the setting.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2013 7:02:42 GMT -8
Some of the best GMing advice is simply this: "find out what your players want and give it to them." Not the one they should want, or the one that's better than what they want, or the one you want to GM, or the one you'd want to play in. It sounds like you're giving them the game you want, but not quite the one they want. I'm slightly appalled by the number of posts that sound like they are advocating giving them what "they should want" (according to someone). That's about as fun as watching TV shows designed to be "good for kids," even if, in fact, they are "good for kids." Few people watch TV for personal advancement.
I ran a game a while back that really disappointed me--it wasn't fun. It was pretty open-ended, in the "I don't know how they'll solve this, but I'll take the first good solution I hear" way that you mention. Role-playing and problem solving, not slayage. Unfortunately, good solutions weren't forthcoming, and the players were not following up on leads, etc. From the discussion afterwards, the open-endedness was *why* it wasn't fun (besides the simple bad luck that we were all having a bad day and making a lot of mistakes at the same time). This was frustrating for me--I didn't want to force them to put tab A into slot B until finished. But guess what--the players were tired (and I was tired, and so not adapting as well as I would like to), and solving problems was too much like the day job. One player said point-blank "we love rails."
RPGs aren't actually about performing sacraments in the Church Of No Railroading, they're about fun. If real life is an open-ended skull-bending puzzle, an RPG that is the same is going to feel like work, not play. So the mistake there was not theirs for failing to recognize the awesomeness of the sky's-the-limit sandbox style (trust me, that wasn't an awesome example of the style, but even if it had been it wouldn't have been what the players wanted at that time), it was mine for not giving the players what they wanted. The next session involved two major and one minor combats, and had more rails. It was a *lot* more fun for them, and because of that more fun for me. And when they did get to areas without rails, they solved them well in a way I hadn't anticipated and had fun doing it, perhaps because there were just a couple of crucial sections without much guidance instead of a whole session. The second session wasn't really better because I was being brilliant (I wasn't), it just was better because I was consciously trying to make sure I gave them what they wanted.
I wanted to start an Ars Magica-like fantasy game about a group of wizards--but not everyone wanted to play a wizard. So we'll be going orc-slaying instead. I gather it's been done before <grin>, but that's what was requested. So I'm building a world I like in which the reasons for the orc slayage is built into the setting, premise, and theme, rather than being a treasure grab (no real treasure involved, in fact). I'm not God's Gift to GMing, but I figure that if I can't come up with a good game I like while giving the players what they want then that's a failing of mine, not theirs.
The point is not to say "do it my way," but more like "you might as well learn from my mistake." I'm building that game more consciously around what the players want after a hard day at work than I've done before, and I think that means I wasn't Doing It Right before. Well, at least I can learn from experience (I hope).
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2013 9:37:44 GMT -8
Monty Python's Holy Grail meets the GoT I'm in! When do we start? Sounds like you're presenting a meaty game for them, Lampage. As others suggest, you want to present a game everyone will enjoy playing. I don't know if rails are required to accomplish this for your group, though. I infer from your post that the players are at least somewhat engaged (e.g., player distressed at loss of character's sister) and, if so, that speaks well of the game you're running. I'm inclined to say, "lean in," rather than install rails. Suggestion 1: Get rid of that GM hint card Suggestion 2: Telegraph consequences even more than you already are. In the example it seemed the players didn't take the villain's threats at face value. I say make sure they get the point, even if it takes out of character declaration by the GM:In this way the GM isn't telling the players what to do, but is facilitating the players' intelligent selection of actions according to their desired outcomes. Of course, the actual outcomes remain to be seen—the GM doesn't know how the dice will fall! However, I suspect players are more willing and able to accept a failed attempt if they and the GM share an understanding of the stakes.
|
|