[TML] Death

[Tom B]

On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:29 PM, Jerry W Barrington <
jerry.barrington at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 3/6/08 7:44 PM, "Tom B" <kaladorn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > and no one hates pre-scripted events
> > forced on a PC than I do, so I avoid that route like the plague... I lay
> > choices out and my player's choose their path.... because pre-ordained
> > scripts really make everyone I know froth because they feel channeled
> and
> > helpless
>
> Well, that's an interesting point.  I ran an AD&D game for 4 years, and
> everybody pretty well knew that it was going to be "here's what I have for
> you today".  I ran mostly published modules, simply because college took
> up
> a lot of time.  And they didn't mind, because honestly it was a
> hack-and-slash release.
>
> Well, except for the part where they all got up to moderate level and they
> started colonizing a valley.
>

Certainly, you hope the characters go with you to some extent. Usually
they'll work with you (they know you've prepared something). But I find it
is a good thing to let them feel they have choices. If, at the end of an
adventure, they say "We'd like to go check out this adventure hook you
planted 2 adventures ago", then if you instead force them into another
module (and the worst start ever is to capture them when they have no chance
of escape... being shanghai'd makes people feel a bit hostile
sometimes....), they'll feel like they have little freedom.

Obviously, it varies with the group. But after playing with the same players
in one group for 19 years, I feel we've tried a lot of different approaches.
The ones that worked best were the ones where I threw out some breadcrumbs
leading in several directions, and they picked one. Then they feel like
they've had choice and control and you get them to pick one of your
pre-planned setups.

The thing about a game is that what the players feel and perceive need not
be true. You can allow them to believe they won an encounter by dice when
you artfully fudged it along the way since they were having a hard go. You
can allow one of them to believe he was near death as he went into the
negative hit points (D&D example), but you know you didn't plan to kill him.
You can roll dice and consult tables and make notes when you've already
planned an outcome - it then appears much more random. You can roll dice and
make checks when nothing is going on... then they feel suspense. You can ask
what their recon skill is, roll a check, and suddenly a walk on planet X
seems dangerous (even though it isn't). The whole idea is to give them
impressions of things (their control of the situation, the level of threat
in the game, the importance of their decisions) - whether those are true or
not. Their enjoyment of the game may largely be a result of their impression
of things - the facts largely are irrelevant. So in this sense, the illusion
of choice and control make for happy players. The actuality can be exactly
thus, or very different, provided it doesn't look that way.

The game is a social experience and people need to have challenge, input,
and some sense of risk and result to appreciate the story. How you construct
that is what makes GMing an artform rather than a science. It depends a lot
on the personalities and skills of all involved.