Reacting to Player Decisions In a Non-Stupid Way

It's been awhile, not having internet and fiendishly searching for employment does that. Either way, today I'm going to ramble about one of the biggest hurdles facing a GM who wishes to try something non-linear: How to react to your players, or, my players just shot the Big Bad in the heart, what do I do?

The main reason I despise purely linear gaming is because it allows a GM to plan on the straight and narrow. That is to say that if the GM is determining the order everything is happening in with no breaks, then they have to plan in an extremely narrow fashion - events can only really have one outcome.

The flaw in this is surprisingly obvious but often ignored: Players, even those cowled and sheltered by years of this style of play, are eventually going to do something you didn't expect them to do. Maybe they kick your main villain into the lava you had intended mostly as scenery. Maybe they refuse to fight and join your villain. Maybe they just drop dead before you intended them to. All of these situations lead to a single question in the linear GM's mind: "What do I do now?" Your plot has been destroyed. Your recurring villain who was supposed to end up menacing the party and invoking most of the plot has just Gollum'd into oblivion.

There are a couple options, most of them being weak. You could bullshit some excuse for the villain to not die - you see this in anime a lot. This is a weak option because it takes away your player's effectiveness - they will eventually realize they can't kill the villain until you let them, robbing them of any desire to try to.

You could do a weak patch job on the plot - somehow connecting the current situation to the rest of it in such a way that nothing actually changes. So you want to work for the villain - but a Bigger Villain shows up, with far more evil intentions, that you must oppose! Handily enough his goals are evolved versions of the villain-turned-employer's. This is weak storytelling. It shows that your world is stuck in some sort of fate, that your precious planning is more important than your world growing more complex. Once your players figure this out, they're likely to simply ride along, knowing that they have no real impact on the plot.

So what is the good option here? Well, you take your planning, notes, and everything past the point that just happened, and you toss it. The world just changed and you're going to have to figure out how. If your players want to work for the villain, let them - they'll get the chance to see the world from the other side, maybe see why exactly he's a villain and why they don't want to be. You'll have to be quick on your feet, but really you're just using common sense and a little bit of causation.

Many of you have realized that taking this route will lead to a similar problem when you next reach a point in your plot with multiple solutions, many of which you won't think of. That is when your brain realizes that the problem lies not with your plot or your players but the way you are actually planning - if your players are doing things that are unexpected, you must stop planning the outcomes of situations. If you do that, you realize that rather than linear paths, your session plans begin to look more like a skeleton - events that happen, locations in-between, but no meat - because that's what your players provide.

So what is the ultimate answer to this question? Don't plan narrowly. Realize your players are smarter than that, that they don't want a single path to follow. Plan wide, allow them to make their own decisions. That's the only way you can improve both your abilities and their experience.

What is wrong with DnD

My general dislike of D20 systems is well known at this point, at least among my regular gaming circle. However, running my recent Iron Kingdoms game in Pathfinder has brought up a number of questions - most importantly, why is it that I find normal D&D so disagreeable yet have great fun with Pathfinder? And in answering that question, I realize I must definitively state why D&D pisses me off so much. For that, we'll need a bit of a history lesson.

Dungeons & Dragons was originally derived from miniature games not unlike what we(well, okay, I) play today. As I understand it, the very first editions of D&D were basically just combat rules, with roleplaying tacked on and not really thought about. Either way I did not really get involved with the system until AD&D 2nd Ed, and the corresponding Baldur's Gate series of games. I did play 2E in the real world, and owned books at one point, but I really learned the system on Baldur's Gate, barring the changes caused by the shift in media. This lead to me learning 3/3.5E on Neverwinter Nights then actually playing the game a fair amount, running a long lasting campaign myself and dabbling in a few other games when I got into college. Running the game at this point was mediocre. My players were satisfied by the game but I felt it was almost in spite of the system - in high school I had tried a number of other games - BESM and WoD, to name a couple - but I didn't really get what the problem was until I played AEG's 7th Sea, in many ways a rebuttal to D&D.

7th Sea is a rebuttal because, well, for one its creator hates him some D&D, but mostly because it values the opposite of what D&D does. 7th Sea is what I would call a skill-based system - the rest of character definitely matters but when it comes down to it her skills are her most important feature, and the one you will spend the most XP/HP on. 7th doesn't pay a lot of attention to inventory and there is a definite dearth of "special" or "magical" weapons - even when they exist their effects are minor. Contrast this with D&D and its "a party of x-level should have y-gold in magical items" guidelines.

I have heard D&D called a "loot-based" system and for some characters(fighters, natch) this is totally true. Much like WoW, gear is your best friend as a physical character in D&D, which brings up my first point.

D&D is unbalanced. At the core level the classes are out of whack, with the spellcasters being completely better than everyone at higher levels. Say what you want about roleplaying - it can keep the came from becoming too lopsided, certainly - but the fact that a level 14 cleric is going to be much more effective in combat is eventually going to drag down the spirits of your level 14 fighter, unless they're content to be a meatshield for the rest of their days. Proponents of the system will argue that smart building(IE. never taking fighter above 5th level) negates this flaw and that is basically incorrect. All systems are going to have bad options, certainly, but no class should be one of them. In a class-based world every single class should be useful throughout - D&D specifically encourages not multiclassing ever, thus every class should be able to be taken to 20th level and be on a somewhat even playing field. As of 3.5 they are not. (We'll get to 4e in a minute)

This core flaw is the main one that is solved by Pathfinder. When I opened the book initially I was rather shocked by how different the classes were, in a good way. Every single one of them can do more than their D&D counterparts, and as far as I can see all of them are balanced - my game isn't in high levels yet, but I'm optimistic.

Probably the greatest sin D&D commits, however, is setting in place core mechanics (such as the rolling of a d20 + modifiers) and then setting down entirely different ones for certain effects (such as the percentile rolls for concealment, or the multiple rolls used for grapple/trips/etc.). What systems like 7th Sea, WoD, even BESM do better is keeping the mechanics all centered around the same roll. This is a learning tool for the human brain but also makes the system much easier to run and design for. A GM only really has to explain how to roll anything in 7th Sea once (Roll Skill + Trait, keep Trait). Same with BESM(2d6) or WoD(xd10, 8 - 10 succeeds). Mechanics are then built to modify these rolls.

However, in D&D, this elegance is not really around. Rather than affecting the roll, D&D has to effect its base statistics - meaning that even something as simple as a STR buff leads players into recalculating a chunk of their stats (Melee to hit, melee damage, grapple/trip rolls, carry weight) on the spot - Simple enough with practice but it's the sort of thing that leads to newer players not bothering to learn the system if they don't pick it up immediately. Add to this the "advanced" mechanics(grapple being the historical example) and the system is just clunky. Someone who wants to be good at D&D has to remember specific rules and what rolls and modifiers they call for, for basically every separate thing he does. This is very inefficient game design. Any ignorance on the player or GM's part bogs down the game considerably, meaning that D&D is not exactly forgiving(more on that later).

D&D being what it is, its approach probably feels arguably "natural" to many, especially if like me it was your first roleplaying experience. But the way it is designed( Player says "I want to do x. How do I do x?" GM looks up rule, rattles off roll or series of rolls, action happens) is a lot less functional than it sounds. Eventually something is going to come up (I want to pick up the bandit and throw him at his friend. So would that be a grapple? He's technically medium, can I use him one-handed? Am I proficient with bandits? What's the damage on a bandit? What's the range?), someone is going to have to look up the specific rule (good luck on that one, I usually just make it up at this point and keep it consistent next time someone hurls a bandit), and the game is going to get slowed down. Now this happens in virtually every system, sure. But realize with D&D you have the potential of it happening every time someone casts a spell (best case scenario they printed it out and can at least reference it), uses one of their feats (again, write shit down), takes some sort of cover(is it soft concealment, hard rubble? Does it actually block LoS or just give xx% cover?), or tries to bust in a wall(Unless you memorize the hardness and HP of 1'x1' of stone). Being "proficient" in D&D requires a ton more memorization than most sane systems, to the point it can be frustrating to play.

Pathfinder does its part in fixing this issue. Combat Manuevers are elegant and flexible, like a good stat should be. How do you trip/grapple/disarm in Pathfinder? Take a freestrike and roll a combat maneuver vs. their CMD. Done. I still need to know the damage and range on a bandit, but at least I can get him in my warm loving embrace without problems. But this flaw will never go away from d20 because it is something present in its core design ideas.

I would call it an overreliance on derived statistics. Think about it, what does your actual STR score matter for? Carry Weight. For everything else you use the modifier - so why do I have a score at all? Would it not make more sense to simply level up the "modifier" value as my strength and save the whole world a chart? Why are bonus spells tied to specific INT scores when one could, for instance, simply add one's INT modifier to their spells-per-day in some fashion(Likely full mod to level one spells, then -1 for each level above that - not exactly clean but it doesn't take a chart to do). This line of reasoning leads one to something like d20 Lite . I'll have to give it a shot at some point - if you want to see d20 without its rules bloat and whatnot, that's where you should look.

This is likely getting incoherent but I'm almost done. D&D is built the way it is to lend some objectivity to its gaming world - all systems are. Unfortunately it does it like an overly detailed miniatures game - a list of "hard" statistics that govern very specific interactions. It gives loads of options in feats and skills but the combat-oriented nature of the game(because really, that's where you need rules anyway for the most part) means that there are not enough good options to compete with the best ones. If you want to match the CRs of booked anythings(also, why do monsters have HD instead of just levels? Why should I need a formula to calculate a really inaccurate challenge rating that may or may not make sense in regards to the party I'm working with if I want to use the booked rules for XP? Why stat monsters in a completely different way than PCs? Hit Dice and Level are essentially synonymous already, minus a few weird exceptions, like monster races getting bonus HP for no reason other than to frustrate character building via strange level adjustments), you need to best options available to you. To the point that if you look online you can surely find a perfect build of the class you're playing to suit the books you own and your own neckbearditude.

This post kind of got away from me at some point, so I'm going to try to sum it up all at once. Pathfinder does a lot to make D&D playable and for right now I'm going to say it succeeds, because it fixes the biggest player-end problem - class balance. It simplifies the rules only somewhat, but doesn't do a full job of it. Nothing's perfect, fine. But d20 is bloated and ugly compared to products like Savage Worlds or 7th Sea or even WoD. It's a case of tradition overriding good game design, of D&D following standards that don't really need to exist anymore. Other systems don't bother with classes or levels because they're a relic, something oldschool people did that just limit character building, forcing players into archetypes. Other systems realize skills and social abilities are just as important as combat ones - because we want more than just a minis game. SO if you want one good solid thing, one opinion out of me, here it is.

What is wrong with D&D? The fact that there are a multitude of systems that are newers, cheaper, better laid out, better written, easier to learn, easier to get into, more flexible, and still yet just flat out better at doing what D&D is trying to do.

I should probably take a moment to mention 4e. It's overpriced garbage. There you are.

How much rolling is too much rolling?

Courtesy of my roomate Austin, who is soon to be running his first game (Mage: The Ascension). When should a GM ask a player to roll? When is it okay to skip rolling? What does asking a player to roll for something mean to that player, dramatically?

So first off, the system you're using does matter for this. D&D for instance includes a specific roll for most of the things you can do at any given moment. If you get a railroad spike stuck in your head and roll D&D completely by the book, you will make your players roll for a hell of a lot of stuff.

However, why would you ever do that? Excessive rolling for inconsequential things bogs down gameplay considerably. The only time a literal action-by-action approach should be taken would be in the very first couple of sessions with a new system. Constantly making players reference key stats repeatedly will help everyone in learning their sheets. After those sessions however, I fully believe in a more 'less is more' strategy.

To better explain my view on this, a few basic guidelines.

1. A player should roll for anything that is opposed.

This one's obvious. Drama is based on this key rule - rolling to perform an action is harder that just doing it, duh. Kind of common sense.

2. A player should roll for anything that is challenging.

Building magic devices, pulling themselves out of knee-high mud, everything they have to expend effort to do. 'Cause it should be hard.

3. A player should roll for anything that has a variety of outcomes.

Here's one that's interesting. If character is attacking an opponent well below their skill level (someone easy to hit), you could choose to just auto-kill the mook. Or, he could roll for it, roll exceptionally high and murdericate overkill the mook. Even in a normal combat, you roll to hit opponents because of the nature of combat - it's terrifying because you don't know how fucked up you'll be by this next hit. Which leads too....

4. A player should roll for anything that is unpredictable.

Random effects are unpredictable and thus fun. Attack/damage rolls are unpredictable and thus fun. Ideally all rolls a player makes should lead to a variety of outcomes, degrees of success as it were. Thus be prepared to improv and handle serious actions your characters take with a variety of outcomes. So if they're taking those actions, they should roll for them.

5. A player should roll when it's fun.

There is simple mechanical joy in rolling well. Thus players should be given the opportunity to do so. So roll when your players really want to play a game, when words aren't enough and they've roleplayed for three hours and finally found a damn goblin band.

This is a much more cut-and-dry topic than my earlier ones, but important nonetheless. In truth, learning the perfect balance will take time - but if all else fails, here are some criteria to check.

Nonlinear GMing and You

The most common criticism I have of roleplaying games, especially those I like, is that they are too linear. I'll admit right off the bat that this subject is a lot less cut and dry than my previous post, and some people work best in a purely linear environment. That said, I believe that to run a roleplaying game in a linear fashion is to waste a good deal of the medium's potential.

To understand my point, think about movies and books, the two biggest pieces of inspiration for tabletop RPGs. They are both strictly linear media. To their credit they make linearity work. Dramatic structure for these pieces is simple, rising actions and a climax and whatnot. Good stuff.

However, even if inspired by such media, when a group sits down to roleplay they are not partaking in a strictly linear thing. Imagination is the reason here. RPGs are not constrained by budgets, by special effects, by time limits(at least ideally). Therefore it is in the nature of the medium to be able to do things that movies and books can't. Namely, be nonlinear.

Now there are countless pitfalls in introducing nonlinearity to a game. A common criticism is that a sandbox or nonlinear game will lack direction. See my previous post on character motivation for one, but also realize that this criticism can be easily solved by clever GMing. Many GMs(myself included) resort to the linear form because it is easier to pull off. Encounters can be carefully planned, key events can happen in the correct sequence, and if done well the entire session will feel like a finely written piece.

What many don't realize is that sort of focus and direction is just as present even if the session is less structured. "Plot" as many know it is simply a chain of actions leading to a result, nothing grandiose. Thus, rather than planning a series of scenes, if instead I give my players a location and a goal, are their actions still "plot-worthy"? Of course. Their actions still have dramatic weight, and in actuality the player is now more involved, not being able to simply enjoy the ride, as it were.

Nonlinear gaming grants your player the feeling of really living in the world you've created, instead of simply being part of a story inside it. It is no shame to player or GM if some large part of a session is spent on "non-essential" tasks, so long as everyone is giving their all.

This ties into another dangerous element of RPGs: Story. Many GMs will emphasize their story above all else, and if they are the linear type then their notes begin to look more like a script than anything. This is a bad habit to have, because it means that elements of the game are much more difficult to adapt, it means that your players' roles are either already written down or diminished by your knowledge of what is going to happen. Story is important, I'm not saying that: but there are better ways to tell it.

Thus comes the meat of this post: How do I, a linear GM, improve my game with nonlinear elements?

Start with your planning. Instead of a line structure(Encounter A - Encounter B), start with locations. Where you would normally write encounters, instead write events that happen inside that location on their own. Make the place alive, make it move ahead whether or not the players are around. Make sure your players have a goal of some sort and let them go. You don't have to baby or railroad them. Let them play the game. They'll go to the places that interest them. The beauty of this is that if your players wander away from where you expected them to go, your events can be moved - they can also be used in any order depending on which is more appropriate to your character's actions. Your world is alive, a plot is happening, and your players don't have to feel like everything was written in advance, even though it essentially was.

Let me give a bit less abstract example of exactly how I plan and run games. I don't pretend to be perfect at this, but it's a good representation of the concept. (THis particular bit of planning was/is from my Iron Kingdoms game, currently running)

Location: The town of Riversmet, in Northern Llael, pre-invasion.

I mapped the town into rough areas, and marked locations for certain events to happen. I wrote up two important NPCs(General Pierre du Rousal, who was going to be the Archduke Ferninand for the Khador/Llael war, as well as Roger, a Cygnaran stormsmith, the superior officer of one of my players). I also statted expected enemies( it was split into two sessions, but I knew I would need Khadoran Winterguard and Man-o-Wars very soon). I wrote up an assassination plot (Khadoran Sniper sneaks into town, gets into noble house, kills General. Khadorans invade during the confusion of the night, players must find way out - I mapped out several escape options, each of which would lead to a different faction's territory. I planned out a couple endings(SIde with Rhulic mercs, get captured by Khadoran-allied Mercs, Retreat to Cygnar, Defect to Khador), then assigned them to the various exits.

So game starts. My players are introducted to Llael, player a brings up obligation to go to Cygnar embassy, town layout is discussed, move to embassy, plot (Nemo is missing, is bad). They are allowed to visit around, find fourth player's character, and bam, assassination event fires. No matter what they were doing at the time I could have this event fire - it's a global event, in a sense. Best part is, depending on where they are in town, their whole experience is even modified by what they chose to do. Ultimate GM-player exchange. No railroading.

Nonetheless a murder mystery ensues, I create a few new NPCs on the fly who become important and are recorded in my notes for later sessions (Francisco, Lord Du Linin, Khadoran General Kristovsky). The heroes decide on a culprit for the crime but are forced to retire without much evidence.

During the night Khador invades. Players are now in a nonlinear dungeon, formerly the city they experienced before. So we have an emotionally charged dungeon that can be explored in a nonlinear way. They know the city well enough to try to go to certain places, but don't know what changes the invasion has brought - plus they now have to deal with enemies.

Players find their way to Lord du Linin's, pick up an NPC, and find his hidden escape route - which lands them in a Khadoran trap and they are captured by Croe's Cutthroats, thanks to some good bluffing on Croe.

Because I decided I disliked the "Khadoran Prisoners" ending - it felt like a punishment my players didn't deserve - I was actually happy when one of my players wrecked the cart they were imprisoned on, causing them to be saved by Rhulic rivermerchants and taken to Horgenhold.

There were definitely linear elements to the session, but notice the meat of both halves of the session is pure sandbox. I had to improvise a lot - the soul of GMing - but had a totally flexible plot that could end any number of ways, with my players having any number of experiences. That's why I can't stress the virtues of nonlinear gaming enough.

I'll go into this topic more later, but next up: Courtesy of Austin: "How much rolling is too much rolling?"

Exactly how high are your standards?

Before one can truly discuss things like tabletop RPGs, and before I can rant on and on about the important of nonlinear gaming to a GM, I feel some need to set a kind of standard, to better explain my position. So to start off, I'm going to list the 5 things I demand from every player in my games. This should help immensely in explaining my sometimes bizarre views on all things roleplay-y.

1. Take my game seriously

This is No. 1 because it is vital to the game being able to run at all. Now I am by no means asking for some sort of weird obedience, or saying my games are serious dramatic pieces - they really aren't, and I joke about that more than anyone. But when we gather to run a game, or I play in someone else's, or whatever, it is vital that I am committed to what I'm doing. If I'm in a terrible mood I really shouldn't be playing(though I do anyway, but more on that later). If I'm distracted, or have something better to do, or I find the setting too ridiculous and can't respect it, I am not a player you want in your game. So I ask that my players leave their drama at the door, use the escapist element of this whole hobby, and respect my position as a GM.

2. Pay Attention

Ties in with No. 1, but sidechatter being what it is this one requires special emphasis. With a few exceptions, conversation during a gaming session should involve topics exclusively related to it. Pausing the game to make fun of an NPC, or a situation? Fine. Pausing to tell your friend how awesome a movie was? Not acceptable. I am by no means a nazi about this, unless it's needed - I have a pretty strong tolerance for this sort of thing - but if I feel a player is not paying attention I am likely to tell them to either focus or go do whatever is more important than my game.

3. Be Self-Motivated

This one takes a bit more time to explain. The way I view playing any role-playing game is thus: When I play a character, I am acting. When I act, I research: therefore my character is not complete unless they have a few things: a name, a voice, meaning the sum total of the way the character expresses themselves, and the all-important key to acting, motivation. Motivation is what starts every single action that my character takes, and therefore if I ever don't have it my character is now impossible to play. Specifically, in my games, I deal poorly with players who, if given a goal, cannot think of something to do. Motivation stems from needs and wants, and these are therefore what truly define the character ; if your character needs something, or wants something, then they are motivated to get it. Therefore when your character reaches a crossroads, or a city, and you don't give me something they would want to do? I assume your character is incomplete.

This sounds harsh and it is, but consider it. I recognize I as the GM have my role to play in this - if I continually refuse your efforts, or instill a sense of absolute despair by limiting options, I have failed in allowing you to foster any motivations. However I am of the belief that motivation should always come from the players - the GM provides events, and the player supplies her own reasons for affecting or avoiding them. These reasons come from needs and wants.

Basically, your character should always be able to take action. They should always have something they want to do. This principle is key to playing in my games.

4. Know Your Character

This is on the mechanical side of things. I realize not everyone obsesses over rules and mechanics the way I do. I don't expect you to memorize rulebooks. However, everything your character can do, and everything mechanically important to them, those you are required to know. If we're playing D&D you should know all of your stat mods, AC, and current HP without looking at your sheet. If you build a wrestling character in 7th Sea you should know how Grapple knacks, breaks, and everything you have works and what you would roll for all of them. This may sound like a herculean task, and even I mess up from time to time, but if you get the chance to stick with a character for long enough, this step is vital to playing them in an entertaining and effective manner. If you are not comfortable with combat mechanics, the best way to achieve proficiency is to learn where you stand compared to your enemies - and that is almost purely your own stats and abilities. Things like combat are much easier to learn when you don't have to constantly glance at your sheet for every related stat. You should know what values are involved in an attack roll. You should know how much damage all of your weapons do. You should know how many dots you have in Seduction. The sheet is almost like a script - it's okay to check your lines and reference, but eventually you need to get on stage without it.

5. Act

Your character should be, at most, about 80% you. 1 - 50% is really best, though. When you speak as your character, we should be able to know who's talking. I'm not requiring an accent or anything like it - even something as simple as lowering your voice slightly will help greatly in getting you into the character. Your performance will grow with time, as the character begins to grow apart from your own personality.

You may ask where to start with this, and I personally recommend starting from point 4. Learn your mechanics inside and out, and then apply them to the rough concept you have for the character. If he's one brawn, maybe he is soft-spoken and gentle in vocal tones. Or,if she's got 18 Con, maybe she's boisterous and stout in caricature. You could even reverse them, ending in the proud windbag and the softspoken gentle giant. Either way your raw number stats should have some effect on who your character is. They by no means define the character, but why ignore the inspiration they could give you?

Once you've defined the character stat and voice-wise, actions and motivation will follow assuredly. Improv is only hard if you're unwilling or unable to set down a foundation before trying to build a character.

That's it. These are the five core rules I enforce as a GM. These rules apply to any game I can think of, and will always improve one's performance, even if not strictly enforced.

Next Time: Nonlinear GMing and You