What do you do about difficult players. One of my players is constantly trying to dodge and escape everything I plan, knowing that I have things planned, and it's extremely frustrating. I know it's the DMs job to make the game fun for the players, but it says no where in any of the books that they are supposed to get a hernia doing so. Another one of my players isn't helping any either. He just recently tried to get himself killed by not listening to the guards at the arena (they were captured and wrongly accused of conspiracy against the prince, now they have to fight as gladiators to earn there freedom back).
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What do you do about difficult players. One of my players is constantly trying to dodge and escape everything I plan, knowing that I have things planned, and it's extremely frustrating. I know it's the DMs job to make the game fun for the players, but it says no where in any of the books that they are supposed to get a hernia doing so.
Find out why the player in question refuses to follow the hints and areas you have planned out. Maybe he's feeling railroaded, or he's not interested in the current thread of the story. It could also be a lack of communication and he's misreading your cues. Because these things can be issues in any game I try to talk to my players after the session find out what bits they liked and what they plan to do next session. That way my planning follows their intent.
However from the tone of your post I wonder if the player in question isn't just contrary.
If that is the case remind the player (or better the whole group) that while it is the DMs job to create an entertaining game for the players, it is also a cooperative game, and the players should try to make each session enjoyable for the DM. After all if the DM isn't having fun then the game suffers.
How I try to write campaigns/adventures now is more geographic than linear. For example:
Get a Campaign idea; think of all the pivital events that need to happen for the bad guys to win. Then take a look at the PC's and see how far they can travel in one adventure's worth of time. Then create a bunch of small events/encounters that happen within that first adventure "travel area". Make them generic enough so if they go any direction they may still encounter the event (such as "guy in a bar overheard bragging..." or "burned out caravan found along the raod..."). But also make sure the small events hint at, and lead to, bigger events.
You're my new folk hero. This is the first post of yours I remember seeing, but I'm planning on doing a search on your name just to read any other posts you've done. Your ideas are excellent, and honestly I think there should be some kindova' article or sourcebook to get people to run more games in that same style.
I can't tell you how many times I've been set up in a linear game and have either thrown myself against the fences out of sheer frustration or else tried to churn my way through all the established material the DM had ready in hopes of getting to something fresh that I might have some control over.
The one ingredient I would add to what you mention is to draw the big events from loose ends generated by the characters backgrounds and goals. The neat thing here is that the more you dig around in the pasts of your characters and spotlight NPCs they created as part of their background or include opportunities for them to go after institutions they created, or to promote agendas they believe in--the more of those kinds of gems they will start adding into their characters, making more involved and complex characters they care more about, better stories overall, and less developing the DM has to do because much of the story arc has been donated by the PCs so he doesn't have to be crushed with the entire burden of moving the stories along.
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Dealing with problem players? Doing dumb things? Waste them. Tough love, baby. Maybe they'll learn the next time they roll up a character. That's what I love about the Cyberpunk game--everybody full on expects to get wasted sooner or later anyway. Ergo everyone tries over-the-top stuff all the time, and they don't cry if their favorite borg gets a ride from a valkyrie. Next character.....
Good discussion!
Many good ideas in a young thread too.
I agree with the "open" format of adventure design. I do a combo of that with some off the cuff style and linear when the time is right.
Basically, it is up to my players and I listen to them and glena ideas from them for what to do next. I don't tell them this of course.
I analogize this as:
I, the DM, have built a playhouse for you with a stage and everything. The theme is "save your buddy". Have at it.
The most prep I do is some good NPCs all fleshed out with motivations and goals. Some NPCs in name and purpose only (the smith, the inn keeper, the lady over there in front of the dress shop, et al.)
Only when my players say: "We need to go to the Caverns of Brigga'Tuun and get that thing or the barony falls!" will I pull out the old adventure - heavily plagerized from Dungeon of course.
Anyways - GMs will run into difficult players though and you need to have a plan to deal with them.
Always stay focused on the style you GM in and make this obvious to your players. Be open to suggstions but stay true to what you know.
Never say "no" to a player but use the rules as best you can. Basically, within the rules of most games, there is a way to do what the player wishes - it just won't happen like they want it too.
for example:
player- "I wanna' climb the ice wall to the top!"
DM - "No, it's impossible."
This is bad.
player- "I wanna' climb the ice wall to the top!"
DM- "OK, go ahead and make your climb check... what bonuses are you going to add? This will be hard, just to let you know."
This is good.
Don't be afraid to sit alone with the difficult player and explain how you are in need of a few things just like the player is.
Just because a player says, "I'm just having fun." dosen't mean that all the players are having fun. I've had players ruin the whole day of gaming in the name of fun - the others weren't happy though.
Which leads to...
Don't be afraid to ask someone to leave. It's hard, but sometimes you just need to do it. Be cool about it though - diplomacy!
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That's cool for cyberpunk, beyond the supernatural, or the old whitewolf games, but have you ever tried to roll up a ninjas and superspies character? It takes almost a whole session just for the stats/skills/equipment.
All the more reason to follow a player's intentionally stupid decisions with their logical results. Let that player spend a session alone in the next room building a new character. Tougher character build=stronger lesson learned. Basic Behavioral Modification.
That being said, never PUNISH a player for a decision. Ever. Just try to follow the most logical results. If the PC fails to listen to the guards, then have him beaten by said guards. Give him some negatives in the next gladiator battle to reflect his injuries and let him fight it out. Or (even better IMHO) role play it out and see if the player is trying some sneaky maneuver. If that's the case, let him run with it. Reward his creative thinking and give him more rope... even if it *is* just to hang himself with.
Basically if your players are having their characters make decisions that seem intentionally designed to derail your game, go with it. Improvise and do your best. And after the lousy session (that was mostly just players watching the DM look up rules and roll up new stats), talk to your players OOC about what they need you to do to stay in the story.
I can't add much to what 10LO said, the advice is excellent. What I like doing is putting all my NPC's and monsters on 4x6 stat cards. I also keep all the stat cards from miniatures that I have. I put them all into plastic index card holders.
When my players turn "left" or "west" and I need something to spice things up, I usually draw a few cards from my deck(s) and see what I come up with. I'll usually pull a few random monsters and an NPC. Then I try to "improv" an adventure or encounter based on what I pulled, even if the CR's are not appropriate, I'll try to work something out.
I actually like it when the players turn "left" because it gives me something unpredictable--something I didn't anticipate and I enjoy trying to come up with something on the fly.
...Then create a bunch of small events/encounters that happen within that first adventure "travel area". Make them generic enough so if they go any direction they may still encounter the event (such as "guy in a bar overheard bragging..." or "burned out caravan found along the raod...").
My issue with to some extent is it feels like the ultimate rail roading. The players are free to do whatever they want but their freedom is a complete illusion - no matter what they do they are going to bump into your next encounter because you have made it generic enough that you can always pop it in. It seems to make the point of choosing anything essential irrelivent - your players might as well say 'we walk in a random direction until your encounter comes up'.
I'd rather deal with the issue by offering the players a number of choices and insist that they make their choices far enough in advance that I can create the adventure around their choices. That way their choices have meaning - what happens in the adventure is completly a reflection of what they said they wanted to do and were they wanted to go.
Now in the above example I'm presuming that I am dealing with restless players. As often as not my players are perfectly happy to be railroaded into an adventure as thats where the fun and excitement is. Its only in the case were the players are revolting and don't want to follow the plot hook(s) that I'm going to stop and ask them what it is they do want to do so that I can design adventures around that.
My issue with to some extent is it feels like the ultimate rail roading. The players are free to do whatever they want but their freedom is a complete illusion - no matter what they do they are going to bump into your next encounter because you have made it generic enough that you can always pop it in...I'd rather deal with the issue by offering the players a number of choices and insist that they make their choices far enough in advance that I can create the adventure around their choices. That way their choices have meaning - what happens in the adventure is completly a reflection of what they said they wanted to do and were they wanted to go.
This is a wonderful way of doing it (and I truly mean that, no sarcasm here) if you have the skill. And you obviously do if you can make it work. However, some of us don't as DMs.
When my players turn in an unexpected (and unprepared) direction, I often feel like they're strolling serenly down a brick road.... not realizing that I'm only about 5 steps ahead of them with a wheelbarrow and some mortar, panicking and laying the bricks as fast as I can. If they pick up the pace, they'll outrun me... and the road ends.
Some DMs are GREAT at running things off the cuff when players venture out of prepared areas. I'm not one of them, and it shows when it happens. I used to try and imagine every possible thing the PCs could do and prepare contingency plans, but that took WAY too much time in between games and we would have to cancel sessions because I wasn't ready.
The suggestion you give wouldn't work for me, because it would greatly extend the time between game sessions as I do all my prep stuff based on the choices the PCs made.
What I do is similar to what 1Ol0 (is that "ten-ten" or "ten-eye-oh"..."ten-el-oh"?... hard to tell) suggested. Most of the games I run are from "Dungeon", so I make a list ahead of time of the key points / plot devices. If the players figure out another way to get the key points / information from what's laid out in the adventure, that's cool, but I use the outline as the map to guide me in what needs to happen regardless of HOW it happens. And it's simply my way of dealing with my own limitations as a DM.
Back to the original post... the suggestion of having a varied list of the things that need to happen is a good one. I got the impression from your post that it was ONE player causing problems, not the whole group. If that's the case, focus on another player and try to get them to take the hook. As far as your player trying to get himself killed... LET him. It's not your job to bail him out of being an idiot. It IS your job to provide logical consequences to his actions... including allowing death by stupidity.
Maybe they are trying to escape the shadow your 41st Level Drow Ranger casts?
Right on, 1OIO. That was a great example of how to tell a story, and if your players miss out on it, their loss.
Though railroading PCs is wrong, if you do not have an overall story arc, what is the purpose of running a campaign. Who on earth wants to play the miner or the silk harvester. However, sometimes it is interesting to look at the world from an npc standpoint. Where as an adventurer would be content just killing things for loot. Anyone tough enough would realize that they could make money by killing off giant spiders and selling their silk. Which is interesting for a while and I can understand, I am going to try to set up a trading ring with my pirate character for example.
My issue with to some extent is it feels like the ultimate rail roading. The players are free to do whatever they want but their freedom is a complete illusion - no matter what they do they are going to bump into your next encounter because you have made it generic enough that you can always pop it in. It seems to make the point of choosing anything essential irrelivent - your players might as well say 'we walk in a random direction until your encounter comes up'.
Perhaps a distinction needs to be made between illusory freedom and railroading at this juncture.
Illusory freedom means that the characters are free to do whatever they want and the world responds as the world would. It means fluid suspension of disbelief in a setting that seems tangable and real, that you can get lost in, that you can beat up and see lingering effects.
This doesn't require the DM to track the movement of every living being on the face of his world from moment to moment. It doesn't mean that a premade scenario can't be pulled out and set in motion. Requiring that from anyone is a guarantee of killing them deader than a kobold in the temple of St. Cuthbert. The characters may not have complete autonomy, but they feel like they do, and no matter what choices they make the setting adapts and lets them. That's the key. The DM can still prepare ahead of time, can still know what things he'd like to see in an adventure, but all the time the characters are free to make any choice they want to without artificial constraints put upon them.
Railroading on the other hand, ah the accused vice, is the removal of options from the players. You run into the bar and there's an old bard with a map of treasure at some ruins. You decide instead to head to the next town up north. Railroading would keep this from happening. It would push you toward the ruins. It could be as overt as an army of trolls barring your path or it could be as subtle as nothing exciting happening anywhere in the world except the ruins you're supposed to go to. This isn't a just a limitation of actual freedom, it's a limitation of the character's percieved freedom. It makes the game seem less real, and frustrates the players. It removes all options for the players but the ones the GM wants them to pick.
Let them do what they want. If they ignore the clues that there is a little evil in the forest, the little evil gets bigger while they are dicking around. They then hear rumors about something a little bigger out thre, which they choose to ignore. Pretty soon you got an army of githyanki and ancient red dragons at the gates of the city and the PC's wonder "Where the hell did that come from????"
Bad guys have an agenda too. They aren't going to sit around waiting for the PC's to come and take them on to put their dastardly plans in motion. Those dastardly plans are already in motion. If they player's don't stop them, all hell breaks loose. If your players don't want to pick up on the stuff you have planned, thats fine...just make sure to post pictures of their expressions when the sky is rent asunder and the wing of gith knights come flying in.