When I say I read them in order, I mean it. I noticed that the links started at part 2 of a series, so I found part 1 before I started reading. Obviously, I misread a good bit of what you wrote though, which led to my first post. My second post was mostly in respond to your post, not the blogs.
Although I can't find anywhere where you say that the illusion of agency is more important than actual agency, or that the Quantum Ogre is a useful DM tool.
The flaw of the Quantum Ogre is that, if you have a party who plays smart, he won't be quantum long before you enter the woods, and then you've wasted time by not assigning him to a location already or you become the jerk DM where ESP doesn't work, the ground doesn't hold tracks, and if you try and teleport - suddenly anti-magic fields everywhere.
My argument is that this isn't true. It does still save prep time, and it shouldn't waste more time than it saved, assuming the DM has a bit of experience filling in details on the fly. The second possibility you listed is a completely separate problem.
Also, I disagree that it's fun to simply walk up and take the macguffin on a lucky guess (I can't find where you said this ATM), which would happen quite often in the example scenario if things were all set in stone. (If the players invest some time and energy into it, it's fine of course.)
I feel like either I'm not making myself clear, or I've misread your posts yet again. I've gone over them a couple more times, and while I can't find many passages to quote to argue against specifically, I still disagree with what I feel your main points are, which I think goes something like this:
- Player agency is king, and it's wrong for a GM to undermine that even if they never know, and it's impossible that they'll never know.
- Quantum stuff always undermines player agency (or if it doesn't it actually wastes more GM time than it saves).
If I've got those right, then I disagree with both of them.
Your arguments make way too many assumptions about the kind of games I'm playing and the kind of people I'm playing with. Me and the people I play with enjoy the story and an internally-consistent world (verisimilitude) as much as we enjoy killing stuff and getting loot. GM actions that break verisimilitude bother me much more than the GM hiding things from me.What matters most is fun. Second to that is that players feel they're having an effect on the story or world. Actually having an effect on the world is not that important as long as the first two are there. (It does take a good GM to really pull off major stuff, but the Quantum Ogre is minor.)
Again, I question if you actually read the text of the posts in question. The statement I make above is exactly the thrust of the article. The entire series begins with the quote "You think you're saving effort. You're not. You think you're making things more 'fun' for the players, but really, you're ruining their fun." because the whole series is about maximizing whatever is fun for your group
I can't make sense of this. Your statement about (presumably) the Quantum Ogre ruining my players' fun is indeed making assumptions about what my players find fun. Again, I may be misreading things, but the series seems to be about player agency being the key to fun.
I think I can sum my views up as "Nothing is real until the players interact with it."
to be honest vicon what I am objecting to is the tone that I am an evil person or horrible GM for feeling that the occational cut scene may be viable and reasonable.
Here is the conversation from my point of view.
Me: wondering what your opinions are on non-interactive cut scenes.
some people: non-interactive cut scenes are the absolute worst thing a GM can do and if you use it your a horrible person who should write books and not play Pathfinder.
I appreciate the debate I am reading here and at times have tried to restate my case in order to encourage further input or to attempt to defend or clarify my thoughts.
Ultimately I feel as if I am mostly having a problem explaining myself because I have never had a group object to the use of cut scenes and I have been in groups where cut sceens were used and I enjoyed them. so i feel as if people are taking my idea in the worst possible sense and not in the sense that I envision. but that is no ones fault but my own and does not invalidate the points that people are making on the negative points of the device.
In the end I will probably always object to insulting or preachy tones like
...re-read this thread and digest the wisdom it contains, and stop taking control of your Player's characters. If you find after this thread is retired that you still can't refrain... I suggest you write a book.
in a poor way. Sorry, just my nature, tell me you dont think its a good idea, even tell me why, but dont tell me that I should quit the game because YOU dont like the way i play it.
Our group has no problem with cut scenes (though we don't use them lots). I don't think we'd even have a problem with dm mandated PC actions, though this wouldn't be in a tactical setting.
As ever, it's about making sure everyone is on the same page. There's no right way to do it.
I feel like either I'm not making myself clear, or I've misread your posts yet again. I've gone over them a couple more times, and while I can't find many passages to quote to argue against specifically,
I think you're only allow to argue against something I actually typed, instead of something that I never actually said.
I wrote what I wrote because it is what I think. Not something almost like what I said, but somehow meaning something different. If you have a question about something I said specifically, I'd be glad to address it.
Defending an argument that I didn't actually make doesn't seem like a reasonable position to be expected to take.
The flaw of the Quantum Ogre is that, if you have a party who plays smart, he won't be quantum long before you enter the woods, and then you've wasted time by not assigning him to a location already or you become the jerk DM where ESP doesn't work, the ground doesn't hold tracks, and if you try and teleport - suddenly anti-magic fields everywhere.My argument is that this isn't true. It does still save prep time, and it shouldn't waste more time than it saved, assuming the DM has a bit of experience filling in details on the fly. The second possibility you listed is a completely separate problem.
I do agree that the 'prep time' difference is probably minimal with a skilled DM. I still think taking a monster or a mcguffin and deciding their location before the game is objectively quicker then doing it during the game. Because if it's done before it literally doesn't have to be done during, and the 0 seconds I don't spend doing it is shorter then the time I spend doing it while I'm playing.
Also, I disagree that it's fun to simply walk up and take the macguffin on a lucky guess (I can't find where you said this ATM), which would happen quite often in the example scenario if things were all set in stone. (If the players invest some time and energy into it, it's fine of course.)
As I said, you didn't find this, because I didn't say it. I also think players just getting something for nothing is not very fun, and indeed is destructive to games.
- Player agency is king, and it's wrong for a GM to undermine that even if they never know, and it's impossible that they'll never know.
- Quantum stuff always undermines player agency (or if it doesn't it actually wastes more GM time than it saves)
My points are laid out explicitly on my blog. I didn't say the above because they are not what I think.
In game terms, my sincere apologies if my relative shortcoming in diplomacy by your estimation may be congruent to your relative shortcoming in perception in my estimation. Like the classes themselves, perhaps we both have other talents.
At its most basic level I hope to express that you have far broader capability (and ability) to navigate the problems you are addressing in your game without taking "agency" from your players. If your present application is not resented by your players, and you are truly being honest with yourself in your perception that is the case... I suppose there is no harm. I still say things are so much better when players are free to do the unexpected and forge their own destinies outside the framework of the GM's story -- and that not only the players, but the GM is missing out when they can't make room in a story for the player's designs.
The flaw of the Quantum Ogre is that, if you have a party who plays smart, he won't be quantum long before you enter the woods, and then you've wasted time by not assigning him to a location already or you become the jerk DM where ESP doesn't work, the ground doesn't hold tracks, and if you try and teleport - suddenly anti-magic fields everywhere.My argument is that this isn't true. It does still save prep time, and it shouldn't waste more time than it saved, assuming the DM has a bit of experience filling in details on the fly. The second possibility you listed is a completely separate problem.I do agree that the 'prep time' difference is probably minimal with a skilled DM. I still think taking a monster or a mcguffin and deciding their location before the game is objectively quicker then doing it during the game. Because if it's done before it literally doesn't have to be done during, and the 0 seconds I don't spend doing it is shorter then the time I spend doing it while I'm playing.
Also, I disagree that it's fun to simply walk up and take the macguffin on a lucky guess (I can't find where you said this ATM), which would happen quite often in the example scenario if things were all set in stone. (If the players invest some time and energy into it, it's fine of course.)As I said, you didn't find this, because I didn't say it. I also think players just getting something for nothing is not very fun, and indeed is destructive to games.
I was sure I read that in one of the comments on your blog, but I can't find it now, so maybe not.
Anyway, how does laying things out explicitly prevent the players from getting a lucky guess and getting the macguffin with almost no effort?
Also, on a much larger scale than just one encounter, quantum details can save a huge amount of time. Imagine your game starts in the capital city and your players have expressed no major plans to leave. Rather than drawing up the whole kingdom, you make a half dozen interesting quantum locations. If the players ask what's to the west, you pull one out. The chances of them going through all 6 in one game is tiny and you didn't have to make a whole map to pull that off (especially if you're like me and get bogged down in details).
My points are laid out explicitly on my blog. I didn't say the above because they are not what I think.- Player agency is king, and it's wrong for a GM to undermine that even if they never know, and it's impossible that they'll never know.
- Quantum stuff always undermines player agency (or if it doesn't it actually wastes more GM time than it saves)
I've looked over the Quantum Ogre series several times now, and I'm having a hard time finding these explicit points (or finding anything that contradicts my summarization, though it may be a bit exaggerated).
Simple question: do you think that quantum encounters or locations are a good GM tool?
I wouldn't even want to risk making a player feel like cranewings... and considering decent GMs can be for some people in short supply, many players will put up with or suffer in silence if their GM is overbearing but otherwise competent and/or skilled. But it doesn't mean they appreciate being disempowered.
The last cut scene my GM used was when we were fighting some mook cultists in the courtyard of a castle. My paladin just downed the last cultist when he hears a dragon's cry coming from overhead. He and the other party members look up to see this big a** black dragon barrel its way through the wall of the castle keep, then come back out clutching a person in it's massive claw. My character got the perception check to see which person was being taken away (the Lord's daughter). We wouldn't have had time to react other than take a few pop shots at him, so I was totally fine with it.
I was sure I read that in one of the comments on your blog, but I can't find it now, so maybe not.
Anyway, how does laying things out explicitly prevent the players from getting a lucky guess and getting the macguffin with almost no effort?
Why would it?
Why would waxing your car increase your gas mileage? It won't, because that's not what it's designed to do.
Also, on a much larger scale than just one encounter, quantum details can save a huge amount of time. Imagine your game starts in the capital city and your players have expressed no major plans to leave. Rather than drawing up the whole kingdom, you make a half dozen interesting quantum locations. If the players ask what's to the west, you pull one out. The chances of them going through all 6 in one game is tiny and you didn't have to make a whole map to pull that off (especially if you're like me and get bogged down in details).
Note that this technique is explicitly different then deciding that no matter what the players do they are going to encounter all your encounters in the order you demand they should.
- Player agency is king, and it's wrong for a GM to undermine that even if they never know, and it's impossible that they'll never know.
- Quantum stuff always undermines player agency (or if it doesn't it actually wastes more GM time than it saves)I've looked over the Quantum Ogre series several times now, and I'm having a hard time finding these explicit points (or finding anything that contradicts my summarization, though it may be a bit exaggerated).
Don't take this the way it comes across, but you won't find those explicit points because you made them up.
The "Quantum Ogre" is a specific example of a specific situation.
Simple question: do you think that quantum encounters or locations are a good GM tool?
I think it is a very complicated tool, that can be used for an explicit specific purpose.
In my personal experience, due to years of published terrible terrible advice, it is often used poorly. I also think it is universally overused with good intentions to the detriment of many games - often by DM's who assume that by disregarding the autonomy of human beings that they are somehow improving their experience of life.
I also think that it is trivially easy to accidentally move from using non-specified events to destroying player agency.
As to the answer to your question, I would request what metric you wish to judge the goodness of the tool by.
non-interactive cut scenes are the absolute worst thing a GM can do and if you use it your a horrible person who should write books and not play Pathfinder.
Maybe I missed it, blue, but I don't think anyone here called you or "anyone" a horrible person.
Vehement disagreement does not equal someone thinking you are horrible, and if you start to take disagreement personally, the conversation is not going to end well.
Suffice to say, a lot of people disagree with your stance. That doesn't mean you're a bad person, or that anyone thinks you're a bad person. Since it sounds like you are firm in your own stance, and since you have otherwise "gathered others' thoughts" on the matter successfully, I'm not sure where this could go from there. Far be it from me to discourage discussion, however.
The only thing I have left to say is this: in the end, it doesn't matter what you do or how you GM as long as you AND your players are BOTH having fun in equal amounts.
If you're concerned about how your cutscenes affect your players, then they are the ones to ask, not the message board. If your players praise your cutscenes, they are the ones to listen to, not the messageboard. If your players complain about your cutscenes, they are the ones to listen to ("listen" does not have to mean "change everything you do immediately"), not the message board. If you want suggestions for how you could do something differently, your players are the ones who know you and know the situation and can provide that advice most accurately, not the message board. If you want reaffirmation that what you're doing is working, then only your players are going to know that, since they're the ones working with you to make a great story.
I was sure I read that in one of the comments on your blog, but I can't find it now, so maybe not.
Anyway, how does laying things out explicitly prevent the players from getting a lucky guess and getting the macguffin with almost no effort?
Why would it?
Why would waxing your car increase your gas mileage? It won't, because that's not what it's designed to do.
The goal of the GM is to provide fun. I'm pretty sure we (and everyone else) agree on that much.
In the case of the three groves specifically, I don't feel laying things out ahead of time accomplishes that as well as leaving the order unspecified. Most players I know will pick one randomly and start searching, so a 1 in 3 chance of getting it right and simply walking off with the loot doesn't sound like much fun. It also leaves them short XP and I know that I and many other people enjoy character advancement. (I'm assuming you're using the default XP mechanic.)
Also, on a much larger scale than just one encounter, quantum details can save a huge amount of time. Imagine your game starts in the capital city and your players have expressed no major plans to leave. Rather than drawing up the whole kingdom, you make a half dozen interesting quantum locations. If the players ask what's to the west, you pull one out. The chances of them going through all 6 in one game is tiny and you didn't have to make a whole map to pull that off (especially if you're like me and get bogged down in details).Note that this technique is explicitly different then deciding that no matter what the players do they are going to encounter all your encounters in the order you demand they should.
Maybe I'm just confused by the name you're using. When I read "Quantum Ogre" I'm thinking of an ogre who's position is left unspecified. I think you are using it to mean the same thing as "My Precious Encounter," which is throwing me off a bit.
- Player agency is king, and it's wrong for a GM to undermine that even if they never know, and it's impossible that they'll never know.
- Quantum stuff always undermines player agency (or if it doesn't it actually wastes more GM time than it saves)I've looked over the Quantum Ogre series several times now, and I'm having a hard time finding these explicit points (or finding anything that contradicts my summarization, though it may be a bit exaggerated).Don't take this the way it comes across, but you won't find those explicit points because you made them up.
The "Quantum Ogre" is a specific example of a specific situation.
Sorry, I meant the explicit points you referenced in your post, not the explicit points I mentioned.
Simple question: do you think that quantum encounters or locations are a good GM tool?I think it is a very complicated tool, that can be used for an explicit specific purpose.
In my personal experience, due to years of published terrible terrible advice, it is often used poorly. I also think it is universally overused with good intentions to the detriment of many games - often by DM's who assume that by disregarding the autonomy of human beings that they are somehow improving their experience of life.
I also think that it is trivially easy to accidentally move from using non-specified events to destroying player agency.
As to the answer to your question, I would request what metric you wish to judge the goodness of the tool by.
I would judge the goodness of a tool by how likely you would be to recommend it to a GM that was unfamiliar with it (even if you feel the need to include some caveats).
Personally, I don't find that quantum events themselves have much to do with player agency. If the GM is going to make that mistake, they're likely going to make it regardless of how they've laid out the module. I suppose a GM that is already having those issues might want to write everything out ahead of time to protect them from themselves, but I don't think that applies the other way around.
If you're going to use a cut-scene, then actually use one. I tend to do this at the beginning of a campaign for character intros. For instance, a dragon-blooded character was being driven out of town. Rather than roleplay it, I showed her the scene from Highlander where Connor gets stoned and driven from the village. The player enjoyed the visual and didn't mind being railroaded.
When they go left and you have to make it "right." If you're playing a published adventure, flip a few pages, act like they've caught you off-guard. Players seem to love it when they've gone "off roading" on the DM. Make it seem like you're just winging it, even though all you've done is rerouted left to be right. THIS TACTIC REQUIRES THAT YOU HAVE READ YOUR ADVENTURE VERY MANY TIMES.
The Dragon the Players Shouldn't Fight
I once had a group need information from a blue dragon. I didn't want the group to attack it just because it was evil. They approached him from the top of a canyon (like Grand Canyon sized canyon). All they could see was the lip of the canyon and the far side of it; the rest of the canyon was blanketed in impenetrable black shadow . . . at high noon. Before they could wonder how this could happen, the dragon's massive head reared from up out of the blackness. The dragon's head has eye-level with the party, its immense bulk hidden below the lip of the canyon in the shadow. I had the player's roll Perception checks and no matter what they got, they could "sense the enormity of the beast below."
The players were used to craning their necks up at these monstrosities (from many years of gaming). The players were legitimately disconcerted about being eye-to-eye with such a behemoth. They bargained for the information (and got ripped off [heh]) and then left.
Presentation goes a loooooong way. Would I have allowed them to fight it? Sure. But I'd made it apparent they were out-matched simply because of terrain.
I have a couple of things to say in response.
Players cannot get 'behind' in XP because their is no predetermined outcome in my game - no threshold that they must meet by a certain point - no sub-par non-professional "story" that I'm shoving down their throats.
Players are playing a game. Players tell me what they are doing.
As far as what Mykull is talking about; Why would anyone play a game where we don't get to decide what we get to do on our turn?
I've walked away from other human beings that have been that rude to me before, but it never happens right away.
You see, I'm going to continue to make choices in play that seem intelligent. A great many of those choices will be things that won't fit with what the DM has decided must happen. I may not notice the first time things are rearranged, but it won't take long for me to figure out that what choices i make don't matter. I can't change whatever the DM has already decided, so if nothing I do matters, why am I going to waste my time?
I'm not.
In the case of the three groves specifically, I don't feel laying things out ahead of time accomplishes that as well as leaving the order unspecified. Most players I know will pick one randomly and start searching, so a 1 in 3 chance of getting it right and simply walking off with the loot doesn't sound like much fun. It also leaves them short XP and I know that I and many other people enjoy character advancement. (I'm assuming you're using the default XP mechanic.)
I have a couple of things to say in response.
Players cannot get 'behind' in XP because their is no predetermined outcome in my game - no threshold that they must meet by a certain point - no sub-par non-professional "story" that I'm shoving down their throats.
Players are playing a game. Players tell me what they are doing.
I can only assume your response is related to my comment.
How do you know my stories are sub-par or non-professional? I might be a famous writer who chooses to remain unknown. (I'm not, but your assumptions are still unfounded.) I guess all your players are happy with hack-n-slash crawls with no outside world, no plot and no consistency?
See it's easy to make assumptions like that. I'm sure your players enjoy your games, and as far as I've heard, my players enjoy mine. And yes, I try to incorporate a story I've made up just for that game. And yes, it's not a story that's worthy of a novel, but you know what, it's a game and it doesn't need that deep of a story. (Also, my group seems to prefer a story to a sandbox. Both methods have their merits.)
Now even in a wide-open-sandbox game, I'm sure there are places that have been established as too-high-level-to-visit-for-now. There are reasonable paths through a sandbox that could lead to the GM feeling the players are underleveled for what they intend to do next.
I'm also fairly confident that a bunch of completely random encounters is less fun than if the GM invested a bit of time and effort in those encounters. (I still agree that a GM getting too attached to one encounter is bad, BTW.)
And yes, I try to incorporate a story I've made up just for that game. And yes, it's not a story that's worthy of a novel, but you know what, it's a game and it doesn't need that deep of a story. (Also, my group seems to prefer a story to a sandbox. Both methods have their merits.)
Now even in a wide-open-sandbox game, I'm sure there are places that have been established as too-high-level-to-visit-for-now. There are reasonable paths through a sandbox that could lead to the GM feeling the players are underleveled for what they intend to do next.
I'm also fairly confident that a bunch of completely random encounters is less fun than if the GM invested a bit of time and effort in those encounters. (I still agree that a GM getting too attached to one encounter is bad, BTW.)
We are so close to communicating here!
I see from what you've written, that you seem to assume that because I let them make the choices over what their characters do, that I don't have an "outside world, plot, or consistency".
I would say the founding principle of player choice having value is that their choices matter.
Their choices can only matter if they have consequences.
Consequences can only exist in a consistent cohesive comprehensive environment!
I am defining story as something that a DM determines must happen in a game.
Whereas my story-less games contain numerous NPC's, Monsters, Towns, Rulers all with their own agendas, plans and problems.
I don't know what's going to happen. The players decide to do what they want. The rest of the world will continue trying to accomplish their goals. There's no 'story' because I have not the first clue what the players are going to do. They can do whatever they want. Their choices when they play the game will have consequences and new things will happen.
And it is awesome. And I don't need a story, because it doesn't matter what I think should happen. It's not storytime because we are playing a game.
However, it is possible to look back upon the sequence of events and see foreshadowing (because consequences result from actions), drama (because conflict), morality (because choices in a cohesive world) and conclusion (because during the game conflicts are resolved). You may call this a story. In hindsight.
I see from what you've written, that you seem to assume that because I let them make the choices over what their characters do, that I don't have an "outside world, plot, or consistency".
I may have not made it clear enough, but I meant that sarcastically. Though, you and I do define story differently.
If you, as the GM, create an evil vampire that rules the locals with an iron fist and has an undead army under his command, give him a macguffin the players have been searching for and drop clues about this at the players' favorite tavern, you've created a story.
Now, as Discworld might say, you never know if you're in the story about the heroes that destroy the vampire, the story about the guys that die and become part of the undead army before the real heroes show up, or the vampire story about the guy that held his empire against the best the humans could muster.
Or the players may ignore that entirely (though a good enough GM should know what to expect from their players, at least some of the time).
Now, as Discworld might say, you never know if you're in the story about the heroes that destroy the vampire, the story about the guys that die and become part of the undead army before the real heroes show up, or the vampire story about the guy that held his empire against the best the humans could muster.
Or the players may ignore that entirely (though a good enough GM should know what to expect from their players, at least some of the time).
If you would say it could also be the story of how they became students of the vampire and became lords of death or the story of how they said "this country is screwed, let's head south", we agree.
(Response delayed due to internet outage)
I don't see any problem with the first one. With the second though, they'll have to give up on the macguffin that previous play had already established they needed. Now, that's still an option, but not many players I know would take it, so I wouldn't have much planned for that case, which means they'd have to accept that the rest of that session might be a bit off-the-cuff (unless they had other stuff they were working towards concurrently I suppose).
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Start off the game by making the players make back up characters with tie ins to the original characters. Make it very clear their first characters are unlikely to survive and that they will need the backups.
Run your impossible to survive encounter they are intended to run away from and if they do the foolish thing and try to face it then they are a little wiser and you can run it as a revenge campaign with the backup characters. The backups serve two purposes, primarily they drive home the point that something really nasty is coming up. The second is simply what to do if the PCs ignore that pretty major hint.
I use cut-scenes often either scripted or actually have players take on the roles of generic NPCs such as city guards. Heck I had the players take on the roles of the villains henchmen and have to sneak in, kill the king and queen, then steal a scroll from their own characters.
Or an army attacking a village and while their characters help people escape they take control of some city guards to defend the gate. They get so many reserves while the force at the gate had so many waves.
I controlled their characters actions but followed it up with something that gave them a little deviation from their characters.
These to cut-scenes/deviations actually are still their favorite events in the campaign next to the final battle.