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Having the plot of an adventure spoiled for you (as a player) doesn't adversely affect the amount of fun you have at the table.
Step 1) Do you agree or disagree with the above statement?
Step 2) Read this post and the response comment. Did you change your mind?
*While I am honestly interested to know how gamers feel about spoilers (whether it's in their game materials, movies, books, or whatever), I would be remiss if I didn't admit that I'm one of the co-authors of the linked blog and that this is part of an effort of shameless self-promotion.
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1: Vehemently disagree.
I don't want to know any elements of the campaign except those meant as generic PC knowledge, such as common knowledge for the town or the background of a dungeon or the general lore of a Demon Lord.
2: Not even close.
If my backstory includes a jerk of a father who left my mom to pirate, either it will or will not come up in the game. Knowing that in a dozen sessions or so I'm gonna run into a pirate ship will SPOIL a level of enjoyment for me. Absolutely.
Not only am I gonna feel railroaded to some degree, but mostly, knowing would take the surprise away. Those surprises are one of the best parts of the game.
EDIT:
Example from Curse of the Crimson Throne
The Players' Guide lets us know before the campaign begins that a crook named Lamm has done something bad to us (PCs) and we want revenge. So I made a PC with that in mind. We also know that the campaign takes place in Korvosa so learning some generic, common knowledge stuff on Korvosa lead to a more enriched enjoyment of the campaign -- the kind described in the OP's linkified article. But this is info MEANT for the PCs. It spoils nothing.
On the other hand,... CotCT
Later when I finally got someone to DM CotCT I let the DM know that I knew that somewhere in the campaign is a Rakshasa. When we finally learned that Arkona Palace was ruled by a Rakshasa and his sister, I was totally let down. I knew it was coming somewhere and when it came it was anti-climactic (not the right phrase, but...) I honestly did not enjoy that aspect of the campaign. I'm absolutely certain that, had I not known a Rakshasa would be in CotCT I would have been floored by the surprise and really enjoyed it.
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1. It hasn't happened to me for an adventure yet, but based on my experience with other types of media being spoiled for me (such as movies, books, and tv-shows) I believe it would most definitely reduce my amount of fun at the table.
Luckily, DMs are able to alter parts of the story if some of the players have read/played parts of the adventure before, so it might not come up as frequently for RPG adventures as it would for other types of entertainment.
2. No. I've heard about the study that supposedly shows that people enjoy a movie more if they know the ending, but I've had that happen, and I hated it. The "surprise twist ending" not being a surprise made the whole movie far less enjoyable for me than it otherwise would have been.
That said, I'll still enjoy watching movies (or reading books) with a surprise twist for a second time, even if I already know how it ends. The enjoyment the second time around is different, though, and might even include me trying to figure out how "such-and-such did this-or-that", and gain enjoyment from noticing minor things I didn't notice the first time I watched/read it.
But the first time I watch a movie or read a book, spoilers definitely ruin it (like knowing who dies in a fantasy series, or even knowing that someone dies at all, for instance). You don't get the shock value or proper emotional response if you already know. Or, I don't, at least. I don't even watch movie trailers anymore, since they frequently reveal too much.
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I don't mind spoilers and they don't ruin my fun. I still have to see the movie, read the book for myself.
As for adventures, i am in a precarious position as i've read every adventure path published by Paizo. And since my group has been in an Paizo AP frenzy for quite some time, i know what is going to happen next. It however means anticipation, and seeing how another gm is going to present that information to us. I am also in a position to help out the gm if we get stuck, wizjout breaking character. It's a win-ein for me.
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Generally, I dislike spoilers. Understanding that something might happen differently in an AP run by two different GMs when you're playing totally different characters in each run is fine; it's expected.
Generally, I also like to start out with a mostly-blank-slate of a character too. I throw a semi-generic background together, give it a single defining moment or twist, and then let the story (and the character's life) happen.
Perhaps that makes me odd. I don't know. I just know it's how I have fun.
1) If a story isn't worth reading when you know the ending, then it probably isn't worth reading when you don't, in my opinion. Spoilers don't worry me very much, though I do try to avoid them when adventuring because it takes some extra effort not to metagame.
2) No.
I am a long time player in several game systems and am used to Player Knowledge and Character Knowledge. Currently, we have a GM that leaks info when he shouldn't. This gets very annoying.
Fortunately I know how to act and not to. One of the GMs of the current AP never told us what module we were playing, so I took it upon myself to look it up. I never knew it was Second Darkness. So I did a little spoiling of my own, yet I knew how to play and not spoil my own fun (I didn't try to read the the ending)
As far as the Blog, that makes no difference as I am good at keeping things separated.
1) If a story isn't worth reading when you know the ending, then it probably isn't worth reading when you don't, in my opinion. Spoilers don't worry me very much, though I do try to avoid them when adventuring because it takes some extra effort not to metagame.
2) No.
I agree with Coriat in regards to both questions.
1) If a story isn't worth reading when you know the ending, then it probably isn't worth reading when you don't, in my opinion.
Mystery novels must vex you to no end.
1) If a story isn't worth reading when you know the ending, then it probably isn't worth reading when you don't, in my opinion.Mystery novels must vex you to no end.
Those would be an exception in my opinion.
Thanks everyone for chiming in.
I wonder if there's a correlation here. In that people who are more likely to GM don't mind spoilers as much whereas people who would rather play a PC would rather no plot spoilers. Is that a generally true statement?
Also, I agree with the sentiment that a well written adventure is engaging and fun to play through regardless of whether or not you know the plot. But metagame knowledge aside, knowing the plot twists beforehand robs me of that moment of surprise (or triumph - if I'd figured it out first) during the reveal.
1) Disagree. (And I DM more often than not.)
2) Certainly not.
No, I'm primarily a GM (and prefer being a GM), but if I know I'm going to be playing in an adventure I'll go out of my way not to know anything about that adventure beyond what the GM for that campaign tells me.
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People who are more likely to GM don't mind spoilers as much (???)
Certainly not in my case.
I was DM almost exclusively from about '89 to about '08. And even before and after those years I DMed some. I've fallen back in love with running PCs the last couple years, perhaps because it's been a choice to not sit in "the chair," but I still consider myself a DM first.
And I hate spoilers.
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I agree with the basic premise of your blog post that having some idea of what is coming can be beneficial to the story and increase everyone's enjoyment. However, I also feel that it really depends on the quality of roleplaying that the player is capable of. I have some friends that I would not want to have prior knowledge. For whatever reason they have a hard time separating in-character knowledge from player knowledge. Others i would happily let read the module ahead of time because they can keep the two separate. I wish you luck on your experiment.
1. Disagree.
2. No.
I prefer my first run-through to be spoiler-free. Good GMs can steer players into choices and backstory that will pay off in the long run without giving away the surprises in an adventure. Adventure paths are even better for this as the campaign traits are good for that. If the adventure is a good one, then running through it again knowing what's in store is still fun. However, those initial "oh wow" moments are gold and I wouldn't want to be denied.
As for other forms of media, spoilers have a shelf-life. You don't get to crap on someone for posting about a movie in the appropriate thread for that movie without spoiler tags if the movie has been out for a decade. It's your own fault for reading about the movie before you see it. Totally different scenario than waiting in line for a movie only to have people coming out from a previous showing blurt stuff out.
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1. I would say that I'd rather not get spoilers, but knowing things in advance doesn't completely destroy my enjoyment of an adventure.
2. So the point of your post is that if the player reads ahead, he can retroactively fit his backstory to the game to make the story better? I think the GM can do that for the players without spoiling anything. When I ran Shackled City, I got the players' backstories and then made relatively minor edits to fit them all in better (changed one villain from a human to an orc so that he could be a half-orc character's father, for example).
I hate spoilers for films, movies, books etc. It drives me crazy that almost every tv show now has a "next time..." and a lot seem to have a "this time" before the opening credits. Although I blame the Americans, even Dr Who shows you what the plot of the next episode is going to be. I cannot understand how anyone could think this was a good idea, let alone enough people that it's become standard practice.
In role playing games, less so. Partly because the tropes and cliches of fantasy are one of the things that make the games fun, so when the trustworthy assistant turns out to have been the pawn of evil all along (kell surpreez) it reassures me that all is right with the world even if I'd seen it coming when the GM introduced him. It's very difficult not to meta-game and predict what's coming in a campaign (particularly if you know your ref), but it's been a long time since I played with anyone over the age of ten who couldn't manage to withhold player knowledge from their character. And then when the GM has out-meta-gamed you it's even more fun. ("Let's see, they know that since I'm GM, the patron is going to be the evil villain, but they'll be expecting me to break the pattern this time and make it look like the patron is actually the evil villain when in fact they're simply overcome with angst for poor decisions in their youth, so I'll double-bluff them and, in fact, the patron will be the evil villain after all.") In addition, since you're participating in the story rather than observing it, it can sometimes be helpful to know where the story is going so that you don't back yourself into a corner where your character would just go "sod this, I'm going home".
Don't get too attached to any of the characters in Game of Thrones
I don't mind knowing what's coming. The mystery isn't a very important part of the game to me (can't stand the mystery genre in literature either). I much prefer a clear story - if we've read the module we're less likely to go off on a wild goose chase due to misunderstanding some comment from the DM.
Mystery/surprise - I don't really enjoy either in an RPG. I don't really play them with a view to "emulating life" though, so that's probably a fundamental difference.
I see it more as emulating a mythical world than a real world.
Give it a modicum of inspection and the typical rpg is a terrible simulation of reality IMO, but that doesn't bug me. I know there are many who consider "realism" an important part of the game, but its not for me.
Sure, I know what you mean it just doesnt look like a simulation to me. It's obviously not a boardgame and not a wargame - it's another genre of game: a roleplaying game. To me the distinguishing feature is that the player adopts a persona other than themselves, not that it's a simulation of reality.
The fact the economics of RPGs dont make sense really jars with me (for example). I cant consider it a 'real' fantasy world, given that the economic incentive for adventuring is so massive and yet hardly anyone does it. Or that a '100 gp gem' means something.
Because its unrealistic. In the real world desperate people do astonishingly dangerous and awful things for not much money - they swim through unprocessed sewerage to reclaim driftwood, they sell body parts for a few months living expenses, go down deathtrap mines for a pittance, cross the world in dreadful conditions risking death for themselves and their families for a vague chance of a better life...
A dozen commoners could get together to loot the typical level one dungeon - half of them may well die, but all participants' families will be set for life. If D&D's economy were "realistic" there'd be bands of peasants grouping together for their "big break". Makes terrible stories though.
100gp gem is an abstraction, just like hit points...
Sure, that's what I mean - I don't have any problem accepting it as a game. It's just a lousy simulation. This isn't a complaint, just a perspective.
A dozen commoners could, but there is this strange thing about people, they really really want to live, you know?
The payoff is so phenomenal - the families of all twelve of those commoners will be set for life. In the real world people risk death for far, far less.
Again, it's not a complaint about the game, just a comment on its lack of economic realism (which would bug me, were I to take it as a simulation).
Or some people don't want reality. I play RPGs because of their escapism. If i want reality, i go look out the window.
I think we agree. That was kind of my point - I don't play RPGs as "emulations of reality".
The dozen commoners don't have to be level one, by the way. I was just pointing out that the phenomenal wealth that PCs accumulate would, in fact, be economy breaking.
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I agree. But that's kinda the point. PCs are the creme de la creme. They are superior to NPCs in almost every way. Stats, equipment and wealth. Who would you rather pay, a sturdy group of adventurers who could slaughter a cave of goblins without breaking a sweat, or a dozen or two commoners who all might be slaughtered by said goblins? It costs more to bury that much people...
I agree. But that's kinda the point. PCs are the creme de la creme. They are superior to NPCs in almost every way. Stats, equipment and wealth. Who would you rather pay, a sturdy group of adventurers who could slaughter a cave of goblins without breaking a sweat, or a dozen or two commoners who all might be slaughtered by said goblins? It costs more to bury that much people...
Yeah (though we've been playing a lot of DCC of late, so a dozen clueless commoners raiding a dungeon doesnt seem so odd at the moment :p) I'm not arguing for any change..
Kmal2t didn't understand how someone could enjoy going through an adventure they'd read - since it would ruin the surprise and was counter to the "distinguishing feature" of RPGs emulating reality (which he took as a given). I was just pointing out that not everyone sees it as "reality emulation".
Serfs didn't have the option. People risk huge amounts for far less in the real world, right now.
There have been suicide bombers whose reward was a lifetime pension for their families, parents put their kids and life savings in the hands of strangers in the hope they'll find a better life, people sell body parts for a pittance, work in incredibly dangerous mines for low pay. When the livelihood of their family is on the line, people will do all kinds of things.
This hypothetical band of commoners don't have to leave their families for months or years - they need to band together to go investigate the creepy dungeon half a days travel from their village that those first level PCs are asked to investigate. They won't all come back, but if its got enough treasure to meet a level two party's WBL, their families are going to be set.
The fact RPGs do a poor job of modelling the economy is hardly a new or controversial claim. For me, that failure kills any chance of it being a reasonable simulation.
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This hypothetical band of commoners don't have to leave their families for months or years - they need to band together to go investigate the creepy dungeon half a days travel from their village that those first level PCs are asked to investigate. They won't all come back, but if its got enough treasure to meet a level two party's WBL, their families are going to be set.
I'm certain that those families would prefer their fathers and mothers alive, poor and being there then gold. I know i would.
You aren't a poor commoner. No doubt parents in the phillipines don't want their kids swimming through sewerage to gather scrap and driftwood either - yet they send them to do it. Poverty combined with limited options is a powerful motivator (in the real world). As I said, it makes perfect sense in a world of myth and legend, it's just not terribly realistic.
This isn't controversial, surely? Isn't it universally held that RPGs are lousy economic simulators?
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Ok, I may not live in a 3rd world country, but we are...say 2nd world (if such a term exists), and as of a month back, my mother no longer recieves her salary, my father has abandoned the family and i feed and pay the bills with a measly salary of 120$ a month. So i very well know what it means to wake up hungry and still not eat breakfast so that there is more left for your mother and sister, not getting new shoes so that your sister can get them for her prom night...stuff like that.
I would still never sign up for the army or a police force, or do something highly risky but with a big payoff because i prefer being poor and alive.
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My two coppers.
More often then not I GM. I don't like spoilers. I much prefer not knowing what is going to happen, even if it is the well trodden road of a fantasy story. While yes we may know all the Tropes.....farm boy has hidden destiny and has to realize his destiny and with the help of a small group of specialists, sneak into the Evil Tyranical Conquerer inner sanctum to either destroy him or some artifact he is trying to use.
So in short I don't like spoilers.
Because its unrealistic. In the real world desperate people do astonishingly dangerous and awful things for not much money - they swim through unprocessed sewerage to reclaim driftwood, they sell body parts for a few months living expenses, go down deathtrap mines for a pittance, cross the world in dreadful conditions risking death for themselves and their families for a vague chance of a better life...
A dozen commoners could get together to loot the typical level one dungeon - half of them may well die, but all participants' families will be set for life. If D&D's economy were "realistic" there'd be bands of peasants grouping together for their "big break". Makes terrible stories though.
I'm not sure I'm following. Are you saying this doesn't happen in people's campaigns? Weird.
The PCs in our games come across the carnage of commoners attempting such things on a semi-regular basis. (Though 'half' of them dying is incredibly generous. Usually there are no survivors, even in a level 1 dungeon. Those 2 hp don't even get them past the first orc encounter.)
Having the plot of an adventure spoiled for you (as a player) doesn't adversely affect the amount of fun you have at the table.
Step 1) Do you agree or disagree with the above statement?
I agree, with some qualifiers.
If you've read an adventure, it is hard not to metagame. I ran Crypt of the Everflame once. I then had to play it as a player--GM knew I had run it (I gave him my dungeon map, IIRC), and just promised not to metagame. I had to be careful not to assume where the zombies or giant frogs were going to pop up where they thought they were. So that can mitigate the fun factor. At the same time, I still enjoyed playing that module, and in fact knowing some of what was ahead forced me to focus more on roleplaying with the PCs and really really trying to see the situation from my character's POV rather than my own, since I was forced to even more than usual separate my knowledge from my PC's. This in its way actually made things more fun. So it can be challenging, but it doesn't ruin fun, and can actually positively affect how I play. So some fun is taken away, but other fun is added, so ultimately, I'm still having the same amount of fun.
The other thing to be always aware of is even if I've got the module/AP, I've got GMs who tend to liberally alter "the script"--or the players themselves derail thing and the GM has to improvise. So then my prior knowledge is pointless and I have to go along with it as normal anyway.
And that said, I think I'd prefer to play an adventure I didn't know the plot of, BUT that's also because it makes it easier to establish trust with the GM. 'Course if I and the GM know each other really well it doesn't matter. But I've had a great time replaying stuff I've known before so it isn't a big deal.
Step 2) Read this post and the response comment. Did you change your mind?
No.
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I pretty much agree with the OP. One of my favorite things as DM is to run the same adventure with two different groups, and see it come out totally differently each time. As a player, I'm usually able to mentally "wall off" spoilers and still be immersed.
Re: bands of peasants, I used to game with a very smart guy who had an unbreakable rule for adventure writing: "There needs to be a front-door encounter that resets and can't be dismantled by numbers, and that exists solely to keep the farmers out." Whether that's a bound immortal monster with DR or whatever, there had to be something or he'd throw up his hands and assume the dungeon had already been looted by peasant mobs.
And, yes, the D&D economy is wicked ridiculous. Frank Trollman submitted an insightful post during the Alpha playtesting, suggesting like 3 or 4 different methods for improving it, depending on peoples' preferences, but the designers ended up vetoing all of his input.
Because its unrealistic. In the real world desperate people do astonishingly dangerous and awful things for not much money - they swim through unprocessed sewerage to reclaim driftwood, they sell body parts for a few months living expenses, go down deathtrap mines for a pittance, cross the world in dreadful conditions risking death for themselves and their families for a vague chance of a better life...
A dozen commoners could get together to loot the typical level one dungeon - half of them may well die, but all participants' families will be set for life. If D&D's economy were "realistic" there'd be bands of peasants grouping together for their "big break". Makes terrible stories though.
I'm not sure I'm following. Are you saying this doesn't happen in people's campaigns? Weird.
The PCs in our games come across the carnage of commoners attempting such things on a semi-regular basis.
Yeah, very rare in our case. I can't remember a prewritten level one module (which we predominantly use) where that occurs - there certainly aren't many of them. That specific point is irrelevant though - RPGs are lousy economic simulators (whether you tweak individual facets or not).