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Hello GMs, I'm curious about occasions in which you've done "penguin plotting" (as in this post).
The short of it is: When the players try to figure something out and come up with an explanation that's more interesting than whatever you had planned (or maybe there wasn't even anything planned on your part and they're putting too much importance on something tangential), and you just take it and run with it.
As an inexperienced GM myself I'm somewhat inflexible in my plans, but it sounds pretty fun. Share your experiences!
One event that comes to mind was when a party was hunting for a secret door. They knew there had to be one present but really couldn't find it. Everyone checked every wall, but no roll was high enough to find it.
Then one of the players declared that the only surface they hadn't checked was the actual door they had come into the room by. They decided that it had to be an extra-dimensional portal leading elsewhere.
So instead of them simply having one more room left with the person they were chasing, they explored an entire wizard's demi-plane of their own creation.
I'd say in-character action is direct contribution, while player/character thoughts are more of an indirect one. But you're quite right Jaelithe, it can simulate character brilliance, and keep everything flowing. PCs rarely think what you might expect them to think anyway.
Great story, Gilarius. Wish I provide create entire demi-planes on the fly.
Great story, Gilarius. Wish I provide create entire demi-planes on the fly.
Practice. Anyone can make stuff up, the tricky part is making it fun for players and yourself.
There's been a lot of this over the years. Players inventing villains like the time the PCs were convinced the miller was a bad guy so I ran with it and borrowed an idea from an old Dragon magazine making the miller a wererat. Another time the players became convinced that I'd put a broken, rusty sword in a chamber for some reason. I'd rolled it in adventure creation as a piece of set dressing; instead the players' obsession with it turned it into Arumdia; the fabled broken artifact sword that, once restored would end the demon queen Loth and banish all drow forever.
It really comes down to adaptability, not creativity. Most GMs have an idea when they sit down to run - I'm guilty of it myself lately. We have this idea either written into the game we've made or at the very least in the back of our heads and woe be to the player who doesn't fall in line with that idea. But if we GMs merely relinquish a bit of control and say "to heck with the idea" the players are sometimes FAR better storytellers than we could ever be.
If you really want this to happen in your game then instead of sitting down to run with a firm idea, instead replace that with a "What if" statement
- What if the villain is the duke
- What if there's a broken sword in this room
- What if there's about to be a green dragon attack
That way when the players suggest something different that they're SURE is the truth, you can replace that part of your statement with their answer and STILL have a fun game.
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Using this sort of device also requires that you dress up your settings with mundane items that might draw notice. A rusty sword, two corpses in a thicket, a metal rod laying by the side of the road in a puddle with no rust on it, etc. You have to make sure that at least half of these are just what they appear to be- nothing unusual. The rest can be something really cool. This prevents your PCs from over meta-gaming and knowing that if you describe something like this, its important. I started having to do this because my PCs used to latch on to anything I described as critical and carry it around trying to figure out what it was for...extensively... lol.
Once you have sprinkled these sort of dressings around liberally, including write-ups for some of the more interesting ones, you are free to move around which ones are significant or not.
I've run with ideas spawning either from what the PCs do, or from what the PCs thought was going to happen, several times. In the instances I've done this, it has usually made at least one session (but some times multiple sessions) more enjoyable than they otherwise would have been.
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I do Penguin Plotting all the time. My players are clever and often their ideas are better than mine so I include the great ideas into my game. They feel super smart and I look like an amazing DM.
The best ones are when they come up with an idea that I can mix with my current idea. Then they feel smart and I look even more brilliant when the full plan comes out.
Cool stuff, anyone else want to share their stories?
I made a dungeon that had an empty room, it was just a supply closet providing the food and drink for the cultists whose temple the party was attacking. Part of the party went into another room to do stuff so I took those players out of the room in order to discuss what happened in their room without risk of Metagaming, I come back and the players I had left behind had turned the closet into a bar. I decided to just roll with it, so now in that setting there is an extradimensional traveling tavern known as the Saucy Priest with a Stained Glass Golem guarding the door/ acting as the door.
Back behind the DM screen.
The PCs interrupt a dark ritual, but may have been too late. It's not obvious what has happened though, so they try to puzzle it out. They've misread it as a fiend summoned to assassinate a noble.
They've sent a warning ahead, and are racing back to see if they can stop this assassination that wasn't at all on the bad guy's agenda.
I guess it is now though.
Why's it called "penguin" plotting?
Linked in the first post.
Basically, there's a Batman story in which the Penguin has villainous writer's block. So he starts doing small random things, until Batman and Robin show up to let him know they're onto him (but don't have any evidence yet).
One of the "clues" they pick up was bugged by the Penguin, and he listens in as the World's Greatest Detective plans the entire crime for him. He then executes the crime Batman planned (with a few personal touches).
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The DM equivalent is listening to your players "figure it out" from the clues you've dropped, and making them right.