The following sequence rose from events played between February 25 and 26, 2009.
In my last masterclass, I addressed the matter of players having to make up their minds how to interact with the campaign setting, and how the DM will be typically pressed to make this interaction happen for the players. In short, the players want to adventure; and will wait for the DM to create the adventure for the players to run in, because this is easiest for the players. Opposed to this, however, is the experience and opportunity that arises when the players do for themselves, even if doing for themselves is the harder option. Good play calls for all the participants to dig in and work together to make things happen ... not when the DM provides for all the others, who then become hopelessly dependent on that DM. Dependency is never a good thing.
This post is meant to address the contrary point of view, and how "doing for the players without waiting for the players" is easiest for the DM too. In many ways, by creating the adventure from whole cloth, so that players know what is expected of them, makes everything easier for the DM as well. Which is why DMs do it. Nothing makes a D&D running go well like having the players be dependent upon our story, our plot twists and our moment-to-moment whims.
It will not be popular to say, but many of the substantial problems that arise in having ONE PERSON control all that is said and done at a game table for a bunch of people who are dependent upon that person's intentions to create, or not create, the adventure that is going to be run, arise from the same issues that we connect with codependency. Role-playing is addictive; and while it is not a drug, I will rush to point out that the link explicitly states that codependency relationships can also arise from gambling, which is also a game, and the dysfunction that arises out of family relationships ~ which, incidentally, psychology invented role-playing in order to combat.
Which is to say that role-playing itself is not a bad thing. It can be healthy, if approached in a healthy manner. It is that healthy manner that promotes role-playing as a therapy. We stress how every participant must learn to be responsible for themselves, and in their contribution to the general welfare of the relationship. But when we say that the DM is responsible for everyone having fun at the table, ie., for the emotional state of other people; or that the DM is responsible to always say "yes" to player efforts at problem solving, ie., supporting and enabling the ability of another person to feel successful and validated; we are drifting dangerously into codependency.
When the DM knows who the players are going to talk to, and why, and what's going to be said, because that is the way the adventure goes, this removes everything else, the "unexpected," from the equation. This shrinks the problem of managing the players' motivations and probable actions to a framework that most DMs can handle. It is especially necessary for new DMs, who are hardly able to handle even this much interaction ... which is why "story-telling" DMing is presented as the best, more rational way to play. Because it is easiest.
 |
| This is not the hall the players would see; it's a town hall from Passau, a like town to the one the players were in, built in the 14th century. Impressive, no? Imagine how it was to the medieval eye. |
And just like that, I'm in a trap.
The onus is on me to create a merchant's guild from my imagination, to present as a scene for the player to see. This is easier in an online play-by-comment game blog, but even so, it requires that I, as DM, have a clear idea in my head of what a merchant guildhouse is, how big it is, who goes there, how it is laid out, what the people inside do and how to describe it. On the spur of the moment, that's a lot of info to have in my pocket, particularly if I'm at a table face-to-face with the players, and I haven't guessed yet that the players want to go there.
Moreover, I've got to pick up the ball at once and decide, how are the denizens of the guild hall going to treat the character once Tiberius and Joseph are inside? What words are they going to say? Am I ready to create a speech at the drop of a hat? Can I even picture a believable merchant, who will present to the players in a way that will sustain the game's play, that will keep the momentum, that will have the capacity to be either friendly or properly resistant to the players' actions? I don't have pre-made playbook already set up, where this merchant already knows the pertinent facts about where the players need to be in order to find the Macguffin that will reveal the villain in act three of my prescribed adventure. This is just a merchant. He or she is going about their day, doing merchant things, talking to merchant people, having no idea that he or she is about to be approached by total strangers, who want something.
This situation alone is enough to give a lot of DMs who might think, "I'm going to run a sandbox," the sweats. Chances are, if they haven't done their research, if they haven't invested themselves in the history that underlies a fantasy setting, or a sci-fi setting, or any setting that might include a merchant, their representation isn't going to be very credible. And that lack of credit may inspire the displeasure of the player, who is apt to blame the DM, and not the merchant, if something doesn't work out in the player's favor. And well the DM knows it. So now there's a sense of being judged, that we can heap on the pile of all the things that we're worrying about in the split second a player says,
Tiberius: Tiberius will ask Helmunt [the bartender] the location of the guild hall and start there.
[There it is again: the compulsion of players to role-play in the third person; ah well]
When this happens, I draw on my readings, on my experiences and on any images I can find for inspiration. I think, "What does this need to be?" A guildhall is wealthy; ostentation is a drug for the wealthy, the conspicuousness of consumption, that says, "Look at how successful we are, we built this." That is my starting point. From there I must address the other part of the DM's trap: I have no idea what the players are going to do, or say.
If I can, I want to describe the guildhall in a way that will control that unknown. The hall needs to be threatening; it needs to drip power; it needs to be full of people who the player will be justly afraid to cross. All that needs to be in my description as well.
DM: You step into the Market Hall, to find a great space, some sixty feet long and thirty feet wide. There are many stalls set up, selling salt, beer, snuff, wine, carved wooden toys, parchment, glasswares and brass instruments, all the luxury goods made in Dachau. A twin line of pillars, surmounted by great arches holding up the twenty-foot ceiling, stand between the tables and frames supporting various goods which are hung on display. Straw has been scattered over the floor, as here and there goats, pigs and chickens roam freely between the tables along with both the patrons and artisans. These are not the merchants of the guild; the main floor is opened each Sunday for those craftsmen and peddlers who work in shops in the hills surrounding the town, who must have a protected place to sell their valuables.At each end of the hall are a flight of stairs, without railings, which follow the end walls up into the ceiling. At the bottom of each lounge three guards, while one stands ostensibly at attention.
Good enough. The products are all typical of Bavaria. The pillars, frames and architecture is somewhat baroque, but close enough to wow the player. The straw, the chickens, the presence of the market inside the guild, tells of a lot of people and that this is not a private place. The players should feel okay with being here. There are a lot of outsiders here.
And as long as I've got the players in the building, there's no reason not to drop a few perfectly innocent plot hooks, just the thing that would actually be posted in such a building in the period the players are adventuring in:
DM: On the pillar nearest to the door where you enter is a notice board. On it is nailed a piece of parchment which reads, “The town Brux herewith announces that a price guarantee will be granted for beef at 3,231 gold pieces per ton. This guarantee is valid for a delivery that arrives no later than the first day of June.”Above that is a second notice, which reads, “The town of Dachau seeks a company of soldiers who will perform duties in the defense of those good families that dwell within. There is need for no less than thirty men, well-equipped, led by a learned gentleman of quality standing. The weekly pay shall be 347 gold pieces.”And above that, a third notice, which reads, “The Lord Mayor’s election is to take place on the 24 May 1650. The following citizens have been nominated to date: The competent Lord Mayor Martin Folkes. The competent Councillor Erich Kinski. The competent Patrician Eduard Johannsen. The experienced Patrician Eberhardt Hornung.”
And then, just for fun,
At the very bottom of these notices is a small wooden carved sign which reads, “Especially recommended today in the guild hall, Chicken pate with a good plum puree.”
Ah, this was such a long time ago. I had forgotten. I'll explain.
These are actually four adventure hooks. For the first three, I had no definite plan regarding how the experience might go; it would be up to the players how to get a ton of beef to the mining town of Brux, which would be in the modern day Czech Republic, a good many miles from the players in Dachau. The soldier job was going to be insanely dangerous, certainly worth 347 g.p., but to be honest I hadn't decided what "dangerous" would be, exactly ~ I had faith I'd come up with something by the time the players passed the interview process. The third was trickier ... it required the players play politics, volunteering to help whatever name on the list they chose.
As it happened, later in the campaign, Eberhardt Hornung became the benefactor of the party. Ultimately, Delfig the bard and Andrej the cleric, who still ran in the campaign until I closed it in 2017, went to fetch Hornung's sweetheart from Switzerland. They raided the castle where they fought the kobalds in an earlier masterclass, to help Hornung. It was Hornung that took over the city of Munster at one point, when the players had a brief urban adventure there. But here, he was just a name I pulled up. I expanded on the name later, when I needed a noble to contact the party.
The party never realized, the part that I'd forgotten until now, was that the Chicken Pate with plum puree waited to be eaten by everyone, purchaser and merchant alike. And that sitting at a wooden bench, in the eating hall, they were bound to be seated across from some friendly, common merchant, who might like the cut of their jib, and offer to stand up for them, if the players presented themselves well. It was right there, for the taking ... but Tiberius, charged with going to the guild hall, wasn't hungry.
Tiberius: Tiberius tries to walk nonchalantly past the guards and up the stairs.DM: The standing guard nods pleasantly at you as you pass.
Uh oh. This is straight pattern recognition. When a player starts using words like "nonchalant," a DM has to be like a firefighter that smells smoke. Tiberius has a plan. And whatever it is, it is bound to be a very bad idea ... and because I am not investing the residents of the guildhall with my knowledge of player characters, and because there is absolutely no reason why Tiberius can't walk to the second floor (it's not restricted), I have to let it go. The best I can do is emphasize, STANDING guard at the front of my sentence, in the hopes that Tiberius will realize, oh, right, if I screw up here, that guard will beat my brains in.
But ... no, that's not what the players think. Because, particularly in this case, these players are not very familiar with "making their own adventure." They don't realize that just as I have to think through how to build a guild hall in their imagination, and that I need to put a smile on the guard's face, and the word "standing" in front of the noun predicate, the player needs to think it through what they plan to do. And experience says, for a player not used to having agency, thinking at the beginning is a rare gift.
Josef [after some uncertainty]: I'll hang back - try to engage the guards in conversation. Assuming they're amenable: [he asks the guard] "I hope to ask a question. My patron is seeking to hire guards for a journey he and I must make to Ingolstadt. Would you know of any armsmen, such as yourself, that might be available?"
Again, poor Josef. I try to encourage players to think how this sentence would go if Josef were to walk up to a group of four police officers at the local Starbucks and say these exact same words, replacing "guard" with "cop," "Ingolstadt" with any town name forty miles from where you are, and "armsmen" with "gun carriers," how do they think that would go?
It is what I said before; the players haven't that much actual experience talking with real people in the actual world. They have never, ever, had to ask anything from a real guard in an actual bank plaza, except perhaps, "Where is the bathroom?" The absurdity of this sort of question, to these sort of people, is the result of that lack of personal experience.
And because of this, most DMs are ready to let it go. I have to believe that most DMs are probably in the ballpark of, "Well, what's wrong with what the player said?" Most DMs haven't had the real experience of dealing with actual guards, either. The problem is, however, that I have. And although I'm not trying for a world that's a simulation of anything, I do want the guards to act in a manner differently from not guards, in a way that makes them intimidating and frightening, so that players ~ when they see guards ~ feel a legitimate reason to experience that "under the eye" feeling that we all have when there are four cops at a Starbucks seated at the next table over. It is not the moment to talk about how we've got to get some pills before getting to Marta's party.
For Josef, however, rather than choose to intimidate him, I decided to go with a joke:
DM: “Not us, sir,” says the first guard.“Ingolstadt,” says the second, “That whore’s town? I wouldn’t go there if—”The third guard interrupts: “I’m from Ingolstadt,” he mutters meanly.“Ah, from,” says the second guard emphatically. “And why is that?”“You know why.”“I just want to hear you say it.”
This is very '40s Hollywood. A couple minutes more and the guards are fighting each other. The joke is as old as Plautus (look him up). The joke falls flat on the player, who proceeds to play it straight for the rest of the discourse ~ which I'll leave off, because it's not part of my agenda today. Perhaps another day I can talk about the earnestness of players and why it makes poor role-play. Let's go back to Tiberius, who is going upstairs. I give him this description of the second floor.
DM: The second floor has been prepared for a banquet. There are six tables, each with fourteen settings, tablecloths, pewter candlesticks, porcelain plates, copper cutlery and ceramic cups. Dinner has not yet been served, but about a dozen gentlemen and an equal number ladies are standing in the open area between the table and the left wall, gossiping. Before you can move any further forward, a shorter, well-fed man standing next to a tall, small-topped table holding only a book places a gentle hand on your shoulder. He has been looking at your fairly acceptable but road-dusted attire and asks, “Kind sir, you come from which city?”
This is the dining hall. I'm giving a second chance at the chicken pate with plum puree. I am practically waving my hands furiously and screaming. I'm doing everything except setting up a flashing neon-light ~ but Tiberius, like Josef, is playing it straight and missing the point. Because, like Josef, the player has no idea what sort of people would be seated at such a dining hall. Being a member of the 21st century, things like this are by invite only ~ the vaguest whisper that this might be available to anyone, because it was actually advertised on the ground floor, is utterly alien to his preconception.
Tiberius: Tiberius looks at the shorter man in the eye and answers with a smile and a friendly tone. "I've recently travelled through from Munich, though I have stayed in this fair town for several weeks. My name is Tiberius. What is your name?"Amid socializing, Tiberius will ask the following questions: "What is this banquet for?"; and "What is your occupation?"; and "Who are the other people here?"DM: “This is the Guild’s Hall Dinner. I am the concierge of the dinner. It is restricted to members of the Dachau merchant's guild and to visiting guild members who visit here from other towns. Are you a merchant, sir?”
Note the player's sentence structure: I have questions, I'm getting these out of the way. I'm making no connections that the well-fed man holding a book and approaching him is a concierge, because as DM, I haven't said, "The concierge approaches you." Without the signifier, the player can't recognize him. There's no uniform, because the year is 1650 and even the army doesn't wear uniforms yet. The questions are heavy handed and, frankly, rude. Once again, imagine walking up to a stranger and demanding to know, "What is your occupation?" Or, "Who are these other people?" The player, because of a lack of experience, hasn't tuned into that. He is just trying to play the game.
How patient NPCs are in the game is up to the DM. Do we overlook the rudeness? Do we call the guards? What is appropriate here? How much leeway do we want to allow the player, recognizing that each time the player acts a certain way, without consequences, sends the message, "This is the appropriate way to act." It is, again, a DM's trap.
Come down hard on the player, have the guard toss him into an alley, and we're bound to convince the player that rich people are all assholes and maybe they'd learn something if I light the building on fire. Conciliate the player and expect to have a player stand in front of a king one day with, "What up, yer Highness? Ja fuck the Queen today?"
As a DM, you establish the boundaries of propriety every time you and the player talk. If the player takes things too earnestly, like Josef, it can be hard to break down that seriousness, but you have to try: either by setting up a joke, as I did, or saying to the player, "Hey, that was a joke; relax, try to have fun ... and maybe you'd better not start your role-playing in a merchant's guild by lying to the guards there." [which he does; follow the link]
My approach to Tiberius was to try and set him up with a table at the Guild's Hall Dinner. Note the language: "... restricted to members of the Dachau merchant's guild and to visiting guild members who visit here ..."
Here's the big moment. One lie, and you get to sit at a table and talk to merchants. "Yes," you say, and you're in. This is the 17th century. There are ten thousand towns in Europe. You could be a member of the merchant's guild from any of them. Who would know? Do we suppose the concierge, in this time, knows every merchant guild member in Europe, or has them written in his book?
Ah, but Tiberius has a plan. And here it is:
Tiberius: Tiberius gives a furtive glance around the room to see if anyone is watching. Then, he moves his hands in marked, fixed patterns, saying arcane words, aimed at the concierge.Tiberius casts Charm Person, targeting the concierge.
This whole post could be about the way player characters perceive the way spells work. And the way a culture would have to work in order to manage spell use, if it were possible to cast charm person on anyone, as easily as lighting them up with a flash light. I'd have to have fifty bowmen in a gallery, watching the floor, eyes peeled like Hawkeye, waiting for the tiniest "marked, fixed pattern," so that the spellcaster could be gutted on the floor with ten or twenty arrows in a burst, in case the spell being cast was fireball, disintegrate, conjure earth elemental or fifty other spells of mass destruction.
Effectively, in a spell-present culture, Tiberius effectively walked into a guild hall, pulled open his coat and revealed that he had strapped fifty pounds of TNT to his torso. At least, as far as anyone might know, before the spell was actually cast.
Arguably, this made sense to the player. Spells are there to be used; and a DM ought to appreciate that he was using his character's abilities to solve a problem. He wasn't trying to charm a merchant; he just wanted to charm the concierge so that he could get close to a merchant. He had no malevolent intentions ~ probably ~ he most likely thought this was a good way to get a seat at the table.
But if the world is occupied by the use of magic; and if magic is common enough that an ordinary player character, whose been lately warming a bench at the local pub with his butt for the last two months, can have magic at his disposal, we ought to assume that he's not that unusual. And that any concierge has come up through the ranks, and knows how dangerous magic is, and how to stop it.
Magic requires concentration. This means the magic-user must concentrate to cast the spell; this concentration cannot be broken. I know that 5th Edition, like other editions, has circumvented this; but I really think that is pretty silly. Magic can work exactly like a suicide-bomber; and given the presence of resurrection, where all you need is a knuckle-bone, why not send a suicide bomber to take out a competing guild? Great for your bottom line.
So the concierge puts a hand on Tiberius' shoulder, gives a light push, breaks the mage's concentration, and that's it. One ruined spell. Oh, "ruined spell" is a phrase we used to use in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Back in the day.
Well, forget the rule change. The basic premise is no different if Tiberius decided to walk the concierge into a private back room and kill him there. The point is that the player didn't know how to handle their own agency. Because they'd had no practice at it. The DM had always set up the adventures for him. This was probably his first time having to solve a problem himself. We can't blame him for trying to fix a washing machine with a sledge hammer.
Following the scene, Tiberius tried to talk his way out ... like a suicide bomber who pulled the cord on the dynamite, had it no go off, then tried to talk his way out of it. He was arrested and sent to jail and I got him out on a technicality. Not long after, he quit the campaign.
Codependency. The experience was embarrassing for the player. And it could not be followed with learning anything, for in the player's mind the problem was the rule about spell concentration. In any story-driven adventure scenario, the charm person spell would have been intended by the DM, counted on, so that the concierge could give important exposition, that the players would then follow to the next part of the story. The idea that the concierge was just there, to help the providing of a dinner to merchants who were just there, was an utterly alien concept.
I created the scene in order to play to the players' intention to investigate an existing building; and since it was a unique building, I peppered it with hooks ... that were missed, because the neon sign wasn't flashing brightly enough. Most DMs, I know, who run story games, will simply say, "You have to lie to the concierge, then talk to the merchant in the green coat ..." And everything will just work out.
It's easier.
But challenge and success aren't about what's easier. Easier is a crutch; as in, it is easier to get through this day with a quart of vodka. It is easier if I take these two pills before I start my shift. It is easier to keep taking the pills than to stop taking them. It is easier to pretend we're having fun, if it means I don't have to make a real decision and possibly think too much. It's easier if the DM tells me where to go, and what to do, and what I need.
And it is much, much easier if the players will just go where we tell them, and do what they're supposed to do, and need what we're giving them.
