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You walk into a room. What do you do? (aka giving players direction)

Servo

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How many times has this happened to you...

The DM describes a scene. Some lore dump occurs. Then the question is popped "What do you do?" Everyone at the table has a blank stare.

This happened to me just the other night. We were playing Out of Anarchy, which starts with a massive lore dump. I think it took like 15 minutes for the GM to intro the characters, factions, locations, etc. The dude was literally out of breath when he looked up and asked the party "What do you do?" We kind of looked at each other and said "Uh, we'll go to the first place." After another 5 minutes describing the location we chose, he asked again "What do you do?" To which we responded "Uh, we'll talk to the bartender." This kept happening. Nothing interesting happened for like the first two hours of play until we finally saw some combat.

Part of the problem was the size of the scenario. It has a ton of content and is probably hard to squeeze into a four hour session.

Another part of the problem was the setup. The motivation and the objective are somewhat unclear. The players are simply bystanders much of the time. When things start to progress it's not due to the party's actions but things happening around them.

I think both of these problems could be helped if not solved by giving the players options. e.g., instead of "What do you do?", ask "Do you..."

1. Go to location a where contact x was last seen and ask them for information.
2. Go to location b where it is rumored an underground movement is happening.
3. Go to location c where strange lights and sounds have been reported.

When it comes to gathering information, there should be obstacles, which would give the players additional direction. e.g., there's a fight in the bar and someone breaks a bottle over your head, initiating combat. Or you have to do the guards a favor before they will let you in.
 
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Black

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Always flip the turtle back on its legs when you first enter. Always.
 

Night Goat

The Immovable Autism
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Oh, it's Out of Anarchy. I haven't played that one, but other PFS players have told me to never play it because it's terrible.
 

Servo

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Hi guise! What if we replaced the only thing PnP RPGs are actually spectacularly good at with a CYOA?

Not sure if trolling. PnP RPGs are spectacularly good at collaborative storytelling, which suffers when players have no idea what's going on or what they're doing. I'm suggesting in these cases that options are presented instead of an extremely vague question.

It sounds like the DM is a conductor on a railroad.

I was trying to give the DM the benefit of doubt but I suspect this is true in addition to the scenario being lousy. That was my first PFS scenario and I hope they aren't all railroads.

Really though, you've never been at a table where the DM asks "What do you do?" and everyone stares?
 

Havoc

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I never use prebuilt scenarios. Fuck them. The only thing I use from them is maybe NPCs, the map (or dungeon with monsters) and some kind of twist. That's it.
 

Neanderthal

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Yeah sounds too enamoured of his own creation, easy trap to fall into as a GM, you've got this awesome (you think) scenario set up and the players are gonna bloody enjoy it by god! I'd just cut the monologues and rely on the players to set up everything: Have them ask what's around, ask them if they have heard anything about the place, do they have any contacts here, what do they want to do? This way the players have a certain freedom and are looking for something of interest, not being sheparded into the plot by the nose.

If you make enough interesting features, situations and characters then the characters will choose something to investigate, they want to find that content and so you just help them. They'll make their own adventure that with a few little adjustments can lead right into the scenarios you've already set up, or even lead to more interesting developments.

Good introductions are usually simple interesting situations: A man staggers into a bar blood covered and wild eyed, lays a notched knife on the bar and empties a tankard as the locals back away. The merchants shut up shop as the characters approach, long before the end of day and advise the players to get off the street as they hurry away. The locals are close mouthed and wary, rumours that the Overlords black guard are seeking something are muttered everywhere, just then the doors of the flophouse smash open. A simple mugging that you would normally just shrug off as idiots too full of themselves turns strange when you find the attackers all bear a strange tattoo, and bare afflictions, for some reason a strange cult has targeted you.
 
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Xathrodox86

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He may indeed be railroading the shit out of you, but sometimes the "what do you do" shtick means exactly the opposite thing. I use it from time to time to encourage my players to start exploring stuff and search, or even invent (I hardly write every single detail in my campaigns, preffering my PC's to "stumble" upon them) them in the course of their actions. It usually works and has nothing to do with railroading.
 

DraQ

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Servo

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canned options

Think of it as giving ideas or suggestions. In case you couldn't tell or didn't read very carefully I'm not a big fan of canned scenarios either, so that was definitely not my intent.
 

DraQ

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canned options

Think of it as giving ideas or suggestions. In case you couldn't tell or didn't read very carefully I'm not a big fan of canned scenarios either, so that was definitely not my intent.
But giving players a list of canned options is just that.

IMO if players are derping around it's either:
  • GM and/or adventure being crap - not conveying stuff, not creating good enough motivation, stalling progression with huge infodumps for no good reason, etc.
  • Players lacking agency due to being dumb or trying to meta-game (rather than lousy GMing skill and lack of proper incentives).
The former needs to be fixed rather than bypassed with canned responses and the latter can always be offset with some urgent enough event.
 

Ninjerk

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Roll for anal circumference
This is the problem with GMs thinking their ideas are great. You write those in novels, not campaigns.
 

Elim

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Project: Eternity
For me this sounds like shit players and the GM tried to give you a sandbox.
Asking "what do you do?" is pretty normal, imho. A GM should REACT to stuff, not telling "his story" and the players just should not be like stupid muppets and gaze into the void if they do not get a quest compass.

GM: So, we are going to play Warhammer
<Characters get made, everyone knows what they play>
GM: You all sit in a tavern, it's evening so it is filled to the brim, you hear yelling and laughter and it smells of sweat, piss and beer. There is a group of tough looking guys harassing the barwench. What do you do?
Friedrich the mercenary: Huh, I know these guys, I go to them and sit down with them, asking them what they are up to and if X is alive. (See, X is a character the player wants to see, write that down, you fuck.)

Initiative, people. Don't dump like 90% of the work on the GM. Drive the story, this is the job of the player.


Also fuck info dumps, build the world together. Imho every GM trying to force his story on the players sucks.
2-3 sentences max.

Oh, and fuck this CYOA shit, it's a RPG. If the GM needs to give you options you can chose you as a player fucked up because your imagination is dead.
 

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