From: smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Improvisation!
Date: 21 Aug 92 20:58:20 GMT
Reply-To: smith@ctron.com
Organization: Cabletron Systems, Inc.

In article <1992Aug20.062906.27952@tronsbox.xei.com>, dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com (Dennis Heffernan) writes:
>In article <1992Aug19.143910.13887@solix.udac.uu.se> magnus@nexto.udac.uu.se (Magnus Ring) writes:

>|OK. Say you have your properly written mystery with a lot of clues and stuff
>|for the players to find in proper places. After a while you find that your
>|players never locate any of the main clues. They get into numerous useless  
>|sidetracks (some of wich you might not have any prepared material for).
>|Here you have two choises. You could let the players drift of and never get
>|closer to the solution. Hardly much fun for anybody. Your second choise is  
>|to start pushing the players in the right direction. That, IMHO,  
>|would be 'changing reality'. I think this would really offend me as a  
>|player.

>	Real simple answer:  THEY FAIL.  The crime goes unsolved; justice is
>not served; the perp walks.  And he'll probably rub their noses in it on the

If the players were really bad, this is in inevitable result.  But if they
operated in a reasonable fashion, made reasonable or better choices, and
_still_ failed, then the problem lies in the scenario.  If you did not fix
that problem on the fly, then you are not just a poor improv GM, you are a
poor GM, and I can prove it by the most basic metric around, your players
didn't have fun.  That is, after all, the entire purpose of the game.  Your
players are not professional sleuths, they are not never going to miss a
bet, success should be implied by the quality of the experience.  If they
play their roles well, if they game well, then they should succeed.  If they
step out of character, or bicker, or work at cross-purposes, or otherwise
damage their own cause, they should fail.

>way out...after all, the only real penalties for failure in an RPG are death
>and disgrace, and the former is way too final.  This is happening in my
>campaign even as we speak; in one thread (a fairly typical drug-dealer
>scenario) the players are flopping around without much of a clue, and in the
>other ("The Killer Out Of Space" from Cthulhu Now, being run in a GURPS
>Supers game....) the player is being a total moron; after an important NPC
>(General Drako, for those with the module) made it perfectly clear that he
>wasn't going to take any bull, the player mouthed off at him.  I did
>improvise a save here, since being stuck in jail would have been tantamount
>to a death sentence, but his karma meter is on the floor now, and it's very
>unlikely that he'll be able to achieve the personal goals that lead him to
>the scenario in the first place (a subplot I added to the module).

Then, forgive me, but I think you have your priorities backwards.  The players
without much a clue are not gaming badly, they simply are not realizing what
is going on, _they_ deserve a helping hand.  The moron, by your own words,
had it coming, and you didn't give it to him.  How is this improving the
experience of the game?  It doesn't sound like fun to me.

>	Leaving MODE_ANECDOTE, there has to be a reasonable chance of failure
>in order for success to have any meaning whatsoever.  Improvised scenarios
>basically boil down to the GM letting the players flop around for a while,

Never.  If they flop around, they will accomplish little, and they will be
prey to all the stuff that is happening around them.  Stay in one spot too
long and the monsters will find you, ignore the problem and the consequences
will occur anyway.  They must _work_, they must be able to figure out the
mode and motif of the scenario, just as with prep (and these _do_ exist, even
in improv).  They must show me they are on their toes, that they are thinking,
using their brains, brawn, and talents.  The must help make the scenario
happen for I will never just hand them victory on a silver platter.  If your
players are not physically tired at the end of a game, you didn't make them
work hard enough.

>then delivers the answer.  There's not much chance that they'll fail; that

Hardly.  Not only is the chance good, it happens.  No it isn't fun, nor is
it fun to lose a cherished character, or have one rot in jail, but it happens
unless some cleverness on the part of the players gives me an excuse to give
them another chance.  If they don't search the jail cell, they won't find the
loose stone.

>would be "hardly much fun".  This is why I hate them.  I want victory
>because I EARNED it, not victory by fiat.  It's like cheating at
>solitaire...pointless.

If you get victory in one of my games, you _earned_ it, Laddie.  My villains
do not pull their punches and you aren't guaranteed diddly squat under the
floorboards just because you were clever enough to look.  Not everything
the players trigger in improv is favorable, and they must live with the
consequences of anything that happens, good or ill.  And if they don't do
anything, something will happen _to_ them, just as it will in real life.

>	Alternately, some brave (or sadistic) improv GM's might decide NOT to
>hand over the answer and let the players fail, but this is just as bad.  I
>want to fail because I FAILED, not have defeat inflicted upon me.  I'll go
>insult the college football team if I want to get beaten up by overwhelming
>force.

If you fail in my game, then you earned _that_ as well.  _Any_ scenario is
the product of the GM's imagination, it hardly matters when it is created.
I could "inflict" failure on you months in advance, if I were so minded, or
immediately.  The question is not "can I win" - I'm the GM, of course I
can win - the question is "can I make it fun".  My players tell me I can.

>|I think you missed the whole point with improvisation. There is no  
>|reality for the GM to change until you made your action. The GM  
>|respond to what you do. There is nothing saying what you do has to be  
>|the right solution. The GM is still free to think your action was the  
>|wrong one if he likes to.

>	Right:  there is no right answer to the problem, so my actions are
>meaningless.  Imagine "solving" a Rubik's Cube that changed color so that no
>matter how you turned it, it came up right.  Why bother?

You still have it in mind that improv invariably means helping the players.
It doesn't.  Improv means adding elements to a scenario during play, those
elements may help, hinder, or be total red herrings.  Your actions are not
meaningless because they have a consistent history backing them, if the thread
of the action leads to success, then success is yours and you will feel you
earned it.  But if you game with the idea that nothing you do matters, that
the GM is "just making it up" you are entering the scenario with a totally
self-defeating attitude.  You will inevitably create a poor gaming experience,
and you'll get what you deserve.

Larry Smith (smith@ctron.com)  No, I don't speak for Cabletron.  Need you ask?
-
How about we all do something reasonable?  I bet that'll confuse 'em!
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc