Course Corrections

[mietze]

What's wrong with staff saying "Clearly you've put thought into this and we respect that but it's not a direction the game is going to go, no matter what you roll, by our choice?"

There's no need to do weird contortions to justify it, just say "We don't want that within the scope of the game."

Will some players get huffy or feel constrained? Yes. Would they have probably found something else to bitch about? Yes. Is it unreasonable for players to have the expectation that they have truly free reign without boundaries to change anything at all in the game environment whenever they wish to start rolling for it or because they want to? Yes. Has our community coddled this a bit by letting people down easy, throwing down false mechanical barriers, and deflecting the question so as not to cause a fit? Yes.

As to course corrections player to player--unless you have a cordial ooc relationship with that player or they ask you point blank...don't. Do not offer unsolicited advice. It will likely be received in the same manner that you'd feel where they to tell YOU how to play (their way) on the same game. Limit your play with them if you truly can't stand it.

If staff doesn't notice flagrant violations of theme in their presence or promotes that player despite their obvious lack of interest in the theme ooc and sloppy attention to what other people are doing--then honestly the problem is not the player. It's the staff. Don't blame a player for destroying theme immersion that the staff is unwilling or unable to deal with.

[Packrat]

@Ganymede said in Course Corrections:

@surreality said in Course Corrections:

I don't think it's necessary to, say, uncreate bats just so people won't make gunpowder from guano (though if someone wants to do that, that's their call and I support their right and choice to make it), or perhaps more accurately, I do not feel it should not be necessary to go that far in order to be able to say: we really don't want to go in that direction with this game/do not want to drastically change the game world in the ways that idea would inevitably change it.

My objection to taking such a stance is how horridly insipid it is relative to the development of modern firearms, which took almost 1,000 years. Plus, gunpowder existed, but was seldom used during the late medieval/renaissance period of European history, from which much of fantasy seems to be lifted from. (For example, full suits of plate armor did not exist until after cannons were used in the Battle of Crecy, 1346.)

Pretty much this, gunpowder developed a lot over time for that matter, not just how it was used. Your basic 'early' gunpowder was quite expensive to make and would tend to differentiate into it's component ingredients if left to sit around, which meant it started off not hugely powerful then rapidly degraded over time. Siege and even handheld weapons did use the stuff but it was relatively rare and for personal weapons less effective than a crossbow.

Handheld weapons started as novelties then evolved to being used because they were much cheaper than crossbows to make and very low on maintenance, if inaccurate and very slow to reload. Typically used as multi barreled weapons for siege defense or perhaps wall weapons for militia (again, for siege defense, where reload times do not matter nearly so much.).

14th century, wet grinding allowed production of gunpowder that was more of a paste and did not differentiate, this made it cheaper mostly because it could be stored for longer periods of time (also more infrastructure and better developed production methods). Cheaper powder and very simple ammunition meant that gunpowder was starting to get very cost effective, this is not down to the 'it takes less time to train somebody to use a gun' factor, it was the cost of the weapons and ammunition. Basically a handgonne might cost 1/3 as much as a crossbow due to lacking moving parts and you did not have to worry about replacing bits nearly as often, plus powder and lead shot was easier to make than quarrels, but the weapons were basically inferior to a good crossbow in action.

15th century, 'corned' powder, rolled into grains, which improved the lifespan of powder even more and when done properly, basically doubled the power of gunpowder due to allowing more air in the mix to allow rapid combustion. At this point, by the mid 15th century, you start getting handheld firearms that outperform crossbows in penetration, plus both longbows & crossbows in range and accuracy. Still slow firing and not hugely reliable but they had a genuine battlefield role. They were certainly not the objectively superior weapon though and a hundred years later in the mid 16th century, crossbows or longbows were very much competitive weapons used by professional troops of well funded militaries.

Mid or late 15th century is also what a lot of people think of when they think of fantasy, full plate armour, etc. It was also very much an age with field artillery and firearms, the armies of Burgundy for example, had one handgunner for every eight man 'lance', along with a knight or man at arms, a light cavalryman, three archers, a crossbowman and a pikeman. Keep in mind that this was over two hundred years after gunpowder's introduction to mainland Europe, with two centuries of development, eager development. It was not a case of kings and knights retarding development, kings in particular loved cannons, they were expensive (and thus only kings tended to have a siege train) but allowed the breaking down of castles relatively quickly, thus giving them far more power relative to rebelling lords.

Of course James II of Scotland loved cannons too much and died when one exploded on him.

So history ramblings aside, I can both see why people would 'fear' gunpowder in their games and also why it is silly to do so. Looked at 'realistically', introducing firearms into a medieval fantasy is not going to make Robin Hood expys or knights in shining armour with swords irrelevant, but in practice? Somebody is going to want to develop six shooters or expect their musket to act like a Garand, ignoring that those advancements took centuries of incremental advancement in metallurgy, powder manufacture, the development of springs, blast furnaces, etc.

[Thenomain]

@mietze said in Course Corrections:

What's wrong with staff saying "Clearly you've put thought into this and we respect that but it's not a direction the game is going to go, no matter what you roll, by our choice?"

Again, nothing. Just as there is nothing wrong with a player being excited to learn the technology level of their favorite fantasy world.

I wish more staff would say "no" this way, because it shows that they have an understanding that the player is trying to engage with the game, and that's the motivation you want out of players!

But a lot of staff take the attitude that this player is being a problem, and get short with them out of habit. It's a terrible staff habit, and even staff need course corrections.

If the player fights back then yes, there's absolutely a reason to direct them to the Great Egress, but staff aren't exempt from the expectations of people not being crude when they're being honest.

[Paris]

I don't see why it's necessary to feel like you have to (be the one to) 'advance' a game's technology. They wanted a pre-gun setting, go join a game with guns, or start one, instead of trying to force that kind of theme change (slow or not). You can affect things as a player without needing to do that, why the fixation?

My characters tend to use guns on games where they're available, but I don't feel the need to push that on games where they don't yet exist. Society doesn't need to advance that rapidly on a MUSH (especially real-time ones), and the concept of society needing to advance or to advance via gunpowder is unnecessary and arbitrary. Societies stay pretty similar for hundreds or thousands of years, why is NOW (at present MUSH time) suddenly necessary?

IMO, staff just need to say, 'No, that's not our theme and we're not interested,' if that's the case, and it's a reasonable answer.

[faraday]

@surreality said in Course Corrections:

As staff, what do you tell this player?

"Sorry, no. <and here's why>" usually works pretty well for me

If it's not too crazy of an idea, you can also try the "No, but..." angle. Turn their idea into something that isn't game-breaking. No, you cannot win the war by inventing a Cylon-killing computer virus, BUT you can influence a major battle by messing with them for a time.

Either way, a game has constraints. It is not unreasonable to expect players to stay within them.

[Ganymede]

@Paris said in Course Corrections:

I don't see why it's necessary to feel like you have to (be the one to) 'advance' a game's technology. They wanted a pre-gun setting, go join a game with guns, or start one, instead of trying to force that kind of theme change (slow or not). You can affect things as a player without needing to do that, why the fixation?

The discussion is on the reasoning, is all. The explanation of "this game is based on the Middle Ages / Renaissance, and therefore has no guns" holds no water with anyone with a working understanding of history. Even "this is a fantasy game" doesn't really mean much, given how many fantasy RPGs, like Warhammer and Final Fantasy, have a weird amalgam of technology and magic woven together.

If someone wants to try and invent the firearm, let them. Explain to them the steps necessary to get there, which may include having to research past experiments, conduct them, learn laws from them, apply those laws to the model, re-experiment, etc. After six months of jumping through hoops, you can calmly explain to them that this is what scientists and engineers have to go through to innovate, and if you want to bring a novel, new, world-changing technology, it isn't going to happen with a couple of rolls.

There are super-crazy ideas out there, but firearms in a Lords & Ladies game aren't crazy. Just really stupid.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

One of the things that keeps me at a certain distance to fantasy as a genre is the "stuck in time" nature of it. This is particularly glaring in series like A Song of Ice and Fire. It's been roughly feudal technology level for tens of thousands of years. That makes no damn sense. But it is a genre trope and I roll with it when I'm playing a fantasy game.

I do think an on-the-ball staffer should concoct and IC explanation for why there's no gunpowder, because it's really not a thing that's hard to innovate even at a low level of technology. For other things, like industrialization or even ideas like democracy, I do not think most players understand how radical this stuff seemed to someone who grew up in a society where they did not exist. It's an alien mindset that really hard to internalize.

[Arkandel]

@Packrat said in Course Corrections:

So history ramblings aside, I can both see why people would 'fear' gunpowder in their games

I don't think it's (necessarily) fear.

If I want epic high fantasy then guns just don't fit in that. It's not that they'd be overpowered, it's that thematically I want magical singing swords, not muskets.

Same thing with post-apocalyptic themes. Maybe I don't want to tell the story of how civilization was rebuilt and humanity claimed cities back, but gritty arcs where they're blocking tiny reservations with debris to keep the zombies out just long enough to not be eaten.

Not all games can be all things to all people, you know?

[Ganymede]

@Arkandel said in Course Corrections:

If I want epic high fantasy then guns just don't fit in that. It's not that they'd be overpowered, it's that thematically I want magical singing swords, not muskets.

If the magical singing swords are demonstrably more powerful and easier-to-use than a musket, no one's going to want one. Except for the crazy dude that gets his head chopped off by a villain with a magical singing sword.

[Ghost]

One course correction I've had to make from time to time is GOOGLE-BASED CHARACTER SKILLS and SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY WIZARDRY

SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY WIZARDRY​
When a player is playing in a setting where certain tech that exists today doesn't exist. Let's use gunpowder as an example. All of the sudden their character suddenly gets the urge to experiment with charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur and OOPS they discover gunpowder. Next? Their character will assuredly stumble over the invention of muskets...

Look, it's an RPG, not CivIV. While it may sound interesting to become Copernicus, Tesla, Salk, and Curie all at the same time, the end goal for every player that does this is to gain an advantage over the current tech in the setting. When the end goal is to sack Rome with X-Wing starfighters, the game is broken beyond repair. Knowing this won't stop players from wanting to make this happen, though. It turns into playing with cheat codes, which gets boring.

GOOGLE-BASED CHARACTER SKILLS
Playing in a modern setting with a character with zero points in investigation? LOOK NO FURTHER THAN GOOGLE ICLY! Why bother investing points in certain skills when the player can look up how to make a homemade bleach bomb online, present it to the GM, and claim that their character is capable of following the instructions as means to justify hand-waived skill checks!

I run into this second one CONSTANTLY. Once, an entire CSI website of using homemade chemicals to do detective work was used by a player whose character had few investigative skills as a justification for tracking someone. So they tried to explain rolls weren't needed.

1. Even if following written instructions, an Int+Investigation roll (maybe with a bonus die) would be rolled to determine how well the instructions were followed. There should be no such thing as a complex task that isn't tied to a dice roll. Zipping your pants without castrating yourself doesn't require a dice roll. Wiping your own ass? No dice roll. Following instructions in the Anarchist's Cookbook to mix gasoline and chainsaw oil into a lightbulb to use it as a bomb? Needs a roll, even with instructions
2. THAT SHIT IS METAGAMEY AS HELL (Using investigation as an example) So, you mean to tell me your character with ZERO dice in investigation OR computer would think to browse fucking Tor of all things to get instructions on homemade espionage tools? A zero in computers is your grandmother who still uses AOL, and even she is closer to a 1 in computers than a zero, and just as likely to think to purchase a license to a Swedish server cluster to access the DARKNET. Your character sheet is a reflection of what your C-H-A-R-A-C-T-E-R knows. Not you. I don't care if you're​ OOCly Benedict Cumberbatch and method-acted learning CSI deduction skills for use in fulfilling the roll of Sherlock on BBC. YOUR CHARACTER ISN'T ICly Benedict Cumberbatch and method-acted learning CSI deduction skills for use in fulfilling the roll of Sherlock on BBC.

[Arkandel]

@Ghost said in Course Corrections:

So, you mean to tell me your character with ZERO dice in investigation OR computer would think to browse fucking Tor of all things to get instructions on homemade espionage tools?

Two friends of mine were in a table-top campaign where one of them (who's a sound engineer iRL) was playing a barbarian stuck in a dungeon without any light or blind fighting skills. He claimed he could use the echoes of his own sound waves to ping the location of his enemies so he could hit them, and then also use the dungeon's accoustics to navigate its tunnels.

I don't know what bullshit stinks the most, that this would be a plausible plan at all ("you can totally do it, that's how sound works!") or that his illiterate barbarian from some shitty village would possess sound engineering skills to fight his way out of total darkness.

[Ghost]

"...dude, I used an industrial facility to make minigun barrels all the time. IT'S NOT THAT HARD, DUDE. I WAS MIXING AMMO WHEN I WAS TEN."

While I approve of sexy Viking maidens with assault rifles...no. Not in my Game of Thrones MU.

[Misadventure]

The Character exists in that universe, not this one. Anything that allows you extraordinary capacity is a merit, or other game system.

I personally love the idea of research, investigation, experimentation to advance science or technology for certain eras. Sure, throw it into mash-up gizmo making for Steampunk or eccentric Rube Goldberg inventors everywhen, make it critical for keeping an edge in drug enhancements and computer security in cyberpunk, make is absolutely necessary and arduous for advancing the industrial era from Age of Exploration to Westerns aka Victoriana to pre-information technology. Make it slightly less a pain to deal with new/alien biology and exotic materials.

It will still take luck and years.

[Ghost]

@Misadventure Right. I mean, discovery is important to the mental/high intelligence character. I don't think there's anything wrong with discovery and creation of gadgets, etc, within the confines of the setting.

Where I draw the line:

• Recreating actual scientific discoveries. (Literally repeating Tesla's actual inventions and methodologies). No. You cannot Wikipedia the Edison/Tesla war to invent AC/DC technology or wireless radio. I'm okay with your love of Tesla giving you inspiration, but your character's ingenuity must be of their own design.
• Upgrading the technology level from stone age to extrasolar in weeks. While 5 hours a gaming session is reasonable, these things take time, effort, investment, and may require periods of simply NOT adventuring due to lab hours
• IC development cannot upset the logical power level of a game. I won't allow a game to turn into CYBORGS vs. LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Industrial espionage is a thing and, as a GM, I will use it if I get the sense the foray into discovery/science is being used to create an unbeatable advantage against the PvE aspect of the game.

[Ganymede]

@Ghost said in Course Corrections:

IC development cannot upset the logical power level of a game.

I want to hook on this because this is really what I've been getting at. This really should just be the cardinal rule.

When I get my dark fantasy game up and running, I don't care if someone wants to try to make a flintlock rifle, but I will tell them they are starting from scratch. I may even give them a rough estimate of how long it would take, time-wise, to get there: probably around a decade of constant experimentation and time-spending. Assuming they are okay with that, they can certainly bring their device to a battle, and it'll make a lovely weapon for the 15 seconds it takes for a mage to locate and explode them with a lightning bolt or for an ogre to absorb the bullet right before he bites the PC's head off.

And when they complain about why I would insist on making the process so realistic, I would not hesitate to tell them that if they want to remove the "fantasy game" shackles then they have to stop fantasizing about how awesome firearms might be in a world of demons, dragons, magic, and gods.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel said in Course Corrections:

I don't know what bullshit stinks the most, that this would be a plausible plan at all ("you can totally do it, that's how sound works!") or that his illiterate barbarian from some shitty village would possess sound engineering skills to fight his way out of total darkness.

When I run things my solution is perception rolls, most systems have some sort of mechanic to tell how well characters are able to perceive the environment they are in. In the barbarian example in D+D 3.5 for example i would allow the idea and be all make your listen check to see how well this works for you. Player still gets benefit of creativity sure but unless he has put point in listen it won't be much of one. If the barbarian has put a lot of point in listen then for whatever reason this particular barbarian likes cool sound tricks so have been playing with things and now has found a use for them.

Edit: My all time favorite reason for why gun powder won't work in a fantasy setting was from Spelljammer it mentioned that smoke powder (the AD&D version of gunpowder) went inert when brought into Greyhawk space. The reason, the gods decided it did. Simple, keeps the setting they way the authors want it and impossible to really argue against.

[mietze]

@Ganymede

You know what the sad thing is? Honestly having this process of experimentations and inevitable failures within the likely scope of the game could be so so so much fun to play. I once played an engineer on Fading Suns who pretty much just took apart and tried to figure out odd artifacts and tech. Pretty much I was given carte Blanche (within reason) to have in a scene some gadget she was tinkering with do amazing things as long as a) they were not useful, and b) the item was totally destroyed by the end of the scene. For anything that could be useful for her or used against any other PC I had to go through a pretty laborious real time waiting and working on things (though that was super fun too honestly).

It was pretty fun to play a crazy inventor/reverse engineer! Even though it didn't really win her social points with the other pcs icky.

So really why someone would bitch about having to go through extended trials and errors is hard for me to wrap my mind around, it would give you more motivation and things to talk about icly than a lot of people have outside sob stories!

[Miss Demeanor]

@Ghost This is going to be nitpicky as HELL, so... fair warning.

Computer 0 does not prevent some schlub with a library card and access to a shitty Dell with shitty internet access from Googling 'Anarchists Cookbook' or 'homemade bombs'. The Computer skill deals almost solely with one's ability to code, crack codes, graphic design, etc. It is not a measurement of your ability to surf the Net. Any 10 year old with a tablet can look that stuff up. That's not to say there wouldn't still be a ROLL, but trying to say in modern day that someone is incapable of looking something up through Google without a roll is just as ridiculous as the idiot claiming he can track someone successfully because someone posted a 'how to track someone' on a website. Practical application of any set of directions is rarely as easy as the directions would suggest. Unless you're talking Ikea. That shit is ridiculous in theory AND practice. I would demand an MS in engineering for that.

[Packrat]

That said, as a teenager I did build a functioning mortar that fired napalm bombs up to about two hundred meters. It was not accurate, reliable or safe, but it did not require more than the internet, some chemistry textbooks and very poorly supervised access to a school machine shop.

[Ghost]

@Miss-Demeanor The existence of how-to guides on the internet does not, by existence, justify the handwaving a roll needed to translate that information into a success. Time to complete the task (a recipe you know by heart is always prepared faster than if you need to keep reading directions), absorption of information, and the ability to translate those instructions accurately are all factors that should not be decided merely by the existence of online how-to guides.

In short, just because there's shit about it on YouTube, doesn't mean it counts as "ghost dots" on a character sheet, thus enabling people to min max their XP in other ways.

Let me give you an example
In RL, I write shell scripts. If you look up sh/bash/ksh scripting in Google, you're bound to find hundreds, if not thousands, of sites that include methodologies, discussions, tips, bad advice, scripting examples, and in some cases, entire guides on how to write scripts. Now, going in, my computer score is in the 3-4 range, and when I go to these sites, it's usually to find an answer as to why some syntax in one string isn't working like I think it should.

I'll take a snippet, test it, see if I like it. I apply it to my current skill and attribute levels to translate it into an action based on what I currently know.

Now, let's say you've never played around with shell scripting EVER

The existence of online guides doesn't guarantee you any form of timely success in understanding functions, variables, syntax, which text editors to use, regular expression, how to do math using code, if/then/elif/fi, for each in, conditionals, loops, etc. Applying those guides to your current level of knowledge will be good experience in raising your skill/attribute levels, but the existence of guides will not result in a solution in a timely, accurate, or immediately useful manner. In the end, even if you plugged together a script after hours of learning shell scripting for the first time, you might come away with a script that echoes commands, but it's sure as fuck not going to be some kind of java-based LowOrbitIonCannon DDoS tool.

Theres guides for making a boat, making knives, guns, bullets, sewing, cooking, fishing, Krav Maga, etc on the internet, but the existence of those only serve to allow practice to (in game terms) raise those skill/attribute ratings to use them effectively.

Some online guides are more within reason, but a GM should take care to not equate a player's ability to think to search for find these guides as a replacement for proper use of skills, especially if the result is critical to anything involving plot or other players.

tl;dr Online guides don't​ teach skill, accuracy, or guarantee absorption of the knowledge. Using 'online guides' ICly for little, non-plot things (bake a cake!) is more acceptable, but cutting corners by citing online guides to handwave dice rolls (by the PC or ST) is lazy and, in my definition, cheating the shortcomings of their XP expenditures. Not everyone can do everything, and online guides are no great equalizer. Online Guides=+1 bonus to existing skill/attr roll, and NOT an excuse to not roll.