>On 12 Apr 00, at 9:10, Pavel Ivanovich wrote:
>
>>  I can understand your reticence to conclude that there's a problem 
>>with the way
>>  that the GM is running the game, but I can imagine how this sort 
>>of thing might
>>  have gone so wrong in the first place.
>>
>>  This is a GM who has made a shift in game style, and his players are being a
>>  little slow to catch up -- but it's also his first time running this sort of
>>  game.  He believes he's offering the sort of game that would appeal to his
>>  players because they like strategy games, and yet they don't like 
>>this game --
>  > what could the problem be?

     I often question whether I have an accurate read on my player's 
knowledge of the setting. Understanding just how much your players 
know is particularly important when the genre involves intrigue, 
politics or detective work.

     As the GM you know everything about the world. You understand the 
interrelationships between events and people. When crafting the 
campaign, you create cues that you believe the players will pick up 
on, based on what you think they know about the setting. If you 
overestimate their degree of comprehension things will fall apart 
quickly.

     In these types of campaigns it might be useful to foreshadow 
clues or key events by reinforcing the aspect of the campaign they 
refer to. If you intend to drop a shiny new key in the path of your 
players as a clue, with the intent they visit the local locksmith to 
see who it was made for, you'd better reinforce the existence of the 
locksmith first. Otherwise, your players may not realize this option 
and instead go wandering off testing the key on every lock in town. 
If, the day before finding the key, one of the characters had bumped 
into the locksmith on the street, spilling a box of uncut key 
templates, they would probably remember him when they discover their 
clue.

Brian Koppi - chikoppi@21stcentury.net
Si vis pacem, para bellum - If you wish for peace, be prepared for war
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