I found this note on another list and thought it might mix up some good conversation here.
-pavel
Sender: The Art Of Game Mastering discussion list
Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 14:10:09 +0800
From: Lythurienne SunHawk
Subject: Incompetent Players or Incompetent GM?
To: TAOGM-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
I've been having some problems with my group. I run an Imperial-China
campaign, which of course involves some struggle with people in power. (Even
martial arts movies involve important people.)
Recently my players haven't been too happy. The goal of their current
adventure is to find a way to depose the corrupt magistrate of a certain
city; doing so will restore (most of) their good status with the Celestial
Beauracracy. (When good-aligned characters torture someone for information,
and later magically sedate guards and slit their throats, the gods generally
aren't too happy about it.) I meant the adventure to be relatively short --
get a little info on the magistrate, get some concrete evidence, reveal his
corruption to a higher-up, finish. However, this adventure has dragged on
for 5 sessions with very little progress.
It's probably my fault for mis-judging the preferences and abilities of my
players; however, as far as I can tell, all of them enjoy -- and are
successful at -- strategy games. These, obviously, can require extended
planning. My reasoning was that they should therefore be able to come up
with a good plan for completing this quest.
I'm not sure if maybe the reason this has gone on for so long is because I'm
making it too hard, and giving them too little information and resources to
work with.
Here is what one of my players e-mailed me about the game:
>If you'll allow me to make a suggestion on your game, don't give us missions
>that require planning and strategy, because we're really not too good at that.
>Maybe some puzzle-solving, but that's it. If you'll notice, the caves with the
>demons didn't require any planning at all, and we enjoyed that. Neither did the
>bandit camp, or the future session with Lloyd, Mike, and Emi. This whole
>magistrate thing just requires too much planning, since we can't exactly
just go
>into the palace and demand him to abdicate, and that's what's making it really
>tedious for both you and us players. The result is that the players get bored,
>and combat becomes the only way to break the slump, because they like to flaunt
>their powers. I'm pretty sure that we won't get anywhere at all with your
>adventure since toppling a monarch or ruler is just too complex a task for a
>bunch of, well, treasure-hunters, and to be honest, I don't think I'll
return >to your game anymore.
I have found that my players are almost completely unsuited to this task,
and, surprisingly, were unable to perform certain actions that would have
greatly speeded up their progress.
Let me explain. There exists one NPC who is very closely related to the
magistrate. The PCs wanted to find out where he lived. (If they'd been
successful in that, and in observing the inside of the domicile, they would
have learned a great deal of useful information.) The easiest way to do
that, of course, is to follow him. One of the PCs -- a fighter-mage -- took
the priest PC in tow (to guard his back) and started following the suspect.
He said, "I follow him, just far back enough that if he starts running I can
catch up to him in a few steps. Also, I continually keep one hand on the
hilt of the dagger at my belt." Did I forget to mention that this is a very
suspicios person he's following? (I thought that the PCs should have known
this by the evasive way he answered any questions posed him.) He noticed
this guy walking a little way behind him with a hand on a dagger, and took a
circuitious route to shake him off. Finally, my PC said, "Maybe he notices
me. Okay, instead of just following behind him, I'll circle around the
street, pretending to look at the stores around. I'll always move on when he
does." So, basically, the PC starts shark-circling the NPC. Still with a
hand on his dagger. Yep, thinks the NPC, of *course* this guy with a hand on
his dagger isn't following me. He's only been walking behind me for the last
20 minutes while I walk all over the city. He only walks in circles -- wide
circles, of course -- around me while I walk all over the city again. (He
is, of course, thinking this sarcastically.) Meantime, the priest who was
supposed to guard the first PC's back, went off on a tangent when he
realized that the NPC probably knew he was being tailed. His reasoning was
that doing so would make the NPC less suspicious. He stayed off the trail
too far, and later tried to use Direction Sense to determine where the PC
and NPC were. I ruled (reasonably?) that Direction Sense only allows you to
determine what path *you've* taken, or where a direction (e.g., North) is in
relation to *you.* In that time, the NPC went into the slums area of the
city and set a "friend" of his (a "500 lb. big guy with muscles" kind of
guy) on the PC w/ the dagger. He was merely escorted back to the
marketplace, but the player lost his temper at the priest's player and the
whole episode had *me* so frustrated that I shouted at him...
I ended the session there.
So... What do you think? Was I being unfair? Should I not bother making my
players finish off this adventure? If I do make them finish it off, should I
give them any assistant-NPCs? I'm really worried about this... :(
-Sel
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