"Skip to the END": Handling players bypassing the setup for the main villain

[veekie]

The alternative is to spend hundreds of hours determining exactly where the players can go, what they can do there, and what happens if they do so. And then they either pick only one option, wasting the other work, or pick one you didn't anticipate entirely.

You can also just Improvisational Theater it, make plot and setting up on the spot.

Are the folks that are considered Good DMs really putting that many hours into it?  Are they all just improvisational masters, unfazed by any wacky ideas the PCs may have?

Improvising, and covering up the gaps(where you inevitably will mess up) skillfully.  The important aspect is to improvise within the predefined framework you have established, and every new trick only builds on said framework. You make setting, game premise and initial event, along with a basic plan of how its going to go, which then evolves to fit group dynamics. Remember, until the players interact with something(at least by proxy), it never existed.

[InnaBinder]

The alternative is to spend hundreds of hours determining exactly where the players can go, what they can do there, and what happens if they do so. And then they either pick only one option, wasting the other work, or pick one you didn't anticipate entirely.

You can also just Improvisational Theater it, make plot and setting up on the spot.

Are the folks that are considered Good DMs really putting that many hours into it?  Are they all just improvisational masters, unfazed by any wacky ideas the PCs may have?

Improvising, and covering up the gaps(where you inevitably will mess up) skillfully.  The important aspect is to improvise within the predefined framework you have established, and every new trick only builds on said framework. You make setting, game premise and initial event, along with a basic plan of how its going to go, which then evolves to fit group dynamics. Remember, until the players interact with something(at least by proxy), it never existed.

As I indicated before, the vast majority of feedback I see on DMs improvising material - whether my own improvisation or that of other DMs - is overwhelmingly negative, and an overwhelming majority of respondents say they can always tell when the DM is doing it.

[Mooncrow]

As I indicated before, the vast majority of feedback I see on DMs improvising material - whether my own improvisation or that of other DMs - is overwhelmingly negative, and an overwhelming majority of respondents say they can always tell when the DM is doing it.

W. T. F. ?

Where are you getting this shit?  I mean, I know values vary from table to table, but "all improvising is bad"? 

No.  Just, no. 

[RedWarlock]

Yeah, you're throwing impossible and downright contradictory goalposts here.

Here's a question for you: Is all of this 'bad DMing' reference coming from just one source, or are you combining the opinions of multiple parties who may have conflicting viewpoints on the matter? I'm thinking that if it's one person, they are just unappeasable, and if it's multiple people, well, you need to pick and choose which elements you want to fulfill, because NOBODY is ever going to be able to do it all.

[Basket Burner]

If by "certain people" you mean "my players and the majority folks that respond to my posts" then yes.

No, that isn't what I meant.

[InnaBinder]

As I indicated before, the vast majority of feedback I see on DMs improvising material - whether my own improvisation or that of other DMs - is overwhelmingly negative, and an overwhelming majority of respondents say they can always tell when the DM is doing it.

W. T. F. ?

Where are you getting this shit?  I mean, I know values vary from table to table, but "all improvising is bad"? 

No.  Just, no.

"overwhelming majority" =/= "all".  As I've said, it's from my players, from tables where I've been a player, and from feedback given on DMs that I've heard, and read on D&D forums.  Most respondents say they don't care for it, and most respondents say they can always tell when the DM is doing it.  Is it always bad, by that metric?  Probably not.  Should it generally be avoided as leaving a bad taste in the mouths of the players?  So it would seem.

Yeah, you're throwing impossible and downright contradictory goalposts here.

Here's a question for you: Is all of this 'bad DMing' reference coming from just one source, or are you combining the opinions of multiple parties who may have conflicting viewpoints on the matter? I'm thinking that if it's one person, they are just unappeasable, and if it's multiple people, well, you need to pick and choose which elements you want to fulfill, because NOBODY is ever going to be able to do it all.

And yet, so far as I can tell, there must be Good DMs out there, or the hobby would have shriveled and died years ago.

No, it's coming from an amalgam of sources: players in games I run or have run, players in games where I've been a player, and players talking about the hobby either in person or on the 'net.

[RedWarlock]

Yeah, you're throwing impossible and downright contradictory goalposts here.

Here's a question for you: Is all of this 'bad DMing' reference coming from just one source, or are you combining the opinions of multiple parties who may have conflicting viewpoints on the matter? I'm thinking that if it's one person, they are just unappeasable, and if it's multiple people, well, you need to pick and choose which elements you want to fulfill, because NOBODY is ever going to be able to do it all.

And yet, so far as I can tell, there must be Good DMs out there, or the hobby would have shriveled and died years ago.

No, it's coming from an amalgam of sources: players in games I run or have run, players in games where I've been a player, and players talking about the hobby either in person or on the 'net.

Then my second point applies. You might be combining opinions on bad DMing from people who have entirely different viewpoints, and CAN'T be resolved, because they want DIFFERENT things. This isn't hard, it just means you need to identify which points are the ones which apply to your players. There is no 'one true way' of DMing that people will call good, and you're just going to drive yourself nuts looking for it.

[veekie]

Then you have the problem there, they weren't about improvising or railroading, they were about bad implementations of the concept.

Bad railroading is often synonymous with bad plot(that the DM thinks is brilliant and pushes onto his players). Good railroading is plot, where you have a chiefly static route, but with many points where they can change the course of things. Pushing the metaphor to the limit, an actual railroad with no stations is a terrible railroad system, a good one has stations at places you want, and interchanges to switch rails.

Bad improvisation is at the extreme, Magic Tea Party. You cannot know what significance your choices have because the DM just makes it all up on the spot, and to a lesser degree, its related to railroading as the DM improvises to haul everyone back on the plot train which they were derailing. Good improvisation adapts to player choices, and allows you to go beyond what the rules strictly allow when needed, which is where a DM is superior to a computer game after all.

Both ultimately, are there to make player choice relevant, the former to compress and express clearly points where choice is significant(generally, the color of your underwear is irrelevant to the universe, while choosing to kill or capture the dark lord has far reaching consequences), by allowing you to extrapolate from a known future change point, and the latter to accommodate unexpected choices(universally when the players get an Idea, which winds up in what they tend to consider Best Game Evers)

What do people who report good games say?
Engaging plot? Flexibility and creativity?
They are the same thing as the factors your market reviles, only with better implementation.

[Kajhera]

While what others have said is good, if you're utterly opposed to the idea of having plot prepared, having encounters prepared that might happen in multiple places, and improvising at all, there is an option for you.

Write a program/algorithm to procedurally generate your campaign world. Familiarize yourself with the basic plot arcs it/you come up with, but only look into individual environments and people as your players deal with them. This way you can get ridiculous wealth of detail that mostly never gets used, as per Dwarf Fortress. Problem with Dwarf Fortress itself of course is that who even knows what plots are going on there are so many of them (and hard to figure out by parameters without actually adventuring) and the adventuring-related ones are pretty limited in scope to 'kill this'.

Risks: Nintendo Hard Mode, solution: zones of savagery as per Dwarf Fortress, start them in a fairly benign one and let them wander as ready.

Major problem: Not exactly a simple proposition.

[oslecamo]

Random tables are your friends when you don't know what to do. They're somewhat scattered across the books, but they can provide you short plots, monsters and terrain in a few seconds if the players atempt something whacky. There's also some nifty online ecounter generators available online. If nothing else, the possible combinations can be hilarious. Smirk as the players try to discover why the celestial mindflayer is smuggling monstruous spider silk!

What do people who report good games say?

Depends heavily on the group. I've met a fair share of players that basically beg the DM to railroad them because they're too lazy to actualy go search for something to do. Others are perfectly happy with a completely straight railroad as long as the scenery is pretty and the destination is awesome town. In particular when actual gaming time is short.

[Kremti]

clown car of death

Holy crap... I now have to use this phrase at every opportunity. If I ever found a sports team/club/etc, this will be its name. 

How about a band?

-K

[RobbyPants]

As soon as the DM tells the PCs what the quest is - OOC or through some other Quest-Giver - aren't we in 'video-game DMing' territory?

At some point, the DM has to give the players information. Whether that's in the form of an answer to a divination, or to evidence they've found, or a Gather Information check, or the king flat out sending them on a job, the DM is telling them what the quest is.

The problem comes when that quest is presented with a finish line (either implicitly or explicitly).

[kitep]

What do you mean by "finish line"?

"Help!  Orcs have captured my daughter."  Seems to have a clear finish line (rescued daughter reunites with parent)

Or by finish line, do you mean they HAVE to rescue the daughter, instead of being able to turn down the quest?

[veekie]

What do you mean by "finish line"?

"Help!  Orcs have captured my daughter."  Seems to have a clear finish line (rescued daughter reunites with parent)

Or by finish line, do you mean they HAVE to rescue the daughter, instead of being able to turn down the quest?

Closer to this:
"I heard orcs have been raiding the north recently" - no finish line, just a hook. You deal with the 'raid' situation any number of ways.
"Get rid of the orcs and we will pay you handsomely" - Broad finish line, if the PCs bypass it, its generally in some creative manner. Sure, let them.
"My daughter has been taken by the orcs, bring her back" - Narrow finish line, but undefined end point. What the orcs want her for is unspecified, and they may pursue to recapture her, necessitating defending her along the way. If they pursue all the way home, it becomes a defense mission instead.
"Kill Smell-like-farts the chieftain" - Specific finish line, with a clear resolution. Players might very well cut to the chase and kill the chief, then get out.

[Rejakor]

Any DM who has to worry about 'players skipping to 'the end'' either has had that one in a million where something they totally didn't anticipate at all thought couldn't happen event has happened, or they're a DM who can't deal with players not doing what they expected them to do, i.e. a railroading DM.

Anyone running a game worth any amount of salt has insert-anywhere encounters, backup plans for their backup plans, interesting npc archetypes not limited to Sir So-and-So but who can ALSO be Lord So-and-So or Lady Sa-and-Sa with a minor tweak.  If the party CAN 'skip to the end', you'd better be bloody ready for it, or able to ad-lib it.  If the party uses bardic knowledge and lore to link 50 minor details you accidentally gave away in various box text, and somehow unmasks everything way early, leaving you entirely off-kilter, then you ask for 15 minutes, furiously re-write, and then keep playing.  I've done this.  It's really not impossible.  People talk about that kind of stuff for YEARS afterwards, it's far more memorable when they actually did detective work and it worked (and for some reason my on the fly plots tend to get overwhelmingly positive feedback - desperation is the mother of creativity, I guess) as opposed to slowly figuring it out over time and clues like most games/plots.

Honestly, if you're the DM, and you're improvising, and people can tell the difference between you improvising and you having prepared notes etc?  You're not very good at improvising.  Downright terrible, in fact.  This whole 'from everyone i've talked to, improvising = bad' thing Innabinder is saying sounds like flawed data - to wit, data from the tables where the GM was bad at improvising and people noticed, and they also thought it was bad because the GM was bad at improvising, i.e. the same reason they noticed it at all in the first place.

Unlike the vast majority of players, when I help the GM clean up or catch public transport with them after the game or whatever, I like to discuss the plot that's happened so far and how they came up with it and how much they're adlibbing and whether I liked X monster or X fight.  The only times i've ever noticed anyone else picking up on GM improvising has been when the GM has been terrifically bad at it, umming, ahhing, checking notes that he's already lost/aren't there, making up stupid sounding things, throwing in a fight clearly so it's something to fill time, ending sessions early, all that stuff.  Typically these have been very rote GMs as well, relying heavily on prepared notes and speeches.  There are some GMs who rely heavily on prepared descriptive text etc who can also improv well, but so far the ones that i've noticed who improv particularly badly are the ones who rely heavily on prepared descriptions and notes, which makes a lot of sense really.

essentially, if you need prep for everything, don't prep a specific timeline, because either you'll get into a fluster every time the PCs deviate, or you'll try to make the PCs stay on the straight and narrow (railroad).  Prep encounters, fights, NPCs etc that can be used in lots of situations and different reveals for important plot points found out in different ways, etc etc.

Oh, and for all the people saying 'just kill the PCs and then go 'hah hah you didn't grind hard enough' that's.. amazingly terrible GMing.  I'm so very glad I have never played in a game you guys have run, and if I have, I probably walked out.

[InnaBinder]

What do you mean by "finish line"?

"Help!  Orcs have captured my daughter."  Seems to have a clear finish line (rescued daughter reunites with parent)

Or by finish line, do you mean they HAVE to rescue the daughter, instead of being able to turn down the quest?

Closer to this:
"I heard orcs have been raiding the north recently" - no finish line, just a hook. You deal with the 'raid' situation any number of ways.
"Get rid of the orcs and we will pay you handsomely" - Broad finish line, if the PCs bypass it, its generally in some creative manner. Sure, let them.
"My daughter has been taken by the orcs, bring her back" - Narrow finish line, but undefined end point. What the orcs want her for is unspecified, and they may pursue to recapture her, necessitating defending her along the way. If they pursue all the way home, it becomes a defense mission instead.
"Kill Smell-like-farts the chieftain" - Specific finish line, with a clear resolution. Players might very well cut to the chase and kill the chief, then get out.

All of which have all too often resulted in something like the following - though specifics obviously change:

1) PCs do minimal recon - often in the form of "I got a 29 in Gather Information; where's the orcs' hideout" - then 'port there through the fastest available means and bypassing the roleplay that would have told them that the daughter apparently wasn't opposed to the advances of Smells-like-farts' son, Smells-like-angst, and the haunted weapons' shop that was the orcs' overnight layover.  Upon arrival they pull out a couple scrolls and bypass the sentries to get to where the she's being held, and catch Smells-like-farts flatfooted (he's an orc, after all; prominent magic defenses would likely stretch verisimilitude) for a quick, quiet coup de grace, again bypassing the sentries to take her back to town.  Congrats, you've skipped to the end.

2) Players ignore the quest-giver entirely to go do their own thing but, because the world is fleshed-out such that it doesn't only exist when the PCs interact with it, serendipity has them stumble upon the MacGuffin that sends the orcs off to battle a threatened Troll invasion that the DM planned to have come up after the daughter was rescued.  Smells-like-angst cares for the daughter, but she's no warrior-woman, so he leaves her behind.  Players find daughter because their paths logically cross.  Congrats, you've skipped to the end.

3) "Better talk the the bartender, guys.  He's obviously the Quest-Giver for this particular stop on the DM Express."  The reasons why this is a negative outcome are obvious, I'd think.

. . . or some combination of the above.  When I say "all too often" remember that most of us intensely dislike crit fumbles for happening all too often (when in play), at 5% of all rolls.  A negative outcome doesn't have to be super-frequent to be too frequent.

Any DM who has to worry about 'players skipping to 'the end'' either has had that one in a million where something they totally didn't anticipate at all thought couldn't happen event has happened, or they're a DM who can't deal with players not doing what they expected them to do, i.e. a railroading DM.

Honestly, if you're the DM, and you're improvising, and people can tell the difference between you improvising and you having prepared notes etc?  You're not very good at improvising.

The only times i've ever noticed anyone else picking up on GM improvising has been when the GM has been terrifically bad at it, umming, ahhing, checking notes that he's already lost/aren't there, making up stupid sounding things, throwing in a fight clearly so it's something to fill time, ending sessions early, all that stuff.  Typically these have been very rote GMs as well, relying heavily on prepared notes and speeches.

If the party uses bardic knowledge and lore to link 50 minor details you accidentally gave away in various box text, and somehow unmasks everything way early, leaving you entirely off-kilter, then you ask for 15 minutes, furiously re-write, and then keep playing.

These statements, all from Rejakor, don't read to me as synching together well.  If you're asking for 15 minutes for a furious rewrite, you're pretty obviously improvising, and doing so because the players went 'off-script', in other words, off the rails.  Obviously, if you do ask for this time, everyone will notice unless they're in the restroom the entire time, and you're not especially adept at ad-libbing to need the break in the action. 

Recall also, that when you made a similar suggestion in an old thread, I pointed out specifically that I've seen players walk out when the DM asked for a re-write break, so I'm not convinced it's a panacea for the issue, even if I ignore my previous comments.

[kitep]

1) PCs do minimal recon - often in the form of "I got a 29 in Gather Information; where's the orcs' hideout" - then 'port there through the fastest available means and bypassing the roleplay that would have told them that the daughter apparently wasn't opposed to the advances of Smells-like-farts' son, Smells-like-angst, and the haunted weapons' shop that was the orcs' overnight layover.  Upon arrival they pull out a couple scrolls and bypass the sentries to get to where the she's being held, and catch Smells-like-farts flatfooted (he's an orc, after all; prominent magic defenses would likely stretch verisimilitude) for a quick, quiet coup de grace, again bypassing the sentries to take her back to town.  Congrats, you've skipped to the end.

Ah, but the DM decides what a 29 in Gather Information means, not the players.  It could just mean the players get rumors that
1) Jennifer the ranger has been having skirmishes with orcs out near the Halibut Mountains.
2) Ricky the beggar claims he saw an orc near the abandoned weapons shop (or the pet store, which is next door).  Of course, he also claims he's a gold dragon cursed to stay in human form.
3) Bob the Miller is a half-orc.  This is a red herring.  Bob IS a half-orc, but his alligence is solely with the humans.
4) The daughter and father have been arguing a lot lately, because she's been sneaking off in the middle of the night.

Now if the players hate the role-playing, that's a different story.  In that case, you could just reveal the info about Smells-like-Angst, and the location of the orc lair, and let them port there.

Orc shamans are common.  They do know about magic.  And even though orcs are dumber than humans (int 8 vs int 10), they have years of experience of ticking people off and being counter raided, so they should have the proper defense (plus you occasionally get the smart/wise orc)

And of course, this isn't the end.  Smells-like-angst now has a quest himself.  Get his beloved back.  Kill those who took her.  He consults with the tribal shaman.  They watch the players, learn their weaknesses.  Then ambush the PCs one-by-one, with squads specifically designed to take them down.  Oh yeah, he also gets his father reincarnated (didn't want to spend the money on a raise), so that's why the goat's there.

[Agita]

And of course, this isn't the end.  Smells-like-angst now has a quest himself.  Get his beloved back.  Kill those who took her.  He consults with the tribal shaman.  They watch the players, learn their weaknesses.  Then ambush the PCs one-by-one, with squads specifically designed to take them down.  Oh yeah, he also gets his father reincarnated (didn't want to spend the money on a raise), so that's why the goat's there.

Alternatively or in addition, the girl might not be too happy herself. Escort missions are somewhat less trivial when the girl is trying to escape from you and go back to the orcs.

[InnaBinder]

1) PCs do minimal recon - often in the form of "I got a 29 in Gather Information; where's the orcs' hideout" - then 'port there through the fastest available means and bypassing the roleplay that would have told them that the daughter apparently wasn't opposed to the advances of Smells-like-farts' son, Smells-like-angst, and the haunted weapons' shop that was the orcs' overnight layover.  Upon arrival they pull out a couple scrolls and bypass the sentries to get to where the she's being held, and catch Smells-like-farts flatfooted (he's an orc, after all; prominent magic defenses would likely stretch verisimilitude) for a quick, quiet coup de grace, again bypassing the sentries to take her back to town.  Congrats, you've skipped to the end.

Ah, but the DM decides what a 29 in Gather Information means, not the players.  It could just mean the players get rumors that
1) Jennifer the ranger has been having skirmishes with orcs out near the Halibut Mountains.
2) Ricky the beggar claims he saw an orc near the abandoned weapons shop (or the pet store, which is next door).  Of course, he also claims he's a gold dragon cursed to stay in human form.
3) Bob the Miller is a half-orc.  This is a red herring.  Bob IS a half-orc, but his alligence is solely with the humans.
4) The daughter and father have been arguing a lot lately, because she's been sneaking off in the middle of the night.

Now if the players hate the role-playing, that's a different story.  In that case, you could just reveal the info about Smells-like-Angst, and the location of the orc lair, and let them port there.

Orc shamans are common.  They do know about magic.  And even though orcs are dumber than humans (int 8 vs int 10), they have years of experience of ticking people off and being counter raided, so they should have the proper defense (plus you occasionally get the smart/wise orc)

And of course, this isn't the end.  Smells-like-angst now has a quest himself.  Get his beloved back.  Kill those who took her.  He consults with the tribal shaman.  They watch the players, learn their weaknesses.  Then ambush the PCs one-by-one, with squads specifically designed to take them down.  Oh yeah, he also gets his father reincarnated (didn't want to spend the money on a raise), so that's why the goat's there.

If at the level where "girl kidnapped by orcs" represents an appropriate designed encounter, it's reasonable to peg a 29 Gather Information as an optimal or near-optimal roll.  A DM that chooses to take an optimal roll for information and intentionally under-report viable, legitimate data to the party is, at best, short-selling the importance of the skill and investment therein.  If the group is one that prefers heavy roleplay in order to garner that data, fine. . . but when I've seen groups that into heavy roleplay, they don't pay much attention to the social skills, instead preferring a method of information gleaned based on effective roleplay.  In other words, groups that I'm familiar with that would be okay with the DM providing those insubstantial rumors, probably got them by a method other than rolling Gather Information.

Orc shamans are indeed common.  The orc chieftan asking his counsel about a set of adventurers he's not aware is after him, not so much.  It's not impossible, obviously, but overused it smacks of Gotcha Gaming, where the Big Bad ALWAYS has appropriate countermeasures to the party, regardless of where within the story arc they meet up.  The smart/wise orc should be the exception, unless there's something unusual in that regard about a given campaign setting.

As for Smells-like-angst and his new quest, you're right; he has a new quest.  From personal experience, it's one that was conceived as only the slightest possible kernel of an outcome, because the story arc was anticipated to take 2 - 3 sessions (one in the haunted weapon shop, one for recon and dealing with all the sentries, etc), leaving the DM ad-libbing or asking for a 15 minute break.

Note that I'm talking about a given story arc.  Even when the DM litters the campaign setting with 5 - 8 appropriate story arcs, they each still have something resembling a plot to follow, which just gets bypassed for reasons similar to the above.  This isn't about a railroading DM, unless any plot put forward is automatically a railroad.

[Rejakor]

Wow, if your plot can't handle a gather information roll, that's a pretty poor plot.

Who cares if the party skips an encounter?  It's like sneaking past a guard troll by throwing a rock to make a noise he investigates - part of the freedom of DnD that is the point we play the game.

To be honest that sounds like a BETTER outcome.  The daughter is all miffed, thinking the PCs were sent to 'abduct' her from her 'beloved' and his tribe of orcs, PCs gradually realize that they're actually the bad guys here, Paladin has a moral meltdown over the whole issue, fantastic.

For double contrast, the daughter can be chaotic neutral and a spoilt brat, and the orc tribe can be involved in questionable activities in the region like raiding livestock, peddling illegal mushrooms, and possibly 'disappearing' travelers.

Moral quandaries are the best things and it's why no-one who knows me will run a paladin anywhere near one of my games.

EDIT:  Also, there's no reason the PCs need to get the location, first name, and relative military strength of the orc tribe and that they took the girl from one gather info check.  You could instead give them info that she's been sneaking off with Orc the Kid to snog.  Which might make them go back to the father and demand to know what's going on, or talk to the orcs instead of commando-raiding them.  I.e. It's information that actually might be MORE useful to the party than where the orcs are, so it's a reward for a successful check, and at the same time doesn't skip the oh so precious haunted weapon shop encounter (which is so generic, why you can't work that in later I do not know).