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

[veekie]

I did provide one alternative, villain victory, non-permanent. He'd capture them, mark them in a permanent manner(it helps if they are cliche villains), break their valued stuff, reanimate the slain and generally make their life misery. Getting out of this rut then becomes a new campaign arc's fuel, they'd want to be sure on the rematch that it sticks.

[ImperatorK]

I did provide one alternative, villain victory, non-permanent. He'd capture them, mark them in a permanent manner(it helps if they are cliche villains), break their valued stuff, reanimate the slain and generally make their life misery. Getting out of this rut then becomes a new campaign arc's fuel, they'd want to be sure on the rematch that it sticks.

That's Railroading and Bad DMing.

[InnaBinder]

I did provide one alternative, villain victory, non-permanent. He'd capture them, mark them in a permanent manner(it helps if they are cliche villains), break their valued stuff, reanimate the slain and generally make their life misery. Getting out of this rut then becomes a new campaign arc's fuel, they'd want to be sure on the rematch that it sticks.

That's Railroading and Bad DMing.

So I've been given to understand, as well.

[Kajhera]

I did provide one alternative, villain victory, non-permanent. He'd capture them, mark them in a permanent manner(it helps if they are cliche villains), break their valued stuff, reanimate the slain and generally make their life misery. Getting out of this rut then becomes a new campaign arc's fuel, they'd want to be sure on the rematch that it sticks.

That's Railroading and Bad DMing.

Only because he breaks their stuff. I mean, who in their right mind would destroy resources? Improved Sunder is a horrible feat. (... )

[RobbyPants]

It may just be my luck, but I've seen this happen a few times now, so I'd like to talk about how others have handled it.  Through some variety of outside the box thinking on the part of the players, the plot arc the PCs set off upon has been bypassed in favor of "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line."  The dungeon* - with its treasures, clues, and level-up opportunities - is wholly, or at least largely, skipped so that the PCs face an encounter or set of encounters that's over their heads.  Things I try to avoid in the situation include:

a) railroading
b) deus ex machina fixes
c) OOC discussions on the story or game world
d) Nintendo Hard Mode
e) cakewalk final battles. 

Obviously, avoiding all of the above is difficult, to say the least.  Thoughts?


*"Dungeon" here is used in its broadest sense, indicating the series of challenges intended to preface the confrontation with the big-bad.

The easiest way to keep people from skipping to the finish line is to remove the finish line. If the quest is "get to the end of this dungeon and do X", then to the PCs, the goal is "do X". The dungeon is just something in the way. Using the excuse that the dungeon was meant to hand out key magical items and XP so they could face the boss isn't a good way to persuade them if they don't know about it. Obviously, if part of the quest objective is "search the Dungeon for the Sword of Kas, so you can fight the boss", then they'd know not to skip the dungeon. Any excuse of gaining XP is purely a meta concept the PCs would not be aware of.

That being said, the higher levels PCs attain, the more and more you have to work to make them want to complete the dungeon. So, if you tell a group of 9th+ level PCs to "go into the dungeon and kill the demon at the bottom", they're probably going to scry and teleport down there and kill it. If instead, you say "go into the dungeon and kill every demon that's hiding in there", they're going to have to explore the whole thing. Remove the finish line. It's a low level concept.

[veekie]

As any mecha series will tell you, your super robot getting smashed only means you're going to steal an upgrade from the enemy's hangar.

[sirpercival]

There needs to be a discussion with the players about situations like this.  Do they want the situation to be governed by the story (within reason)? If so, they should accept a limited amount of "railroading" to achieve the goal (and I don't consider this railroading, it's simply the world responding to the PC's actions).  Do they want the situation to be governed by how the dice fall?  If so, they should accept the fact that there's a good chance they'll get into a situation beyond their capacity to handle, or they'll hit a freak storm of bad luck, and they'll die

It's all part of the DM/player contract, and needs to be worked out beforehand.  There's no way to completely avoid both scenarios -- either the DM can adjust things, or he can't and the PCs suffer the consequences.

[InnaBinder]

It may just be my luck, but I've seen this happen a few times now, so I'd like to talk about how others have handled it.  Through some variety of outside the box thinking on the part of the players, the plot arc the PCs set off upon has been bypassed in favor of "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line."  The dungeon* - with its treasures, clues, and level-up opportunities - is wholly, or at least largely, skipped so that the PCs face an encounter or set of encounters that's over their heads.  Things I try to avoid in the situation include:

a) railroading
b) deus ex machina fixes
c) OOC discussions on the story or game world
d) Nintendo Hard Mode
e) cakewalk final battles. 

Obviously, avoiding all of the above is difficult, to say the least.  Thoughts?


*"Dungeon" here is used in its broadest sense, indicating the series of challenges intended to preface the confrontation with the big-bad.

The easiest way to keep people from skipping to the finish line is to remove the finish line. If the quest is "get to the end of this dungeon and do X", then to the PCs, the goal is "do X". The dungeon is just something in the way. Using the excuse that the dungeon was meant to hand out key magical items and XP so they could face the boss isn't a good way to persuade them if they don't know about it. Obviously, if part of the quest objective is "search the Dungeon for the Sword of Kas, so you can fight the boss", then they'd know not to skip the dungeon. Any excuse of gaining XP is purely a meta concept the PCs would not be aware of.

That being said, the higher levels PCs attain, the more and more you have to work to make them want to complete the dungeon. So, if you tell a group of 9th+ level PCs to "go into the dungeon and kill the demon at the bottom", they're probably going to scry and teleport down there and kill it. If instead, you say "go into the dungeon and kill every demon that's hiding in there", they're going to have to explore the whole thing. Remove the finish line. It's a low level concept.

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?

[ImperatorK]

I did provide one alternative, villain victory, non-permanent. He'd capture them, mark them in a permanent manner(it helps if they are cliche villains), break their valued stuff, reanimate the slain and generally make their life misery. Getting out of this rut then becomes a new campaign arc's fuel, they'd want to be sure on the rematch that it sticks.

That's Railroading and Bad DMing.

So I've been given to understand, as well.

You don't get sarcasm, do you?

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?

And what's wrong with it when done only once in a while?

[Kajhera]

I did provide one alternative, villain victory, non-permanent. He'd capture them, mark them in a permanent manner(it helps if they are cliche villains), break their valued stuff, reanimate the slain and generally make their life misery. Getting out of this rut then becomes a new campaign arc's fuel, they'd want to be sure on the rematch that it sticks.

That's Railroading and Bad DMing.

So I've been given to understand, as well.

Well... If the villain wins he wins. He's going to steal their stuff and kill them or toss them in a dungeon or whatever, or he's going to offer them a job etc.

Or, he could ask who sent them, destroy those people and then let the party go free with a slap on the wrist / mark of justice or whatever.

...Which is basically what my paladin does with captured minions. I'm sure there's an evil reason to do it too, and there are Good villains.

[Mooncrow]

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?

Only if you actually, physically tell them instead of letting the story tell them why they need to. 

[InnaBinder]

I did provide one alternative, villain victory, non-permanent. He'd capture them, mark them in a permanent manner(it helps if they are cliche villains), break their valued stuff, reanimate the slain and generally make their life misery. Getting out of this rut then becomes a new campaign arc's fuel, they'd want to be sure on the rematch that it sticks.

That's Railroading and Bad DMing.

So I've been given to understand, as well.

You don't get sarcasm, do you?

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?

And what's wrong with it when done only once in a while?

To the first: regardless of whether you were being sarcastic, o anonymous internet voice (see? sarcasm  ), I was not.  I find it to legitimately be railroading, and bad DMing, and have found this to be an opinion shared by others, both here and offline.

To the second: "video-game DMing" leads to the very problem we're discussing.  See Mooncrow's post in this thread: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=3674.20;msg=47942

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?

Only if you actually, physically tell them instead of letting the story tell them why they need to. 

How do you let the story do that when they bypass most of the story?  How do you let the story do that without any of the NPCs dropping hints that are interpreted OOC as vox dei hints?

[Kajhera]

How do your players have any idea who the BBEG is if you didn't tell a story about it? 

Or do they just stumble across him by accident? If that's the case he should probably be interacting with them in an entirely different context from a targeted assassination, more like a normal NPC would.

[veekie]

Establish a threat, threat originates from this region, PCs should naturally investigate. If not, dial up threat, and start intruding in other activities. Rinse and repeat until they go there to stick their nose in, and start eliminating the threat. If you're going the realism angle, armies don't march for one guy however mighty he is(the one guy however, may be able to direct where they'd march). The underlying causes continue to be there, whether its population pressure from monsters breeding out of control, or other things pushing them out of the place.

Theres only one way to be sure.

[Kajhera]

Also, you go something like - 'Hey, can you clear out a demon infestation in my basement?' and then the party destroys everything moving they find in there until gallivanting off on an unrelated plothook and leaving the job undone. (...)

Edit: So basically what Veekie said.

[ImperatorK]

To the first: regardless of whether you were being sarcastic, o anonymous internet voice (see? sarcasm  ), I was not.  I find it to legitimately be railroading, and bad DMing, and have found this to be an opinion shared by others, both here and offline.

I'm not saying it's not railroading or bad DMing. It depends on how you do it. But you shouldn't disregard it because of that, even if an option is bad, sometimes you have to use it, either because you don't have any other (or better) options or simply for the change of pace.

To the second: "video-game DMing" leads to the very problem we're discussing.

So because it creates a problem it can't also solve it?

[InnaBinder]

To the first: regardless of whether you were being sarcastic, o anonymous internet voice (see? sarcasm  ), I was not.  I find it to legitimately be railroading, and bad DMing, and have found this to be an opinion shared by others, both here and offline.

I'm not saying it's not railroading or bad DMing. It depends on how you do it. But you shouldn't disregard it because of that, even if an option is bad, sometimes you have to use it, either because you don't have any other (or better) options or simply for the change of pace.

To the second: "video-game DMing" leads to the very problem we're discussing.

So because it creates a problem it can't also solve it?

We can continue to discuss options already dismissed as BAD, or we can attempt to discover options not yet discussed which are GOOD.  I'd vastly prefer the latter.

[ImperatorK]

We can continue to discuss options already dismissed as BAD, or we can attempt to discover options not yet discussed which are GOOD.

Those options aren't bad. You just don't like them, because you had some bad experiences and people are telling you they're bad. That's an understandable reason to ignore them.
But whatever. Your attitude makes not to want to help you, so I'm done here.

[Mooncrow]

So, spent some time going over your last couple threads to refresh my memory.  I realize in the last thread I explained what an encounter web was without using the phrase, and this time I just used the phrase without explaining what that meant, so my bad if it caused confusion. 

You can have two options on how to generally run a game:

1. Dynamic world - whether you use encounter webs, or just on the fly storytelling, or a number of other methods.  But effectively, the plot and encounters can shift as a result of PC actions.
2. Static world - the encounters are scripted and are independent of PC action.

In a dynamic world, it's pretty easy to solve your problem - find out what the players are interested in or care about, and tailor the encounters to effect those things.  It does take a light touch though, and you need to make sure you don't scare them away from showing that they're interested in anything in your world.  It's best if it only touches on their interests tangentially - their bartender friend has a sister in a near-by village that's under demon attack, for example.  And you can make interest run in the negative way as well - have the lackeys run into the PCs beforehand; be insulting and contemptuous.  You won't have to tell them that they have to wipe the baddies out after that, trust me

In a static world, your options are far more limited, and have mostly been rejected already.  So, not sure what to say on that front.  If you don't want divination protection, you're going to have to have secretive leaders, where the PCs are going to have to struggle to find the right questions to ask.  There's still a risk of lucky chance though - there always will be in that set up. 

[InnaBinder]

We can continue to discuss options already dismissed as BAD, or we can attempt to discover options not yet discussed which are GOOD.

Those options aren't bad. You just don't like them, because you had some bad experiences and people are telling you they're bad. That's an understandable reason to ignore them.
But whatever. Your attitude makes not to want to help you, so I'm done here.

My attitude has been to try to find answers that weren't dismissed in past threads and in the original post of this thread.  Sorry it offends you.