Quote from: Opaopajr;942245Um, you have played CoC, right? Usually with Azathoth or Cthulhu, et alia, there is no 'later'.

Nope, rgrove is right here. There are certain campaign issues in sandboxes that are deal breakers, such as quests that literally are apocalyptic. Similarly, if I am running a domain/business maintenance sandbox, or medieval localized sandbox, I am not going to change my table offering to the player's vision of a grand world tour.

PCs reside in Cormyr in my Cormyr-focused sandbox campaign, but want to travel off to Kara-Tur T'u Lung instead? That's nice. Off your characters go, unlikely to be heard from again. If they ever make it and return it'll likely be easily over 20+ years, and likely beyond what our campaign will last in real time. So... anyone interested in rolling up a PC that actually wants to play in Cormyr, y'know what I actually am offering the table?

I DICTATE my table's offering. Your player entitlement ends where I SAY IT DOES. I AM NOT your private video game server. Sandbox your own daydreams.

Awesome, just awesome. Very well said, that last line.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;942247No, you worthless buffoon, I would prefer the referee give the players and their characters a reason to investigate a haunted house beyond, 'I want to run MAH HAUNTED HOUSE STOREH,' and in that reason for investigating the haunted house a motivation not to torch it on sight.

Perhaps there is a book or a map in the library they might want, or an archaeological artifact or a piece of art they wish to obtain, or cash and jewelry they don't want to destroy. Perhaps there are clues suggesting other people may be visiting the site. Perhaps the site is under surveillance and burning it down will attract attention they don't want. Something . . . anything . . . for the players and their characters to give a shit about beyond, 'this is what I have for tonight.'

A great adventure site draws adventurers - and the players who run them - to it like a moth to flame. The adventure should be preceded by rumors, legends, stories, eyewitnesses. Make throwing themselves into sure death their idea, because they can't resist the idea of not going.

I know it's been said upthread already, but it bears repeating: if your players' level of engagement with your adventure is to simply end it before it starts, you fucking suck, full stop. Whether you tailor your adventures to your players with personal touches - which I don't - or simply scatter lots of bright shinys around and let the players and their characters follow their whims - which I do - participating in it should be their idea. No matter what, they should be given a reason to care on their terms, and if you can't do that, pack it the fuck in and play Monopoly, 'cause you have no fucking business sitting at the skinny end of the table.


Obvious Troll is Obvious.

You honestly think I ran a game and didn't give the players reasons to explore the house? Are you as stupid as you are offensive? Of course there were reasons but they bowed to the risks involved and decided to sacrifice them in the way of a quick and safe resolution to the threat. In a campaign game I might have been ok with it but as said, THAT was the point of the damn game. Im out, I don't need to defend my point here, its not even my fucking thread.

Quote from: rgrove0172;942250You honestly think I ran a game and didn't give the players reasons to explore the house? Are you as stupid as you are offensive? Of course there were reasons but they bowed to the risks involved and decided to sacrifice them in the way of a quick and safe resolution to the threat. In a campaign game I might have been ok with it but as said, THAT was the point of the damn game. Im out, I don't need to defend my point here, its not even my fucking thread.

Yeah. I'm not getting the angry objection to this situation. It seems pretty clear cut. It's not a "sandbox" or even a campaign. Its a one shot, one off adventure such as might be played at a Con. The players apparently willingly brought into playing the haunted house "storeh" to begin with. So some of the burden of buy in rests on them. You agree to play something you work with the GM to make characters that will work for the "storeh!".

Or say you don't want to play up front like an adult. If rgrove sucks so bad why even agree to get together to game? Just to fuck him?

Quote from: Opaopajr;942245Um, you have played CoC, right? Usually with Azathoth or Cthulhu, et alia, there is no 'later'.

Nope, rgrove is right here. There are certain campaign issues in sandboxes that are deal breakers, such as quests that literally are apocalyptic. Similarly, if I am running a domain/business maintenance sandbox, or medieval localized sandbox, I am not going to change my table offering to the player's vision of a grand world tour.

PCs reside in Cormyr in my Cormyr-focused sandbox campaign, but want to travel off to Kara-Tur T'u Lung instead? That's nice. Off your characters go, unlikely to be heard from again. If they ever make it and return it'll likely be easily over 20+ years, and likely beyond what our campaign will last in real time. So... anyone interested in rolling up a PC that actually wants to play in Cormyr, y'know what I actually am offering the table?

I DICTATE my table's offering. Your player entitlement ends where I SAY IT DOES. I AM NOT your private video game server. Sandbox your own daydreams.

Very nice, however, do try to read what's actually there.  I'll help...
1. He admitted the players had a good reason to go to Shanghai...they were following up on the investigation, not opening a Pacific Rim Importers. So your "players dropping the premise argument" - yeah didn't happen.
2. He hasn't answered the question as to why the players got clues to go to Shanghai, but not apparently clues that the danger was eminent enough to not go to Shanghai.
3. Already admitted he *could* have let them follow up leads to Shanghai (which means the world wasn't going to end), he just didn't feel like it because he prepped San Fran.

Sounds like he overplayed or underplayed certain clues, or players just overemphasized the wrong thing in their investigation.  

Setting aside the adventures of MC Shanghai Grove...

Yeah I have played CoC, and yeah terrible things happened when people fuck up.  That's the problem with an End of the World scenario - It's pointless if everyone knows you don't have the guts to actually End.the.World.  If you don't want the players to leave Cormyr for Kara-Tur, you probably shouldn't drop clues then that the answer to how to save Cormyr lies in Kara-Tur.

Quote from: Opaopajr;942245I DICTATE my table's offering. Your player entitlement ends where I SAY IT DOES. I AM NOT your private video game server. Sandbox your own daydreams.

Video games are railroads.

And, as Krueger already explained, if you drop hints, don't he surprised when they get followed. I think your example doesn't fit the situation. You're talking about players randomly leaving the play area just because. Groves example evidently presented a hook.

It's all about control, obviously. You guys want control over the scenario. Or need it, evidently.

Back to Grove...Grove, do you use NPCs that travel with the party much?  Reason I'm asking is, since you are more Plot-Oriented, such an NPC can help immensely in keeping things on track while still remaining IC.

But it sounds like one way or the other the players missed two key realizations.
1. Shanghai was a Red Herring.
2. Whether or not it was a Red Herring, there was no time to go to Shanghai.

I probably would have played it out, and had Cthulhu pull San Francisco into the ocean. But Grove fessed up honestly to his players about Operation Shanghai, that it was a Dead End he never intended them to go down, so I'm gonna give him this one and not yell at him anymore for how he handled it.  I'm sure he's already filed it under Note to Self: "If you don't want the players to go to Shanghai..."

Quote from: CRKrueger;942256Back to Grove...Grove, do you use NPCs that travel with the party much?  Reason I'm asking is, since you are more Plot-Oriented, such an NPC can help immensely in keeping things on track while still remaining IC.

But it sounds like one way or the other the players missed two key realizations.
1. Shanghai was a Red Herring.
2. Whether or not it was a Red Herring, there was no time to go to Shanghai.

I probably would have played it out, and had Cthulhu pull San Francisco into the ocean. But Grove fessed up honestly to his players about Operation Shanghai, that it was a Dead End he never intended them to go down, so I'm gonna give him this one and not yell at him anymore for how he handled it.  I'm sure he's already filed it under Note to Self: "If you don't want the players to go to Shanghai..."

Agree with letting the Red Herring happen and SF going into the ocean, because the red herring is supposed to fool them, right? Just make sure there's a chance to see through the ruse, if you wanna be fair.

Quote from: cranebump;942255V
It's all about control, obviously. You guys want control over the scenario. Or need it, evidently.

Yeah. "We guys" are inept scum shitting up the hobby so thus the "war".

Quote from: rgrove0172;942250You honestly think I ran a game and didn't give the players reasons to explore the house?

Ohhnoes! THEM GOALPOSTS ARE A-MOVIN' AG'IN!

Quote from: rgrove0172;942250Are you as stupid as you are offensive?

Signs point to yes.

Quote from: rgrove0172;942250Of course there were reasons but they bowed to the risks involved and decided to sacrifice them in the way of a quick and safe resolution to the threat.

Translation? 'The rewards I offered the players and their characters sucked so much donkey ball-sweat I had to beg them to play my adventure anyway!'

Quote from: CRKrueger;942256Back to Grove...Grove, do you use NPCs that travel with the party much?  Reason I'm asking is, since you are more Plot-Oriented, such an NPC can help immensely in keeping things on track while still remaining IC.

But it sounds like one way or the other the players missed two key realizations.
1. Shanghai was a Red Herring.
2. Whether or not it was a Red Herring, there was no time to go to Shanghai.

I probably would have played it out, and had Cthulhu pull San Francisco into the ocean. But Grove fessed up honestly to his players about Operation Shanghai, that it was a Dead End he never intended them to go down, so I'm gonna give him this one and not yell at him anymore for how he handled it.  I'm sure he's already filed it under Note to Self: "If you don't want the players to go to Shanghai..."

The party following up on a clue in Shanghai is easily handled by running a quick montage scene.  Fifteen minutes in real time, two months in game time, and then the party is back in San Francisco either having successfully gained their clue or failed to have acquired it.  Easy peasy.

Quote from: Old One Eye;942272The party following up on a clue in Shanghai is easily handled by running a quick montage scene.  Fifteen minutes in real time, two months in game time, and then the party is back in San Francisco either having successfully gained their clue or failed to have acquired it.  Easy peasy.

Sure!

Or you could have had their ship blow up right before they board. Or you could have had the cultists abduct someone really close/important to the PC's to give them a reason to stay. Or you could have have had some creepy event that was an Omen to someone that might have given them a clue to where the "real plot thread" was. Or Uncle Bob's message arrives saying he's arriving today and planning on staying like they planned in that last letter that got lost in the mail. Or it starts raining cows and it clogs the harbor. Or the Captain of the vessel suddenly gets smallpox, now the whole harbor is quarantined etc. if the issue of going was really that big of an issue.

The possibilities, as always, are endless.

Wait, So it would have been better to pull some gm fiat short circuit to preserve the "STOREH!" rather that talk it out with the players and clarify the game's expected parameters? I thought that was Railroading by most definitions.

Quote from: rgrove0172;942189You would prefer the GM make up some shit in game as to why the players should reconsider their actions instead of just coming clean and explaining the game was designed to go a different way? You would prefer... perish the thought... RAILROADING?

It's railroading either way.

Quote from: Opaopajr;942245Nope, rgrove is right here. There are certain campaign issues in sandboxes that are deal breakers, such as quests that literally are apocalyptic. Similarly, if I am running a domain/business maintenance sandbox, or medieval localized sandbox, I am not going to change my table offering to the player's vision of a grand world tour.

PCs reside in Cormyr in my Cormyr-focused sandbox campaign, but want to travel off to Kara-Tur T'u Lung instead? That's nice. Off your characters go, unlikely to be heard from again. If they ever make it and return it'll likely be easily over 20+ years, and likely beyond what our campaign will last in real time. So... anyone interested in rolling up a PC that actually wants to play in Cormyr, y'know what I actually am offering the table?

Sure. But there's a difference between "this is the scope of the sandbox we're going to be playing" and "you can't do that because the story I wrote is over here".

Quote from: Justin Alexander;942311Sure. But there's a difference between "this is the scope of the sandbox we're going to be playing" and "you can't do that because the story I wrote is over here".

And then there's "The Stakes (like the rent) are Too Damn High!"

I love CoC to death, but it's one of the few games that can be repeatedly excused 'End of the World!' stakes. BUT!, it needs a delicate touch because it's default assumption is "cultists! gotta save the world" style play. Running Mission/Investigation Sandboxes in such needs to keep an eye on "The Stakes" dial. Otherwise too many apocalyptic stakes juggles between "One Wrong Move, We All Die!" and Pinkie and the Brain goofiness "Whaddya wanna do tonight, Brain?" "Same thing we do every night, Pinkie. Try to save the world..."

Quote from: cranebump;942132So, what I'm hearing here is that, if the players do something outside what the GM has planned, then said GM bears no responsibility to continue the session/story.  I think the point of contention has to do with how sandboxy the GM wants to go. That aside, what are the specific issues with adjusting to the change in plans? Would it really be that hard to gin up a new situation on the spot? If so, is that a system issue, rather than a style issue (i.e., crunchier systems are more difficult to wing?).  I'm curious about this, because, though I've had players constantly go against what I think they'll do, I've always been able to adjust, albeit with varying degrees of what I consider a "success" (though, I guess if we did what they wanted, it's a success).

It's an issue of bait & switch of expectations, and those expectations should be clearly discussed like adults beforehand.

If I as a GM say I am offering something, then null all your PC stuff and force you into another I wanted all along, that's not what was agreed upon. It would be reasonable to expect upset, re-negotiation, and consequences for breach (like walking away). Similarly the expectation works the other way.

If Vampire PCs for a proposed Modern game gathered and their first response is to all willfully go into torpor and wait 100 years so they can play Cyberpunk Vampires! for that sweet, sweet techie gear list, is there not a similar breach in expectations? Is the GM obliged to cater to whims through passive aggressive table manipulation?

No. We are expecting mature, communicating adults. The issue is trust, breach, and the re-negotiation & consequences thereof.

The table contract is not there for when things go right, but for when things go sour. And the responsible thing is to pull out of passive-aggressive In Character push and pulling, and hash it out OOC to find where the disconnect is. We are sharing time with each other in imagination land, not playing power exchange games.