Player Paranoia and Character Surprise: How to GM

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by AstralRunner

Commuting by car may be a "routine" task for someone who knows how to drive, but for someone who has no training or experience operating a vehicle beyond seeing other people drive, and is therefore operating on default, having to do so much as pull out of a non-straight driveway backwards is certainly not "routine," and actually commuting is not an unstressful situation by any stretch of the imagination! I am therefore disinclined to believe that someone operating on default is entitled to that +4 routine bonus, but I would give it to a commuter with as little as 1 point in that skill.

Actually, in my experience with commuting the two least stressful ways to drive are a) on a freeway or b) in really heavy traffic. Combine the two and you're not driving, you're sitting in a car listening to the radio or talking to your co-commutors.

It's stressful for reasons largely unrelated to the Drive (Automobile) skill for many people, I cheerfully admit. But the difficulty of driving a car at 5-20 KM/H when there are no pedestrians, signs, bikes, cats, dogs, squirrels, or people in tractors to distract you and/or leap out into traffic is pretty negligible.

I'll give you the reversing out of a crooked driveway, however.

I think I'm somewhere between my Default in Drive (Automobile) and the 1 pt level. It takes a good minute or two of reversing, adjusting, pulling forward, adjusting, reversing, adjusting, etc. for me to park in a stall, usually. That's me failing my Drive (My mothers enormous boat of a minivan) check and trying again and again and again until I can get the stupid thing into the stall AND still be able to open my door enough to escape the van. But I swear that behemoth gives me a -4 equipment penalty on parking just from having blind spots you can hid small cars in.

But even if I can't get the van in straight with enough space to avoid whacking the car next to me, I don't hit anyone or anything, I don't do something horrible to the gearbox, I don't accidentally set off the airbags, and I don't knock the wheels off alignment by driving over a curb. Most driving roll failures just mean "back it up and try again".

It's only when you're doing something interesting that your failures are going to do anything other than cost you some time, and even then, I think most failed rolls should be far less spectacular than "You hit a tree and die, the end." If I fail a Broadsword roll when attacking, I don't cut my own head off, so I don't see why Vehicle skills should be THAT much worse.

GM: The off ramp has a speed limit of 40k/h, you know when you slow down the Don's goons are going to catch up, right?
Driver: When? Bah! I'm going to take the ramp at speed, 80k/h. I'd like to see the Don's men catch me now!
GM: *shakes head* whatever. Roll it.
Driver: *rolls dice* Crap.
GM: Ok, you tear around the curve on the ramp, but it looks like you've missjudged the maneuverability of your 1984 Corola. You mount the curb and drive with two wheels on the sidewalk for about 50 meters before you manage to pull yourself back onto the road. Make a Perception based Driving roll.
Driver: *drops dice* Woo, made it by 3!
GM: The car's handling funny, it keeps listing to the right. You think you may have knocked one of the front wheels slightly crooked in that stunt. You'll be at -2 to handling rolls until you can get that fixed.
Driver: Well, at least we're alive and still doing 80! I check the rear view mirror briefly to if I lost the Don's men.
GM: Oh right. *rolls some dice* Looks like Tony and Frank aren't so lucky...

[Furabo]

Just a couple of thoughts:

Usually when I've GM'ed face-to-face, it's been with a small group of my close friends. (I miss'em since my move to a new state!) Generally, we'd all at one time or another GM'ed one another in various games (everybody had their favorite system/setting.)--so I think we pretty much trusted each other, knowing full well that "What goes around might well come around," if you get my drift.

That said--most players (myself included) have seemed to me fairly tolerant of being Surprised/Captured/etc. so long as they still got to role-play their character with a certain amount of panache, or so long as they could see the event in question as essential to the plot--or the result of a failed roll! (When the dice hit the table with the Sign of the Beast: Three Sixes, everybody knows it's bad juju all 'round.) From time to time, I would either end a session or start a session with the characters getting captured, so that Getting Free became the focus of a session, and an opportunity for Heroic Exploits.

Perhaps I'm lazy--scratch that: I know I'm lazy!--Perhaps it's out of my laziness, but over time I've come less and less to plan specific solutions to certain puzzles, traps, or prison-capture problems: Rather, I tend to give strong bonuses (or decide the outcome of a situation) based on how creative and well-role-played he PCs' proposed solutions are. I started this after one session many, many moons ago when the players got together and came up with a solution far more creative, elegant, and interesting than the "solution" I'd planned. Of course, this has worked the other way too: I've also turned creative player paranoia into "What's Really Going On," when they outthought my own deviousness.

[mcv]

(Sorry for responding to an old thread here.)

Originally Posted by Mark Caliber

In short before you throw ANY trap or situation at your players, make certain that YOU can think of at least two successful methods for escape/avoidance.

The reasoning behind that is that if YOU as the GM can't think of an appropriate way out, neither will the players, and your campaign will come to a quick and painful end.

On the contrary if YOU can concieve of two weaknesses, then the players are likely to come up with their own ingenious methods as well.

I once read an excellent example of the exact opposite: a GM noticed that for every trap or problem he devised, the players came up with a different solution than the one he had planned, so he made a trap for which he saw no way out, and the players found one.

Ofcourse you should only do this once the group has proven able to solve really hard problems. But in that case it can actually be a great idea.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by JoelSammallahti

Good point about the one-point investments. I'm still not convinced, though, that it's worth while to spend 8 points on Karate to get the damage bonus, if unarmed combat isn't a focus for you. For two points more, you could get Striking ST +2 and enjoy the bonus on all your muscle-powered attacks. I do think it's best to spend just one point on backup skills.

Two parries, increased ability to kick, increased damage over-all and access to a few techniques that make you extremely lethal? Worth it.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by mcv

(Sorry for responding to an old thread here.)


I once read an excellent example of the exact opposite: a GM noticed that for every trap or problem he devised, the players came up with a different solution than the one he had planned, so he made a trap for which he saw no way out, and the players found one.

Ofcourse you should only do this once the group has proven able to solve really hard problems. But in that case it can actually be a great idea.

I can't remember who wrote it, but I once saw an interesting suggestion for GMing pulp-style deathtraps. The author suggested thinking of three different ways to escape ... and then making sure that the first two the players attempted always fell short. That way, you kept the "thrills and chills" atmosphere of desperately improvising a last-minute escape as that third method finally came through in the nick of time.

Obviously, you'd want to use this somewhat subtly and/or judiciously lest you get lynched by your players. But it can make for some neat situations if done just right.

[Manchu Cat]

In every gamer's experience, there are times when his character gets his bootie handed to him. There are also times when he's gamed with a competitive type GM who's out to 'get' the party. Both of these occasions are unpleasant, especially when they are one and the same. Many players react by doing everything they can to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Gamer, first Call of Cthulhu game: "No, I'm not taking a gun. Guns are illegal."

Same gamer, a few CoC games later: "I'm going jogging. With my sword."

[Mircoles]

Originally Posted by Mark Caliber

I just thought of another piece of good advice that I got from an ancient issue of Dragon magazine.

In short before you throw ANY trap or situation at your players, make certain that YOU can think of at least two successful methods for escape/avoidance.

The reasoning behind that is that if YOU as the GM can't think of an appropriate way out, neither will the players, and your campaign will come to a quick and painful end.

On the contrary if YOU can concieve of two weaknesses, then the players are likely to come up with their own ingenious methods as well.

That is really good advice. I had a gurps game pretty much stop,because the Gm put in a pit trap that we couldn't get out of.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Manchu Cat

In every gamer's experience, there are times when his character gets his bootie handed to him. There are also times when he's gamed with a competitive type GM who's out to 'get' the party. Both of these occasions are unpleasant, especially when they are one and the same. Many players react by doing everything they can to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Never had the second experience, actually, and I've been gaming since 1975.

Bill Stoddard

[Mylon]

Since we're dreding up old threads...

Originally Posted by JoelSammallahti

In GURPS, it's simply not reasonable to spend more than one point on nonessential skills. You should put the minimum investment in each of your backup and emergency skills, and spend the savings on attributes. This has been the case for twenty years, though the exact numbers have changed. check it out

To be honest this is probably my biggest gripe in GURPS. That the system not only rewards optimization to this degree, but also downplays skills suchly. Another poster mentioned that for many skills, 1 point is enough to be quite competent. I would prefer a system that requires a little more specialization.

[mcv]

Originally Posted by Mylon

To be honest this is probably my biggest gripe in GURPS. That the system not only rewards optimization to this degree, but also downplays skills suchly. Another poster mentioned that for many skills, 1 point is enough to be quite competent. I would prefer a system that requires a little more specialization.

I think it might actually be best to base skills not on a stat - X, but on stat/2. So increasing your stat won't always increase your skills.