A Disconnect in Message

     Kelly: "One of the great things about experience points is it gives the players something that they get to gain aside from treasure, magic items and things like that, whenever they complete a task, they get experience points that makes them feel like they're gaining power in the game."

     Monty: "Even though they're really not.  It's kind of a psychological effect, and it works ... anytime you've played a video game, or that's an RPG, you feel good about gaining experience points even though you haven't quite gotten to the end goal, but you feel like you've made some progress.

     Kelly:  "Yes, every time that bar fills up a bit more, I feel accomplished, like I'm working towards the goal, I'm gonna accomplish something.

     Monty:  "And I think that's one of the most important tools that dungeon masters have at their disposal when using XP, because you can award XP for almost everything.  And it's a great way to signal to your players, 'Hey, good job.'  It's not really going to affect your game aside from the players levelling up a little bit faster, and it's much easier to control the pace by making the rewards larger or smaller, depending on what the players have accomplished."

If the reader is able, try to watch the whole video, to the end, to get the full sense of the message being presented.


Why Players Like It

And they do.  There is no denying this.

We should wonder why we had a special, functional capacity for survival, some fifty to a hundred and fifty thousand years ago.  We were not the fastest creatures, we were not the strongest.  We were the smartest, true, but we need to ask ourselves, how did that "smart" manifest itself?  Particularly when we consider that there was little in the way of "talking ourselves into doing things," as language, both spoken and in terms of self-awareness, was minimal.  There is an answer.  We had other motivating influences, a cornucopia of self-produced hormones, one of these being dopamine.

Let me explain how works.  Dopamine is a chemical hormone synthesized from L-Dopa, which is a psychotropic drug made in the brain and the kidneys.  Basically, the human animal is a construction, which runs on various chemicals, of which dopamine is one.  Dopamine has a particular function, one that exists because it contributes to the survival of the human animal, you and me.

Say that we find the sign of an animal, that we want to eat.  Without introspection, we intuit that to find that animal we will have to track it for hours and hours, and for miles and miles, which will be very exhausting and sap our present supply of energy.  If the tracks are old, it isn't worth it; we would probably die before finding our meal.  But if the tracks are new ... dopamine.

Dopamine gives us a completely non-intellectual award for finding something in our environment that encourages us to believe that we're going to eat, or find shelter, or be warm, or otherwise feel safe and happy.  Note that I say "award" and not "reward," because we haven't actually done anything yet.  We've just found fresh tracks.  But that doesn't matter, because we need an impetus to get started hunting, and that is what dopamine does.  It gets us going.

Truth is, dopamine feels so good (particularly to the human animal that has no other amazing invention do give it pleasure), it energizes.  If we're tired from tracking the animal, no problem, we've got this tremendous endurance rush from following the tracks, and seeing that they're getting fresher and fresher; and then we see the animal and that's a dopamine rush too; and then we kill the animal and now we know we're going to eat, and that's a rush.  And when we're done eating, we know that our clan group is hungry and they're going to eat, so we're willing to carry the hundreds of pounds of food back home, even if we're tired and worn out doing it.  And with the dopamine there are other hormones that are helping, like endorphins that are masking our pain, or seratonin, which makes us feel pride and status, and that we're amazing and powerful.

So we do it.  And it feels so good, that we get addicted to it.  We get up the next day and rush out to do it again, because "Damn!  That was so much fun, I will totally do that again!"

Understand:  we don't have to accomplish things to experience dopamine.  We only have to feel that whatever it is we experience, we can identify some change that is going to happen because of this discovery.  And seeing numbers rack up on a piece of paper has precisely that sort of meaning for us, because we have socialized ourselves all of our lives to identify certain increased numbers as a promise that things are going to get better, and soon.

It doesn't matter that we didn't earn it.  The human animal did not "earn" the fresh tracks of the animal that were stumbled across.  Dopamine does not care.  Dopamine is not a drug that rewards our accomplishments, it is a drug that encourages us to accomplish something in the future.  Something that will help us.

So yes, of course, players think that getting XP for an activity is a terrific thing, because the human animal's biology does not care about "why."

Dopamine is deeply, deeply addictive.  Some things that release dopamine?  Alcohol.  Nicotine.  Gambling.  Cell phones.  When we hear the beep that says we have a message ... dopamine.  Why?  We haven't done anything.  But we know, something might happen that could be good.  And what do we usually find?  Spam.  That's why we hate spam.  Not because spam is such a drag, we can delete it or ignore it easily.  But because the let down from the dopamine is so sharp.


What's Wrong with this Picture?

Games are invented mechanisms designed to trick the human animal's biology into releasing psychotropes, neuropeptides and neurotransmitters, which are what makes a game "fun."

The quality of game design is measured by the power a game has to produce this effect.  Over the centuries, we have augmented the gaming experience for humans, until the present day, when video games are kicking the ass of the formerly most successful games, games that are also sports.  Arguably, sports-games are still in the lead, but those are declining while video games are only just beginning to find their legs.  We have no idea how far VGs can go.

RPGs are also a highly evolved experience, albeit one that appeals to a very specific type of person.  It, too, is only just finding its legs, since it steadfastly refuses, as yet, to embrace the communicative technology of the present.  It has a long, long way to go.

This mired-in-the-past issue is a part of the stumbling inconsistency of RPGs, but so to is the human animal delivery system of the game itself.  Because RPGs are not programmed, they are subject to hormonal catalysts resulting from different human impulses: like uncertainty and fear, a quest for power and prestige, covering for ignorance, the need to win the approval of others and so on.  These very human behaviors cloud the manner in which the game is processed, so that DMs forget that they are providing the structure of a game, and are not actually tasked with the need to gratify, satisfy, indulge or fulfill the desires and fantasies of the participants.

This is a destructive break in the mechanism of RPGs, one that continues to proliferate throughout the game's structure, systematically underscoring every discussion or "clarification" by the participants.  In the interest of self-gratification, the DM seeks to service the Players, who in turn reflect the service with words that gratify the DM, and so continues the stagnating loop which soon infects every aspect of what was once an active, healthy game.

Yes, the players LIKE the DMs providing of XP.  The players would probably like a lot of other things as well, designed to specifically award the players regardless of their actual participation in a structured game.  If, for example, I gave money out of my pocket for good role-playing, I'm very sure that would also increase the amount of role-play that went on at the table, as well as the number of perspective players I might have, ending in my campaign becoming very popular once the word got around.

The fact of this explodes every argument the video makes.  Of course, XP doesn't actually require the DM to sacrifice something, like money would, to be gratified by the process of giving (which is a terrific peptide called oxytocin) in exchange for receiving approval (which would be more drugs).


Concluding Thoughts

Many participants are quite happy with the agenda of the video; this process, too, has the power to trick the human animal's biology into releasing psychotropes, neuropeptides and neurotransmitters.  Some of us, however, are not convinced.

That is because we've come to the conclusion that a very well-constructed, deliberate game gives a far better hit than an easily given push.  We feel the dopamine from being given XP for accomplishing a mission, but there is a nagging concern that the value of the number is cheapened when it does not also come with risk ... and most of the things that "deserve" XP in the video are things in which risk is clearly unavoided.

For example, the most common argument for this policy is that players should receive XP for not killing the monster, if they can circumvent the monster somehow, whether through role-play, innovation or some other means.

This presupposes that experience should be given for achieving the goal, and not for overcoming risk.  There's no risk in circumventing the monster.  The risk is in fighting the monster, and potentially losing.  IF the players fail to role-play past the monster, and therefore they have to fight the monster, there is risk.  But if the players role-play past the monster, it is because the DM decided that a die roll indicated success, or because "reasons" indicated success ... and where is the risk?

There isn't one.

Games are about making choices regarding risk.  Without risk, there is no downside ... and therefore "winning" loses all meaning.  When we provide a benefit that requires no possibility of failure or loss, for some people that cheapens the effect.

Remember when I said that if tracks were old, we weren't going to follow them to find food?  When we look at those tracks, no dopamine.  It doesn't matter than they are still tracks.  The fact that they are tracks isn't enough. 

Remember when I said we look at the phone and see that it's spam?  No dopamine.  It doesn't matter that it is still a message.  It isn't an interesting message.  Being a message isn't enough.

For some people, getting XP for role-playing is enough.  But dopamine is funny.  It is only turns up when something is special.  When something is repeated and repeated, and stops being special ... no dopamine.

This isn't a choice.  This is biology.  Once we have participated in something that produces a certain rate of dopamine, because of the nature of that activity, a lesser activity doesn't cut it.  A lesser activity is boring.  A lesser activity doesn't give us dopamine.  It doesn't matter how many thousands of people argue that doing such-and-such with experience helps in their campaign, we shouldn't expect this to work in ours, because it is we may be playing with different stakes at this level.

It's bad advice, because the dopamine gratification provided by the advice isn't sustainable.  If you try it, you'll find that out.

Good Play is Its Own Reward

"Today I want to discuss a little thing that I use in my current RPGs, and that's Inspiration Tokens.  For those of you not familiar with Inspiration, it is essentially a reward that the GM will give a player for something that they've done well.  Either for great role-playing, or for daring and a great idea, or really just giving the right joke at the right time.  It's a nice positive reward for behaviour that the game master would like to encourage.  Furthermore, players that have Inspiration can then gift that to other players, either because the other player needs it, or as a thank you, or really just a kudos as a job well done.  What inspiration does is that it is a one-time bonus die that can be cashed in any time that the player wants."

I'm choosing to do a video from this fellow because he consistently gets an equal number of views per video to the number of subscribers he has, which is a pretty good sign that he's talking to a regular audience, within a couple of months.  Compare that with the WOTC videos that will get 48,000 page views out of 1.6 million subscribers over a similar period.

I can't encourage watching the whole video above.  Skorkowsky speaks in a shuffling high-school English drone, evident that he never, ever presses the ignore button when checking his writing's grammar, producing a grinding snore-fest even with the 3 minute and 30 second video shown.  Anyway, let's talk inspirational tokens.  I'll do the best I can to deconstruct this patiently.


Why This Seems Like a Good Idea

Games are about payoffs, or rewards, being elements that encourage player behaviour.  For many DMs, the notion that the payoff for "role-playing" should be measured in soul-less numbers, or profits, seems adverse to the point of the activity.  If we want to encourage players to role-play better (that being the interpretation of the game at work here), then we need a reward that applies to the players' behaviour as role-players and not coin & xp gatherers.

In effect, the extra die that can be used in more tactile game circumstances enables the players' behaviour, rather than the die roll, to influence luck and combat, or more precisely the increase in the players' chance of surviving whatever happens.

The DM, as well, experiences the pleasure of awarding the players immediately, in a positive fashion, apparently serving to create a mutual, friendly relationship between DM and players.  Expectedly, knowing that good answers and responses will be rewarded, this will encourage the players to take the game more seriously, raise their involvement, interact more sincerely with the DM and other players and effectively improve the overall quality of the game.


What Actually Happens

Almost at once, rather than becoming more interactive, the players become more competitive for attention, doing their best to outshine their fellows in order to get the DM's gold star.  While the reward exists to encourage behaviour, in fact it encourages a relatively small achievement - which for some players, naturally out-going and expressive, is no achievement at all.

In effect, rather than rewarding game play, we're actually rewarding a particular personality type, whose behaviour outside the game suits this particular recognition.  Players who are less gregarious, who find it more difficult to express themselves, who aren't glib enough to produce the ready joke ahead of their peers, soon find themselves on the sidelines, watching more proficient players excel.  It is elementary school, all over again.

And this is what school teachers have been noting for decades; and it is precisely the problem that "no child left behind" was intended to solve, which encouraged the creation of the participation ribbon (or the "good sport" ribbon, as it was called when I was a young boy).  It was recognized that some children never get gold stars ... and that this, in turn, produces low self-esteem and resentment.  Unfortunately, the response, to make sure that every child gets a gold star, regardless of achievement, has only served to cheapen the payoff and produce a different form of resentment.  Gold stars, or ribbons, for having achieved nothing, only reinforces an awareness that some people have to be awarded for doing nothing because they're not good enough to do something.

Essentially, because the DM can give a reward for anything, the process is inconsistent and imbalanced ... and in turn, will seem to the players to be routinely unjust, even if the very human DM self-consciously believes in being as fair as possible.  While one player begins to lose recognition because, "He's shown he can do a lot better than other players," another player feels personally that they're doing really well, but the DM hasn't noticed.  With this, it's psychological fact that people will feel resistant to giving out rewards to behaviour that doesn't fit with their personal mores or judgement ... so I can be brilliant, but brilliant in a way that happens to offend a particular DM, or player, resulting in a lack of recognition.

All these conditions only serve to split the party on many points, encouraging feelings of envy, gloating, attention-seeking and favoritism, all in ways that are less easy to achieve with a die-roll (outside the hidden, fudged die, which can effectively produce the same results).


Concluding Thoughts

On many levels, I do not consider this a very strong post about bad advice ... mostly because, for me, it is hard to understand why these reward systems continue to be implemented.

When I was in school, it was staggeringly easy for me to break the curve ~ so easy, in fact, that I did not give a shit.  While I could spend a lot of my time working on a 500-word paper to get an A, what I usually did was spend half-an-hour on a 500-word paper, without research, in order to get a C.  Either way I passed, and I wasn't any dumber, so I couldn't see a reward in working harder on something I didn't care about, at the expense of my time, which I would use to work very hard on something I did care about, but for which there were no marks given.  I only wanted to write and study numbers and mapmaking (and later D&D, but that was High School and later).  I did not give a damn about the troubles of native children being forced to learn English in the 19th century (though I did get around to studying that later).  For me, then, all reward systems implied authoritarian control.  They were all built in order to produce an enslaving behaviour at the consequence of my losing my freedom to read or study whatever I wanted, or the time to do so.

One can imagine how this frustrated the ever-loving shit out of my teachers.  If something I cared about happened to juxtapose itself with school, I would consistently destroy all competition.  And the rest of the time, I was the equivalent of the jock who sits at the back of the class, ignoring the teacher.  I remember a math class I wanted to drop in High School, only to be told that I would not be allowed to drop it and that attendance was mandatory.  I didn't need the class credit to graduate, so I ended up going to every class and working on some project of my own, turning in blank sheets for pop quizzes and exams, not giving a good goddamn what was happening on the blackboard.  The gold star was in my head, at the end of my pen, and not in the math teacher's pocket (though I did explain my intentions to Mr. Pollock after they told me I wouldn't be allowed to drop the course, and we agreed to ignore each other).

As a player, I would never countenance my performance being graded by a DM.  The notion is ridiculous.  As an actor, I expect the audience to grade my performance: they paid to get their seats and, in turn, I'm being paid with money and experience to excel.  But in a game, where's my reward?  The proof that another human approves of me?  Fuck that noise.  I expect everyone at the table to approve of every one else at the table on principle, else people can start packing.

Moreover, good role-playing, good play, ought to be its own reward.  The look on the faces of other people, the enjoyment of it, the laughs all around, the DM's good-natured screwing up or vindictiveness, these are all pleasantries that we enjoy, without the necessity of one DM's quest to adjust behaviour by approval.  The notion is so loathsome it is difficult not to go right off the chain.

Rewards for play enjoy the benefit of exploiting the low self-esteem of players who need recognition because they are not getting enough of it from others or from themselves.  The gold star was invented to encourage self-esteem; which in turn presupposes you don't have it.  Perhaps I am unwarranted here, but the time and the place to deal with these issues is not the D&D game.  I'm not advocating a reactionary dismissal of feelings or the personal needs of participants, but I do expect people to hold themselves together long enough that they don't need a pat on the head from me for attending, trying to play and occasionally doing it well.

That's not what I'm here for.

The Formal Session Before the Formal Session

Ah.  My Christmas is over now, as it is for my readers in Australia and Asia, and pretty much almost over for Europe and Africa.  So we can go back to D&D now.

I held back on doing this yesterday, since it was Christmas Eve.  And also because I don't want to steal attention from the Invented Region post, on which I intend to produce more content.  In the meantime, however, let's deconstruct the start of the video below.  I suggest watching at least 10 minutes before reading the post below, as the quote does not include all the presenters' comments on the subject.

Jim: "And so maybe you've seen the idea of this session zero concept ... it is the idea that before any characters are created, and before the game formally starts that everyone who's going to play in the campaign gets together, they sit down at the same table, and this is your opportunity as a new DM to formally introduce the setting.  I highly recommend in those initial communications that you're doing when you're finding new players that you at least give them a taste of the setting.  See if you can parse it down to an 'elevator pitch.'   Now is your time to introduce it, the location that you're going to be in, some notable features of the environment ... and what you want to do is to present setting information in such a way that the players then have some guidance when they start creating their characters.

"For me, I like to be upfront and honest about what type of campaign that I'm running, so the players can make appropriate characters ... some DMs don't like doing that.  They like to have the characters make the characters in the dark, and then the campaign is independent of that.  But I really am for almost all things clarity and communication are going to be better than lack of communication and lack of clarity."

Why This Sounds Necessary

Session Zeros are all the rage with the table-top community now, demonstrable by my having heard of them.  I stumbled across the concept for the first time when I began making these advice-deconstruction posts.  Judging by the time-stamps on the videos, I would guess this has been a thing now for two to three years.

Role-playing games are terrifically complicated things, so it stands to reason that we should take the time to establish clear and focused goals for what we hope to present and accomplish.  At the beginning is the best time to address a lot of the concerns that are sure to be encountered down the road, though of course we don't want to bombard them with information that will make players feel overwhelmed.  It only seems natural that we should hit the high points, figure out what concerns the new players have, give them the information they need.  That way, the players can be better players when the game actually starts.

Most important, we want feedback.  I have argued the value of feedback from players many times.  Moreover, feedback seems like a necessary, active ingredient for communication to enrich the campaign and make it more flexible, friendly and experience-positive.

DMs are running to this strategy to enable players to feel welcome at the table, and comfortable in an initially unfamiliar world setting that, as most people say, might require a considerable amount of buy-in before it can work.  DMs have face-planted before; most of the time, this has seemed to be the fault of expectations, where what the players wanted proved to be vastly different from the DM's predictions.  Hopefully, by outlining the premise, DMs hope to give themselves a better understanding of the players' expectations, while transmitting their own expectations in turn.

Rich and unique RPGs, after all, have specific conditions that require specific responses.  Understanding this reduces the risk of disputes and disagreement, establishes better relationships between participants and increases the likelihood that players won't quit your game.

Who doesn't want that?


Why Some Think This Has Worked for Them

Everything I've just written above was paraphrased and reworked from two sites: this one, 10 Tips for an Effective New Employee Job Orientation and this one, 5 Steps to the Most Effective Employee Orientation, Guaranteed!  Some of the above was stolen, word for word.

It's hardly possible to take a new job today without a job orientation, whether it is for a big multi-national company or a franchise with just two stores.  For business, the Orientation is the Human Resource equivalent to the Holy Grail, and anyone with the will can find hundreds of sites just like the two I've described above.

We are, therefore, habituated to believe that job orientations are, a) necessary and b) effective.  We've been reminded most of our working lives that if we didn't understand something about our jobs, it was explained in the orientation and therefore, if we don't understand it now, it is our fault.  We've also all had the experience of learning something in the orientation only to discover, six months down the road, that the policy has changed and that no, sorry, no employee will be getting [this] any more.

Orientations were not created for employees, they were created by Managers, as a way of managing employees.  The basic premise is to make it clear what the policy is, communicate this policy to the employee, then emphasize the requirement for the employee to accept and live up to this policy in the nicest way possible.

After all, as new employees, we do learn that the company isn't going to suddenly adapt to our needs as soon as we're hired [though we may have been deluded about that once].  So we're willing to accept that, well, sure, they're going to dick around with us for a bit, feed us a few spoonfuls of sugar, stroke us and stuff, until we can get down to the business of actually working, which doesn't have to start right away since we also know that working at this new job probably won't be that much fun.

So we buy-in.

A DM using this management tool probably will discover that it works, since it reduces the players to the level of employee in the DMs corporate game.  The players accept it because, well, we need a DM or else there's no game.  So sure, all right, we'll play along with this, have our chance to have a say (though that's just window dressing, both at the game and at our jobs), while enjoying the pleasure of at least being asked (though we'll be ignored after, we're used to that).  It's only natural that DMs would eventually learn that you can go a long, long way with underlings if you pretend to care about their needs, even if you really really don't.  Just ask Walmart, Apple, Google or anyone else making a helluva lot of money right now.

Does this work?  Oh hell yes it does.  And six months down the road, when a player reminds the DM that in the session zero, they were given reason to believe something that is now being ignored, the DM can just say that the policy was changed.

And what is the player going to do?  What do you do, when this happens at work?


Why It's Bad Advice

The fact that something "works" does not establish it as good advice.

There will be some who will fondly remember their session zero, in their games, and deny that it was anything like a job interview.  Most probably, because it was not.  I have been giving a "session zero" for 38 years ... only, I didn't think of it that way.  At the beginning of my games, I would explain, "Here's my world, I'll be starting you off in this place, unless you'd like to be somewhere else.  Good?  Great.  Let's roll up characters."

With the online Juvenis campaign, I gave the players a choice of what part of my world they wanted to start in, then plonked them down in Stavanger, described the town and their relationship to it, and got started.  I did not explain my "expectations," though some of that did come up as the players began to behave in ways inconsistent to running a campaign in text-only, online.  For example, I can handle a lot more role-play at a table, when I can respond instantly and ask direct questions, as opposed to piecing together twenty comments in text, without emphasis, intermixed with italics, quotes, random pieces of information and a total lack of emotional context.

But this sort of knocking out the kinks is not what people mean by a "session zero."  Here's a quote from the video above that makes it clear what the DM's expectation is:

Jim: "Because this is a social game, telegraphing and being honest about what you're going to do with the campaign means that you avoid players feeling like you pulled a bait and switch on them."

Why is Jim giving this advice?  Because as a DM, Jim has experienced this.  So have most of you.  Meaning that you have, probably, given the players reason to think you're fucking with them ... but now you're fine, because now you've warned them.

Excuse me, but exactly how can you telegraph and be honest about what you're going to do with the campaign if it hasn't happened yet?  "Listen guys, here's the thing:  I'm going to do all this stuff, and then, somewhere down the line, I'm really going to screw you up the ass, so I just want you to feel warned and comforted, because this is a social game."

Okay, let's say that I'm misinterpreting the quote.  I am trying to get to the heart of this and I am not trying to be glib.  I'm expressing, with blue language and with somewhat purplish accent, my feelings about someone "telegraphing" a campaign that hasn't happened yet.  The word means to signal one's intentions ... and in this case, the intentions are being signalled to avoid the players "feeling" something.  Well, why exactly would you have concerns about the players feeling that particular thing?  Unless, of course, that particular thing happens often enough that it needs to be countered by a specific strategy.

To take this in another direction, why is it that the thing supposed isn't a positive?  Why do we not say, "... what I'm doing with the campaign so the players will feel like they are in control of what happens to them?"  Or, "... what I'm doing with the campaign so the players can choose what things to avoid, once they know what's coming?"  Why is it expressed as a refutation of the players' feeling justly bilked out of what they expected from a typical game?

Why do they need to be warned about something that would be wrong to do, whether the players are warned or not?

Just so you know, I'm going to kill you in six months.  So, when I am killing you, don't say you weren't warned.

'Course, that's just one sentence, right?  Maybe this is not what Jim means.  Let's look at the very next interchange:

Pruitt:  "Yeah, they make a completely social character and you're going to do a dungeon diving hack and slash [garbled]."

Jim:  "Right.  Now all that said, there is a place for a totally social character in a dungeon-delve hack and slash game.  There is a place for a no-holds-barred badass barbarian in a game of courtly intrigue.  But ... they require players who are willing to be flexible, DMs who are willing to let those players think outside the box and be creative, and everybody just with understanding that, like yeah, these characters aren't perfectly suited for this campaign but we're going to try to make it work."

At which point, Jim changes the subject to his heirarchy of gaming needs.

We have here an excellent example of management double-speak.  "There's a place for creativity at your job, but not right here and not right now, or not for you, but for other people better skilled for that sort of thing, according to my opinion, so get back to work."

IF there is a place for any kind of character in any kind of environment, then what do we need a session zero for?  And if the player isn't flexible enough, which is itself a euphemism for "clever" or "smart" enough, shouldn't that be demonstrated through game play?  And if the DM isn't willing to let the players think outside the box and be creative, how will a session zero help that?

The answer sounds good ... and it is clear from Jim's face in the video [begins at 3:10] that his eyes are all over the place as he struggles to find the right words to sound like he's got this ... and at the moment that he figures out how to change the subject, his eye contact with Pruitt reasserts itself and his body language returns to a comfort level.


Last Thoughts

I have no doubts that whoever latched onto the concept of a session zero came from a background where they gave job orientations or where they had personally experienced a lot of such as they drifted from job to job.  Of course it got stolen for D&D.  I've stolen dozens of management processes for the game, so I can't quibble with people picking this one.

But while there are endless sites on the web describing "steps to perfect job orientations," there are no sites at all that give metrics for people being better or happier at their jobs.  All the content is written by people who claim to have given such orientations (but usually without naming the company, and at any rate they're not with the company now, apparently) or people who have credentials as writers and journalists, not business managers.

Basically, the job orientation was designed to enable your boss to be a tyrant, and to justify it by holding your own orientation over your head.  It was not designed with the employees' well-being in mind.  It is about propaganda, not training.

And most bosses who do the thing don't even know this!  They do orientations because they're told to ... and they probably hate the orientation more than you do, as you just have to do it once and they have to do it all day, every day.  To them, it has as much meaning as communion does for most people: it is a religious thing that we do, that used to mean something special when we were little children, but is now just habit.

Are your players going to fall in line after you pull a session zero?  No.  Because you're not paying them.  At best, you can get a little currency out of making them feel guilty, but then you're an asshole running your game by making your players feel guilty.  That's awful.  Why would you want to be that DM?

Give your players the basics.  Let them know where they are, give them as many options as they can handle, let them walk around your world and ask questions in character, with characters rolled up, and save the orientation.  Get the game started and let the pieces fall where they may.

I'm tempted to write some sort of "Session Zero" for a group of players sitting down to play poker, but I'll forego it.

Everything is a Road

"An episode I did about the sandbox vs. the railroad ... it implied that sandboxing is better than railroading and that's not true ... as someone else said, I think in one of the comments, 'You know, rollercoasters are on rails and people seem to like those.'

"Railroading - we can talk about railroading in a pejorative sense, meaning the players' choices didn't matter.  And that is the thing that frustrates players, when they feel like they weren't the stars of the show, it wasn't their actions that mattered.  I think this gets back to the 'your story vs. their story' video I did.  Obviously, I'm behind the idea of using adventures because I'm a huge proponent of them, I always have been.  I think that going and spending ten bucks to get a great adventure that someone has already done all the work for, done all the maps and all the NPCs are all spelled out, all you have to do is change names, maybe, and where it's set so it's appropriate to your world ~ so obviously I don't think having an adventure ready is bad.

"But having it, having a plot, knowing what's going to happen, having set-piece encounters laid out, is not railroading.  It's just being ready.  Railroading is a result of not listening to your players, I think mostly; saying no too often; and leaving them with the feeling that the NPC's in the world are more important than they are and that they didn't really matter to what happened, or their choices didn't matter, or they didn't have choices."

Now, let me be forthcoming.  There is another thread in this video, in which Colville talks about saying "yes" to the way in which players solve problems, which Colville argues fits logically into the above statement.  Paraphrased, that argument goes, so long as the players are free to decide for themselves how to overcome obstacles, putting the obstacles in their way is not railroading.


Why This Sounds Right

Role-playing as an activity is understood to be an adventure-oriented framework, one in which fictional characters pursue some sort of goal.  Our thoughts turn at once to a series of dangerous obstacles which must be surpassed, in order to get the McGuffin, or some piece of information, which will reveal the location or nature of some other person, place or thing, which logically waits behind another series of dangerous obstacles.

As such, the "adventure" structure is primarily linear.  This is neither good nor bad, it simply is.  We understand from our experience with films and novels that the characters must seek A to get B, to use against C, before D can be obtained which will bring about the end of E and save F.  The multiplicity of combinations belies any argument than a linear narrative structure must be either boring or predictable.

Given this, Colville is not wrong where he describes the DM's solution.  To manufacture the adventure, we must create obstacles.  Overcoming the obstacles is interesting and a large part of the dopamine rabbit press-button-receive-pellet process that encourages play and enjoyment.  Letting the players determine how to overcome the obstacle is important to a sense of self-actualization, so taking that feature out of the adventure does create the feeling that the players are puppets.  Giving them a set of problems, then asking that the problems be solved, is a perfectly reasonable expectation on the part of the DM.

As alluded, rollercoasters are fun.  As are crossword puzzles, where there is only one answer that can solve the dilemma.  Very often, RPG players will gripe about DMs who refuse to permit multiple solutions to problems, yet many popular and enduring games and activities are made this way.  There is only one way to put together a jigsaw puzzle.  There's only one way to win at golf.  No one can say they have climbed a mountain without having stood on the top of it.

So again, Colville is right to argue that the "game" for players is to figure out how to put the ball in the hole or how to get to the top, or how to sort the pieces and look at them as to figure out how they go together.


What This Has to Do with Railroads and Sandboxes

In Colville's other video about railroads and sandboxes, which he links at the beginning of the video above, he explains what he thinks a sandbox is:

"That's the end of the game.  The entire thing was the players' idea.  John had a completely different adventure in mind, but when the players came up with their own idea, he rolled with it.  As a result, even though John had to do some trickery behind the scenes, and the party relied on his friend's high level wizard too much, and there was the whole dragon thing which was supposed to be the final battle, and it happened off screen ... that is a classic example of a sandbox campaign."

For years now, since long before I started blogging in 2008, the RPG community has been struggling to define the difference between a "railroad campaign" and a "sandbox campaign."  I've made a few tries at it myself.  It occurs to me today, however, after watching the video, that I've been thinking about it all wrong.  Instead of defining one type of campaign vs. another, let's ditch RPGs completely and recognize that these two things are metaphors.  Therefore, let's define what a "railroad" is and what a "sandbox" is.

A railroad is a permanent road laid with rails, commonly in one or more pairs of continuous lines forming a track or tracks, on which locomotives and cars are run for the transportation of passengers, freight and mail.

The creation of the railroad was more than an industrial process.  Mass transport had an energizing effect on the population, expanding culture, the spread of ideas, the sheer pleasure of taking an excursion, opportunities for people of purpose or desperation to leave one part of the world for another, while retaining communication with their roots ... trains were phenomenal.  They changed the way we thought, the way we designed cities, the way we viewed materialism and much, much more.  More to the point, knowing when and where the destination was served as a terrific selling point for people who wanted to go.

And now,

A sandbox is a box or receptacle for holding sand, especially one large enough for children to play in.

The presence of sand, whether or not contained in a box, has no distinct motivation for its use, no measurable intent, no service that is performs, no out-of-box problem that it has been designed to solve, no preconceived level of enjoyment that it gives.  It simply exists.  Yet there is something in the human nature, most recognizable in young children, that compels activity.


What's Wrong with Colville's Definition

At no time, and in neither video, is Colville describing a sandbox.  It is clear that he, like most, have no idea why the word "sandbox" has inserted itself as a metaphor for a particular kind of campaign.  Sandboxes are not about solving problems, overcoming obstacles, obtaining prizes or succeeding at campaigns.  When playing in a sandbox, the mind conceives of an image or idea, then we attempt to recreate that image in sand.

A sandbox campaign, therefore, is not a linear process.  It is nothing like any module that has ever been created for a DM, since the creation of the module itself belies the principle that we are pouring a structureless tool into a box and allowing free association and creativity to produce something.

I have to confess: deconstructing the videos above and writing this post has crystallized my thinking on game play in a manner that I think is new to me.  And that is why we deconstruct things.  To figure out how they work.

I don't think, now, that I have ever run a sandbox campaign.  I have suggested campaigns like this, every now and then on the blog, but just now I don't even think that the mustard farmer scenario I proposed with my fifth post fits the bill.  A sandbox campaign would have to lack an adventure entirely, since once the adventure is proposed we are immediately on some sort of road to a known and intended destination.

We've been caught up, I think, in trying to define "railroad to Auschwitz" as a railroad and "railroad that is pleasant and fun" as a sandbox.  That's demonstrably wrong.  Whether or not we can free ourselves from the cars and see the journey, or feel reassured about the destination, is immaterial where describing the campaign is concerned.

A sandbox is much, much more like our own lives.  It's a situation where we're interacting with a lot of people, trying to gather our resources to make our lives comfortable, dealing with shit that comes up, that often has nothing to do with our plans but often affects people we don't want to see suffer or in pain.  And all the while, trying to figure out what we DO want, how to get it, whether or not we will lose ourselves in the process, while spending effort and material in the process of making more material.

We shouldn't be surprised that people don't want to run a game like this.  Where in the hell would we start?  Yet arguably, such a campaign would be far, FAR more relevant to a "character-driven" campaign, where the unimportant bullshit of having to travel to some distant place to find a thing to stop a person from destroying a place, none of which has to do with our "characters," could be thrown aside.  Like a drama, rather than an adventure, our characters would sit around and talk, discuss, figure out who we like, what we want to stop, what the meaning of life is and so on ... and get really, really involved in characterization.

Characters in adventures are stock, really.  Their motivations are pre-made and their agenda is greed or self-sacrifice.  These are pretty easy concepts for us to get our heads around.  Adventure characters don't feel crippling pain or permanent loss and confusion.  They always get over it.  Everything for their motivation is served on a silver platter and they never, ever feel that it's all for nothing.  Real character-role-playing is upsetting, uncomfortable and lacking in resolution.  We don't watch and read adventures for the characters, but for the simple, straightforward, unthinking lack of complexity that enables us to escape all that real personality-driven stuff we hate in real life.


Concluding Thoughts

Given this, does the advice given in the video count as "bad advice"?  I think it does, because it misleads the listener into thinking that, so long as the players feel like they're the star of the show, then I can lay the tracks down anyway that I want, pretending to myself that the destination, and all the McGuffins and Clues along the way, are evidence of the players' sense of freedom.  This is like saying that if I drive the train, I'm in charge of where it goes.  I'm not.  Even if we argue that there are multiple tracks and switches, there are hundreds of other trains on this track and we'd be crazy to willy-nilly flip a switch and head off at random.

Colville is arguing, however pleasantly and intelligently, that he has to make a game this way because he has the right to do so as a DM, or rather, he can't think of another way to do it.  And he has neatly argued himself into a justification, that so long as there's more than one way to drive the train, and so long as he's willing to let players drive a train from the back car because he's so, so flexible as a DM, then magically we've stopped moving on tracks.

For myself, there's a certain logic in this.  I wrote a couple months ago about motivating players into a sort of railroad.  Now, I find, I have to change my mind about, and admit that it is a railroad, though much less restrictive than Colville's examples.  And I was very knee-jerk and defensive about it, too ... but this is me, admitting that I was wrong, so please blow trumpets as necessary.

Now I'm going to think about how to run a sandbox.  I think that's what I'm trying for, with the infrastructure-development system.  BUT ~ and let me be very clear ~ players are apt to create their own railroads, without being told to do so.  Choosing to set themselves on the path to find a McGuffin and obtain some clues is not how a sandbox works; it only shows a willingness for players to buy their own tickets for the destination they choose.  That's nicer than being told which train we're going to board, but it is STILL a railroad.

A Hoodwink

"We need to now establish the type of campaign that we're going to be running.  Now, by type, I literally mean the grand theme, the theme, the main overriding story that's going to allow you to create what feels like a contained narrative within a chaotic space.  Now like the master plot, which gives you your singular direction from which you can deviate and move away from, but always come back to, your type or your theme is going to be exactly the same in terms of the functioning of it.

"So if we look at the different types or the different themes of campaign that you can run, you can run a war campaign, you can run a revenge campaign, you can run a justice campaign, you can run an ascension campaign, you can run a restoration campaign, you can run an apocalyptic campaign, you can run a campaign that deals with the idea of love for example.  So they're fairly broad ideas in which the narrative is going to sit."

To deconstruct this, I will be referring to parts of the video that have not been quoted.


Why This Seems Important

The process of managing a game is a daunting, often intimidating prospect, that can be moreso if the DM has run games before that collapsed or failed due to moments when "thinking on our feet" proved to be a failing strategy.  The habit becomes an emphasis on fighting back the chaos, as this seems the most troublesome aspect of running.

The best way to reduce chaos and create an effective management for a game is to organize and plan.  That is the thinking that virtually everyone rushes to when something complicated falls apart after a failed attempt.  "The next time I do this, I am going to have a plan."  The video here is an example of that thinking: the certainty that, with good planning with a strong story and overriding narrative, I will be able to establish a series of achievable, firm goals that can be met methodically and with my feet firmly on the ground.  This way, the confusion, havoc and uproars of my past sessions will be laid to rest, disruptions to the campaign will be minimized and the game will proceed in a predictable, orderly manner.  Thank gawd!

Furthermore, this collection of goals will create for us a logical framework from which we can design additional adventures, all upon the same theme, so that when we need an idea, we can return to the scope of ideas contained within that theme.  Once we've established that this is a war, then adventures connected with war will spring to mind in abundance, so that we won't be on the hook to come up with something, unlike our previous scattered and stumbling attempts, where we've come up short.  How wonderful that is.  No more wasted efforts, no more rushing to react to something we didn't expect - this campaign is going to be one that gets results!


Why We Believe in this Strategy

Without a doubt, plans work.  They encourage thinking about a problem, which itself is an important step towards being prepared.  Part of the problem with relying on improvisation is that it causes DMs to take a pass on thinking about the next game, reducing the overall amount of creativity that has gone into preparing that game's experience.

As well, planning is a specific process, with a specific structure.  If we sit down to intricately plan a campaign, it is easier to guess what sort of questions we want answered, both for ourselves and for the players.  The very act of planning encourages us to answer these questions for ourselves, so that a DM in the planning process will feel reassured and confident while working alone for days, prior to the event.  Planning has a way of focusing our minds on the task at hand.  It is comforting.  A lack of planning makes us feel incapable and anxious about what's coming.  Planning holds our hand and gives us reason to think that we're on top of the problem.  In fact, there is biological evidence of this; planning is an executive function of the brain, selecting and successfully applying attentional control, cognitive inhibition, inhibitory control, working memory and cognitive flexibility, as I've just explained.

The video argues the value of this very human, very emotionally charged process, basically outlining the traditional steps of planning:

• Choose a destination.
• Evaluate possible routes.
• Decide on a course of action.

We humans have been doing it this way for ten thousand years.  We've built the edifice of civilization and culture by designing, organizing, managing subordinates and directing the combined power of human ingenuity and resourcefulness towards the accomplishment of any intended outcome.  It seems child's play to apply this principle to a simple matter like running a game.

Why It Won't Work

Some are well ahead of me by this point.  Role-playing is an improvisational activity.  It can't be "planned" by both the DM and the players at the same time, since the players technically are necessarily removed from what is about to happen on the other side of the door, deliberately by the Dungeon Master.  As such, much of the "planning" for the balance of the participants goes into managing the unknown ~ and the results of that planning and execution creates an unknown for the DM that can't be planned for, since ingenuity, random rolls and the gestalt of the group's interaction creates a chaotic, enticing maelstrom ... in fact, the very effect for which we play the game, as uncertainty is utterly, wonderfully fascinating.

The more planning the DM attempts to contain and build a frame around that chaos, the more stale and reactionless the campaign becomes.

A good metaphor could be the incidence of lightning. We can understand why it occurs, we can produce a reasonable means of predicting its strike, but we can't be certain if, or when, it will actually strike. Moreover, we can't control the strike, nor the effects of the strike.  None of which reduces the awe-inspiring magnificence of the display, nor the terror-inducing effects of a nearby strike, nor the immeasurable dread we feel if we're caught outside in a place where, it seems certain, that it is going to strike us.

Despite the totality of human achievement, there are some things we do not control, that no amount of planning can manage.  And some things should not be planned for: this is why "spontaneity" is treated with such reverence where our emotional-reward is concerned.

Yet that promise that we receive as we plan continues to delude us into thinking that this lightning can be contained in a bottle and that the experience will not be lessened once we manage it.  That is because this planning is all done alone, prior to the game, where the echo-chamber of one's own thoughts, vs. the apprehension of the next running, hoodwinks us into following the will o'wisp, again, into the hubris of our false confidence.

The video, above, is a hoodwink.  It sounds good.  Until one thinks about it.

Crossing Boundaries

"Everyone at your table volunteers their free time and as we all know, free time is valuable.  You try to prep everyone with session zero to get the feel for how you game master.  You walk players through their character backgrounds to get an understanding of how they want to play.  Give them pre-game house rules so that everyone is on the same page on how act and respond to one during game play.  You try your best to anticipate what your players might do.  You try your best to feel the room and gauge how the table feels about different situations you put them through.  Sometimes, you can't anticipate or read the table.  Sometimes you cross boundaries you didn't know where there in the first place."

"One way to attempt to avoid this is to ask your players, privately ahead of time, what items or issues are off the table.  Compile these items into a list with your own off-limits subjects, and tell your players during the pre-game house rules, 'These items are off the table and might trigger someone sitting at the table with you.  As a game master, it's your responsibility to provide a safe space for your players to open their imaginations in play."

I don't know if my readers have the tenacity to sit through the video above.  However, I am going to try to take it as seriously as I can, once again deconstructing the advice above to determine what value there is in it.


Why This Seems to Work

Frankly, a lot of it is good advice.  You should be speaking to your players, before, during and after sessions to obtain feedback about the tone and direction of the campaign.  Communication is key to a game, as is team-building for the party, and so there are many ways in which inconsiderate or confrontational behaviour can ruin a session.  I am the first person to encourage DMs to talk to their players.  I discuss my ideas and my philosophies constantly, right here on the blog.

Role-playing is inherently an activity in which every part of the human experience can be played out and viscerally experienced, including those things which many people will find offensive.  There is no question about that.  During the video above, Dr. Megan Connell discusses using role-playing as a therapy tool for empowering women and managing the difficulties of autistic patients.  This is not surprising; in the 1950s, psychologists began seeing how theatre could be turned around as a tool for exactly this purpose, to allow people to work out problems in their real life by distancing themselves through role-play.  Role-play was publicized through the media, enabling a group of young designers to incorporate it into wargaming to create role-playing games ... and so naturally, it comes around full circle again as the game is used by psychologists to manage stress and enable fun.

With young people who are struggling to manage the game, this idea of closing off questionable content from the game experience has the benefit of making people feel more comfortable.  It is a form of etiquette, where the social acceptability of subjects, attitudes and behaviors are maintained.  When we are polite, we watch our behaviour with others in mind before ourselves, ensuring that a group experience is social and pleasant.

This sounds desirable.


How Evidence Seems to Support This

We need to be clear about Dr. Connell's agenda in the video, and the agenda of Satine Phoenix as well.

Dr. Connell is concerned with making troubled people less troubled.  She is using her game as a tool, not as an end in itself, as made perfectly clear with many of her statements, where she expresses pride in a patient successfully overcoming an emotional obstacle, associated with that patient's personal self-image.  In each case, it is the game's value as a therapy that is being argued ... and because it is a group therapy, the nature of the experience must be that is it inclusive.  Group therapy was developed as a sensitivity-training tool designed to socialize individuals distinctly lacking in social skills.

This goal is eminently laudable and I commend Dr. Connell's willingness to take the game as it exists and apply it to this purpose.  That's great.

But that is not what everyday DMs are doing with their games.  Not being psychologists, or perceiving the treatment of players as part of the Saturday night game agenda, the good doctor's expectations from a good game are a long, long way from our expectations.

As regards Ms. Phoenix.  I want to take care not to disparage her approach to her game.  Her game, however, is an officially presented product of the Wizards of the Coast; therefore, her views, ideas and perspectives are necessarily managed by the existence of a business operating behind her words.  It is absolutely in the interest of that business to view inclusiveness of participants as their primary agenda, since "viewers" equal "customers."

Moreover, because much of her persona includes appearances at public events, where she will sit on a panel and promote the views of the WOTC, it is understandable that her personal agenda will be to please her employers ~ or at the very least, those people responsible for her having a strong voice on the internet.  Part of that promotion will be to communicate, regularly, and occasionally run, complete and total strangers.  Where running strangers, there are many reasons why any person will want to make it clear where boundaries might be crossed and why avoiding triggers would be a priority.  We have all seen that scene where someone rises at a convention table, screams at the DM and storms out ~ and though there is often much laughter, it is the kind of thing that makes management suits very uncomfortable.

I understand Ms. Phoenix's motivations here; however, not being public presenters, or being concerned with what the WOTC thinks of our game performance, and not ~ for the most part ~ playing with strangers, but with friends, it is difficult to connect the advice in the video with actual experience in a non-monitored situation.


Why the Advice Won't Work For You

I've covered this somewhat already, reading between the lines above.  But it is still a good idea to be considerate and empathic with your fellow-players, so fundamentally the above advice would seem to hold water, regardless of the change in situation.

In my past, I have offended players.  I have been unrestrained in my use of language.  I have been excessively graphic where it comes to violence or sex.  I have been impatient with my players.  On occasion, it wouldn't hurt for me to be more patient and, yes, inclusive.

But let's go back to something I wrote above: "Role-playing is inherently an activity in which every part of the human experience can be played out and viscerally experienced ..."  

Unless your goal is that of Dr. Connell, where you see yourself as a doctor administering to patients, or as Ms. Phoenix, who sees herself as a cruise director for players who have "volunteered" to play in your game, chances are you've had some trouble with the advice being given.  Granted, there are DMs who are grateful to the few players who have deigned to play in their games, who cannot count on other players if these few depart ... and I feel much pity for DMs who are thus trapped in this circumstance.  It is terrible to have one's love exist at the whim of others.

If that is not your circumstance, however; if you don't feel dependent on your players; then it is only natural that yes, you will feel the need to judge them from time to time.  That is a natural impulse.  It is part of the day-to-day world, where you are judged on the internet, at work, by your doctor as he tells you that you need to lose weight, by your mother who isn't impressed with your job, by your neighbor who resents how rarely you shovel your sidewalks free of snow and so on.  Being judged, and judging, are constant experiences.

And now I have to quote The Princess Bride:  "Life is pain. Anyone who says different is selling something."

Judgement is part of that pain.  We can mitigate our judgement; we can cool it down and put it into phrasing that isn't ranting, such as I have tried to do with this post.  But we can't make ourselves agree with something solely for the benefit of other people, without risking ourselves.

If you try to follow the advice given above, you're going to do nothing more than tie yourself into knots.  In addition to that, you will be giving your players complete power to judge you.  When you set out to please them, to cater to them, to tailor the circumstances of your world to serve their whims, you make yourself a slave ... if not to their conscious desire to mess with you, with emotional complaints and hand signals, then to their unconscious inability to deal with anything out of their ken.  You end by putting yourself at the mercy of their trauma and their neuroses.

That's fine if you have training, like Dr. Connell.  Without training, you're not ready for that shit-scape.


Thoughts on Advice

My players are not "volunteers."  Volunteering is an altruistic activity where individuals and groups provide service for no financial gain.  Coming to play in my world is not a service others perform for me.  I find that particular characterization highly misaligned with my experience as a DM.

As an artist, as a designer, the chance through D&D to explore every part of the human experience is my priority.  My priority is not to run an all-inclusive game for every person who might happen to sit at my game table.  I can, at best, run five or six people a week; this out of the half a million participants who might be playing right now.  I feel I can afford to be selective.

If I happen to offend Jeff, then Jeff is perfectly welcome to play another game with another DM.  My feelings towards Jeff at that moment will likely be unkind and yes, judgmental.  If I see a member of the audience rise and leave the theatre just as the main actor gets out of bed, naked, to turn on the television, without the ridiculous Hollywood charade of wrapping a bedsheet around him so as not to offend the audience, who supposedly aren't there, then YES, I'm going to be terrifically judgmental ... and so will many others, because it is plain that the audience member is a prig.

The present day desire to turn priggishness into a mental state that needs empathy and a redesign of social behaviour is ridiculous.  I won't cat-call them as they cringe at my game table; I will do my best to keep my disdain, politely, to myself.  But if can't deal with what's happening, I feel I am in my rights to say, "I'm sorry, maybe this is not the game for you."

Of course, if they argue, the gloves are off.

Bad Advice We Don't See

"Think of a corresponding plot hook ... you need a good, strong, easily read plot hook, because this is supposed to be an all-inclusive full arc story in a single session.  You don't want your party wandering for half of it wondering what the hell they're supposed to do.  Now find a way to have the meat of the story grab them early with a strong inciting incident.  For instance, as they are drinking in the tavern ... Boom!  The western wall explodes in a shower of splinters as a massive, insane [garbled] bull begins goring the customers with its horns.  After slaying the creature, they discover a series of strange markings in the normally docile beast.  They appear deliberate, arcane and recent.  Who could have done this?  Any why?

"Or, during a celebration surrounding the maiden voyage of a major trade ship, an assassin attempts to slay a member of the party, as well as two other officials involved in the trade ship's company.  When the chaos dies down, a ring on the assassin's hand holds the crest of a particular noble house."

Let's deconstruct a little.  To get the full impact of this post, I strongly recommend watching the entire video.


Why This Seems to Work

At most game tables, particularly those of a convention, where strangers are expected to play with each other for a one-off adventure, such as described here, the players usually don't have an agenda.  From my experience, most don't know they're allowed to have an agenda.  Thus, a DM can usually be sure that the players are waiting for the DM to tell them what they're expected to do, as the text above indicates.

When the incident begins, it seems very exciting.  The wall has just blown in!  There's a bull!  Or an assassin!  Do something!  Fight!  Run!  The response expected from the players is crystal clear; the players don't have to argue or debate about what to do ~ it is very obvious, so that everyone is immediately in synch.  The party, then, acts together ... and this helps bind a party, particularly a group of strangers at a Con, together.

Would-be writers are often told that they should begin a story with something exciting:

"As Jeremy threw himself to the sidewalk, the house of his birth exploded, scattering the neighborhood with brick, plaster and children's toys ..."

You'd read the next sentence of a book that started like that, right?  And so it seems like a good start for a game adventure.  Grab the players, get them working together, provoke their curiosity.


Why It Works in a Story

In a story, there's no question about the characters being interested and concerned about the event.  As the passive audience watches the film or play, or reads the story, the characters do the next obvious thing: they find the ring and recognize the noble house, just as expected.  Becoming curious, the characters investigate, make inquiries, talk to other characters who have the necessary information to move the story steadily along towards an exciting and interesting climax.

At no time in the story do the characters question the initial motivation.  They were there when the incident occurred, that is enough motivation to carry them through the rest of the story.  We wouldn't expect the characters to grow suddenly disinterested in the story.  Poirot does not realize he's on a train full of murderers and decide to get off, to reveal the truth to a group of police officers.  Luke doesn't listen to his uncle.  Deckard doesn't off Rachael.  Everyone does exactly what we expect of them, in the way we like it ... or else we would be unhappy with the story.

With a story, the writer carefully constructs all the characterizations so that this makes sense.  Deckard is given a specific set of traits and behaviours that make his falling in love with Rachael, whether or not she is a replicant, full believable and desirable to the reader.  Luke is depicted as an awkward, strongly romantic and anxious, so that it's impossible for him not to follow the plot as expected.  Poirot's ego is so immense it needs a train car of its own: and therefore, when he confronts the murderers, we're ready for it.

Additionally, take note that none of these characters has any real interest in doing something else.  Poirot exists to solve crimes.  Luke is bored on the farm.  Deckard is eating when he's interrupted; he doesn't seem to be on his way anywhere.  What else would they be doing?

And thus, each dialogue and interplay follows a carefully constructed format, in the writer's imagination, with characters who live to follow this story.  We accept this because we're not personally involved.  We're listening to the story, interested in what happens next, enjoying the characters we like explore their surroundings.


Why It Won't Work in Your Game

Very well, the players have killed the bull, or the assassin, and discovered the markings, or the ring.  What happens next?  Why, they'll investigate, right?  They'll immediately commit themselves to going from place to place, seeking out the people who will give them the next important clue, so they can find out who the assassin is and why the bull was so marked.

And my, how boring that will be.

See, finding out those details, to explain the puzzle, is a lot of dull exposition that the players, unlike book characters, will have heard before, in a hundred other stories they've already read.  Yada, yada, yeah, the noble's heir wants the throne, the cult is marking bulls all over the country, blah blah, sure, just tell us where the heir is or where the cult is and gawd, let's get past all this mystery shit so we can go kill something else.  Please.

No matter how good it sounds in a story, your character really isn't that interested in having the argument with Luke's father, or all that motivated by finding your parents are roasting skeletons in the desert.  Oh, sure, you might get to raise your fist in the air at your gaming table and shout "NO!" in an affected, dramatic voice, but everyone is going to laugh and make jokes, and let's be serious, it's the affectation of the emotion you care about, not the actual deaths of your fake parents.

You're not really interested in conducting a dozen interviews with strange characters, one by one, parsing for the painfully specific detail that will finally let you point a finger at everyone.  And while you're more than ready to take out a gun and kill replicants, what is the chance that you give the remotest of shits for this scene at Tyrell's office and the 100+ questions you have to ask Rachael before you know she's a replicant.  How much interest do you have in explaining to her in your apartment that she is?

You're not.  Mysteries, as role-playing games, are actually pretty dull.  If you run a lot of mysteries as a DM, chances are you have one player who gets off on this stuff and four players who sit quietly and ask a few questions, while they wait and wait and wait for something to happen.  Or worse, you, the DM, are the only person who actually cares, while the party waits and waits and waits for you to squeeze out the details one by one, until you deign it is time for something to happen.


Worse, It's a Railroad

Once the bull appears at the tavern, the rest of the adventure is set in stone.  The players are expected to kill the bull.  What happens if they don't?  Well, obviously, that's impossible.  If this is a one-off we're running at a convention, we can't just have everyone roll new characters, so that bull has to go down.  Already, we've eliminated any real concern.

Once the bull is dead, the explanation has to follow.  Whether or not the players agree, or investigate, or do anything at all, the explanation will have to be forced on them, as npc's appear to make declarations until the players are fully informed about their next expected action.  There's no way this bull can just bust through a bar without there being a reason.  Someone has orchestrated it, and that someone must be brought to account.

Otherwise, really, who cares?  An assassin has randomly attempted to kill a party member in a game at the beginning of the adventure.  We're already being told there will be other assassins, so we'd better do something, or we'll all die.  The extortion is clear and heavy-handed.  The DM might as well pull out a pistol, point it at the heads of the players and announce, "You will play my game, or else."


Thoughts on Advice

I would think that if we're going to give advice on how to run an adventure, whether it is a one-off or a long campaign, that the advice be less glib and better thought out.  It isn't enough to tell people, "Have a hook."  What's needed is to explain to people, "Decide on a motivation for your players, then fulfill that motivation."

It is true.  We need a good, strong, easily read plot hook.  Let's say the players would like to be richer:

"As they are drinking in the tavern, one of the players happens to know that three days from now, there will be a celebration surrounding the maiden voyage of a major trade ship ... and that the officials who will be overseeing the celebration are extraordinarily hated men, particularly by certain guilds who are being made bankrupt by this company.  Perhaps those guilds are looking for a few assassins, and perhaps they would be willing to pay a lot of money ..."

Or let's say the players would like to have more status.

"As they are drinking in the tavern, one of the players recalls that several bulls have recently gone mad, apparently because of runes that have been carved into their flesh.  Perhaps, if we unearthed the cult responsible for this, we could make ourselves famous in this very grateful, very generous town ..."

In other words, rather that force an event on the players, have the players simply "know" something ... and let them decide if that's something that might interest them.  Then, if it doesn't, the players can hear the pitch and answer, "Nah ..."

Like adults not forced to play someone else's game.

We can even jump past the boring.  The players, agreeing to be assassins, are informed by the DM, "If you're willing, after three days, with talking and whatnot, you've been contracted by the baker's guild to off Henrich and Albert, provided they both suffer painfully before they die.  Is it agreed?"  Then, with only three hours to play, we've dispensed with all the bullshit of negotiation and finding the right people with the baker's guild, which none of us honestly care about, and we can start with the planning of how to kill a few officials on a dock in the midst of celebration, and get away with it.

Or we can say, "The truth is, you know exactly where the cult is.  As you share information for a few minutes, it turns out that the cult must be located near or perhaps underneath the abandoned windmill a mile west of town.  Would you like to see if you can find it?"  Then, if they agree, we can dispense with all the bullshit of querying people and guessing which of the fifty buildings in town might be the right one, and go straight to equipping ourselves to go slaughter some bastard animal torturers.

Why is this not the obvious solution to the "plot hook?"  Why must everything be outlined in this needlessly dramatic story-telling device that is, basically, designed to make you buy a theatre ticket or purchase a book?  We're all here to play, aren't we?  We've already bought the ticket.  Can't we get past the sales gimmicks and get straight to the part where we're in control of the agenda, instead of being the victims waiting around for something to happen?

The problem with bad advice, like the above that started this, is that it often looks like good advice to people who don't know any better.

And it is part of the question I keep asking, when I hear people tell me that Matt Mercer of Critical Role is the best DM they've ever seen.  Does Matt actually know better than he's telling, but he can't find the words for it or he just doesn't think he can convey a more complex idea in under 7 minutes, or has he just never heard good advice?

Does anyone know how to play this game?