The word I like to describe this approach is "authentic". It feels close enough to realism to be believable because it's logical and always works the same way, but it lets you pull some strings sometimes to make things more fun.
So what would it be called if it’s a higher power campaign like instead of a 10 being average human level it was 6 or 7 but still applies logic to feats for example if in the game 14 means you can dead lift 450 lbs you still won’t lift the car or maybe the 2 ton rubble in your path Is it still “authentic” or is that along the lines of narrative? Just curious I’m rather new to dnd in general
@@sophiemorgan9989 Really it's sort of semantics at that point. If you establish the laws of your universe at least partly in reality, then as long as things are believable and consistent, you can say they "are realistic" and/or "feel authentic". Operating on the assumption that wizards and magic exist, how would the world work? You can have a fantastical setting, but as long as it's consistent, it can feel realistic.
I love "aging" a problem the players ignore in my homebrew and sandbox D&D world. I had one group that kept ignoring the main plot quest of dealing with undead at the ruins on the hill. Undead spotted near the ruins Undead seen near the trade road Undead raiding small traders' wagons and homesteads Undead raiding major caravans and small villages Undead over-run the PC's favorite city. Players finally try to investigate and got chased off the small continent which was essentially taken over by a cult of necromancers. Campaign complete.. the Necromancers won.
Same! It adds an almost literal realism to the game! Their choices matter, but the world keeps moving. If they don't act, the world might not spin in their favor.
@@larsdahl5528 if the PCs ignore a problem the problem won't always fix itself so in those situations i plan on, pretending, to have NPCs deal with the problem in the background to figure out how the situation (and PC decisions) shapes the world. so in Huber's case you might see the locals start getting progressively more worried as they hear terrible rumors and start to lose contact with friends or family. you'll see traders start to struggle as supplies get raided and their business gets strained. other mercenaries, adventurers, and soldiers start losing their nerve from previous expeditions to investigate or contain. you may see the kingdom become more militant and fortified as the king discovers what's going on and tries to prepare. when it comes to the main plot just about the only people that can solve this are the PCs, the tricky part is convincing them to bite down on the plot hook. another example: a group hears rumors that people are going missing along the road to a monastery. let's say it's just a troll under a bridge halfway between the village and the church and that the players decide to ignore it and move on from the town without going that way. eventually the townsfolk are going to get a mercenary to investigate and deal with it so between sessions so you could just randomly roll to see how it goes (or just roll some characters and do a solo fight for fun). say you roll well and the troll gets dealt with (or the opposite, whatever) and then just think of some appropriate consequences for the surrounding area, with some bad stuff still happening should the merc deal with the troll because it took longer compared to PCs. like maybe the priest was one of a few individuals capable of resurrection but he got killed on the way to town. or maybe the holy order set up there was protecting the village from undead but the issues with the troll interfered enough that some necromancer caused issues. or even simpler is that the troll got adventurous himself and messed up the local farms and cattle leaving the town in a precarious situation so close to winter. I've never DM'd before but i am working on a world and campaign for fun and just in case i get the nerve to try my hand at DM'ing. but one of the things i want to do is have as much of a living and dynamic and detailed world (within reason) so the players can do whatever they want before the main plot becomes the main focus of their adventure. and so they can see how what they do affects things. also i don't plan on making the main plot time sensitive for a good while. sorry about the wall of text but your question just had me thinking a lot.
Good on you! I hate when games suspend the pressure of time while the player(s) hoover up every last side quest and dangling piece of XP. Make my choices meaningful by forcing me to spend time meaningfully. In my last (and next!) fantasy campaign I told my players at the start: "You guys can advance campaign time at the rate you want, to train or build or travel as you like. There is a long road ahead of you, and the dark forces have a long series of events ahead of them. You'll have lots of time to explore other options, to pursue side quests, or to invest time in large projects, but keep in mind that the villains may have a plot that'll take over the world in ten years." In my current Star Wars RPG, the campaign start is slightly before the events of Rogue One in a remote but important part of the galaxy. I stressed to my players that they're on the same timeline as the movies, and as such as they advance the campaign they affect the plots and characters we all know and love.
This is one of the most important questions. This is where tabletop RPGs beat computer games through GM's adaptivity and creativity. Thank you for making the video!
i love this video. whenever i start a new campaing, i run a session 0 with the players with "0 preparation" just for them to get the world and tone, and then we have a chat ... in that chat one of the things we talk about is "consequences". "do we want to have a hardcore game?" an horror like scenario where we are out of breath with each decision we take? or do we like a cartoonish game ... at the end of each session we have a 1 minute talk about the game, "the best, the worse and if there is something to change" some times, we even play a one shoot of another game to aliviate tension with narrative heavy games.
Being 'old-school', my players are always ready to die permanent deaths. The more outrageous their actions, the more spectacular their successes and fails. We have a comfortable blend of realistic and narrative, and even our personalized rules have come to reflect that. They often Surf the Tsunami, so to speak, and the unlikely survivors become instant legends, while the rest are left to rot, as expected. They aren't generally foolhardy, but sometimes, something is just too cool to pass up.
I actually loved the Crystal Skull fridge scene, not because it was realistic, but because that was the fridge my grandfather had. I grew up with that fridge. My though was "It's a good thing the fridge was not plugged in; there would be so much ice build-up, there'd be no room for Jones!" I would take a nuke to defrost the thing.
Both funny and slightly railroady. Outside of the fact it enacts a consequence system for the players/npc's it also progresses the story. Seems more in line as a Narrative option, which I tend to favor but I find myself defaulting to random sadly. Not specifically as he described it but very close. Personally not a fan that I do default to Random myself. 😔
I like to have clearly set punitive laws (such as the ones laid out in Waterdeep Dragon Heist) but allowing a sense of fun realism. When I was running Princes of the Apocalypse, the players killed a group of unarmed civilians (who they knew to be cult members) and were tried for murder. THE court trial (2 hours of game time) was not going well, and one of the PCs mistakenly incriminated himself. However, one of the players had avoided capture and attended the hearing disguised as a local noble. During some heated discussion, he managed to cast a mass suggestion on the jury, altering the party's fate. RAW the members of the court would have noticed him casting a spell (which was advised to the players as an illegal act earlier that session), but it made for a fun time without sacrificing the tension of the trial.
I tend to go Rules As Written as a default, though I lean toward narrative when characters are acting heroicly (it is supposed to benefit heroes, right?), and lean toward realistic when characters are acting unheroicly. That way it isn't "random" per se, but blended which allows me to keep it relatively consistent. If there are specific elements I want to be more realistic or more narrative in general, I will tweak the rules to reflect that (is RAM a thing? Rules As Modified?)
The defining trait with regard to consequences at our table: plausibility. “Is this what COULD happen? Y/N. If so, what then? If not, why?” My players have, by their actions and choices, spawned new player races, blew up a moon, awoke an elder dragon, affected the political course of an Orc nation, and brought about a stronger connection between their realm and the Feywild. This is at the cost of, since 2015, twelve player character deaths. Yeah. They’re a busy bunch.
One time I was playing a one on one game with my husband. He wanted to explore what was going in the rest of the world. So we did a one off with the understanding that my character was fairly expendable.So I was sneaking around trying to figure out where a bunch of demonic beings were portaled in from. So I get spotted by some of the demonic creatures and I panic and cast one of my stronger offensive spells. Unfortunately, it's a loud spell and I alert everything to my presence. The whole thing quickly became part of the horror genre. Ended with my character temporarily shutting the portal (it was pure dumb luck) and then hiding in a closet with an NPC while demons worked towards breaking down the door. I convinced the poor NPC to blow a hole in the ceiling. At that point I had to roll two percentile dice. The ceiling caved in killing my foes in the process. It also nearly killed me and did kill the NPC.
I love this channel and everything you do I have learned so much for my dnd campaign from you thank you so much for everything you you truly are a great gm!!!!
I try to stick to narrative consequences, with a bit of realism just to make sure it doesn't get boring and easy, and is also fair. In a game I ran, there was a named NPC that had gotten lost in the woods, and the players went to look for him. He turned out to have been eaten by giant spiders. Naturally they fought the spiders. It was down to one spider, and it tried to flee up a tree. They wanted to take it out quick, so the Psychic suggested climbing the tree to get to it. I mentioned how it would be difficult to attack it so high in the tree, and he might fall off, but he persisted. The Swashbuckler offered to give him a boost, so I had the Swashbuckler roll Strength and the Psychic roll Acrobatics. The Psychic failed the Acrobatics check, but he has a Climb Speed, so I said the Swashbuckler gives the Psychic a boost, but the Psychic only just managed to catch onto a branch. But the Psychic was clever, and didn't want to give up. He used Telekinetic Projectile to launch his mace at the spider, and he got a crit, knocking the spider out of the tree. Despite his failure, I was a little lenient on the specific rulings, and it turned out to be a really cool teamwork success.
I plan on running a narrative style for my games. Every game that I have ever played has been narrative in nature. The rulebook even encourages narrative style in favour of fun. Your insights on GMing have given me so much help and inspiration. Thanks, Guy!
I think a mixture of Raw and Narrative is a good balance. Nothing bogs a game down when everyone details the mechanical parts of the game, especially when they start putting that over narrative actions, making everything a boring slog. Preferably, I like my players to tell me what they want to do and I decide if a roll is necessary - especially if it has a chance of failure or something slightly different occurs (like them swinging from a chandelier from a ceiling and accidentally pulling the glass roof down with them as they drop by mistake, or missing the landing but still able to pull off a shot after rolling across the table.) These can make for some epic moments still as hilarious fumbles happen to anyone and make the heroes more relatable and real to the players. Thank you for another brilliant video!
Super thankful I found your channel. You explain things in a very concise manner that helps even the most bullheaded people understand. You have good content and I have seen you implement your own tools, which is nice and refreshing. I will continue to observe at a distance, learning ways to become a better story teller.
I talk to my players about what type of game I'm going to run. Not just the setting and the aesthetic, but also the play style. I've been on a binge the last year or two of doing HIGH DIFFICULTY, perhaps "realistic" even, consequences for all actions. And I enjoy this type of game because it makes the narrative more gripping to know how doing something stupid could end everything tragically. So I like high difficulty consequences so the elation of victory and the thrilling anxiety of failure are very potent. And I tell this to my players before starting, and we discuss what we all want out of this proposition. Generally, even though I've preferred crushing consequences as of late, I'm very prone as a GM to buckle to narrative consequences over pure logic or RAW. If someone's death is crushingly anti-climactic, well then that's just lame, that's not tragic, that's garbage, and so I'm quick to not commit to things that would be so utterly lame (unless they're funny, according to everyone at the table). So in theory I work towards realistic (tough) consequences but the reality is that I'm prone to narrative consequences. I don't know whether or not this is my acceptance of weakness or of strength. I don't know why I'm still on this diatribe either. Huh.
"Assaulting a Judge,aggravated assault with a deadly weapon,14 counts of murder in the first degree,vehicular manslaughter and possession of illegal narcotics. If you surrender now,it shall be a light sentence. 75 years in Iso-cube. Failure to comply and I WILL take action."-Mega City 1 Judge.
I find it difficult to separate narrative from random, if the group wants realism if their actions fail. I had a group once who argued realism when I was forwarding the story through their actions. "I look into the room" - "okay, the villain discovers you" - "NO! He can't because I was using Spider Climb and was on the ceiling so it totally unrealistic that he sees me on the ceiling...."
I kinda understand where you're coming from, sometimes I have areas where if the PCs storm it they will come through the front door. It's times like that when I question if their Stealth checks matters, like can they really peak through double doors and not get caught?
I actually love the intro! I was beginning to think I was the only one considering the extraterrestrial catastrophic consequences following the Empire of Star Wars just destroying planets. Will the debris crash into other planets? How will the new fluctuating gravity immediately effect the solar system, or effect it in the long run? I would always go off on this, shall we call it, astronomical weather pattern effected by destroying planets that other aspects of solar eco systems might be dependant on, causing greater harm by ripple effect.
You're going to love the musings about the possible consequences of the second Death Star exploding over Endor. Of course Wookiepedia claims it's all a bunch of sordid imperial propaganda...
I've been running a mix between Realistic and Narrative (mainly Narrative). I rarely use RAW except to up the stakes on particularly critical occasions. I think it results in a really nice balance between the joy of living in a movie and also enough realistic flavor to believe this is a real world with consequences.
I'll be honest, I'd love to be in a game where I'd be surfing on a car door in a tsunami with a shark chasing me. That's an epic story in the making! As a player, though, I genuinely love consequences for my actions. It makes me feel like my actions matter and the world is actually responding to what I do. The DM in my current game is constantly giving us consequences of varying magnitude. The BBEG's plans advance despite what we do, so we can't afford to go on pointless sidequests. At the same time, my character got a cheating gambler run out of a tavern, but she then tracked him down and gave him some money to compensate for his lost income, and he marked her as off limits by the local thieves guild without her knowledge. Another party member literally went off on a solo sidequest to rescue an NPC from another plane, fully aware that he could die, but he somehow managed to pull it off. The world feels so much more believable and the game is so much more real if there are consequences to our actions.
Glad to another see a video on this. Consequences should be more consistent than loss of treasure, a penalty on dice rolls, or character death at random.
I tend to do a combination approach and use realism, narrative and RAW consequences in my game. It ultimately depends on the urgency of the consequence as well as the directness of the actions and consequences. For example, my players ran their PCs as murderhobos. They killed everything that moved even though I would drop little hints that that might not be a good idea. I've even gone the traditional route of "are you absolutely sure you actually want to do that?" Until the time when they left witnesses....innocent bystanders to their crimes. Initially, they escaped the city while the town guard was conducting their investigation. When the PCs returned to the city, they were arrested for murder, arson and break and enter. They were tried, convicted and sentenced to death by Chimera. (Realism, sort of). They were eventually rescued by the local thieves guild as a way to encourage them to help the guild. All the while I have them roll checks and saves to see how successful their escape attempt would be - do they suffer damage/do the guild members etc. That was a way to reign in the murderous tendancies of my players. Now, when I warn them, they take heed as they know that there could be some serious consequences for their characters. I'm also now outright telling them of serious consequences to the campaign as a whole. Not what will happen, just that something bad will happen if they do such a thing/don't do something else
I absolutely LOVE consequences for actions. In just games I've played I've dished out and seen a few. 1. We were fighting in a temple and our Samurai runs off to go solo/stall a beholder coming down the stairs, gets turned to stone, after we win my wizard walks up to the statue and says "you left us to die for your own glory, this can't go unpunished" and casts 'stone to mud' on the statue... 2. My party's Bard decided to teleport himself down into an area where the cleric was casting AoE death spells on a massive horde of goblins they were fighting just so he could add flare and style to some kills, fails a con save vs. the spells and dies. 3. Same group as #2, had them go into a temple that was well guarded, they get their asses kicked so they retreat to regroup and try again later with a better plan, the Duskblade decides in all of her infinite wisdom to channel one of her spells for 3 rounds and jump back into the doorway to cast it even though they all told her not to, she takes a face full of arrows and spells that in that time were reloaded and prepared... I fudged some numbers just to not kill her character outright but left her unconscious. 4. Same party again, I have them run into some bandits setting up a trap to try and pinch some money and gear, well party teaches them a lesson, last one surrenders and the Ranger tells him leave and tell anyone he sees about them, well the bandit does exactly that, only it was some agents of the bad guys he ran into... I have so many more but these are just a few of the best ones I could think of off the top of my head to show action and consequence that can still be fun and keep the flow.
I personally find a realistic approach is best as it allows everyone to think independently and come up with cool solutions that makes the players feel they have just as much control over the situation as the GM. No matter what you choose, it should align with your players' expectations which you have set. Players will get your style if you're consistent. Hence why random is so bad.
My players were wiping out a Devil Cult who'd been bothering the party with ambushes and trying to cause unrest in the city, while clearing their headquarters they accidentally restored a Demon Shrine that the Devil Cultists had sealed, once the players realised what they'd done one of them (for some reason) decided to sacrifice one of the Devil Cultists to the Shrine. Upon doing this the Shrine Compelled him to drown himself in the pool surrounding it. So the rest of the party all struggled with him and two ended up in the pool drowning which they then learned was a portal to one of the realms of the Abyss (which they also unsealed when they restored the Shrine) They managed to free the character from it's Compulsion and they all got out of the pool. Now I thought they were going to try and figure out how to deactivate the Shrine and the Demon Portal it opened, but instead they just left it. So I'm currently considering what the negative consequences should be for this decision.
Fricking love the idea of "consequences", gonna be using them a lot in my upcoming Pirate campaign! I don't want to discourage the players from exploring the world I've made and doing random shit but if they deliberately go off course and become....pig merchants?....then I'll have the BBEG sack my version of Tortuga lmao
As a GM, I tend to err on my players' preferences. Typically, that means enough realism to make them *think,* but overall narrative consequences are all they want to deal with. I do this, because my personal approach is VERY realistic and plausible: the kind where you start the game with three characters, hope one makes it to 6th level, and has all of his/her limbs still attached. I have a sad Location d12 that never gets to see the light of day.
Very good tips! I never looked at it that way, particularly about the outcomes. Now, I will do my best to enhance the game instead of impeding the players. Thanks!
One of the players at my table decided to be a smart-ass during a level up RP scene. He claimed that his Aasimar fighter would stand by the pig pen of a market and chant "piggies!" for the whole six days of down time they had. So, on day three, the police came and picked him up and dropped him in the drunk tank. He came to his senses and was released after another three days, his reputation with the town guards now strained. I'm sure the player still doesn't understand what it means when I say "your actions have consequences".
I stick to a mix of RAW and realistic to make natural consequences. I have straight up watched players die because they did something without thinking about the consequence of it. Even worse, I've seen them get their whole party into a mess that they never should have been in to begin with! Like pissing off a racist orc, getting thrown into a freeway, getting run over on said free way, twice, party tries to save you by bringing you to vet office (nearest medical facility), receptionist gets spooked by broken bloodied body, ends up letting party in but calls state troopers, party has to deal with state troopers, one casts darkness in small room, no one has devilsight, a few rounds later everyone is out but a state trooper is bleeding out, the other is liquified, and the receptionist is a shishkebab, the party steals the receptionists car, and now they are a few days away from the goal they were mere hours from in the beginning of this debacle.
Narrative here. Yes the are realistic rules that always apply, and yes you got to follow the charts and dice rolles. But if I would follow those to the letter, we would be better off playing a MMORPG that way I also can play along. I do fudge rolls for cooler results and my group knows this. They also know if they do stupid thing there are concequenses. That's a good deal to me.
I use a variation of randomness. Though it could be narrative. I roll what I call a destiny roll. D20. The closer to a 1 the worse it is for the players, the closer to 20, the better it turns out for the players. This helps to factor in the chance of things like the cops were in line at the donut shop and so their response time was a little longer than normal, or the freak chance that as you jump the chasm but miss there is a smaller ledge just below the one you were aiming for so you didn’t plummet to your death. There is always the chance of the players getting lucky and things turning out great or unlucky and one of them possibly dying from a stupid mistake. I use these rolls constantly. In a fight a roll might mean that more bad guys show up or something happens and they decide to retreat. While looking for something, maybe they find some loose cash or exactly what they were looking for in the first place they checked, or maybe they stumble upon a room full of poisonous spiders or something. Mainly I use them for situations where it could go either way and it either isn’t already planned out in detail by me or is completely improvised. Or if they decide to do something completely off the wall and I want to see what fate has to say.
Your mouth opens to counter... But it doesn't stop! Your jaw hurts as it hits the floor, but it keeps opening wider! Eventually it gets so wide you swallow yourself after falling in from the weight. Next adventure is liberating the tooth people from the plaque dragon
In the group I'm in has a setting where there is a massive difference between heroes and civilians where it is noticed in game. Heroes/Wanderers/Adventurers are known to be different and as such are treated different, and adventure guilds have some extra uses. Heroes are seen normally like overly powerful people, and are far stronger than normal people of equal experience. Adventurers are treated by guards with some leeway as they are the guys who kill the dragons, monsters, and invaders. There are fines, punishments, and so on but some guards won't do much if they know that there is no point in attempting the arrest. Adventure Guilds are also responsible for heroes and their punishments, so if you do something wrong you'll have other heroes tracking you down to capture/kill you.
I run my games with "narRAWtive", a mix of narrative and RAW. Mainly, I use RAW to facilitate the narrative, and if RAW doesn't have what I need to enhance or progress the narrative I just wing it.
I like to combine realistic and narrative. The party is the hero, yes, but there are bigger fish in the ocean who might want to have a few words with them after they do what I call "A Big Dumb Evil"
I feel that at the end of everything you have to ask yourself "What is the purpose?". If the purpose of your game is for a bunch of friends to come together and have fun...then what is more valuable? That consequences are realistic? Or that consequences make people excited to continue? Realism is so overrated, and while it sometimes is the better option I also feel like realism is often placed on a pedestal and hailed as the option that you arbitrarily "should" go for, because it's realistic. Out of the options listed in this video I'd go Narrative 9/10 times.
Agree. "Fun" games have full of stories of crazy stunts and you can allow yourself to have bigger plans [becoming new gods? why not?], "Realsitic" are boring, combat and death heavy and characters plans aren't so great [Let's settle and open a shop]. I got a feeling that "realism" is a little a punishment for players who aren't power gaming. And realistic death from bad dice rolls always sucks and no heroic death for you :(.
I use realistic, advised by RAW in service to the narrative lol It's not like I jump back and forth, but I try to make my outcomes compelling if I see an interesting idea. My players rolled one short of being fucking awesome. It's alright, this one's weaker so that passes A player pulled off a cool stunt during combat but rolled shitty damage. "You were so focused on not falling that you missed its weak spot" Still running my first game so it's a work in progress, but two rules guide my rule of cool: consistency and whether it can make sense and still be memorable
I'm all for random consequences as part of realistic consequences. People will try to do what they should do in a particular situation but with all the shit that may happen in real life. For example : police response is normally 30mn but today and for now a week there's a train workers strike and the streets are overencumbered so it's more likely to be a 1h30mn response time.
I used one once. They had to decide on handing over the prisoner. To the shadow king who was evil and they forced them to work for him. They chose to lie to him and they had asked for a wizards help and he shows up at the wrong time and opens fire on their fleet of floating ship. Then the shadow king destroyed the town as the party fled
At 15:54 you said something interesting in passing. "Unless they're repeatedly doing it, then I change up the game or make it light hearted, because they clearly can't handle something serious." Do you think this concept would apply to players who don't think critically, have very basic interactions with the game, and become almost petulant when they aren't the strongest beings in the game? Would that kind of thinking direct you to alter the game towards their style?
I dislike purely arbitrating the details of an improvised situation as in the narrative approach; I always feel like I'm basically deciding how much of a dick I want to be to the PCs in that moment. For this reason I've devised a simple d20 luck system for my D&D games that's easy for the players to understand to help me determine the consequences in these situations. I find this lets me use the best elements of RAW and narrative approaches in resolving unknown situations-I have a rules-based grounding so that the players and I can feel that what is about to happen is fair, but the dramatic details once the stage is set are up to me. I have seen similar mechanics in other game systems to assist the GM in establishing the potential consequences of an improvised situation, such as the fortune roll in Blades in the Dark.
I kinda like the idea of narrative for some players and realistic consequences for others. It would be sort of a “who framed roger rabbit” type world. The toons get over the top narrative consequences and the humans get the realistic consequences.
For the police to arrest the players characters, the police has to catch and/or overpower them first. And if the PC's cannot escape or defeat a regular mortal policeman, what chance do they stand against the big bad evil guy? Running from the police is an encounter in itself, do NOT have it be an auto arrest unless the PC's give themselves up/ decide not to run/resist. I like your enhancement ideas, good stuff.
Guy this was one of your videos where you framed something with bullet points giving the illusion of objectively looking at all of this while it is very clear after having watched to completion this video is very very biased ( beyond just not liking random ) and is wonderful propaganda for your point of view. Well done video and very human of you to design it as such. I have no dog in the race, I just noticed this is all. As quick devil advocate examples. The punishment can enhance the game and be what leads to a very fun scenario or arc of the campaign. Prison break anyone? Punishment doesn't have to equal bad. You framed impede basically as punishment but only mostly defeatest instead of wholely. A punishment can impede but in the way it impedes enhance the game by evolving it and creating all kinds of new fun. Just throwing that out there. No reason those 4 things you listed have to be exclusive from one another.
I am a mix of narrative and raw I always enjoy narrative but try to stick to raw as I want to make sure it is fair but i use narrative for a special occasion to make a cool idea more reasonable
Then it's not really a "game." It's a collaborative story. You can all have fun, hang out and enjoy yourselves, sure, but it won't have the *same* sense of accomplishment that risk of failure inherently provides.
@@bordenfleetwood5773 Whats a story with no conflict though? If there isn't anyone giving out consequences to your actions... its not really an adventure.
@@WolvieXXXZandalari - You're not wrong. But I have sat in on some friends' Pathfinder games (it was just the system they were using at that time) where there was /conflict/ in terms of the story, but everyone kinda knew that there was no real risk to the PCs. I found it boring, and bounced off of TTRPGs at that time because of it. Personally, I love running games that are high-risk, high-reward. If your character is smart and clever, they should come out the other side with a minimum of maiming. Those Nat 1's, man... If your 2nd level ranger leaps from the roof toward the ogre, greatsword held aloft, on the other hand. You might make *this* roll, but keep that extra character sheet handy.
A realistic consequence can be just as fun as a narrative one. If you get locked up, why not play out the downtime while the other players continue with the adventure? I wouldn't GM for people that can't take the bad with the good. If they expect to win or be treated with kid gloves. . . I run a game (Not D&D) for elementary students as a school club, and I specifically don't treat them with kids gloves. TTRPGs are a wonderful teaching tool.
So I’m about to run a campaign where the players choices affect the world in a much greater sense than usual The idea is that every decision affect at least one NPC in terms of life or death. And that different styles of dealing with these decision affect public opinion and the type of reward I’m going for a narrative style campaign and I was wondering if anyone in the community has any advice or warnings This is my 2nd campaign but I have years of experience in other storytelling games. Incase that matters
Player or GM, I prefer a gritty sort of narrative... Obviously, keeping an eye to RAW, but with most Players in my experience, there's a sense of desire for a more cinematic than realistic kind of game... They just don't want it to quite reach Looney Tune levels of ridiculous (usually). More important than any particular preference, at Session-0, we've always discussed the particular leanings between RAW and Narrative or Grit we will go with... AND both in Session-0, AND between the active parts of RP in other sessions, I listen to feedback... Let the Players offer their arguments and some pushback. Don't let every decision reduce the game to quibbling over semantics, but Players who advocate their Characters are ENGAGED to those Characters. They can argue a legitimate debate about why they should or should not get a particular result from an over-ambitious attempt in cinematic fashion... AND at least in my Games, they can earn merits for a thoughtful explanation. SOMETIMES (not so often anymore) I do find myself called out for a gross misunderstanding, AND that's exactly the spot I even prefer a ret-con... Just bite the bullet, admit "Sorry, I thought something different... screwed that up." and don't be afraid to backtrack. It gets rare pretty quick, because NOBODY actually likes to ret-con in-game. We like to loosen the rules both in the books and of reality and physics and try to do epic things. My guiding philosophy as I've even commented repeatedly, is a single cardinal rule, "Never EVER let the rules get in the way of the game." SO usually as far as RAW, so long as they function to a Narrative I can then twist to enhance and progress the Story (we're all generally here for that) and thus the Game, I employ them for a majority. As Guy proposed they tend to be the most honest and fair... BUT there are mechanics in any game that don't service Narrative, RP, or an Enhancement to the Game for us... and with a solid test on them, I try simply "Monkeying about" with them... Change first before I blatantly dismiss... BUT if it's just not salvageable... drop a useless non-progressing and genuinely painful mechanic... Screw it. What are WotC going to do??? Is there even a D&D Jail??? I think not... BUT it takes time and often failed experiments and apologies to get it "right"... To learn and read the Table... To be able to understand when Players engage and tune out... If the Table explodes into Combat on the very words "Roll Initiative", I usually got 'em hooked... We dismissed standard Combat Mechanics to RP it in smaller Narrative chunks to be fun, cinematic (without quite ridiculous) and probably more dangerous than originally intended... BUT that's the best fit... AND it is subject to change with the Table... Punishing Players? In smaller ways to impede their progress to their favorite things... a little can seem like a lot, so carefully... I'm not above it FOR SEASONED PLAYERS AT MY TABLE... If even at my Table, someone's a relative Noob, then no... I practically avoid punishments... BUT when they're along from several adventures and are generally competent in-game... It's a mistake to let the antics get out of hand. Sometimes it's a PC-issue, and the Player simply isn't happy with their concept... OR they're worried about getting bored before the concept can even come together... SO I'm never afraid to speak pointedly to my issue with a "silly" or "stupid" way of RP'ing something. This should always have a "warning phrase" associated... I always say, "Are you absolutely sure?" when I suspect something horrible is due from something silly... It's our Catch phrase for "You're straying into looney land" and I've used it for years... Sometimes it's just a case of misunderstanding or misspeaking, dropping the figurative ball. AND it's only fair if I let myself off the hook for ret-conning a legitimate "screw up", that I allow a Player to ret-con a bad call, too. Again, it's rare, and it's steadily gotten more rare... It IS important to understand we as individuals have our own idiosyncrasies to language and speech, and we must teach our fellow Players our brands of individual and technical jargon... just as well as we must study theirs to get better about missing crucial details about critical decisions and antics. Finally, just as Guy has said, I've so rarely had Players start randomly taking the piss out of my GM'ing on Narrative and often flexible consequences. They generally understand that it's still only a Game, and usually cut me some slack. Within reason, I try to cut them slack as well, and it doesn't go ignored... Most days a PC commits to something insane or silly to a degree of straying into suicidal or detrimental to the Game, the Player has a plan... often to trade out PC-sheets and start anew... ;o)
I guess I'd call my system Narrative with some logic. Maybe call it between realistic and narrative. Basically, narrative if it maybe kinda works if you don't think about it too hard. So, players might be able to come up with some hair brained scheme to bust their friend out of jail and have it work. But if they simply walk in and start shooting up the jailhouse, they're probably going to die. Realistically neither is likely to succeed, narrative either would probably work. That's not really the important part though, it's the lasting consequences where I tend to veer further from the narrative system. Let's say in my jailbreak example the friend is in jail for robbing a bank. Nobody important got killed, let's say one security guard and a bank teller, neither with influential connections, and the money was recovered. The party uses some hair brained scheme and bust the out of jail, significant property damage but nobody else was killed, maybe a couple serious injuries. In a narrative system they're probably going to have to lay low for a day or two or until the next plot point, whichever comes sooner. My system, they're better off getting out of town because laying low for just a couple days isn't going to help and the law isn't going to just forget because it's convenient for the story. Then again, they're not going to try too hard either, so just getting out of town for a couple weeks or so will probably be enough. I do use a little random as well, depending on how stupid I consider their actions. If they robbed the bank just because by just walking in and gunning down the security guard, then killed the teller because they didn't like their face, things are going to be a whole lot worse for them then if they actually needed to rob the bank, had a plan and things just went south for whatever reason.
I like your takes, thanks for the input. But I still have difficulty winging consequences for actually stupid or murderhobo behaviour. I'd apprechiate any input anyone who reads this might have for me
Try asking yourself : What would the response of the lord of these lands be? Very often you will find that everyone who is underneath that Lord takes on an attitude towards laws and law and order as a trickle down effect from the attitude of the king or Lord or whatever who is in charge. So all you have to do is ask yourself what would the Lord of these lands do if the actions were taken in front of them? I hope this helps!
I actually strongly disagree with Guy when he says punishment is not a very useful consequence. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Without believable (in your world) consequences for your actions, the world itself will effectively be neutered.
I have question how would you handle a actual person that is playing ur games death. my gf passed and she was playing in my game and we dont want her character to just vanish and I as the DM dont want to just let her continue and be controlled by someone else or me. she was a paladin and one my friends said why not let her be called by her god to do a special mission only she can do. it woulds but how would you handle that in game.
A little over a month ago, a man I'd been playing D&D with for just over a year with passed away unexpectedly. He ran a campaign that I played in, and was a player in a campaign that I ran on the opposite weekend. Losing the world that he had created for us all hurt, but we wanted to honor him and the characters he created. So, in my campaign, during a particularly difficult social encounter, his character received a summons to return to his homeland, to take on the mantle of royal advisor - and spymaster. Two other players sent their characters with, as they had personal ties with the departing character, deciding to support their friend. With two new characters joining in the difficult social encounter they were engaged in, the story has changed. And occasionally, they'll stumble upon a message from the Spymaster with a cryptic clue on things he thinks his former group could be interested in pursuing...
Dude, I tried to follow, but you just ramble. Narrative is PC sided. Only if the setting is. Try running a narrative game set in the 40k universe, see how that works out. RAW as the best solution because it already has rules you can depend on: Only if you have actual rules for the thing you are describing. You chose a stupid example, so I'm going to call you out on it... Show me 1 game with rules to surfing, and a table of modifiers based on your surfboard. You have no structure, no goal with the video... you just talk randomly. Not trying to be mean... you could just say that there are consequences to uploading a badly made video to youtube.
I approach the subject of realism like in movies:
It does not have to be realistic, but it has to be logically consistent.
The word I like to describe this approach is "authentic". It feels close enough to realism to be believable because it's logical and always works the same way, but it lets you pull some strings sometimes to make things more fun.
So what would it be called if it’s a higher power campaign like instead of a 10 being average human level it was 6 or 7 but still applies logic to feats for example if in the game 14 means you can dead lift 450 lbs you still won’t lift the car or maybe the 2 ton rubble in your path
Is it still “authentic” or is that along the lines of narrative?
Just curious I’m rather new to dnd in general
@@sophiemorgan9989 Really it's sort of semantics at that point. If you establish the laws of your universe at least partly in reality, then as long as things are believable and consistent, you can say they "are realistic" and/or "feel authentic". Operating on the assumption that wizards and magic exist, how would the world work? You can have a fantastical setting, but as long as it's consistent, it can feel realistic.
That makes sense thx
I love "aging" a problem the players ignore in my homebrew and sandbox D&D world.
I had one group that kept ignoring the main plot quest of dealing with undead at the ruins on the hill.
Undead spotted near the ruins
Undead seen near the trade road
Undead raiding small traders' wagons and homesteads
Undead raiding major caravans and small villages
Undead over-run the PC's favorite city.
Players finally try to investigate and got chased off the small continent which was essentially taken over by a cult of necromancers.
Campaign complete.. the Necromancers won.
I sense this may be in the category: The NPCs did not care, then why should the PCs?
Same! It adds an almost literal realism to the game! Their choices matter, but the world keeps moving. If they don't act, the world might not spin in their favor.
@@larsdahl5528 if the PCs ignore a problem the problem won't always fix itself so in those situations i plan on, pretending, to have NPCs deal with the problem in the background to figure out how the situation (and PC decisions) shapes the world.
so in Huber's case you might see the locals start getting progressively more worried as they hear terrible rumors and start to lose contact with friends or family. you'll see traders start to struggle as supplies get raided and their business gets strained. other mercenaries, adventurers, and soldiers start losing their nerve from previous expeditions to investigate or contain. you may see the kingdom become more militant and fortified as the king discovers what's going on and tries to prepare. when it comes to the main plot just about the only people that can solve this are the PCs, the tricky part is convincing them to bite down on the plot hook.
another example: a group hears rumors that people are going missing along the road to a monastery. let's say it's just a troll under a bridge halfway between the village and the church and that the players decide to ignore it and move on from the town without going that way. eventually the townsfolk are going to get a mercenary to investigate and deal with it so between sessions so you could just randomly roll to see how it goes (or just roll some characters and do a solo fight for fun). say you roll well and the troll gets dealt with (or the opposite, whatever) and then just think of some appropriate consequences for the surrounding area, with some bad stuff still happening should the merc deal with the troll because it took longer compared to PCs. like maybe the priest was one of a few individuals capable of resurrection but he got killed on the way to town. or maybe the holy order set up there was protecting the village from undead but the issues with the troll interfered enough that some necromancer caused issues. or even simpler is that the troll got adventurous himself and messed up the local farms and cattle leaving the town in a precarious situation so close to winter.
I've never DM'd before but i am working on a world and campaign for fun and just in case i get the nerve to try my hand at DM'ing. but one of the things i want to do is have as much of a living and dynamic and detailed world (within reason) so the players can do whatever they want before the main plot becomes the main focus of their adventure. and so they can see how what they do affects things. also i don't plan on making the main plot time sensitive for a good while.
sorry about the wall of text but your question just had me thinking a lot.
lol I'd be concerned if the PCs are completely ignoring the main plot of the campaign.
Good on you! I hate when games suspend the pressure of time while the player(s) hoover up every last side quest and dangling piece of XP. Make my choices meaningful by forcing me to spend time meaningfully.
In my last (and next!) fantasy campaign I told my players at the start: "You guys can advance campaign time at the rate you want, to train or build or travel as you like. There is a long road ahead of you, and the dark forces have a long series of events ahead of them. You'll have lots of time to explore other options, to pursue side quests, or to invest time in large projects, but keep in mind that the villains may have a plot that'll take over the world in ten years."
In my current Star Wars RPG, the campaign start is slightly before the events of Rogue One in a remote but important part of the galaxy. I stressed to my players that they're on the same timeline as the movies, and as such as they advance the campaign they affect the plots and characters we all know and love.
This is one of the most important questions. This is where tabletop RPGs beat computer games through GM's adaptivity and creativity.
Thank you for making the video!
i love this video.
whenever i start a new campaing, i run a session 0 with the players with "0 preparation" just for them to get the world and tone, and then we have a chat ...
in that chat one of the things we talk about is "consequences". "do we want to have a hardcore game?" an horror like scenario where we are out of breath with each decision we take? or do we like a cartoonish game ...
at the end of each session we have a 1 minute talk about the game, "the best, the worse and if there is something to change"
some times, we even play a one shoot of another game to aliviate tension with narrative heavy games.
Being 'old-school', my players are always ready to die permanent deaths. The more outrageous their actions, the more spectacular their successes and fails. We have a comfortable blend of realistic and narrative, and even our personalized rules have come to reflect that. They often Surf the Tsunami, so to speak, and the unlikely survivors become instant legends, while the rest are left to rot, as expected. They aren't generally foolhardy, but sometimes, something is just too cool to pass up.
I actually loved the Crystal Skull fridge scene, not because it was realistic, but because that was the fridge my grandfather had. I grew up with that fridge. My though was "It's a good thing the fridge was not plugged in; there would be so much ice build-up, there'd be no room for Jones!" I would take a nuke to defrost the thing.
I say give them a hefty fine and community service which could entail a possible solo side quest or social interaction with a unique npc.
Judge, "I sentence you to 120 hours clearing the Dungeon of Ultimate Death! Take them away, Bailiff! Next Case!"
Both funny and slightly railroady. Outside of the fact it enacts a consequence system for the players/npc's it also progresses the story.
Seems more in line as a Narrative option, which I tend to favor but I find myself defaulting to random sadly. Not specifically as he described it but very close. Personally not a fan that I do default to Random myself. 😔
I like to have clearly set punitive laws (such as the ones laid out in Waterdeep Dragon Heist) but allowing a sense of fun realism. When I was running Princes of the Apocalypse, the players killed a group of unarmed civilians (who they knew to be cult members) and were tried for murder. THE court trial (2 hours of game time) was not going well, and one of the PCs mistakenly incriminated himself. However, one of the players had avoided capture and attended the hearing disguised as a local noble. During some heated discussion, he managed to cast a mass suggestion on the jury, altering the party's fate. RAW the members of the court would have noticed him casting a spell (which was advised to the players as an illegal act earlier that session), but it made for a fun time without sacrificing the tension of the trial.
Consequences smonsequences as long as I'm rich - Daffy Duck
I tend to go Rules As Written as a default, though I lean toward narrative when characters are acting heroicly (it is supposed to benefit heroes, right?), and lean toward realistic when characters are acting unheroicly. That way it isn't "random" per se, but blended which allows me to keep it relatively consistent. If there are specific elements I want to be more realistic or more narrative in general, I will tweak the rules to reflect that (is RAM a thing? Rules As Modified?)
RAA, maybe? Rules As Appropriate?
The defining trait with regard to consequences at our table: plausibility.
“Is this what COULD happen? Y/N. If so, what then? If not, why?”
My players have, by their actions and choices, spawned new player races, blew up a moon, awoke an elder dragon, affected the political course of an Orc nation, and brought about a stronger connection between their realm and the Feywild.
This is at the cost of, since 2015, twelve player character deaths.
Yeah. They’re a busy bunch.
One time I was playing a one on one game with my husband. He wanted to explore what was going in the rest of the world. So we did a one off with the understanding that my character was fairly expendable.So I was sneaking around trying to figure out where a bunch of demonic beings were portaled in from. So I get spotted by some of the demonic creatures and I panic and cast one of my stronger offensive spells. Unfortunately, it's a loud spell and I alert everything to my presence. The whole thing quickly became part of the horror genre. Ended with my character temporarily shutting the portal (it was pure dumb luck) and then hiding in a closet with an NPC while demons worked towards breaking down the door. I convinced the poor NPC to blow a hole in the ceiling. At that point I had to roll two percentile dice. The ceiling caved in killing my foes in the process. It also nearly killed me and did kill the NPC.
Love the idea of always turning consequences into *more fun*.
I love this channel and everything you do I have learned so much for my dnd campaign from you thank you so much for everything you you truly are a great gm!!!!
I try to stick to narrative consequences, with a bit of realism just to make sure it doesn't get boring and easy, and is also fair. In a game I ran, there was a named NPC that had gotten lost in the woods, and the players went to look for him. He turned out to have been eaten by giant spiders. Naturally they fought the spiders. It was down to one spider, and it tried to flee up a tree. They wanted to take it out quick, so the Psychic suggested climbing the tree to get to it. I mentioned how it would be difficult to attack it so high in the tree, and he might fall off, but he persisted. The Swashbuckler offered to give him a boost, so I had the Swashbuckler roll Strength and the Psychic roll Acrobatics. The Psychic failed the Acrobatics check, but he has a Climb Speed, so I said the Swashbuckler gives the Psychic a boost, but the Psychic only just managed to catch onto a branch. But the Psychic was clever, and didn't want to give up. He used Telekinetic Projectile to launch his mace at the spider, and he got a crit, knocking the spider out of the tree. Despite his failure, I was a little lenient on the specific rulings, and it turned out to be a really cool teamwork success.
I plan on running a narrative style for my games. Every game that I have ever played has been narrative in nature. The rulebook even encourages narrative style in favour of fun. Your insights on GMing have given me so much help and inspiration. Thanks, Guy!
I think a mixture of Raw and Narrative is a good balance. Nothing bogs a game down when everyone details the mechanical parts of the game, especially when they start putting that over narrative actions, making everything a boring slog. Preferably, I like my players to tell me what they want to do and I decide if a roll is necessary - especially if it has a chance of failure or something slightly different occurs (like them swinging from a chandelier from a ceiling and accidentally pulling the glass roof down with them as they drop by mistake, or missing the landing but still able to pull off a shot after rolling across the table.) These can make for some epic moments still as hilarious fumbles happen to anyone and make the heroes more relatable and real to the players.
Thank you for another brilliant video!
Super thankful I found your channel. You explain things in a very concise manner that helps even the most bullheaded people understand.
You have good content and I have seen you implement your own tools, which is nice and refreshing. I will continue to observe at a distance, learning ways to become a better story teller.
I talk to my players about what type of game I'm going to run. Not just the setting and the aesthetic, but also the play style. I've been on a binge the last year or two of doing HIGH DIFFICULTY, perhaps "realistic" even, consequences for all actions. And I enjoy this type of game because it makes the narrative more gripping to know how doing something stupid could end everything tragically. So I like high difficulty consequences so the elation of victory and the thrilling anxiety of failure are very potent. And I tell this to my players before starting, and we discuss what we all want out of this proposition. Generally, even though I've preferred crushing consequences as of late, I'm very prone as a GM to buckle to narrative consequences over pure logic or RAW. If someone's death is crushingly anti-climactic, well then that's just lame, that's not tragic, that's garbage, and so I'm quick to not commit to things that would be so utterly lame (unless they're funny, according to everyone at the table). So in theory I work towards realistic (tough) consequences but the reality is that I'm prone to narrative consequences. I don't know whether or not this is my acceptance of weakness or of strength. I don't know why I'm still on this diatribe either. Huh.
No damage that cannot be fixed with flex tape, bois!
Hell Bent That's ALOT of damage! :D
"Assaulting a Judge,aggravated assault with a deadly weapon,14 counts of murder in the first degree,vehicular manslaughter and possession of illegal narcotics. If you surrender now,it shall be a light sentence. 75 years in Iso-cube. Failure to comply and I WILL take action."-Mega City 1 Judge.
I find it difficult to separate narrative from random, if the group wants realism if their actions fail.
I had a group once who argued realism when I was forwarding the story through their actions. "I look into the room" - "okay, the villain discovers you" - "NO! He can't because I was using Spider Climb and was on the ceiling so it totally unrealistic that he sees me on the ceiling...."
I kinda understand where you're coming from, sometimes I have areas where if the PCs storm it they will come through the front door. It's times like that when I question if their Stealth checks matters, like can they really peak through double doors and not get caught?
I actually love the intro! I was beginning to think I was the only one considering the extraterrestrial catastrophic consequences following the Empire of Star Wars just destroying planets. Will the debris crash into other planets? How will the new fluctuating gravity immediately effect the solar system, or effect it in the long run? I would always go off on this, shall we call it, astronomical weather pattern effected by destroying planets that other aspects of solar eco systems might be dependant on, causing greater harm by ripple effect.
You're going to love the musings about the possible consequences of the second Death Star exploding over Endor. Of course Wookiepedia claims it's all a bunch of sordid imperial propaganda...
True to his words - that was a very quick unpacking
Indiana Jones fell from a plane and used an inflatable raft to survive. The nuclear fridge isn't much sillier than that
I've been running a mix between Realistic and Narrative (mainly Narrative). I rarely use RAW except to up the stakes on particularly critical occasions.
I think it results in a really nice balance between the joy of living in a movie and also enough realistic flavor to believe this is a real world with consequences.
I'll be honest, I'd love to be in a game where I'd be surfing on a car door in a tsunami with a shark chasing me. That's an epic story in the making!
As a player, though, I genuinely love consequences for my actions. It makes me feel like my actions matter and the world is actually responding to what I do. The DM in my current game is constantly giving us consequences of varying magnitude. The BBEG's plans advance despite what we do, so we can't afford to go on pointless sidequests. At the same time, my character got a cheating gambler run out of a tavern, but she then tracked him down and gave him some money to compensate for his lost income, and he marked her as off limits by the local thieves guild without her knowledge. Another party member literally went off on a solo sidequest to rescue an NPC from another plane, fully aware that he could die, but he somehow managed to pull it off. The world feels so much more believable and the game is so much more real if there are consequences to our actions.
Hearing the word 'consequences', I can't help but keep thinking of that Key and Peele sketch with the high school speaker . . . :)
Glad to another see a video on this. Consequences should be more consistent than loss of treasure, a penalty on dice rolls, or character death at random.
These tips were really helpful.
I tend to do a combination approach and use realism, narrative and RAW consequences in my game. It ultimately depends on the urgency of the consequence as well as the directness of the actions and consequences. For example, my players ran their PCs as murderhobos. They killed everything that moved even though I would drop little hints that that might not be a good idea. I've even gone the traditional route of "are you absolutely sure you actually want to do that?" Until the time when they left witnesses....innocent bystanders to their crimes. Initially, they escaped the city while the town guard was conducting their investigation. When the PCs returned to the city, they were arrested for murder, arson and break and enter. They were tried, convicted and sentenced to death by Chimera. (Realism, sort of). They were eventually rescued by the local thieves guild as a way to encourage them to help the guild. All the while I have them roll checks and saves to see how successful their escape attempt would be - do they suffer damage/do the guild members etc. That was a way to reign in the murderous tendancies of my players. Now, when I warn them, they take heed as they know that there could be some serious consequences for their characters. I'm also now outright telling them of serious consequences to the campaign as a whole. Not what will happen, just that something bad will happen if they do such a thing/don't do something else
I absolutely LOVE consequences for actions. In just games I've played I've dished out and seen a few.
1. We were fighting in a temple and our Samurai runs off to go solo/stall a beholder coming down the stairs, gets turned to stone, after we win my wizard walks up to the statue and says "you left us to die for your own glory, this can't go unpunished" and casts 'stone to mud' on the statue...
2. My party's Bard decided to teleport himself down into an area where the cleric was casting AoE death spells on a massive horde of goblins they were fighting just so he could add flare and style to some kills, fails a con save vs. the spells and dies.
3. Same group as #2, had them go into a temple that was well guarded, they get their asses kicked so they retreat to regroup and try again later with a better plan, the Duskblade decides in all of her infinite wisdom to channel one of her spells for 3 rounds and jump back into the doorway to cast it even though they all told her not to, she takes a face full of arrows and spells that in that time were reloaded and prepared... I fudged some numbers just to not kill her character outright but left her unconscious.
4. Same party again, I have them run into some bandits setting up a trap to try and pinch some money and gear, well party teaches them a lesson, last one surrenders and the Ranger tells him leave and tell anyone he sees about them, well the bandit does exactly that, only it was some agents of the bad guys he ran into...
I have so many more but these are just a few of the best ones I could think of off the top of my head to show action and consequence that can still be fun and keep the flow.
In the game Paranoia, you start with 5 character backups ☺
I am certain that Friend Computer has your safety at heart, and those back-ups are there just in case you have too much fun and have to take a rest.
I personally find a realistic approach is best as it allows everyone to think independently and come up with cool solutions that makes the players feel they have just as much control over the situation as the GM.
No matter what you choose, it should align with your players' expectations which you have set. Players will get your style if you're consistent. Hence why random is so bad.
My players were wiping out a Devil Cult who'd been bothering the party with ambushes and trying to cause unrest in the city, while clearing their headquarters they accidentally restored a Demon Shrine that the Devil Cultists had sealed, once the players realised what they'd done one of them (for some reason) decided to sacrifice one of the Devil Cultists to the Shrine. Upon doing this the Shrine Compelled him to drown himself in the pool surrounding it. So the rest of the party all struggled with him and two ended up in the pool drowning which they then learned was a portal to one of the realms of the Abyss (which they also unsealed when they restored the Shrine) They managed to free the character from it's Compulsion and they all got out of the pool. Now I thought they were going to try and figure out how to deactivate the Shrine and the Demon Portal it opened, but instead they just left it. So I'm currently considering what the negative consequences should be for this decision.
Fricking love the idea of "consequences", gonna be using them a lot in my upcoming Pirate campaign! I don't want to discourage the players from exploring the world I've made and doing random shit but if they deliberately go off course and become....pig merchants?....then I'll have the BBEG sack my version of Tortuga lmao
This will be a big help for my upcoming pirate campaign, thank you. My players know I'll be expecting them to take big risks for big rewards.
As a GM, I tend to err on my players' preferences. Typically, that means enough realism to make them *think,* but overall narrative consequences are all they want to deal with.
I do this, because my personal approach is VERY realistic and plausible: the kind where you start the game with three characters, hope one makes it to 6th level, and has all of his/her limbs still attached. I have a sad Location d12 that never gets to see the light of day.
Very good tips! I never looked at it that way, particularly about the outcomes. Now, I will do my best to enhance the game instead of impeding the players. Thanks!
One of the players at my table decided to be a smart-ass during a level up RP scene. He claimed that his Aasimar fighter would stand by the pig pen of a market and chant "piggies!" for the whole six days of down time they had. So, on day three, the police came and picked him up and dropped him in the drunk tank. He came to his senses and was released after another three days, his reputation with the town guards now strained. I'm sure the player still doesn't understand what it means when I say "your actions have consequences".
I stick to a mix of RAW and realistic to make natural consequences. I have straight up watched players die because they did something without thinking about the consequence of it. Even worse, I've seen them get their whole party into a mess that they never should have been in to begin with! Like pissing off a racist orc, getting thrown into a freeway, getting run over on said free way, twice, party tries to save you by bringing you to vet office (nearest medical facility), receptionist gets spooked by broken bloodied body, ends up letting party in but calls state troopers, party has to deal with state troopers, one casts darkness in small room, no one has devilsight, a few rounds later everyone is out but a state trooper is bleeding out, the other is liquified, and the receptionist is a shishkebab, the party steals the receptionists car, and now they are a few days away from the goal they were mere hours from in the beginning of this debacle.
Surviving nuclear explosions in a fridge is my favorite christmas activity with the family. You should try it
Narrative here. Yes the are realistic rules that always apply, and yes you got to follow the charts and dice rolles. But if I would follow those to the letter, we would be better off playing a MMORPG that way I also can play along. I do fudge rolls for cooler results and my group knows this. They also know if they do stupid thing there are concequenses. That's a good deal to me.
I use a variation of randomness. Though it could be narrative.
I roll what I call a destiny roll. D20. The closer to a 1 the worse it is for the players, the closer to 20, the better it turns out for the players.
This helps to factor in the chance of things like the cops were in line at the donut shop and so their response time was a little longer than normal, or the freak chance that as you jump the chasm but miss there is a smaller ledge just below the one you were aiming for so you didn’t plummet to your death. There is always the chance of the players getting lucky and things turning out great or unlucky and one of them possibly dying from a stupid mistake.
I use these rolls constantly. In a fight a roll might mean that more bad guys show up or something happens and they decide to retreat. While looking for something, maybe they find some loose cash or exactly what they were looking for in the first place they checked, or maybe they stumble upon a room full of poisonous spiders or something.
Mainly I use them for situations where it could go either way and it either isn’t already planned out in detail by me or is completely improvised. Or if they decide to do something completely off the wall and I want to see what fate has to say.
I've been watching your videos lately. I don't like tabletop games, but I feel your tips can help me create a great game or even stories
"I surf a car door to survive the tsunami!"
Okaaaay... Gimme a Dex-Acrobatics check. DC 30.
Good luck!
Once I rolled a nat 1 while trying to haggle. And then I got sucked into a wormhole.
CONSEQUENCES
Your mouth opens to counter... But it doesn't stop! Your jaw hurts as it hits the floor, but it keeps opening wider! Eventually it gets so wide you swallow yourself after falling in from the weight. Next adventure is liberating the tooth people from the plaque dragon
In the group I'm in has a setting where there is a massive difference between heroes and civilians where it is noticed in game. Heroes/Wanderers/Adventurers are known to be different and as such are treated different, and adventure guilds have some extra uses.
Heroes are seen normally like overly powerful people, and are far stronger than normal people of equal experience. Adventurers are treated by guards with some leeway as they are the guys who kill the dragons, monsters, and invaders. There are fines, punishments, and so on but some guards won't do much if they know that there is no point in attempting the arrest. Adventure Guilds are also responsible for heroes and their punishments, so if you do something wrong you'll have other heroes tracking you down to capture/kill you.
I run my games with "narRAWtive", a mix of narrative and RAW. Mainly, I use RAW to facilitate the narrative, and if RAW doesn't have what I need to enhance or progress the narrative I just wing it.
I like to combine realistic and narrative. The party is the hero, yes, but there are bigger fish in the ocean who might want to have a few words with them after they do what I call "A Big Dumb Evil"
I feel that at the end of everything you have to ask yourself "What is the purpose?". If the purpose of your game is for a bunch of friends to come together and have fun...then what is more valuable? That consequences are realistic? Or that consequences make people excited to continue? Realism is so overrated, and while it sometimes is the better option I also feel like realism is often placed on a pedestal and hailed as the option that you arbitrarily "should" go for, because it's realistic.
Out of the options listed in this video I'd go Narrative 9/10 times.
Agree. "Fun" games have full of stories of crazy stunts and you can allow yourself to have bigger plans [becoming new gods? why not?], "Realsitic" are boring, combat and death heavy and characters plans aren't so great [Let's settle and open a shop]. I got a feeling that "realism" is a little a punishment for players who aren't power gaming. And realistic death from bad dice rolls always sucks and no heroic death for you :(.
I use realistic, advised by RAW in service to the narrative lol
It's not like I jump back and forth, but I try to make my outcomes compelling if I see an interesting idea.
My players rolled one short of being fucking awesome. It's alright, this one's weaker so that passes
A player pulled off a cool stunt during combat but rolled shitty damage. "You were so focused on not falling that you missed its weak spot"
Still running my first game so it's a work in progress, but two rules guide my rule of cool: consistency and whether it can make sense and still be memorable
I'm all for random consequences as part of realistic consequences. People will try to do what they should do in a particular situation but with all the shit that may happen in real life. For example : police response is normally 30mn but today and for now a week there's a train workers strike and the streets are overencumbered so it's more likely to be a 1h30mn response time.
I do a mix of realistic and narrative. I know it sounds weird, but it works.
I used one once. They had to decide on handing over the prisoner. To the shadow king who was evil and they forced them to work for him. They chose to lie to him and they had asked for a wizards help and he shows up at the wrong time and opens fire on their fleet of floating ship. Then the shadow king destroyed the town as the party fled
At 15:54 you said something interesting in passing. "Unless they're repeatedly doing it, then I change up the game or make it light hearted, because they clearly can't handle something serious." Do you think this concept would apply to players who don't think critically, have very basic interactions with the game, and become almost petulant when they aren't the strongest beings in the game? Would that kind of thinking direct you to alter the game towards their style?
I dislike purely arbitrating the details of an improvised situation as in the narrative approach; I always feel like I'm basically deciding how much of a dick I want to be to the PCs in that moment. For this reason I've devised a simple d20 luck system for my D&D games that's easy for the players to understand to help me determine the consequences in these situations. I find this lets me use the best elements of RAW and narrative approaches in resolving unknown situations-I have a rules-based grounding so that the players and I can feel that what is about to happen is fair, but the dramatic details once the stage is set are up to me. I have seen similar mechanics in other game systems to assist the GM in establishing the potential consequences of an improvised situation, such as the fortune roll in Blades in the Dark.
So close to having the consequences be E.P.I.C.(cool)
I kinda like the idea of narrative for some players and realistic consequences for others. It would be sort of a “who framed roger rabbit” type world. The toons get over the top narrative consequences and the humans get the realistic consequences.
Consequences for all! Its hard not to meta game as a GM.
For the police to arrest the players characters, the police has to catch and/or overpower them first. And if the PC's cannot escape or defeat a regular mortal policeman, what chance do they stand against the big bad evil guy? Running from the police is an encounter in itself, do NOT have it be an auto arrest unless the PC's give themselves up/ decide not to run/resist.
I like your enhancement ideas, good stuff.
Guy this was one of your videos where you framed something with bullet points giving the illusion of objectively looking at all of this while it is very clear after having watched to completion this video is very very biased ( beyond just not liking random ) and is wonderful propaganda for your point of view. Well done video and very human of you to design it as such. I have no dog in the race, I just noticed this is all.
As quick devil advocate examples. The punishment can enhance the game and be what leads to a very fun scenario or arc of the campaign. Prison break anyone? Punishment doesn't have to equal bad. You framed impede basically as punishment but only mostly defeatest instead of wholely. A punishment can impede but in the way it impedes enhance the game by evolving it and creating all kinds of new fun. Just throwing that out there. No reason those 4 things you listed have to be exclusive from one another.
I am a mix of narrative and raw I always enjoy narrative but try to stick to raw as I want to make sure it is fair but i use narrative for a special occasion to make a cool idea more reasonable
next episode: Consequences of adding Consequences to your game 👀
Out of curiosity was the system mentioned near the start of the video Call of Cthulhu or Dark Heresy?
Hey Guy, something I feel you missed ~ What would it fall under If the DM DOESN'T give any consequences?
I believe he called that the "yes" DM in a previous video Lol
Then it's not really a "game." It's a collaborative story. You can all have fun, hang out and enjoy yourselves, sure, but it won't have the *same* sense of accomplishment that risk of failure inherently provides.
@@bordenfleetwood5773 Whats a story with no conflict though? If there isn't anyone giving out consequences to your actions... its not really an adventure.
@@WolvieXXXZandalari - You're not wrong. But I have sat in on some friends' Pathfinder games (it was just the system they were using at that time) where there was /conflict/ in terms of the story, but everyone kinda knew that there was no real risk to the PCs.
I found it boring, and bounced off of TTRPGs at that time because of it. Personally, I love running games that are high-risk, high-reward. If your character is smart and clever, they should come out the other side with a minimum of maiming. Those Nat 1's, man...
If your 2nd level ranger leaps from the roof toward the ogre, greatsword held aloft, on the other hand. You might make *this* roll, but keep that extra character sheet handy.
A realistic consequence can be just as fun as a narrative one. If you get locked up, why not play out the downtime while the other players continue with the adventure?
I wouldn't GM for people that can't take the bad with the good. If they expect to win or be treated with kid gloves. . . I run a game (Not D&D) for elementary students as a school club, and I specifically don't treat them with kids gloves. TTRPGs are a wonderful teaching tool.
I prefer he term "believable" of "realistic." m2p.
Guy can you please just make discovery/history channel hire you cause gosh 5 seconds in and it feels like a documentary
Let's face it: Guy pretty much is the David bloody Attenborough of Gaming. Give that man a show on the Beeb!
Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac killer got away with their crimes.
So I’m about to run a campaign where the players choices affect the world in a much greater sense than usual
The idea is that every decision affect at least one NPC in terms of life or death. And that different styles of dealing with these decision affect public opinion and the type of reward
I’m going for a narrative style campaign and I was wondering if anyone in the community has any advice or warnings
This is my 2nd campaign but I have years of experience in other storytelling games. Incase that matters
Player or GM, I prefer a gritty sort of narrative... Obviously, keeping an eye to RAW, but with most Players in my experience, there's a sense of desire for a more cinematic than realistic kind of game... They just don't want it to quite reach Looney Tune levels of ridiculous (usually).
More important than any particular preference, at Session-0, we've always discussed the particular leanings between RAW and Narrative or Grit we will go with... AND both in Session-0, AND between the active parts of RP in other sessions, I listen to feedback... Let the Players offer their arguments and some pushback. Don't let every decision reduce the game to quibbling over semantics, but Players who advocate their Characters are ENGAGED to those Characters. They can argue a legitimate debate about why they should or should not get a particular result from an over-ambitious attempt in cinematic fashion... AND at least in my Games, they can earn merits for a thoughtful explanation.
SOMETIMES (not so often anymore) I do find myself called out for a gross misunderstanding, AND that's exactly the spot I even prefer a ret-con... Just bite the bullet, admit "Sorry, I thought something different... screwed that up." and don't be afraid to backtrack. It gets rare pretty quick, because NOBODY actually likes to ret-con in-game. We like to loosen the rules both in the books and of reality and physics and try to do epic things.
My guiding philosophy as I've even commented repeatedly, is a single cardinal rule, "Never EVER let the rules get in the way of the game." SO usually as far as RAW, so long as they function to a Narrative I can then twist to enhance and progress the Story (we're all generally here for that) and thus the Game, I employ them for a majority. As Guy proposed they tend to be the most honest and fair... BUT there are mechanics in any game that don't service Narrative, RP, or an Enhancement to the Game for us... and with a solid test on them, I try simply "Monkeying about" with them... Change first before I blatantly dismiss... BUT if it's just not salvageable... drop a useless non-progressing and genuinely painful mechanic... Screw it. What are WotC going to do??? Is there even a D&D Jail??? I think not...
BUT it takes time and often failed experiments and apologies to get it "right"... To learn and read the Table... To be able to understand when Players engage and tune out... If the Table explodes into Combat on the very words "Roll Initiative", I usually got 'em hooked... We dismissed standard Combat Mechanics to RP it in smaller Narrative chunks to be fun, cinematic (without quite ridiculous) and probably more dangerous than originally intended... BUT that's the best fit... AND it is subject to change with the Table...
Punishing Players? In smaller ways to impede their progress to their favorite things... a little can seem like a lot, so carefully... I'm not above it FOR SEASONED PLAYERS AT MY TABLE... If even at my Table, someone's a relative Noob, then no... I practically avoid punishments... BUT when they're along from several adventures and are generally competent in-game... It's a mistake to let the antics get out of hand. Sometimes it's a PC-issue, and the Player simply isn't happy with their concept... OR they're worried about getting bored before the concept can even come together... SO I'm never afraid to speak pointedly to my issue with a "silly" or "stupid" way of RP'ing something.
This should always have a "warning phrase" associated... I always say, "Are you absolutely sure?" when I suspect something horrible is due from something silly... It's our Catch phrase for "You're straying into looney land" and I've used it for years... Sometimes it's just a case of misunderstanding or misspeaking, dropping the figurative ball. AND it's only fair if I let myself off the hook for ret-conning a legitimate "screw up", that I allow a Player to ret-con a bad call, too. Again, it's rare, and it's steadily gotten more rare...
It IS important to understand we as individuals have our own idiosyncrasies to language and speech, and we must teach our fellow Players our brands of individual and technical jargon... just as well as we must study theirs to get better about missing crucial details about critical decisions and antics.
Finally, just as Guy has said, I've so rarely had Players start randomly taking the piss out of my GM'ing on Narrative and often flexible consequences. They generally understand that it's still only a Game, and usually cut me some slack. Within reason, I try to cut them slack as well, and it doesn't go ignored... Most days a PC commits to something insane or silly to a degree of straying into suicidal or detrimental to the Game, the Player has a plan... often to trade out PC-sheets and start anew... ;o)
I guess I'd call my system Narrative with some logic. Maybe call it between realistic and narrative. Basically, narrative if it maybe kinda works if you don't think about it too hard.
So, players might be able to come up with some hair brained scheme to bust their friend out of jail and have it work. But if they simply walk in and start shooting up the jailhouse, they're probably going to die. Realistically neither is likely to succeed, narrative either would probably work.
That's not really the important part though, it's the lasting consequences where I tend to veer further from the narrative system.
Let's say in my jailbreak example the friend is in jail for robbing a bank. Nobody important got killed, let's say one security guard and a bank teller, neither with influential connections, and the money was recovered. The party uses some hair brained scheme and bust the out of jail, significant property damage but nobody else was killed, maybe a couple serious injuries.
In a narrative system they're probably going to have to lay low for a day or two or until the next plot point, whichever comes sooner.
My system, they're better off getting out of town because laying low for just a couple days isn't going to help and the law isn't going to just forget because it's convenient for the story. Then again, they're not going to try too hard either, so just getting out of town for a couple weeks or so will probably be enough.
I do use a little random as well, depending on how stupid I consider their actions. If they robbed the bank just because by just walking in and gunning down the security guard, then killed the teller because they didn't like their face, things are going to be a whole lot worse for them then if they actually needed to rob the bank, had a plan and things just went south for whatever reason.
I like your takes, thanks for the input. But I still have difficulty winging consequences for actually stupid or murderhobo behaviour. I'd apprechiate any input anyone who reads this might have for me
Try asking yourself : What would the response of the lord of these lands be?
Very often you will find that everyone who is underneath that Lord takes on an attitude towards laws and law and order as a trickle down effect from the attitude of the king or Lord or whatever who is in charge. So all you have to do is ask yourself what would the Lord of these lands do if the actions were taken in front of them? I hope this helps!
I actually strongly disagree with Guy when he says punishment is not a very useful consequence. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Without believable (in your world) consequences for your actions, the world itself will effectively be neutered.
I get the impression you wouldn't like the Patrick Ruthfuss bullshit? =)
Your fantasies can never be quenched, can't they?
I have question how would you handle a actual person that is playing ur games death. my gf passed and she was playing in my game and we dont want her character to just vanish and I as the DM dont want to just let her continue and be controlled by someone else or me. she was a paladin and one my friends said why not let her be called by her god to do a special mission only she can do. it woulds but how would you handle that in game.
A little over a month ago, a man I'd been playing D&D with for just over a year with passed away unexpectedly. He ran a campaign that I played in, and was a player in a campaign that I ran on the opposite weekend. Losing the world that he had created for us all hurt, but we wanted to honor him and the characters he created.
So, in my campaign, during a particularly difficult social encounter, his character received a summons to return to his homeland, to take on the mantle of royal advisor - and spymaster. Two other players sent their characters with, as they had personal ties with the departing character, deciding to support their friend.
With two new characters joining in the difficult social encounter they were engaged in, the story has changed. And occasionally, they'll stumble upon a message from the Spymaster with a cryptic clue on things he thinks his former group could be interested in pursuing...
omg i hate RAW, i use short hand/simplified and homebrew.
Kahli mah
I so hate consequences
Running from you is what my best defense is
Consequences
God, don’t make me face up to this
Dude, I tried to follow, but you just ramble.
Narrative is PC sided. Only if the setting is. Try running a narrative game set in the 40k universe, see how that works out.
RAW as the best solution because it already has rules you can depend on: Only if you have actual rules for the thing you are describing. You chose a stupid example, so I'm going to call you out on it... Show me 1 game with rules to surfing, and a table of modifiers based on your surfboard.
You have no structure, no goal with the video... you just talk randomly.
Not trying to be mean... you could just say that there are consequences to uploading a badly made video to youtube.