Players characters evading direct questions

[gbaji]

Yeah. Put me down for "what *exactly* was said?" as well.

The players are children who found out that their tenement building is home to a pack of black spiral dancer werewolves who are turning its residents into fomori in preparation for an attack on the garou in Muir Woods.

Did the PCs actuallly know that the werewolves were turning residents into fomori in preparation for an attack on the Woods? Or did they only know that residents in their tenement were being attacked and turned? It's really easy sometimes for GMs to get so caught up in the details of the scenario they are running, that they fail to realize that they didn't actuallly tell the players some key bit of information (or didn't make it significant enough for them to remember when it matters later).

The PCs may very well have thought that "bad guys doing bad things to folks in our building" was the main point of what was going on, and not at all thinking in terms of "then they're going to use the folks they transformed to do bad things to some other people in some other location", nor think that was important.

One of the children is a changeling, and they decided to ask the local Seelie court for help.
The players do not know that the Seelie court have a freehold in Muir Woods.
The players ask the Seelie to come and kill the werewolves in their building.

Right. Again, the problem is that since the players don't know that the Seelie have any interest in the Woods, they have no reason to think that mentioning the Woods is relevant.

I think the best advice I can give you for when you find yourself in this situation is to test if your players actually know the informatoin you think they should know. Literally ask them in OOC: "Um... You guys do remember what you learned about what the wolves are planning, right?". Then, if they say "no", remind them. If they say "yes", ask them to confirm what they know and make sure it matches with what you think they know.

The Seelie ask, very specifically, what the fomori are planning.
If the players had mentioned an attack on Muir Woods, they would have been alerted to the threat to their freehold.
The players just gave very broad generalities, saying that they were evil and they were in the city and that should be enough.

Which, again, points to them either not knowing about the planned attack on the woods, or not thinking it was relevant. You need to stop as a GM at this point and make sure your players know what's going on. Most of the time, I've found that this is about a miscommunication earlier in the game, which leads the players to make what appears to be a mistake later on.

The changelings said that it wasn't their fight and they had no reason to get involved.

What exact language did you use though? You could have said something like "We have no interest in a single tenement building. If you show us that the threat is broader than that, we might be intrested in helping". You know... hint really strongly that the players should be passing on some additional information that the threat is to more than just the one building. And yeah, if the players still don't get the hint there, then go back to asking the players if they know/remember that this whole thing is about attacking the Woods.

It's entirely possible you mentioned this at some point, and they just plain forgot. Or.... you forgot to mention it. I've seen even really good GMs just forget to tell the players some key bit of information. And it usually results in huge amounts of confusion and frustration, with the GM wondering why the players aren't doing "some really obvious thing" and the players getting frustrated that "everything we've tried doesn't work". Eventually, you have to stop and ask OOC if the players remember that key bit of information. Don't just assume so and then wonder why they aren't acting on it. Verify it.

And maybe even ask them directly "Do you tell the Seelie about the planned attack on the woods?". You might just be shocked when/if the players respond with "what attack on the woods?"

I am kind of confused about whether you are advocating:
A: The GM playing it straight and letting the story develop naturally to avoid railroading.
B: The GM breaking character, telling the players what they need to do, and ret-conning the situation for the desired result.

There is a middle ground where you give hints/suggestions, or at least verify that they have all of the information they need to make the right decision.

If your adventure depends on the players remembering to use the magic key they got to open the magic door, and then when they run into the door, they're trying to pick the lock, or bash in the door, or find some magic way around the magic door, your response should not be to be baffled why they aren't using the magic key. Your response should be to remind them about the key.

Remind them about the magic key. Remind them about the planned attack on the woods. Remind them that this may be imiportant to the Seelie. It's not railroading to merely remind the players of information they should already have. Now if they consciously and intentionally decide not to tell the Seelie about the attack on the woods for some reason, then that's entirely on them. But you cannot just assume that if they don't mention it, that they know about it, and know it's relevant, but are intentionally witholding it.

What you know, and what your players know are two different things. Don't assume what your players know. Ask.

In general, especially when it comes to some kind of transaction such as my example and possibly your changeling example, if I as a player ask for help / a service / something like that , where I'm prepared to pay for the service or whatever, then if whoever I'm asking for help asks me "what for?" the gut reaction is "none of your busyness". And the more you ask me to tell you my intentions the more I feel uncomfortable about telling you more details.

That seems like an odd response. You're asking to borrow some powerful magic item (or something similar). I think it's reasonable for the person being asked to want to know what you are going to do with it.

If someone walked up to you and says "Can I borrow your gun for a few hours? I'll get it right back to you". What would be the very next thing out of our mouth?

Or... "Can I borrow your car?'

Or.... "Can I borrow your credit card?"

Or.... <insert anything someone might borrow from you for which you may be held accountable for its use>


It's not really unreasonable for NPCs to want to know this kind of stuff, and frankly absurd to think they'd lend powerful reliics to someone without asking such questions. It's definitely not none of their business. It's their item. It's absolutely 100% their business to know what you intend to do with it.

[Telok]

Players not sharing info with NPCs, or generally failing to communicate with them, is fairly common in my experience. It crosses groups, systems, campaigns, etc.

I've seen it from PCs granted an audience with a king saying "he can't help us lets leave" to PCs framed for murder saying "look at the video" and leaving the star system at run-away-from-the-police speeds. Not telling allied troops under their command what they're expecting to fight causing over half the troops to die. Hiring information brokers to find very specific answers to stuff but not telling them enough to get the actual questions answered. Trying to hire mercenaries without telling them what's going on or who they'll be fighting. Stuff like that.

Some people are just super cagey with information no matter what or just can't/won't/don't interact with NPCs like they were people. I wonder... its like some people treat talking to NPCs like some old computer game NPCs. Type in the right word and get a plot related info dump. Type in the wrong word and it causes the NPC to attack or close the store or something. Like there's no concept of NPCs existing separate from the PCs and the game plot and just being there for info dumping, buying stuff from, or fighting with.

[icefractal]

to PCs framed for murder saying "look at the video" and leaving the star system at run-away-from-the-police speeds.
...
Hiring information brokers to find very specific answers to stuff but not telling them enough to get the actual questions answered.

TBF, I might do these two myself, depending on circumstances.

For the first, sometimes frame-ups succeed and sometimes innocent people wind up in prison even without intentional framing. I have no IC reason to assume justice will assuredly prevail this time, and I'm not willing to risk life in prison when I have the option to flee.

On the second, info-brokers sell info both ways. Anything I tell them in the process of finding info is something they could turn around and sell to my enemies. Obviously being *too* cagey can backfire, but it's just a failure of execution rather than of basic strategy.

[GloatingSwine]

Not telling allied troops under their command what they're expecting to fight causing over half the troops to die..

A low casualty engagement for the Imperial Guard, you mean.

[gbaji]

Some people are just super cagey with information no matter what or just can't/won't/don't interact with NPCs like they were people. I wonder... its like some people treat talking to NPCs like some old computer game NPCs. Type in the right word and get a plot related info dump. Type in the wrong word and it causes the NPC to attack or close the store or something. Like there's no concept of NPCs existing separate from the PCs and the game plot and just being there for info dumping, buying stuff from, or fighting with.

This is a bit of supposition on my part, but it may also have to do with the table habits in terms of in-character and out-of-character talk. I know that some GMs/players really want and expect that things said at the table (related to the game anyway) must be kept in context of what characters are actually saying or doing, and "table talk" is discouraged. I can't say to what degree this may affect players being "cagey", but it may explain how players being cagey may cause loss of information being transferred.

At my table we encourage table talk among the players. One PC, off on their own, making a decision about what to do? The entire table of players is going to be giving free/unsolicited advice. As long as they aren't passing character only knowledge, I have no issues with this at all. The result, though, is that scenarios like in the OP are just plain alien to me. My players would never have their characters do something like go to the Seelie and ask for help without first having spent 20-30 minutes at the table having a long discussion amongs themselves about what they're going to do there, who's going to talk, what they're going to say, what information to share, what to keep secret, etc.

Point being that at no point will I ever be confused as to why the PCs are or are not saying certain things to the NPCs in this sort of situation. If they've decided to not tell the Seelie about the attack in the woods, it will have been discussed, and a very open and verbal decision to "not tell the Seelie about the attack in the woods" would have been made. There woul be zero confusion on my part (or their's) as to what was going on, and why. Also, if they failed to discuss or mention the attack in the woods in their pre-planning for the meeting with the Seelie, I would know this. And guess what? I would probably ask them "hey guys. What are you planning to tell them about the planned attack in the woods?". Again. There is no secret here. Everything is discussed ahead of time. And I, as the GM, can be part of that discussion as well, if for no other reason than to ensure that they haven't actually forgotten key details about the adventure.


So yeah. The idea that they go there, apparently without any discussion ahead of time, and then.... what? We roleplay things out and hope the players remember what they were doing, and why, and every detail of the adventure? I'm not adverse to folks who want to play this out in this manner. Lots of tables do this, and are successful and have a great time. But if you are finding the players "forgetting the plan" frequently? Maybe have them talk this all out ahead of time, so that the players and the GM are all on the same page when the actual RP portion comes along.


Unless the players are being cagey or not discussing this kind of stuff ahead of time because they don't trust the GM. Which is a whole different problem.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

gbaji, that's how my table operates as well. And while I don't prompt them quite as directly as you did in your example, it's part of my responsibility as the GM to clear up any ambiguities -- I, as the GM, need to be 100% clear on what the player wants his character to do, and the player can only give me that information if they're clear on the world state and game situation. The character can be ambiguous and evasive, and the NPC can be ambiguous and evasive back, but only within a larger framework where both the player and I are on the same page.

[gbaji]

gbaji, that's how my table operates as well. And while I don't prompt them quite as directly as you did in your example, it's part of my responsibility as the GM to clear up any ambiguities -- I, as the GM, need to be 100% clear on what the player wants his character to do, and the player can only give me that information if they're clear on the world state and game situation. The character can be ambiguous and evasive, and the NPC can be ambiguous and evasive back, but only within a larger framework where both the player and I are on the same page.

Yup. I also find it's incredibly useful since sometimes the players just get the wrong idea about something. Having this kind of open discussion ahead of time allows the GM to correct those miconceptions. So if the players are talking about "who is going to put the poison in the Duke's drink while at the party" and I know that it's the Baron, and not the Duke, who is the bad guy that the PCs are supposed to be oppossed to, I'm not just going to sit there quietly wondering why they're targetting some random guy instead of the one they're supposed to be going after. I'm going to ask them "Um... Are you sure you mean the Duke? It's the Baron who you learned was working for the demon lord. As far as you know, the Duke knows nothing of this, and hasn't done anything evil".

If it's obvious the players have mixed something up, or forgotten some detail, I'm going to clear things up for them. Obviously, this does not apply if they have all of the information but have simply decided on the wrong course of action all on their own. So if they decide to poison the Duke anyway, despite having no evidence he's a bad guy, and it's clear that they know this fact, then... that's their choice. But yeah. Just on the off chance that they are confused about something, I will ask them. Just in case (sometimes, players do strange and unexpected things, knowing full well that it's strange and unexpected).

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Yup. I also find it's incredibly useful since sometimes the players just get the wrong idea about something. Having this kind of open discussion ahead of time allows the GM to correct those miconceptions. So if the players are talking about "who is going to put the poison in the Duke's drink while at the party" and I know that it's the Baron, and not the Duke, who is the bad guy that the PCs are supposed to be oppossed to, I'm not just going to sit there quietly wondering why they're targetting some random guy instead of the one they're supposed to be going after. I'm going to ask them "Um... Are you sure you mean the Duke? It's the Baron who you learned was working for the demon lord. As far as you know, the Duke knows nothing of this, and hasn't done anything evil".

If it's obvious the players have mixed something up, or forgotten some detail, I'm going to clear things up for them. Obviously, this does not apply if they have all of the information but have simply decided on the wrong course of action all on their own. So if they decide to poison the Duke anyway, despite having no evidence he's a bad guy, and it's clear that they know this fact, then... that's their choice. But yeah. Just on the off chance that they are confused about something, I will ask them. Just in case (sometimes, players do strange and unexpected things, knowing full well that it's strange and unexpected).

Yeah, agreed. I think in that situation... Let's say the Duke and the Baron are at the same party, and the players know that the Baron is Doctor Murder in disguise and the Duke is just a duke. If they're talking about poisoning the Duke, I'd probably edge right up to it without saying 'you have the wrong person'. "The Baron is remarkably calm. He's flirting with the woman on his left and his wife is glowering from down the table. It's hard to believe he's Doctor Murder under his filigreed circlet, despite the puppy you saw him kick before he got in his carriage." And then if the players go "Ok yeah how do we poison the Duke" well crap I guess I'm going with them poisoning the Duke...? I do want to preserve chances for them to make mistakes, and I don't want to say outright "I think you are doing the wrong thing." I guess I might ask why they're planning to poison the Duke and what their plan is. If it is a genuine OOC mistake, I want to clear it up, but if it's a case of the entire party just wildly missing the point I can't and shouldn't play their characters for them. It's a thin hair to split, I guess!

[NichG]

An extreme example of why communication is so important...

I had a setting with two neighboring countries - Sarsena and Sepena. Sepena had gone to war with one of the PC's adopted country across the ocean following a bunch of media manipulation stuff, and the PC wanted to figure out why the war was happening. This was a very dark edgy assassin/mind-controlley character by the way, who did things like kill targets by manipulating their dreams, just to establish the sort of approach to 'find out' that the PC tends to take. That player also sometimes would just do things or fixate on things that didn't make sense to me but were important to them, so I was a bit used to just seeing where they were going with stuff rather than triple-checking their reasoning.

So at some point, the player is like 'I'm going to go to the royal palace in Sarsena'. Okay, fine. 'I'm going to try to chart a path through the mirrors here to map out the place'. Okay, fine, not sure why you're interested in Sarsena suddenly but maybe you're plotting something involving setting Sarsena up to think Sepena attacked them? Well, whatever. 'I want to try to catch the queen alone somewhere that I can use mirrors to teleport in', um okay getting creepy but maybe its that plan? 'Okay, I ambush her, put a knife to her throat and ask: Why did you invade my country?!'

The player had mistaken Sarsena for Sepena due to the similarity between the names. Two hours of play later and...

If it doesn't make sense, ask.

[Telok]

This is a bit of supposition on my part, but

Yes that's really massive supposition on your part. People in my part of the woods actually talk to each other like normal folk. At times even I, when I'm GMing, will make suggestions because its something I think the characters would know and consider.

As I said, and I repeat it here again; in my experience this is fairly common and transcends GMs, systems, and campaigns. Its not the real live people at the table hiding information from each other. Its them being weird about talking to NPCs like they're plot devices or something.

[ciopo]

That seems like an odd response. You're asking to borrow some powerful magic item (or something similar). I think it's reasonable for the person being asked to want to know what you are going to do with it.

If someone walked up to you and says "Can I borrow your gun for a few hours? I'll get it right back to you". What would be the very next thing out of our mouth?

Or... "Can I borrow your car?'

Or.... "Can I borrow your credit card?"

Or.... <insert anything someone might borrow from you for which you may be held accountable for its use>


It's not really unreasonable for NPCs to want to know this kind of stuff, and frankly absurd to think they'd lend powerful reliics to someone without asking such questions. It's definitely not none of their business. It's their item. It's absolutely 100% their business to know what you intend to do with it.

It was the insistence in that resurrection case,
like, within the context "we'd like to be rented this magical artifact that helps resurrect people" , some basic who why questions are fine, drilling into more specific details raised our hackles about it
we presented ourself truthfully and with the legitimacy backign us (we've been bestowed land and noble titles for meritous deeds, in a polity not where the church is, but know to be LN tending to LG)
we stated truthfully that the monks already made attempts with normal resurrection, but failed
we stated truthfully that the recipient of the resurrection is the LG guardian beast of their temple
(actually under a zone of truth equivalent)

like, we told him who we are aiming to resurrect in the "category of being", does it really matter who the specific individual is? at that point I asked OOC questions about what we know about the relationship between the normal pantheon (and Abadar / good / lawful deities in specific) and the organizations associated with the pillars of virtue.
It raised our "I don't know how, but revealing stuff here is going to bite us in the ass"

Probably doesn't help that that campaign is getting more and more intrigue/political bent, so that probably shaped the perception we had of the encounter

[GloatingSwine]

I have no issues with this at all. The result, though, is that scenarios like in the OP are just plain alien to me. My players would never have their characters do something like go to the Seelie and ask for help without first having spent 20-30 minutes at the table having a long discussion amongs themselves about what they're going to do there, who's going to talk, what they're going to say, what information to share, what to keep secret, etc.


Unless the players are being cagey or not discussing this kind of stuff ahead of time because they don't trust the GM. Which is a whole different problem.

Yeah, I mean that's the thing isn't it. We're back to trust. If the players don't trust the DM they won't engage in a Guy Richie Planning Montage with the DM present because they'll assume anything they do say in it will be used to make their plans fail.

[Batcathat]

Yeah, I mean that's the thing isn't it. We're back to trust. If the players don't trust the DM they won't engage in a Guy Richie Planning Montage with the DM present because they'll assume anything they do say in it will be used to make their plans fail.

On one hand, that's an understandable reaction. On the other hand... well, why would someone play at all if they don't trust the GM not to actively try to screw them like that?

[GloatingSwine]

On one hand, that's an understandable reaction. On the other hand... well, why would someone play at all if they don't trust the GM not to actively try to screw them like that?

Probably because they've been trained to think like that by DMs who did screw them like that, even if they weren't trying to. It's already a natural temptation for the DM to plan for what the party can do when they're creating obstacles, leading to suspiciously specific countermeasures, and when they know what the players plan to do it takes discipline to stop that creeping in.

[Sneak Dog]

I see two Possible explanations here.

Your Players are Underthinking it
Viewing the game world as a matter of straightforward black and white conflict, they see the Formorians as Evil. The fact that they intend to attack the Changelings means the Changelings are good, and should therefore be willing to help them against the Formorians. Pointing out that the Formorians are an imminent and direct threat to the Changelings doesn't occur to them because the changelings shouldn't need to be directly threatened to try to help.

To be fair, the characters are kids. The players might be succesfully roleplaying kids. This kind of thinking does seem on point in that regard.

[Kardwill]

To be fair, the characters are kids. The players might be succesfully roleplaying kids. This kind of thinking does seem on point in that regard.

Well, the "then we'll hire people to torch the place and everybody inside, our parents included" plan B does not strike me as "successfully roleplaying kids"


As for the part where players are dodgy and refuse to give informations to NPCs (or, more generally, to take some risks by trusting an NPC or comitting to a dangerous line of action), I think it's a trained response to the unspoken "you're not allowed to be stupid" rule.

Quite often, I hear GMs saying stuff like "I won't kill a PC unless the player does a big mistake" or "Of course, if they do something stupid, they will suffer the consequences". And it's true that playing out the consequences of the player's decision is the base building block of RPGs. But it also means that as players, we learn that "being stupid/unwary/reckless" is something bad that will be "punished" by the GM. So we get wary. We want to play "right", so we overthink, we don't commit to dangerous plans, we distrust every NPC. We play in a cautious, boring way, because we don't want to wreck the game. Even when we get the fancy of trying something risky or outright stupid just because it's fun, we get blocked by the fact that the consequence of our actions may ruin the adventure for the other players.
And the less we know about the possible consequences of our actions, the more we play in a conservative, control-obsessed, cautious way.

I think GMs can encourage players to be more trusting and daring by being upfront with possible consequences ("If you do X, Y will probably happen. You still want to do it?"), and by not treating suboptimal and risky decisions as mistakes or bad play, but as narrative opportunities, so that a player doesn't fear a judgemental slap on the wrist because he had a conversation with the Big Bad. But it may not fit all playstyles and campaign moods.

[KorvinStarmast]

As I said, and I repeat it here again; in my experience this is fairly common and transcends GMs, systems, and campaigns. Its not the real live people at the table hiding information from each other. Its them being weird about talking to NPCs like they're plot devices or something.

I have three players who still do that.

Perhaps a reverse question to consider is, why would players feel the need to hide information in the game?

Back to the point made by Kish: trust issues.

[Quertus]

So, there's the specific scenario you gave, and the general question about the behavior. This, to me, is like having a patient in the ER, and asking, "how can humans die?"; that is, it is valuable to understand such things, both in an academic sense, and to inform you wrt this specific patient; however, what should really matter to you is what's wrong with this specific patient, not the totality of potential human failings.

Still, much like "8 kinds of fun", understanding the basics can help provide both a shared language, and allow someone who understands and cares about testing (so, historically, sadly, not the OP) the ability to devise tests which can serve to differentiate the different reasons for, in this case, evading direct questions. So I guess I'll start there.

That said, me starting there will mostly just involve me randomly babbling.

Why would PCs not give specific information when asked, repeatedly?

The walls have ears: I wanted to start here, because this is probably the biggest reason I might avoid answering direct questions: the potential for information to get back to others. There are so many ways this could happen, because of actual spies / microphones / whatever, because it triggers FR-style "does X know about Y" Divinations, because people gab and "6 degrees of separation", or just because some listener might spill the beans by investigating the information. Related / compounding problems include if Secrecy is key, Reprisals are likely / expected, and Reprisals are costly - all of which apply in your example. Also related is one the PCs were in no position to evaluate: Listener's behavior is likely to change if given information, meaning that the cat's out of the bag simply by telling them, if anyone is watching them. Example: While I was running a superhero game for actual kids (the players, not the characters), their superheroes held a public "recruitment drive". They were going to hold it at their base, then decided that they wanted a hidden base, and therefore would hold it in a public setting. But how to explain to accepted members where their hidden base was? They decided they wouldn't tell them, since that could be overheard; instead, they'd pull them aside, down a hallway, into a room, and show them, in writing / on a map, to provide the least chance of information accidentally leaking.

The asker was acting weird: I wanted to list this one second, because, the way the OP was worded, this triggered my warning bells. "All the fey keep asking this same, irrelevant question - something's wrong here.". Whenever the person asking the questions starts asking suss, that's a good time to excuse yourself and find an adult.

That's the way modules are written: There are so many modules where the quest-givers are stingy with information, sometimes even after the quest is accepted, but often before the PCs accept the quest. As the PCs were the quest-givers in this scenario, it can make sense that they'd be unwilling to answer questions to those "on the fence", especially if they are "genre-savvy". Example: I'm actually running a module right now where the quest-giver is scripted to answer, 'I can't answer that question until you agree to participate" to simple questions like when, where, and what will we be doing.

Information has value: This is a good general reason not to give out information to people who haven't declared themselves as your allies. Someone wants more information than I've offered, while promising me nothing? No thanks, I'll look elsewhere, no freebies for you. This is especially problematic when dealing with the Fey (see below). So, in your specific example, the Fey were seemingly clearly telegraphing that they all wanted to get in bed with the Players' children, and the PCs decided they didn't want any of that (especially not with Fey who Violated their expectations of You're the Good Guys, here's a clearly Good quest against the Bad Guys, why aren't you doing anything / why isn't that enough?. (Obviously, with my verbosity, I'll never write for TV Tropes )

This GM has given us "gotchas" before / Other GMs have given us "gotchas": I suppose a better way of putting this is, "The Players are trying to be careful", generally because they have past experience that tells them that being careless (with information, or just in general) is Bad, and will have Consequences.

I'm running a character who doesn't like talking much / I don't feel like talking much: Sometimes, it is literally just the talking that's the problem. Yes, I put this in 1st person, because I honestly have never done the work to know if this affects anyone but me. I can cast Wall of Text, but actually talking to people is exhausting. I have to imagine that there exists other people who will run characters who are more... taciturn, so it's technically possible that this could come up purely as an RP thing. Speaking of which,

The character is being Roleplayed as a suboptimal being rather than as the Determinator: Sometimes, players will pick the "wrong" answer, just to prove that their character is fallible.

The player is Expressing something about the character: OK, this isn't actually directly "Expression", so much as subtle min-maxing in this specific example I'll make: the Player could be showing that, even if they were captured and mind-controlled into believing an illusion, they still won't accidentally give the game away that easily. Which, as they're dealing with the Fey, this could all just be a dream anyway...

The asker is fey / There are fey within earshot / There are (known to be) fey in the world: Fey are not only known to be tricky / wily and love making deals (which often do not match the other side's expectations; see also "Fairy Gold"), but often epitomize there is power in words, and also in some interpretations have rules/mechanics/whatever related to "debt". Not to mention that they have Rules of Hospitality (and Etiquette) that don't always jive with that of mortal races. So I very much tend to be "on alert" when in campaign settings that even have fey, never mind whether they're even involved in The Plot, and a few of my characters have learned similar lessons. Also, the fact that Fey are known to run off with children seems quite relevant in your particular case. In particular, when the Fey Violated their expectations of You're the Good Guys, here's a clearly Good quest against the Bad Guys, why aren't you doing anything / why isn't that enough?, it's perfectly reasonable to believe that, maybe, the Fey would prefer for all the PCs' parents to be dead, to make the children more likely to accept the Fey's invitations to come live with them. Did I mention I crank paranoia whenever someone mentions Fey in a game or story?

Your players want a different type of game: I put this last among my sample reasons, because it's a general catch-all that covers several of the things I've said, and a potentially infinite number more. Maybe your players want an Epic game of clearly-defined Good and Evil, where everyone wears their hat color on their sleeves, Good can be counted on to fight Evil with no thought of reward, and no need for NPCs to "monologue" (ie, talk beyond showing their White Hat, pointing at a Black Hat, and saying, "murderhobo that" (plus any relevant details of the opponents' stat blocks, of course)). Maybe your players want an Easy game of "whatever we say just works". Maybe your players want a Guided game, where the GM asks questions about any proposed plans, and tells them anything that their characters should know when there seems to be a disconnect, until the players' choices make "single author fiction" level of sense. Maybe your players want an Understandable / Approachable game, where, even after a long day at work, even when they turn their brains off, even when they just want popcorn gaming / a "beer and pretzels" game, they still understand what's going on in your game.

Would my PC in your game(s) avoid answering a direct question? Sometimes, definitely. Would I avoid answering a direct question? Less often, but yes, if I didn't understand the question, thought it was the wrong question, or thought that answering the question would give more misinformation without providing background details, to name a few reasons.

Why did your players do it, in this particular example? Unknown. But your OP gave no reason for them to give an answer, and lots of reasons for them to not give an answer, so this particular instance isn't terribly shocking IMO. Or, at least, it wouldn't be, if it happened outside of Bizarro World, at tables I've known, especially but by no means exclusively if I were involved (as player or GM) in that scenario.

[Vyke]

I do think, and I might be wrong... it has happened before*, that people seem to feel that the players were entitled to the support from the Seelie. That, because they were introduced, the GM should guide them through the exact steps required to get the aid. I'm not convinced that's the case. For whatever reasons, be they good bad or completely bemusing, the steps we know** are that the players selected a faction to recruit to their cause, were asked to share information, then refused to share their information, then refused a payment, then left and were surprised and frustrated that it didn't yield the required support.

This is exactly the obvious result of that sequence of events.

Now you can, if you like, say it was impossible to gain that alliance and I would disagree. You might say that the key step to gain that alliance was too obscure for the players to access and I... might... agree... but truthfully when you you go to ask someone for help you need to know they have the advantage and that you may have to blink first. If you don't. they have less to lose and can end the conversation. Every interaction between two or more people is a balance of how much this is worth to them even when you're not discussing committing your forces to potentially lethal action.

The Fey were open to 2 way dialogue and the players weren't. Their decision may make sense, it may be tactically correct, but the consequence of that decision is no Fey support. Not sure why it would be met with frustration. They weren't promised anything and did nothing to gain anything. They haven't lost anything (except maybe time)... this was just a dead end caused by a cost they weren't willing to meet.

*Like, twice. Or something close. I'm usually right.

**And I wasn't there so I don't know, know. I'm assuming

[Vahnavoi]

Some people are just super cagey with information no matter what or just can't/won't/don't interact with NPCs like they were people. I wonder... its like some people treat talking to NPCs like some old computer game NPCs. Type in the right word and get a plot related info dump. Type in the wrong word and it causes the NPC to attack or close the store or something. Like there's no concept of NPCs existing separate from the PCs and the game plot and just being there for info dumping, buying stuff from, or fighting with.

I don't think that's it. First, the biggest correlate with this kind of behaviour is being a kid, and kids these days are too young to have played games with a word parser. Second, those old games actually required reading skills and being able to give specific info: if Talakeal's scenario had happened in such a game, savvy players would've made note of the phrase "Muir Woods" and tried throwing it around. Why? Because unusual phrases like that are less likely to (mis)interpreted by a parser unless it has special relevance and event trigger tied to it. This ties to GloatingSwine's criticism about Talakeal asking a password from his players, without telling them there even was a password. That may have been part of the problem, but I can also imagine players who are good enough at playing games of this sort to take notes of possible passwords all on their own.

Anyways, backs to kids... people below a certain level of development have trouble comprehending real people as independently existing things that aren't there just for their benefit. Even a completely normal child has to specifically learn and might be surprised of the fact that their teacher does not live in the school and actually does things other than teaching on their spare time, to give an example. It is possible that the format of a roleplaying game may cause adults to regress to this level - after all, games and play are fundamentally childlike activities. (I say that as an observation, not a condemnation, if someone needs that bit clarified.)

---

To be fair, the characters are kids. The players might be succesfully roleplaying kids. This kind of thinking does seem on point in that regard.

Yes... the players are succesfully playing kids by being childish, up to and including being frustrated when childish actions don't yield results in line with childish expectations. Though to be fair, their game master may be guilty of the same to some degree or another.

Well, the "then we'll hire people to torch the place and everybody inside, our parents included" plan B does not strike me as "successfully roleplaying kids"

Haha. I can tell you, kids are among the most likely groups of people to threaten horrible atrocities to your face, with the only thing holding them back often being lack of vocabulary. The difference between real world and a game is that real kids rarely have the capacity to actually follow through. In the real world, a kid threatening to kill you and your dog is, typically, mildly distressing and not at all threatening. In a game, kids will do just what they promised and dance on your grave too. Kids are mean.

[kyoryu]

Did the PCs actuallly know...

Hey, Talakeal, read this response about ten times.

One trend I've noticed in your horror stories is (from my perspective) that you know what would be an effective path for the players to take, but the players don't have the necessary information.

For a path you think the players should take, ask yourself what information is required to know that's the path, and ask yourself if the players have that info, and if the info is unambiguous enough that it can't be read as something else.

Additionally, don't hesitate to give them the requirements to do things. Like, it's 100% reasonable to tell them. "It's clear that they're not going to get involved unless you can show them that it's relevant to them, directly." That gets them in the right area. But they also need to be able to discover why it's relevant.

You frame this as "the PCs being cagey" but I don't think it is. I think they just don't know why the info is relevant, and they're not going to just infodump on the NPCs. To you it looks like they're being cagey because you know a particular piece of info would sway the NPC into action, but I don't think they know that. If you presume they know what you do, it does look cagey - but if you presume they don't, it looks just like a normal interaction.

[Quertus]

I do think, and I might be wrong... it has happened before*, that people seem to feel that the players were entitled to the support from the Seelie. That, because they were introduced, the GM should guide them through the exact steps required to get the aid. I'm not convinced that's the case. For whatever reasons, be they good bad or completely bemusing, the steps we know** are that the players selected a faction to recruit to their cause, were asked to share information, then refused to share their information, then refused a payment, then left and were surprised and frustrated that it didn't yield the required support.

This is exactly the obvious result of that sequence of events.

There are different styles of gaming. In an "Epic" game, the PCs' plan may well have made perfect sense: simply mentioning the existence of the Black Hats to the White Hats should have been enough to get the White Hats to act. In a "Guided" (I'll usually call this something more like "baby-proofed") game, all the electric outlets unfun fail states are covered over, and the GM holds the players' hands to help them get where they want to go. Etc.

None of these other styles that produce other results is "wrong" (no matter how much I might deride them for being not my style and therefore clearly inferior). And, give or take the OP's communication style vs my own, it's still entirely possible that the game could have down down exactly as described if I were running it (how do English tenses work? is it "were" or "were to" or "had been"?).

To repeat myself, but use slightly different words, I agree, were I to run a similar scenario, the logic would likely run exactly the same, and the sequence of events laid out in your retelling could play out exactly the same*. But I've definitely known GMs / groups / play styles where that wasn't a given.

* The most likely difference being, when the Players say that they want their PCs to approach the Fey, I might ask why they thought that this was a good idea.

when you you go to ask someone for help you need to know they have the advantage

I think my favorite handling of this lesson comes from re:Zero. And it might even be Approachable enough for Talakeal's group to grok. Note to self: save corresponding clip for future use.

And, yeah, in conjunction with that, I tend to try to train my Players to think in terms of understanding what makes NPCs tick, evaluating what they want and how to leverage that, rather than just "roll Social".

The Fey were open to 2 way dialogue and the players weren't.

That may have been unintentional on your part, but, yeah, the Players in Talakeal's game rarely seem interested in dialogue, 2-way or otherwise. Which is yet another reason this didn't come across as "surprising"; Talakeal will have to tell us if this group is different, or follows the "2 lines of dialog qualifies as a monologue" logic of yore.

-----

You know, I'm gonna irrationally and without any real evidence blame cRPGs for this state of affairs. In cRPGs, quest-givers often just require the PCs to go do the "Good" thing, just because, and the NPCs often have really short "We must save my family!" single-sentence text blurbs. This certainly isn't the first time it's been suggested that Talakeal's players really just want a cRPG; I'll randomly throw my hat in on that approach this time around, too.

For those who like such things: would a cRPG have introduced the Fey, and had the Fey willing to respond to a particular "sound-byte" (ie, "the Fomorians are planning on attacking Muir Woods") without telegraphing six ways from Sunday that that's important to the Fey / without having an explicit (if optional) "Find out about the Fey" / "Find out about Muir Woods" quest?

[gbaji]

Yes that's really massive supposition on your part. People in my part of the woods actually talk to each other like normal folk. At times even I, when I'm GMing, will make suggestions because its something I think the characters would know and consider.

Yes. And that's the case at my table as well. However, not all tables play this way. I've certainly seen enough posts on this forum about problems in gaming sessions that can often be laid directly at the feet of lack of communication among players at the table and/or unwillingness (or direct intention) of the GM to not correct players when it's clear that their characters are doing something horribly wrong, not because the players are making a poor decision, but because the players have forgotten or misremembered some key bit of information which their characters presumambly would not have.

I don't think there's harm in observing this potential pitfall and pointing out ways to avoid it. And given that "they didn't follow the plan" is probably the number one thing Talakeal posts about when things go horribly wrong at his table, it might be relevant here. I can't be sure what went wrong, but I'm going to follow the same rule I follow every time I assess a story like this. I look at only what is literally directly stated as truth. At no point in his story did Talakeal say that the players knew that the werewolves were planning an attack on the woods in question. He stated that that's what the werewolves were planning (information he had), but not that his players knew this, discussed this, and were actively trying to prevent it.

So yeah. I'm going to ask the question: Did the players actualy know this key bit of information (and/or its relevance/importance)? And then follow up with the suggestion that if the players feel free to spend time discussing OOC what their plan is, and feel comfortable doing so right in front of the GM, then the GM has the ability to correct them if it becomes clear that the players are getting some facts wrong or are forgetting some key fact that their characters should know. And then situations like this can be avoided.

As I said, and I repeat it here again; in my experience this is fairly common and transcends GMs, systems, and campaigns. Its not the real live people at the table hiding information from each other. Its them being weird about talking to NPCs like they're plot devices or something.

Yeah. I've seen that. And I'm not discounting the possiblity that this is what's going on. IMO, that's still something that can be mitigated via open discussion at the table ahead of time though. Then, at the very least, Talakeal would not be baffled as to why they didn't tell the Seelie about the werewolves' plan. He'd know it, because it was discussed right in front of him. If the players literally say "We don't want to tell them about the attack on the woods, because <reasons>", then the GM knows this and knows that this was an intentional choice. If no such conversation occurs, then the GM will be left in a "baffled" state.

Probably doesn't help that that campaign is getting more and more intrigue/political bent, so that probably shaped the perception we had of the encounter

Yeah. I can see if there's a fair bit of intrigue going on. The PCs may not want to be super open about what they're doing to NPCs if they can avoid it. So that makes sense.

I guess the flip side though, is that if it became obvious that this was a deal breaker, at some point the PCs would keep increasing the amount of info until they got what they wanted/needed. You wouldn't just walk away without trying.

[Vahnavoi]

Again, blaming computer games seems like a red herring. Star Control 2 was (significantly) more complex than Quertus's stereotype of a computer roleplaying game, and it was published in 1992. Now, have all games since then been as good at this particular aspect? No. Not even close. But maybe, rather than blame the medium, take a look at why game designers failed to make their games as good. Because a lot of what computer game designers have to do are the same things what game masters have to do. It's unlikely computer games pioneered railroading players through a strict or badly thought plot, as opposed to copying bad practices from tabletop games.

[KorvinStarmast]

You frame this as "the PCs being cagey" but I don't think it is. I think they just don't know why the info is relevant, and they're not going to just infodump on the NPCs. To you it looks like they're being cagey because you know a particular piece of info would sway the NPC into action, but I don't think they know that. If you presume they know what you do, it does look cagey - but if you presume they don't, it looks just like a normal interaction.

One of my players described this thing as "the DM and the Players have different mental maps" of the game world. While I still have problems with a couple of the players engaging, I really appreciated how he illustrated that for me. Sometimes it takes more than the three clue rule to offer connective tissue for the players to see how the world fits together.

[Talakeal]

What sort of payment were you expecting these child PCs even being able to offer the Sidhe in return for their help?

None.

Someone (Swine?) brought up the need for payment. One of the local Barons and his men-at-arms are already oathbound to defend the Queen's holdings in Muir Woods, so simply bringing it to his attention would have been more than sufficient.

However, the players know that the Seelie use oaths and promises as currency, and that the Fey are tricky, so they made it clear to every fey they met that they would not and could not offer anything in exchange for any information or assistance they might provide. Which is kind of an odd decision as their characters don't really know how fairy oaths work, and OOC all they are doing is trying to burn down future adventure hooks.

It's a mirror in that you don't want to communicate and they don't want to communicate, you both have excuses for why that's the right choice, but when the result of that is dysfunction neither of you are willing to actually change your behaviors to fix it.

I want to communicate. But I want to do it without meta-gaming.

To me, what you are saying is the equivalent of saying someone is being unreasonable for wanting to win a game but not being willing to cheat to do so.

I know an exact transcript isn't possible, but could you give your best recollection of the actual dialog which occured?

Because I've heard, over the course of this thread:
* The fey asked exactly what help the PCs wanted.
* The fey asked what the fomori were up to.
* The fey specifically said that they'd be more likely to help if the PCs told them all relevant info, bluntly and directly.

Those are three different things!! Things that can overlap, but still, different things! If after 50+ posts, we don't even know what the fey did or didn't say, then I'm not surprised your players didn't grok it either. I know you don't like posting "irrelevant" details, but I think they're only irrelevant to you because you have the full picture in your head.

It was a multi hour scene. I can't possibly remember everything that was said. Over the course of the evening, they talked to half a dozen or so different NPCs, all of whom asked some variant of "What are the fomorians planning?" although exactly how the question was phrased varied from individual to individual.

The PCs were fairly forthcoming about what help they wanted; they wanted the Sidhe to storm their building and kill the werewolves. They were told multiple times that the fey are not going to risk their lives and open war with the werewolves without a very good reason, and then asked exactly what the fomorians were up to, to which the PCs just gave evasive non-committal answers.

I have a feeling that no, it wasn't exactly like this in ways that matter, but that it differed in ways you're either filtering out, not sensitive to, or rejecting as relevant on principle.

This is almost certainly the case.

Did anyone ever explicitly say "If you tell us the details, we'll help you."? Did anyone explicitly say e.g. "We need to know where they're going to attack."?

No.

The fey didn't even know there was going to be an attack.

They made it clear that before they could help, they would need a good reason, and then directly asked what the formorians were planning.

The players then described the issue is "There will be more Fomorians in the city, and since we all know fomorians are evil, that isn't good!" without ever mentioning any sort of direct threat or plan posed by the fomori.

I see two Possible explanations here.

Your Players are Underthinking it
Viewing the game world as a matter of straightforward black and white conflict, they see the Formorians as Evil. The fact that they intend to attack the Changelings means the Changelings are good, and should therefore be willing to help them against the Formorians. Pointing out that the Formorians are an imminent and direct threat to the Changelings doesn't occur to them because the changelings shouldn't need to be directly threatened to try to help.

Or

Your Players are overthinking it
Knowing that by involving the Changelings they're entering a sort of Fae storyline, your players are being very paranoid about not accidentally making an agreement or slip of the tongue that lands them within some sort of fae-contract. Not unreasonable, but they're overcorrecting by refusing to say anything specific or definite at all. Rather than saying "The Formorians are planning to attack you", they want to make vague statements about how the Formor are bad news and need to be stopped, because they're worried that any specific statement they make might get fae-ruled into some sort of binding contract.
Or, alternatively, the entire party has decided that giving up the information is crossing some sort of line, and none of them want to be the one who makes that decision for the rest of the party. They're all waiting for somebody else to come forward and give up the actual information.

I think its both.

There is also a healthy dose of meta-gaming going on. The PC changeling is a master of contract magic, and constantly binds NPCs to oaths against their will. Though the rest of the party has no IC knowledge of this, the players are absolutely terrified of finding themselves in the same situation and makes sure to never make a definitive statement.

Did the PCs actuallly know that the werewolves were turning residents into fomori in preparation for an attack on the Woods? Or did they only know that residents in their tenement were being attacked and turned? It's really easy sometimes for GMs to get so caught up in the details of the scenario they are running, that they fail to realize that they didn't actually tell the players some key bit of information (or didn't make it significant enough for them to remember when it matters later).

The PCs may very well have thought that "bad guys doing bad things to folks in our building" was the main point of what was going on, and not at all thinking in terms of "then they're going to use the folks they transformed to do bad things to some other people in some other location", nor think that was important.

The previous scene they had captured and interrogated one of the werewolves and learned what they were planning. They absolutely had this information, and it was absolutely fresh in their minds.

Now, whether or not they realized the important of what they learned, or had already forgotten it by the next scene, who can say?

That seems like an odd response. You're asking to borrow some powerful magic item (or something similar). I think it's reasonable for the person being asked to want to know what you are going to do with it.

If someone walked up to you and says "Can I borrow your gun for a few hours? I'll get it right back to you". What would be the very next thing out of our mouth?

Or... "Can I borrow your car?'

Or.... "Can I borrow your credit card?"

Or.... <insert anything someone might borrow from you for which you may be held accountable for its use>


It's not really unreasonable for NPCs to want to know this kind of stuff, and frankly absurd to think they'd lend powerful reliics to someone without asking such questions. It's definitely not none of their business. It's their item. It's absolutely 100% their business to know what you intend to do with it.

It seems odd to me as well. But, just because its odd, doesn't mean that this isn't what is going through the player's heads.

This is a bit of supposition on my part, but it may also have to do with the table habits in terms of in-character and out-of-character talk. I know that some GMs/players really want and expect that things said at the table (related to the game anyway) must be kept in context of what characters are actually saying or doing, and "table talk" is discouraged. I can't say to what degree this may affect players being "cagey", but it may explain how players being cagey may cause loss of information being transferred.

At my table we encourage table talk among the players. One PC, off on their own, making a decision about what to do? The entire table of players is going to be giving free/unsolicited advice. As long as they aren't passing character only knowledge, I have no issues with this at all. The result, though, is that scenarios like in the OP are just plain alien to me. My players would never have their characters do something like go to the Seelie and ask for help without first having spent 20-30 minutes at the table having a long discussion amongs themselves about what they're going to do there, who's going to talk, what they're going to say, what information to share, what to keep secret, etc.

Point being that at no point will I ever be confused as to why the PCs are or are not saying certain things to the NPCs in this sort of situation. If they've decided to not tell the Seelie about the attack in the woods, it will have been discussed, and a very open and verbal decision to "not tell the Seelie about the attack in the woods" would have been made. There woul be zero confusion on my part (or their's) as to what was going on, and why. Also, if they failed to discuss or mention the attack in the woods in their pre-planning for the meeting with the Seelie, I would know this. And guess what? I would probably ask them "hey guys. What are you planning to tell them about the planned attack in the woods?". Again. There is no secret here. Everything is discussed ahead of time. And I, as the GM, can be part of that discussion as well, if for no other reason than to ensure that they haven't actually forgotten key details about the adventure.


So yeah. The idea that they go there, apparently without any discussion ahead of time, and then.... what? We roleplay things out and hope the players remember what they were doing, and why, and every detail of the adventure? I'm not adverse to folks who want to play this out in this manner. Lots of tables do this, and are successful and have a great time. But if you are finding the players "forgetting the plan" frequently? Maybe have them talk this all out ahead of time, so that the players and the GM are all on the same page when the actual RP portion comes along.


Unless the players are being cagey or not discussing this kind of stuff ahead of time because they don't trust the GM. Which is a whole different problem.

I think I have started more than a few threads on this in the past.

My players absolutely do not come up with plans as a group. They each act as individuals, with no cohesive teamwork or strategy, regardless of whether they are engaging in combat, exploration, or a social scene.

[NichG]

I do think, and I might be wrong... it has happened before*, that people seem to feel that the players were entitled to the support from the Seelie. That, because they were introduced, the GM should guide them through the exact steps required to get the aid. I'm not convinced that's the case. For whatever reasons, be they good bad or completely bemusing, the steps we know** are that the players selected a faction to recruit to their cause, were asked to share information, then refused to share their information, then refused a payment, then left and were surprised and frustrated that it didn't yield the required support.

I wouldn't say the players were entitled to support, but rather that the sequence of events that actually happened was strong evidence of a lack of connection between the GM's view of the game and the players' view of the game, its expectations, even its rules.

It's like... if you're playing chess, and you put the other player's king in check, you say 'check'. And if they fail to address the 'check' you don't just capture their king and say 'I win', you point out that their king is still in check. If everyone understands the rules, that particular convention shouldn't be necessary at all in theory - its an adversarial game, you made an attack, they failed to respond, its your win right? But it must have happened enough that the other player missed something obvious and lost and the winner felt like it was a cheap win that this convention of not letting someone who is even in an adversarial position to you in a competitive game make a blunder *that* bad.

Here we have a sequence that if everyone were satisfied by it, it would make sense and be perfectly valid. But instead we see both sides are unsatisfied with the outcome. So while its completely fair in principle within the perspective of a game or a challenge to say 'your challenge was to figure out what to say to the Seelie to convince them to help', what actually ended up happening at the table was that everyone went away from that with some kind of bad feelings about the interaction.

So its not about who was right, or whether the game was fair, or stuff like that. Making things much more explicit, asking well-chosen clarifying questions, etc are all strategies to diagnose the problem and fix it - once the problem has been addressed, game can return to being immersive and subtle and whatnot (if thats what people actually want to deal with of course). As opposed to what is IMO an unreasonable view of being unwilling to compromise the game whatsoever in the name of fixing a problem rather than letting it recur or fester. It'd be like a grandmaster trying to teach someone chess, but insisting on playing at their full strength with no handicap and not ever explaining anything at all or commenting at all during play, because 'in real competitive chess your opponent isn't going to tell you you're making a dumb move' or something like that.

It wouldn't be reasonable for someone to expect their opponent to narrate their train of thought in response to potential moves during a chess competition. But it would be unreasonable for a much stronger player to expect a weaker player to play at their strength and furthermore refuse to adjust their game to help teach them.

[Talakeal]

That may have been unintentional on your part, but, yeah, the Players in Talakeal's game rarely seem interested in dialogue, 2-way or otherwise. Which is yet another reason this didn't come across as "surprising"; Talakeal will have to tell us if this group is different, or follows the "2 lines of dialog qualifies as a monologue" logic of yore.

:)

Hey, Talakeal, read this response about ten times.

One trend I've noticed in your horror stories is (from my perspective) that you know what would be an effective path for the players to take, but the players don't have the necessary information.

For a path you think the players should take, ask yourself what information is required to know that's the path, and ask yourself if the players have that info, and if the info is unambiguous enough that it can't be read as something else.

Additionally, don't hesitate to give them the requirements to do things. Like, it's 100% reasonable to tell them. "It's clear that they're not going to get involved unless you can show them that it's relevant to them, directly." That gets them in the right area. But they also need to be able to discover why it's relevant.

You frame this as "the PCs being cagey" but I don't think it is. I think they just don't know why the info is relevant, and they're not going to just infodump on the NPCs. To you it looks like they're being cagey because you know a particular piece of info would sway the NPC into action, but I don't think they know that. If you presume they know what you do, it does look cagey - but if you presume they don't, it looks just like a normal interaction.

From my perspective, most (but by no means all), of my horror stories are the result of tunnel vision. The player's first approach is not working for some reason or another, and then they dig in their heels and blame someone for its failure rather than simply trying another approach. In this case, since their first attempt to get the Seelie to storm their building based simply on the pressence of the Fomorians didn't work, that was the end of it.

I agree, info dumping on the NPCs hoping to stumble across the right keyword isn't a good model for a game, but when asked a direct question (What are the fomori planning?) that can be answered in a single sentence (To attack the werewolf caern in Muir Woods and free the monster trapped under it) that is a very different situation.

[Vyke]

I would, absolutely genuinely, love to hear one of the players' description of the scene.

[Vahnavoi]

I'd be more interested in their ages.