Players characters evading direct questions

[Keltest]

Oh, yeah, and the GM is completely allowed to forget stuff or get confused, too. Especially if it's stuff told by a player 3 games ago. That's the reason why I'm not fan of the old "the GM is always right" proverb : Quite often, actually, he's not ^^

My rule as a DM is get it in writing or it didnt happen. I have a lot of conversations about D&D, I will not remember the specifics of all of them.

[Talakeal]

So, are we decided that the reason this happens is because the players have forgotten the relevant details and then lie about it to save face?

If so, it still seems to me that the players are the ones "at fault" here as they are the ones being actively dishonest where the GM is just confused.

I still find it hard to believe that the players had asked a direct question less than an hour before, gotten a direct answer, and then all four of them promptly forgot the major plot point so thoroughly that not only were they unable to repeat it back to me when asked the same direct question, but also forgot that they had ever learned it and therefore "don't know what they don't know".

Because yeah, forgetting details is normal, but the real kicker is when asked a direct question they can't just say "I don't know" or "I forgot" but instead have to bluff and act cagey and come up for excuses for why they aren't answering.



So, some of you probably remember my "avatar of hate" encounter from a few years back. The party encountered a monster that split like a hydra when killed. The party consulted a sage about how to defeat it, and he told them it could never be destroyed through violent means. So, the party came up with a good working plan to imprison it without killing it. But, when it came time to enact the plan, half the party went off script and starting doing weird random stuff. I (and the other two party members) thought they had forgotten the plan and said as much, and then the players insisted they hadn't forgotten anything, that they assumed that I was intentionally trying to trick them by playing OOC word games because of my phrasing, that "cannot be destroyed through violent means" was intentionally misleading and really meant that there was some random non-violent act that would cause the monster to keel over dead without splitting. To this day I am fairly certain that the two players simply forgot / weren't paying attention during the revelation from the sage and / or the planning session, but rather than admitting that, they went on the offense and insisted that I was trying to trick them.

I posted a long thread about the situation, and it seemed like the majority of the posters agreed with the players; that no forgetting was involved, it was merely a case of a cagey players responding appropriately to an untrustworthy GM.

The lessons I took from that thread seem to be running very opposite to the ones in this thread, and so now I am further confused.

[Keltest]

So, are we decided that the reason this happens is because the players have forgotten the relevant details and then lie about it to save face?

If so, it still seems to me that the players are the ones "at fault" here as they are the ones being actively dishonest where the GM is just confused.

I still find it hard to believe that the players had asked a direct question less than an hour before, gotten a direct answer, and then all four of them promptly forgot the major plot point so thoroughly that not only were they unable to repeat it back to me when asked the same direct question, but also forgot that they had ever learned it and therefore "don't know what they don't know".

Because yeah, forgetting details is normal, but the real kicker is when asked a direct question they can't just say "I don't know" or "I forgot" but instead have to bluff and act cagey and come up for excuses for why they aren't answering.



So, some of you probably remember my "avatar of hate" encounter from a few years back. The party encountered a monster that split like a hydra when killed. The party consulted a sage about how to defeat it, and he told them it could never be destroyed through violent means. So, the party came up with a good working plan to imprison it without killing it. But, when it came time to enact the plan, half the party went off script and starting doing weird random stuff. I (and the other two party members) thought they had forgotten the plan and said as much, and then the players insisted they hadn't forgotten anything, that they assumed that I was intentionally trying to trick them by playing OOC word games because of my phrasing, that "cannot be destroyed through violent means" was intentionally misleading and really meant that there was some random non-violent act that would cause the monster to keel over dead without splitting. To this day I am fairly certain that the two players simply forgot / weren't paying attention during the revelation from the sage and / or the planning session, but rather than admitting that, they went on the offense and insisted that I was trying to trick them.

I posted a long thread about the situation, and it seemed like the majority of the posters agreed with the players; that no forgetting was involved, it was merely a case of a cagey players responding appropriately to an untrustworthy GM.

The lessons I took from that thread seem to be running very opposite to the ones in this thread, and so now I am further confused.

While I appreciate optimism of all kinds, my experience with your threads and communication style leads me to believe that when the players say they don't trust you to communicate clearly to them and think youre trying to play word games, theyre probably being sincere.

Now personally, were I in the position of having both strangers on the internet and people I know in person and regularly talk with doubting my ability to communicate clearly, and were I also inclined to a certain amount of introspection, I might draw the conclusion that I am in fact not communicating clearly, that this is a problem of mine, and that I should deal with it. But that's just me.

[Telok]

I posted a long thread about the situation, and it seemed like the majority of the posters agreed with the players; that no forgetting was involved, it was merely a case of a cagey players responding appropriately to an untrustworthy GM.

The lessons I took from that thread seem to be running very opposite to the ones in this thread, and so now I am further confused.

Actually my impression was the players have trust issues with basically everyone, but especially with any NPCs in all sorts of games. As you said, you've seen the same behavior in games where you weren't GM. And so have I, in games where player/GM trust isn't an issue. You've really been quite consistent over the years to the point that you're either telling the truth and running at least average quality games with semi-lunatics, or you're some mastermind playing a bizzare 4-d chess multi-year troll of a whole forum. Occam's razor and all that.

Like I ran a super super simple murder mystery bit on a spaceship over the weekend that took well over an hour to get from "list of suspects" to "search people's rooms" and never once did they ask to talk to any if the the suspects at all. We're talking the whole thing is solved by any one of: basic room searches, an average social skill roll (command or intimidate or persuade or scrutiny and any attribute you can manage to justify), divinations of various sorts (they have a competent buy not PC amazing diviner on staff because its required for warp navigation), enchantments of various sorts, and anything I didn't think of that should reasonably work.

Spoiler

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So they got a missing person, their description (including weapons and armor), the inventory of the room (weapons but no armor), an over-fed pet miniature tiger shark. Ok so the shark's tummy is full of the owner's hair. And now we've found the headless corpse clogging sewage line 84-D (no weapons & no armor). The autoposy reveals no head (cut off) and point blank shotgun blasts in the back. Its weird how the GM just hands us a list of crew members with shotguns as soon as we ask? And go over the inventory of the room again (weapon but no armor).

A RL hour later after dredging the entire sewage system. Checking the drinking water tanks. Holding the laundry crew at gun point. Checking the mess & stores for ground up bone. Going over the inventory of the room again. Setting up the corpse back in its room with sentry gun traps. And running armed patrols up amd down the corridors... they get around to searching suspects rooms and noticing that one of the guys on the suspect list had a book titled How To Make A Lamp Out Of A Skull plus was wearing a pricy breastplate (pricy because magi-tech makes it good armor you can wear under clothes or vaccuum suits and is automatically considered fully concealed).

For reference, the written descriptions as provided to players (random generator a gogo). Notably also is the crew ladder rukes requirement that the PCs have previously interacted with the characters involved and thus have been previously provided their normal written descriptions.

Spoiler

Show

Murderer: Jhiemue, male halfling, Incorrigible kleptomaniac. maintenance & repairs. pink hair & silver eyes, Grumbles at the slightest sign of Inclement Weather feels it in bones, Rails endlessly against the stereotype that halflings are thieves, likes cougars, silver compact cars, and the color purple, hates spiders, pet lizard, shotgun, magitech breastplate, gladiator armor, Camera, backpack, book: How To Make a Lantern Out Of a Skull, and A bag of healthy lizard treats, taboo: Light a Fire without assistance once a day.

Victim: Erers, a no-nonsense matron female human ex-pirate. Provisions & stores. brown hair & black eyes, Feeding their pet miniature shark is always very Loud and Messy, likes sea dragons, jeeps, and the color violet, hates deep water/boats/swimming, has a bicycle & pet mini-shark, submachinegun, magitech breastplate, rope, A bag of dice, book: Hunting Mushrooms In the Dark, and book: How To Use a Sundial In the Rain, taboo: Be unfailingly polite in your manner and speech

[Talakeal]

While I appreciate optimism of all kinds, my experience with your threads and communication style leads me to believe that when the players say they don't trust you to communicate clearly to them and think youre trying to play word games, theyre probably being sincere.

Now personally, were I in the position of having both strangers on the internet and people I know in person and regularly talk with doubting my ability to communicate clearly, and were I also inclined to a certain amount of introspection, I might draw the conclusion that I am in fact not communicating clearly, that this is a problem of mine, and that I should deal with it. But that's just me.

I am absolutely aware that I do not communicate clearly. As you may be aware, I have NVLD, a sensory processing condition that, among other things, means that I can't read non-verbal communication clues and also parse language differently than most people.

My problem is not that I think I am being clearer than I am, its that people assume that I am lying or trying to trying to trick them rather than asking clarifying questions. So, in this case, rather than just asking me "Did you mean that it cannot be destroyed at all, or did you mean that there is some secret non violent means of destroying it?" the player decided to just ignore the plan that the party had come up with and ended up sabotaging her teammates.

Or, if you want an example from this very thread, NichG blew up at me because he insisted I was "making up stuff to win an argument" rather than accepting my explanation that I thought he was talking about CRPGs as a whole rather than his three specific examples (which I have never played and have no ability to comment on one way or the other).

Or another thread last year where someone claimed that I was intentionally giving them bad information in an effort to make them look foolish because as revenge for finding an infinite power loophole in the playtest document in my signature and refusing to accept that I a wasn't clear on the specifics of what I was asking and gave him a general answer rather than a specific one... which is really bizarre because I actively pay editors and play-testers explicitly for the purpose of finding such loopholes and am very appreciative when they are found as I can then fix them.



And yeah, I could do better about asking clarifying questions myself. I am just so afraid of accidentally railroading the PCs, and I have had players in the past who react really badly if they perceive that I am telling them what to do / and or implying that they are doing something stupid or forgetful.


In your previous post, one of your complaints about my posting style was that I assume there are misunderstandings and thus repeatedly try and clarify my position. Right? To me, this is an indication that I am already aware that clear communication is a problem of mine and am attempting to deal with it.

[Unoriginal]

So, are we decided that the reason this happens is because the players have forgotten the relevant details and then lie about it to save face?

If so, it still seems to me that the players are the ones "at fault" here as they are the ones being actively dishonest where the GM is just confused.

If you absolutely want to assign an "at fault" verdict here, then both you and your players are "at fault".

You should have asked why they weren't answering the question when the scene was happening, rather than wait for after it was said and done.

Your players shouldn't have reacted like that to the situation.

I am absolutely aware that I do not communicate clearly. As you may be aware, I have NVLD, a sensory processing condition that, among other things, means that I can't read non-verbal communication clues and also parse language differently than most people.

My problem is not that I think I am being clearer than I am, its that people assume that I am lying or trying to trying to trick them rather than asking clarifying questions. So, in this case, rather than just asking me "Did you mean that it cannot be destroyed at all, or did you mean that there is some secret non violent means of destroying it?" the player decided to just ignore the plan that the party had come up with and ended up sabotaging her teammates.

That's more your players' problem, I have to say. They probably have their own demons to handle, one way or another.

That being said, I think the thing to learn from this thread is: as a GM, if you get confused by what the players do or want, address it OOC immediately by asking them about it, without assuming anything, and explain things if it's something the PCs should be aware of but the players have forgotten, misunderstood when it was explained the first time, or simply ignored due to not paying attention.

[Talakeal]

If you absolutely want to assign an "at fault" verdict here, then both you and your players are "at fault".

You should have asked why they weren't answering the question when the scene was happening, rather than wait for after it was said and done.

Your players shouldn't have reacted like that to the situation.



That's more your players' problem, I have to say. They probably have their own demons to handle, one way or another.

That being said, I think the thing to learn from this thread is: as a GM, if you get confused by what the players do or want, address it OOC immediately by asking them about it, without assuming anything, and explain things if it's something the PCs should be aware of but the players have forgotten, misunderstood when it was explained the first time, or simply ignored due to not paying attention.

I’ll do my best.

Expect an update in a few months where it backfired on me horribly! :p

[gbaji]

Speaking of semantic arguments, Gbaji, I am still really interested in hearing why you say this all stems from a misunderstanding "as most people predicted"?

Because I stated this several times:

Literally, the second and third paragraph from the very first post I made in this thread:

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.

And in that same first post:

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.

Admittedly, in the first post, I focused most on "did you remember to tell them this", but even then included the possibility that they may have been told, but didn't think it was relevant/important/whatever.

In another post (also on page 3):

So yeah. I'm going to ask the question: Did the players actualy know this key bit of information (and/or its relevance/importance)?

So.. Still talking about "did they know this *and* know that it was relevant/important?".

But wait! There's more (on page 5):

I'll ask again: Did you straight up ask them (as the GM): "Do you tell them about the planned attack on the woods?". If you didn't do this, then you do not know if they withheld that information because they chose to withhold it, or they just plain didn't remember it, or didn't think it was relevant.

Note. Again, I'm covering several bases here, but repeatedly posted that the "solution" to all is the ask the players (while playing the scene) for clarification.

And another (in the same post):

You've repeated the same sequence multiple times. But I still don't have the answer to the question: Did the players intentionally avoid telling the NPCs about the planned attack on the woods, or did they forget (or not know? Or not realize it was signficiant? etc).

And another (also in the same post):

But my guess is that if you were to actually ask your players "why didn't you tell them about the planned attack on the woods", the answers would be a mix of "what attack on the woods" and "I didn't think they'd care about the woods, if they didn't seem to care about the city and the tenement building".

And then, finally, you answered the question about what the players thought:

The players claimed they didn't think it was significant.

They also said they were confused because they thought Caer (the Changeling word for castle) and Caern (the werewolf word for a holy place) were the same thing. Although this actually confuses me more, because if they thought the changelings were talking about the Werewolf caern, they should have been more likely to bring up the impending attack, not less.

So.... I was right, right?

What's strange is that when I later pointed this out, you spun off on a tangent on my use of the word "misunderstood" while ignoring the much more important point that your players, in fact, choose not to share the information because they didn't think it was important/significant/relevant/whatever.

Most misunderstandings occur as a result of people not placing the same weight on things that other people do. You tell me to turn off the main highway and take a surface street instead becuase you know that the bridge is out and we'll plummet to our deaths if we don't get off the highway. I think that you are just telling me to take a slightly shorter local route for convenience. That's a "misunderstanding", right?

In this case, you told the players about the bad guys plan because you knew that this would be important information they could use to get assistance from some of the Fae factions. Your players thought that it was just scenario/background/motivation fluff. That is a "misunderstanding". It's literally what the word means. Different people's understanding of something is different. One understands that "the bad guys plan to attack the woods is important to other fae factions", while the other understands "the bad guys plan to attack the woods is just fluff that establishess their motivation for what we care about, which is them attacking people in our tenement building".

You're making a strage semantic argument, while missing the much larger picture. What matters here is that your players failed to mention the planned attack because they didn't think it was important or would help them. That's not a mistake in the way that choosing to bring a knife to a gunfight is. It's a mistake made by people who don't know the difference between a knife and a gun in the first place. Part of your job as GM is to make sure they understand those game mechanic/setting things, so that they may make good decisions. And when it's abundantly obvious that they are making a huge mistake, you need to step in and make sure that the mistake is not made out of ignorance of the facts.

In this case, they didn't know that a piece of information you provided them earlier was important. It was your job to remind them about it, and then give them the choice as to whether/how to use it.

In this case, responding to “my house is on fire!” with “do you know where the fire is headed?” sufficiently violates human social norms to trigger the “Pod People” red flags.

Eh? I'm not getting your line of thinking here. If I'm a fire figther, and my job/purpose is to fight fires (or I'm superman, or whatever), then you are correct.

But, as someone who lives in an area occasionally hit by major wildfires, if someone's house is on fire, I'm very much interested in where the fire is headed, whether I need to evacuate, whether I'm at risk of losing my life/stuff, etc. My job is not to put out someone else's house, but I do still care about my house.

That is far more relevant to the scenario at hand. The various fae factions care about their own territories and interests. They may not care at all about the "fire" in the tenement building. The may very very much care if that "fire" is going to spread to Muir Woods though.

Why is it the GM's job to assume the players forget things?
Why isn't it the player's job to say they don't remember something?

It just seems weird that we have a presumed scenario where the players forgot an important piece of information, and then rather than come right out and say they forget, they act all evasive and cagey when asked a direct question. Right?

I just don't get why I am the one at fault for not forcing the issue.

Several other people have already answered this, but I'll reinforce that: As the GM, you have "perfect information" about what's going on. You know which details are important, and which are not. You also know which lines of action by the PCs will result in which outcomes.

So yes. It's absolutely your responsibility to make sure to veryify if they know about and understand some key scenario point. As others have said, the players don't know what they don't know. If they've forgotten (or dismissed) some important fact in your scenario, they aren't going to magically know to remember or place weight on it, just out of the blue.

You know the information. Remind them of it. It's just not that hard.

I've run lengthy, complex Call of Cthulhu campaigns. Players are largely attentive and interested the whole time. They take notes (ending the campaign with 50+ pages of them!). They keep a clue book with handouts in it. They strategize. I'd consider them highly intelligent. But they -still- make mistakes, like the above "kill the duke instead of the baron" example, or mixing details of an event in Cairo with one in London to draw an invalid conclusion. And it's a 10 second problem to solve when I-as-GM-with-better-information say "Do you mean the Duke? You have no reason to kill the Baron" or "actually, your characters discovered the London cultists didn't seem to care about star movements".

Are we talking Masks of Nyarlathotep here? Don't remember star movements in that way (but definitely remember London and Cairo. Gah!). Either way, yeah CoC is super brutal about what may be very very minor details. And GMs absolutely have to be able to detect when players are going off into the weeds because they're just pursuiing a wrong (but viable) idea, or have mixed up or forgotten some minor but significant detail.

Oh, yeah, and the GM is completely allowed to forget stuff or get confused, too. Especially if it's stuff told by a player 3 games ago. That's the reason why I'm not fan of the old "the GM is always right" proverb : Quite often, actually, he's not ^^

Yeah. I agree with that one as well. As the GM you need to be willing and able to accept when your players tell you "but that's not how things happened". Obviously, the GM is the arbiter of "what is" in terms of places, locations, and people in the game setting. But when it comes to "what happened", GMs may very much misremember or misinterpret things. I've definitely seen it happen. Heck, I've done it myself.

You must be able to account for and adjust to that. Part of the GMs job is to communicate all things that happen in the game world to the players through the senses of their characters. Sometimes, there is a miscommunication or confusion. IME, the most important thing is for the GM to detect and correct these things as quickly as possible. It's not about "fault" (or even "who is right/wrong"). The problem is that the GM and the players have a different perception of something, and that needs to be corrected. The hows may vary, but it must be done, or the game will suffer.

That being said, I think the thing to learn from this thread is: as a GM, if you get confused by what the players do or want, address it OOC immediately by asking them about it, without assuming anything, and explain things if it's something the PCs should be aware of but the players have forgotten, misunderstood when it was explained the first time, or simply ignored due to not paying attention.

Yup. This can't be repeated often enough. If at any point as GM you are thinking "why are they doing this? or "why aren't they doing <some other thing>?" instead of just sitting there quietly calculating what will happen as a result of these actions, freaking ask them those questions.. You're thinking it, right? So ask.

It's really not that hard. It doesn't break the game. And it will prevent a huge number of (often very very major) problems in a game. Just... ask your players!

[Talakeal]

snip

Ok. I think I got you.

From the way you phrased it, it sounded to me like you were saying that I was assuming the players chose to not reveal the information because they mistakenly believed it was not relevant, but then it later came out that they only came to that conclusion because they actually misunderstand the situation and thought the werewolf's plan was something different than it was (or forgot about it entirely).

To me, its not merely a semantic argument, a misunderstanding and a mistake are, imo, fundamentally different situations.

For example:

A cocky group of tenth level PCs choose to attack a great wyrm red dragon because they are overconfident in their abilities and think they will win.

vs.

A group of tenth level PCs choose to attack a great wyrm red dragon because they misheard the GM and thought he said "wyrmling".

or:

A group decides to ignore the evidence implicating the count because he has been so honest and kind to them in the past that they assume he is being framed.

vs.

A group forgot about the evidence implicating the count because it happened four sessions ago and they have a lot on their mind.


or (one that happened a few months ago in my game:)

The players are fighting a seemingly endless horde of ghasts and don't move up to guard the choke point and avoid being surrounded

vs.

The players agree that the cleric will use turn undead to hold the ghasts back while the rest of the party kills them one at a time, but the cleric misunderstands the plan and rushes in to blast as many as possible, sending the ghasts scattering to the four corners of the map.


IMO, half of these are mistakes and half of them are misunderstandings.

And again, IMO, it is very a very different thing for the GM to tell the players what they are getting wrong OOC in the case of a misunderstanding vs. a mistake. Because it is, again IMO, vital for player agency that they be allowed to succeed or fail based on their own merits, and there needs to be some skill involved / risk of failure for a game to be compelling.


Whereas a GM correcting a misunderstanding is just playing fair, and serving their duty as the player's eyes and ears.


And again, it is a lot easier at your table because you have a lot more communication and trust. If your players discuss their plans OOC regularly, it is a lot easier for me, as the GM, to tell if they are misunderstanding the information.
Likewise, my players, when I point out a flaw in their plan, absolutely accuse me of railroading then, telling them what to do, trying to trick them, or calling them stupid, and then they often either disrupt the game with OOC yelling and name calling, storm off and leave the table, or double down on their behavior in an effort to prove that I am wrong / lying.


EDIT: I just had a thought. Maybe to avoid semantics, instead of talking about misunderstandings vs mistakes, we should be talking about information that helps the players stay in character vs. information that pulls the players out of character.

For example, if my character sees a colossal red dragon but I am imagining something more like an alligator, defining terms is a good thing.

But telling me "your character is wrong, the count is actually a bad guy despite how nice he has been to you in the past" if providing me with meta-game information and making it harder for me to make an in character decision.

Does that make more sense?

[Unoriginal]

Ok. I think I got you.

From the way you phrased it, it sounded to me like you were saying that I was assuming the players chose to not reveal the information because they mistakenly believed it was not relevant, but then it later came out that they only came to that conclusion because they actually misunderstand the situation and thought the werewolf's plan was something different than it was (or forgot about it entirely).

To me, its not merely a semantic argument, a misunderstanding and a mistake are, imo, fundamentally different situations.

For example:

A cocky group of tenth level PCs choose to attack a great wyrm red dragon because they are overconfident in their abilities and think they will win.

vs.

A group of tenth level PCs choose to attack a great wyrm red dragon because they misheard the GM and thought he said "wyrmling".

or:

A group decides to ignore the evidence implicating the count because he has been so honest and kind to them in the past that they assume he is being framed.

vs.

A group forgot about the evidence implicating the count because it happened four sessions ago and they have a lot on their mind.


or (one that happened a few months ago in my game:)

The players are fighting a seemingly endless horde of ghasts and don't move up to guard the choke point and avoid being surrounded

vs.

The players agree that the cleric will use turn undead to hold the ghasts back while the rest of the party kills them one at a time, but the cleric misunderstands the plan and rushes in to blast as many as possible, sending the ghasts scattering to the four corners of the map.


IMO, half of these are mistakes and half of them are misunderstandings.

And again, IMO, it is very a very different thing for the GM to tell the players what they are getting wrong OOC in the case of a misunderstanding vs. a mistake. Because it is, again IMO, vital for player agency that they be allowed to succeed or fail based on their own merits, and there needs to be some skill involved / risk of failure for a game to be compelling.


Whereas a GM correcting a misunderstanding is just playing fair, and serving their duty as the player's eyes and ears.

The point is that you have to ask to know what they're thinking, if they haven't expressed it.

Maybe the players know it's a bad idea to attack a great wyrm but one of them is playing their character's flaw of being overly confident and the others PCs have decided to tag along because they don't want this PC to die or were convinced because the overly confident PC is the only one in the group who fought a dragon before and won, so they consider them the expert on the topic (maybe playing up their own characters' flaws of being naive/overly trusting/easily swayed by star power/etc).

Maybe they played a video game where "great wyrm" is an enemy that can be dealt with at lvl 10 and they had a crossed wire moment.

Maybe they heard "wyrm" and mistakingly remembered it as being the term designating the monster most people would call "drake".

And maybe the players are actually overconfident and are making a tactical mistake.


The point is that you can't know unless the players express it, and many players won't express it unless you ask.

So the GM should just ask.

[Reversefigure4]

Are we talking Masks of Nyarlathotep here? Don't remember star movements in that way (but definitely remember London and Cairo. Gah!). Either way, yeah CoC is super brutal about what may be very very minor details. And GMs absolutely have to be able to detect when players are going off into the weeds because they're just pursuing a wrong (but viable) idea, or have mixed up or forgotten some minor but significant detail.

Masks indeed. Fabulous campaign, one of my favourite ever, but a lot of note-taking required. Even as the GM, since the other obstacle I found was that many NPCs would lie to the PCs (because that NPC was secretly a cultist), and the characters might fail to detect it, and thus I as the GM would have to take notes on what-the-lie-was, since I couldn't just refer back to the information in the book on what the NPC knows. Often they'd be referring back to what they'd been told over a year of out-of-game time after the fact.

In the case of star movements, the London ritual they interrupted happened to occur on a full moon (for no reason, that was just the day on the calendar), and they were running off a theory that the Cairo cultists might work the same way... but they'd already successfully made an Astrology check in London to determine it was a random co-incidence. In theory I could have let the players hare off in the wrong direction based off the wrong conclusion, but since the characters knew the correct information and remembered it (for them it was life and death, and it'd been two months max), it's a simple matter for the GM to course-correct by giving them a basic reminder.

[GloatingSwine]

Now, it gets tricky what we're discussing at any one moment, whether it's the PoV of children who were expecting Superman, and how their reaction could make sense in that context, or me playing an RPG, or me IRL. But, yeah, there's very few situations where I'd expect social norms to allow a "do you know what the next step looks like?" query to go uncontested from someone who hasn't offered help, and the example of 'there's a fire' is one of the strongest contenders for that being an acceptable line of thought.

"What are they planning" is definitely a "is this even my problem?" question from someone who hasn't decided to help. It's not the sort of probing for tactically significant things you'd want to do before assaulting a group of Garou, when you want to be asking things like how many, what shape are they whilst they're asleep, and are any of them significantly physically deformed. Because those are the questions that let you decide how much overkill you need (identifying breed forms, Metis, etc).

If you go into a fight against werewolves even 99%-assed it's probably going to go bad between their soak, regen, rage heal, and ability to make paste of anything vaguely nearby when they go into war mode.

[Talakeal]

"What are they planning" is definitely a "is this even my problem?" question from someone who hasn't decided to help. It's not the sort of probing for tactically significant things you'd want to do before assaulting a group of Garou, when you want to be asking things like how many, what shape are they whilst they're asleep, and are any of them significantly physically deformed. Because those are the questions that let you decide how much overkill you need (identifying breed forms, Metis, etc).

If you go into a fight against werewolves even 99%-assed it's probably going to go bad between their soak, regen, rage heal, and ability to make paste of anything vaguely nearby when they go into war mode.

Yep.

Like I said, the only realistic way to beat them in a fair fight is to have a coalition of allies, which may or may not include the Seelie, because werewolves are bonkers in combat even when they don't have an army of fomori and home field advantage.

The point is that you have to ask to know what they're thinking, if they haven't expressed it.

Maybe the players know it's a bad idea to attack a great wyrm but one of them is playing their character's flaw of being overly confident and the others PCs have decided to tag along because they don't want this PC to die or were convinced because the overly confident PC is the only one in the group who fought a dragon before and won, so they consider them the expert on the topic (maybe playing up their own characters' flaws of being naive/overly trusting/easily swayed by star power/etc).

Maybe they played a video game where "great wyrm" is an enemy that can be dealt with at lvl 10 and they had a crossed wire moment.

Maybe they heard "wyrm" and mistakingly remembered it as being the term designating the monster most people would call "drake".

And maybe the players are actually overconfident and are making a tactical mistake.


The point is that you can't know unless the players express it, and many players won't express it unless you ask.

So the GM should just ask.

I see where you are coming from. But again, to me this is a last resort when the game is about to go off the rails rather than something you do at the first sign of odd behavior.


From a social perspective, I have had far more people go off on me because I pointed out that they might be making a mistake than if I stayed silent. People are really touchy if they think you are telling them what to do or criticizing their decisions. I can come up with a dozen examples just off the top of my head where the GM asking an innocent question caused a player to throw a tantrum. Heck, even as another player it is an issue. Last summer, for example, I played with another group that had none of my usual players in it, and at one point the cleric attacked the monster when we had a PC at negative HP. I said "Are you sure you don't want to heal X instead?" and the guy exploded at me. It was literally the only drama I ever had with that group, and it could have been avoided by just biting my tongue and letting the player go through with, what I felt was, a tactical mistake.


From a game perspective, its really hard to do this without tipping your hat that this is the "correct" course of action. Which is what I was getting at before the thread got derailed with all the discussion of the definition of optimal; if you ask your players why they aren't doing "the correct thing" then you are going to let them know what the correct thing is, and they are going to be tempted to do it, which imo encourages both meta-gaming and linear adventures, whereas a game that allows the PCs to fail can go off in all sorts of crazy directions organically.

[gbaji]

I thnk you are still splitting semantic hairs here:

From the way you phrased it, it sounded to me like you were saying that I was assuming the players chose to not reveal the information because they mistakenly believed it was not relevant, but then it later came out that they only came to that conclusion because they actually misunderstand the situation and thought the werewolf's plan was something different than it was (or forgot about it entirely).

Mistaken: wrong in one's opinion or judgment.

Misunderstand: fail to interpret or understand (something) correctly.


In this context, those are effectively synonymous terms.


Now, to be fair, I did mention the possiblities that the players forgot about the attack (or you forgot to tell them), or thought the plan was something else entirely somehow, but I also included "didn't understand the significance" (or something similar) multiple times as well.


Again though, the one common thread here (and in every single one of your examples where you make a differentiation between a mistake and a misunderstanding) is that the GM can easily clear up which is happening by asking questions of the players. You ask the players if they are aware that the thing they are fighting is too powerful and they will likely die if they attack. You ask the players if they are aware that they have ample evidence that the count is actually evil. You ask if the cleric is aware that if he moves all the way into the room, his anti-undead field will no longer keep the monsters at bay and everyone will come under attack.

This is a general good rule of thumb for all GMs for all situations. Whenever you find yourself mentally asking "why are they doing this?" or "why are they not doing that?", it's probably a good time for you to actually ask your players that very same question. And not just "are you sure? (or equivalent). Be clear about what your understanding of the situation is, and your undersatnding of what they are doing (or not doing), and your understanding of the consequences of that choice, and then ask them if that is the result they desire.

If you don't ask the players why they are doing things and what their intentions are, then you're never going to be able to know if the results of those actions are intentional or a mistake. And if it is a mistake, and that mistake is the result of them not understanding some key bit of game fact, they will always blame you for not informing/reminding them of this prior to them taking the action.

So... just ask them. Again, this is such a strange problem to me. As I posted earlier, my players will sit at the table and have a long drawn out conversation about any such proposed interaction with a group of NPCs, considering every possibility, evey possible action, what they want to get out of it, what they are willing to say or not say, why they want to share this info, or that info, or no info, etc. And if, at any point in that, they say something that is not true, I will correct them. If part of their plan is "we'll sneak in, and put poison in the Duke's drink", and I'm thinking "why they heck are they doing that? It's the baron who is the evil guy", I'm not just going to sit quietly and let them continue with their planning. I'll say something, right then.

Heck. I literally had this kind of thing happen in my game, just last night. I had set up this entire complex scheme in terms of what the bad guys were doing, and what information the party had about it. And I had a "plan" in mind about how the party could use the information provided to get to where the bad guys were. That fits in to my earlier post about if you create a problem for the party to solve, you need to come up with at least one way it can be done. But, in this case, they came up with something else entirely. So that's what they are doing.

The point is that because their entire plan was created and discussed in its entirety right in front of me, I was able to interject if anything in there was obviously game setting/rule breaking. So there is no chance of them failing because they don't understand how something in the game works, or misunderstood the connection between X and Y, or whatever. And if they had questions about how something worked, or what their characters knowledge or capabilities were in some area, they... wait for it... asked me. There is no "gotcha" in there. The only things that may go slightly wrong will be things that they literally have no way for their characters to know about. As a result, at no point am I left asking "why are they doing this" or "why aren't they doing that". I know exactly what they are doing, and why they are doing it.

Now, how exactly that's all going to play out? We'll learn that next session...

[Talakeal]

I thnk you are still splitting semantic hairs here:

Mistaken: wrong in one's opinion or judgment.

Misunderstand: fail to interpret or understand (something) correctly.

In this context, those are effectively synonymous terms.

They really aren't though.

Analyzing accurate data and coming to an incorrect conclusion is fundamentally different than coming to an incorrect conclusion because you analyzed faulty data.

As the GM, it is my responsibility to make sure the player characters have an accurate picture of the imaginary world they inhabit.
As a player, it is my responsibility to analyze the information my GM gives me and decide on a course of action based on it.

snip

Again, you must play with people who have much stronger egos and much more trust than I do.

The majority of the time, if I question why a player is making what I feel to be a bad tactical decision, their response is something along the lines of "Tell you what, if you think you know so much better than me, why don't you just play my character for the rest of the session!" and storming off to pout in another room for half an hour. Or, I suppose, equally likely, insisting that they meant to do that and then doubling down on the action in a way that is likely to get them or their teammates killed or otherwise screwed over.

And again, this is not just one or two problem players players. Although some are worse about it than others, I can't recall ever having been in a gaming group without at least one person who perceives such questions as criticizing them or telling them what to do and acting out as a result.

[Telok]

The majority of the time, if I question why a player is making what I feel to be a bad tactical decision, their response is something along the lines of "Tell you what, if you think you know so much better than me, why don't you just play my character for the rest of the session!"

I actually have a solution for that one: use "Wait, I'm confused. What's going down and why?" Being sure to offer no information or suggestions untill you can ascertain that they have actual facts wrong. Then you just correct or offer the in-character factual information.

On occasion I offer rules clarifications or ask if a character has a particular power or something. But usually as far as I go on suggestions is... well no.... I did suggest recently not face tanking a giant laser scorpion robot tank... but mostly I try to keep to pure fact based stuff and occasionally reminding or asking players that/if they have particular abilities.

[Keltest]

I actually have a solution for that one: use "Wait, I'm confused. What's going down and why?" Being sure to offer no information or suggestions untill you can ascertain that they have actual facts wrong. Then you just correct or offer the in-character factual information.

On occasion I offer rules clarifications or ask if a character has a particular power or something. But usually as far as I go on suggestions is... well no.... I did suggest recently not face tanking a giant laser scorpion robot tank... but mostly I try to keep to pure fact based stuff and occasionally reminding or asking players that/if they have particular abilities.

Alternatively, "can you explain your thought process here?" is a good one.

[Kish]

Alternatively, "can you explain your thought process here?" is a good one.

In fairness, I think there are people much less touchy than Talakeal has described Bob who would respond to that with, "You just called me crazy!"

[gbaji]

They really aren't though.

In this context, they are though. Remember, there is a sequence of data->conclusion sets going on here. Each conclusion in the sequences becomes the new "data" that is used for the next step in the sequence. This is a logic chain, and if you break a link it in, the entire thing falls apart.

Analyzing accurate data and coming to an incorrect conclusion is fundamentally different than coming to an incorrect conclusion because you analyzed faulty data.

Correct. But in this case, we're talking about a "misunderstanding" about the data (the relevance/importance of the planned attacks on the woods) leading to a "mistaken" conclusion (the Fae wont be interested in this). That now becomes the new "data", which then leads to the next "mistaken" conclusion "there's no point in mentioning this to the Fae".

Whether we consider the final point ("we're not going to mention this to the Fae") to be a mistake or a misunderstanding depends entirely on where in the chain we look. And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. It is, fundamentally, both.

As the GM, it is my responsibility to make sure the player characters have an accurate picture of the imaginary world they inhabit.
As a player, it is my responsibility to analyze the information my GM gives me and decide on a course of action based on it.

Sure. But the PCs clearly did *not* have an accurate picture of the imaginary world they inhabit. If they did, they would not have missed the fact that the planned attack on the woods was "significant". The very fact that they didn't think it was means that somewhere in that chain of data->conclusion which you presented to them, they failed to make a connection which you assumed they should. That assumption itself is based on a setting norm. People presumably live in this world, and understand (at least to some degree) the political interactions of the Fae, and part of that includes "what they might be interested in".

To create an analogy, this would be like the GM telling players who have never heard of a car that "a light is flashing on the dash with an oil lamp symbol on it", and then telling them "Ok. You're standing at a Quickie Lube. What do you tell them?", and the entire table is staring at you blankly, because they don't actually have the world knowledge to know that a Quickie Lube may have anything at all to do with that light that is fashing on their dash. Following that up by having them play out a social scene where they walk up to and talk to 18 different Quickie Lube employees who all ask them "so what are you here for?" also isn't going to prompt them as to what they need to do or say.

Clearly the players would not have the knowledge to be able to properly interpret that symbol and come to the correct conclusion and course of action, right? But that's more or less what you did here. You assumed that they have sufficient understanding of the way the world's politics works and that the fact that the bad guys are "planning an attack on the woods" would result in them properly interpreting this to mean "one or more Fae factions might be interested in this, so if we tell them about it, they may help us with the bad guys".

Again. The evidence that they don't have the same picture of the world that you do is that you assumed that information was sufficient for them to draw that conclusion and take that action, but they didn't. It doesn't matter why. It only matters that it is true.

Again, you must play with people who have much stronger egos and much more trust than I do.

Nope. Just normal people. Is it possible that how things are presented to them maybe makes a difference here? At my table, there's a nice healthy back and forth of conversation and communication, and no one takes great offense at anything. Obviously, I can't speak with any completeness about the tables you play or GM at though.

[King of Nowhere]

I am absolutely aware that I do not communicate clearly. As you may be aware, I have NVLD, a sensory processing condition that, among other things, means that I can't read non-verbal communication clues and also parse language differently than most people.

My problem is not that I think I am being clearer than I am, its that people assume that I am lying or trying to trying to trick them rather than asking clarifying questions.

do your players know about it?
if they don't, it's perfectly possible for them to misinterpret your whole behavior. if they do, and they do not take some steps to accomodate, they are ####.

many people are shy about exposing those kind of stuff, but it's often necessary to avoid misunderstandings. unlike physical ailments, those kind of minor learning disabilities can't be seen from the outside, and they can easily be mistaken for someone being antisocial on purpose.
I have one such small disability myself: I have a really hard time recognizing people. And I prefer to clear that when relevant, rather than have people assume I don't care or can't be bothered to learn names and get angry.

in case you already told that to your players, then they should really try to make more questions. of course, they may be too socially incompetent to adapt.

[glass]

Nope. Just normal people.

TBF, "just normal people" in no way rebuts "much more trust that at Talakael's table". It pretty much confirms it.

I am absolutely aware that I do not communicate clearly. As you may be aware, I have NVLD, a sensory processing condition that, among other things, means that I can't read non-verbal communication clues and also parse language differently than most people.

And yet, you do not act on that awareness. Given that you know that about yourself, you should be looking to maintain gaming behaviours that minimise the risk of your communication issues causing problems in game. But based on your posts here, you keep doing things that only world-class communicators should even consider, including but almost certainly not limited to:

• Being enamoured of the PC's creations turning on them due to "great story potential" or words to that effect.
• Playing with players who do not trust you.
• Playing with players who you do not trust.
• Playing with players who are pretty awful (and the "pretty awful" players are the better ones).

[Jay R]

Oh, yeah, and the GM is completely allowed to forget stuff or get confused, too. Especially if it's stuff told by a player 3 games ago. That's the reason why I'm not fan of the old "the GM is always right" proverb : Quite often, actually, he's not ^^

That misstatement is the trouble. Nobody claims that the DM is always right -- just that the DM has the final say.

I make any number of mistakes. My players often bring them to my attention. Sometimes I'll reverse my earlier decision; sometimes I'll say, "OK, that was a mistake; it doesn't work that way. We aren't going to change things retroactively, but from now on, it won't work that way." Deciding how to handle that mistake is part of my job; as the DM, I have the final say.

I once read an interview with a baseball umpire. He said, “Some people misunderstand my job. They think it’s to always be right. But my primary job is to provide a final ruling so we can continue playing. We can’t start play again until we know if that was the third out or if he is safe on first base. Continuing to play, even after a bad call, is better than not being able to play ball.

“I try to always be accurate, but my first responsibility is to provide a ruling so the game can continue.”

Similarly, we cannot continue the melee until we know if that troll was made unconscious by your spell. I’ll try to get it right each time. But my primary job is to decide that the troll is either still attacking or lying there unconscious. You can’t fight Schrödinger’s troll.

[kyoryu]

That misstatement is the trouble. Nobody claims that the DM is always right -- just that the DM has the final say.

I'd say that a little differently. The GM is always right. But not because the GM is smarter or anything like that, or because THEY ARE THE VIKING HAT GM, but rather because their view is authoritative. Since they run the world, what they think is true is, even if they forgot something or contradict themselves.

So they're not "right" in the "they have the best judgement" sense, they're "right" in the "their view is authoritative" sense.

Even if they're wrong, they're "right".

GOOD GMs recognize this, and reconcile that by listening to their players and accepting that they may be wrong, and letting them be corrected.

You're right on the "move on with the game" bit, though, which is why "bring up your objection, I'll make a ruling, and we can discuss it afterwards if we need to" is such a good (and fairly common) strategy for disagreements.

[Talakeal]

In fairness, I think there are people much less touchy than Talakeal has described Bob who would respond to that with, "You just called me crazy!"

Its actually Brian who is really touchy, Bob is more defiant and does the opposite, but yeah, I can easily see that.

Like, recently, just gently tapping a square on the mat and quietly saying to him "trust me, you wanna move here" was enough to provoke a meltdown.

In this context, they are though. Remember, there is a sequence of data->conclusion sets going on here. Each conclusion in the sequences becomes the new "data" that is used for the next step in the sequence. This is a logic chain, and if you break a link it in, the entire thing falls apart.



Correct. But in this case, we're talking about a "misunderstanding" about the data (the relevance/importance of the planned attacks on the woods) leading to a "mistaken" conclusion (the Fae wont be interested in this). That now becomes the new "data", which then leads to the next "mistaken" conclusion "there's no point in mentioning this to the Fae".

Whether we consider the final point ("we're not going to mention this to the Fae") to be a mistake or a misunderstanding depends entirely on where in the chain we look. And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. It is, fundamentally, both.

I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree then. I see the situations as dramatically different regardless of the terminology we use.

Let me try coming at this from a different direction then; what, if any, situations would say it is appropriate for the GM to not pipe up and give OOC advice if the PCs are pursuing a path they deem sub-optimal?

To create an analogy, this would be like the GM telling players who have never heard of a car that "a light is flashing on the dash with an oil lamp symbol on it", and then telling them "Ok. You're standing at a Quickie Lube. What do you tell them?", and the entire table is staring at you blankly, because they don't actually have the world knowledge to know that a Quickie Lube may have anything at all to do with that light that is fashing on their dash. Following that up by having them play out a social scene where they walk up to and talk to 18 different Quickie Lube employees who all ask them "so what are you here for?" also isn't going to prompt them as to what they need to do or say.

Clearly the players would not have the knowledge to be able to properly interpret that symbol and come to the correct conclusion and course of action, right? But that's more or less what you did here. You assumed that they have sufficient understanding of the way the world's politics works and that the fact that the bad guys are "planning an attack on the woods" would result in them properly interpreting this to mean "one or more Fae factions might be interested in this, so if we tell them about it, they may help us with the bad guys".

Again. The evidence that they don't have the same picture of the world that you do is that you assumed that information was sufficient for them to draw that conclusion and take that action, but they didn't. It doesn't matter why. It only matters that it is true.

I can't quite follow your analogy. Why did they go to the quickie lube in the first place if they didn't see the connection? It feels like a step is missing in the middle. And if this happened to me at the gaming table, I would absolutely ask the GM about the missing step, I wouldn't just passively sit back and blame them for not volunteering the information.

Regardless, no, actually, I am not assuming that, because the characters very much DON'T have any knowledge of the fairy world. In White Wolf, magical mists steal people's memories of the Fey, and they had never interacted with fairies outside of the pookha in their party before. Me having people ask them what the werewolf's plan was is throwing them a bone so they can then direct them to the Baron who oversees Muir Woods and would be motivated to help them stop the attack. I just never figured that all four of them would forget the information they learned in the previous scene (a few minutes earlier in real time) or refuse to answer a direct question regardless of not realizing how relevant it is.

Nope. Just normal people. Is it possible that how things are presented to them maybe makes a difference here? At my table, there's a nice healthy back and forth of conversation and communication, and no one takes great offense at anything. Obviously, I can't speak with any completeness about the tables you play or GM at though.

Them being normal people and having much stronger egos / more trust than my group are not mutually exclusive. :)

do your players know about it?
if they don't, it's perfectly possible for them to misinterpret your whole behavior. if they do, and they do not take some steps to accomodate, they are ####.

many people are shy about exposing those kind of stuff, but it's often necessary to avoid misunderstandings. unlike physical ailments, those kind of minor learning disabilities can't be seen from the outside, and they can easily be mistaken for someone being antisocial on purpose.
I have one such small disability myself: I have a really hard time recognizing people. And I prefer to clear that when relevant, rather than have people assume I don't care or can't be bothered to learn names and get angry.

in case you already told that to your players, then they should really try to make more questions. of course, they may be too socially incompetent to adapt.

Yes. I absolutely have told all my players. I addition to telling them verbally, I also give it to them in writing along with my house rules at the start of every campaign. I make it very clear that I can't read body language and they need to speak up if something is wrong.

It doesn't help though.

My last major drama story involved Bob speaking for Brian and getting his character killed and Brian just sitting there silently and not objecting, but then blowing up at me two days later for not realizing he wasn't giving consent.

And then I have a similar, but much more dramatic story about a former player who was playing the only male in the group, and the rest of the party came up with a plan to have him seduce a female NPC. He went along with the plan, continuing to describe his characters actions as normal, going through with the plan and initiating seduction before we faded to black, but he was apparently uncomfortable with the plan, and expected me to jump in and put a stop to it. But, because I didn't do that, he now tells potential new players to avoid my game because I "raped his character" and might do the same to them.

[*]Playing with players who you do not trust.

I am actually very trusting.

We have one player who actively lies and cheats constantly (and whom we are not planning on re-inviting to the next campaign) but aside from that I trust all my players. I run my table pretty much on the honor system.

[*]Playing with players who do not trust you.[*]Playing with players who are pretty awful (and the "pretty awful" players are the better ones).[/LIST]

If I could find a new gaming group or find a way to cure neurosis I would, but as is, I enjoy gaming with flawed people more than I enjoy not gaming at all.

[*]Being enamored of the PC's creations turning on them due to "great story potential" or words to that effect.

That is such an uncharitable way of putting it, I find it hard to believe you are posting this in good faith.

But, to clarify my actual position:

What actually happened in the game was: Bob created an illusion, gave it very specific instructions, and then got mad when it continued to follow those instructions rather than taking the initiative ignore the instructions and do something different when it would have been beneficial for him.

Someone (I think Gbaji?) made the suggestion that all illusions and dominated characters be controlled by the caster's player as a second PC to stop this from happening. Presumably, in character, this would mean the caster controls them like an extension of their own body through a telepathic link.*

I said this works fine from a game-play perspective, but it greatly limits the setting. Because you can't have stories about a construct that grows beyond its original programming to discover its humanity (Terminator 2, Data or The Doctor in Star Trek, Bicentennial Man, Pinocchio, etc.), you can't have villains who rebelled against their creator (Blade Runner, Frankenstein, any number of rogue AIs), and you can't even have comedy scenes with neurotic, dumb, or less than helpful constructs (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Star Wars). Also, it limits player options as they can no longer play self-aware constructs like the war-forged in Eberron.

This was then straw-manned into "Lol Talakeal wants constructs to turn on the PCs immediately for no reason!" which was not something that ever happened in my game, or ever would happen in my game. If a player created construct ever did go rogue, it would be the end result of a long storyline that was RPed out in detail, not just something random for the lolz.


And, of course, the ability to create free-willed creatures exists in D&D and pretty much every other high magic RPG. Are you really suggesting that people with NVLD and other similar disorders should be barred from playing? I think twitter would have something to s

*: Originally I thought that was his advice for all magical constructs, but it was later clarified to be specifically about illusions and dominated folk. So the problem still remains for undead and automatons and whatnot.

[Jason]

For what it's worth, here's how the situation might have played out at my table:

Player: We know about a group of Fomorians that you should come destroy in the city.
GM as Changeling Lord (GMCL): Fomorians are certainly of some concern to us, but the city is not our realm. Why should we come destroy them?
Player: Well, because you're good and they're evil.
GMCL: Yes, but we have limited resources and they are powerful foes. We must choose what battles we fight carefully.
Do you know anything about what they are planning to do?
Player: No. I'm sorry I wasted your time. We leave.

At this point I would speak out of character.
GM: You tell him you don't know what they're planning? Guys, don't you remember you interrogated that Formian about an hour ago and he told you about their plans?

I see several possible responses:

Response One:
Player: Oh yeah, I forgot about that. He said they were going to attack some werewolves somewhere...
GM: The Formion said Muir Woods.
Player: Muir Woods, right. Uh, Yes, we know that they are planning on attacking some werewolves in Muir Woods.
GMCL: Muir Woods? That is a matter that concerns us.

Response Two:
Player: Yeah, they told us they were attacking some werewolves somewhere, but I didn't think he'd be interested in defending some werewolves.
GM: You wanted his help, right? Well there's only one way to find out what he might be interested in.
Player: Uh, Yes, we know they were planning on attacking some werewolves.
GMCL: Werewolves? Where?
Player: Uh, I don't remember.
GM: The Formion said Muir Woods.
Player: Muir Woods, right. They were planning on attacking some werewolves in Muir Woods.
GMCL: Muir Woods? That is a matter that concerns us.

Response Three:
Player: Yeah, I remember, but I'm not going to tell him.
GM: Why not?

3A
Player: If I tell him valuable information like that I won't have any leverage to use later.
GM: You wanted his help, and he seems to be unwilling to provide it without knowing more.
Player: Okay, I tell him then.
GMCL: Muir Woods? That is a matter that concerns us.

3B
Player: If I tell him valuable information like that I won't have any leverage to use later.
GM: You wanted his help, and he seems to be unwilling to provide it without knowing more.
Player: No, I want to get him to agree to help without telling him more.
GM: Roll Persuasion. No, that's not good enough. He won't help without you telling him more.
Player: Okay, I tell him.
GMCL: Muir Woods? That is a matter that concerns us.

3B
Player: If I tell him valuable information like that I won't have any leverage to use later.
GM: You wanted his help, and he seems to be unwilling to provide it without knowing more.
Player: No, I want to get him to agree to help without telling him more.
GM: Roll Persuasion. No, that's not good enough. He won't help without you telling him more.
Player: No, I won't tell him.
GM: All right. You leave then.

3D
Player: If I tell him valuable information like that I'm afraid he'll magically bind us to an oath or demand an open-ended favor later.
GM: Just telling him what the Formians are planning won't let him bind you, and you can always refuse a request for a favor.
Player: Okay, I tell him.
GMCL: Muir Woods? That is a matter that concerns us.

3E This one wouldn't actually happen at my table.
Player: If I tell him valuable information like that I'm afraid he'll magically bind us to an oath or demand an open-ended favor later.
GM: Just telling him what the Formians are planning won't let him bind you, and you can always refuse a request for a favor.
Player: No, you're trying to trick me into a trap.
GM: I'm not speaking in character. Your character would know that giving this information is not dangerous.
Player: No, I don't trust you.
<We break the game session and hash out our trust issues instead.>


Out of seven possible responses, five of them lead immediately to saying the magic words "Muir Woods" and getting the help of the Changeling. One is the player refusing to give the information but only after we're clear that the player remembers the information and has decided not to share it, and one is that we stop gaming to resolve our underlying trust issues before we go further.
It's stepping out of character and clarifying the situation that lets the game continue.

GMs have to make sure that players are making informed decisions. If they are making a decision that doesn't make sense to you then they may not have remembered or understood something you said earlier, or may have insufficient knowledge of how the game world or rules work. You must determine whether this is the case before determining the results of the decision. This often requires breaking character for a moment.
Taking a moment or two to make sure the player isn't forgetting or misunderstanding a clue or a rule or how the game world works saves a whole world of hurt. Plus it lets the players know you are concerned with being fair.

[glass]

I am actually very trusting.

We have one player who actively lies and cheats constantly (and whom we are not planning on re-inviting to the next campaign) but aside from that I trust all my players. I run my table pretty much on the honor system.

I trust my players not to have meltdowns over trivialities. You don't, and can't, as evidenced earlier in your same post. Admittedly, that has a fair amount of overlap with the other bullet points (particularly the last one).

That is such an uncharitable way of putting it, I find it hard to believe you are posting this in good faith.

It is literally the way you put it yourself, later in the same post (bolding mine):

I said this works fine from a game-play perspective, but it greatly limits the setting. Because you can't have stories about a construct that grows beyond its original programming to discover its humanity (Terminator 2, Data or The Doctor in Star Trek, Bicentennial Man, Pinocchio, etc.), you can't have villains who rebelled against their creator (Blade Runner, Frankenstein, any number of rogue AIs), and you can't even have comedy scenes with neurotic, dumb, or less than helpful constructs (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Star Wars).

Also, it limits player options as they can no longer play self-aware constructs like the war-forged in Eberron.

Hogwash! A self-aware Warforged PC is nothing like the temporary creation of another PC.

This was then straw-manned into "Lol Talakeal wants constructs to turn on the PCs immediately for no reason!"

Not by me! What was that about straw men again?

[Batcathat]

At this point I would speak out of character.
GM: You tell him you don't know what they're planning? Guys, don't you remember you interrogated that Formian about an hour ago and he told you about their plans?

I see several possible responses:

Response One:
Player: Oh yeah, I forgot about that. He said they were going to attack some werewolves somewhere...
GM: The Formion said Muir Woods.
Player: Muir Woods, right. Uh, Yes, we know that they are planning on attacking some werewolves in Muir Woods.
GMCL: Muir Woods? That is a matter that concerns us.

Response Two:
Player: Yeah, they told us they were attacking some werewolves somewhere, but I didn't think he'd be interested in defending some werewolves.
GM: You wanted his help, right? Well there's only one way to find out what he might be interested in.
Player: Uh, Yes, we know they were planning on attacking some werewolves.
GMCL: Werewolves? Where?
Player: Uh, I don't remember.
GM: The Formion said Muir Woods.
Player: Muir Woods, right. They were planning on attacking some werewolves in Muir Woods.
GMCL: Muir Woods? That is a matter that concerns us.

Response Three:
Player: Yeah, I remember, but I'm not going to tell him.
GM: Why not?

If I was the GM, I would probably use response one (as has been repeatedly noted, players can forget stuff their characters wouldn't) but I don't know about two and three, they seem a bit like unnecessary hand-holding to me. Yes, the players should make informed decisions, but they should also be free to make mistakes. Though I suppose it might come down to who the players were and the specifics of the situation.

[Kish]

I also am not seeing the jump from "a PC's temporary summons do as the player wishes" to "Data cannot exist." And have to wonder why the part that makes you go "I can't have the spell do that because then it couldn't create a warforged" is "letting the caster have control" and not "the summon disappears when the spell ends."

[Talakeal]

I trust my players not to have meltdowns over trivialities. You don't, and can't, as evidenced earlier in your same post. Admittedly, that has a fair amount of overlap with the other bullet points (particularly the last one).

I suppose so. In my experience, when a person talks about not being able to trust someone, they mean that person is dishonest in some way, and so I assumed that is what you meant.

If you simply mean that I don't trust them not to engage in their various personal foibles, that is technically true, but it applies to just about everyone I have ever met, not just my crazier players.

Hogwash! A self-aware Warforged PC is nothing like the temporary creation of another PC.

Why does duration matter though? Is a Blade Runner style android that has an intentionally short life span less deserving of free will and introspection than one with an unlimited lifespan? Heck, the illusionary being in the OP that kicked off this whole debate was a permanent spell.

Now, I will fully concede that there might not be time for a construct to grow beyond its original programming if it has a very brief lifespan, which is one of the reasons why this is unlikely to ever actually happen to a PC without a lot of RP and foreshadowing beforehand, but I don't know why duration is inexorably linked to free will.

As for the another PC bit, is there an in setting reason why the PCs are unable to create constructs that have free will but NPCs don't have any such problem? That doesn't feel right to me.

It is literally the way you put it yourself, later in the same post (bolding mine):

Are you honestly telling me that you can't tell the difference between "I am enamored of the PC's creations turning on them" and "Self-aware constructs who grow beyond their programming exist in the setting"?

Like I said, this seems to be such a false equivalence that I am having trouble believing it is just a miscommunication and not a deliberate attempt at a bad faith argument.

Hogwash! A self-aware Warforged PC is nothing like the temporary creation of another PC.

Why does duration matter though? Is a Blade Runner style android that has an intentionally short life span less deserving of free will and introspection than one with an unlimited lifespan? Heck, the illusionary being in the OP that kicked off this whole debate was a permanent spell.

Now, I will fully concede that there might not be time for a construct to grow beyond its original programming if it has a very brief lifespan, which is one of the reasons why this is unlikely to ever actually happen to a PC without a lot of RP and foreshadowing beforehand, but I don't know why duration is inexorably linked to free will.

As for the another PC bit, is there an in setting reason why the PCs are unable to create constructs that have free will but NPCs don't have any such problem? That doesn't feel right to me.

Not by me! What was that about straw men again?

I didn't say it was you, I was just recapping the earlier thread. IIRC it was either Kish or Monochrome Tiger who first brought up that particularly egregious straw-man, but it was the better part of a year ago so it may well have been someone else.

I also am not seeing the jump from "a PC's temporary summons do as the player wishes" to "Data cannot exist." And have to wonder why the part that makes you go "I can't have the spell do that because then it couldn't create a warforged" is "letting the caster have control" and not "the summon disappears when the spell ends."

It wasn't a temporary summon, it was a permanent, sentient, sapient, free-willed being created by magic. It lacked a physical body though, similar to say, the Doctor on Voyager or Joi in Bladerunner 2049.

Bob and I had a disagreement over how to interpret his instructions.*

Someone, I think Gbaji, said that the way to avoid such things was to make it so that magical constructs (he later clarified that he was only talking about illusion constructs and not ones with corporeal bodies) would always act as perfect extensions of their creators will rather than being able to think for themselves. I said I didn't like that idea because it limits storytelling opportunities for plots and NPCs.

Spoiler: IIRC correctly, you participated in that thread, but if you (or anyone else) needs a refresher

Show

To make a long story short, Bob was playing a bard / illusionist. He was tired of being attacked, and tired of not being able to cast spells and use bard song at the same time. So he created a permanent illusory doppelganger of himself and told it to follow the party around, pretend to be him, and use bard song to buff the party, while he stayed invisible and observed, casting spells as needed. This worked brilliantly. But then, a monster snuck up behind the party and attacked the illusion, at which it, still pretending to be him, cowered in a corner as the real him does when attacked. At that point, Bob objected, saying that instead it should get the monster's attention and act as a diversion to give the rest of the party time to escape; arguing that by "pretend to be him" he meant "pretend to be a version of him that knew it was an illusion and acted accordingly with no regard to giving up the charade". I said that it was a valid command and he could retcon it if he wanted. He then said it should be the default assumption for all illusions, and after thinking about it for a while, I said no, because the primary use of illusions is as a deception, and having illusions that don't try and hide their illusory nature will create more problems than they solve in the long run.

[Jason]

If I was the GM, I would probably use response one (as has been repeatedly noted, players can forget stuff their characters wouldn't) but I don't know about two and three, they seem a bit like unnecessary hand-holding to me. Yes, the players should make informed decisions, but they should also be free to make mistakes. Though I suppose it might come down to who the players were and the specifics of the situation.

Different groups might well have different ideas of what an "informed" decision is.

I think at the very least when a player says they're making a decision that makes no sense to you, you have to make sure the player didn't forget something their character would know or isn't misunderstanding something about how the rules or game world work.

That requires talking out of character and basically asking "what is it you're trying to accomplish here" The most likely response is probably #1 - they forgot a vital clue, but it might be that they misunderstood something about the rules or basic situation. It's up to the GM to correct this because the GM is both the character's senses and the one who decides how the rules and game world works.