Tropic of Evil, Part 3/5: Type Cast
What is it with Evil Party and giant monsters? Last time it was hedgehogs laying siege. Now we’ve got King Kong romping through tropical paradise. If somebody hands these guys a scroll of tarrasque summoning in the near future I would not be surprised.
Of course, if you’re the kind of GM that would introduce said scroll into your game, you probably have an idea about when and where it will be used. No doubt there is a set-piece encounter coming up. Cthulhu or Godzilla or some other 30-story schmuck is scheduled to wreck downtown Plotsville, and only the party’s handy item (that you just happened to give them) will save the day. While King Kong vs. Tarrasque sounds like a cool idea on paper, you can probably guess why this setup might fall flat in practice. It has a little something to do with the words “chugga chugga” and “choo choo.”
If you invent situations as a GM where specific “key items,” player abilities, or strategies are required for success, you risk railroading the party. In these scenarios, the lesson is simple: It’s OK to have a solution in mind, so long as it’s not the solution. Go on and give the party that tarrasque scroll. Just don’t be surprised when they stuff it into their bag of holding, forget they have it, and try to use a really big swimming pool to with win their kaiju fight instead.
This is common wisdom though, and probably not that controversial as best practice for GMs. My advice for players, on the other hand, is slightly less conventional. If your GM has put you in Succubus’s position, and if there’s only one obvious way out, lean into it. Make like our lady in red and go full Fay Wray. Pull the trigger on that heavy-handed McGuffin. Go ahead and burn that ring of one wish. Yes, it sucks that you’ve been left without any real choices. And no, it’s not great GMing. But when the guy behind the screen sets up these moments, it’s not because he hates your agency and wants you to dance like a good little puppet. In reality, there’s this big spectacular scene inside that GM’s head. It’s his way of saying, “Wouldn’t it be cool if?” And he’s asking you to play along just for a little while. The intentions are usually good, even if the technique is (very obviously) flawed.
A few caveats apply. If this mess is chronic, then your GM probably needs a talking to. Same deal if you’ve been backed into a major “my guy would never do that” corner. If worse comes to worst you can always pause a session, express your frustration, and ask for some kind of alternative. But by the same token, there’s no law saying players must always cut Gordian knots and invent novel solutions. You’re allowed to follow those railroad tracks from time to time, even if it doesn’t feel especially creative. At the very least it can be less frustrating than trying to climb the tabletop equivalent of Bethesda mountains.
What do the rest of you guys think? When your GM forces you into an only-one-way-out situation, what’s the best response? Do you call them on their BS? Attempt to forge your own path anyway? Or is it better (as I’m suggesting) to bite that plot hook so hard that it becomes your own? Sound off with tales of your own railroading resolutions down in the comments!
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Those definitely weren’t kaiju monkey tracks last strip
I sense a monster brawl
I guess Succubus has the highest Wisdom score as well as the highest Charisma score in the party. ;p
I remember giving a party access to a sandestin, as in the works of Jack Vance. It could basically do anything – so long as the points on its contract didn’t run out. Also, it was a spiteful bastard that wanted out of its contract, so it acted as a literal genie and indulged in blatant loophole abuse.
I anticipated some A-level negotiation between sandestin and party… only for them to panic and burn through points like a blowtorch through thin ice as soon as things started going wrong! I couldn’t believe it at the time… The sandestin ‘earned’ its freedom in one session.
Oh… That was meant to be a new post, not a reply. Sorry.
Well then. I guess it’s refreshing to see a party not worrying about its phoenix downs.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/phoenix-downs
But that would infringe on intellectual property!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odM92ap8_c0
The bigger issue I see with scrolls of plot resolution is the propensity for the players to not use them at the the opportune moment.
You mention they’re likely to forget about, but they’re just as likely to blow it on the midboss, leaving them high and dry for the finale.
As a player, this doesn’t bother me. I’m the sort who always has a plan with a few contingencies… which, while it’s never happened in session yet, one of those contingencies is let the town burn down and flee. Something something if you see me running.
That said though, I usually think the bigger issue is with intent. I’m playing through Owlcat’s Pathfinder: Kingmaker right now… and let’s just say that the steps to narrative resolution and intent have some meeting up in the middle to do.
That works fine. The problem is if the GM gets it into their head that “there is only one solution.” That kind of railroad mindset renders all those wonderful player ideas moot.
Not familiar. Can I get an explication?
Personal Opinion: Kingmaker (The AP) is a poorly written pile of hex wandering that pretends at best to have a plot until like book 4.
Haven’t played Owlcat’s Computer version, but I blame the subject material. Kingmaker as an AP suffers from that problem Paizo writing often has where there is a BBEG doing things, but there is literally no way for the players to even glean his/her existance until much later. So the beginning of the game sometimes feels like a bunch of random crap. No AP I have experience with has this problem more than Kingmaker, which revolves around the idea of your party exploring a frontier as its framing mechanism. Because all of the direction is in your player’s hands, getting a coherent narrative to them is very hard. The GM’s plight isn’t helped by the fact that the BBEG is only responsible for like one thing in book 1, and tangentially at best. She does not know the PCs exist yet. It’s not unfixable, but it makes the AP much more difficult to run because effectively none of the important stuff is done for you.
Actually, this doesn’t feel too far removed from the mark. But it’s more the nature of the BBEG is already troublesome where ‘puzzles and solutions’ are concerned, and they give you a poem as your clue which is about clear as mud.
There’s a subset of GM out there that likes to hold all the cards, likes you to KNOW they are holding all the cards, give you clues that make absolutely no sense, and then expects you to figure it out. That is precisely how that Fae puzzle went down. The person who gives you the hint knows the solution, and like a sphinx, just sits there pleased as punch with themselves.
A lot of issues look like they are straight out of the source material if I’m honest. I’ve read a few other AP’s and had that “What if the Players never come up with that solution?” moment, and it’s part of why I’d refused to run AP’s for my players. That’s an incredibly frustrating experience for everyone involved, except perhaps a sociopath DM.
Maybe it’s just me, but if I were setting up a tarrasque vs. great wyrm fight via summoning scroll, I’d be worried that the players would waste the scroll on some creative problem-solving ahead of time. And since that creativity would involve a tarrasque, it would wreck any part of the plot and setting the players happened to be close to.
The scroll of tarrasque summoning is a cask of black powder in disguise.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/explosives
Did you know there’s nothing written in the bard class that requires or even encourages them to bone-down? If any class is known for its xenophilia it’d be the Sorcerer. (They have a family history of it) Warlocks already have friendly dealings with supernatural beings, so they too are suited to xenophilia.
…And there’s my other pet-peeve. ape, not monkey. Compared to monkeys apes are larger, stronger, slower, smarter, and don’t have tails. Apes and monkeys are both primates. Notable apes include chimps, gorillas, humans^1 and orangutans.
^1 Honestly “Human” is the goofiest fantasy name I’ve ever heard for Apefolk. “Tabaxi” referring to cat folk I can tolerate because it at least sounds like “Tabby”. “Tortle” is one letter off from “Turtle” so I accept that.
Sorcerers are the result of xenophilia, not the perpetrators. Bards, on the other hand, have high Charisma, rock star energy, and a tendency to travel around like minstrels, which gives them a (mechanically unmoored but thematically connected) reputation for promiscuity.
Agreed on the primate bit.
Who could forget that classic line, “Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty monkey?” The film? Planet of the *Apes.” Checkmate.
A little rail roading can be a good thing at times, but the opposite can also be unhelpful and lead to a group unsure of what to do.
I was in a game where we were given literally no direction at the beginning of the game because the DM was worried about rail roading us. Unfortunately, what ended up happening, was everyone started trying to “play their characters” and actively NOT coming together to get the “group” started. A few of us (not including myself unfortunately) did make some effort to try and force it, and eventually we did all finally meet and the game began, but sometimes you need a little forced “You are all in the same tavern” moment just to get started.
And there are times when the story itself is kind of rail roading, but then again, you “can” go do other things… the big bad is not going to wait for you tho…
I suppose everything in moderation is really the best course as usual.
Believe me, you’re preaching to the choir over here.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/railroad
One thought on this topic: I feel like there’s a qualitative difference between what, for lack of better terminology, I’m going to call “keyed” and “unkeyed” McGuffins. It’s one thing to have a plot saying “The Dark Lich-Sorceror Garglelot can only be slain by the Master Sword, you must find the secret hiding place of the Master Sword, retrieve it, and penetrate Garglelot’s Evil Tower of Evilness to slay him”, and it’s quite another to give the party a scroll of Tarrasque summoning and count on them using it to fight the kaiju monster, especially if they haven’t been told in-character that they will need to conserve the scroll to use against the kaju.
We’re being theoretical over here. You get to make up your own terms!
The image in my mind is of the “one way out” trap. The chamber is filling with water. The heroes must pull up the drain’s grating and swim for it. Any other solution results in death.
If there’s just one solution to the problem, you wind up removing choice from play. The question for me is, as a player, when you spot that your GM has done this, what is the best way to react?
that’s when you take the char sheet of a char killed by that lack of solutions roll it in to a tube and shoot that D20 that’s been giving you Nat1 once too often at the DMs head?
I know a plot hook when I smell one, and I usually try to think of a reason my character might bite it. Generally, morally neutral characters are harder to think of a reason to get involved for. If I was in your kaiju battle scenario I would probably only use the scroll if all else failed, since unless there’s something I’m missing, that would mean you have a tarrasque on the prime material plane.
In my own campaign, the story has been pretty linear so far, but because the characters all have strong reasons to follow that trail, it hasn’t felt like a problem. However, now we’re going to switch into a more open format that involves swapping characters in and out constantly as different teams are sent on different missions which are intended to take half a session or so.
CURSED KNOWLEDGE BELOW:
Also, someone did the math and determined that Kong’s gorilla wingwong would still fit in a human, based on his size in the original film.
Friendly warning. Have a policy in place for “we’ll just get my other character to solve the problem for us.” If there’s a constant stable of PCs back at the guildhall, it can be tough to find an encounter that escapes too-easy silver bullet solutions.
As a GM, I think my go-to solution to players disregarding a plot hook would be to somehow make that the correct solution. The example that comes to mind is Final Fantasy X, which I’ve never actually played, and the plot of which I’ve probably got wrong.
In this story, a flying tarrasque named Sin is terrorizing the world, and it’s common knowledge that the only way to kill Sin temporarily is to summon a Final Eidolon that can match its power. However, it turns out that over the next ten years, the Final Eidolon transforms into an even stronger version of Sin that continues the cycle. Everything changes when the main characters disregard the plot and find a way to kill Sin without using the Final Eidolon that everything was pushing them towards.
This can be applied retroactively to a lot of macguffins in games. You don’t want to use the Scroll of Summon Tarrasque? Good – it would have caused more problems in the long run anyway. This only works for large-scale solutions, though. If a player’s just being obstinate for its own sake over something small, there’s not much you can do for them.
This is a version of “if they’re interested in it, make it interesting.” That’s good GMing.
But in my mind, the question is dealing with bad GMing as a player. What’s the best way to respond when the GM seems to have a specific solution in mind? If you were succubus, and it’s clear that the GM expects your to charm King Kong, do you lean into it or exert your independence?
I’d like to say that I would just ignore the metagame and play my character, but I’m afraid I would be strongly tempted to dig in my heels and try to defy the GM’s expectations even if it might be IC for me to go with the railroad.
Though admittedly part of the issue is that I am reasonably OK with having my PC die or otherwise suffer consequences for standing on his convictions. So if the GM wants my paladin to make a bargain with a devil to escape an inescapable deathtrap, I am entirely fine with having my paladin die rather than make that bargain.
And that really is the problem with a railroad scenario. The player may be fine with consequences, but the GM has “this is the way it’s supposed to go” stuck inside their head.
I think I would have to disagree with you, Nonagon. For me personally, choices don’t feel real unless they have consequences. I would rather have the freedom to screw things up, and thus know that if I win I have won on my own merits rather than because the GM railroaded me into “victory”.
The railroad is not helpful IMO, but you also as a player need to follow the breadcrumbs before you risk being hit by the train. I also just make sure that whatever I need my players to do for the campaign just happens to be in the vague direction of where they’re going.
Give me an example. What kind of scenario are you picturing when you say this?
As a quick for instance, I think I moved one of the Curse of Strahd artifacts 4 times so they would eventually find the damn thing. All of my dm plans are written in mud…
Sorry I didn’t answer sooner, work has been busy and I forgot I posted this until I was reading today’s comic and went “didn’t I post something in the comments recently?” Turns out I did.
Right on. I think that quantum ogres get a bad wrap. It’s only a problem when the players catch on. If they never do, then you’ve got it made.
https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/2b3qsx/the_quantum_ogre_a_dialogue/
Kobayashi Maru 🙂
Need i to say any more? 😀
I gather that you’re in the “always forge your own path” camp.
More like cheat as the best and blame the vulcans 😀
But “always forge your own path” also works 🙂
I can’t tell if Succubus is terrified, excited, or both. If nothing else, giant gorilla-fiends would make a more effective army than goblins.
Script for reference:
Title: Tropic of Evil, Part 3/5: Type Cast
Text: Play along. Sometimes it is the only way to survive.
Pic: A bird’s eye shot. We’re looking down from a volcanic crag. Succubus is trapped in the grip of King Kong in the foreground. On the ground below, the other members of Evil Party call up to her. Kong roars while Succubus looks terrified.
Dialogue:
Antipaladin: Don’t do it! You’re not some cheap bard!
Necromancer: Have a little self-respect!
Kong: AAAURGH!
Succubus: Haha holy shit. Hello handsome. Do you kidnap outsiders often?
Scrollover: Meanwhile Witch is all like, “Do it! Seduce the shit out of him! Give us a legion of half-fiend kaiju monkey babies!”
Blog: When the GM has left only one solution for you.
Okay, point taken.
I looked into the Pathfinder equivalent of King Kong and was honestly disappointed by it. It’s just so weak…
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/primates/primate-ape-megaprimatus/
Personally, the more a DM/GM tries to make it a “my way or the highway” path to victory, I’m going to do one of two things. I’m either going to grab onto their big Plot Mcguffin with all of my might or I’m going to go out of my way to test every single feasible option that I can instead of taking their route.
Get that monkey some class levels and gear!
This is my initial reaction as well. What I’m questioning here is whether it’s the most productive one.
Probably not. I’d say that the most productive way is to just to complete whatever it is that is needed, but to also communicate to the GM that this is unsatisfactory and less fun for the group than being able make their own choices, otherwise the GM will think everyone is having as much fun with it as they are.
And I guess that raises the question of whether it’s EVER appropriate for a GM to force an outcome.
The only times I can think of that it would be appropriate is if the GM has talked with the group beforehand and made sure that whatever predetermined outcomes the GM has for a given session is not going to impinge on the fun for the group. And that’s only if they (group included) really want to try to steer the story of their campaign in a certain direction and don’t want to leave certain story elements to chance.
How about opening situations? “You are all at an inn” could be construed as a form of railroading.
I am not sure what but Succubus’s dialog here has me laughing.
I was quite pleased with it. 😀
If you give a party a scroll of Tarrasque summoning and a Kaiju to fight you know the PCs are just going to fight the Kaiju and then summon the Tarrasque in a city to get petty revenge on some NPC who slighted them. =P
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LaiN63o_BxA/maxresdefault.jpg
In one of Starfinder’s APs, we were beset with this kind of ‘only way forward’ situation on several accounts. Mostly they were reasonable, once, it was plain idiotic, as it required the party to travel to a place that was horrible (there was no good reason to go there other than greed/curiosity/for the sake of fighting evil), then allow a bad thing to happen there on purpose to advance the main plot of the AP.
Minor spoilers below.
The situation pretty much bogged down to ‘yoink a McGuffin from an eldritch entity’s prison, which will destroy said prison, because you need the McGuffin to be able to travel to the place where the actual plot is happening’. Said McGuffin is never known about until you yank it out.
This was further compounded by the fact that entire section (a whole books worth) was entirety skippable, as you ONLY need that McGuffin (but you don’t know this yet) as far as the higher overarching plot goes. The AP even explains that the section is skippable (and leaves the PCs hopelessly underleveled/undergeared for the next book).
Our DM recognized this railroading, however, outright telling us the daft expected solution and proposing an alternative that didn’t require us to act out of character for the sake of narrative – as our party wisely ignored the McGuffin that would destroy the prison if removed, and went to clear out the rest of the dungeon, the DM simply had it ‘fall out on its own’ due to the damage from a previous fight, letting us yoink it without being morally responsible for the consequences and leg it before the prison collapsed fully.
I’ve got my own criticisms to make about Starfinder APs. The grab bag nature of the setting seems to encourage a schizophrenic approach to narrative, with different chapters pointing you all over the setting.
Weirdly, the creative freedom of infinite alien planets stifles creativity. It’s sort of like formal poetry demanding unconventional arrangements within meter as compared to the verbal spew of undisciplined blank verse.
Let’s hope Succubus doesn’t botch that Handle Animal roll, or worse, critically succeed at it. Both will probably lead to Massive Damage rules being invoked in novel ways.
On the other hand, she does have Charm Monster available… But Kaiju tend to have pretty good saves or immunities against such shenanigans.
Historically, giant apes are not difficult to charm.
Ironically, Antipaladin has a better chance of pacifying Kaiju Kong, assuming he has any ranks in Handle Animal (due to Patches). Succubus won’t have much use of her massive diplomacy and bluff bonus on a non-awakened animal, kaiju or otherwise.
A male Fay Wray? But that’s not playing into outdated stereotypes at all!
That or a villainous Steve Irwin.
Legit the FIRST thing that came to mind, and it explains why the fight happened…
https://youtu.be/fynWOio9jBo
You know that saying, ‘You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain’?
It applies to BBEGs and villains too, just rephrased a bit.
‘You either die a villain, or live long enough to see yourself become the bards’s bedfellow.’
They’re not evil. They’re just playing hard to get!
I try to make the most of it while trying to steer the GM into being a better GM. Railroads are always nice and necessary when a GM wants to learn how to be a GM. And some players prefer a railroad.
The way I see it, the best way to be railroaded is to make the most of it from a roleplaying perspective. If mechanics won’t work, ham it up with the acting. It won’t rescue you, but now you have some agency (to some extent). And if done well enough, the GM can use that moving forward.
That is more or less my thought on the matter.
Can you think of a time when this has happened in one of your games? I know you’ve got some railroading tales in your big ol’ quiver of 3.X war stories.
one party didn’t get back together after the railroad took us to a dead end grimdark setting.
The party was like „so what are we supposed to do here, and how long is it going to take?“ and then four players just said „nope“
oof. that vote of no confidence has got to be devastating for a GM. from the sounds of it, deservedly so
Huh, just noticed that Antipaladin removed his armor for this island adventure (an odd choice given he’s out of drowning threat). That white shirt is very Guybrush Threepwood-y.
Aaand now I’m imagining Antipaladin is voiced by Dominic Armato.
Headcanon accepted.
Y’know until I read the text I just thought Succubus was into it.
lol. That is not the face of a woman who is “into it.”
The problem isn’t even “chugga chugga choo choo” it’s “so… what are WE supposed to do?”
I had the… unique experience (which I hope will remain so) of coming into a high level game with several years of play under its belt, with as great an abundance of homebrew as there was a disparity of even the DM having any clue what the base rules were. The concept of balance was even more of a fantasy than the game being run.
Certainly not my usual jam, but I rolled with it.
Through the course of going from level 10 to level 14, no less than 3 of the 4 major encounters we faced were finished off by an NPC crashing an airship into it, and the 4th one was solved by an NPC using a self-sacrificing nuke weapon. This was apparently not a new thing either.
Eventually I was kicked from the group because I was pushing for my Wizard to explore the possibilities of undead workforces to help the ravaged townsfolk rebuild from these various disasters, but it honestly came as a relief. They say there are no “wrong” ways to DM, but man that’s certainly the wrong way for me.