Puzzles and Monsters

[Callan S.]

The reason GM's often don't build in a 'failure with fun' option is because they have made their own address of challenge. And they want to express it...by players fumbling around until they find this brilliant address and say it themselves. By that awkward, painful process the GM will then feel the players 'really get' his method of thinking. In my own case I'd say there was a touch of immersion involved, where I thought "Why don't they get exactly how the world works" rather than thinking "Why don't they get me?"

It's hard to create a problem without actually thinking of a solution yourself. And it's hard not to fall in love with your own solution. When the players try to solve the challenge in a different way...the GM himself feels the pangs of force (He feels he is being forced to take up their solution, when he's made an address of his own). This often results in quite unpleasant reactions from the resource rich GM.

You get this in narrativism (typhoid mary syndrome), but not as often because PC's are often treated more the property of a given player. A problem however, is usually treated as a shared property.

[contracycle]

If the players are going to have fun, solve the puzzle, and move on then having a failure option loses you nothing.  If they're going to get frustrated, cease to have fun, and generally get unhappy then having a failure-with-fun option saves you a lot of heart-ache.

Yes, you can lose everything else that you have prepared.  You can lose the structure of the sequence of events that creates a particular experience.  And, to expand a point which Callan touched upon, you can thereby fail to execute exposition of the setting.

Really Tony to say creating a chokepoint is an act of incompetence makes me want to smack you, that just seems unnecessarily rude.  fine, its not your thing, that doesn't mean it has to be scorned.

If it really came down to it, and you required only one precise answer for play to continue, and they can;t get it, you could always do something like charge them a JB:007 hero point or what amounts to an XP deduction.  They get negatively reinforced, it all stays valid, play moves on by consent.

[Balbinus]

Ohhhhh... you're objecting because you read the term "railroading" as implying that creating such a chokepoint in the game is an act of evil.  That's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying that creating such a chokepoint in the game is an act of incompetence.  It's not bad, just stupid.

What a surprisingly aggressive post for the Forge.  Do we really need to go branding other people's play preferences as incompetence or stupidity?

Anyway, I disagree, and strongly.  A chokepoint makes sense if the group derive pleasure in part from the knowledge that on any individual scenario they may fail utterly, they may simply lose.

Now, that individual scenario likely won't end up being much fun, it may in fact be very frustrating and deeply unfun, but the larger gaming experience can be more fun overall because every victory is hard won and fairly won.

That may be alien to your playstyle, but it is hardly stupid either.  If the players care about actually achieving a real victory, then that logically implies the possibility of real defeat.  A chokepoint is merely one tool that can create that possibility.

[GB Steve]

So the definition of a chokepoint seems to be, in this thread, a point at which the characters must achieve something particular before they can persue their goal(s). The most common example of this is a puzzle on which the pursuit of a particular goal depends, such as the Sphinx's riddle - although the downside need not always be death, just defeat.

I don't see a problem with this, a long as the chokepoint doesn't bloke all the PCs' goals.

If it does, then failure means the end of the game. Is this really an acceptable outcome?

If it doesn't then it's not so much a chokepoint as a reality check, "You thought you could do anything, well you can't. It's time to re-evaluate your priorities".

[Balbinus]

If it does, then failure means the end of the game. Is this really an acceptable outcome?

To me personally, no, I wouldn't design a scenario that way.

But I can see how it could be desirable, it might be worth having some games simply end in failure if the result is that the games which succeed are even more fun because the players know how lousy it is when they fail.

As I say, it's not me, but I can see the logic.

[TonyLB]

Anyway, I disagree, and strongly.  A chokepoint makes sense if the group derive pleasure in part from the knowledge that on any individual scenario they may fail utterly, they may simply lose.

Sure, I agree with that (and said so).  But what about the chokepoint where failure isn't an option that the GM will allow?  What about situations where the GM presents a question, and then just stops the game dead in its tracks until the players do the one thing necessary for his story?

[contracycle]

Not necessary for STORY.  I've already publicly renounced all claim on "story".  And as I have often remarked, the story paradigm is over-extended.

What we are talking about is a game, and in a game it is legitimate to say, you must solve this problem to get to the next level, or to get the goody.  And as I have already pointed out, that can be solved at the game level rather than the character level by penalising the player a resource for failing to solve the puzzle themselves.

[Balbinus]

Anyway, I disagree, and strongly.  A chokepoint makes sense if the group derive pleasure in part from the knowledge that on any individual scenario they may fail utterly, they may simply lose.

Sure, I agree with that (and said so).  But what about the chokepoint where failure isn't an option that the GM will allow?  What about situations where the GM presents a question, and then just stops the game dead in its tracks until the players do the one thing necessary for his story?

Hm, interesting question.

I think if the GM stops the game there and says "ok guys, you failed, I guess that's it for tonight, anyone want to play some Star Munchkin?" then we're into the territory of it may be worth one failed game to improve the games overall.

If the GM forces you to keep bashing away even though you've evidently failed then I get left behind, the first option isn't me but makes sense to me.  The second just seems really kind of dispiriting.

[GB Steve]

If it does, then failure means the end of the game. Is this really an acceptable outcome?

To me personally, no, I wouldn't design a scenario that way.

But I can see how it could be desirable, it might be worth having some games simply end in failure if the result is that the games which succeed are even more fun because the players know how lousy it is when they fail.

I don't think I'd design a game that way either.

This cropped up recently in a game of CoC that I ran in Cambridge. SJE's PC went a bit mad and blew up the only access to the evil ritual that was taking place. So I changed the castle architecture, made the ritual much more obviously a bad thing for all concerned and threw it back at the players, an escalation of sorts, I guess. They bit and saved the world, huzzah!

But another end could have been, the PCs fighting their way out of Nazi Switzerland (don't ask!) only to find that the ritual destroyed the world anyway (don't they always!). In many was this would have been an equally satisfying end to the game, but not a Lovecraftian end.

On the other hand, some GMs might have said, "well, you're all dead" but I don't think that would have worked. If you're going to have a chokepoint that has the capability of stopping the game dead, then you have to have a good end to the game as well. You have to make something of the failure and its consequences, in terms that make sense to the SIS.

[GB Steve]

I think if the GM stops the game there and says "ok guys, you failed, I guess that's it for tonight, anyone want to play some Star Munchkin?" then we're into the territory of it may be worth one failed game to improve the games overall.

Do you mean "failed game"? Is the failure of the PCs to achieve their goals a failure of the game, time that might have been better spent doing something else? Or is this just shorthand?

If the GM forces you to keep bashing away even though you've evidently failed then I get left behind, the first option isn't me but makes sense to me.  The second just seems really kind of dispiriting.

It can be dispiriting but it depends on the game. Failure is pretty common in Call of Cthulhu but I find it somehow uplifting to keep on trying inspite of the obvious.

[TonyLB]

And as I have already pointed out, that can be solved at the game level rather than the character level by penalising the player a resource for failing to solve the puzzle themselves.

I appreciate that.  That's a good failure-option.  The players fail, you invoke the penalty, play continues smoothly.  Not my style, but perfectly legitimate.  But that's not what I was talking about.  I said this:

[Y]ou've prepared a puzzle, and you have written yourself (as GM) into such a corner that you cannot continue play until that puzzle is solved

In your example, the players never solve the puzzle, and yet play continues.  That's not a choke-point, it's a test, with outcomes for both player success and player failure.

My question:  "Is there any value to making a puzzle (or, more generally, a test) and not having any option to continue or conclude play until the test is passed?"  What do you think?

[Balbinus]

My question:  "Is there any value to making a puzzle (or, more generally, a test) and not having any option to continue or conclude play until the test is passed?"  What do you think?

Put like that, no, I can't see any value. 

[Balbinus]

I think if the GM stops the game there and says "ok guys, you failed, I guess that's it for tonight, anyone want to play some Star Munchkin?" then we're into the territory of it may be worth one failed game to improve the games overall.

Do you mean "failed game"? Is the failure of the PCs to achieve their goals a failure of the game, time that might have been better spent doing something else? Or is this just shorthand?

By failed I mean a session which does not end in a fun experience for the participants, a session which people leave with a feeling of dissatisfaction and unhappiness.

Essentially I am suggesting that unhappiness and frustration on one occasion may be justifiable to some groups in the interests of greater overall fun, whereas many (most) groups would require each session to be fun in itself as well as possibly contributing to greater fun overall.

[Callan S.]

Tony: Well one benefit is that the GM's hand crafted work isn't skipped idly. One could design things so the puzzle is re-occuring, or can be returned to and attempted another time. However, that may be disatisfying if you would like a focus on in a particular area, but at the same time that cool puzzle in the goblin caves never really got engaged (the one you put effort into). You don't get to just employ the puzzle and move on to new things.

It also lacks a certain "Bam, challenge in your face!" attitude.

[contracycle]

My question:  "Is there any value to making a puzzle (or, more generally, a test) and not having any option to continue or conclude play until the test is passed?"  What do you think?

I think thats exactly what I described as the difficulty inherent to Closed problems in the first place: in order NOT to stop play, the GM must either obviate the problem or feed clues.  Thank you for coming full circle.

The reason Closed problems exist in the first place is on order to focus play in specific directions for which proper preparation has been carried out.  Much more common than actually stopping all play is simply progress grinding to a halt - the playes are still in character, the GM is still narrating, but nothing is happening because none of the players know what to do next.  You can waste hours of time this way, and I have done so.  Sometimes it is valid because taking time to digest the problem can help; but mostly it is in effect the end of play even if the game is still walkin' and talkin' like the animated dead.  The same effect occurs in Tomb Raider if you cannot solve one of its puzzles: you are effectively trapped in the spaces you can already reach leaping about trying to find a new approach to the problem.  It matters less in this context because the only person who's fun needs to be taken into account is yours, and you can power down and tackle the problem again tomorrow after sleeping on it.  In RPG, we have a group of people having no fun, all of whom have committed significant time to getting together to have fun.