Hi!
  So, something happened last Friday and I'm not sure what to do...

  Tom loves punk music and lives the punk lifestyle as much as he is able. But he is a good player and I can always trust him to suppport the story or try something different and not dork it up.

  The campaign is a mystery. To avoid railroading or whatever, I set up jump points where once characters do "X", "Y" happens. So, I was able to kick off the game and haven;lt gone out of my way to spoon feed the clues. I am letting the players do it at their own speed.

  And one of the players finally got a good idea and went to talk to someone who had somde clues as to what was going on. It was going pretty well, but it became clear that one of the PCs had a secret they wouldn't reveal while another NPC was still in the room...

  This is a semi-serious campaign and most of the characters are all serious in tone.

  Then this happened:
<Dave_M> - Again, she deems to be hiding something and keeps eyeing Baurel who has been standing at attention near the door
<Cheryl> - /ooc can't you use pursuade on her?
<Dave_M> - /ooc Anhyone here could if they wanted
<Cheryl> - /ooc I only have a +5, how about you 2?
<Eric> - /ooc i got 0
<Cheryl> - //ooc tora, what do you have in persuade?
<Tom> - -2
<Cheryl> - /ooc ok I guess I will try then
<Dave_M> - You guys rolled high enough on your Intuition to know she will never reveal whatever it is they are hiding as long as Baurel is in the room
<Cheryl> - oh, ok, never mind
<Eric> - Baurel...could you give us some privacy please
<Dave_M> - Baurel, "Um, whatever you have to say to the Priestess, you can say to me, I am responsible for this village"
<Tom> - i walk up to baurel, what does he have on his person?
<Eric> -  I Would chat with Latrica on private matters...between oracle and mystic
<Dave_M> - What do you mean? He is just dressed in workers clothes, maybe a mix of wool and light leather to protect from cuts from flying rock pieces
<Tom> - can i grab his belt off his waist?
<Dave_M> - Sure, if you can make a unarmed or grapple roll
<Tom> - grappling +2
*** 2d6 = 7 *** <Tom>
<Tom> - 9
<Dave_M> - His Def is 6
<Dave_M> - Baurel: "Hey, what is the meaning of this?
<Tom> - i run away cackling and lughing
<Dave_M> - Latricia stands up, "Unhand him immediately!"
<Dave_M> - He chases of course
<Dave_M> - Latricia, "Perhaps you all should leave..."
<Cheryl> - I whisper, we should leave, like now
<Eric> - Oracle...I would ask you to forgive our young companion..he
is full of mischief...he will return the belt even if he isn't caught
<Dave_M> - Latricia: Well, I should hope so!
<Eric> - Oracle..what is it that you were reluctant to tell us while
Baurel was here?
<Tom> - i start chasing baurel and snapping him on the butt with
his belt, but not too hard
<Cheryl> - kinky
<Eric> - lol
<Dave_M> - Well, he is chasing you, so if you are chasing him, you
guys will run into each other, no?
<Tom> - well i figure after i snap him once or twice he might start running
<Dave_M> - He's more interested in getting his belt back, and you
<Tom> - i try to jump on his back to get a piggy back ride
<Dave_M> - This guy is the equivalent of the mayor, when he leaves, he
bringing whatever warriors are in town with him, FYI
<Dave_M> - His back is not facing you...
<Tom> - i drop his belt and run behind him
<Dave_M> - Well, he keeps turning so you are not behind him, he seems
not to trust you anymore
<Tom> - i tell him "you're no fun" then i stick my tongue out at him
<Dave_M> - He says, "Please leave our village, I only hope you
recover your senses before you encouter these raiders..."
<Cheryl> - Ok, lets go you guys (before we end up in jail or worse)
<Tom> - they havent built a jail that can hold me
<Dave_M> - lol
<Tom> - what did the old lady say?
<Dave_M> - She says, "leave"
<Eric> - Oracle...is there anything we can do for you before we leave
<Dave_M> - No, get out of here now!
<Cheryl> - come on you crazies
<Eric> - Oracle...I thank you for you time and wish you well
<Dave_M> - Please leave now
<Eric> - Let's head out of town
<Tom> - i get my horse
<Cheryl> - Good idea
<Eric> - Tom how sneaky are you?
<Dave_M> - I take it we are headed to the Tin mine?
<Tom> - stealth +14 pick pocket +11
<Eric> - would you be able to break into the sanctuary and poke around tonight
<Eric> - I really want to know what the Oracle is hiding
<Dave_M> - There ar eothers that know the secret
<Dave_M> - She didn;t seem all the concerned with Briggo snooping
around, so it is probably not physical evidence
<Eric> - I guess we should head to the tin mine...hope for better luck there
<Dave_M> - Tom, next time you wanna make a distraction int a temple,
try starting an argument
<Dave_M> - Thenyou'll be dismissed from the temple for being noisey
along with whoeer you are arguing with
<Tom> - i am not good at talking
<Dave_M> - You don;t have to be, you just have to be annoying, lol
<Cheryl> - I thnk you can handle that :)
<Dave_M> - But stealoing from the foreman of the mines is bad juju, lol
<Eric> - it was fun though
<Tom> - i just borrowed his belt
<Dave_M> - lol
<Tom> - i didnt even bite his nose
<Dave_M> - lol

  So, what do you guys think? Did I spoil a good comic moment? Did he spoil a good chance to pick up a good clue? Is this a sign of a problem or..?

<Eric> - would you be able to break into the sanctuary and poke around tonight
<Eric> - I really want to know what the Oracle is hiding
<Dave_M> - There ar eothers that know the secret
<Dave_M> - She didn;t seem all the concerned with Briggo snooping
around, so it is probably not physical evidence

Hi Joe!
  They already knew Baurel was a respected member of the community, I just RP'd him "in character."
  I feel like it would have been fairly easy to maneuver him out of there. I didn't have a set solution in mind, I just played it "au naturale" but somehow, in my mind, it went wonky.
  I did pretty much raiulroad them about going back for two reasons: one, to move the story along and two, to prevent the them from becoming raving criminals!

  But I guess that's what I want ot focus on. Should I have gone with "the flow" and let the scene get all comic, or should I have tried to keep the setting consistant?

I don't think your being honest with yourself about not having a solution in mind.

<Dave_M> - Tom, next time you wanna make a distraction int a temple,
try starting an argument
<Dave_M> - Thenyou'll be dismissed from the temple for being noisey
along with whoeer you are arguing with

Hi!
  That's what I am trying to get at Cal. More or less this is all in my head. And I am trying to sort out how to handle it better next time.

  As to solution. I didn't consciously think of that until right before I typed it. When I started asking myself "why did he do that?" and "how could I have done it better?"

I really don't think he was in play to produce some beutifully syncronised dream with you.

Are these actual transcripts of an online session? In other words, am I seeing exactly what your players saw?

I have a couple of thoughts, but first, let me ask a few questions to make sure I'm reading this right. Please bear with me, I have a point! (Sometimes....).

dindenver wrote:
...<Dave_M> - You guys rolled high enough on your Intuition to know she will never reveal whatever it is they are hiding as long as Baurel is in the room

<Dave_M> - Latricia stands up, "Unhand him immediately!"
...<Eric> - Oracle...is there anything we can do for you before we leave
<Dave_M> - No, get out of here now!

<Dave_M> - Tom, next time you wanna make a distraction int a temple,
try starting an argument
<Dave_M> - Thenyou'll be dismissed from the temple for being noisey
along with whoeer you are arguing with

Hi!
  Yeah, it's an on-line game, and this is everything including die rolls. Here's your answers to the other questions:

Did you have a specific target number for this roll? Did you just wing it and say "close enough"?

What would've happened if they'd failed this roll -- would they have been "stuck," unable to get any information from this source, or would there have been some other way to either (a) get something out of this person or (b) get the same clue from someone else?

Or were you going to give them the information regardless of what they rolled (in which case, why roll)?

Did you roll some kind of social skills check or reaction check for this?

If you didn't, why did you have them roll Intuition before and then do this as a judgment call?

Why didn't you tell Tom this before he had his character steal the belt?

Couldn't you have let me him make another of those Intuition rolls, at least, to get a chance to realize that he'd piss Latricia off?

Okay, I think I understand this better, now.

And here's the silent killer:

dindenver wrote: The interpersonal skill rules says don't roll unless the outcome is unknown.

Dave,

could you please tell me one thing?
How could the player have removed the Mayor, besides grabbing his valuables and yelling "na-na-na-na!" as he ran?

It seems like he was staunchly planted there,
and your language made it obvious that he needed to leave to have the players learn anything,
and that negotiations were basically barred (you flat out said that, pretty much.)

And... couple with:

Every Oracle knows what this Oracle knows. So, it wouldn't have been too hard for them to learn what they needed.

Hi Sydney!
  OK, I honestly did not have a solution in mind at all. And it really didn't matter to me if they learned this info from this Oracle or another. In my mind, they will get the info eventually. In small or large pieces depending on how they play. Not from my force feeding them or contriving events to happen.
  If Tom had kept running instead of trying to chase him or jump on his back, I might have let the other players talk the Oracle down. But they had only spoken a few lines of text, how far could his character have gotten? Barely into the next room?
  I don't know, as to how I handled it, I admit, I was surprised in a bad way (I like it when my players surprise me usually). And after thinking about it maybe 30 seconds IRL I decided to keep it serious and go with what was on the screen.
  I get what you are saying about roling the dice. Except, there is no applicable skill here. Tom's character was being chased by Foreman as he asked, but then stopped running away seconds later. The Oracle was trying to get these shinanagins to stop and his associates were feet away not helping the foreman nor Tom. I guess I could have let him roll for Intimidate to reverse who is chasing who and then they could have made more distance...
  You honestly think the break down is that small, letting him roll intimidate because he was trying to whipo the Foreman with a belt?

Hi Joe!
  Yeah, there really really really was more than one solution, in fact, you can see me suggesting an alternate course of action later on. Another solution might have been for one of the characters to ask the Oracle/Priest for a confession of their sins or any other number of things. I guess the only two probs I have with Tom's execution was that he tried to chase someone who was chasing him and that there were so many non-stealing solutions available.

  And for the record, I am not a mean, ogre-y GM that makes people jump through my hoops. I also don't play mind games with people trying to make them guess what I want them to do, I hate that crap and I am  not very good at it besides, lol I just play the world and play by the rules as they are written. And I am always open to players suggesting new approaches, different interpretations of rules and  generally am open to most any discusion about what's going on at the table. I don't setup situations with only one solution. I do my best not to railroad characters that are doing their own thing and everybody seems to have fun at my games.

  The purpose of the post was to see if I overreacted to this and it sounds like the answer is yes. I'll prolly talk to Tom when I see him face to face on Thursday and see what he thinks.

Absolutely, always talk to your players about what worked and what didn't. But your worrying about the who's-chasing-whom stuff is the wrong track. You can't fix it this way.

You honestly think the break down is that small, letting him roll intimidate because he was trying to whipo the Foreman with a belt?

Hi Sydney!

Your system doesn't tell you when to roll or what to do with the roll when you've made it.

dindenver wrote:
Hi!
  That's what I am trying to get at Cal. More or less this is all in my head. And I am trying to sort out how to handle it better next time.

  As to solution. I didn't consciously think of that until right before I typed it. When I started asking myself "why did he do that?" and "how could I have done it better?"

I really don't think he was in play to produce some beutifully syncronised dream with you.

I don't know what that statement means exactly.

As to agenda conflict, I don't "think" so. When he GMs his games aren't substantially different from mine. We both pretty much view setting, Simulationism and gamism with about the same esteem.

So, did I shoot him down unjustly, how would you have handled it?

HI Cal!
  OK, I get what you mean. I thought that was what you were trying to say, but I also wanted to avoid miscommunication.
  He ran a Superhero game (Blood of Heroes) and did dog us when Eric's Human Torch clone grabbed a bunch of drugs from a mutant street gang we just defeated in order to resell them ourselves. So, I think we are both "close" in stripe. I do know the he and I, until recently at least, have not put a lot of thought into GNS-style division of game play.
  Yeah, I guess I'll try and broaden my perceptions in the future.

I agree, that does sound similar (the dogging part in particular).

But it sounds like that's actually the social contract arrangement of GM and player role. The GM tries to hold the dream together and the players try to win over it and find further challenge in the GM dogging them. This time you were in the GM role and he the player role. When he GM's, he fills the Mr McGrumpy role.

It's kind of like kids going to Mr McGrumpies house and throwing rocks at his roof until he comes out, swishing his walking stick from side to side and threatening to call the cops, at which point the children run off in gleeful terror. This, instead of going to Mr McGrumpies after school soccer training, where he sets a bunch of challenges/training courses to raise the kids skills and growls at them when they slack off.