@Snakehelm er...maybe?

We had a similar thing happening, where this NPC entered the tavern where the players were working and told them to hide him

But here's the deal, your players aren't going to pick up hints or clues. They may not even pay attention or fully grok when you tell them something at 100% face value and clearly.

But failing forward can be a thing, as well as reminding them of what they know.

The players may nor remember, but their characters sure do.

@NautArch Dude it was literally the beginning of the campaign, 20 minutes in

I can't even

@Snakehelm Yep, you've just go to roll with things.

And I did, the campaign went on with me improvising most of the things

But if they aren't biting on the hooks, then feel free to say "bite". Yeah, it may be what some consider 'railroading' but if they're not moving forward on their own, you either need to give them a push or try and improvise.

One of the most famous cases of this is when a DM told their players that they found a vial of poison among some loot. The players asked how they could tell it was poison and the DM was like, "You're right. You find an unknown substance." And then the players decided to taste it to figure out what it was, unironically. Sometimes, even telling players to their face, you can't get the point across about some things.

Don't be afraid to just call a point of order and say "This is a thing. It's real. This isn't a trick."

I have fully described scenes before, including things like "this is a priestess of X, as shown by Y". And then minutes later "Do we know anything about this woman?"

That hits way too close to home.

The problem isn't really that i don't know how to improvise or progress with a campaign, but that the players make choices like this constantly. I'm kinda stumped really

I mean, how can you have such a low-attention span?

@Snakehelm So is it that they aren't following the markers to progress the story?

I've had players chase suspicious persons around town for an hour and then report to the captain of the guard with "No, nothing out of the ordinary around here. Have fun going on an expedition that takes all of your forces out of town."

In those cases, I simply remind them of what their characters know.

And then unironically shout "OH! THAT REBELLION!" when the rebels they were chasing attacked the town.

Sobriety is also not the name of the game many times, so I'm used to this sort of thing.

used to it, but not enjoy it.

@NautArch No, it's that every time they make the WORST decision. If there's no real bad choice, they'll create one

I don't even know how is it possible

@Snakehelm Have you talked to them about it? What have they said?

They always say : "Yeah, we effed up"

@Snakehelm You mind cleaning up that language? We're a PG chat :)

Oops

@Snakehelm Have you stopped them when they ask to do that and told them the potential consequences?

One of the deadliest tools in the DM's toolkit is Are you sure?

I always ask: "Are you sure?"

I feel a lot of these issues are the opposite of meta gaming. The players forget what their characters know and consequences of their actions.

But nothing, it's like talking to a wall

@Snakehelm More like "Are you sure? If you do that, X happens. Was that your intent?"

So with the injured traveler, what did they do?

Oh right. So the injured traveler comes in, and after a while some people dressed as town guards come in looking for him. The choices there are clear : You can hide the traveler, saying no one like that entered OR you can sell him to the guards

They did.... nothing

And I mean LITERALLY

@A.B. Do cross-room pings work on your platform (NAB vs. TTRPGG)?

They just stared at the guards

@Snakehelm So the guards didn't ask them anything?

They did

Usual stuff, like: have you seen this man? Let us check the place, and stuff like that

They found the traveler

At that point, you could have leaned into the guardsmen. Had them accuse them purposefully hiding info. Just staring is pretty suspect.

And that's what i did

But saying nothing does not really help the traveler

In fact the traveler was found and they gained nothing from either faction

Not the traveler nor the guards

How was the traveler found?

The guards checked the tavern

No one did ANYTHING to stop them

Why didn't the guards round up the suspect PCs?

THey were clearly involved by staying so silent.

Going only by your words, it sounds like it might be an unwillingness to take the lead an make a decision, and the bad decisions like they might go with the first option presented (especially if it's made in character). I've had some of the same stuff in my games (especially at the start of a campaign). You might want to look at introducing some meta/out of character convo re what they want to do

This instance is starting to seem like a difference of expectations coupled with inexperience. You're running a game that expects players to be assertive and action-oriented, where as your players may be expecting to be able to wait-and-see or play reactively; e.g. waiting for things to happen to them.

@NautArch Because the guards were not real guards, but criminals disguised. They discovered that the night the PCs were kidnapped and tortured

@Someone_Evil Right - that's what I'm trying to say with character knowledge. But also that @Snakehelm can use NPCs to push.

@Snakehelm Even better. Clearly the 'guards' don't trust these guys and staying silent is close enough to be trying to help the traveler. Take 'em all and progress the story!

@Snakehelm OR do an Insight check (or something similar) for them to realize they aren't guards. Maybe against a deception.

Or just a DC, but opposing contests are fun :)

"Are you a guard? You have to tell me if you're a guard."

Again, I did, but once more they were FORCED to cooperate after a beating and a couple bones broken

@Axoren LOL

@Axoren Anyway, I dunno. I mean, we've been playing together for years. How are they still inexperienced? Some of them GM games of their own too!

@Snakehelm What do you mean by forced to cooperate? You mean like you forced them?

THe key is in letting them make their decisions and then adjusting the story accordingly. If they don't engage with anything, it's time to ask them if they want to be playing.

Still, if your players are going to wait until someone is hitting them in the face before they decide to take action, something is wrong with their expectations of play.

Otherwise, it's just story-time with the DM and then they roll dice for 10 minutes out of the day.

@Snakehelm That's not a story...

In the case of the tavern, maybe an associate of the traveler comes in and engages the them.

@NautArch It's the abridged version

Or when leaving the tavern, they see the 'guards' doing something to the traveler.

@Axoren But still, what you're saying is correct, something's wrong indeed

You need to of course let your players make decisions they want, but you also need to find a way to have those decisions move the story forward.

@NautArch I wish, they stayed in the tavern

@Snakehelm So something happens then. It's your job as DM to help move their story forward.

@NautArch The kidnapping happened

But as @Axoren said, it seems like it's getting to a point where you need a out of character discussion about the game and what they want.

@Snakehelm Why did the kidnapping happen?

They were so passive that subtle ways were not effective

RIght, so you need to talk to them about why they are being so passive.

It's a core part of the social contract. You run the game. They play in the game.

Everyone has fun. (hopefully)

@NautArch Because, as I said, the guards were actually criminals. So they wanted to either coerce the PCs or eliminate witnesses

And it doesn't sound like you're having fun

@Snakehelm The PCs were the only ones in the tavern?

@Axoren That's not it, really, I'm having fun, but they make me work hard for it

Why did the criminals care about the PCs? I thought they were interested in the traveler?

@NautArch When the traveler arrived? Yep

@Snakehelm What about the tavern keeper? The bartenders or waitresses?

There must have been people working there, why weren't they taken as well?

@Snakehelm Point still stands. They have to do stuff or the social contract is going to be lopsided.

@NautArch They were the waiters

Just temporarily

And the tavern keeper?

Out for a couple minutes before opening

And the keeper was okay with them being taken?

Or discovering that on their return?

@NautArch The criminals had the workforce to spare to take care of the traveler and the PCs

@NautArch The kidnapping happened in the night

No one knew

@Snakehelm But why do the criminals care about the PCs?

Just because they were working there when the traveler was in?

What I'm trying to say is you need to build a story around the events the players choose. You will NOT be able to get them to follow a 'planned' story, so you are left with having to improvise frequently to keep things interesting.

Dude, if I'm a criminal and some guy not only is a witness but is also not helping me, i consider it an enemy

That guy must be removed from the equation, you never know

Yes, you do know. You're literally making the story.

Do you think your players would come to that same conclusion, knowing nothing about it in advance?

I think the term of art is "loose end"

@NautArch I mean, as a criminal.

@Snakehelm But had you given the players a chance to recognize that these weren't guards, then something else may have happened.

Not as GM

@Snakehelm But you aren't the criminal. You are the GM putting together a story.

This is a very common problem: The GM knows or expects something, because the GM has all the secret information. The players don't know or expect these things, so they act without considering this information. So from the GM's perspective, the players' actions seem completely illogical. But the truth is that the GM hasn't communicated something important and assumes the players know it already.

The criminal is a tool and you have full freedom to use that tool as you wish.

@NautArch They did not care at all

@Snakehelm WHy would they care if you present as a guard with on reason to suspect not a guard?

@MikeQ Wait, i'm not talking about knowing the outcome tho

@MikeQ I'm in this picture and I don't like it

@NautArch Then why not help them?

@Snakehelm I have to say, you are defending your decisions, but asking for help and ignoring what we're trying to say. It's making it difficult :(

@Snakehelm Don't want to get involved is perfectly reasonable.

If I'm working in a restaurant and cops come in to arrest someone, I'm not getting involved.

One of the most important GM skills (and game design skills) is being able to consider things from the players' perspective. Assume they know nothing other than what you have explicitly told them.

If we could talk i could express myself a little better, even tho my accent is meh. Anyway, let's take it a step back

Let me re-elaborate

The GM knows that a certain NPC has certain motives, but this is kept secret. The players do not know this. If you try to justify these decisions based on secret information, then it won't make sense to the players.

IMHO the PCs, as such, should take some kind of action when some scenario presents itself.

Am I right in saying this or not?

Not necessarily. Maybe the scenario is ambiguous and they'll wait for more information. Maybe they think they're supposed to wait for something else to happen.

@Snakehelm Sadly, you are somewhat wrong.

@NautArch How?

If the PCs aren't taking action, then they aren't clear in what actions they can take.

@Snakehelm See MikeQ above.

You are conflating what's clear to you and what's clear to them.

It's one of the hardest parts of GMing.

What you see as a scene that needs interaction, they see as exposition.

I often use skill checks to help provide more info as to what's happening and how it involves them.

Puzzle-design and world-building have this wonderful overlap that is the immense difficulty of "I know the answers, and my audience doesn't, what will they be thinking at this point given what they would know?" And it's really hard to figure that out

@Medix2 The only time you learn is when they don't engage.

Hold on though, I accept being told I'm wrong, but again I'm not talking about knowing the outcome. I'm talking about doing something, anything, when asked "what do you wanna do?"

I know i have the notes and know the outcomes

@Snakehelm And we're simply saying they don't know what they wanna do because they don't understand the situation and the options.

@Snakehelm depending on context that might be an overwhelimg question

"I do nothing" is also a valid response.

Though, casting fireball is usually favorable to doing nothing.

Paralysis by Analysis exists as does a complete lack of visible options, I'd wager it's one of those happening

From the player's perspective, maybe they've misinterpreted the situation (based on previous clues), or maybe there's some uncertainty about what they can do, and what they're supposed to do, and what the possible outcomes might be.

@ThomasMarkov usually is doing some lifting there :P

@ThomasMarkov @Snakehelm Exactly - but then the GM needs to figure out how to respond to "i do nothing".

Maybe more thugs come in now that they see it's 'safe' to do so.

@G.Moylan That I may understand, but still

@NautArch Again, I don't get it. How can it be so difficult to understand there are two options?

Did you explicitly tell them there were two options?

If not, then they would not have understood that there are two options.

Do not assume players will take a specific course of action. Do not assume they will interpret clues the same way you do. You know the intended solution, they don't.

@MikeQ So must I tell them everytime what to do?

That seems like railroading to me

No, but you should clarify what the options are.

And that comes back to the ORIGINAL QUESTION

@MikeQ I can't believe i have to clarify something as simple as that!

How can it look complex?

Or uncertain?

Or whatever?

@Snakehelm because their brain is different than yours

Look, we're not saying this to criticize your GM skills. We're saying this because this is a very common pitfall, we've made these mistakes before, we know others who have made these mistakes before. Even published adventure authors make these mistakes. So if you want to improve, you must consider the possibility that your current approach isn't working.

Then that comes back to ANOTHER QUESTION

Do I have to consider players dumb?

Or like someone said, tunnel-visioned?

No, but you should assume they don't know what you know. Uninformed, perhaps. Maybe they forget important information from previous sessions, maybe they interpret clues differently and come to different conclusions.

@MikeQ I'm speechless.

Really

Because it's just something so strange to me

Sometimes I struggle to understand how someone could possibly arrive at a different conclusion because the one I've arrived at is so obvious (to me). I get frustrated. But I have to remember that this is a perspective issue and everyone's brain is their own, so what might be obvious to me is likely not to others. Part of the art of GMing is figuring out how to convey information to your players in a way that helps them understand their choices when they're having trouble without 1/2

@G.Moylan railroading them into "the one true way" 2/2

"There are only two options" is basically contrary to how the basic structure of the game.

RPGs are by and large designed to give the players agency which the DM then works with.

By saying "there are only two possible courses of action", youre limiting the players' agency.

It's also quite possible that the players don't want to make choices. Some folks like a railroad, and maybe they just want you to tell your story and for them to be a part of it. Something to talk about with them.

Because of how the game is designed, the only way to reliably guarantee one of your two foreseen outcomes is to say "no, you character does not do that" until the characters do what you want them to, which isnt fun for anyone.

I don't know man. Perception does not make 1+1=11, I just can't fathom how they constantly get 11

This isnt a math problem.

> "I just can't fathom how they constantly get to 11"

Youre emulating complex social situations, and they are reading them differently, just like people read social situations different in real life.

@G.Moylan they think differnetly than you do and you probably won't ever understand. Trying to do so is wasted energy and stressful

@G.Moylan Thanks, not my first language. I get it. But I could tell them "the floor is wet from the rain" and they will ask who threw a bucket of water on the floor. Anyway, thanks everybody

This happened a lot early in my marriage. I'd say one thing, and my wife would come away with a wildly different interpretation from my intention, and I couldn't fathom how she could possibly get that from what I said.

But the solution was not "you need to git gud and understanding me", the solution was communicating more and working together on how we related to one another verbally.

@ThomasMarkov But in a game doesn't that sound, I dunno, dull?

And now I say something to her and she thinks "wow, any normal person would mean this, but I know Thomas, and he actually means that", and she's usually right.

I mean I can explain every outcome

But wouldn't that take out some fun?

@Snakehelm What, learning to relate to other humans in a way that is fun, and taking your story to new and awesome places you never imagined?

@ThomasMarkov I was talking in game/plot terms

@Snakehelm Are you saying you have determined that your preplanned outcomes maximize fun for everyone, and all other outcomes are less fun?

@ThomasMarkov Not necessarily. But if things don't go their way players whine.

Is this a prewritten adventure or a homebrew thing you wrote?

Ohh, I think I now know how to describe the feeling!

@Snakehelm I don't mean to be harsh, but aren't you doing something similar?

@MikeQ Homebrew, but it finished like, 5 months ago

@ThomasMarkov Kinda, I'll admit. BUT it would be unnecessarily humble to say I don't do most of the work

Ok, alternative approach. It's common for authors to overlook issues in their own work, so what if I gave you a similar example from a different game, and we'll pick that one apart. The issue may be easier to see if it's someone else's work.

@ThomasMarkov Thomas is, indeed, not any normal person

@MikeQ Shoot

Ya know, that probably read better in my head, with my own emphasis, but I meant well by it XD

@MikeQ Like the time my character burned down a house that was supposed to be an important plot location much later in the story?

From the GM's perspective: The party found a mysterious artifact. Later, upon entering a city, the artifact got stolen by thieves, who took it to their secret base. Then aliens attacked the city. Obviously, the players should track down the thieves, go to the secret base, and use the artifact to defeat the aliens.

From the players' perspective: The party found a mysterious item. In an unrelated location, it was stolen by an unidentified thief. Then aliens attacked. The most obvious threat was the aliens, so they went to fight the aliens directly.

@MikeQ Maybe you should not have told me the expected outcome

@MikeQ How hard did the DM telegraph that the artifact was actually the Maguffin of Alien Smashing (tm)?

From the GM's perspective, the players were being dumb and difficult. They were avoiding this cool dungeon that the GM worked so hard to prepare. And that's the problem. The party had no reason to suspect what the artifact was, or that it could stop the aliens. They had no clue as to who stole it, or that the thieves' secret base dungeon even existed.

I don't suppose anyone has mentioned that rule of 3 yet

this conversation extends past immediate scrollback and I'm too lazy to check.

@Carcer I dunno what that is

For every clue that you think points to the next step, provide 3 clues instead. Because the players might not find the clue, and even if they do, they might not come to the intended conclusion from 1 clue.

@MikeQ Got it

@MikeQ So is that it tho?

Yes, so do you see in that situation, the GM expected the players to make certain conclusions and decide on certain courses of action, and their failure to do so seemed illogical. But in reality, the players were acting on the limited information they had available. So this was a communication problem and caused a clash of expectations.

@Snakehelm I think the rule of 3 gets at the question you asked a little bit ago, which was "Should I assume the players are dumb?" and honestly, sometimes, the answer is YES. I say this as occasionally the dumb player; I got two characters mixed up with no basis in Strahd, and my DM had to reel me back in.

That doesn't seem comparable to me. But I'm also missing informations there that the GM may or may not have given

For example, assuming nobody managed to identify the artifact and that nobody knew how it worked, was it a logical choice to fight these aliens? Do you have any information on their strengths, weaknesses or whatsoever?

Have you talked to the players about this?

But I will also say that I once had a party charge into a mountain surrounded by a raging battle; the mountain itself forced a madness saving throw if it was beheld for too long, as dark clouds gathered and boiled, creating impossible shapes and making it seem like the mountain itself was twisting and curling in on itself. So I threw an enemy at them, knocked everyone down to single digits in one round of combat.

@Snakehelm It was almost certainly logical from a narrative perspective.

@ThomasMarkov I think i wrote it waaaay up there

"DM had aliens attack the city that our adventuring party is un, surely they intend us to fight them".

@Snakehelm The players were initially undecided. Some argued that the party should flee. But they decided to fight the aliens because this was a combat game and the aliens seemed like an opportunity for combat.

@MikeQ That's not logical. That's "gamistic"

Sometimes players really are just dumb, but sometimes they don't know what the expectations are in a situation. Sometimes that's a matter of the DM doing a bad job at signaling what's happening, sometimes it's that there's a mismatch of expectations in the campaign and they need a bit of a wakeup call.

@Snakehelm I find that most players, myself included, have difficulty separating the two.

It's logical. And maybe gamey. But why is that a problem? It was D&D. Players were expecting a combat game. The PCs were built for combat. Enemies appeared and there didn't seem to be any better options.

@Snakehelm welcome to D&D, a game which is primarily about fighting monsters. Do not be surprised if you present monsters and players want to try and fight them

If you try hard too not metagame you run into issues like this:

@ThomasMarkov Heck, I'd argue that that can be a sign of a good player-- being willing to do a bit of productive metagaming to keep the plot going so you don't just stand around dithering for hours. The game ain't called Dithering & Discussion.

@Trish -- dunno if your question's gonna get opened back up, so here's some advice - clay-core, or if you wanna get really fancy about it, iron/clay-core poker chips. Maybe half an ounce each. Don't need big stacks - you need, like, 10 for a reasonable breakdown of 50 ammo.

@LCooper Ive definitely been appreciative of this as a DM trying to get through all my content for the session.

if, as a DM, you present monsters that you don't actually want your players to go and fight, you need to telegraph that really hard to get past the default presumption of the game that you find and fight monsters

@Glazius works for fate and conan (momentum/Doom), but also induces players fiddlign with them.

Here's a fun problem for those allergic to metagaming: When a PC opens a chest, and doesn't check to see if it's a mimic, and it turns out to be a mimic, does that mean the PC made a mistake?

speaking of finding and fighting monsters, it's Doom DLC o'clock

@Trish So you spend into a central bank and keep your current ammo load on your sheet. My source here is the boardgame Brass, which is kind of famously stealth designed around poker chips. Its original printing came with terrible silver and gold plastic blanks so it was technically playable, but...

Brass is a game where you have to know how much all your opponents have AND how much they've spent that turn, which determines turn order. Spends go into a central little reservoir, with narrow side-by-side stacks for each player.

@Trish Might just be my ADHD talking, but you could put me in an empty padded room and I'd start fiddling with the padding in the walls. If it's on the table, it's gonna be fiddled.

@ThomasMarkov Oh I remember reading this ages ago, this is an interesting topic IMO.

Never played it where it was in doubt how much money anyone had or had spent, never had somebody oopsie-doodle a spend stack down despite, y'know, boardgamer manual dexterity.

@Glazius however, in my typical runner groups, most sams have something like 3 weappons on them, one of them a ca 30 bullets assault rifle, one a 15-20 (or 30) shot pistol and some melee My own mages? Typically armed with the 40-shot fulli-electric Yamaha Sakura Fubuki, because lightweight and cool.

@RevanantBacon "Im so good at not metagaming Ive come full circle and suck at it again."

@ThomasMarkov in some circles, metagaming isn't "using your personal knowledge of the game to make optimal choices" it's "having your knowledge of the game influence your choices in any way"

@MikeQ I can't find the logic, sorry. Charging into enemies with no info because the game is centered on fighting seems dumb to me. In character maybe, but still dumb. At least you can say that role-wise it was a "well-played" move.

@RevanantBacon Pretty sure thats unavoidable, you think?

but either way, if you're deliberately not using Fire Bolt on the ice dragon, that's just being silly

Then you have a left-hand side and a right-hand side to your sheet for primary/secondary weapons? Maybe an index card with a picture of the weapon on it, Shadowrun's good about illustrations in their gunbooks, right?

@RevanantBacon I wound up basically pleading with a DM once to roll to see if my paladin was familiar with madness effects, because I'm extremely familiar with them myself, and I was worried about making him seem too stupid. (Thankfully, she was indulgent and I rolled pretty well)

@ThomasMarkov Depends, can you remember the AC and average saves of a chimera off the top of your head without checking?

Most things players know are the super obvious things, like fire dragons are weak to cold damage, or trolls regenerate unless you burn them with fire or acid

@RevanantBacon I wanna say middle of the road AC, like maybe 15, good strength, and awful intelligence. Not sure about the other saves.

They aren't likely to remember that a hobgoblins worst save is Charisma

@Snakehelm That's a good example. You expect that the PCs should act cautiously when faced with a possible threat. What if the players expect they should fight the monster, because they expect a game about fighting monsters? How would you handle that? Would you just dismiss the players as "dumb"? Or would you adapt the game to fit their expectations?

@ThomasMarkov Pretty good. 14 AC, 19 Str and Con, 3 Int. For a critter with 3 heads, you'd think it would have more than 3 Int. That's an average of only 1 Int per brain.

@ThomasMarkov I know one player who even chooses their stat-ups based on what their character has actually done. Not to avoid Metagaming but because that's just how they do most things: cohesion

@Snakehelm For me, that decision is purely motivated by pursuing the sphere of the game I most enjoy: good fights.

@Snakehelm Or what if some players want to be cautious as you intended, and some others want to fight it? Would you let them argue about it, even if that takes up the entirety of the session?

@MikeQ Depends, but if at least having a plan B would be enough to not say "that's a bad decision"

It's not my guy syndrome, its thomas syndrome. It's what Thomas wants to do because that's the part I enjoy most.

@MikeQ And if the PCs should be acting cautiously but they aren't, it's probably because it hasn't been made clear enough to them that this enemy is REAL dangerous.

@MikeQ Personally, yes.

@LCooper Exactly, which brings back to the original point: If the players seem to be undecided or seem to be making an illogical conclusion, then you should assume they need more information from the GM.

It may end up taking the whole session, but it would be role-playing

How many sessions do you think a one-shot campaign where everyone is some variant of Kanye West could go before people get sick of it?

@Axoren If session 0 counts, then: 1 session.

@Medix2 What do you mean by based on what their charaxter has done?

@ThomasMarkov That's understandable, but the session 0 is needed for that too

A while back, I wanted to run a one-shot called Kanye Quest where the party is trying to stop Taylor Swift from stealing the honor of Queen Beyonce, and then I never really did anything else with it.

Like, that was all the prep I did.

The quest giver was Kanye of the West.

@Snakehelm I think the key is in your assessment of "bad decision"

There really aren't 'bad decisions'. There are just decisions and the stories around them.

@Snakehelm Let's rephrase: If the players join because they want a game about overcoming challenges and fighting enemies, and they're frequently faced with unbeatable obstacles and enemies they are not expected to fight, do you think that would be fun for them?

@MikeQ My group has brought up the idea again, so I think they're up for at least a two-fer

i need to figure out a way to drop the line, "<person> is the most honest person i know but other than that, they're okay"

@NautArch To be honest bad decision probably wasn't even the way I would call it originally. I'd say worst decision. Not necessarily bad, but the least good between available ones

@Snakehelm I think you need to try and move away from judging their decisions based on expectations and just working with their decisions.

But if that isn't fun for you, then you really do need to talk to your players about what everyone wants to be fun.

@Yuuki "They're the most honest person I know. Otherwise, they're alright." is alright if someone's asking you about that person.

@MikeQ No, but next time in session 0 say that you wanna play a Chargebarian without thinking about consequences

@NautArch Technically, railroading the PCs into a sequence of intended decisions is a workable approach, but it tends to cause these sort of expectations clashes, which in turn causes unfun and lost players.

@MikeQ My apologies if that's what you took from that - I didn't mean to railroad, but to use their decisions to grow the story even if they aren't what you expected.

@NautArch Man, I work with their decisions all the time. That's what makes it difficult lol

@Snakehelm That's GMing :)

I know. Heck my life XD

If they aren't understanding the possible options, then it's up to you to clarify. Which is totally okay and not railroading.

@NautArch Ah, I should have clarified: Working with the players' decisions isn't the railroad approach.

@MikeQ Oh, ha! But the railroad approach is viable if that's what the players are interested in.

I think I figured out that's what my old DM and players like. The DM liked to tell the story, and the players were okay being parts in it. I wasn't, and the lack of understanding why I was upset wasn't helpful.

But I know now, and honestly its tough to DM for some of them because it's not my style. Good news is I've got some folks now who are in sync with me and I'm having a blast.

DMing is a journey.

Sometimes, players get REALLY off track

If you work on your improv skills and go with it sometimes, you'll see some miraculous spectacles.

@ThomasMarkov C'mon WoTC

@NautArch The UA version couldnt do this.

@ThomasMarkov Of course not /facepalm

@NautArch Do we have a Bag of Rats tag?

"Whenever you kill a creature, ..." stab bag of rats

Why have a bag of rats when you can be a bag of rats

@NautArch honestly, that's pretty hilarious

@Axoren It happened once or twice, they actually surprised me. Like when I thought: "They will help this person escape from an execution" and instead turned themselves in to take the fall

@MikeQ I think it's a matter of taxes.

@Snakehelm And then you executed them, right?

@Yuuki I feel like we're nearing a point where WotC and dandwiki aren't all that different.

I'm obviously kind of joking there.

Of course

@NautArch inmates running the asylum and all that

@NautArch See my edit

@ThomasMarkov hahahaha

But they kinda hoped to win a legal battle, and they kinda did. In a little unorthodox way, but still

UK country code is +44?

What's really surprising me is now that I'm a couple of sessions into Scum & Villainy, I like when something go wrong. The "win" button is fun, but the "oh god, what did I do now" is a lot of fun, too.

Well, that settles it anyway, and for me it's dinner time. So thank you all for your time and good evening.

@nitsua60 yep

ty

@nitsua60 With the obvious prefix of 011 for international dialling

I thought it was +11?

Or just +44?

I screw this up every time....

011-44-telephone number in UK

NA is +1 is think, so there's no country code of +11

I feel like we should just switch to IPv6 instead of the current standard for landlines now.

The current system allows someone in a college dorm to scamspam everyone worldwide without trackability and little consequence.

If the system allowed me to make international calls about three times a year without having to look it up each time, I'd be a fan....

I think Skype lets you do that, and remembers the numbers for you.

But it costs a bit.

@nitsua60 But you'd accept having to look it up for the fourth time?

@doppelgreener to the rescue! (But I'm on the call now, so I'll have to explain how later.)

👀

if my number in the UK is 07432 123 456, the international code is +447432 123 456

the + has to be replaced with your country's exit code

Hah--but you'd already rescued me. Because when I type + into my phone, your (saved) number comes up as the first suggestion, which then gives me the exemplar to follow =)

Nice!!!

hell yeah

@doppelgreener not always, +44 is international UK from a cellphone. 0044 from a german landline.

@Trish that's because 0 is the german exit code

@doppelgreener 00 is (0 is overland), but cellphones take + instead. they do that automagically.

... i did say the + has to be replaced

not if you type on a cellphone.

then you can use +

in which case it gets replaced!

by the phone software.

i just. this is correcting me on something that is already implicit in how the + works

I save all cellphone numbers as +49 (regional) (number) to make sure the numbers work when I am sailing close to the danish coast.

Is the typo in this answer ("taht") from a mistake when copying, or is it original to the PHB?

@bobble according to my special edition copy, that is an error from OP and not the book

@bobble Spelled correctly in the non-special edition, too. Looks like a typo from the answerer!

Could someone fix it? :) too small to suggest an edit, but it's bugging me

done

when you make a typo about correcting a typo

wat?

me?

squints yes, you one-eyed monster thing

No, @G.Moylan was clearly invoking Dione, the uh... goddess of correct spelling. Yes. That.

uh... yeah! That's it! lots of shifty eyes

Not a very powerful goddess, 'specially on teh internetz

sighs yeah....

I'd make a terrible cleric for her

@bobble also I have eleven eyes, but one of them is really big

@G.Moylan Apparently I need to get my eyes checked, because I definitely read that as elven eyes

@LCooper elves are snacks. Snap into a Slim Jim!

@G.Moylan Unless they're caffeinated, I'll have to pass! XD I'm about to fall asleep at my desk... Allergies and Friday afternoon are ganging up on me today

@G.Moylan How do you know that elfs name was Jim?

@RevanantBacon well, he tasted like one

@AncientSwordRage I have not, though I really want to play the Planted TRPG series. I'm in a couple of Discord servers where they're moderators so I 'know' a lot of people who've played them.