Always remember that your players don't actually want to be challenged. They just want to pretend that they are.
Always remember that your players don't actually want to be challenged. They just want to pretend that they are.
Always remember that your players don't actually want to be challenged. They just want to pretend that they are.
reminder that the gm doesn't actually want to include players in their cringe storyshit. they just want the players to believe this.
> storyshit
>Story
>Shit
Sure is /nu/tg in here.
You don't even know what that means!
>Smaug
truly namegays are the worst
As an innovator of hot new fresh memes I am in a unique position to inform the meaning of this term. Like, Follow and subscribe to my Only Fans for more information.
And also that no one here actually plays tabletop games, we just want to pretend we do.
Easy: Just find a living world looking for GMs. There's tons of them.
Keep your /misc/ level opinions hidden at the start, and it's easy to get accepted.
Depends on the game.
More importantly - players don't want real freedom of choice, just comforting illusion that their choices matter.
Yes, I know. You figure this out after GMing for a few games.
>things only 5e drones believe
>I have never played a game other than D&D and I want /tg/ to think I'm cool.
Silence D&Drone
They do.
>but they don-
Nah, that was those gays I dropped specifically for that reason before I started vetting players properly.
Immature players crave a power fantasy and very little besides that. Mature players are mostly in it for the challenge and/or the social interaction. Sounds like you're playing with children, Anon. Are you a dad or do you simply need to get the hell off this website?
Pretty much this; players who've finished teething start to realize that it's not as interesting to win when there was no chance of failure.
The big problem often I see with challenge is that a lot of new/bad GMs judge encounter difficulty by length or failure rather than the expenditure of resources or attrition; both of which can occur while combats are still moving briskly and players are making progress.
Optional rules like critical wounds or building novel encounters can make players have to play a little more re-actively and if you set reasonable expectations to meet in encounters (be ready on your turn, know what your abilities do, keep up with your bookkeeping) you may be surprised by how many players will meet those expectations.
What players can't stand is failure that is out of their control or when difficulty appears arbitrary. Getting attacked by the quest-giver who is an 8th level wizard and killed after doing a bullshit labyrinth encounter is enough to make even players that like to be challenged quit you for good (3 guesses why the oddly specific example).
Always remember that your players are "challenged". They just want to pretend that they aren't.
>They just want to pretend that they are.
It's a game of play pretend at the end of the day. The real truth is that players are out to live out their individual power fantasy, but not everyone's power fantasy is the same. I know a guy who at one point went out of his way to play merchants, businessmen and other entrepreneurial types. Another friend prefers human male fighters or whatever the setting equivalent is. I have my own preferences that keep coming up. The point is that the GM should be able to read the room and understand what the players want out the game or else ask them directly.
>Always remember that your players don't actually want to be challenged. They just want to pretend that they are.
They want to be storyshitted yes I know.
Culpability on the DM's part shouldn't go overlooked either by encouragement he may also be straining his verbal bowels in order to lay a hot fresh stinking storyshit so should blame really be assigned to them if they are merely following by example?
Some players want to be challenged. Others don't. Some players want an adversarial relationship with the DM, some won't. Some want more battles, others want politicking, others want puzzles and mysteries.
Is that hard to understand?
The tricky thing with challenge in TTRPGs is that they also tend to be games of chance, so the severity of any encounter is just as dependent on how cooperative the dice are. I almost lost my PC the other week because I
>took a crit to the face on the opening of combat
>every single attack I made missed
>all my abilities fizzled, except for the one that required me to land attacks
I was still useful in that I held the line for the other PCs to get important stuff done but if I'd been replaced by a wall it would have made about as much difference.
Nothing I could have really done different. Dice were just not having it that night.
>playing editions with crit memes
The crit was the only good thing to come out of that combat for me. My dude getting his bell rung was an easy excuse to drop a couple of hints in character to stuff he's been hiding. Not getting crit wouldn't change the fact that every time I tried to actually do something the dice just said 'no'
Playing a Ttrpg where you can't adjust for probability and risk manage.
Well, I actually did perform decent risk management that game. We'd been ambushed and I was able to talk the party into retreating into shelter somewhat further back, where we were able to set up a trap for our ambushers and eliminate them while escaping by the skin of our teeth. That part went fine. But that was decisions I made as a player and then the rest of the game my dude flailed helplessly and was essentially just a body in the way of the bad guys, which isnt actually much fun for me the player.
The player setting the explosives had similar complaints; it was the most useful his character had ever been in a fight mostly because it required him to stay put for three rounds and not roll anything, and his dice average this campaign has been abysmal.
No. I just want to win.
then get good
I'm so good that GMs keep banning all of my tricks.
It ruined a generation of GMs
Too bad, I'm going to challenge them anyway
Yes they do, but only when both agency and fairness are well apparent. Take that gay homosexual "failing forward" gming style and spin it a bit with an ounce of testosterone turning the "yes, and..." into a "of course, but...", add some multiple choices and you're golden.
Example: the PC are hunted down by the city authority for [reasons], one of them suggests to use the old sewage net to reach the ports unseen
>GM: "Of course, you know stories about ancient section of the city completely underground connected with the sewages BUT you remember to have learned them from three books in possession of [Friend NPC] which happens to contain some old maps. Going to take them back will be extremely risky because, obviously, his house may be under strict surveillance right now. Alternatively you can try your luck by exploring some of the oldest wells in the abandoned district BUT you'll need some speleology gear and a lot of luck to find some entrance to god knows where and basically navigating the underground maze blindly."
>gay homosexual failing forward
But then you describe failing forward properly.
Hell, even "you don't pick the lock, mark off a dungeon turn and try again if you like" is failing forward of a sort, because it offers a route forward at additional cost.
>But then you describe failing forward properly
I didn't, failing forward assumes you can achieve your objective after you failed but at cost, conversely in my example i roughly telegraphed ahead of time what are the implicit risks of the challenges. The difference is that players can assess potential problems and take adequate measures (agency and fairness) but failure still stands as a possibility they implicitly subscribe to.
Discord groomer thread
It depends on the group you play with. But I do think there is some truth to it. People WANT to feel challenged more than they are actually challenged unless they are a very specific type of player.
Anyway, Justice mob cute. Want to take her home.
the challenge comes from competitive play.
just like athletic sports.
otherwise its just a puzzle mind game for them to solve.
most players detest athletic sports, it's why they play tabletop