Chapter Two: Raising the Alarm (Lower Scumsgrove) (metagaming)

Wow! Sorry to have pissed you all off so much, but I really didn't think you would react the way you did. It just goes to show you that you really never can predict what players will do.

So, what happened? Well, I forgot that you are all players in a game and that you would react to events in the game from a player perspective as opposed to a personal, how-would-I-handle-this perspective.

For the record, I'm referring to the situation in which the town guard wanted to take Celegorm away by himself. It was a bad move on my part. At best there would have been some role-play situation in which Celegorm was the only PC involved and everyone else had to sit around waiting for the whole thing to wrap up. At worst it would have (should have?) been a total party kill.

So, let me 'splain. I wanted to create a bit of tension and fear by pulling one player character out of the group and taking him aside privately to resolve the matter. While everyone else sat around worrying about what was happening I had hoped that you would role-play among yourselves and generate some genuine fear for your buddy. It didn't work.

I think the main reason it didn't work is that I failed to realize that you all would not "go along" when the authorities told you what to do. The problem mostly boils down to you being players in a game and not real people in a real situation where you are out-numbered and out-gunned. Initially you were in a situation where you could resist: the entire party facing off against two town guards. I then escalated the situation to the point that you could not win, but it didn't seem to matter. Some of you were still prepared to fight to the death. I didn't want that to happen (because I like gaming with you), so I basically told you what to do. I railroaded you again, when I said I wouldn't do that. I'm sorry.

What to do in the future? I'm not sure at this point. There will certainly be situations in which your characters will not be in full control of your destiny. While your characters are the main focus of the story and they are the heroes, they are not all-powerful. They cannot win the day all the time. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you should really think about what you would actually do in a given situation. Don't think about what you would want to do or what you wish you could do, but what you really would do.

I talked about this with Matt and Jeff after the game last night. I used a very similar "real world" example. If two cops showed up at my house last night and said they were arresting me, would any of you had moved to stop it? I doubt that you would have. Now, I'm not saying that you are your characrters, but think about it . . . would anyone really have interfered if the "proper authorities" arrived and wanted to take one of us away, even if they offered no explanation? Probably not. So, why would your characters do it?

I think most of it boils down to "this is a game" and characters will take risks that real people would never take. Granted, your characters fight undead creatures and goblins and such, but you still can't "beat the world." There are always tougher, stronger, and smarter people out there (at least until you get to 10th or 12th level), and you should be prepared to deal with those types sometimes.

I think I also pushed too much role-play and not enough roll-play last night. There was only one combat scene, so you didn't get to use your kewl p0werz very much during the game. I will adjust to make sure there is more opportunity for everyone to throw their weight around in the future. Just don't do it against the organized power of a government (or government-like) entity. The powers-that-be can always call on more resources than a band of low-level adventurers has available, and the party will rarely (if ever) be able to face down the concerted effort of that government.

So, again, I'm sorry about how things turned out. I hope we can all chalk this one up to "Brent's a moron" and move on. If anyone feels like they want to talk more about it, I'm definitely willing to listen. In fact, if any of you has suggestions about what I could do in the future, please let me know.

Next Post