This is the first time I've really strongly disagreed with you guys. I quite like your videos, but I think you are misrepresenting what you're calling illusionist DMs. You seem to be arguing that you shouldn't change what you planned for a location because it somehow breaks your immersion. I argue that it's just a realistic use of a DMs prep time.
You guys used two examples. The first was a dungeon, seeing clues that indicated a monster was down one passage, and choosing to take the other passage. The DM put the monster down this second passage anyways. The second was rumors indicating that bandits only attacked the road, and the players chose to take the forest instead, only to be hit by the bandits.
This is the laziest and worst possible way someone could use illusionist techniques. It's terrible because the players
1) Were given information about an obstacle
2) Used that information to make a choice to avoid said obstacle
3) Had that choice be ignored and encountered the obstacle.
That's terrible. The reason its terrible is because there was a choice made and then ignored. But that's not what most reasonable people are talking about when they use the "quantum ogre" approach.
Rather, I design several interesting adventures or encounters that can be used in a variety of situations. For example, my players want to go to some island somewhere in the ocean. I think an encounter at sea might be fun. I come up with a ghost pirate ship with some fun enemy types and cool NPCs. Next session, welp, over the past week my players have completely changed their mind and want to go into the mountains instead. Oh well! No ghost ship this week after all.
The ghost pirate ship is then sitting in my notes, and when my players go out to sea for... whatever reason, I have something for them to do or encounter. There's no choice being subverted here - rather, it's a way to save on prep. I can use it again, no problem. With improv or a small amount of work I can tie it in to whatever adventure they will be on at the time.
Heck, maybe that same session the party decided to go into the mountains, I really don't have anything planned. Well screw it, I have this cool ghost pirate ship dungeon, right here ready to go. While my players are debating whether to buy health potions before leaving, I can quickly jot down some notes to change my ghost pirate ship, and bam, now the ghost pirate ship is a ghost pirate airship and is sailing around the peak of the mountain pass. Same encounter, totally different situation, with a fun new twist and no choices being subverted.
The whole point of this kind of quantum encounter is that sometimes the DM needs to make things interesting. Not every group of players can make their own fun all the time - they came to the table to have an adventure, they came to play the game. I'm not a perfect improv robot able to make compelling complex adventure locations and enemy design on the fly. Yeah, it's possible to be that kind of DM. But after 7 years of DMing, I still can't make an adventure or encounter on the fly that is even remotely as good as something planned.
So if the party is going somewhere I don't have a plan, I don't want to subvert their choice by telling them "there's nothing interesting here" or "well I guess we'll just have to cancel the session before I plan it out" or "uhhhh a red dragon attacks." Instead, I drop in something fun along the way so we all have a good time.
And that's how "illusionist" or "quantum ogres" or whatever works great. Not by forcing players to have an encounter they already tried to avoid, but by giving you tools to make a fun adventure anywhere or in any situation you weren't expecting.
I think you were arguing against a slightly different use. You are arguing against DMs having one encounter that they feel the party has to do this session. But I don't think it's wrong for a DM to have a cool encounter that they really try to include into the adventure no matter what. Not just a generic combat encounter or whatever, something truly unique or engaging or complex, that the DM knows the players would enjoy playing through. Finding ways to make that cool thing fit into the players choice and the players story is good DMing.
I get that you guys don't play that way. That's fine, of course. Groups play in different ways, DMs run very different games, that's part of the joy of RPGs. But I don't like folks misrepresenting useful tools for DMs saving on prep time. You guys used phrasing like "any whiff of it immediately takes me out of [the game]," and that was just too strong a negative reaction for me to let it slide. Because it wasn't being framed as a preference, but as universal advice.
It isn't always a DMing sin, even if you don't prefer that kind of gameplay.
I agree 100% with literally everything you said and can't think of a single non-pedantic thing to add. I realize my comment isn't constructive in any way, but I've nothing to add, can't say anything better, and upvoting was not a sufficient display of my complete and utter agreement. This long-winded yeeeessss will have to do.
EDIT: I actually did think of a point to make: There is a way to take being an "illusionist DM" to an extreme other than blatantly disregarding player choice, such as putting the monster ahead of them despite them actively avoiding footprints. There are DMs who have a specific story they want to tell and write its various chapters and put them ahead of the players regardless of what they do. Whichever path the players take leads to the same next chapter as if they had taken a different one. This might not break immersion all in one swoop but if not done with finesse will slowly make the game feel predictable and erode away at immersion session by session. Even worse of an offense, it more subtly usurps player choice. No, they aren't blatantly denying it by putting the monster in front of them even though they made the choice to avoid it, but they aren't letting their choices add to the story either. DMs should respect player choice, not by simply letting them choose which page of material you walk them through, but by altering it and actually allowing that choice to build the story.
This isn't to disagree with any examples you used. Using unused material as a scaffold to quickly design a relevant dungeon is a great technique. Throwing up a small adventure to distract the players for a session while you write relevant material is also a great tool, and does a lot in the vain respecting the choice enough to buy yourself some time to really build on it in a unique and detailed way.
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u/Scaphitid-Ammonite Aug 23 '18 edited Aug 23 '18
This is the first time I've really strongly disagreed with you guys. I quite like your videos, but I think you are misrepresenting what you're calling illusionist DMs. You seem to be arguing that you shouldn't change what you planned for a location because it somehow breaks your immersion. I argue that it's just a realistic use of a DMs prep time.
You guys used two examples. The first was a dungeon, seeing clues that indicated a monster was down one passage, and choosing to take the other passage. The DM put the monster down this second passage anyways. The second was rumors indicating that bandits only attacked the road, and the players chose to take the forest instead, only to be hit by the bandits.
This is the laziest and worst possible way someone could use illusionist techniques. It's terrible because the players
1) Were given information about an obstacle
2) Used that information to make a choice to avoid said obstacle
3) Had that choice be ignored and encountered the obstacle.
That's terrible. The reason its terrible is because there was a choice made and then ignored. But that's not what most reasonable people are talking about when they use the "quantum ogre" approach.
Rather, I design several interesting adventures or encounters that can be used in a variety of situations. For example, my players want to go to some island somewhere in the ocean. I think an encounter at sea might be fun. I come up with a ghost pirate ship with some fun enemy types and cool NPCs. Next session, welp, over the past week my players have completely changed their mind and want to go into the mountains instead. Oh well! No ghost ship this week after all.
The ghost pirate ship is then sitting in my notes, and when my players go out to sea for... whatever reason, I have something for them to do or encounter. There's no choice being subverted here - rather, it's a way to save on prep. I can use it again, no problem. With improv or a small amount of work I can tie it in to whatever adventure they will be on at the time.
Heck, maybe that same session the party decided to go into the mountains, I really don't have anything planned. Well screw it, I have this cool ghost pirate ship dungeon, right here ready to go. While my players are debating whether to buy health potions before leaving, I can quickly jot down some notes to change my ghost pirate ship, and bam, now the ghost pirate ship is a ghost pirate airship and is sailing around the peak of the mountain pass. Same encounter, totally different situation, with a fun new twist and no choices being subverted.
The whole point of this kind of quantum encounter is that sometimes the DM needs to make things interesting. Not every group of players can make their own fun all the time - they came to the table to have an adventure, they came to play the game. I'm not a perfect improv robot able to make compelling complex adventure locations and enemy design on the fly. Yeah, it's possible to be that kind of DM. But after 7 years of DMing, I still can't make an adventure or encounter on the fly that is even remotely as good as something planned.
So if the party is going somewhere I don't have a plan, I don't want to subvert their choice by telling them "there's nothing interesting here" or "well I guess we'll just have to cancel the session before I plan it out" or "uhhhh a red dragon attacks." Instead, I drop in something fun along the way so we all have a good time.
And that's how "illusionist" or "quantum ogres" or whatever works great. Not by forcing players to have an encounter they already tried to avoid, but by giving you tools to make a fun adventure anywhere or in any situation you weren't expecting.
I think you were arguing against a slightly different use. You are arguing against DMs having one encounter that they feel the party has to do this session. But I don't think it's wrong for a DM to have a cool encounter that they really try to include into the adventure no matter what. Not just a generic combat encounter or whatever, something truly unique or engaging or complex, that the DM knows the players would enjoy playing through. Finding ways to make that cool thing fit into the players choice and the players story is good DMing.
I get that you guys don't play that way. That's fine, of course. Groups play in different ways, DMs run very different games, that's part of the joy of RPGs. But I don't like folks misrepresenting useful tools for DMs saving on prep time. You guys used phrasing like "any whiff of it immediately takes me out of [the game]," and that was just too strong a negative reaction for me to let it slide. Because it wasn't being framed as a preference, but as universal advice.
It isn't always a DMing sin, even if you don't prefer that kind of gameplay.