Latest / Sessions Canceled / How Much Meta Knowledge Do You Give Out?: Ep. 170

Transcript

How Much Meta Knowledge Do You Give Out?: Ep. 170 · Sessions Canceled

• 0:15
  What's up, Internet? The GM elected to not tell any
• 0:17
  of his players when the session start time is, so nobody's here.
• 0:23
  So session's cancelled. And we're all very confused
• 0:27
  because he just refused to give us the answer and he said we had
• 0:31
  to solve the puzzle to get the start time.
• 0:34
  But but like we just we just wanted to play.
• 0:40
  It's weird. Also, he's he's disappeared and
• 0:43
  I think part of the puzzle is also finding him so well, it's a
• 0:49
  bad. Time to bring up that I've
• 0:50
  chipped all. You've shipped.
• 0:55
  Chipped. Chipped.
• 0:57
  Oh, no, no, it's probably a good time to mention it.
• 1:01
  OK. If we can find the GM, that'd be
• 1:03
  helpful. Yeah, he's probably going to.
• 1:05
  Get mad. Neck itches, by the way.
• 1:07
  He's probably going to get mad at you for having meta knowledge
• 1:11
  though. That's fine.
• 1:16
  Welcome back, Internet. We returned.
• 1:18
  I am here, Isaiah is here and we I had AI had a last minute
• 1:28
  change of topic plan. So this might be a little
• 1:30
  rambling all over the place, but you know what, we're going to go
• 1:33
  with it. I think I mostly got my my
• 1:35
  concept straight. So what are we talking about
• 1:39
  here? Kind of as an extension to what
• 1:47
  Isaac. So what Isaiah did with the
• 1:49
  previous episode or episode before which one?
• 1:53
  Oh, no, yeah. Previous last episode about the
• 1:58
  whole idea of like a secondary objective and like making combat
• 2:02
  more engages by having those secondary objectives going on.
• 2:07
  Some of that was an idea that I had about what I wanted to talk,
• 2:09
  but he didn't quite hit on one particular element of that that
• 2:15
  I had a thought about. So we're going to talk about
• 2:18
  that specific element and it's the idea of player knowledge and
• 2:27
  how much or how little to deliver to your players as the
• 2:32
  GM. It kind of ties into the idea of
• 2:38
  meta gaming. It kind of ties into the idea of
• 2:40
  like pace. It kind of touches a lot of
• 2:43
  things because ultimately the way the hobby works is you
• 2:49
  exchange information back and forth from one end of the table
• 2:51
  to the other end of the table. So like, it touches a little bit
• 2:54
  of everything, but it's the idea of like, how do you balance how
• 3:00
  much the players know and or should know as the, or how much
• 3:05
  do you give the players as the GM and how much should you give
• 3:08
  them or not give them and different ways to handle that
• 3:10
  problem and if it will become a problem.
• 3:13
  And yeah, like I said, this touches a lot of different
• 3:16
  things. I'm kind of focusing on 3/4 main
• 3:19
  areas, but it it touches on almost every element of the game
• 3:23
  if you keep teasing it out. So I tried not to, but yeah, I
• 3:30
  think. This is also pretty necessary
• 3:31
  episode I think it's something that a lot of people struggle
• 3:33
  with especially in newer GMs when the question of like you
• 3:38
  know this is the why you should always start things and medius
• 3:41
  rez right because You sort of need that that or you need to
• 3:47
  understand how much knowledge to give the players about their
• 3:49
  current situation so they have the tools that they need to make
• 3:52
  the decisions that you ultimately want them to make
• 3:56
  Yeah it's definitely it's it's definitely a new GM it could be
• 4:01
  a new GM struggle because Well yeah we'll get into it but I do
• 4:07
  think even when you become really experienced this is still
• 4:10
  one of those things that you're going to have to constantly re
• 4:13
  evaluate over and over and over again which I've tended to
• 4:18
  notice that I think some people have a mentality when it comes
• 4:23
  to GM ING I mean this probably applies to other things but you
• 4:26
  know staying within our wheelhouse when it comes to GM
• 4:29
  ING I think a lot of people have this mentality that if they
• 4:33
  learn something Once or did something the one time then
• 4:38
  they're good in the sense of like oh I watched a video from
• 4:44
  Ginny D or from the dungeon dudes or from you know Matt
• 4:48
  Colville that told me you know not to railroad my players and I
• 4:52
  absorbed that information so now I'm good I'm not going to do the
• 4:55
  railroading thing but really the way it actually works is you
• 4:59
  have to readdress your knowledge on the thing over and over and
• 5:03
  over again to actually get Good at it right so you might you
• 5:07
  might know in the back of your head that you don't want to be
• 5:09
  overly railroady but you might fall into that bad habit if you
• 5:14
  don't check in on yourself over and over again about making sure
• 5:18
  to not do it right so this particular problem of how much
• 5:25
  information am I giving my players or should I be giving my
• 5:27
  players is a very similar thing where you might be like oh I'm
• 5:33
  going to do it this way But if you don't keep checking in on
• 5:37
  how you're doing it as a game as a campaign is going on you could
• 5:40
  very easily slip into a direction you don't want to does
• 5:44
  that make sense No, it does. Yeah.
• 5:46
  It's, you know, it's it's the oh, God damn it.
• 5:56
  All right, Nevermind. My brain died.
• 5:58
  Just the idea that you have to keep reassessing your thought
• 6:00
  process on a thing because it's very easy to get stuck in a loop
• 6:03
  of behavior. Once you're in that loop, it's
• 6:06
  hard to break out of it. So if you can sort of maintain
• 6:09
  your your consistent reassessment of your skills or
• 6:15
  the situation in which you need them for the better, right?
• 6:18
  Like people to sort of play this out, people like, oh, you should
• 6:22
  never railroad your players. But as we've talked about on
• 6:24
  this podcast, railroading is not always a bad thing.
• 6:28
  So if you go, oh, OK, well, I, I railroad my players in this one
• 6:31
  situation, and it actually went to our benefit.
• 6:35
  You might not realize that you're doing it more and more
• 6:38
  and more and more, and now the players have no agency.
• 6:40
  You have to check that. Yeah, it's it.
• 6:42
  Basically, it's easy to slip into a bad habit is kind of the
• 6:46
  Yeah, especially if the bad habit feels like gratifying in
• 6:51
  the short term, right. Like if you railioed your
• 6:54
  players and it works in a certain kind of way and you're
• 6:57
  like, oh, that worked. And then you do it again.
• 6:59
  And then you keep doing it. You're like, oh, now we've gone
• 7:01
  too far the other way. Like, yeah, so yeah, yeah.
• 7:10
  And and if, if, if exactly what I mean for this, it's not 100%
• 7:18
  clear, it will start to become clear, I think, as I start to
• 7:21
  explain it out a little more. All that being said, before we
• 7:24
  get rolling, please take a moment and hit subscribe or
• 7:28
  follow on your podcast platform of choice.
• 7:30
  And if you would like to leave a donation to our editor, you can
• 7:33
  see find the link in the description.
• 7:35
  That'd be nice. Listen.
• 7:37
  Thank you. I.
• 7:39
  Think at some point we should have Brett say something just so
• 7:40
  people know that he's still alive.
• 7:42
  He is still alive, we promise. Because here's the thing.
• 7:45
  Here's how you know he's alive. If Brett dies, we die.
• 7:48
  We go with him. The episodes go by, it ceases.
• 7:51
  It ceases to exist because could we learn the audio?
• 7:55
  The audio editing? Maybe.
• 7:57
  But like, are we gonna tough sell?
• 8:01
  In this in this job market. Yeah, yeah, tough sell.
• 8:06
  All right, so, so on a very high level, what exactly am I talking
• 8:14
  about here? So it's a, it's a common
• 8:15
  conundrum I feel for any GM in basically any game.
• 8:20
  I don't think this has any system specific thing.
• 8:24
  I I think this can apply in every situation.
• 8:29
  Some information you want to be hidden for your players to
• 8:32
  discover, and some information you want to make sure the
• 8:35
  players definitely have. Right on.
• 8:39
  Like a really basic, like no shit Sherlock kind of level.
• 8:44
  You generally tell the players what their character can see in
• 8:47
  a room, but you might. But you're not going to tell
• 8:50
  them that there are traps in the floor, right?
• 8:52
  Like, you know some information you will give out freely, and
• 8:56
  some information you might not want to give out free.
• 8:58
  Obviously this sounds like a really simple concept, but the
• 9:00
  question often becomes which information should be readily
• 9:04
  available and which information shouldn't be.
• 9:08
  It is inevitable that GMs will be running a scenario, whether
• 9:10
  it be a fight, a puzzle, or a general story conflict that
• 9:14
  you're probably going to think to yourself, either I gave them
• 9:16
  too much or I gave them too little, and then you're going to
• 9:18
  debate what to do from there. So that that pendulum is what
• 9:26
  I'm talking about. I gave them too much, I gave
• 9:27
  them too little. You want to be in the middle as
• 9:30
  much as humanly possible. That's the that's the crux of
• 9:37
  it. And I thought I was thinking
• 9:39
  about this recently because the boss fight we had in Fabula, not
• 9:43
  last session, but the session before the Big Bear, which we
• 9:45
  talked about before, I was trying to deliver information to
• 9:51
  you guys as players, right? Speaking to Isaiah directly
• 9:55
  here, I was trying to give information to you guys as
• 9:57
  players and trying to tell you that the ability where the bear
• 10:01
  was putting in the like water prison, you could turn that off
• 10:06
  basically. And I was trying to do that by
• 10:09
  kept describing how the bear was using the water from the stream
• 10:13
  next to him to put you in that prison.
• 10:16
  And I was hoping that one of you would go, oh, he's pulling from
• 10:18
  the water. If we move him away, he might
• 10:20
  not be able to use it, right? That was my intention.
• 10:23
  Nobody groks that, however, at any point.
• 10:26
  So in that scenario, I was thinking to myself, I'm like,
• 10:30
  how could I have delivered a little bit more information or
• 10:33
  deliver the information a little more clearly so that one of you
• 10:36
  guys would have realized? That I thought about this
• 10:39
  actually. OK.
• 10:42
  When you you had said that, I in my head, I was like, oh, I can
• 10:45
  see why that why you were trying that.
• 10:49
  I think the thing that confused the three of us is because this
• 10:51
  is one of the few times where I think a map is really helpful.
• 10:54
  You can sort of see the water and see like it, it becomes a
• 10:58
  physical object as opposed to just a, a the scripture for the
• 11:03
  bears attacks. You know what I mean?
• 11:06
  But I think the thing that probably would have done it for
• 11:08
  me at least, is when we were knocked off the bear saying
• 11:13
  like, oh, well, you fell to the far side of the bear away from
• 11:16
  the water. And as the water tries to reach
• 11:18
  out for you, it gets weaker. Like it it it it loses some of
• 11:22
  its strength. It can't reach as far.
• 11:24
  That may have been the thing that sell that that had it click
• 11:29
  for me. Maybe the only problem I see
• 11:31
  there is if I did that, then that would imply like a
• 11:35
  mechanical effect, like maybe it did less damage or something and
• 11:38
  I didn't have anything like that.
• 11:39
  So if I did that, but it still did the same amount of damage,
• 11:43
  that still might be confusing, you know?
• 11:46
  It could, yeah. It and that sort of, that's sort
• 11:49
  of what this whole thing's about, right, is like, yeah,
• 11:52
  there is no set sweet spot for this thing.
• 11:54
  It really has to be a case by case basis.
• 11:57
  Ultimately, probably as the fight was dragging on and, and
• 12:00
  nobody was grokking it, I probably should have been like,
• 12:04
  OK, players. I, I probably should have just
• 12:07
  told you on a player level, there's a way to disable this
• 12:10
  ability, right? And maybe not, I won't tell you
• 12:12
  the solution, but I'll be like, there's a way to turn this off,
• 12:14
  right? That probably at a certain point
• 12:18
  I probably should have just pulled the RIP cord on that.
• 12:22
  And sometimes you just have to pull the RIP cord in these
• 12:25
  scenarios because you had a plan for how you were going to
• 12:29
  deliver the information and it's not working and you're in the
• 12:32
  middle of sessions. So you don't necessarily have
• 12:34
  time to like re evaluate your plan.
• 12:36
  So sometimes you just pull the RIP cord and say, I'm telling
• 12:41
  you on a player level, you could do something here, you know, or
• 12:44
  if it's really bad, just tell them the answer straight up.
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  If you fucked up majorly, I don't, I I can't think of a good
• 12:53
  example of that. But you know, if you're in a
• 12:55
  situation where you're like, oh, I gave them so little
• 12:58
  information, they have now completely screwed themselves.
• 13:01
  I need to just tell them because it's not there for cause.
• 13:04
  Ultimately, if players screw themselves and like get all
• 13:07
  their characters killed or something like that, If it was,
• 13:11
  if it was on them, if they had all the tools and then they go
• 13:14
  down, it's like, well, you know, I don't I'm I'm not necessarily
• 13:17
  feeling bad about that. If they get royally fucked and
• 13:21
  it's because I forgot to mention something that would have been
• 13:24
  majorly useful information. Now I feel guilty, right, like,
• 13:27
  oh, you, you were you were not working with a full deck.
• 13:32
  I can't blame you. Like if I forget, you know, if
• 13:34
  you guys are fighting, you know, if the players are fighting a
• 13:37
  fire elemental that does a shit load of damage, but you could
• 13:40
  kill it really fast if you had, you know, ice damage.
• 13:43
  And I forget to mention that it's a fire element.
• 13:46
  Like I just say elemental and I don't specify it's a fire
• 13:48
  elemental. You know what I mean?
• 13:50
  Yeah. I'm gonna feel guilty about that
• 13:52
  because I'm like, Oh yeah, that would have been really useful
• 13:55
  information if I said it was a fire elemental specifically.
• 13:59
  So in a situation like that, and this wasn't quite that scenario,
• 14:03
  but I do think I could have pulled the ripcord a little bit
• 14:06
  and said there is a way to disable this ability and then
• 14:09
  left it at that. I think that might have been
• 14:12
  worth it, you know? Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 14:18
  So reinforcing my reinforcing my thesis point, This is why this
• 14:23
  is something that you constantly have to contend with when you're
• 14:26
  GM ING is because it's a difficult pendulum to you know,
• 14:30
  the scale, the balance scales are difficult to keep even.
• 14:36
  But the question becomes because someone might have this thought,
• 14:40
  why balance between the two at all?
• 14:42
  Why not just pick one or the other, right.
• 14:44
  OK, so let's address that. OK, so one end of the scale here
• 14:51
  could be why not just tell them everything, right?
• 14:54
  So GMs might have, GM might have the thought that the easy
• 14:58
  solution to this issue is to simply give all the players the
• 15:01
  information that you have behind the screen, like a board game,
• 15:05
  right? Or you just tell them you know
• 15:08
  the bad guys are doing XY and Z, they have this ability or
• 15:10
  whatever. Of course you could do this, but
• 15:13
  the main reason you don't want to do this mostly comes down to
• 15:16
  player satisfaction. If you tell the players the
• 15:20
  answer to the puzzles, always tell them what weakness the
• 15:24
  enemy has, or say exactly what the MPC's inner thoughts are,
• 15:29
  then the players have no information to try and pry from
• 15:32
  the narrative themselves. And if they don't get to figure
• 15:35
  out the problem themselves, they don't get to feel particularly
• 15:38
  smart and don't ever really feel satisfied, because the challenge
• 15:43
  is a big part of the fun. So like, yeah, you could just
• 15:48
  tell them, oh, this enemy's weak to ice and lightning and it has
• 15:52
  this much HP, and this is his attack, and his attack uses
• 15:56
  these dice. Like, you could tell them all
• 15:57
  that, but then, you know, it's not as satisfying to win the
• 16:02
  fight. Because part of the part of the
• 16:07
  assumption about the way RPGs are designed is that not all
• 16:10
  that information is readily available.
• 16:13
  I mean, you know, video games, this is true too, right?
• 16:15
  A lot of games, like Monster Hunter, for example, the
• 16:18
  monster's health bar is hidden. And the reason for that is
• 16:21
  'cause it keeps you tense the entire time you're fighting the
• 16:24
  monster, 'cause you're not entirely sure when it's going to
• 16:26
  go down. Like you don't know exactly when
• 16:28
  it's going to die. You get little indicators,
• 16:31
  right? You get them to a certain point
• 16:32
  of health and they get hurt and they limp around, but you still
• 16:35
  don't have any exact numbers. So it's the same kind of idea.
• 16:40
  If you just tell them everything.
• 16:41
  It kills a lot of the satisfaction of overcoming the
• 16:44
  challenge. And also it's really satisfying.
• 16:47
  And I can, I can vouch for this very recently because we're
• 16:51
  playing Fabulous Ultima, which is a game that uses basically
• 16:54
  every enemy. That game has resistances and
• 16:57
  vulnerabilities like almost no enemies in the game have none.
• 17:03
  So the players are constantly trying to fish for, OK, what's
• 17:07
  this guy weak to? And as soon as they find it,
• 17:10
  everyone immediately gets hyped. They're like, oh, OK, we found
• 17:12
  what he's weak to, all right, hit him, hit him, hit him,
• 17:14
  right. Like as soon as they figured out
• 17:15
  the bear was leaked to lightning, they hammered the
• 17:18
  shit out of him with lightning damage and that immediately
• 17:20
  started to swing things in their favor.
• 17:23
  So like, it's fun to figure it out, you know, Whereas if I just
• 17:26
  told them, obviously they would still get the mechanical benefit
• 17:30
  of the double damage, but it's not as fun if you didn't get it
• 17:34
  figured out yourself then on the other.
• 17:41
  Let's say I think something funny about that for me as
• 17:44
  somebody who's played AD and D for a long time and have had
• 17:47
  countless characters try to figure out vulnerabilities and
• 17:51
  resistances, only to just realize as I ran the game
• 17:54
  myself, those don't really exist conventionally in D&D on a large
• 17:59
  scale that I go, I did what I did what I did with Django,
• 18:02
  right where I go, OK, well, this one character has a really weird
• 18:05
  damage type that no one's resistance to.
• 18:08
  Yes, because. I should.
• 18:10
  I did that with Goro as well, and I should probably work
• 18:13
  myself out of that habit because it is.
• 18:15
  Ultimately, I wouldn't say it's fucking us, but yeah, it's just
• 18:22
  one of those things. Well, yeah, it's funny because
• 18:23
  you built a character who specifically ignores that
• 18:26
  mechanic, and now there are times where it's like, oh, you
• 18:29
  kind of wish you could use it. Yeah, yeah, I 'cause I
• 18:33
  literally, I'm like, I ignore the kid because I'm like, no, I
• 18:35
  just don't want to do that. Yeah, Yeah.
• 18:38
  Well, because yeah, in 5 E it's like the the mechanic exists,
• 18:45
  but it's not utilized that much. And a lot of the time, even if
• 18:49
  an enemy does have a vulnerability or something like
• 18:51
  that, you're still probably better off just going for more
• 18:54
  reliable, consistent damage than trying to fish for the
• 18:58
  vulnerability is because of the way the math tends to work out.
• 19:02
  You know, like, yeah, you'll do double damage if you find out
• 19:07
  the enemy's weak to fire, but if you already do force damage,
• 19:10
  you're probably better off spending three turns doing
• 19:13
  consistent force damage than trying to trying a bunch of
• 19:16
  other types of damage to eventually get to fire.
• 19:19
  You know, yeah. Whereas, and I think part of the
• 19:24
  reason for that in 5E is because a a lot of enemies just don't
• 19:29
  have a vulnerability. So, you know, you just don't
• 19:32
  bother that much. And B, it's not as easy to have
• 19:38
  a bunch of different types of damage in 5 E, right?
• 19:40
  Like being able to pick from like, oh, I can do fire damage
• 19:45
  and I can do poison damage and I can do ice.
• 19:47
  That's actually kind of hard in that game.
• 19:49
  Whereas Fabulous, you have all sorts of tools to whip out a ton
• 19:52
  of different damage types and several of the classes have
• 19:55
  different options for how they can go about that.
• 19:57
  And even if you don't, you still have the elemental shards which
• 20:00
  still let you do like 5 different damage types.
• 20:03
  Right, you just don't get I think you don't get poison light
• 20:06
  and dark from those crystals. So it's like and everyone has
• 20:09
  those. So it's like it's harder to fish
• 20:12
  for and not as worth it in 5 E and you don't have it as
• 20:16
  reliably as often. So what ends up happening?
• 20:19
  You just ignore it unless you know, right.
• 20:23
  That's the you know, if you're fighting the troll, you're like,
• 20:26
  well, we need fire damage, right.
• 20:27
  That's that's the few times it'll come up.
• 20:30
  You know what's you know what's funny is I think Matt would have
• 20:33
  been a great person to have on this topic because of his
• 20:36
  opinions on like, if you're a player and you personally have
• 20:40
  that information that trolls are weak to fire, you should not act
• 20:44
  on it. Well, I.
• 20:46
  Think we could have had some interesting debates with this
• 20:48
  topic specifically? Well, part of this.
• 20:51
  It's the flip side to that, right?
• 20:53
  Yeah, well, part of this, the part of this whole thing is
• 20:55
  about meta knowledge and meta gaming knowledge and stuff.
• 20:58
  And it's not really the main crux of it because I don't
• 21:03
  really have a great answer, but it is something to consider that
• 21:08
  you have to keep in mind for sure.
• 21:13
  But talking about the two extremes of the scale here on
• 21:17
  the other end, your other option is, you know, why not tell them
• 21:22
  nothing at all, right. So on one hand we have tell them
• 21:24
  just everything. On the other hand, just tell
• 21:26
  them nothing at all. This is much more common for GM,
• 21:31
  especially new ones. They decide they're not going to
• 21:34
  tell their players Jack shit. Right?
• 21:37
  They go with the angle of making the players fish or find every
• 21:40
  bit of information they want and only give them the absolute
• 21:43
  barely bare minimum that is directly obvious slash in front
• 21:47
  of the characters. Before I continue, Isaiah, do
• 21:50
  you know what the word diegetic means?
• 21:54
  'Cause I couldn't tell you the exact definition of it, but I do
• 21:57
  understand roughly what the word means.
• 21:58
  OK, so diegetic, bring on listening to the diegetic means
• 22:04
  something that exists in the actual world of the medium.
• 22:08
  So for example. Right, right.
• 22:10
  They, they talk about this with, with scoring and video games a
• 22:13
  lot, right? Like Diegetic is if the music is
• 22:15
  happening in the it's context, right?
• 22:18
  It just sort of means it's narrative context.
• 22:21
  The the exact definition is occurring within the context of
• 22:24
  the story and able to be heard by the characters.
• 22:27
  So for example, the cantina scene in Star Wars when they
• 22:31
  first arrive is diegetic music because the band is playing the
• 22:35
  song in the scene, right? So the music that the audience
• 22:39
  is hearing, the characters are also hearing.
• 22:42
  So that's diegetic. That's sweet, sweet jizz.
• 22:46
  When Luke stands on the dunes and looks out at the two sons
• 22:50
  and we hear the Force theme, that's non diegetic music.
• 22:53
  Luke is not hearing that music, but we as the audience do hear
• 22:56
  that music. That's the difference, right?
• 22:59
  So in the context of tabletop RPGs, something that's diegetic
• 23:05
  means it's something the player characters are like interacting
• 23:09
  and exists within the context of that of their world.
• 23:12
  If it's non diegetic, it means it's something that the players
• 23:15
  might know but not necessarily their characters.
• 23:19
  So the reason I mentioned this, the GM who decides not to tell
• 23:23
  their any players, basically the decision is any information that
• 23:27
  is non diegetic to the story, the GM will not give out freely
• 23:31
  and the players can only find this information in character.
• 23:34
  So an example would be not telling the players that a troll
• 23:38
  is weak to fire. And if they do hit the troll
• 23:41
  with fire, you might narrate the troll reacting in in pain like
• 23:46
  extra in pain. And if the players don't
• 23:49
  understand that you're showing them it's a vulnerability to
• 23:52
  fire, then that's too bad you're not going to tell them because
• 23:56
  vulnerability mechanics do not exist in the context of the
• 24:00
  story. So you simply will not say it's
• 24:04
  vulnerable to fire and takes double damage, right?
• 24:06
  Because you're trying to do everything diegetically.
• 24:09
  So you're not going to say it's taking double damage because
• 24:12
  that's not diegetic to the characters.
• 24:14
  The problem here, of course, comes down to how the medium of
• 24:17
  tabletop is played, right? Tabletop RPGs are played in our
• 24:22
  imaginations in a shared headspace where we convey
• 24:25
  information back and forth through conversation.
• 24:28
  There is minimal to no visual information and very little
• 24:32
  other context that would be there in something like a video
• 24:34
  game or a movie or show. So this means that
• 24:37
  miscommunication and misunderstanding is commonplace
• 24:40
  in tabletop games, so you have to contend with that as AGM.
• 24:45
  So using the troll example, it might be obvious to you as the
• 24:50
  GM that you're describing fire vulnerability when the troll
• 24:54
  gets hit, but another player might think you're saying that
• 24:56
  the troll was sent into a state of rage because of the fire and
• 25:00
  thus decides not to use fire again, so they get the complete
• 25:02
  wrong message. Also worth noting that when you
• 25:08
  as the GM have information in front of you, it is really easy
• 25:11
  to assume the players will get what you mean, but they don't
• 25:14
  have the information you do, so they might assume incorrectly.
• 25:18
  Much like my players did with the Big Bear, right?
• 25:22
  Yep. So yeah, it's basically if you
• 25:26
  tell the players nothing and force them to do everything in
• 25:29
  character via only diagenic information, you can run into a
• 25:34
  lot of issues like where effectively they're going to be
• 25:40
  playing on the back foot. Now, the example I gave of like
• 25:44
  the players misinterpreting the troll weakness and choosing to
• 25:47
  not use fire because they think it's actually like a buff for
• 25:50
  the troll, The GM might think that's fine, right?
• 25:53
  The GM might be like, well, that's OK if that's how they
• 25:55
  react, that's how they react. Like that's how I want to run
• 25:57
  the game. That's fine.
• 26:00
  But you have to contend with that.
• 26:03
  You know, you have to keep that in mind.
• 26:04
  Much like the player, the GM who tells the players everything.
• 26:10
  They might be OK with the fact that their players aren't quite
• 26:14
  as satisfied because they're not like discovering stuff as much
• 26:17
  but on their own, but they might be OK with that.
• 26:21
  But you still have to contend with it and think about it and
• 26:23
  keep it in mind. Now, which side do you lean on
• 26:27
  more than the other probably Like surely you understand that
• 26:31
  both are are necessary, but which one do you personally
• 26:33
  think that you? I generally so most of this is
• 26:39
  the thing too and I'll I'll get to this later.
• 26:41
  A lot of this is very game specific in terms of like style
• 26:44
  of game. My default position is I will
• 26:48
  lean towards the I ain't gonna tell him shit position a little
• 26:54
  bit more, but I won't I won't go out of my way to obscure the
• 27:01
  information. So like if the players hit the
• 27:05
  troll with fire and I describe the troll as like in pain and
• 27:09
  like clearly bothered by the fire and then a player goes oh
• 27:13
  he's weak to fire, I will say yes he's weak to fire.
• 27:16
  Right. Like I let them discover it.
• 27:18
  I didn't tell them the troll is weak to fire ahead of time.
• 27:20
  I let them discover it And then once they ask to confirm I will
• 27:24
  agree I will confirm yes it is right.
• 27:27
  So I won't immediately give the information, but I'm not overly
• 27:30
  cagey with the information. Does that make sense?
• 27:34
  Yes, I so I, we seem to be on opposite sides because I am
• 27:37
  someone who was more typical to give my players information.
• 27:40
  So in the, the context of the troll situation, right, I would
• 27:44
  also describe the troll maybe starts howling, maybe starts
• 27:46
  panicking specifically like using a very coded word
• 27:49
  panicking. And after I describe it and you
• 27:53
  know, the players are on the edge of their seats, you go I, I
• 27:56
  do this. I love doing this with the IT
• 27:58
  was more effective than you expected because that every
• 28:02
  single time gets players like let's fucking go.
• 28:06
  I mean, I will do that sometimes too.
• 28:08
  It, it, it depends like you, if it's just like, I don't know, I,
• 28:17
  I do both, I guess 'cause I will just say like when we're playing
• 28:20
  Fabio, I will say like, yeah, he took double damage, right.
• 28:22
  Like I will just say that. So like it kind of basically, I
• 28:27
  try to be upfront, I'm not delivering the information, but
• 28:33
  I'm once it's out there, I'm not being overly cagey 'cause I
• 28:36
  don't generally feel like it's worth it, You know, whereas
• 28:40
  cause some GMs will respond, will describe the troll thing
• 28:44
  and then the player will be like, OK, so is he weak to fire?
• 28:47
  And then the GM will be like, you don't know, I'm just telling
• 28:49
  you how he just how he reacted, right?
• 28:51
  I don't really like. Doing that no that I find
• 28:54
  fucking infuriating. Yeah, I don't really love doing
• 28:57
  that. It doesn't.
• 28:58
  I understand the urge to do it, but most of the time I'm like,
• 29:01
  eh. Or like another great example is
• 29:03
  is armor class, right? I'm not gonna tell you the armor
• 29:06
  class, but if y'all are paying attention, you can just figure
• 29:09
  it out and I'm not gonna go out of my way to hide it, you know
• 29:12
  what I mean? Like I'm not gonna try, I'm not
• 29:16
  gonna try and obscure it any extra.
• 29:17
  I'm just gonna let you math it out.
• 29:20
  Yes, for me, when it's AC, if I know that the players, you know,
• 29:23
  it's like, oh, I rolled a 14 that misses, OK, I rolled A-15
• 29:28
  that hits. OK, I rolled the 16 that hits,
• 29:31
  then I'll be like, well, OK, so it's a CS15.
• 29:33
  Because at that point they know, right?
• 29:34
  Like they have to be actively not paying attention.
• 29:37
  And I, I don't, I don't, I'm not going to fault somebody for
• 29:39
  like, you know, having stepped away for a second or were just
• 29:44
  was distracted, you know what I mean?
• 29:46
  I'm not going to expect people that they're going to be clocked
• 29:48
  in 100% of time. So I'll just tell them.
• 29:51
  Well, the only reason, the only reason I don't usually say is
• 29:54
  because I think there's a little bit of an element of the fun of
• 30:00
  the players sharing that information with each other and
• 30:02
  figuring it out, right. I distinctly remember when we
• 30:04
  were playing 5 E, almost every time without fail, Sam would
• 30:09
  get, would figure out the AC because he would be like, 'cause
• 30:12
  he would track the hits and then, you know, a round or two
• 30:16
  would go by and he'd go, OK, this is the AC guys, right?
• 30:18
  And he would tell you. And I think that was an element
• 30:20
  of fun for Sam to be that person tracking the math.
• 30:24
  You know what I mean? For sure.
• 30:26
  So in that context, I just, I just let him, like I could tell
• 30:30
  him or he could say it, it's, it's the same outcome, but I let
• 30:34
  the players do it 'cause I think there is that element of like,
• 30:37
  OK, we figured it out. You know, it also keeps everyone
• 30:41
  a little like paying attention a little bit more.
• 30:43
  And it's just like a camaraderie, like teamwork kind
• 30:46
  of vibe in the same way that playing playing Fabula, you, you
• 30:50
  track a lot of the enemy's health a lot of the time, right?
• 30:53
  Like, or at least you'll, I am actively doing like you'll be
• 30:56
  like we did about this much damage.
• 30:59
  And then when I say. I keep tallying my damage
• 31:01
  because I I, I. That one's funny because I
• 31:04
  understand my role in this party is DPS.
• 31:07
  I'm playing 14 Samurai. What's your functionality?
• 31:09
  My. Damage is my functionality.
• 31:11
  Damage is my function, but you'll, you'll, what you do is
• 31:16
  you'll be like, OK, I'm tracking the damage.
• 31:18
  And then when I say the enemy's in crisis, you go, OK, we did
• 31:21
  this much damage, he went into crisis, he has this much health
• 31:23
  left, right. Like, and you, you deliver all
• 31:26
  that information to the group. So yeah, I think it's, I think
• 31:30
  it's a little bit of an element of fun too, to like let the
• 31:32
  players kind of take that time and parse it.
• 31:40
  Yeah. OK, so where was I?
• 31:43
  All right, so, so now I'm I'm just going to go through a
• 31:52
  couple of different tips and tricks slash scenarios where
• 32:02
  scenarios isn't the right word. The context where this kind of
• 32:07
  thing comes up a lot, I guess is the easiest way to put it.
• 32:10
  So the the most simple manifestation of this issue is
• 32:16
  delivering story and plot information, right?
• 32:22
  Story and plot generally you're going to do pretty diegetically.
• 32:27
  The characters and the players have as much information as
• 32:31
  makes sense for them to have in terms of what they have seen and
• 32:36
  gathered and who they talk to in yada yada.
• 32:40
  This can change a little bit if you have a mechanic or a
• 32:45
  narrative reason for players to know more than their characters.
• 32:49
  So the obvious example that we're using right now, Fabula
• 32:52
  Ultima has the GM seams, which is very specifically giving
• 32:56
  information to the players that their characters do not have in
• 33:01
  a non diegetic fashion, because the GM scene is you're narrating
• 33:07
  a scene to the players that their characters don't see, only
• 33:13
  the players do. Now doing it that way, obviously
• 33:19
  you're going to have to finesse it a little bit more in terms of
• 33:24
  how much information you want to give up.
• 33:26
  But you generally want to err on the side of, at least in my
• 33:30
  opinion, you generally want to err on the side of the players
• 33:33
  know something is up but don't have a solution to the problem,
• 33:38
  right? So you might narrate the GM
• 33:42
  scene and a character who is, you know, the bad guy shows up
• 33:46
  in the GM scene. So the players know who the bad
• 33:48
  guy is. But that doesn't mean they can
• 33:51
  stop their plan, right? They're just like, OK, we know
• 33:55
  who the per problem is, now we have to figure out how to deal
• 33:58
  with them. Most games though, most of the
• 34:06
  time, most games and most GMs generally will tell the players
• 34:10
  what the the characters logically know in a diegetic
• 34:12
  fashion. So this won't be that big of an
• 34:16
  issue in terms of the like the disconnect.
• 34:18
  But again, it it does, it varies game on game by game.
• 34:22
  It it really does. And, and I'm experiencing this
• 34:25
  right now with Lancer, right? Yeah, because you get into a
• 34:28
  whole different realm of diegetic information when
• 34:31
  characters have access to the fucking Internet.
• 34:34
  Yeah, there's a lot of things that I didn't share in
• 34:37
  hellscapes or, or, or like kinds of topics that I wouldn't
• 34:40
  typically give them in hellscapes, but I am giving them
• 34:43
  in Lancer. Because a character who is a
• 34:46
  computer nerd and spends 90% of her time on the Omni net would
• 34:50
  probably have come across some weird like information that most
• 34:54
  people wouldn't know. Right.
• 34:55
  Like if, if you're someone who is deeply ingrained in the the
• 35:00
  military industrial complex, you're going to know certain
• 35:03
  call outs or certain maneuvers or certain mechs or, or ideas
• 35:07
  that you wouldn't otherwise. A good example of that I think
• 35:12
  was this was in Hellscapes actually, but this was halfway
• 35:15
  through our campaign. They had the big bandit war
• 35:18
  thing, which they technically lost.
• 35:21
  They beat the they, they, they lost the battle, but won the
• 35:24
  war. They were, they were pushed off
• 35:25
  by the the bandits and the military, like actual military
• 35:31
  faction were like, yeah, so we're engaging A collapsing
• 35:33
  retreat. You might want to, you know,
• 35:35
  figure that out. And, you know, you as Josh might
• 35:39
  not know what the fuck that means.
• 35:41
  And a lot of players, their characters wouldn't know what
• 35:43
  the fuck that means. But Brett's character, who was a
• 35:45
  soldier from that faction would know that a collapsing retreat
• 35:49
  is you get the fuck out and then bomb where you were just
• 35:51
  standing so they can't follow you.
• 35:54
  And if the players are like, oh, so you've been talking about the
• 35:56
  ground that we're standing on is about to become a crater.
• 35:59
  OK, good to know. Yeah, I, I will say though, the,
• 36:06
  the Internet thing you're talking about that is still
• 36:09
  relatively in the realm of diegetic, mostly because the
• 36:15
  character is doing the, like surfing the net.
• 36:20
  The where it will start a shift into the non diegetic realm is
• 36:25
  where you as the GM are delivering like you as the GM
• 36:32
  are delivering like extra information.
• 36:35
  Right, 'cause like it's that thing in the movie scene where
• 36:41
  the main character or, or like the, the, the hacker guy who
• 36:45
  works, who works on the main character's team finds out like
• 36:49
  top secret information from the government or something.
• 36:51
  And you're like, what the fuck? And it it is diegetic in the
• 36:57
  sense that he took the time in the scene to get the
• 37:00
  information, but it feels, it feels like the director, you,
• 37:07
  it's like you feel the hand of the director delivering the
• 37:10
  information, right. You do.
• 37:13
  But I, I think in that situation, kind of what I was
• 37:17
  saying, right, when a character spends all their time on like
• 37:20
  the deep web, right? Or that you are like a hacker by
• 37:24
  profession and especially if you've done like, so I'm
• 37:27
  thinking of of, of Snubby's character, right.
• 37:30
  She was a government contracted like hacker Lancer.
• 37:34
  Yeah. So when it comes to certain
• 37:35
  factions, I just give her information because I know that
• 37:39
  her character would likely have been doing some snooping when
• 37:42
  she absolutely should not have been.
• 37:44
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 37:45
  I'll just give her that for free.
• 37:46
  That's what I'm saying. It does make sense in a diegetic
• 37:48
  fashion. Like it does make sense that the
• 37:50
  character could potentially get that information.
• 37:52
  I'm just saying it, it shifts into the out of character non
• 37:56
  diegetic realm a little bit because it's, it's almost one of
• 38:02
  those things where it's like you as the GM are, are hand
• 38:05
  delivering the information to the character in a weird way
• 38:09
  because it's it's really specific and it's really
• 38:12
  valuable information. And it it's you could be like,
• 38:16
  you know, when did the character have time to look that up?
• 38:19
  How did they not get in trouble? But you don't really worry about
• 38:21
  that, right? So it like teeters between the
• 38:23
  two positions a little bit, a little bit.
• 38:26
  It's kind of a funny, it's like a funny, it's almost like a
• 38:31
  third, third position scenario. Like it makes sense in character
• 38:36
  to a point, but it's it's not a full blown GM scene, but it's
• 38:43
  like the kind of information you might get from AGM scene too,
• 38:46
  you know? But no, it is definitely for
• 38:49
  sure. Anytime you're anytime you have
• 38:51
  that level of potential information to acquire, it's
• 38:56
  like, yeah, it it's kind of like that thing to where if you're
• 39:02
  playing a game like Blades or something and your character
• 39:06
  goes out and talks to a bunch of people to try and figure out
• 39:10
  like where the target is or whatever.
• 39:12
  And they conveniently happened to find the exact person who
• 39:16
  owes the exact answer to the exact problem.
• 39:18
  And you're kind of like, you're like, well, it, it is in
• 39:22
  character and makes sense to a point, but it the information so
• 39:26
  specific, you're like, it's a little much maybe, but sure,
• 39:29
  I'll buy it. You know what I mean?
• 39:31
  Well, so I'll tell you what, we actually had that exact thing
• 39:33
  happen in Blades for us. I remember this specifically
• 39:36
  because my character, we, I was, you know, I was, I was the
• 39:39
  character who was always looking up public records and shit.
• 39:42
  And I remember the red sashes guy came up to me because I was
• 39:48
  like, you know, oh, like this one, we were going into the,
• 39:51
  the, the underground Fight Club, right when, when Astor summoned
• 39:54
  a bunch of demons, when he committed war crimes.
• 39:58
  Oh, CIA and I, you were like, oh, you know, this red sash guy
• 40:01
  comes up to you and gives you some like esoteric information.
• 40:05
  And I was like, and I know the red sashes are coming after us,
• 40:08
  right. And you're like, yes, you do.
• 40:09
  The guy. Cool, cool, cool, cool.
• 40:12
  Yeah, right. Yeah.
• 40:14
  It's like it is Digenic. It doesn't make sense.
• 40:16
  It's in character, but it is like, huh, convenient.
• 40:19
  Yeah, for sure. But sometimes that's just the
• 40:22
  best way to do it, right? Like that, that is often like
• 40:26
  marrying the two together sometimes just makes the most
• 40:28
  sense. It's just the easiest way.
• 40:33
  So still staying within the realm of like the general
• 40:38
  narrative and story of the game, What about dealing with NPCS?
• 40:44
  So obviously information on MPCS is related to the story, right?
• 40:49
  Duh. And again, you can handle this
• 40:54
  in terms of what you, what your characters know about, what your
• 40:58
  players and their characters know about MPCS.
• 41:02
  You can handle this in a mostly diegetic fashion, but sometimes
• 41:10
  you will have to kind of decide if it makes more makes sense to
• 41:13
  give more than that. And what I mean, the classic
• 41:20
  example is the insight check in D and D5 E, right?
• 41:25
  Because. I was hoping you were going to
• 41:27
  bring this up, 'cause this is something that I was, yeah.
• 41:29
  'Cause the insight check mechanic is it does exist
• 41:35
  diegetically in that the player character is, you know,
• 41:40
  observing the NPC, right? So it does exist in the context
• 41:44
  of the characters, but you know it, it kind of gives you this
• 41:51
  out of character level of information.
• 41:56
  The classic, you know, he's lying situation, right?
• 42:01
  And now as the GM, if you want to try and push this like 'cause
• 42:06
  the whole thing where it's like the GM tells you for sure this
• 42:10
  MPC is lying to you, that is definitely 100% non diegetic
• 42:14
  because the GM is giving you 100% concrete information that
• 42:19
  your character could never actually have 100% concretely
• 42:22
  like that, barring like magic obviously.
• 42:25
  OK, do you know who is great at this, Cardell?
• 42:32
  OK. And providing information like
• 42:34
  this, I'm going to tell you exactly how well I would play
• 42:38
  with Cardell in person, right? Like our games were held over
• 42:41
  the Internet, but we'd play in person.
• 42:42
  And I think he, he solved this perfectly.
• 42:45
  I'm sorry, I know this is tangible.
• 42:46
  No, no. Well, it might.
• 42:47
  I might it might layer over with the next chunk of my Note 2, but
• 42:50
  keep. Going, going, going.
• 42:52
  No, no, no, no. It might be better if you say
• 42:54
  this first. I'm.
• 42:55
  Thinking well, so I most people can't do this unless you're
• 42:59
  playing in person. OK, OK, but when characters
• 43:03
  would like, I mean, people tell us when characters would lie.
• 43:06
  People do still play in person. I know that's hard to believe.
• 43:09
  I know, I know he wouldn't tell us when characters would lie but
• 43:12
  he was really good about giving NPCS lot of tails.
• 43:17
  Yes so good. Like I there was oh God, who was
• 43:22
  like 6 years ago, but there was a character where he was like
• 43:27
  such a smarmy little shit. And he, I remember he lied once
• 43:31
  and he did like, he did this thing where he like cocked his
• 43:35
  chin to the side. Like I don't know how I can
• 43:41
  like, you know, it's like the O thing.
• 43:43
  But like he would, he would like bring his chin over every time
• 43:47
  he would say something. And I was like, I thought it was
• 43:51
  just a behaviour. I thought it was like a quirk of
• 43:52
  the character. But at one point I said
• 43:55
  something that spoke to the character, right?
• 43:58
  Like I, I was like, oh, I have this info.
• 44:00
  And he was like, I wouldn't know anything about that.
• 44:02
  And he like turned his head to the side again and I was like.
• 44:06
  Wait, wait, wait. Ah, OK.
• 44:10
  Yeah, so he was. He was.
• 44:13
  Slowly but surely. Have loving the shit out of me,
• 44:18
  yeah. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, right.
• 44:20
  Yeah. He was like, she was like
• 44:21
  training you on the information, which, yeah.
• 44:25
  So yeah, that is that is what I was.
• 44:27
  That's basically layers of what I was about to say because what
• 44:30
  I was going to the next bit I was saying is like, as the GM,
• 44:35
  you can try to handle to handle the insight check in a diegetic
• 44:40
  fashion by saying things like, you know, he's sweating
• 44:43
  profusely. You notice he's tapping his hand
• 44:46
  nervously, right? Which is essentially what you're
• 44:48
  saying Cardell is doing. The problem is of course, that
• 44:53
  all humans have very different body language and those
• 44:56
  different, those different elements of body language can
• 45:00
  change, especially when you're talking like across cultures.
• 45:04
  So when it comes to using a mechanic that the book is saying
• 45:08
  gives the gives the player direct information, you're
• 45:12
  almost always better off delivering that information non
• 45:15
  diagenically and directly to the player so that it is clear and
• 45:19
  gives the player what they earned.
• 45:21
  But like you were just saying, there is a way you can kind of
• 45:26
  thread that needle if you want. But it it, yeah, it's hard and.
• 45:32
  It is, it's really difficult. And I, I think, you know, to
• 45:35
  Chris's credit and maybe a little bit discredit, I don't
• 45:38
  know that he was doing it specifically for me.
• 45:42
  And I, because I do this where I will give NPC's specific body
• 45:46
  language and I know that the player can't see them, but I'm
• 45:52
  doing it in character. Yeah, it helps me stay in
• 45:54
  character. So it's possible that that was
• 45:56
  just a tick he had for that character.
• 45:59
  And it, you know, I, I could be talking out of my ass.
• 46:01
  This could be the most amazing fortuitous circumstance event.
• 46:05
  But assume I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say
• 46:07
  that it wasn't. It was like a tailored thing he
• 46:09
  was doing, either for himself or for us, and it was really
• 46:12
  effective. Yeah, it, yeah.
• 46:16
  I mean, it doesn't matter either if it was 100% planned or not
• 46:19
  because it worked, right. But yeah, something like the
• 46:23
  Insight check is, you know, it's it's it's an eternal debate,
• 46:31
  right? You can hear and listen, go
• 46:33
  listen to any tabletop podcast or video or anything.
• 46:37
  It always comes up like it should Insight be a lie
• 46:40
  detector. How much did you tell him?
• 46:41
  Right. All that shit, you just got to
• 46:44
  decide as AGM and with the style of game you're playing, do you
• 46:49
  care enough to try and make it more complicated or, or are you
• 46:53
  OK with just letting it deliver the information just as is?
• 46:58
  And me personally, if the characters have an ability or a
• 47:04
  mechanic or something like that that gives them information and
• 47:09
  it says, you know, this information has to be delivered
• 47:13
  in, you know, this information has to be delivered in such a
• 47:16
  way that the player knows for sure, then I'm generally going
• 47:19
  to say just do it. You know what I mean?
• 47:22
  Let me let me ask you, how do you typically handle inside
• 47:26
  checks 'cause you you were sort of talking about how you know,
• 47:28
  should you or should you not? How do you personally?
• 47:29
  Handle it. I think I mostly just let him be
• 47:32
  a lied diserger. I mean, I, I'm not, I'm not
• 47:39
  generally running the kind of game where it being something
• 47:43
  else is worth the time really, you know what I mean?
• 47:46
  Like if you're running the, if you're running the Apothecary's
• 47:51
  Diary RPG and. I play.
• 47:55
  That characters lying and and finagling with each other and
• 47:58
  trying to get a better position in the court or whatever.
• 48:02
  Then the insight check being a lie detector is going to ruin
• 48:05
  some of the fun. Right, because the the courtly
• 48:09
  back and forth is the combat as it were, right.
• 48:14
  So if I'm running that kind of game, then yes, I'm not going to
• 48:17
  so much allow insight check as lie detector because the game is
• 48:23
  more is more focused on that. So we're going to spend more
• 48:26
  time on that. If I'm running the monster, you
• 48:29
  know, if I'm running the dungeon, fucking monster
• 48:31
  slapping game. I don't really care if Insight
• 48:35
  just tells you the goblin's lying, you know, like it's fine.
• 48:39
  You pass the check. And some games will tell you
• 48:42
  directly. So like Apocalypse World for
• 48:44
  example, has a couple abilities where it's like, or a couple of
• 48:48
  moves where it says the character knows this.
• 48:53
  The GM must tell you truthfully, right?
• 48:56
  Like the game explicitly says you have to tell them and in
• 49:02
  that scenario the game is like do not try to do this as some
• 49:06
  sort of in character shit. Deliver this as a non diegetic
• 49:09
  bit of information that they have.
• 49:11
  End of discussion. Right.
• 49:14
  So in those scenarios, you know, I defer to what the game wants
• 49:19
  me to do. And for Apocalypse World, that
• 49:25
  particular idea of the characters have moves that are
• 49:28
  just like, GM deliver me this information that makes sense for
• 49:34
  that game. Because a lot of the time the
• 49:36
  tension in Apocalypse World is, I know this character's going to
• 49:42
  screw me over, and now I have to figure out how to deal with it.
• 49:44
  You know what I mean? Like, if you just don't know
• 49:47
  what anybody's doing and they're just milling about, then the
• 49:50
  tension's not as much there. But if you know, oh, Jim is
• 49:53
  trying to fuck me, I need to make fuck me over.
• 49:56
  Fuck me over. I need to make, I need to make
• 50:02
  sure that I'm like out of his way 'cause he's about to cause
• 50:04
  trouble. Like that is the tension of that
• 50:07
  game. So yeah, most of the time
• 50:10
  inside, like I think, I mean, I don't know if you remember, but
• 50:13
  I think for the Beyond the Gods game, I mostly just let Insight
• 50:16
  be a lie detector for the most part.
• 50:19
  Yeah, I mean like recognizing a pattern and knowing your intent,
• 50:23
  though I just kind of wanted to. Yeah, yeah, for the most part
• 50:26
  I'm not too worried. I I do try to describe it a
• 50:30
  little. What I'll do is I will give you,
• 50:35
  I'll give the player the non diegetic information and then
• 50:39
  describe why the character knows that in the scene diegetically,
• 50:44
  right. Like I'll be like, you know,
• 50:45
  he's lying to you because you know, he's sweating a lot and he
• 50:50
  keeps grabbing his arm and he, he he's not making eye contact
• 50:53
  with you. Right, right.
• 50:54
  Like I'll, I'll, I'll give you the the info and then describe
• 50:58
  it and make it make sense. Usually because I don't what I
• 51:04
  don't love is the feeling of make check character suddenly
• 51:09
  knows information for no discernible reason.
• 51:12
  I don't love that. So I do try to like, make it
• 51:15
  make sense in the story somehow, You know what I mean?
• 51:18
  A. 100% no. My I, I asked my my typical
• 51:21
  tactic is not a lie detector. It's a you can.
• 51:27
  Again, they could have in my head, I'd like to think that
• 51:30
  they could have figured the tells out if we were in person,
• 51:33
  but I will just at that point tell them what that character's
• 51:35
  tells are. So if a character taps their
• 51:37
  fingers and you're starting to get them on the back foot, they
• 51:40
  might tap faster or stop tapping, or maybe they are
• 51:44
  sweating or they're they're clenching their teeth or flaring
• 51:48
  their nostrils, anything like that.
• 51:50
  Yeah, yeah, Another way to deal with it.
• 51:53
  I mean, you. Yeah.
• 51:57
  This is one of those funny ones. I don't think anyone's ever
• 51:59
  going to really have an answer. Ultimately, it just depends on
• 52:03
  how you want to handle it. It also.
• 52:07
  It depends on the medium in which you're playing, right?
• 52:09
  If you're at a table, you can do so much more than you could
• 52:12
  online. Yeah, actual physical body
• 52:14
  language, you could do a lot of potential weirdness for sure.
• 52:21
  And now we have the one that I probably have the least to say
• 52:26
  or do anything with which dealing with puzzles and how
• 52:31
  much information to give or not give on puzzles.
• 52:33
  So puzzles are probably the most divisive element of RPGs in
• 52:40
  terms of how much information should the players have or not,
• 52:44
  right? Usually the ways the way most
• 52:48
  people do go about it, I think is that the puzzle gets
• 52:53
  introduced to everyone you know in character and then everyone
• 52:59
  immediately goes out of character and begins to solve
• 53:03
  the puzzle in a non diegetic fashion.
• 53:06
  And then once the solution is found, everyone switches back
• 53:08
  into character and then describes themselves doing it in
• 53:11
  a diegetic fashion, right. That's usually how the puzzle
• 53:15
  situation goes. Most of the time people are fine
• 53:21
  doing it that way, you know, like solve the solve the thing
• 53:27
  in in in person, in as a player and then just, you know,
• 53:31
  describe your character doing it.
• 53:33
  Usually no biggie. And some people actually think
• 53:37
  that's fun, especially if you're playing in person and you can
• 53:40
  hand out physical toys or something that are related to
• 53:44
  the puzzle, you know, pieces of paper that have symbols on them
• 53:46
  or say it like that. Oh.
• 53:47
  The piece of peripherals. Yeah, so that can be fun.
• 53:51
  The problem though, that often comes up, you always have the
• 53:57
  one character or the one player who's probably playing something
• 54:01
  like a wizard and says, well, my character's a lot smarter than
• 54:06
  me, what can they figure this out or, or what can they figure
• 54:10
  out for this puzzle and to this problem, I do not have a good
• 54:17
  solution. Some people will say the
• 54:23
  character should be able to just to just give the player some
• 54:27
  degree of a solution. Like yes, you're playing the
• 54:32
  wizard, so the GM will just tell the wizard player like XY and Z
• 54:36
  information. But then other people will say
• 54:40
  that defeats the entire point of having a puzzle in your game at
• 54:43
  all. So the best I can usually say
• 54:48
  about it is give that wizard player some kind of a hint or a
• 54:54
  nudge that pushes them in the right direction.
• 54:56
  And that generally makes the player happy that their in
• 54:59
  character choice was recognized. You know, because ultimately the
• 55:04
  reason it that this usually comes up is because someone's
• 55:07
  playing the wizard character. They want the game and the game
• 55:12
  master to acknowledge the fact that they're playing a wizard,
• 55:15
  right? That feels good 'cause you made
• 55:16
  a choice about which class you're playing.
• 55:18
  So it feels good if that's acknowledged.
• 55:21
  So I generally say, you know, give them a little hint, give
• 55:24
  them a little extra information as the wizard character, and
• 55:28
  then they're usually happy. Don't necessarily solve it for
• 55:31
  them though, 'cause I feel like that definitely is kind of
• 55:35
  defeating the point, you know? Absolutely.
• 55:38
  Yeah. And hi, hello.
• 55:39
  To me, I'm usually the wizard player or at least playing the
• 55:43
  character with the 20 HP or 20 intelligence, even though I know
• 55:45
  it's arguably the worst stat in the game.
• 55:50
  But yeah, no, I typically I just want hints like, you know, if if
• 55:55
  you're looking at like AI don't know some sort of like logic
• 55:59
  puzzle, you can tell me you're like, oh, it's about
• 56:03
  permutations and computations. And I go, oh, OK, so I know how
• 56:06
  to, I know what direction to think about this.
• 56:08
  Yeah, you can start moving in a direction.
• 56:10
  Yeah, it's the same. It's the same thing as like when
• 56:13
  you're playing a video game like Balder's Gate 3, right?
• 56:16
  Like an RPG of that nature. You're playing Mass Effect, and
• 56:19
  then the game acknowledges one of the character creation
• 56:22
  choices you made. Like the game acknowledges
• 56:24
  you're playing a Bard, or the game acknowledges that you're
• 56:28
  you're the shepherd you chose is from Earth, right?
• 56:30
  Used to live on Earth like that. You know, the game like paying
• 56:36
  attention to your choice. Even if it's a little stupid
• 56:38
  thing like an extra line of dialogue that you wouldn't have
• 56:41
  gotten otherwise, it still makes you happy.
• 56:43
  You know what I mean? Oh, I live for that shit.
• 56:46
  Yeah, Like even in like Final Fantasy 14, which is an MMO and
• 56:51
  has absolutely no, like, you can't control them.
• 56:54
  You can't affect the narrative in any fashion.
• 56:56
  But every once in a while, the game will acknowledge something
• 56:59
  about your character. So like, there's certain quests
• 57:02
  where if you're playing a healer, the game will, you know,
• 57:06
  mention the fact like some a character will say in dialogue,
• 57:09
  like, oh, I know you're a healer, but we need you to do
• 57:11
  something else right now. You know, like they'll point out
• 57:14
  that fact. Or like another good example is
• 57:18
  there's an event that happens. I, I won't get too specific
• 57:20
  cause spoilers, but there's a thing that happens in
• 57:23
  Shadowbringers where a character shows up.
• 57:25
  And if you did the quest chain where you met that character and
• 57:30
  actually did that, you know, would know who that is, You get
• 57:34
  an extra dialogue option that you can call out their name and
• 57:36
  say who it is. If you didn't do that quest
• 57:38
  chain, you don't have that little dialogue option.
• 57:40
  So it's, it's literally just, it's like that kind of a thing,
• 57:44
  that little bit of acknowledgement, just it goes a
• 57:46
  long way. Absolutely.
• 57:52
  Then from puzzles we go to the the big doozy.
• 57:56
  I think, I feel, in my opinion, combat, right?
• 58:01
  I feel like combat is, is the most common, the most common
• 58:06
  element of constant back and forth between player and GM
• 58:09
  information is the combat. Assuming your game is combat
• 58:13
  focus, obviously substitute combat for whatever the main
• 58:17
  focus of your game is, right? In D&D it's combat, but if
• 58:20
  you're playing like Burning Wheel it might not be.
• 58:23
  But whatever the like that main central pillar mechanic is or
• 58:29
  central pillar thing that you do in the game, this is where
• 58:35
  combat is generally where you get the accusations of
• 58:37
  metagaming and arguments between players that can crop up because
• 58:41
  of the classic. Well, your character wouldn't
• 58:44
  know that line, right? The your character wouldn't know
• 58:47
  the trolls week to fire. Generally this kind of thing
• 58:55
  ends up being up to the GM on a very case by case basis of how
• 59:00
  much will information you're willing to give up.
• 59:03
  Some GMs will just tell the players the DC of every check
• 59:08
  and the AC of every monster with no questions and not care.
• 59:12
  Others won't tell the players necessarily, but they won't go
• 59:17
  out of the way to obscure the information either.
• 59:19
  And then others still will do everything in their power to
• 59:22
  keep that information as hidden as humanly possible.
• 59:26
  So it's, it's a, it's very much a spectrum of how you can handle
• 59:30
  this one. And again, it's where, it's
• 59:36
  where a lot of the arguments are going to come up.
• 59:38
  So to break it into like I, I broke up the combat thing to
• 59:43
  like 3 main chunks. So when you're when it comes to
• 59:48
  like stats, right, this is, this is a very common one, the stats
• 59:52
  of the enemy, stuff like AC and HP, right?
• 59:56
  Or whatever the equivalent in your game is.
• 1:00:00
  You know, most GMs will lean in the direction of not saying
• 1:00:05
  these things out, right, right. Most GMs will not say the boss
• 1:00:07
  has 200HP, but you know, in effort, Oh, I should say each of
• 1:00:15
  these bullet points, I've kind I'm, I'm, I'm giving each of
• 1:00:18
  these chunks, I'm giving kind of the pros and cons of the two
• 1:00:21
  sides. If you want your game to be like
• 1:00:26
  a little more relaxed and not necessarily a test of the
• 1:00:30
  players or a test for the players, then telling the
• 1:00:34
  players how much, how much HP the the enemy has, how much AC
• 1:00:38
  they have, you know how many spell slots they have left.
• 1:00:41
  Telling them stuff like that can make things a little easier and
• 1:00:44
  offload the amount of info you as the GM are keeping straight
• 1:00:48
  in your head and just make it transparent to the players that
• 1:00:52
  will, you know, will make your game a little more like casual,
• 1:00:55
  you know, a little more chill. Obviously the the con here being
• 1:01:02
  you lose out on, you know, the air of mystery, the feeling of
• 1:01:06
  discovery, the reward of solving the combat puzzle, right.
• 1:01:09
  The thing I was saying in in the beginning of that satisfaction
• 1:01:14
  of figuring out, you know, you kind of miss out on that.
• 1:01:17
  Obviously on the other side, the other extreme of giving, hiding
• 1:01:21
  the information as much as possible, you can have the
• 1:01:25
  satisfaction, but you can also very much have frustration.
• 1:01:31
  So, and you know, if you are saying, if you say to your
• 1:01:37
  players, this campaign's going to be a little more like
• 1:01:40
  hardcore, I'm going to make things more difficult than the
• 1:01:43
  idea of playing a lot more information closer to the chest
• 1:01:47
  is an acceptable thing if everyone agreed to it.
• 1:01:51
  But when the players get pissed off because they can't figure
• 1:01:54
  out how to, you know, turn off the boss's invulnerability
• 1:01:57
  armor, then you know, you got to sit with that frustration and
• 1:02:02
  accept it because that's what you're that's what you told
• 1:02:05
  them, and that's what you agreed to, right?
• 1:02:09
  To a point, yeah. I mean, I think.
• 1:02:11
  To a point. Always to a point.
• 1:02:12
  There, because there there is this sort of I've seen this
• 1:02:15
  opinion before, especially when it comes to things not exactly a
• 1:02:18
  hardcore mode, but like you know, like I told this, I told
• 1:02:21
  my players I wasn't going to hold their hand and they can't
• 1:02:24
  figure it out and they got mad at me because I wouldn't give
• 1:02:27
  them any hints. I I think as AGM when,
• 1:02:32
  especially when it comes to information transferral, you
• 1:02:35
  always need to have a point of compromise.
• 1:02:40
  I think this is very important. Like it can be a far point, but
• 1:02:45
  I've, I've definitely seen people just be like, no, I told
• 1:02:48
  them this thing and I'm not going to do it.
• 1:02:49
  It's like, all right, but you are creating a less enjoyable
• 1:02:56
  product overall, not even a product.
• 1:02:59
  You're you're creating a less enjoyable atmosphere to hold
• 1:03:05
  true to a value that you clearly have.
• 1:03:07
  I don't want to say failed, but like misjudged on some level.
• 1:03:14
  So always be willing to compromise.
• 1:03:16
  But you know, you can set your, your that level.
• 1:03:19
  It's a sliding scale. You can set it wherever you
• 1:03:21
  want. Make sure you have it.
• 1:03:24
  Yeah, it's a sliding scale. And I think, I think ultimately
• 1:03:27
  what you're kind of saying is be willing to slide it back, right?
• 1:03:33
  Be willing to slide it forward and back.
• 1:03:35
  Yes, you you absolutely need to be willing to adjust it on the
• 1:03:39
  fly. Absolutely.
• 1:03:41
  Yeah, and there is, Yeah. Because at a certain point, even
• 1:03:45
  if you do want to do the hardcore game and all the
• 1:03:47
  players agreed, there might still come kind of a breaking
• 1:03:50
  point where it's like, all right, fuck, we just now we're
• 1:03:52
  just getting to the point of this is miserable and annoying.
• 1:03:55
  Like can we just can we figure something out here?
• 1:03:57
  And that's kind of the RIP cord pull to a certain degree, but it
• 1:04:00
  doesn't necessarily have to be a full blown pull the RIP cord.
• 1:04:03
  It could just be, you know, the GM going all right, let me let
• 1:04:07
  me adjust a little bit. Let me I'll tell you this bit of
• 1:04:10
  information or something like that.
• 1:04:17
  Next little other big chunk of such other big thing you might
• 1:04:21
  want to or not might want to, but might be dealing with in
• 1:04:24
  terms of combat information is what we were talking about last
• 1:04:29
  week. Secondary objectives, right?
• 1:04:33
  When you're dealing with something like a secondary
• 1:04:35
  objective, you can of course just tell the players outright
• 1:04:38
  what the objective is, right? You have to break the thing or
• 1:04:41
  you have to survive a number of rounds, or you can hint at what
• 1:04:45
  the objective is without saying it outright.
• 1:04:50
  The pros and cons here being pretty similar to the previous
• 1:04:55
  one when we're talking about stats where the key difference
• 1:05:00
  being if the players can't figure out what they need to do
• 1:05:04
  for the secondary objective, that could potentially bring the
• 1:05:08
  game to a grinding halt, right? If the if the secondary
• 1:05:15
  objective, if they're fighting a lich who has a, you know,
• 1:05:18
  invulnerable shield around him and the secondary objective is
• 1:05:21
  that they need to go to the four corners of the room and like
• 1:05:24
  deactivate the magic runes in the lair.
• 1:05:28
  If they don't realize that everything will come to a
• 1:05:30
  screeching halt because they can't hurt the lich.
• 1:05:33
  So that can be a pretty big con if you hold back too much
• 1:05:39
  information, right? Conversely though, if you tell
• 1:05:43
  them exactly what they need to do, they might just blast
• 1:05:46
  through the fight and make it way easier than you intended.
• 1:05:49
  Right, If you were expecting the lich to be invulnerable for like
• 1:05:53
  3 rounds and be able to output some damage without taking any
• 1:05:58
  damage for three rounds, and then the players just solve the
• 1:06:01
  puzzle in one round, the fight's probably going to be a lot
• 1:06:04
  easier than you were planning on it being.
• 1:06:07
  And that might be a little lame and disappointing, especially if
• 1:06:09
  the lich is supposed to be like an end of adventure boss, right.
• 1:06:15
  So it's kind of a it's, it's similar to the stats information
• 1:06:20
  in terms of like, you know, the, the mystery and the, the puzzle
• 1:06:23
  solving and the, the discovery feeling and all that.
• 1:06:25
  But also be careful because the objective can just potentially
• 1:06:32
  ruin things if you don't dance around at the right amount.
• 1:06:37
  Speaking of experience on this one, Oh yeah, I mean, not you.
• 1:06:42
  I mean, I am too. Yeah, I've definitely done this.
• 1:06:44
  A similar thing. I, I think every GM has done
• 1:06:46
  that where they're like, oh, I'm going to make them, you know,
• 1:06:50
  the fight is going to involve doing something other than just
• 1:06:53
  hitting the boss. And then the players don't
• 1:06:56
  figure it out and you're like, oh.
• 1:06:59
  That's kind of a good point. Beat their ass like.
• 1:07:02
  Every GM has done this, and if you say you have it, you're
• 1:07:05
  lying. Probably, yeah, 'cause it's like
• 1:07:13
  it's also comes back to that thing where when you have an
• 1:07:15
  idea in your head, right, you're like, oh, this'll make sense,
• 1:07:19
  right, I'll describe the runes on the wall in the four quarters
• 1:07:22
  or whatever, blah, blah, blah. Like yeah, yeah, this, this'll
• 1:07:24
  make sense. And then you describe it to the
• 1:07:26
  players and for whatever reason to them, it's not quite as clear
• 1:07:29
  as it was in your mind. And then they're confused.
• 1:07:34
  And usually if they, if they get confused and make no progress
• 1:07:38
  for a while, like let's say it's 3 rounds and they did, they
• 1:07:42
  weren't able to make any progress.
• 1:07:44
  That's probably like an hour and a half in real life of time.
• 1:07:48
  They're probably going to get frustrated, and as they're
• 1:07:51
  getting frustrated, they're probably less likely to solve
• 1:07:55
  the puzzle. Yeah, they'll just start
• 1:07:57
  engaging with it less and less. Yeah.
• 1:07:59
  Like as you get more frustrated, your chance of figuring it out
• 1:08:03
  decreases. It does not increase.
• 1:08:05
  So you definitely got to watch out for tipping too far.
• 1:08:11
  Like the secondary objective thing I think is when you're
• 1:08:14
  dealing with combat, is the thing that you want a teeter in
• 1:08:19
  the middle as much as humanly like teeter in the middle more
• 1:08:23
  than a lot of even the other points I've made, because it can
• 1:08:27
  get really out of whack if it goes too far one way or the
• 1:08:29
  other. Extremely.
• 1:08:32
  Yeah. And again, and like I was just
• 1:08:36
  saying with the bear thing, right, I thought describing the
• 1:08:39
  bear using the water from the stream nearby would be a clear
• 1:08:43
  indicator, but my players did not agree, you know?
• 1:08:48
  And so that situation, I was like, ah, shit.
• 1:08:54
  Yeah, GM instructions unclear. Dick caught in toaster.
• 1:08:56
  Yeah, right. You don't want to catch your
• 1:08:58
  player's Dick in a toaster. That's unfortunate.
• 1:09:01
  It's. Bad, not fun.
• 1:09:03
  Even if they don't have a Dick, you still don't want them to get
• 1:09:05
  a caught in a toaster. And then of course, the last
• 1:09:16
  really big one that you have to deal with when it comes to
• 1:09:19
  combat and this this one comes up a lot, a lot I feel like is
• 1:09:24
  enemy strengths and weaknesses, right?
• 1:09:30
  And I think the best way to decide how you're going to
• 1:09:34
  handle this particular element of, you know, players fighting
• 1:09:39
  monsters or whatever is really decide based on your style of
• 1:09:44
  game. Because if you're playing like
• 1:09:49
  the Men in Black or Witcher style game where you have to
• 1:09:52
  figure out what the monster is doing so that you can stop them,
• 1:09:57
  then you generally want to make the players really work for it
• 1:10:02
  in character, you know, diagetically to get the
• 1:10:06
  information they need to stop the enemy.
• 1:10:08
  Because that is the, you know, that's the style of game, That's
• 1:10:15
  the theme you're going for. If you're playing the Witchers,
• 1:10:17
  then you want to have that moment of like, I know it's,
• 1:10:20
  it's a necrophage, so I need necrophage oil, right?
• 1:10:23
  Like that's part of the fun. If your game is a little more in
• 1:10:29
  the realm of like an epic quest narrative of great heroes
• 1:10:32
  traveling from one point to the other or something like that,
• 1:10:35
  being a little more upfront with the strengths and weaknesses of
• 1:10:38
  monsters can help to keep the pace moving and not slow things
• 1:10:43
  down with enemy encounters. Because it's the whole point of
• 1:10:45
  the game is like, ah, we're traveling to Mordor.
• 1:10:48
  And then you get stuck on a, on fighting some goobers for like 3
• 1:10:53
  hours that can kind of kill the we're going on a traveling like
• 1:10:58
  journey vibe, right? Like the pace of it.
• 1:11:02
  So in that scenario, the players encounter the goblins, maybe
• 1:11:06
  they fight for a round or two and then use the GM just kind of
• 1:11:08
  tell them like, oh, they're weak to this or whatever the rules of
• 1:11:13
  your game, like whatever game you're playing, your game of
• 1:11:16
  choice will also probably help you to make a decision on where
• 1:11:20
  to sit on this particular pendulum, because a very combat
• 1:11:26
  heavy game will probably expect the players to fish for
• 1:11:30
  information to give them an edge, right?
• 1:11:33
  And the and the game probably will even give the players the
• 1:11:37
  abilities to do so. Thus you as the GM don't need to
• 1:11:42
  hand that information out. A good example in Fabula there's
• 1:11:47
  quite a few mechanics that the players can use like as like
• 1:11:51
  abilities that tell them like the stats and information on a
• 1:11:56
  monster. So me as the GMI don't want to
• 1:12:01
  just readily hand that out every time they engage a new monster
• 1:12:04
  because that totally invalidates those abilities.
• 1:12:07
  And we have one player who is playing a floralist and one of
• 1:12:10
  the one of the flowers she chose is explicitly for doing that.
• 1:12:15
  So if I just started giving that information out, I would just
• 1:12:17
  completely invalidate her ability choice and just make it
• 1:12:21
  a complete waste, which is obviously not what you want to
• 1:12:25
  do. But on the flip side though, if
• 1:12:33
  you're playing a game that's really like social intrigue
• 1:12:35
  heavy, the game could expect you as the GM very explicitly to
• 1:12:41
  inform the players of specific details.
• 1:12:44
  Especially if it's something like a courtly drama where the
• 1:12:47
  players don't know the rules, but their characters definitely
• 1:12:52
  would know the rules. So you have to tell them in a
• 1:12:55
  very straightforward fashion because otherwise you don't
• 1:12:57
  really have a game. So going back to the again,
• 1:13:01
  going back to the Apothecary's Diaries example, if you're
• 1:13:04
  playing the Apothecary's Diaries Apothecary Diaries tabletop
• 1:13:08
  game, you probably have to explain to your players how the
• 1:13:13
  like hierarchy works in the rear palace, because their characters
• 1:13:19
  would know that. And if they start playing and
• 1:13:23
  their characters commit a bunch of faux pas, the game is just
• 1:13:26
  going to end instantaneously because their character will
• 1:13:30
  just get like thrown in jail or executed because they did
• 1:13:32
  something wrong that they didn't realize they weren't supposed to
• 1:13:34
  do right. So there's a.
• 1:13:35
  Degree of information flirt with the headquarters on that's a.
• 1:13:38
  Yeah. So like there's a degree of
• 1:13:40
  upfront information that the players are going to need to be
• 1:13:44
  able to like, play correctly. So yeah.
• 1:13:49
  And that's again, it's that dance of what kind of
• 1:13:57
  information do they need to function and what kind of
• 1:13:58
  information does the game expects them to fish for that
• 1:14:02
  will help you in that will help you decide on delivering the
• 1:14:07
  information in terms of enemy strengths and weaknesses.
• 1:14:11
  And again, when I important point, when I say enemy, enemy
• 1:14:15
  just means someone opposing you, right?
• 1:14:16
  In the courtly intrigue game, the enemy is just that other
• 1:14:20
  bitch I don't like down the street, Right.
• 1:14:27
  So yeah, style of game. And then literally the mechanics
• 1:14:30
  of the game are how you want to kind of balance it out.
• 1:14:33
  And then, you know, at some point, if you decide to just
• 1:14:39
  override the game and be like, well, I know we said we're
• 1:14:42
  playing this style of game and we're playing this RPG.
• 1:14:45
  But for this session, we're just going to like ignore some of
• 1:14:48
  that just to just to move past this bit and speed up 'cause you
• 1:14:51
  know, I don't. We were doing this bit about
• 1:14:54
  like finding this werewolf in the forest, but it's, it's going
• 1:14:57
  on too long. It's getting annoying.
• 1:14:58
  So I'm just gonna like speed up some of the information, tell
• 1:15:00
  you how to find the werewolf and tell you what he's weak to and
• 1:15:02
  be done with it. You know what I mean?
• 1:15:04
  There can also be that element to it.
• 1:15:05
  I don't anything you add. No, no, I mean, I'm, I you're
• 1:15:12
  watching the same page. Yeah.
• 1:15:18
  Trailer thought Trailer thought Choo Choo Choo Choo go bye bye
• 1:15:22
  oh. No.
• 1:15:26
  Yeah, it's it's basically to summarize, that's the last
• 1:15:35
  point. That was that was my last major
• 1:15:37
  bullet. To summarize the whole episode
• 1:15:41
  in general, ultimately the decision or decisions, really
• 1:15:50
  it's more than one, the decisions of how much to tell
• 1:15:56
  the players versus what to not tell them.
• 1:16:00
  Basically, you want to constantly be updating and stay
• 1:16:03
  on your toes, right? You want to make sure you're
• 1:16:07
  constantly going back and checking and like, OK, I said
• 1:16:09
  we're going to do this, but in this scenario, it's probably
• 1:16:11
  better if I do that. And just keep keep that in the
• 1:16:15
  back of your mind. And ultimately, if the game is
• 1:16:20
  coming to a point where the the method that you're using,
• 1:16:26
  whether it be handing out too much information or not enough,
• 1:16:30
  is starting to make things boring or annoying, then just
• 1:16:33
  pull the RIP cord, flip to the other side, and then once the
• 1:16:37
  session's over, you know, reassess what you might want to
• 1:16:41
  do, right? Because ultimately having
• 1:16:53
  annoyed players or bored players.
• 1:16:57
  Shit sucks, it sucks and sucks big donkey Dicks.
• 1:17:02
  It's not something you can ignore, right?
• 1:17:04
  You don't just have bored players like the second players
• 1:17:09
  stop engaging, you know, and you feel it and it's soul.
• 1:17:13
  Crushing. Yeah, I I was talking to
• 1:17:17
  somebody about this. I feel like it's almost
• 1:17:19
  impossible to not notice when you've hit that point where the
• 1:17:25
  game is just no momentum. Everyone's bored, nobody's
• 1:17:29
  having it. Like I feel like it's really
• 1:17:31
  hard not to notice as a GM. You know, no, you have to be
• 1:17:34
  actively pretending it's not happening to not see it.
• 1:17:38
  Pretending, pretending or just really not giving a shit and
• 1:17:41
  being like intentionally oblivious almost.
• 1:17:44
  Yeah, yeah, you're doing that. There's no way they wouldn't
• 1:17:47
  like my game. Yeah.
• 1:17:48
  Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, yeah. It's just, it's, it's, it's kind
• 1:17:59
  of funny because I feel like on a Mac on a, on a micro scale,
• 1:18:04
  it's the, you know, your, your character wouldn't know the
• 1:18:08
  troll is weak to fire, right? That's the micro version.
• 1:18:11
  But on a macro scale, it's the like, no, your play, your
• 1:18:15
  characters can't have that information.
• 1:18:19
  And the players are like, well, we don't know what else to do at
• 1:18:22
  this point. And you're like, tough.
• 1:18:26
  It's yeah, that's, that's a level of just like 0
• 1:18:32
  self-awareness that I, I know must exist, but doubly exist.
• 1:18:36
  You must want to be like, surely not.
• 1:18:37
  Surely you'd get it? I'm not really making any kind
• 1:18:40
  of point. I just, I just, it's just funny
• 1:18:43
  because I see it happen in degrees and I'm just like, God
• 1:18:48
  damn it. All right, That is, that has
• 1:18:55
  been us. I never, I never know how to
• 1:18:56
  round out my my point completely.
• 1:18:58
  I need to start like making a writing a conclusion paragraph
• 1:19:02
  or something. It is always kind of hard, like
• 1:19:06
  there's a reason why the OSP crew are just like, oh bye.
• 1:19:08
  Yeah, yeah, it really yeah. Because like you, you, you
• 1:19:11
  expound all the thoughts. You're like, OK, it it's
• 1:19:15
  literally it's the same thing like when you're in school and
• 1:19:16
  you were writing the essay and you know, you did all the blah
• 1:19:18
  blah, blah, blah, and you're like, oh fuck, I got to write
• 1:19:20
  the conclusion. You know, like it's the same
• 1:19:26
  energy. Anyway, that is this has been
• 1:19:30
  us. If you like what you heard,
• 1:19:33
  follower, subscribe. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:19:40
  Yeah, all right. Peace, motherfuckers.