4 Responses to “Advanced Gamemastery: Dead Ends in RPGs”

1. colin r says:

   The risk of giving players a skill roll to check out a dead end is that they might *fail*, and then, instead of deciding to go elsewhere, just become more convinced they need to look harder. If you *want* them to figure out, “hey, this is a dead end,” why limit things so you can only tell them that if they roll well?

   If you feel like consistency of the game world or something requires a roll, then you’re kind of obliged to figure out ways to make all options interesting. Normal investigative failures can be “interesting” by pushing players to get creative about finding another way past an obstacle, but you don’t want to set up an obstacle that cleverly hides a blank wall.

   It’s kind of the inverse of Gumshoe clue-finding. If not finding the Absence of Clue would derail the game, then don’t risk a roll.

   January 31st, 2023 - 2:44 pm
2. Justin Alexander says:

   As described in the video, the die roll is how you close out the scene.

   Think of it like picking a lock: If they fail the check, they can’t pick the lock. If they say, “I pick the lock again.” They can’t. Except in this case there’s no door, so picking the lock automatically fails.

   Same thing here: They roll. They fail. You use the narration of that failure to close down the scene and move onto the next scene. They can’t “keep asking Jefferson Sienna questions” because you’ve already said, “You grill him for four hours, but he doesn’t seem to know anything. It’s late afternoon when you cut him loose. What do you do now?”

   January 31st, 2023 - 6:50 pm
3. colin r says:

   @Justin, what I’m confused by is this: suppose they’re rolling Streetwise looking for information. If they roll a success, you can tell them “you’ve thoroughly canvassed the area and found nothing. You’re sure the smugglers didn’t come this way.” Which is great.

   But if they fail, all the PCs get is “nobody wants to talk. You waste several hours and don’t learn anything.” That doesn’t seem like it does anything to get players back on track. Like you say in the intro, players can be relentless. Sure, Streetwise didn’t get them anything, but the fact that you had them roll for it can just make them more sure that there *would* have been something to learn if only they’d rolled better. And it’s not like Streetwise is the only information-gathering skill; if they failed on Streetwise, *obviously* they now have no choice to but break into the harbormaster’s office and search the files. Or whatever.

   Of course, you *can* get them back on track by telling them “you’re sure the smugglers didn’t come this way” regardless whether they succeed or fail on the roll, but in that case I don’t see what the roll added to the exchange, other than slowing it down a little and adding the risk that they might roll a nat 1 right before you have to try to tell them “there’s nothing to see here.”

   Am I missing something? Are you assuming something about how you handle failures on information-gathering rolls?

   January 31st, 2023 - 10:26 pm
4. cs_forged says:

   @colin r, the resulting skill check result would just be worded slightly different but should lead to the same place. Success is like you described, but I would phrase the failure as: “You spend hours trying to track down the information the smugglers and fail to find anyone that knows anything about them.”

   There is still a risk that they might try something else to find the information in the area, but when they say what their next planning ask them what they are hoping to find.

   But that is an opportunity! Someone else has heard the party is snooping around while asking about smugglers [due to the players not disguising their intentions well with the failed check]. They gets panicky about some troubleseekers nosing around in their ‘hood and decide to send the party a message if they come back around. Interestingly, one of those thugs has an inadvertent clue pointing to one of the things the party overlooked previously. “Oh the one with the skull tattoo on his forearm? Yeah, he is a real jerk, but he and his crew like to hang at The Rusty Reef.”

   February 2nd, 2023 - 5:37 pm

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