Exchange of Realities

More failure! This time it’s not our fault… or is it?

Player failure can be a bit of a minefield to traverse. By definition, it should be their own fault. Most of the time, anyone who wasn’t there but hears the story will agree that it was indeed their own fault. Usually, even the players will agree as well. But sometimes it isn’t that simple, and that’s when we start having to worry about bad player failure.

Lack of sufficient information can lead to things that would ostensibly be player failures. It’s easy to forget how much simpler everything looks when you have all the answers; I saw this in action once, when one of my PCs had gotten himself abducted. His player was watching the group’s search for him unfold and exclaiming over how oblivious the group was. With this kind, the group is justified in saying it isn’t entirely their fault; not everyone thinks the way we do, after all. Repetition of important clues, remembering that “too easy” probably isn’t, and the occasional roll for things the characters might know that the players would miss can help avert this.

Another common variety is the kind in which the player doesn’t realize they’ve done something wrong. Often, this is a result of style-clash: players trying to be comedic in an epic game, a hack-and-slash wargamer’s first encounter with NPCs whose deaths carry social consequences, a group and GM disagreeing on what a game’s style actually means in terms of how powerful the PCs are. This results in situations like Monday’s “’Yo momma’ jokes for the queen” example—and more importantly, in affronted responses from players who just don’t get why everybody’s upset with them and/or don’t think they deserve the consequences.

Prevention of both of the above lies in communication: making sure information, in-character expectations, out-of-character expectations, clues and similar potential sources of confusion are established clearly, with a minimum of misunderstandings. (Playstyle clash that continues because everyone knows what everyone else’s style is but still will neither just split up the group into multiple campaigns nor play in the same game is another matter.) In the case of ideas that don’t work well with the world or are just plain stupid—particularly when the character isn’t—hinting them off it, in ways ranging from an ad hoc “Common Sense” roll to the more subtle “Are you sure you want to do that?” should, if not elicit reconsideration, then at least provide grounds for a “Don’t say I didn’t warn you” afterward.

And then we get to mitigating the issues. Often, if the players understand where they went wrong, the situation will mitigate itself as they realize the humor inherent in how they got into their current mess. But it gets more difficult if it’s always one person making the mistakes, particularly if it’s the other players who call him on it. Sometimes, finding a rightness in the mistakes can help to mitigate the problem, or using the mistakes to leap-of-logic the group onto another, more valid track might help. Let the mistake close doors but open other ones: maybe it brings them the admiration (and assistance, such that it is) of a known fool impressed by their audacity, or someone with a bit more savvy decides to show them the ropes. Or perhaps the players themselves, upon realizing what’s wrong with those decisions, decide they were faking their idiocy and use the resulting reputation as buffoons to get everyone around them to underestimate them. (Sure, you can’t control this or ensure it, but you can certainly hint at it. And if they’re the types, they’ll take it in their teeth and run with it.)

In short, the process of dealing with player-end failure is three steps. One: Make sure it was actually their fault. If not, skip to three. Two: Make sure they understand what they did wrong. Three: find some way to either turn the mistake into something more interesting, or just make sure it’s not likely to happen again.

And next time, we’ll get onto plot.