Total loss

[Russell Wallace]

Out of morbid curiosity, having played out the loss of a key battle
tonight in my current campaign - the PCs semi-deliberately lost the
uranium mine and bomb factory, which loses the world unless the quality
of strategic thinking takes a dramatic upturn over the next few
sessions... and looking at having to narrate the end as artistically as
I can, and hoping people still want to play my future campaigns...

I'll ask: has anyone here ever played out that sort of lost campaign? If
so, how did it go?

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
the PCs semi-deliberately lost the
uranium mine and bomb factory,

Semi-deliberately? They didn't want to win, or didn't want to spend
the effort to win?

Post by Russell Wallace
I'll ask: has anyone here ever played out that sort of lost campaign? If
so, how did it go?

I never had anyone throw or semi-throw a campaign before. And I think
that whatever reasoning they had for that may well influence your next
steps. To me, it sounds dire enough that one should question running
any future campaigns.

I have had 'honest' total losses before with some secondary and new
groups. I didn't run the outcome as it seemed rather pointless and the
players have no investment anyway. The events of the campaign have
their footnote (if that, few people notice the tree falling in the
forest) in the timeline and that's that.

Then we typically take a break from that setting and run something
different for a while afterwards.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
Semi-deliberately? They didn't want to win, or didn't want to spend
the effort to win?

The reasoning, if one can dignify it with that term, seems to have been:
extent to which it is a good idea to protect something depends on
cuteness of said something, e.g. puppies and kittens are high priority
things to protect, nuclear weapons facility is not cute, therefore we
need not bother to protect it, ignoring argument of one PC who had his
head screwed on the right way that said facility is vital strategic asset.

Post by gleichman
I have had 'honest' total losses before with some secondary and new
groups. I didn't run the outcome as it seemed rather pointless and the
players have no investment anyway. The events of the campaign have
their footnote (if that, few people notice the tree falling in the
forest) in the timeline and that's that.
Then we typically take a break from that setting and run something
different for a while afterwards.

*nods* I keep forgetting there are people who run the same setting for
many campaigns; it must give one a very different outlook. I never run
more than one campaign in a given setting, always move on to a new one
for the next campaign whatever the outcome.

[gleichman]

extent to which it is a good idea to protect something depends on cuteness
of said something, e.g. puppies and kittens are high priority things to
protect, nuclear weapons facility is not cute, therefore we need not
bother to protect it, ignoring argument of one PC who had his head screwed
on the right way that said facility is vital strategic asset.

Sadly not all that uncommon of a way of thinking today.

Frankly I'd look for a different group while attempting to keep your one
rational player.

*nods* I keep forgetting there are people who run the same setting for
many campaigns; it must give one a very different outlook. I never run
more than one campaign in a given setting, always move on to a new one for
the next campaign whatever the outcome.

Warren and I are the two old-timers that I recall who focus on a single
setting, Warren more than I as I have a handful that I switch between (even
if they are all the same setting- just different points on the timeline).

Yes, it's very different than how most people I've encountered online play.
And it requires a number of different approaches.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
Sadly not all that uncommon of a way of thinking today.

Yeah.

Post by gleichman
Frankly I'd look for a different group while attempting to keep your one
rational player.

They're usually good players, I suspect one issue is that games where
you have to live with the consequences of your strategic decisions
aren't all that common, so people may not be used to them. The outcome
is still in doubt; the campaign is, I think, winnable if there's a
dramatic improvement in the quality of decision-making - which some of
the players have now acknowledged the need for. We'll see how it turns out.

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
I suspect one issue is that games where
you have to live with the consequences of your strategic decisions
aren't all that common, so people may not be used to them.

Likely true. Generally players with previous rpg experience have to be
'introduced' to a number of concepts upon joining one of my campaigns.
One being that they can lose if they are brilliantly stupid. Another
is that they are responsible for their tactical and strategic
decisions.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
Likely true. Generally players with previous rpg experience have to be
'introduced' to a number of concepts upon joining one of my campaigns.
One being that they can lose if they are brilliantly stupid. Another
is that they are responsible for their tactical and strategic
decisions.

In fact, it just occurred to me to correlate this with the fact that the
one player who had the right idea on Tuesday, is also the one member of
the current group who's played in a significant number of my games
before. Maybe that's part of the reason he realized strategic thinking
matters.

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
In fact, it just occurred to me to correlate this with the fact that the
one player who had the right idea on Tuesday, is also the one member of
the current group who's played in a significant number of my games
before. Maybe that's part of the reason he realized strategic thinking
matters.

Things might be recoverable then. Often it only takes one lesson.

Or they may decide to go back to their old gaming style on their own.
I've seen it go both ways, and I consider both a good outcome.

[Ken Arromdee]

Post by Russell Wallace
They're usually good players, I suspect one issue is that games where
you have to live with the consequences of your strategic decisions
aren't all that common, so people may not be used to them.

I suspect one issue is that popular culture is equally lacking in such
things. If it's a movie or TV show, saving the single identifiable
friend, child, or cute animal in preference to saving the nuclear weapons
plant always works.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Ken Arromdee
I suspect one issue is that popular culture is equally lacking in such
things. If it's a movie or TV show, saving the single identifiable
friend, child, or cute animal in preference to saving the nuclear weapons
plant always works.

True!

[David Alex Lamb]

Post by gleichman

extent to which it is a good idea to protect something depends on cuteness
of said something, e.g. puppies and kittens are high priority things to
protect, nuclear weapons facility is not cute, therefore we need not
bother to protect it, ignoring argument of one PC who had his head screwed
on the right way that said facility is vital strategic asset.

Sadly not all that uncommon of a way of thinking today.
Frankly I'd look for a different group while attempting to keep your one
rational player.

Is implying that the others are 'irrational' fair? They apparently, from
later comments in the thread, didn't really clue in to the kind of campaign
Russell was running.

Though, if it were a long-term campaign, they should have, I guess. Were there
similar but less critical situations previously that might have taught them
the appropriate lessons?

[Russell Wallace]

Post by David Alex Lamb
Though, if it were a long-term campaign, they should have, I guess. Were there
similar but less critical situations previously that might have taught them
the appropriate lessons?

This was only session 11, and was really the first time that sort of
strategic decision had been required of the players, so from that
perspective it's not too unreasonable.

[Magister]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by David Alex Lamb
Though, if it were a long-term campaign, they should have, I guess. Were there
similar but less critical situations previously that might have taught them
the appropriate lessons?

This was only session 11, and was really the first time that sort of
strategic decision had been required of the players, so from that
perspective it's not too unreasonable.

The fate of the entire world rested on their first major strategic
decision?

I can't argue that nuclear weapons facilities aren't obviously in need
of
protection, but if the PCs are the only ones who can protect all such
vital strategic assets, it seems that they would be stretched a bit
thin.
Did they build the nuclear weapon facility that they didn't protect?
If not, they might have reasonably expected the NPCs who did build
it would defend it. If the PCs and villains operate on a level that
no
such NPCs can match, then perhaps the players didn't expect that
the weapons those NPCs could make would decide the PC/villain
conflict.

--
Magister

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Magister
The fate of the entire world rested on their first major strategic
decision?

No, there are other resources that can be used. The main thing I was
worried about was that if the quality of strategic thinking stayed on
that level, it wasn't going to be winnable. I'm seeing encouraging signs
that they're thinking along useful lines now... and I suppose, looking
on the bright side, it is in genre for the good guys to be in dire
straits halfway through, and triumph in the end :) *knocks on wood*

[Magister]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Magister
The fate of the entire world rested on their first major strategic
decision?

No, there are other resources that can be used. The main thing I was
worried about was that if the quality of strategic thinking stayed on
that level, it wasn't going to be winnable. I'm seeing encouraging signs
that they're thinking along useful lines now... and I suppose, looking
on the bright side, it is in genre for the good guys to be in dire
straits halfway through, and triumph in the end :) *knocks on wood*

If you aren't willing to bail out the player characters, then you have
to accept that they lose if they play badly. If you do bail them out,
then you're never going to get a higher level of play out of them.
I think that you should just stop if the game does reach a
point where there's no chance of the players turning it
around; it's just depressing for everyone from then on.

But what is the genre? I generally stick to heroic fantasy, but it
seems to me that almost any genre would support some sort of
mentor/advisor who fades into the background as the players
pick up confidence and skills. Would that have been impossible
for the genre, your game, or your playing style?

--
Magister

[psychohist]

Russell Wallace asks for experiences with regard to a campaign where
the player characters are essentially doomed to failure.

One of my favorite campaigns pretty much ended with the biggest bad
guy in the world beseiging the player characters' castle. We had
failed to realize that this guy's long term advance from the remote
north to the civilized countries of the south was probably to retrieve
a magical artifact that we happened to possess, which he could use to
turn into a god.

We had played out a session of the siege, and we could probably have
held out for a while. However, it was pretty clear that he could
eventually starve us out, if nothing else, and that there was no hope
of relief, he having destroyed all the nearby cities and such. Some
of us could probably have escaped individually, but it didn't look
like there was any way to prevent him from winning.

That campaign was perhaps reaching an end anyway, and nobody really
wanted to play out the final scenes, so we didn't.

Warren J. Dew

[Russell Wallace]

Post by psychohist
We had played out a session of the siege, and we could probably have
held out for a while. However, it was pretty clear that he could
eventually starve us out, if nothing else, and that there was no hope
of relief, he having destroyed all the nearby cities and such. Some
of us could probably have escaped individually, but it didn't look
like there was any way to prevent him from winning.
That campaign was perhaps reaching an end anyway, and nobody really
wanted to play out the final scenes, so we didn't.

Makes sense; I can't think of any better ways of handling it in your case.

I think my current campaign is still winnable _if_ there's a dramatic
upswing in the quality of strategic decision-making - which some of the
players have acknowledged the need for - so I'll see how it goes.