Another week, another Thursday. Let’s take a look at the latest episode of Critical Role to see what lessons we can bring to our own D&D games. Photo credit to @username for the cover photo!
– Spoilers for the latest episode of Critical Role ahead –
This week, I’m looking at players’ lack of information again. How does that affect their satisfaction with choices?
Beat analysis
Each week I start the post using Robin Laws’ beat analysis framework to break down the story structure of the latest episode. If you haven’t read Robin’s book (you should), I give a brief intro to the framework in this post.
Looking at the overall beat structure for this episode, we see a relatively well balanced series of up/down beats until we get to the end of the night, where a sustained series of downbeats end the episode on a sour note for the players. Their frustration is easy to see.
Interrogating Algar and Zsundie. [Procedural, down]
The M9 try to learn more about Algar and whatever business is going on beneath the tunnels, with little success. We learn a bit about Zsundie and his partner in Port Damali, but it’s unrelated to the M9’s goals. It’s possible this scene is a pipe beat for a later adventure in Port Damali.
Scaring Algar out of town. [Procedural, up]
The M9 are overwhelmingly successful in intimidating Algar. I’ve never seen a series of intimidations come off so successfully. The party is able to achieve their goal of scaring Algar out of town and avoiding trouble for disabling the city’s water system. Again, the foreshadowing of a soon-to-fail water system in Nicodranas could be a pipe for a later adventure.
Dealing with Fjord’s spectre. [Gratification, up]
The bit with Fjord’s undead spectre repeatedly returning to the group is a pure gratification beat that everyone does a good job recognizing and leaning into.
What to do next. [Procedural, lateral]
Algar taken care of, the M9 throw out a few options for what to do next. They walk past the wizard’s tower briefly, but ultimately head back to the Lavish Chateau. The M9 is still looking for a new thread to pick up after beating the Iron Shepherds, which you can see clearly in scenes like this one, where they take a step or two in several directions without making forward progress.
Catching up with Jester’s mom. [Dramatic, down]
With no real goal in mind, this scene is predominantly a chance for the M9 to further their connection with Marion. Even though the interaction was fine, I’m marking this as a down beat because the players themselves seamed upset that Jester lied to Marion about Algar. The party was also unable to get stories about Jester’s childhood.
Checking in on Professor Thaddeus. [Gratification, up]
Taking a moment to hit a running gag. The players are really great at catching and amplifying these moments. Kudos to Matt as well – DMs will tell you that making these “irrelevant” bit scenes feel rewarding and meaningful is no easy task.
Investigating Marius LePaul. [Question, down]
The party goes to the docs at midnight to learn more about the enigmatic Marius, who’s been referenced repeatedly with no additional details up to this point. Watching Marius at the docks poses a new question – who are these people he’s dealing with?
Sneaking up on the pirates. [Procedural, down]
A series of failed stealth/performance checks leads to a classic moment of failed D&D goals.
Fighting the pirates. [Procedural, down]
The party’s ultimate goal with this entire encounter was to observe Marius and learn more about the Cloven Crystal surreptitiously. So the existence of the combat itself represents a failed goal. But once the fight starts, the party wants to handle the situation quietly and gain Marius’ trust. Both of these goals fail as well.
Interrogating Marius. [Procedural, down]
After the battle, we learn that Marius really knows nothing about the Cloven Crystal. This is a major let down – he had been foreshadowed so much that we thought he would have some key information. With the other pirates dead, we feel further than ever from learning about the stone Fjord took.
Calling Professor Thaddeus. [Dramatic, down]
Professor Thaddeus doesn’t return, ending on a slightly sad note.
Last week, I talked about how players need relatively simple, straightforward clues and adventure hooks when they’re in a new location or exploring a new plot. They need time to build up their own knowledge and resources before they can start acting effectively on vague hints and rumors.
The scene at the end of this week’s episode added a bit more nuance to this point in my mind. Originally, I was focused on making sure your players can move the story forward effectively. So if the story is moving along, no need to worry about taking extra care spelling out the initial context and goals, right?
In this week’s episode the players are able to advance the storyline with no problem. If crippling Nicodranas’s water system, killing some high ranking members of a mysterious pirate gang, and stealing a ship in full view of the town guard doesn’t lead to some interesting adventures, I don’t know what will.
But the players were clearly frustrated during this episode. Especially at the end, but even in the fight with Algar, the players were quibbling and questioning the correctness of their responses more than usual. Even though they were making forward progress. I think the problem is still a lack of context on what they’re doing.
One of the best parts about D&D is that we’re free to make our own choices. And those choices can have meaningful impacts on the story and the direction of our campaign. But as intelligent creatures, we don’t like making decisions when we have no idea what’s going on.
A choice is dissatisfying if we don’t sufficiently understand what the possible outcomes are or how those outcomes map to our preferences. If we have no idea how our choice effects the outcome, it doesn’t really feel like we made a choice. We just flipped a coin. If we know what the outcomes might be, but we don’t understand the meaning or value of those outcomes, it also doesn’t feel particularly fair. Especially when we find out afterwards that the outcome we got was bad.
In situations like this, negative outcomes are heightened. It feels like we’re being punished for a decision we didn’t even want to make once we realize what’s going on. On the flip side, successes feel like random chance. We didn’t actually know what was going to happen, we just picked lucky.
This is a useful lens for understanding the players’ frustrations this game. The M9 don’t know much about Nicodranas. Is the government good? Are the people nice? They also don’t know anything about Algar and his business. Or Marius and the mysterious Captain he works for. So when a fight broke out and the players had to choose between running, attacking the pirates, surrendering to the guard, and trying to befriend Marius, they didn’t really know which directions aligned with their goals. And as things got more and more out of hand, they started saying things like “we just don’t know!” or “what are we even doing?”
This is a good lesson. Even if things are moving along at a nice clip, before you confront players with an important decision, make sure they have enough context to make a meaningful choice. This doesn’t mean you have to spell out every detail of the story ahead of time. Or that everything the players know has to be right. But the players should have been given a chance to form some kind of opinion about the different parties and outcomes before choosing between them.
The simplest way to provide early context is to front-load some cues about whether the party likes or dislikes a new NPC or faction. You don’t have to outright say “they’re good” or “they’re bad”. But have a throwaway NPC who’s familiar with the faction’s history. Have them share a few events that clearly show the alignment/goals of the organization. Then let the players come to their own conclusions.
These conclusions can end up being wrong. There’s nothing that says you can’t reveal some hidden bit of information later on that casts initial details in a new light. What’s important is that the party has some kind of opinion before they make the choice. This guides the players and makes them feel like they are actively making a decision that aligns with their interests and moral character.
For this particular encounter, Orly Skiffback could have been more forthright, telling the players of a moment when Marius saved a street urchin. Or when he betrayed Orly on a job. Something to give us a sense for whether Marius was good or bad, worth risking their necks for or not. Or Adella could have shared a rumor about the Captain’s shady dealings, and what their goals seemed to be. “They’re looking for some kind of stone, and my guess is they’ll kill anyone who gets in their way. Immediately.”
These details, even if they’re just the unverified opinions of NPCs, give players some agency in representing their goals. And they help make sure you never hear things like “why do we even care about this?” or “I don’t know, just do whatever”.
Information and context are vital to a smooth game. As much as you want deep, ambiguous mysteries/characters, there needs to be some part of the adventure that’s well-defined and unambiguous. Err on the side of simplicity and oversharing at the beginning of a new arc. Unveil uncertainty and complexity over time, as the players build a network of resources they can use to overcome that uncertainty.
If you want an NPC to be morally ambiguous, don’t have them start that way. Give the players a clear first impression, then reveal conflicting natures as the party gets to know the character better.
If the party is every wondering why they’re doing the things that they’re doing, take that as a sign that you need to introduce some more straightforward pieces of information.
