Timeout to adjust to unexpected situations

>>52668645
Sure, why not? Just tell your players you need a moment to think, it's kinda expected to happen every now and then. It's good to ask for players for input, but be warned that some of them dislike it because "it ruins the surprise".

What did they do?

>>52668645
I've had to call a break to go piss and think. Had a plan by the time I zipped up. Not quite sure how long that was because I don't time my pissing.

Usually, though, Shadowrun's pretty easy to escalate in a clear-cut manner.

>>52668645
I've never had such situations. No matter what they do, I usually find a way to railroad them back fairly quickly.

>>52668684
My style relies heavily on players input
>"what do you expect?"
>"what are you trying to accomplish?"
>"what do you think will happen to you character if you fail?"


I try just to create smalls settings with fitting plots and it's up to the players to get involved (or not) in it in whatever way they like.

The think is that players tend to think that adventure will await wherever they go, be it a dungeon, a city market or a simple craftsman workshop. And when it doesnt they just try to force it. So after years of dealing with this kind of behavior from different groups of people, I just adopted the philosophies mentioned above. Some of the players hate this kind of approach, it's like they think I'm some kind of open-world instant generator with super detailed descriptions (which I'm not). So I started asking myself if this approach is good at all.

>>52668711
this
plus three quarters of my piss breaks as a GM was me silently screaming at the bathroom mirror and thinking up a plan how to keep the story running.

>>52668889
>And when it doesnt they just try to force it.

I mean, if you want to stay with your players, this might be the problem. Why not roll with it? Why not have them find adventure *literally* everywhere, and have that noticed and pointed out in universe? Why not have them find out that they are literally victims of an ancient Chinese curse telling them "May you live in interesting times," and have them picture Illithids when you describe the Chinese?

I mean, I'm not saying I'd do that shit for every campaign, but if I was running with a group I liked and that was their behavior, I'd probably tailor my campaign to that group. Fuck, I wish I didn't have to force adventure on my current group.

>>52668949
I tried it. The problem is that I cannot adapt as fast as the players take action. I can pull half-decent stuff but at that point I'm just not enjoying the game anymore. This happens like 9 out of 10 times I try to do this with a group.

>>52669039
Fair enough then, that shit gets hard to do for really creative players or large groups.

Dickhead time, though. Consider playing Shadowrun. This isn't just me plugging my favorite system, it might actually solve your problem in that it gives you tools to escalate pretty much any situation indefinitely. Furthermore, there's wide as hell wealth disparity in short as hell geographic distances, which makes their dickery potentially profitable if they're also competent. Finally, corpsec is potentially the easiest class of "villain enemy" to grow a real contempt for, while still being really goddamn nasty at the higher levels.

This final point is important not just for reasons of escalation and balance, but for directing as well. You can usually be pretty certain that players will dedicate at LEAST as many resources to dogging folks right back who fuck them over.

Mind you, the flipside of it is that the PCs might actually have weirdass political/economic/ideological differences that cause inter-party conflict. To me, this ain't a problem, because the group I play with tends to lean towards nonviolent drama involving contacts, social media, and drugs to resolve interparty conflict. This is purely the result of finding a good group that wants to create an interesting story than pissing each other off, sadly.

>>52668889
I find that what works is to prefab descriptions and setting elements.
Sure, you have no way to prepare for a player saying "I TELEPORT US TO INDOCHINA", but you can certainly have some vaguely eastern descriptions prewritten to use, with a plothook or NPC each.

>>52669459
>"I TELEPORT US TO INDOCHINA!"
>You smell overwhelming shit and salt.
>GM goes to piss and think.
>"Well, congratulations, you landed safely far away from your pursuers, but now you're in deep shit regarding several major treaty-enforced international laws."
>Queue getting the fuck out of Indochina, which is almost but not quite as bad as fleeing what they came from. Granted, they're levelling up the whole process.

Yes.

Usually, if it's very serious, there's enough stuff going on or that I can improvise until session ends, and then I work it out.

Throw them a curve ball back, and it gives you time to think. And if the players did something extremely stupid, don't be afraid of showing them just how stupid it was.

I suck at improv, but I never understood the issue of the players managing to fuck things up irrevocably. If you give them a chance to kill the BBEG, don't be surprised when they do. You wanted him to flee, cackling? You're an idiot.

I have to do this fairly often, because even though I plan 36 different ways for any and every scenario in my games, the party will, invariably, find a 37th way, and completely pull the rug out from under me.

Thankfully, I have been able to roll with it pretty quickly, so I only need a minute or two, but I don't think there's any shame in taking a moment as long as you aren't doing so to do some mean spirited shit. If anything, I'd say reward the creativity, and see where things go.

>>52668645
>Have you ever asked for a timeout to adjust to the situation?
Yes.

>Did you just tell the players to give you some time to think?
Basically, yes, something along the lines of "you guys are being crazy again, gimme a few minutes to adjust some things, thanks guys".

>How long does normaly take you to adjust?
I roll with a lot of stuff, so it takes a lot to get me to need a time out. Last time, I took 10 minutes to revise plans and proceed forward. That's pretty average.

>Do you ever ask the players for input on their expected outcome?
No. They're along for the ride they caused.