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When the Players Don't Go Your Way
Part 2: Bending Space and Time
Well, since it has been nearly a year since the last column I wrote, I figured (or more properly, "was finally convinced"), to write the next article in my series of what to do when your players don't do what you want.
The inspiration from this column comes from the 3rd game of WOV I ever GM'd, and one of the first ones that was properly "role-played." Jake Tolbert and Danny Brown were the players, and Danny had just discovered his role-playing wings. Thus, he wanted to do EVERYTHING except stick together with Jake and follow the quest I had planned out. Soon, they were running all over the place, exploring every nook and cranny of every shop-keeper's house, hiring couriers to deliver letters to each other across the land, and anything else they could think of. That was when I realized it was time for drastic measures: bending time and space.
Last column, I wrote about how the GM should keep his game consistent as far as the motives and actions of NPC's are concerned. I argued that this would help the players suspend their disbelief. On the flip side, I have noticed that most players are NOT very particular to the dimensions of time and space, and they very often won't even notice adjusting them slightly (or even significantly). I don't know why most players can so easily turn a blind eye to this (your mileage may vary...if your players are the more particular type, then you'll have to find some other technique).
For example, in the game I was previously referring to, Danny spent approximately 2 days running around town, doing miscellaneous things, and eventually finding out about a cave he wanted to explore. Jake, on the other hand, spent what WOULD have been 3 days exploring the countryside, and eventually stumbled upon the cave by himself. Now if I had been strict with the rules of time and space, I would have made Danny explore the cave by himself (while Jake waited for hours (real-time) for his turn to play). When Danny would have finished, then, a day or so later (game-time), Jake could have explored it while Danny waited. LAME. So I conviently bend the time required to get to the cave, and allowed to them show up at approximately the same time. Everyone was much happier.
As long as your players aren't overly picky, and are more concerned with having a good time than they are every minute detail, they will be much more happy to get to explore together, and enjoy the game, than to be so strict with space and time that the game becomes miserable.
You can use this space and time fudging to any scale. At times, it might be convenient to let one person cross the continent in half the time that somebody else took. At others, you might squash a player's 2 minute conversation with the NPC into the same amount of time as someone else's 10 minute duel. As long you do it subtly, they will most likely not notice or care. Subtlety is the key here. If the players realize what you are doing, the curtain falls, and suspension of disbelief is gone. Instead, you are banking on the fact that the player's aren't attentive enough (or don't care enough) to track how long their conversation lasted, and compare it with the amount of time it took for their friend to have a duel.
So remember, if insanity breaks loose, and you don't know what to do to get the players back on track, first, just remember your NPC motives. Don't let them budge by one inch. Instead, do all your fixing in the area of space and time. Remember: what the players don't notice won't hurt them.
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TM