You had this adventure all figured out. Pacing was going to be important, you’ve got a cleverly crafted encounter area, and the players were even given a mission objective by their patron.
Then one of the players decides their player character is going shopping. Well, if one PC is going shopping, they are all going shopping. And before you know it, the GM’s pacing plan is tossed out the window and you’ve become an NPC merchant haggling with a PC over the cost of some mundane magic item.
And if one PC gets to haggle, well, soon all the players want to haggle. Human nature. Was there an adventure in here anywhere? What happened?
Roleplaying happened. And the key thing to do is go with it. A shopping trip wasn’t what you had in mind? Well, hey, if groups didn’t exist to make GMs twist, it wouldn’t be a roleplaying game.
That said, after this little shopping excursion, the GM can still influence play, tack against the wind and turn the boat so it gets back on course.
How to do that?
- Interrupt. Use an NPC or event to move things along. A messenger arrives. The building next door catches fire. A group of ruffians arrive, spoiling for a fight. A fierce storm blows in. A nearby wizard’s spell misfires. The point is, come up with something to jar the PCs into action.
- Stop and Reset. Once the shopping trip is over, declare the day as done. After the PCs get a good night’s sleep, the adventure starts anew. If the PCs get to employ the 5-minute adventuring day, there is no reason the GM can’t dip into that bag of tricks.
- The Item You Didn’t Buy. The One Ring “wants” to found. Tom Riddle’s diary ending up in Ginny Weasley’s pack. You get the idea. Maybe something ended up in the PCs’ possession they hadn’t intended. Drop that item in and run with it. Someone else, preferably someone bad, wants it. The PCs are under a geas to see that it is properly delivered. The PCs are unlikely to complain if an adventure takes such a turn, but if they do, just smile and say, “you wanted to go shopping.”
- The Adventure Comes Crashing In On Their Head. This last trick is a bit heavy handed, but sometimes it works. It often comes in the guise of a “bar fight gone wrong,” but there are other ways to drop the adventure the PCs’ heads. The thing is this, if the PCs won’t go to the adventure, it comes to them. Take an element of what you were going to do — maybe it is even the climactic encounter — and throw the key elements right at them. They may not even know what hit them, and they still might end up saving the day.
Keep these tips in mind the next time the PCs get a hankering to spend some of that loot they just got.
Failure is as the Mythbusters said, always an option.
If the mission is one they have accepted and there are parts of it that are time critical, let the timers run down and then take a page from mass effect and show the consequences.
“My poor girl, the kidnappers dropped her of the clocktower… If only Batman could have saved her.” “Can’t blame the man, from what I heard he was picking out a new batmobile color scheme.”
True enough. The key thing from this point is to either offer the party a shot at redemption or bury them for their negligence
I use a combination of #1 and #4 when PCs are avoiding the adventure. I structure the “interruptions” in such a way that they are not merely GM fiat. They are reminders to the players that events happen whether the PCs are there or not.
For example, in one adventure years ago my group was avoiding engaging with a marauding dragon. They thought hunting the dragon was risky (it was) so instead of rising to the challenge they busied themselves with mundane tasks in the community. Well, ignoring the problem didn’t make it go away. The dragon attacked every few days, taking a few people for food and maiming others for pleasure. The players experienced the growing horror of seeing innocent people their PCs had befriended wiped out several at a time, while the survivors cried and wailed, “Can’t you do anything?” Ultimately this adventure became as much a morality play as a kill-the-bad-guys story, making it as epic as the finest gunfighter/samurai movies.
I love this story. Sounds like a game played with many shades of emotional depth.
when I know the group has a shopping trip planned I usually like to dedicate an entire session to it, maybe toss in some items from the Garage Sale from hell into the stores they shop at ( http://strolen.com/viewing/Garage_Sale_from_Hell )
By devoting an entire session to the shopping trip there’s no pressure to “get back to the story already!” And the group can take care of business without feeling short changed by the next adventure pushing them to hurry up and do it.
That said, if after the shipping session the group wants a second unplanned shopping spree for whatever reason, then the tricks above are the perfect fix for the issue. 🙂
I usually switch to exposition rather than role-play NPCs when PCs deviate to do something trivial. For instance, I’ll just very quickly describe what happens in the course of haggling, and whether or not the PCs get what they want.
You can do that … but remember, even if you think something like a shopping trip is trivial, it might be very important to the players themselves. Always tread lightly in these circumstances. They might want to role-play shopping, as a change of pace.