Playing Outside The Box: There Should Always Be Multiple Ways To Achieve Campaign Goals

"No plan of operations can with any certainty reach beyond first contact with the enemy."

- Helmuth Von Moltke

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

- Mike Tyson

In addition to being a storyteller, world builder, and actor, one of the roles of the Game Master is a strategist. You want to create scenarios in the story where your players feel challenged, and where they have to find methods to overcome difficulties in the path of their plot. However, as both Helmuth and Mike have pointed out, the best laid plans of mice and men are often foiled by the actual events that unfold on the battlefield.

Which is why it's a good idea for you, as a Game Master, to embrace it when your players bring a diversity of tactics, and creative thinking, to the table.

Because chance and strategy make for terrifying foes.

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How To Plan For The Unpredictable

There's a story I heard told a lot due to some recent events transpiring on the other side of the world. The way it goes is that a captain was speaking with a lieutenant after a victorious battle. When the captain asked how the lieutenant had accomplished such a feat, he smiled, and said it was the easiest thing.

"All I did was turn to my sergeant, and say, 'Sergeant, I want you and your men to take that hill.' Which they did."

You heard him, boys!

The purpose of this story was to highlight the difference between American military strategy, and Russian military strategy. According to the folks using this story as an example, American troops are given a set of objectives, and then they are trusted to adjust to the situation on the ground as it develops, giving them flexibility in chaotic and dangerous situations. Russian military doctrine, however, included both the goals and the method troops must use to achieve them. So if troops were transporting equipment, and it was found that the most optimal route was now lined with enemy snipers, American troops would have the freedom to choose another route with less danger, while Russian troops would have to drive the route they were given, regardless of how the situation had developed and grown far more dangerous, or else they would face serious consequences for disobeying orders.

Now, these are broad, sweeping generalizations, but the two philosophies I've described here can be very useful for you as a Game Master. Because Game Masters who use this Russian strategy will not only ask what their players need to accomplish, but they will lay out the specific methods for how they need to accomplish it. To contrast that, Game Masters using the American strategy will lay out a situation, provide their players with mission objectives, and then sit back to see how they choose to accomplish those goals.

You run into problems with the former strategy because you start scripting things out as the Game Master regarding what players must do, rather than seeing what creative solutions they come up with. Because yes, they might just do the obvious thing where they kick in the door to the dungeon, battle all the monsters, fight the mini boss, and claim the important plot item being guarded in the center of the stronghold. However, they might instead turn it into a heist, and sneak in through various other means, trying to avoid combat in order to swipe the item. They might attempt to open negotiations, or to start a coup d'etat among the minions guarding the item. They could even stage a distraction, drawing away a majority of the enemy attention and forces to one area, and then kicking in the door to deal with a minimized force.

There are so many options they could take, even for the simplest of situations, and that's before we bring dice and random chance into the equation. However, if you get it into your mind that they must use only a single method (or even a handful of methods) to achieve the result, you're going to run into problems. Because you might not be putting the game on rails, but you're certainly trying to put your players into a box, which can feel very constricting while undermining their enthusiasm for the game.

Craft The Situation, Then Let Go Of The Wheel

The best strategy I can give for Game Masters is to construct a situation that the players and their characters have to deal with, and then to take your hands off the wheel to see what they choose to do. And while you should have some responses for the most obvious reactions to the situation (they choose to go in guns blazing, they choose to sneak around, etc.) it's important that you try to keep an open mind, and look at what should happen organically based on the actions your players choose to take.

Both good, and bad.

Because smart strategy should pay off in some way. If you manage to distract the guards, maybe the Big Bad doesn't have as many allies during the title fight, or it's possible to pull a smash-and-grab and escape with the prize. If the characters spend their resources to acquire a devastating knockout poison, and they manage to get it into the air of a dungeon, they should be rewarded for that unusual battle plan. At the same time, if something goes wrong, or they mess up, or they make poor decisions, that should also make things harder on them (the guards are now more alert for attacks, new security protocols are put in place, and so on).

I'd recommend checking out both Game Masters, Make Sure The Villains Aren't Just Sitting Around Waiting, as well as Discussions of Darkness Episode 6, The Three Solutions Strategy For Storytellers for extra examples of how to construct an organic scenario that will react based on your players' actions, and some of the things you can do to shift your mindset as the Game Master.

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