How To Avoid Decision Paralysis Among Your Players (The 3 Choices Method)

Generally speaking, as a Game Master, you want your players to have a good experience playing with you. And it's not really controversial to say that most players want to feel like they have input in how a game is run, and that the decisions their characters make really matter. However, it's one thing to say that you want freedom, and to do whatever you want in a game... but it's another matter entirely to actually exercise that freedom in a way that helps build a story.

And while you don't want to impose your will on the table as a Game Master, sometimes you have to facilitate swifter decision making, and you have to support your players. Which is why I'd suggest taking the following tips to heart!

All right, so, let's work on a combined vision, shall we?

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The 3 Choices Method

Too often we end up with either a completely scripted plot that the Game Master wants the players to follow, or the Game Master spreads the world out at the players' feet and waits for them to choose the direction they want to head off in. This puts the onus entirely on the Game Master, or on the players, when the game should be a collaboration between both sides of the screen.

Which is why I recommend what I call the 3 Choices Method.

This inspiration partially came from my 3 Solutions Strategy which I recommend for the World and Chronicles of Darkness. That strategy, for those who didn't watch the video, boils down to making sure there's a Physical, Social, and Mental way to solve most situations that players are faced with. The idea is that everyone at the table should have something they can do to help advance the plot with the options in front of them.

The 3 Choices Method is meant to provide enough options that players feel like they have real choices, but to stop them from overanalyzing and second guessing themselves as they're overwhelmed by being able to choose anything.

For example, you know what game system you want to run, and the table is all in agreement. You know what world you want to run your campaign in. But where in the setting should you explore? While you could leave this decision up to the players to figure out, it's often faster to provide 3 choices for the players to pick from. Those choices should be different enough that the distinction feels meaningful, but they should all be options that you are willing to follow through with as the Game Master. The same is true when it comes to the genre of plot you offer your players (say a Dungeon Crawl, Political Intrigue, or Kingdom Building plot); they should be distinct enough to be different, but you need to be willing to follow through on whatever the table picks.

This isn't just for the foundational stages of making your new campaign, either; it can be used for major decisions throughout the game as well. For example, if there are large organizations or patrons vying for the characters' services, it's a good idea to give your players 3 viable options to choose from. This makes it feel like they have more than just a binary choice, but it stops them from being paralyzed by too many paths to pick from. If they finish one arc of a campaign, and they're deciding where to go next, providing 3 choices can cut down on deliberation so that decisions can be made relatively quickly. Even if you're snatching rumors and plot hooks out of a supplement like 100 Ads and Announcements To Find on a Village Noticeboard, giving 3 to follow up on gives your players choices, without giving them room to spiral.

Now, the key here is to think of this method in terms of a road trip. There are several different routes that will get your party to their destination... but you're letting them choose the forks in the road. They choose where they're going, who's going to sit where, and who's going to be in charge of what responsibilities, but after that they can only exercise their choices when there's a turn to be made. If you got on the freeway, you need to see that choice through until to find a turnoff to a different path if you want to change. If you opted for the back roads, you've got to keep following them until you intersect with a highway, and you can make a choice to take an alternate route. And so on, and so forth.

There are many roads in your campaign, and your players should have a lot of say in which route they take to get where they're going, and how they deal with the hazards or threats in their way. This takes a little more prep on your part as a Storyteller, but it can be really worth it in the end!

Lastly, don't forget to check out some of my other advice in my Electrum bestseller 100 Tips And Tricks For Being a Better Game Master, as well as the Silver-selling sequel 100 Tips And Tricks For Being a Better RPG Player... both of them are jammed full of all kinds of things that will make your games go more smoothly from both ends of the screen!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Meaningful Choice is The Cornerstone of a Game

There is a piece of advice I've encountered more than once both in gaming groups and on advice panels, which is that Game Masters should rely on the Illusion of Choice as a way to save themselves extra work and heavy lifting. And while it seems like a good idea (especially since it's a tactic recommended in products like The Lazy Dungeon Master and Return of The Lazy Dungeon Master), there is a serious flaw in it as a main strategy.

Because when someone sees through the illusion, your whole game can come crashing down.

What's in the mist? Well it's... ugh... something. I assure you.

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The Illusion of Choice, and Game Breakdown

To start off with, the Illusion of Choice means that no matter what players choose to do, or which option they take, you've already pre-determined the result. If they leave by the Eastern road out of town, they come to the city of Arendt. And if they leave by the Western road... they come to the same city. North or south, doesn't matter where they go, that city is the destination on the map in front of them. You might have to change the name of the city itself, but it's going to be the same map, the same NPCs, etc. All you did was put a fake moustache on it and hope nobody notices.

The Illusion of Choice is, put bluntly, just sleight of hand to disguise the rails the game is on. Because when all is said and done, it doesn't really matter what the players choose to do, or what options they take. You, as the Game Master, have already determined which creatures they're going to encounter, what dungeons they're going to delve into, and how the game is going to go. It doesn't matter if they fight off the first wave of orc bounty hunters, you'll just summon more until they're eventually captured. It doesn't matter which treasure chest of three they choose when given a chance to select a reward, it will always be the +2 sword. And so on, and so forth.

Which vial do you choose? It doesn't matter, they're all poisoned.

Now, just like with the use of illusions in our games themselves, this can sometimes be an effective strategy. As long as you can keep the players distracted with your left hand, and they can't see what you're doing with your right, the legerdemain works. However, as soon as your players see through the illusion and realize the campaign is on rails, there's a good chance that things start breaking down quickly. Particularly if they start testing the limits of the illusion to see whether they actually have free choice at all.

One of the major advantages of tabletop RPGs over video games, reading a book, or watching a movie, is that a player gets to participate in shaping the narrative. They create their character, control the character's actions, and affect the world as best they can. But when you take away that agency, rendering their choices immaterial to the progression of the game, the players are no longer really participating in the game. Sure they're rolling dice to swing swords and slinging spells, but they're just passing a series of pre-determined events that won't be altered by what they do in any meaningful way.

It's a trick. At the end of the day the reason the Illusion of Choice is often received so poorly is that you're tricking your players into thinking their actions mattered when it turned out they didn't. It's the same reason players tend to get upset with a Game Master who just plucks a number out of the air during a fight scene, and decides that's how many round the fight will go regardless of tactics used or damage dealt. Or why players are often less-than-enthused by Game Masters who toss out a riddle, and wait for the players to say or do something entertaining enough for them to consider it solved. Because in the end they didn't really succeed, because there was no pre-determined state of success. They could have just sat there picking their noses and achieved largely the same effect.

Lay It Out Beforehand... Trust Me

I've been a Game Master, and I've written modules like False Valor, The Curse of Sapphire Lake, and Ghosts of Sorrow Marsh. I know first hand just how tough it can be to fill in all the details, prepare every monster, and keep a list of NPCs on-hand to ensure the players always have a consistent world with organic plot and development around them. It takes a lot of prep, a lot of balancing, and a lot of feverish note-taking. By comparison the Illusion of Choice is so much easier and simpler.

And that's true, as long as you manage to pull of the trick with your audience none the wiser. But as soon as they catch the pigeon up your sleeve, the magic is ruined.

As with any other piece of RPG advice you see on this blog, remember, I don't know your group. I don't know the tastes of folks you play with, or what the deal breakers are for your table. With that said, I can say that every time I've seen players realize that choice was nothing but an illusion it immediately tanked their interest in a game. They may not have quit, but they were just marking the sessions until the campaign was over and they could play something different.

If you're interested in more advice like this, don't forget to check out 100 Tips and Tricks For Being a Better Game Master, as well!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Game Masters, You Must Get Player Buy-In If You Want To Control Their Stories

The way a tabletop game is set up is that the players control their characters, and the game master controls basically everything else. Because the player characters are the only method of participation in the game that the players have, they tend to fall under the sole control of the players themselves. Whether they want to give their characters green hair, or make them half-elves, or go into excruciating detail on everything from the skull-shaped buckle on their sword belt to the patched whipcord of their trousers, at the end of the day their characters are the only thing the players can really control.

And if you want to limit that control as a game master, then you need to really take a moment and sell the reason for that loss of control to your table. Especially if you don't want them to collectively fold their arms and refuse to take one more step forward until you get your hands off their agency.

Never assume buy-in. Ever.

As game masters we sometimes get so caught up in our own "brilliance" that we forget we need the rest of the players to actually make this game work. And before I get into an example, remember to sign up for my weekly newsletter so you don't miss any of my new releases or upcoming projects!

One Man's Meat is Another Man's Poison

For those who've played this game...

If you've looked into playing Strange Aeons pictured above, then you probably understand the simple gimmick it has. For those who aren't familiar, this entire adventure path is meant to explore the Cthulhu Mythos aspects that are baked into the Golarion setting for Pathfinder. Elder gods, ancient cults, bizarre prophecies, horrific visions, and so on, and so forth. And when the game starts off the players are in an asylum, unable to remember the recent past. They don't know how they got there, how long they've been there, or what's going on. A large portion of the early part of the campaign is investigating their own pasts, and finding answers to these questions.

Now, I have not read the campaign books, because I'm still hoping to play this game and I don't want to spoil things for myself. However, in the player's guide it tells you very explicitly that this amnesia is for the past several years (up to a decade, I believe). As the game is written, the characters do not awaken with total amnesia, piecing themselves together from nothing as the game goes on.

However, I have lost count of the number of game masters who've said that's exactly how they want to run the game. Not only do they want to be the ones who create the stories of every PC, which the players will discover over time, but they also want to be the ones in charge of their character sheets. Everything from which classes a character has levels in, to what feats they have, to what spells they know, is already pre-set, the same way their stories and identity are... it's up to the players to "discover" it, which is the central conceit of how they'd tell the story.

Just put on the mask, trust me, it will be fun!

I guarantee you right now there are some people out there who think that sounds like an amazing game to play. They would be totally down for a full mystery and uncovering all the boxes on their character sheet as they play, in addition to who their character is and what brought them to such a bizarre and dangerous place.

And if that's a version of the game you would love to play, then I wish you godspeed in that endeavor!

However, you need to make sure everyone at your table is equally enthused for playing the game with that twist before you get started. Because if you want that kind of control over the characters people are going to end up playing, you need to get people to agree to give it to you. Because if a player is more interested in telling their own story as part of the campaign, there might be no faster way to kill any interest they had in being a part of this particular table than to take that away from them.

Communication, As Always, is Key

Playing a tabletop RPG is a collaborative process. Everyone needs to build off of everyone else, and all persons at the table need to be on the same page regarding what's allowed, what the limits are, and where things happen.

And if you want to try something a little unconventional or unexpected as a game master, then you need to make sure all of your players agree to it, and that they're just as enthusiastic as you are about it. Otherwise you're going to be in for a bad time.

Or, at the very least, some awkward questions.

There is a line down the middle of the table. You, as the game master, have control of everything outside a player's bubble. If you want to reach into their territory to change something then you're going to have an easier time if you ask permission and work with them than you are going to have trying to force that change.

Because if a player has no agency in their character's actions, and they aren't contributing to their character's story, it's very likely they'll take the only action left to them and push back from the table entirely to find a game where they are more of an active participant.

Also, if you haven't been keeping an eye on my latest releases, you might have missed the news on the following:

- 100 Stargazer Kinfolk: The encore piece for my 100 Kinfolk project for Werewolf: The Apocalypse, this was the one tribe left out of the initial project that readers demanded. So I decided to give it to them!

- 100 Sci-Fi Mercenary Companies: For folks who enjoyed the supplement 100 Random Mercenary Companies for their fantasy games, I decided it was time to do a far future version for my sci-fi gamers. There's at least one more supplement like this that did a genre hop, so stay tuned!

- Captain America is Chaotic Good: The latest installment in my Alignment Deep Dives, this one has led to some... spirited discussion, shall we say? So stop in and give it a look!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!