Comment on “A Test Proposed”

As promised, I tried this at the beginning of my running last Thursday. Before the game, I filled a plastic cookie jar with rocks, then hid it in a brown bag. After doing recordkeeping and answering player questions from last session, while the players were finishing up some notes I dropped the bag on the table.

The loud thud and table shake certainly got their attention!

I told them the bag was worth 5000 gold and experience (enough to level either of them Up) and that it would be given to them if they could prove to me that any NPC had lied to them during tonight‘s session. Then I explained that I had no intention of giving the bag away, and that the reason I was willing to stake this “reward” was because I wanted them to trust me when I said NPCs would not lie to them - that the information I gave them through the mouths of NPCs would be trustworthy.

They seemed a bit dumbfounded, so I added that the reason I avoid having NPCs lie is that I’ve seen that when the players can’t trust NPCs, the game bogs down into inaction as the players grow paranoid. On the other hand, when NPC information can be trusted, it’s a crucial tool in their tool belt for understanding and exploring the world.

In general all my players this year have been enthusiastic about having the ability to explore the game world and even reshape it on their own terms through their actions. With that extra explanation they got the picture; we had a brief exchange about the overall notion of the world being there for the players to master, and then we got down to gameplay.

(It was a good running. I didn't give away the bag; the players were *very* excited about exploring an unknown chunk of wilderness border region; the ranger got just enough XP from a goblin ambush to hit level 2; and the fighter is salivating over level 2, being just 77 XP away.)