Making Bad Decisions

And why your players and NPCs should do so more often. 

11/29/2024

TTRPG tip: Lean into the flaws. Players, let your characters be dumbasses, cowardly, prideful, spiteful, ignorant. Make mistakes. GMs, do the same for your NPCs. And when your players give you a gem, don't waste it trying to "win" against your players. Use it to slow the "game" down and deepen the story.

The way I play TTRPGs, mechanics are a vehicle for the story, in a 40/60 split on emphasis. I want my players to inhabit their characters, think about the world through their lens, and disappear into it for our games. 

Players separating their characters from their own knowledge and “ideal” self makes sense as one of the easier ways to bridge the gap into full-dive roleplay. In some game systems, player characters are mechanically rewarded for making sub-optimal decisions in service of their character’s ideals or personality, and I’m not mad with that approach. For particularly stunning instances, I’d probably do so myself; no recent examples from my own tables. 

Leaning into that separation from self and rejecting the Optimal is what -does- happen often at my tables, and what I -do- think works for every table, though. At my tables, NPCs should monologue, make mistakes, act on imperfect and incorrect assumptions. They should be afraid or angry and suffer tunnel vision. And even if that’s not a staple at your table, I believe it is mandatory for GMs to not punish players for choosing creativity or Character-first options over the Optimal. Or rather, to choose complications over consequences. Lost HP and Death are sensible and easy responses to “bad” decisions. But they’re boring and end immediately after the call. Deepening or expanding the situation the characters find themselves in spirals and gives players more to play with, more to chew on, and makes for a more interesting game. 

Example: A party is fighting a battle against a powerful combatant with lots of melee damage and their frontline is failing, likely to go down next round. 

Backline Ranger decides to take their action to attempt a taunt and challenge this enemy to single combat to buy their frontline a breath. 

Optimal: Continue as last round, down and execute frontliner, move onto next nearest/weakest enemy

Character-first: Order minions to halt, parley with ranger, outline rules and consequences. Proceed with duel, and likely die to a betrayal

Is the character-first option silly, knowing how most gamers operate? Is the players fighting dirty a near-certainty? Is it simpler to just roll some dice and not think about it? Yes to all three. 

But I think that bad decisions make more interesting and memorable stories. And that’s why I play.

If this is true for you, then maybe consider doing it a little more too.