See part 1 here.
Burning Dungeon & Wheel Dragons
As Wednesday night was ticking by, a dangerous new idea about the way to run a D&D adventure came up…
You see, like many gamers unused to indie RPG designs, I read Mouse Guard with voracity but finished it with the feeling that while I had likely touched game design genius, I had absolutely no idea how to run the damn thing. (I’m exaggerating… somewhat).
The one part about Mouse Guard that really blew my mind was the way adventures were designed (I assume that this also applies, by extension, to Burning Wheel, which is the engine MG is based on). A 4 hour Mouse Guard adventure fits on 1 sheet of paper. The trick to that is that each adventure has a mission and the players are required to come up with personal goals that will, at least tangentially, move the story toward achieving the mission.
Play is achieved by setting out a simple scene where some sort of skill/ability roll is called for to allow PCs to achieve their goals. On a success, the scene moves to the next one but on a failure, the GM is free to add a complication to make the scene ‘more interesting’ or give the PCs a success but impose a negative condition on one or more PCs (Tired, Sick, Injured, Angry, etc).
There’s more to Mouse Guard than that, but these ‘Goal driven scenes’ and ‘Failure = complication’ concepts lit up a fire in my usually dormant Game Designer boiler…
There’s a method to my madness, behold!
What if… I was to replace minor quests with PC-specific goals that are chosen by the players at the start of an adventure?
Thus, each player would chose a goal that is related to the major quest (the game’s mission), either to help achieving it, to explore the adventure’s story in more detail or to help develop a character’s backstory more?
Now instead of having City of the Overmind be a site-based or event-based adventure (both requiring me to create scenes), why not have a goals-driven adventure based on a mission and the city’s map I drew?
I would asks players what goals they wish to work on first, then I would assign a complexity for attaining these goals. Each goal would set the basis for a freeform skill challenge. Each success that need to be rolled becomes a mini-scene to play out with the PCs, including player and DM narratives.
In other words, in a scene, players would describe what they do to progress toward their goals and I would do my usual job of bringing the scene to life. Then a skill check would be rolled based on what feels most natural for all. On a success: we describe the success and move forward to next sub-scene (or attain the goal).
But here is where it gets real interesting. On a failure, I would introduce a complication. For example, I could say that the PCs were spotted by the Overmind’s goons and I could either create a Chase skill challenge, or chose from my Depth of Madness encounters that are already prepped and make a fight.
In that sense, I would stop using the 3 strikes mechanic of skill challenges. If players fail their rolls, they get more/harder challenges to deal with. If they overcome the complication/challenge, they get to move to the next scene, regardless of the number of failed skill rolls.
Of course, I would award treasures based on the completion of goals…
It worked wonderfully on paper. I could sense deep in my guts that I was on the verge of a breakthrough in terms of adventure design, minor quests and skill challenge mechanics.
I just needed to validate this feeling in the arena of Actual Play…
Info dump Warning! The Warden Priest’s Tower
I knew I could not send my players blind into such a new way of playing. I needed to immerse them rapidly in the setting and give them all the info they needed so they could take the reins of the adventure from my hands and go.
Not being one to let much to chance, I had prepared the floor and built in some contingencies. First, I told Yan about my plan for the game. Not the content, but the whole Goal-to-Skill-Challenge to Failure to Complication thing. I wanted to know if he “got” what I wanted to do or if the whole thing was just my creative madness drowning common sense.
After wrapping his mind around the concept, he got it all right. I knew that I could trust him to act as a ‘change agent’ in the group later when I made the pitch. Just in case, I also had a contingency should players feel too uncomfortable with the change or were too tired to understand all my excited gibberish.
The first scene had several goals:
- Introduce the new setting through vivid descriptions
- Give the PCs a nearby ally and a home base so they could anchor themselves in an otherwise hostile environment.
- Share the city’s map with the players to help them plan
- Give them the adventure’s 2 missions
- Find a way to enter the Overmind’s Castle
- (Optional) Recover the 4 parts of the Overmind’s key and find out what it can be used for.
I described the city (imagine a ruined Erelhei-Cinlu, plus add a huge portal to the Far Realm and a dozen of floating, insubstantial Lovecraftian horrors ‘haunting’ the city’s roof) , the story of their Warden Cleric ally, his cult infiltrating the whole city and the political situation of the city. Once I was done, I explained my new approach to the game and asked them for the goals.
With gentle nudges from Yan and myself, they eventually formed a set of 6 goals that were… just plain awesome:
- Math (Corwin Sorceror of Chaos): I’m going to go and get the 4 parts of the key. It’s too crazy, it just might work!
- Yan (Nanoc, Barbarian): I’m going to investigate the city to find the probable locations of the key parts.
- Stef (Rocco, Rogue): I’m going to break the Overmind’s hold on the city’s citizen and end this fascist regime!
- Eric (Fangs, Shifter): I will destroy the city’s Vats and put a stop to the Overmind’s mutations of hapless monsters
- Franky (Dworkin, Shaman): I will bind a nature Spirit near the destroyed Vats to prevent the Overmind from reclaiming them and help protect the citizens.
- Mike (Usul, Invoker): I will bring the Gods’ influences (and Kord’s in particular) back to this city after the Overmind’s control is broken.
Chatty: So Mike, what you’re saying is that you want the citizen to be freed of the control of the Overmind… so they can become followers of the Gods?
Mike (showing a pained look): Essentially…. yes (smirking).
Chatty: Excellent!
I really didn’t expect as much. What I absolutely loved about those goals was that they came from the players, they weren’t scenes that I implanted in their minds, the train track had ended some time ago and this was all virgin territory for everyone at the table.
Those goals were beacons telling me what each player wanted to do in the game! All I did was connect a few goals (thanks to the 5X5 method) by putting a few coincidences here and there. For example, I put one key part in the Vats.
What was really funny is that Yan noticed me doing that and mimicked someone knotting some ropes together, but I think that this is a crucial part of the model as it allows goals to be tackled together and creates a more cohesive adventure.
So we set out to play this game out… I really was curious to see how it would play out.
Up next: So Chatty, are you ever going to tell us if your method works or not?
Image Credit: Archaia Studios
Well being both a DM and a player, it’s the kind of thing I notice.
This technique is really more of the improvisation type than it is the usual grounds that you play in Phil. I was really curious how you would make it work. 😉
Let me just say that your improvisation was brilliant. Making this session on par with your usual prepared games, even more given the immersion this technique brings to the players.
Wow… I’m (nearly) speechless.
You are entirely right that this is an improvisational technique. In fact I’d probably would call it ‘controlled sandbox’ in that the DM has a few ‘complications’ ready and a setting for the players to play in.
Thank you for such frank (and positive) feedback… I’m happy to see that 4 days after the game you still feel the same.
Chatty, a couple of questions.
1) Considering this is the PCs creating goals and deciding what they are going to do, completely freeform – how do you deal with this as a DM in terms of preparation? You’re pouring Skill Challenge after Skill Challenge – that takes some note taking and having ideas ahead of time. As does location descriptions, as does tons of Failure possibilities…
How do you handle planning (which at some degree you NEED because you need STATS and IDEAS) when the possibilities are very very numerous?
2) When it’s all said and done, can you write an actual post about the method, with nice examples and things, like you did the 5×5 adventure?
3) What does someone have to do to get into your game? 😀
That was effectively very entertaining 🙂 And, I might add, I prefer this method over the success/fail skill challenge 😉
Cant wait to read the rest of this report… Oh and to continue playing this adventure 😉
@ Rechan: Okay, I’m going to try to answer this in a satisfactory manner.
1) As you’ll see in part 3, I had a map of a city with sections drawn on it (The Vats, the Market, the Slave Pens, the Overmind’s Castle). Then I gave the players a mission. They have to move toward this mission. So while the players are free to chose their goals, they will do so in a narrow enough range to allow you to keep some control.
Then I have encounters that are already planned. Monsters that fit together and could fill several roles, like a patrol, a group of thugs… heck, they can even be Random Encounters!
Finally, the trick is that you don’t prepare the skill challenge at all. You ask the party to chose a goal and you ask THEM to describe how things would go if everything worked fine. If they are flustered and can’t decide, nudge them and suggest a course of action.
From that ‘story” you decide what skill check to roll and what the DC is (Rule 42 is your friend!). You decide if PCs can help each other and then you ask them to roll.
Success: Things happen exactly as the players described it and you describe the success.
Failure: You are now free to decide what goes bad in the plan… it does NOT have to be a fight, but it can be. If you are the type who really needs to be prepared, prepare a few ‘oops’
2) I will… after I played a few more sessions with it. In the meantime, enjoy the posts!
3) Just catch me at a Con game. I’ll be running my own events at Cons from now on. I’ll be at Draconis in Montreal in October, Gary Con II in Lake Geneva in March, Gen Con 2010 and PAX East Coast 2010.
Otherwise, I take bribes in Pizza and Bacon.
@MIke: Well I’m glad you liked both the post, the game and the new way of playing these challenges. Hopefully it will remain like that. Post 3 is written, I’ll edit it tomorrow! Cheers man!
I’ve been using Skill ‘Encounters’ (challanges) as follows for about a year now.
DM: Here is the big problem. How do you as a team wish to overcome it?
Players plan then implement their actions through designated skill checks of their own choice.
This has been working really well for me and i love to see how poeple solve problems in ways i hadn’t even fathomed.
After this post i am definitely going to make failed checks have immeadiate consequences instead of keeping the cumulative pass/fail score system.
Thanks for the great idea Chatty.
Whit
Hi Chatty,
This sounds very cool, and promising to hear such positive feedback from your players. Looking forward to part 3.
>Up next: So Chatty, are you ever going to tell us if your method works or not?
Of course it does! It sounds way too awesome to not work. (Letting my DMing mental muscles flex as I type; will definitely have to return to this piece of exercise equipment (your post) a few times as I think of “what about…”s.
Thanks.
Yoink!
I am stealing this idea.
This got me to really thinking about how I run games. I haven’t had much time to game lately so a lot of this is reflections on things I did years ago but generally I’m seeing a lot of similarities in my GM style to what you’ve mentioned here. I know I made a few mistakes when I was running though. Forgetting to have players tell me their goals was one of them I think. Just about anyone can throw together a step-through railroad game with a couple pseudo-choices (ala White Plume Mountain – look it up on wikipedia if it doesn’t ring a bell). It takes more effort to be adaptable and run on the fly however. Of course the outcome is more rewarding, at least to me.
I did have an odd thought or two while reading this. The discussion about combat length popped into my head here. Complications that just add combats work some of the time but aren’t always the best choice. I guess any dialogue about avoiding combat in this way would kind of have to include something else to throw at the PCs instead. For example, the bad guy learns about your group & tries to buy you out or plans tactics better for pre-planned encounters, neutral NPCs notice the PCs and either think less of them or start looking at them like superheroes and pester them with all sorts of problems, a potential ally is unavailable now, etc. Most of those can be implemented fairly readily into any scenario and the others (the ones that deal with allies) can be planned in if desired.
Impromptu style games can be a lot of fun. I think one of the meanest things I ever did to a player in one was to introduce someone he knew to be a villain in such a way that his character ended up liking the guy. And I had a blast doing it. The encounter even forwarded one of his character’s goals but later conflicts with that NPC had a real impact. Of course if you really prefer the railroad games you can always feel free to contribute to the Sir Bluto sans Pete Fund for Trusting Adventurers instead…
@ChattyDM : Man! This sounds awesome – this is exactly what I wanted to do with my group: get them to find their motivations / goals…
Except that I didn’t ask them to make a formal decision and just waited sessions after session for something to happen.
Can’t wait to read about how it worked for you! You really seem to be working on “formalizing” the style of game I should have been running 🙂
.-= Eric Maziade´s last blog ..On the road to Spellgu- postmortem =-.
Mouse Guard really shakes the fundaments of my GMing. My first read was a quick one, ignoring most of the basics, expecting to hear the same old “you win the roll you succeed, you don’t you just lose a turn” but the second time it was pretty enlightening.
(Failure = something other than a null action) -> MIND BLOWN
Player-defined goals are not so new to me, I played PTA once. Still, it’s a pretty good addition to any game, I always wanted the players to design some part of the world themselves.
DRYH even goes a step further, the player defines the start of the adventure and defines the tone of the game with that. Imagine that, coming to your group as a GM and _they_ tell you they enter a dungeon. (Or see their kids get pulled under the bed by unnamable horrors. Their pick.)
In conclusion, if you’re looking to read wacky new ways to GM, you might want to look at Don’t Rest Your Head too.
@WhitDnD: The beauty of 4e is that you can freely play with the adventure design tools to fit your exact play style. The group needs structure when roleplaying, use Skill Challenge as is. You prefer emerging play? Go with freeform challenges like my approach or the one you used. Use XPs… or not, heck you could even drop skills altogether and revert to the old school mantra of ‘Challenge the players, not the characters’
@Kevin: I must say that I’m blown away by my players’ feedback. While they always kind enough to share it with me… I did not expect such a positive response!
@mln84: So cool! I’m happy to see that my idea also lit up your DM engine. That’s why I’m sharing it.
@TLR: Steal away, steal away… I’ll ring up my phantom Cash Register and tabulate a sell!
@Lanir: Failure of a Skill roll should definitively not always be about a combat… unless combat makes sense and the players are eager to do it. You’ll see in tonight’s post that the game’s first combat scene was actually pushed forward by the players!
@Eric: One of the key elements of this method is that you really need to ask for goals. You basically set aside 10-20 minutes where you tell your Players that they each must come up with a goal.
And something I forgot to write in the post is that when Players are giving you goals… you MUST apply the ‘Say Yes’ philosophy. Unless a goal is completely unrelated with the overall mission, you HAVE to be ready to reconfigure your pre-set notions about the adventure to fit your player goals in them.
For example:
When Stef told me he wanted to break the influence of the Overmind over the fanatical citizens of the city my reflex was to tell him ‘No’ because I had envisioned the citizen to be perfectly free-minded and had joined the cause willingly (adding a little sociology in the mix)
But then, I reminded myself ‘Stef just told you what he wants to do the most in that adventure!’ and I changed my story and made the citizen of the central part of the city into mind-controlled thralls.
So I’d say that saying Yes is a definite prerequisite.
And stip beating yourself up man! The only thing worse than a self-deprecating artist is a DM being overly critical of his craft (and yes I get the irony of me saying this).
@Trabant: I’m perfectly aware that the whole Indie Game scene is filled to the brim with great concepts. Heck, I maintain that 4e was built on some indie concept (like designing a game to be the best at what it’s supposed to do best, like combat). I’m just not sure the Indie community expects the mainstream crowd to come in and borrow their mechanics for D&D 🙂
I find this funny on so many levels!
@ChattyDM: Yeah, that’s a clever way to do that 🙂
Almost done beating myself up – but I can’t help being critical… don’t know any other way to figure out how to better myself.
Even though I failed at it, I still think the idea of sandboxing a session or two to gather PC’s motivation is a cool idea… provided you have a group interested in sandboxing.
That being said, I clearly see the wisdom of your direct approach and how it could have shaved a few sessions of aimless wondering (which in our case, meant months).
.-= Eric Maziade´s last blog ..On the road to Spellgu- postmortem =-.
@Eric: A way to combine your wishes with my method is to have a session based on exploration and whose goal is to give each PC a goal. Maybe it’s a huge enigma/puzzle dungeon and getting that goal opens up the way out…
As for getting better… I realized that it’s more productive looking forward to trying new things than spending too much time on past games. You play, you make a ‘lessons learned’ and you move on! 🙂
Good revelation. Yes, plot elements are more than conflicts!
conflict – Plot often is built upon a tension that arises from opposition. Characters fight, chase, bargain, sneak, etc.
building/nurturing – Often an known obstacle cannot be overcome until the characters make something or wait for something to grow. As a kid, my favorite part of any A-Team episode was when the team was building that episode’s contraption.
exploring – Merely seeing new places and enjoying new scenes can be plot. Anyone who has seen the view open up as the hiking trail finally reaches the mountain’s summit knows this.
searching/research – Plot can be looking for what is missing, even when the place is not new. In most detective stories this happens through dialogue.
puzzles – Some plot involves making sense from what is present. The gates to Moria need opening. The clues to the mystery are finally all on the table.
warnings/funkiness – Sometimes the narrator changes the mood without significant action. This may be needed if the protagonist mistakes a new ally for an enemy (the Hobbits are quickly put in their place after attacking Aragorn in Bree) or needs a warning (skeletal remains that indicate the room in an ancient temple contains a deadly trap; the heroes find the bandits they were hired to capture, but as headless corpses in a forest clearing).
I was inspired to elaborate in a blog post.