Mini-posts are approx. 500 words posts on one of my pet subjects. I usually do them when I have a busy evening, like Adventure Preping or doing things like, you know, exercise!
I’m deep in adventure prep, deeper than I have been for a long time.
I don’t know if it’s the same for you (and it is for many as I have read here), but players are often passive about the game world they live in.
Sure, mine like to discover new things/plots/mysteries and will sometimes go out of their way to interact with a NPC that tickle their fancy (like F. Genius Troll in my campaign).
However, when it comes to building an adventure or expand on a piece of your campaign world, the players will often expect you to do it and they’ll be along for the ride (or be gleefully prepared to put your plans off the rails… depending on your dynamics).
A few months ago, I wrote about cooperative world building as one of the greatest ways to get your players involved in your game world. This week I get to live this at a level not seen in a long time!
Which is a good sign that the campaign is in good territory, right?
Well, as mentioned yesterday, my players are real excited about Planescaping and some of the locales they’ve been exploring. So much so that I got a bunch of requests from them on things they want to do and places they want to go…
I was so surprised about that that my 1st reaction was ‘I can’t! I have a plan to follow, a plot that needs forwarding…’
Needless to say that’s not a good start… 🙂
But this reaction is understandable because it basically means ‘but I don’t know how to fit my plan with your requests!’
Then I realized that taking my players requests (visiting a god’s domain, placing the next part in the plane they so happen to want to visit) was not incompatible with the adventure’s plots. I just need to hack stuff a bit further.
One of the weakest points of event/scene based adventures (homebrewed and published) is how players get the necessary info to move on from one part to the next part of the adventure. There are bottlenecks and places where a single failed check means the adventure stalls and the DM needs to fudge things along.
But these weak points are also the easiest to subject to changes.
For example, in my campaign, the info to move to the next part of the adventure is held in the hands of a NPC called Rule of Three that sits in a tavern in Ptolus’ Graveyard.
But he doesn’t have to be now does he? Nothing prevents me to take the next tidbit of info and have another NPC give it, or have players find it at site X…
The trick though is to link it all thematically… if you can find a plausible way to do it, then your golden.
If not, you need to cheat. Using the Rule of Cool is a good idea. By focusing on a character or really cool situation dripping with roleplaying potential.
Have PCs bask in the light for a scene. While they wallop in this awesomeness, have the key to the next scene drop on the PCs laps and you’re good to go.
I’m sure my players will enjoy their game more if I listen to them and work their requests in my game.
Oh and just so we’re clear guys, if you ask me for a +5 Frost Vorpal Greatsword… I will put it in the game…. but quite possibly in the hands of a hostile NPC…
What about you… how much input from your players do you take to shape upcoming adventures?
I try to get as much player input as possible, usually. But there are a few things that you always need to keep reminding yourself when taking suggestions.
1) Suggestions are just that. Suggestions. Not every suggestion needs to be used, or needs to be used immediately. Some conflict with the others, and some can cause problems down the road. Consider all input, but don’t grant every suggestion blindly and simultaneously.
2) Just because a player requests something doesn’t mean you should give it to them, or even that the player really wants what they suggested. One of my players has been requesting “more puzzles and traps”, but she really just wants more options to exercise her creativity, whether that’s through puzzles, roleplaying, or even interesting combat. As such, she was quite satisfied with the diplomatic encounter with the Yeth Hounds, despite it not being “puzzles and traps” as she originally requested.
Always look to see if the player is asking for what he really wants.
Similarly, if a player is asking for more challenging combats or easier combats, make sure that all the players feel the same way, and that it isn’t a problem with the character. Perhaps the character/class is too strong/weak compared to the others. The problem might not even be the challenge, but the level of tedium during a combat. Changing to a class with more choices and options (Book of 9 Swords) can increase a player’s involvement, and lessen tedium.
Agreed on all accounts Graham.
I know you we share similar roots and I’m definitively in what Jeff Rients called the ‘Give them the sun, have them fight for the moon’ school of thought.
We all get vaguely phrased requests… it’s the precise “I really want to go there to do that” requests that I am happily surprised to get.
And when an urge to say NO crops up, I’m reminded of Martin Rayla’s ‘never say no when you could say yes’ post…
The art lies in saying yes intelligently…
So the +5 frost vorpal greatsword is out of stock… Ok…
What about the +5 fire vorpal falchion?
Just checking… 😛
I prefer short and focused games: Here’s a situation, make characters who fit in and are interesting, play until the situation is resolved (one way or another), the end, everyone lives happily ever after.
We rotate game masters, which means that the other runs the next game. I guess an old might continue after the break, but this is yet to happen (we have not continued this for very long). It would be a new situation, regardless.
Given that: Players don’t have that much power when crafting the situation (unless they tell me they want something specific and do it well ahead of the game). They don’t particularly want it. But once the game has started, I am mostly reacting to the players and poking their characters so that I get new stuff to react to. There’s no adventure beyond the initial situation and any repercussions it has.
Burning Wheel has rules for players adding NPCs to the game (Circles). I often use other rules in a similar way; if player wants to know about, say, if there is a war happening nearby, I figure out something to roll. Rumourmongering, research, etc. That determines if the war is there and useful.
So: Player suggestions often enter the game, but often in a modified form due to failed rolls.
As for the tavern and Rule of Three, why not have them available on the planes? Characters walk through a door, and find themselves in the tavern, seated at a table with RoT? I’m thinking something like the old Deep Space Nine flashes into the various Orbs of the Prophets. As soon as “the talk” ends, then they are back wherever they thought they were going. It could even happen in the middle of combat.
And as for the norse stuff, it works right in with all the ice stuff. Just have the frost giants steal the sword and you’ve got a good Against the Giants sub adventure.
Sounds fun.
Dean that could be an idea… and I will think about it… However, I really want Ptolus (and it’s survival) to remain near and dear to the players…. They are in the planes for a a reason, an urgent and dire one. So having the inn in Ptolus was the starting point…
Plus while he is funny, the adventure puts way too much emphasis on him and he’s a literal bottleneck… if he ever dies the adventure is over (and he’s relatively easy to kill)
Funny that you should mention Against the Giants as I was originally set on putting the sword in the Frost Giant Jarl’s loot in the actual original module (that has been adapted to 3e on the net).
But I didn’t want to spend more than 2 sessions on this.
Stay tuned!
Tommi: I see how it is on your side and it seems that your group is less into the whole ‘Shared-control of the story’ than I assumed from reading some of your stuff.
However, on our side, we fefinitively get our kick with the classic ‘ohhh new goodies at the next level’ and ‘sorting algorithm of Evil’ and we like to build long epics that never really finish.
I do pepper it all with one shot adventures on weird themes or really cool concepts.
Every few levels or so, I like to get feedback from my players about what they like, dislike, etc.
But the best input I get is by way of my players actions in game.
There are few things that work better for my campaign world then when one of my players says “I want to start an organization!”
Whether it’s a thieves guild, a band of knights, or a magic academy, it simply rocks for me as a DM.
There are several reasons organizations work out so well:
1. It invests the players in my campaign world and gives them a measure of control in shaping it.
2. The players get to be creative about what the organization’s tenants are, the symbols they use, and the values the espouse.
3. The players run into organization members and notable past characters in future campaigns. This creates a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that my players love.
And these benefits require little effort on my part!
Once an organization is established, I can build adventures around it.
Establishing planer organizations could be even cooler due to their far reaching applications.
I highly recommend encouraging your players to start organizations.
Phil: It changes between games. I do try to build the situations so that player characters are quite powerful, but did not particularly enjoy my brief forays into hardcore games that share all narration equally (that would be Universalis). They are too unreliable.
Long campaign is something I tried, once. It crashed and burned (I didn’t know what I was doing back then). Games that don’t end just feel unsatisfying. Better end game with a bang than let it slowly waste away due to disinterest.
As a player I’d rather have a campaign that last for months then having a one shot.
Well in my case, I will invest myself a lot more in character that I know I’ll be playing again.
The gratification is proportional to how much you’ve invest yourself in it. A one shot adventure fails on that account.
That being said this does not mean one shot cannot be interesting just that I’d rather have a campaign. 😉
Granted but I think that what Tommi refers to (after having read a few of his game reports) is that he does Mini-campaigns where a situation occurs, players step in, resolve the various issues and the story ends there… heroes all or the equivalent.
I guess this lasts as long as the initial plot remains. It could be argued that game we play currently is that…. once you game world is saved, we wrap this up and move on to 4e…
🙂
Phil speaks truth. We do have one-shots, mind, but generally only when a game demands it or nobody wants to commit to running a longer game at that point for whatever reason.
The heroism is questionable. I prefer somewhat dark games, which tends to make pure goody-two-shoes heroism rare or at least painful. That makes it all the more exciting and valuable when it works.
Phil, your game does seem to have a unifying theme. It also seems to have lots of digressions and fights for the sake of fighting. An entirely different structure.
Agreed Tommi…
We do like to fight a lot! And once Yan switched from a Arcane Caster to a melee fighter (making all players into warrior types) the message was loud and clear that Fighting for fighting’s sake would continue!
To arms friends!
Greenvesper: Sorry dude I skipped your post! Welcome to the blog! I’ve seen you join the ‘Mybloglog’ community some time ago… and am happy you stepped out of lurking to comment.
You are entirely right that starting an organization and running it is a great way for players to invest in a game world. I have PCs being leaders in them and it does provide material for stories!
Good tip!
Hum… I think we’re ripe for a tavern brawl… 😉
seriously given that:
Me = Brilliant tactician/storyteller
Mat = Super coolness/Butt kicker
Eric = Butt kicker/method actor
Franky = Storyteller/butt kicker
Steph = previously casual developing into butt kicker/storyteller
When you look a the type of player around the table you know that a good fight will please every one…
Oh I got you covered friends, no worries!
I tried a long, ongoing story in my last game. It fell apart, largely due to reasons similar to Tommi.
In this game, I’m doing the Pathfinder adventure path from Paizo. This may seem like I haven’t learned my lesson, but while there is a large, overarching plot, it is much more episodic, with 6 individual, largely independent adventures creating the whole.
As such, it is much less likely we will lose interest in the plot due to the changing adventures, yet we get the satisfaction of keeping the same characters throughout the whole thing (if we want to) and having a huge, months-long campaign.
In any case, my ideal adventure will take 1-2 months to complete (playing every week for 4-6 hours). A string of those will make up a campaign.
Sounds like you’re on a great track! If you need any more ideas, I specialize in this sort of thing. The Forge named it ‘No Myth Gamemastering’.
Have fun keeping up! My rule is ‘give them enough rope’.
But not too much rope.
We’ve had a character die by rope before.
Fell down a pit, survived the fall, the spikes, and the poison.
Ended up getting crushed by the coil of 500 feet of rope the party checked down after him.
(The DM was feeling evil that day.)
So yeah, not too much rope.