Spotlight time in D20.

[jamesdbr]

I'm considering running a one-shot dungeon crawl for a regular gaming group of mine, to give the GM a break from running all the time and also to get some experience running a game (everyone's most familiar with D20, and I've played enough d20 dungeon crawls that I'd be fairly comfortable running one).

One of my concerns is making sure that everyone has plenty of chances to show off (and, by association, making sure that nobody ever feels useless).  I'd like to avoid a situation where (for example) someone is playing a rogue in an adventure located in a network of caves with no traps, and all the monsters are undead/constructs/otherwise immune to sneak attacks.  It neutralizes two of the core features of the rogue class, and prevents the player from fully participating.  

Since D20 has such a strong sense of niche protection, I think I've already got a basic idea of what sorts of things give each class archetype a chance to really strut their stuff.  E.g. the rogue wants to pop out of the shadows and drop mooks with a single backstab.  The paladin wants to smite naughty things in the name of her god.  And at some point, the big bad ork that just sent a horde of goblins to deal with the rest of the party is going to engage the barbarian in single combat because by god, that barbarian is a Bad Enough Dude to be a worthy challenge.

However, I'd like to do this in a way that seems natural, and doesn't turn combat into a series of close-up scenes.   I'm worried that spending too much time spotlighting individual characters will detract from the experience as a group.

So, any suggestions?  How can I best provide each player with chances to Step On Up (in and out of combat) without seeming forced and without one player overshadowing another (or the group as a whole)?  Am I approaching this from the completely wrong direction? Thanks in advance for any assistance.

--James DeBruicker

[Valamir]

I think the biggest problem with D20 from a spotlight perspective is the Initiative system.  In the interest of balancing things out so that every player gets the appropriate number of actions in the appropriate order at the appropriate time they parcel out actions in such small nuggets that no one really gets a chance to shine before the camera moves to someone else.

Its as if you have these really cool movie posters for each character but you cut them into little thin strips and then organize them turn by turn one strip at a time.  In the end...all of the pictures are just completely scrambled up so no one has that sense of just having had a real kick ass scene.

So to get the effect you want with D&D I think you can start by coming up with a new initiative system.  In other words scrap the current Initiative system which is designed to enforce "fairness" in a turn order sense and replace it with one that is designed to enforce "spot light time" in a featured character sense.  This means accepting in advance that sometimes the fairness thing might not be as fully enforced as doing it the official way.

For instance you might allow the Barbarian and the Ork to have 3 or 4 or more rounds of combat back and forth between just the two of them before cutting away to the rest of the party.  That way the full fury of their combat (with suitable description) can be seen all at once in an uninterrupted sequence.

One quick and dirty way of doing this is to give all of the combatants 10 rounds worth of actions as a pool (so if they get 2 attacks per round they'd get 20 actions).  Track these with stones or chips or something.  Then when its their turn to act let them spend a number of stones all at once on a whole series of actions (sneak, sneak, backstab Mook #1, back stab Mook #2) for the rogue, so again you have an uninterrupted sequence.

[Callan S.]

So, any suggestions?  How can I best provide each player with chances to Step On Up (in and out of combat) without seeming forced and without one player overshadowing another (or the group as a whole)?  Am I approaching this from the completely wrong direction? Thanks in advance for any assistance.

It sounds like you want to do this in a way that'll have the players latter saying "And I got spotlight time at just the right times I liked it, without saying anything to anyone!"

I don't think I can suggest anything for that. Too difficult for me. So instead:

One of my concerns is making sure that everyone has plenty of chances to show off

Well, how about you make it their concern to initiate their own spotlight time? Something like: Every player gets five points. When they want a scene that spotlights them, they declare this to the GM and spend a point. The GM then attempts to make up a scene where the player has a chance to apply their thing in a significant way. Significant being that if they fail to do so, some new conflict will be piled onto their plate. Note: The players will probably even like the results of failure...that's okay, conflict here isn't supposed to be a punishment (just more rough crap to deal with, which is what we come to game for). Second note: I stress it must be a conflict. The princess is dead because you failed...that's an event. The princess is facing death and must be saved because you failed...that's a fun conflict!

[Bankuei]

Hi James,

Without retooling D20 as it stands, I think two techniques can help you make sure that folks get some spotlight time.

1) Limiting choices

If you know that you want to do underground dungeon crawls, make it clear and tell folks.  Let them know that some choices(Druid, Ranger, etc.) will be less effective, or just bar people from taking that as their sole class.  Some D&Der's consider this heresy, because a party ain't a party without the Dwarven Monk/Druid and Halfling Wizard/Bard... but...  It just makes things so much easier to work with.

2) Split the party

The terrible words for most D&D players, but its rather simple, provide different interesting things going on for different folks at the same time.  That way,  you get to individualize each conflict to character's strengths.  This also allows the non-combat characters to still do something interesting while the half of an hour to full hour of combat goes by for the fighting heavies.  The other benefit to this is that if one character ends up incapacitated, the whole party isn't stuck("Well, until we raise the rogue, we're not getting past this hallway...").

As far as maintaining the group experience, make sure that everyone's activities or sub-missions are equally important.  

The biggest issue with this approach is getting the players to trust you and get out of the habit of the party-hydra mentality("We are Legion, We are many, but as one...we walk to the shop, together...").

Otherwise, it can be very hard to make sure everyone gets spotlight time in a single session... and some folks may not have the patience to wait many sessions to do what their character does best.

Chris

[Rob Carriere]

James,
How experienced are these guys? Somebody who's played D&D rogues for a while will know how to behave in a combat so as to get in that sneak attack. Your task then becomes making sure that sneak attacks aren't disabled by crit-immune critters all the time (indeed a frequent problem with commercially available adventures).

On the other hand, somebody who's playing rogue-in-a-dungeon for the first time will probably need some hand-holding, a few opportunities with neon arrows pointing at them, or a combination.

I'm going to assume the first case. That is, if you provide opportunities, the players will not only recognize them, but know how to grab them.

First, I would go beyond the character class to the player's reason for picking it. Simple example: I regularly play with a guy who's got this thing with archery. Give him a chance to do some swashbucklish things with a bow and arrow (shooting ropes accross a chasm or a called shot on an enemy to disable some device he's holding are two stereotypes) and he's happy. So set up your dungeon so that there's likely a confrontation with the Big Bad at a distance and it will be important to knock That Evil Thing out of his hands.

Similarly, have a door with an unpickable lock where the whole doorframe can be brute-forced out of the wall and your barbarian will be smiling.

Setting up situations where PC A saves PC B's bacon usually works pretty well too (Especially if you can swing it so that B gets to save A a bit later on.) You basically set it up so that it looks tailor-made for class X, but there's a catch.

As for the unnatural bit, that's a matter of adding in the right back story after you've chosen the situations. For example, that funny door above would be quite logical as an interior door in an area where there are guard patrols who aren't supposed to to enter everywhere. The guards can't lock-pick and while they could smash the the door, that would leave evidence...not a good career-move. So to the guards, the door is effectively an unpassable barrier, while the party of PCs can get through--at the cost of leaving that evidence of their passage.

So...here's what I would do:
0. The way to make a Real Challenge(TM) in a dungeon crawl is not EL or tactics, but resource management. Make your dungeon easy to get into, but hard to get out of, or put a clock on things. Either way, the players will reason themselves into doing that One Last Encounter despite being low on resources. The way to make everybody sweat all over their dice is to threaten an encounter, not to execute it, so apart from the encounters that you do execute, have this continuous threat floating about (What if we're discovered/run into the Golem patrol/make too much noise so all the orcs come running/etc)

1. Pick a Big Bad and a Reason to go into the dungeon. You know what they like, so this shouldn't be hard. Resist the temptation to be original. You want it simple the first time around (you'll be sweating enough as it is) and if you establish how you play it straight now, it'll be that much more effective when you throw a curve ball at a later occasion.

Design a final encounter around the Big Bad. This should have something for everyone.

2. Make a list of encounters (I'm using the term to include anything that will test the players, whether or not there's actual beasties involved.) These would be encounters that would make some or all of the players happy. This is also easy, you've played with these guys, you know what makes their eyes light up.

Make this list long, like two or three times longer than what you actually need. That way, you can pick and chose. It's much easier to to spend the time on that now than to have to do this piecemeal later on.

3. Try to fit the whole mess on a map with a logical story to it. This doesn't have to be deep, complicated or even clever, as long as it more less works: Nobody does a dungeon crawl to admire how poetically the GM has aligned the corridors. See the backstory of the rogue-proof door above, not bloody likely to win literature prizes, is it?

This is where that long list of encounters comes in handy: after the Big Bad and the first couple of encounters, you've got an emergent pattern on your hands. ("This dungeon is organized like so.") For example, from the rogue-proof door we learned that apparently there are guard patrols and they aren't allowed/trusted to go everywhere. This way you gradually discover what makes that dungeon tick. Anything doesn't want to fit that pattern, toss it and replace with something that does. There will be false starts and that's cool. Look at why they don't work, that often suggests alternatives that do. Don't hesitate to toss even Really Cool Rooms (TM), there'll be some other dungeon someday where they will fit.

(And anything on the list that you don't use is seeding material for the list for your next dungeon.)

4. Inspect the whole mess and figure out what parts of the backstory can't be readily deduced by a party of adventurers walking in. Leak those parts in some other way. Somebody is selling information, a document is left in a place where they'll find it, even Ye Olde Oracle Inne The Walle, whatever.

The result is (a) the players will feel the coherence, which will get you points, and (b) you've just enabled a whole level of strategizing, as they can now attempt to outguess your Big Bad ("Well, if it was me, I'd put some guards behind this door.") They'll enjoy that.

5. Run the sucker. Pay attention to when eyes light up and when they don't, never mind whether things "work" or not according to the DMG. Pay special attention to your own eyes, GMing is different from character playing and if you want be any good at it, you'd better learn what tickles you.

SR
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[jamesdbr]

Valamir:  The initiative tweaking is a great idea, that sounds like it will make it much easier to evoke a cinematic feel in d20 combat.

Noon:  Another great idea, not only will that make it slightly easier on me, but letting the *player* pick their spotlight time prevents a situation where I put them in the spotlight when they don't want to be there.

Bankuei:  Good call on limiting choices.  I hadn't even considered what a hassle it would be if I had to try and work with the ridiculous amount of class combinations d20 offers.  The "split the party" advice is good too, it sounds like it would be quite helpful in keeping everyone engaged as much as possible.  

Rob:  Fantastic.  Every point you've made sounds good, and your advice will really help me design a coherent, entertaining dungeon.

Thanks everyone for your help on this, you guys have addressed my concerns, pointed out and addressed concerns that I didn't even know I had, and given me a way to focus my efforts.  Can't wait to try this out.