Help with D&D Campaign

[Callan S.]

Hi Ron,

I read your suggestion and I think "Perfect, why didn't I think of that?"

In fact it really bugs me. Why didn't I think of that? In fact only recently have I even thought of something vaguely resembling a massive, driving issue/stake. I think in the past I actually drifted away from such a thing, for a very old reason.

It's the "The driving stake is 'can you survive this ordeal' Vs play must continue for everyone" paradox.

I think you've noted it yourself, how, like the gang from gilligans isle, once they get off the island the show ends. Here, the stake is PC survival, but when a PC dies, play ends for it's player.

Since play must go on (or atleast if it's agreed it should), it ends up that PC death is fudged away or challenges are very, very, very carefully designed (which causes the writers block Gaerik has with mapping out missions). Sometimes so carefully, it becomes illusionism.

I like your idea that the situation is really hopeless and that they will die like dogs if they don't come up with a solution. But I'm thinking if anything will take them down the road of dieing like dogs, the above paradox will kick in. The deadlyness will be muted and the players will notice it's muted and realise there really is no pressing need to instigate much at all.

What do you think?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Callan,

The key to me seems to be found by combining two things.

1. This is to be a four-hour convention scenario. That means, (a) "stopping play" for a given person is no big deal, it's not like you're killing his participation out of a four-year campaign or something; and (b) characters living or dying does not carry the kind of ego-death that many associate with D&D characters dying.

2. Make the whole scenario absolutely chock-full of colorful details. The horde should be interesting, the city or keep or whatever should be interesting, the NPCs should be interesting, etc ... but none of them are the key. The players should not be investigating them in a Call of Cthulhu sense to find the "hidden solution." They have to invent a combination of the existing details (or their implications, very much in terms of your comments about vases falling off balconies) in a way which only has to be entertaining from the GM's perspective in order to work.

With both of these in mind, and with both of them being absolutely explicit, participation in this scenario will be fun no matter what happens, as long as you dive into it. The only way not to have fun is to remove oneself from the social and creative task at hand, which is to say, to interject some other (fucked-up) priority for play like "survive by turtling."

Oh yes, and add one more thing - that a player whose character dies is expected to continue to participate through kibitzing, both to GM and to other players. That needs to be explicit too.

Best,
Ron

[Callan S.]

1. This is to be a four-hour convention scenario. That means, (a) "stopping play" for a given person is no big deal, it's not like you're killing his participation out of a four-year campaign or something; and (b) characters living or dying does not carry the kind of ego-death that many associate with D&D characters dying.

Ooops, I forgot it was for a convention. That is a really different dynamic. What I was going to go into was how recently I've started thinking how you definately need to shift the ego-death (which is useful) to some stake that doesn't stop play for a player if it happens. But with this different dynamic, it's not needed at all!

2. Make the whole scenario absolutely chock-full of colorful details. The horde should be interesting, the city or keep or whatever should be interesting, the NPCs should be interesting, etc ... but none of them are the key.

You know, I think it's terribly easy (and I'm talking about myself as well others here) to associate something being interesting with something having an interesting story to it. But to show such a story, the players would have to go through the right steps to experience it and...you get the same old thing that's gets all to close to illusionism or fairly stale play.

But it is hard to think ahead like that as a GM...you think your there to bring something interesting to the table. If you don't, you feel naked. However, if you just bring a bunch of interesting color details like you say, you are naked. But these things then provoke the players to make the interesting thing in play. But I think there's a real fear to overcome in coming to the table with a 'hollow' game.

The players should not be investigating them in a Call of Cthulhu sense to find the "hidden solution." They have to invent a combination of the existing details (or their implications, very much in terms of your comments about vases falling off balconies) in a way which only has to be entertaining from the GM's perspective in order to work.

Thanks for the nod! I can see just how your techniques could for example provoke players to say "The horde is attacking? They MUST have supply lines to support them! Let's attack those!" or other such logical conclusions/inventions. And the big stake is vital in provoking those conclusions to leap to mind. It's far more fun if they leap!

[/quote]Oh yes, and add one more thing - that a player whose character dies is expected to continue to participate through kibitzing, both to GM and to other players. That needs to be explicit too.[/quote]
For social reasons and because you don't want a big slice of the SIS to suddenly vanish (well, that's how I'd put it).

[Mike Holmes]

1. This is to be a four-hour convention scenario. That means, (a) "stopping play" for a given person is no big deal, it's not like you're killing his participation out of a four-year campaign or something; and (b) characters living or dying does not carry the kind of ego-death that many associate with D&D characters dying.

Ooops, I forgot it was for a convention.

I don't think it is. I think that maybe Ron was just saying that you can treat the game like this for certain purposes in certain cases. That's why it's one of two options. That's my guess.

But it is hard to think ahead like that as a GM...you think your there to bring something interesting to the table. If you don't, you feel naked. However, if you just bring a bunch of interesting color details like you say, you are naked.

Only if you've beed taught that you need a story to be clothed. Consider: remember back playing D&D with the dungeon that you'd prepared? No story there, just a lot of interesting color. This was the standard for quite a while until we were told that we needed to bring a story to be complete.

It's an easily unlearned feeling as well. Use this as a benchmark - do you have as much material as you would have prepared for a D&D dungeon crawl? Then you're set.

Mike

[Callan S.]

The funny thing is, I don't even want to write up dungeons in advance any more!

Too much temptation to make them make sense, and for the monsters to have worked out tactics...which ends up making approach X the one players ought to take.

That's all too much work for me now, and it leads to a stale game. That's another reason it's all a leap...rather than me designing it so it makes sense, instead in play use what makes sense to the players, to build it in play.

Harnessing player imagination instead of putting in hard yards yourself, isn't something I'd have thought of at age 14. Also, once you've played for years, the players start to expect the GM brings in the material, and they mute themselves. That's why newbies are often so wonderful as players, as will apply their imagination with gusto and thus write the game themselves.

[Mike Holmes]

The funny thing is, I don't even want to write up dungeons in advance any more!

Too much temptation to make them make sense, and for the monsters to have worked out tactics...which ends up making approach X the one players ought to take.

To be clear, I don't mean to make up a dungeon, or even data like a dungeon. Just what Ron mentions above, interesting details about the army in question that'll give enough framework for players to work off of in play. I was only talking about volume of information.

As to whether or not one can leverage off player ingenuity to create facts during play, well that'll be based on the GM's talents, and they'll have to factor that into how much prep they need to do. You might be able to do it, but others simply need more preparation to be ready in a such a case as is presented in this thread.

Put another way, there's nothing wrong with prep of this sort. If you're unsure, more is better than less. More of the right sort of data, that is. We're assuming that Andrew now understands what constitutes useful information here (as opposed to railroady stuff).

Mike

[Callan S.]

I'm looking at this thread and thinking the right sort of stuff isn't so much information, as questions.

Ron puts it as interesting color. But what happens when you have interesting color then add a massively dire stake? Well all that color starts shouting out 'How can you exploit me to win? How, how, how!?'

How conflict and color come together makes an extra spark too, I think. If I just asked 'how are you going to beat the mindless undead armies?' it suggests there's a set answer hidden in the question. While if I say "A mindless undead army is attacking! They will destroy all you hold dear!" it's far different from you answering any question I pose. Rather than the answer being seemingly embedded in the question, there is no explicit question to hold any such answer. And thus the player must turn to their own mental resources to answer this rather than such a question. And that way we'll see the player invent something that's very unique to that player. Mmmm, interesting and useful...must apply soon!

[Mike Holmes]

Callan, I really don't think we're talking about two different things here. You're just saying it differently.

Mike

[Callan S.]

I didn't think I was saying anything different. :) Just getting into the nitty gritty a bit more, so in the heat of play I have more of a grasp of the techniques and they wont flit from my head. Especially the presentation of color and conflict, rather than directly asking anything (which implies the speaker has a set answer). I liked pinning that down a lot!