collaborative setting creation = fun!

[Bob the Fighter]

Hello! My name is Zac. I've lurked on the Forge for a long time, but I haven't posted in some time. I think.

Anyway, I recently started GMing for a game of D+D 3rd edition. The two players in the group have never played D+D before, and their previous tabletop RPing experience centers on Vampire: the Masquerade and Mage: the Ascension. They've read some fantasy web comics, and played plenty of "RPG" video games, but that's about it in that direction. Their names are Doug and Amanda.

I bring up their gaming experience because it was exactly the novelty of D+D (to them) which led to such an amazing prep and subsequent first session. I didn't have to explain character creation very much, as Doug's "Baldur's Gate" experience made 3rd edition something he could pick up easily, and then explain to Amanda.

I was counting on making it optional for players to purchase equipment for their characters; I figured the K-Mart experience that is the Equipment chapter might be boring, or overwhelming, or too crunchy with all the bean-counting involved. So I asked them, "Guys, do you want to buy equipment, or just pick weapons and an outfit and assume you've got normal traveling gear?"

Their reply was a resounding, "We get to go SHOPPING?" With a squeal, Amanda started poring over the equipment lists and gazing appreciatively at the sketches of weapons and armor. In a way, it was beautiful. I got to watch someone else check out D+D for the first time.

The next "option" I was going to suggest was only half-serious. I get a big kick out of randomization tables, if only for coffee-table amusement more than actual play. But when I held up the "Hero Builder's Guidebook" and explained the random background generator, Amanda laughed and said, "We HAVE to use that! That's awesome!"

Within fifteen minutes, her elf had a family tree written out on some scratch paper. I was floored. Once their characters were all set, backgrounds and all, I mentioned that I needed a way to get them to meet up, to have a fairly plausible reason to be hanging out. Doug and Amanda just looked right at their lists of background details and started shooting ideas back and forth. A couple of hours later, Amanda's elfin fife player had run away from her family of sword-toting, loyal but dissenting, elfin farmers. Doug's half-elfin swordsman was in town on the errand of his rich, tyrannical uncle, keeping an eye on the prince's drunkard of a son.

Wow! So by putting everything out there for the group, for a group of relative novices, no less, I helped create one of the most vibrant campaign settings I've ever been a part of! I've tried using Karma and Drama (but no Fortune) with D+D; I've tried making it 100% Drama; I've desperately tried since middle school to come up with a better set of rules than those that come with the game.

And lo and behold, playing with folks who *don't* have years of preconceptions and hangups on "how to do things" resulted in a totally spontaneous creation-fest that got me more into my roleplaying than I've been in a long time! With the burden of creating everything off of my back and instead in everyone's hands at once, I was a much more convincing and versatile character-actor. Wow! So exciting. I can't wait for next week, and my players had a great time, too!

Doug was a sweetheart: he asked if charging off to rescue his childhood playmate from the goblins would divert the campaign away from political stuff I wanted to do. I told him, "You just do what seems like fun and the political stuff will happen if it should."

Augh, I felt inspired! Go team! Doug had been after me for months to run D+D, so he could have what he sees as a required "dork experience". My familiarity with the rules and the genre were definitely an edge here; I should probably listen to Doug more often!

[James_Nostack]

Hi Zac, that sounds awesome.  Most of my D&D experiences were associated with the AD&D 2e thing, where it was assumed that the GM was the master of setting, and had sole authorial control.  It's a lot more fun doing it all out in the open, with everyone chiming in.  And--if it's done right!--it guarantees that everyone feels creatively invested in the setting.

Now, in theory something like that might even work for adventure/scenario design... but you'd have to have a lot of lead time, because cooking up adversaries and dungeon environments takes a ton of work in D&D.  So, to a certain extent, the game facilitates the "GM does all the heavy lifting" approach, since he's already carrying 90% of it.  But I'm sure you'll be fine--sure sounds like you've got experience with the system.

By the way, if it turns out that the newbies like the idea of D&D more than the execution, you might want to give The Shadow of Yesterday[/i] a try--it's free on the web, including the [url=http://zork.net/~nick/loyhargil/tsoy2/book1--rulebook.html]setting book.  It's pretty much the same content, without the whole miniatures/wargaming angle. 

[Bob the Fighter]

Wow, it hadn't occurred to me to use module play with these ideas. I was browsing through Sorcerer and Sword and noticed that the feel of a collaborative setting felt more in line with that than any D+D experience I've had. Along the same lines, I think it'd be bizarre to even attempt a collaborative 'dungeon' or other pre-arranged adventure.

Fortunately, the "D+D experience" has rarely meant modules to me. When I was twelve, and unsure if I needed modules to run the game, my mom assured me that I didn't need them. She said I should come up with adventures on my own, particularly if modules cost money! Granted, my mom didn't have (and still lacks) any RP experience, but she just, well, figured this out from overhearing me, and made a suggestion!

Go moms!

[Rich Forest]

Hi Zac,

Sounds very cool -- I can really identify with some of this because we've been doing a lot of collaborative setting creation, also with D&D 3, and also following the lead of Sorcerer & Sword. It's been working out fantastically.

James is right that D&D 3 can be high prep. There are some techniques you can use to deal with this, allowing you to avoid the kind of heavy DM prep that might leave you making a whole lot of setting stuff up without the push-and-pull of collaborating on it and developing it through play. It's not zero prep, of course, because it takes some thought, but it's far more efficient than prepping a lot of stat blocks and grinding out dungeons and wilderness and city encounters one by one. I'll go so far as to suggest that D&D3 doesn't have to be much higher prep than any other game, in most cases, if you use the right techniques. (You may know about some or all of these techniques and resources already, but I'll scatter them out there in case any prove useful.)

I very, very rarely stat up anything new. I just don't have time for it, generally speaking. We've played from 1st to 8th level, and almost every single encounter has been with a monster straight from the Monster Manual, every trap straight from the DMG. The look of a creature, its goals, that kind of stuff I mess around with. But stats? I've found that I really don't need to mess with these. Depending on the books you have, you can get a lot out of the creatures from the various monster books, from NPC stats from Dungeon magazine or from modules, etc. You don't need to be using the module to use the stats, and you can re-use the same stats for a bunch of different characters -- the class/level system means that if you need a 7th level wizard and you have a 7th level wizard's stats, there's very little (or nothing) that you need to change to get use out of those stats.

Here's a good example of this technique from an ENWorld post I read a couple years ago. It's better than any of my own :-)

Another thing worth trying is getting a varied set of maps and making some notes on them as in-game play aids when needed. It's a great time saver. A recent wizard's article addresses some issues related to getting the right info in the right places for quick play -- they're calling it "the Delve format." The version presented there is pretty high prep, but a lower time-cost variant might be useful. I'm playing around with options myself.

As far as maps go, between the Map-a-Week Archives at Wizards and the Dungeon Magazine online supplement downloads, a lot of the major environments and dungeons are already available for some filling in yourself. You don't need to buy Dungeon magazine to get a lot of use out of the online supplements.

It's also worthwhile to get some of the standard, very useful stat blocks of appropriate CR for things like "spellcasting monster" or other types you might need and gather htem together in little packets by type -- you can grab the stat blocks straight from the SRD, either in rtf format at Wizards or from one of the html mirrors produced by fans -- I find d20SRD good for completeness and Sovelior Sage good for usability and the fact that a version for download to your local machine is available. Print them out in little groups by CR as you need them, and keep them handy along with your other notes. It's a relatively quick way to get a set of materials together that can be used in a pinch to provide appropriate CR challenges that match a situation arising in play. The CR system is imperfect, but it's still quite useful in this sense.

Efficient use of the extensive available resources for D&D3 is a huge help in prepping for a game without carrying the entire load yourself.

(I'm a pretty enthusiastic fan of D&D3, as you may have noticed.)

Rich

[Bob the Fighter]

Thanks for the resource suggestions, Rich!

I'm interested to see what happens when we actually get to a dungeon-esque scenario. If/when the main characters reach the old goblin shrine, or their underground hideout, I plan on finding neat, consequence-heavy ways to use the skills the PCs chose. I'm thinking of implementation in the sense of Sorcerer & Sword and the "spill a drink down the lady's dress" example. I'm interested in trying out the "no whiffing" idea, basically; the best part is that I can ask the players, "So if you fail, what might happen?"

It should be fun coming up with some interesting things that will take the plot on little twists. This game is an opportunity for me to use a lot of Forge-style techniques in GMing without simply resorting to diceless play. I posted a *while* ago about playing D+D 3rd. in a strictly-Drama fashion; playing with Fortune in there too, I'm noticing I can use more Forge ideas than before, like Fortune-at-the-beginning (for social-skill rolls in particular, but other things too).

I'm definitely excited about the initiative the players are taking: when Palori, the half-breed swordsman, awakens with a hangover and a missing childhood friend, he staggers out to the stables so he can ride out to find her. When he returns, having located the man last seen with her, he raises the town militia! I didn't know the town HAD a militia, but good job anyway, Palori! Even better was the bit where Amanda, playing Mialee the elfin musician, suggested that Palori's second ride out of town (with the militia following) would probably pass right by the bath house where Mialee was just finishing up. Seeing a gang of armored riders speed by with someone she recognized encouraged her to follow on her own mount. (Look at her helping me! Huzzah!)

The input the players offer is great: there's no sense of timidity, or fear of saying the "wrong" thing; all we have is a sense that the game is everyone's to add to as necessary.

We'll see how session 2 goes. Yay!

[contracycle]

I'm definitely excited about the initiative the players are taking: when Palori, the half-breed swordsman, awakens with a hangover and a missing childhood friend, he staggers out to the stables so he can ride out to find her. When he returns, having located the man last seen with her, he raises the town militia! I didn't know the town HAD a militia, but good job anyway, Palori!

See, now that would be totally alien and unacceptable to me.  Can't imagine how people find this fun.  But anyway, I don't begrudge you your happiness, I just want to mpoint out that not everyone plays this way, and that is not merely because they are unenlightened or have not tried it.

[ubergeek2012]

I'm definitely excited about the initiative the players are taking: when Palori, the half-breed swordsman, awakens with a hangover and a missing childhood friend, he staggers out to the stables so he can ride out to find her. When he returns, having located the man last seen with her, he raises the town militia! I didn't know the town HAD a militia, but good job anyway, Palori!

See, now that would be totally alien and unacceptable to me.  Can't imagine how people find this fun.  But anyway, I don't begrudge you your happiness, I just want to mpoint out that not everyone plays this way, and that is not merely because they are unenlightened or have not tried it.

What exactly are you finding unacceptable about that?  It seems like you mean the player's introduction of the militia into the situation without it's existence being previously established, but I just want to be sure I understand you.

[contracycle]

What exactly are you finding unacceptable about that?  It seems like you mean the player's introduction of the militia into the situation without it's existence being previously established, but I just want to be sure I understand you.

Yes, the town guard is the trigger, becuase this is something of a personal issue about the projection of modern assumptions into notionally historical settings.  Whether or not something like a "town guard" exists is a critical issue in terms of how the society is structured; the idea that such, sweeping changes to a setting can be introduced on a whim renders, for me, the entire exercise pointless.  What value can any decision I have made in character design matter if such fundamental changes can be made opportunistically?  What value my character conception if, manifestly, the setting is literally in-comprehensible because it has no  permanence?  When it does not exist to be referenced in its own right?

I can play games where these sorts of things operate, but not with the identification I use in RPG, it would have to be conducted in a detached, boardgame manner, an exercise then in manipulation and probability.  I can also handled this kind of flexibility when it is boxed off, when permissions are specifically granted to author some sub-set of the setting, although even this has risks.

I don't at all dispute or challenge Zac's account of the joys of shared creation, but thats still prior creation, with which I would have no problem.  Nor do I criticise or disagree with those who do enjoy playing in this manner.  But I feel it is a technique, that suits some and not others, rather than any kind of nuniversal principle.

[Ben Lehman]

Gareth, maybe we could split off your distaste for a game that you haven't played into a different discussion?

Bob: Sounds like a really fun game!  I'm curious what your approach to combat has been so far.  Are the players are all invested in the tactical and strategic depth of the game or is that stuff basically glossed over?

yrs--
--Ben

[Zamiel]

Yes, the town guard is the trigger, becuase this is something of a personal issue about the projection of modern assumptions into notionally historical settings.  Whether or not something like a "town guard" exists is a critical issue in terms of how the society is structured; the idea that such, sweeping changes to a setting can be introduced on a whim renders, for me, the entire exercise pointless.

Not to put too fine a point on things, and not to beg the question, but were you sleeping through the part of the initial post where he said that this is D&D? You know, where there are mages and sorcerers and warriors that can wade through thousands of kobolds and the inspiration comes from Robert E Howard and Lieber, high action-adventure? The kind of game that gives rise to someone buying a Bohemian Ear-Spoon because it does 2d8 damage and just sounds so darn cool?

I mean, yes, you could run D&D as if it were Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth, with a multi-layer working out of all the socio-political implications of the village, and its ties with the macro- and micro-organizational constructs of local society, and in that particular genre take, the presence or absence of a town militia might be deeply meaningful, speaking to the self-organizing hierarchialization of the individual or subsumption to the State, in opposition to the pressure for individual exemplification of the Warrior-ideal ... but that's clearly and obviously not what Zac was talking about, on any level. You made it up, then you attacked the made-up straw-man derisively.

See, what I hear hear is, "I find your high-action genre take on group-creation beneath my notice, peasant creature. I will never lower myself to such proletarian diversions." Because you didn't have to say anything about it. You could have asked if Zac found that it was disruptive to coherence or continuity. (And I suspect Zac would either answer, "Who's interested in too much continuity here; have you read RE Howard?" or "Because everyone's so involved, we have way more continuity and sense in the setting than I ever have! Many hands make light work!") But you didn't, you just came out and had to deny the very idea that they could be doing what they say, and sounding like a whiny snot while you're at it.

[contracycle]

Did either or your arrogant reponses bother to take into the initial post?  Where it was said that "And lo and behold, playing with folks who *don't* have years of preconceptions and hangups on "how to do things" resulted in a totally spontaneous creation-fest that got me more into my roleplaying than I've been in a long time! With the burden of creating everything off of my back and instead in everyone's hands at once, I was a much more convincing and versatile character-actor. Wow! So exciting. I can't wait for next week, and my players had a great time, too!"

I'm glad fun was had.  Theres no need to bombastically suggest that only thickwitted neanderthals living in the stone age of RPG find games with a hard setting fun.  As I went out of my way to say,  if it works for them thats great, but there is no need to piss on others kind of fund just because its different.  Its a local technique, not a universal rule.

Which is why, Tony, it was entirely legtimate for me to commenty on a game I have not played - it was not the game I oibjected to,  as I said, but the self-congratulatory hubris.

[Rich Forest]

Zac,

Like Ben, I'm also curious about what parts of D&D3 are really grabbing you and Doug and Amanda. You mentioned that you have some ideas about how to do skill use with Doug's half-elven swordsman and Amanda's elven fife player. I'm also generally curious about what kind of background knowledges people are using to build up their contributions to the setting and so on. You mentioned they have varying amounts of familiarity with Vampire and Mage, with fantasy literature, and with console and computer RPGs, but no direct experience with playing D&D itself. Are they more interested in ways to draw on some of those experiences in applying them to D&D, and letting you worry about the rules stuff? Or are they getting into the D&D rules much?

I'm interested in how your process works because we tend to make pretty heavy use of the D&D 3 rules for everything we can, including using them as a major point of reference for our collaborative setting creation. You mentioned, I think, that you're pretty familiar with the rules, but that you used to somewhat dissatisfied with them. This time, buying equipment by the book and also using the Hero Builder's Guidebook to generate some characterization turned out to be pretty cool after all. (Am I reading you right? Let me know if I'm not.) Are there other rules like that?

How about skills – you mentioned some ideas you have for getting a clearer idea of the consequences of the roll before rolling. What kinds of skills do they have? Many points? I'm guessing Amanda's character is maybe a bard (?), with relatively good skill points, while Doug's is a... fighter? (Are they 1st level?) How many skills do they have to work with? If they're low level, skill checks can be pretty random – the skill levels haven't gotten to the point where they're really having a strong impact on the outcome. Is this something you expect to be a problem, or do you think it'll be mitigated by setting clearer expectations about the possible results before the roll?

I'll admit I have a vested interest in the skill question. Skills have been one of my weak points in D&D3, in general – there are a lot of pretty specific rules in there and I've noticed a few times where I've really dropped the ball on them. For example, we have a rogue, and for a while I wasn't paying as much attention to the details of skill use as I had been to combat. The effect of this was that it made everyone more effective with the skills they had, and that had the effect of nerfing some of the rogue's coolness. For example, one time I just assumed everyone (including the dwarf) could climb 10' up a rope in a round to escape a combat. Technically not all of them could've done it so easily, and so quickly. If everyone can climb a rope like that, why'd the rogue's player put all those points in climb? I'd never have done that with the combat rules themselves – I try to make sure I'm not missing the important details there. But with skills, I hadn't paid as much attention to detail, and the fallout was that the rogue wasn't able to shine at things he should have been able to shine at. The rogue player pointed it out to me, and I'm working on paying more attention to the skill use rules.

Do you think there will be anything like this for your group – i.e., that they'll get interested in the rules enough that they might start building expectations about what they can and can't do based on them? Or do they seem more interested in other aspects of play and not so much on the details of how skills work, preferring to leave it to you to mediate the rules stuff, etc? Would you be happier doing it one way or the other?   

Hm. This whole post has me thinking now. I think I'll go read the skills chapter a bit.

Rich

[Ron Edwards]

S'pose I'll moderate now.

Cool your jets, Gareth. Let me know when a post goes over the line for you. For the record, your initial inquiry to Zac was fully legit; also for the record, erecting your cock to defend yourself against Zamiel is not.

Ben, let me attend to the public moderation, thanks.

Zamiel, your post is the problem. Gareth did not say "awful and abominable and wrong," when he wrote "alien and unacceptable" to him. Quit defending against perceived insult, especially on others' behalf.

All of you are forgetting that this thread is Zac's. He's a new poster at the Forge. And you guys are acting like this is about you and your little interpretations of little nuances of phrase. All of you are disrespecting Zac, yes, you too, Zamiel, no matter how much it might seem like you're defending him.

I'm minded to zap the pack of you into the Inactive File and preserve the actual discussion that's occurring here. If the next posts are anything except addressing the points and ideas raised by Zac, that's what'll happen. God knows why I'm even waiting for that.

Best, Ron

[Bob the Fighter]

Thanks for the questions, Ben and Rich!

Um, combat hasn't played too big a role just yet; I've gone over attacks of opportunity with the players, and Doug chose a feat, Combat Reflexes, to use them to his defensive advantage. Basically, he gets a Dexterity bonus worth of extra AOO's he can use every round (sadly, only one per opponent). Since the game will at some point involve swarming goblins, I can feel safe throwing several of the easily-dispatched beasties at Palori without worrying too much about skewering the lad.

Skills are definitely where it's at: Amanda's bard, Mialee, used Gather Information to find out a few choice rumors about the prince's son. This gave me an opportunity to throw some scandalous tidbits around about him: not only is he a racist and a jerk, he thinks women owe it to him to have sex with him.

Not only does it prep the prince's son as a rich, spoiled jerk and a prime fall-guy for the missing-woman case; it gives me great opportunities to fill in a few recurring characters among the NPC's. Mialee used Gather Info to give stronger definition to some of her fellow musicians; her scenes have a lot of potential for future support characters!

I'm *really* excited about the use of Bluff and Sense Motive; it's possible for the whole plot to hinge on a good Bluff roll, or a much-needed successful Sense Motive. For instance, should the assembled magistrates believe the prince when he tries to clear his son's name, that will throw the blame onto Fate, or solely the goblin thugs who captured her. It'll make the political prerogative center on taking revenge on the goblins, now that they've kidnapped someone wealthy for a change! If the judges see through the prince's defense, the focus will be on taking compensation out of the royal heir's hide.

On the result of a couple of Bluff rolls, the tone of the setting could potentially develop into large-scale war; it could shift into political maneuvering; or maybe the whole thing will fizzle out and a couple of frustrated heroes will have to find their missing friend by themselves, without the support of the regime or the community.

Going by the book on rules and randomization and equpiment has been very good to us; it's taken a lot of the work of detail-creation out of our hands and let us focus on interpersonal relationship-building. Yay!

The characters are first-level; this is kind of interesting for me to handle, as a GM. I have to keep things light so as to not wipe out the characters, but I also have to figure out a way to give them fairly heroic things to do. I figure a key to that is to *continue* to make their choices matter (it'll be important, for instance, that they've given up on rescuing their friend for now, and are going to visit Mialee's anti-monarchist family), while simultaneously making other characters care about what they do. Not only should the narrative go where they steer it; NPCs should react like what's going on matters, too!

I think that skill rules are going to be pretty important; we already had an occasion in which I assumed Gather Info was a short-term exercise, whereas it's actually a day-long or evening-long process of crusing bars for folks to talk to about the subject at hand. I kind of played it off, upon looking it up, as a "talk to someone about X" skill: it initiates a conversation about a topic, but things play out from there as they will. I'm curious about Amanda's interest in the Profession skill: she asked what it was for, I explained it was a day-job kind of thing, and then she went silent with a "hm". She didn't take the skill at all, but I'm wondering what she *will* pick up in the future.

One thing that hasn't been cleared up yet is this: how crunchy will money become as a game tool? Since Doug's character is effectively royalty, and Amanda's character has a free place to stay, it's not certain exactly what they'll spend money on. As such, it might be a big-purchases-only kind of tool. We'll see.

Experience points are something of note: due to Amanda's exclusively Old-WoD roleplaying experience, receiving a three-digit experience point reward made her eyes bug out. I sent her an email explaining why D+D XP is awarded, and when; she hasn't replied yet, but I get the feeling that combat will be a secondary function of Exploration, with character interaction taking the driver's seat. I'll have to do some thinking about non-violent/non-lethal ways of gaining XP, even coming as close to actual combat as using Bluff or Intimidate, samurai-style, to talk someone out of a fight.

I figure if you use carefully-worded threats to make a goblin king back down from a duel, that merits XP just as much as kickin' his ass! We'll see how important combat is to the players; I'm assuming it is, as Doug chose to play a fighter and Amanda spent a fair bit of time loading up on weapons during character creation. Don't let the previous paragraph fool you: I'm not averse to fighting as part of the story, but my concern about 1st level characters and vulnerability (technically, they can handle a 1/2 CR encounter at a time, I think) is going to override any narrative bloodlust I might have in me for now.

Also, Rich, I have a question about Challenge Ratings: does the CR number assume a party of four? If so, does the XP table in the Dungeon Master's Guide give you XP values to be *split* among party members or XP for *each* party member? Come to think of it, if the assumption is that every level should hold about 13 evenly-matched encounters for the PCs, then 300 XP (the amount for a CR 1 encounter against four level 1 PC's) would be split into 75 XP per person. 75*13 is 975, which just about brings us to 1000, and 2nd level. With the assumption of some good experience point bonuses in there for puzzles, good roleplaying, and story goals, you could actually move a bit faster than that.

Pitting two PCs (half a standard party) against 1 CR worth of challenge (say, two orcs) is probably altered in a single way when divvying up experience. Rather than do anything to that 300 value, you just divide it between two people instead of four. Six such encounters will bring the group to 900 total XP, where we can go into XP bonuses mentioned above to push into level 2. Wow, my idea to give XP for any threats nullified will be useful, now that I actually get how much XP to award for an encounter.

So um, I think I answered my own question, but someone else was probably confused, too.

[James_Nostack]

Zac: another cool set of skills are Intimidate and Diplomacy, especially when used by NPC's.