[D&D 3.0/3.5] Monster fight on the open sea!

[Callan S.]

What I was getting at was that it wasn't player input - the players were instead passed a duty (traditionally seen as a GM duty). It'd be more like Zak was the one giving input to them, not the other way around. I'll stop on the clarification posts though (PM's accepted, of course).

Frank: Callan's right. The players did agree, and whether that was because they agreed or they're in the habit of "DM has power," I'm not entirely sure. I'm hoping that with a few sessions under our belts, the players will be comfortable in requesting elements (monster types, maps, etc.) and scenes.

What do you think, Zak? Would it be them requesting elements, or more like you requesting them for elements (and they take on your input and consider how they want to balance it). Just examining the idea here, which is a bit of a reverse.

Hmmm, I think I've always wanted to 'win' at game mastering, so I'm probably a bit blind to the idea of just handing away (parts of) that challenge.

Oh, don't get me wrong. When combat is on, my goal is to win by killing the party.

Sorry, I don't mean that sort of winning. I mean more like the whole package - err, how would I put it? Like how I really like the PS2 game 'Mercenaries'. If I presented a game like that, I'd consider myself damn good at GM'ing, regardless of my pawns losses to the PC's.

On a side note: I don't think I try to win during combat. I feel there's too many things I'm not supposed to rule in my favour, that'll I'll either fail in that or fail my own desire to win by undercutting with a ruling that favours the other side. I do like the new D&D system though, you can just roll the attacks and watch for AoO's and the monsters start pummeling the PC's. Though I have to say once a PC goes into the negs, I often wuss out, holding back on certain moves and such, so they probably apply alot less pressure (half? Perhaps a quarter). I see it as a fail situation for the players/other side anyway, so I kind of wuss out on underlining the obvious by continuing the carnage at the same strength. I think it's obvious, anyway (or atleast my body language is 'Ohh shit, you just entered a real crappy place, didn't you!?' as I can clearly see in my mind a TPK sooo damn close you can smell it). However, it'd be interesting to just bring the players in on that strength call. I dimly recall some past gaming where I, in a semi questioning way, went to move a enemy figure back and players have said 'Nah, he'd keep wacking' or some such, so it's probably already happend a few times.

And this one time it was really funny, when the cleric died (a rare death) and there was this moment when resurection was about to be suggested and he became SO adamant that no, he wasn't to be resurrected (and we couldn't make him!!).  I'd been around the forge a bit by then though, so I just approched the issue directly and absolutely made it clear I wasn't going to try and push on that issue - it went the way he chose, absolutely.

Sorry, a bit rambly (but atleast it's some AP :) )

[Zak Arntson]

Callan: I hadn't thought that through, yet. I figure the first few sessions will be me prompting the players for scenes.

• What do you want to do next? I then create a scene based on this
• Are goblins still fun to fight?
• I've got these locations prepped, which one would you like?

My hope is that with enough DM-asks-for-input, I can make a smooth transition to players prompting for scenes and suggesting locations, etc. etc.

[Callan S.]

I'm digging at that 'DM asks for input'. I think you did something else entirely in this play example. Changing your list above, some examples of that difference might be:
* I've got this great scene in mind, can I use some or all of it?
* Owlbears are great oldskool monsters - can I use them?
* I've got this one location prepped - can I use some or all of it?

You can see here how as GM, you don't sit and duely consider player input, rather the players would sit and duely consider your input. It'd be really interesting to see an AP account of your next play where both types of questions are tried.

[Zak Arntson]

Callan: I ran the second session, and asked the following question: I've got spiders or more goblins & zombies. What would you like? You can read all about it here: [D&D 3.5] Badger, Goblin, Fight!.