[D&D] Campaign Analysis

[Halzebier]

Our group is in the process of finishing its first D&D 3e campaign. The game is/was combat-heavy, centred on dungeon crawls, and has seen the PCs rise from 1st to 18th level (and will no doubt see them attain 20th level before the end).

The level of satisfaction is high and everybody agrees there should be a follow-up campaign. Nonetheless, I think that some things could be improved, so I'll try to analyse our preferences and ask for advice on the Forge.

However, I'd like to point out that it is a given that we'll be playing D&D again (3e or 3.5e). I think that if you look over my analysis below, you'll agree that it is a pretty good fit for us. But even if there were games better suited to our preferences, switching systems is simply not an option for reasons I won't go into here. House rules, however, are not a problem as long as they don't become very numerous or complicated.
Let me kick off my analysis with a list of the things we seem to enjoy the most.

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1. Power
The players like their characters to have a lot of power and to see it increase.

Specifically, we are fond of the following:
•   character advancement (the quicker, the better)
•   character equality (neither death nor permanent level-loss)
•   shiny new toys (magic items, new spells, special abilities etc.)
•   buckets of dice (there's nothing like rolling a 10d6 fireball)

I'd like to point out that, in my opinion, our infatuation with power is not the result of deprotagonization. We're playing in an openly acknowledged trailblazing style, i.e. the players happily follow the DM's clues to a pre-determined conclusion and get no kick out of derailing the adventure.

2. Tactical Play

The players like moving miniatures across the grid, stacking spells for synergy effects, maximising skills and so forth.

I'd like to point out that we also happen to be board game aficionados, but not hardcore wargamers.

3. Heroic Fantasy

The players want to create fantasy stories with the following elements:
•   combat (lots and lots)
•   epic scope (world-shaking conflicts, the eternal struggle of Good vs. Evil etc.)
•   'cool' characters (larger-than-life, famous)
•   'cool' actions (one-liners,  critical hits etc.)

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Next, let me relate which problem areas (or perhaps instances of incoherence?) I have identified.

*-*-*

1. Color vs. Power

This issue has caused frustration and even some bad blood in the past.

Firstly, players have repeatedly expressed regret at playing their characters less heroically than they would have liked to, at least in retrospect. Time and again, characters act much more carefully in practice than the heroes they are supposed to be in theory.

Secondly, one player has been much criticised for what the others feel is 'inappropriate roleplay', i.e. violating his character concept, invariably in order to protect or increase his character's power. Interestingly, this player excels at providing color to the game, but only when it comes at no cost to his character's power.

2. Color Drain

We feel that D&D combat is quite complicated and time-consuming, especially at high levels. Most of the time, we experience a gradual loss of color as battles progress.

As has been pointed out about FENG SHUI, nobody can come up with cool descriptions all evening. Consequently, we have recently made an attempt to channel creativity by tying a bonus and mandatory 'colorful' description to certain rare die rolls. However, several players feel that one cannot force inspired descriptions and the mechanic's effect has been rather lackluster so far.

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I have several ideas to address these issues, but this mail is already pretty long, so I'd rather hear your observations and suggestions.

Regards & Thanks in Advance,

Hal

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Hal,

What an excellent snapshot - an amazing amount of information in so few words.

My suggestion is to acquire and read Tunnels & Trolls, not necessarily as a recommendation for a replacement system, but merely for enjoying the head-space shift in how its play is conducted. It seems to me to hit nearly all of your group's hot-buttons with a somewhat better way to manage them than D&D of any variety. However, it emphasizes flexibility of interpretation and a certain willingness to agree about things like facing or who's-first in some situations, which might not fit as well.

The Color vs. Power issue interests me greatly. Technically, Color could be increased or decreased with no particular impact on in-game effects, so in some ways, I'm wondering whether you're seeing a more profound [Character+System] disconnect with Power, rather than a Color-based one.

In other words, if I wed Character to System ("play the game"), I risk losing my character (or being disempowered in some tactical or emotional way). So I'll divorce them briefly and ramp up System ... which of course diminishes the innermost box [Color [System [Character + Setting = Situation]]] relationship among the components ... which in turn is the precise thing which keeps others' attention and commitment to the game going in the first place.

No wonder the other players consider this a breach of Social Contract.

Best,
Ron

[Matt Gwinn]

First, Id like to say that from the sounds of things it seems your group is in pretty good shape.  You don't seem to have nearly as many problems as most D&D groups that get posted about on the Forge.

In regards to the color vs. power issue, you could try running an evil campaign.  In most cases an evil character is interested in power over anything else.  Such a campaign could erase any feelings of  "not playing in character" for your group.  I recommend picking up "The Book of Vile Darkness" which is a fine supplement for running evil campaigns.  

I'm currently running an evil Drow campaign that seems to be working rather well in that regard, though my group does a lot more roleplaying than fighting.

A suggestion for the color drain issue might be to create your own critical hit charts or a random 'color' chart.  Even a hit location chart might be enough to inspire some creative description.

Another possibility is to simply shorten the combats.  I find that D&D combat can get to a point where the players are simply going through the motions; it's obvious that the PCs can't lose.  In such situations its simply a matter of how many rounds it'll take to finish the job.  Unless the scene is particularly important, I cut the combat short, and have the players describe how they finished off their opponents.  It saves time and pulls the game away from becoming a series of die rolls.

Good luck.

,Matt Gwinn

[Loki]

Excellent advice Matt; as an addendum to cutting combats short--hand waving the end of the combat might not go down easily, particularly if some players enjoy the mastery of the tactical situation that results in total destruction.

I don't know if this applies to you, but in a *lot* of dnd games, bad guys fight to the death. Instead, have them break and run when they realize (or even fear) that they can't win. They'll be cut down like dogs in about 1/2 the time (there's a reason why generals want their troops to make a tactical withdraal instead of fleeing). Or they'll escape, which creates room for recurring bad guys, their enemies gathering intelligence about their tactics, etc. The latter can come in handy when you want to pit their ultra-powered characters against enemies who *somehow* seem to have counters for all their powers...

[John Kim]

Firstly, players have repeatedly expressed regret at playing their characters less heroically than they would have liked to, at least in retrospect. Time and again, characters act much more carefully in practice than the heroes they are supposed to be in theory.

Secondly, one player has been much criticised for what the others feel is 'inappropriate roleplay', i.e. violating his character concept, invariably in order to protect or increase his character's power. Interestingly, this player excels at providing color to the game, but only when it comes at no cost to his character's power.  

This being D&D, the problem usually has to do with magical item acquisition, right?  A radical solution would be to convert to a Champions-like point system.  i.e. All characters are guaranteed to have an amount of magic items as specified in the DMG gp-worth-per-level table.  You can always pick up a new item, but you have to get rid of stuff by the end of that session if you have over your limit.  If you lose stuff, the DM will arrange for you to get it back or items of the equivalent value.  

We feel that D&D combat is quite complicated and time-consuming, especially at high levels. Most of the time, we experience a gradual loss of color as battles progress.

As has been pointed out about FENG SHUI, nobody can come up with cool descriptions all evening. Consequently, we have recently made an attempt to channel creativity by tying a bonus and mandatory 'colorful' description to certain rare die rolls. However, several players feel that one cannot force inspired descriptions and the mechanic's effect has been rather lackluster so far.  

Three suggestions.  (1) Keep the fights short, as other people suggested; (2) set the fights in interesting places; (3) favor a few (maybe 3 to 5) tough-and-colorful opponents rather than hordes of cannon fodder.  A scattering of cannon fodder can be added on, but shouldn't be the main focus.

[6inTruder]

We feel that D&D combat is quite complicated and time-consuming, especially at high levels. Most of the time, we experience a gradual loss of color as battles progress.

Caveat: I really don't know what I'm talking about, but I think I have an "idea"...

I don't know exactly what's dragging out your combats, but "traditionally" this tends to have something to do with the whole HP attrition thing. Has your group thought of altering the whole DnD damage mechanic at all? Like, using the mechanic from Star Wars d20 or Mutants and Masterminds, neither of which I've used though they sound like they would be a good swich if your problem is HP attrition. Also, the "Massive Damage Thingee" where you have to make a Fort save if you take >X damage. You could use that and lower it.

Just some thoughts anyway...

[clehrich]

Firstly, players have repeatedly expressed regret at playing their characters less heroically than they would have liked to, at least in retrospect. Time and again, characters act much more carefully in practice than the heroes they are supposed to be in theory.

I don't know if this would wash with your players, but there can be a big difference between what heroic types say and what they do.  If your characters get to rehash much in bars and whatnot, let 'em lie like dogs.  It's called boasting, and if you're 18th level you can get away with it.  Who's going to argue?  If they do, you have a brief fun barfight.

On a related note, is it possible that your players aren't talking enough during combat?  Cracking wise and shouting "Stand, knave!  I will split thee from nape to gullet!" can make all the difference.  If everyone starts doing that stuff, and describing swordplay moves and such that don't really have combat effects (I lean slightly to the left and then sweep the sword across the upper right, aiming for his throat) means that it's easier to see what happens when a big roll comes up: "Hot diggety!  That sucker's head came cleeean off!"  "Hey Gartharodd, do you mind?  That head jogged my elbow and I almost missed my stroke, you know."  "Oops, sorry Ulthrain, just got carried away."

I may be totally wrong here, but it sounds to me like more chatter and less focused concentration may be in order.  By this point you guys can handle all the rules intricacies blindfolded, so focus your attention on the color.

Chris Lehrich

[John Burdick]

Check if HackMaster has anything you want to steal. The honor system in particular is intended to improve play much like yours.  Gaming the honor system is supposed to exhibit classic HackMaster behaviour.

John

[Halzebier]

Hi again!

The Color vs. Power issue interests me greatly. Technically, Color could be increased or decreased with no particular impact on in-game effects, so in some ways, I'm wondering whether you're seeing a more profound [Character+System] disconnect with Power, rather than a Color-based one.

My thoughts have been running in much the same direction: The system does not really facilitate the type of heroic actions we long for.

One possible solution at the system-level might be to introduce tangible, power-based rewards for heroic actions. These could be short-term (e.g. a to-hit bonus), long-term (e.g. bonus XP), or both.

Of course, this raises the question of what constitutes a 'heroic action'. This would either have to be determined by the participants or the system.
(As an example for the latter, Rolemaster awards XP for damage taken (and even dying), which could be defended on the grounds that PCs who put themselves into harms' way tend to get hurt more often.)

In other words, if I wed Character to System ("play the game"), I risk losing my character (or being disempowered in some tactical or emotional way). So I'll divorce them briefly and ramp up System ... which of course diminishes the innermost box [Color [System [Character + Setting = Situation]]] relationship among the components ... which in turn is the precise thing which keeps others' attention and commitment to the game going in the first place.

Unfortunately, you've lost me here. I think I can follow the first sentence, but what do you mean by 'ramp up the system'?

(As for looking at T&T for inspiration, I have been following your posts with great interest and even tried to obtain a copy at the Spiel 2003, Germany's biggest game fair. Unfortunately, the other players are not really interested in other RPGs or RPG theory, so I doubt this would have any impact.)

@Matt:
Running an evil campaign is excellent advice...though it probably would not work for us. It is excellent because it represents thinking outside the box – you see, my list of features for the kind of heroic fantasy we prefer should probably have included "the characters are the good guys". But that's just the thing – all sorts of assumptions are in place and remain invisible unless questioned!

I'm not sure we're totally wed to playing the good guys, but due to time constraints (we have jobs and families), we're running modules more and more often. Some modules could no doubt be played with evil parties, but others would require minor or even major adaptation – which would defy the reason we use them in the first place.

@Loki:
You're correctly guessing that hand-waving in order to cut boring battles short will not go down well with our group. However, having enemies surrender or flee more often seems like a good idea. I'll bring it up with the others (we have rotating DMs).

@John:
Actually, we already have just such a Champions-like treasure system in place: We keep a running tally of individual wealth and the party distributes treasure so that everyone has roughly the same, while the DM ensures we get our levels' due. Your other advice is spot-on, too, thanks!

@6InTruder:
Using the damage mechanics from d20 Star Wars (or Unearthed Arcana, for that matter) is a good idea, but too radical a change for us, I'm afraid. It would require too much work to adapt the modules we use. But thank you for the idea, anyway!

@Chris:
We try to use colorful descriptions in combat, but are rarely able to keep it up. D&D combat uses up a lot of processing power, at least for us. We have to keep track of hit points, spell durations, resources, cohorts, animal companions, summoned creatures and so forth. On top of that, there are a lot of attacks to describe – a player with a high-level character and some sort of companion gets half a dozen actions per round.  Don't get me wrong, though – it's its own reward to manage all these resources, but it does take away from other aspects of the game.

Regards,

Hal

[Paul Czege]

However, having enemies surrender or flee more often seems like a good idea. I'll bring it up with the others (we have rotating DMs).

I recall AD&D having morale rules that determined when a group of opponents would break and run. Does 3.0/3.5 not have morale rules?

Paul

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I recall AD&D having morale rules that determined when a group of opponents would break and run. Does 3.0/3.5 not have morale rules?

3E does have morale, but IIRC AD&D didn't but Basic did. I remember noticing that once, but I may be wrong.

For this sort of thing, I had more experience with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay which had a similar stat, Leadership I think, for any kind of break & run situation but also for the PC when facing scary things. i.e. ghost are scary, thus everybody makes a leadership test.

The Warhammer Battle game broke it down into things that cause Fear and Terror. Some things cause Fear (zombies, other undead, Ogres) others cause Terror which also causes fear, which translates into a check both for fear and terror (Dragons, etc). I don't recall this breakdown in WFRP.

However, I didn't like these checks for the PCs because a failure meant not being able to act. The GM also required continued check, so you could not act for several turns in a combat situation. Bottom line, it makes sense but is frustrating.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Jack,

3E does have morale, but IIRC AD&D didn't but Basic did.

Page 67 of the AD&D DMG. Of course, we always ignored these rules when we played. I think it was too much dice churning for an occasional, and relatively insignificant attack from the rear bonus. But with Attacks of Opportunity in 3e I'd think well executed morale rules would really come into their own...

Paul

[clehrich]

{oops -- Xposted with Paul}

3E does have morale, but IIRC AD&D didn't but Basic did. I remember noticing that once, but I may be wrong. ... However, I didn't like these checks for the PCs because a failure meant not being able to act. The GM also required continued check, so you could not act for several turns in a combat situation. Bottom line, it makes sense but is frustrating.

AD&D DMG pg. 67 has some tables for morale checks for NPC henchmen and for intelligent monsters.  My read of it is that PC's don't make such checks -- it's a question of "will to fight," which can drop sharply if it seems likely that you're going to be killed.  I may be wrong about PC's and morale, but I'm pretty sure that the issue in AD&D was whether your opponents would break and run.  It's certainly a rule presented in passing, though, which may be why I've never once seen it used in an AD&D game.  I'm not sure why they think unintelligent monsters don't have a fight/flight reaction, but there you go.

Chris Lehrich

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I knew noting that little bit was going to derail things a bit. I forget where I got the idea, but apparently it's not from looking at p 67 of the DMG.

Chris, note that I was talking about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, not D&D in my post. I don't know if this was the as-written application of the rules or just my GM's house rules which he tended to do with every game.

[clehrich]

Hi, Jack,

Chris, note that I was talking about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, not D&D in my post. I don't know if this was the as-written application of the rules or just my GM's house rules which he tended to do with every game.

Yeah, I got that.  I just meant to extend your criticism of Warhammer FRP and see how it applies or doesn't to AD&D, which it both does and doesn't, since the group here is doing AD&D.  I do think, on the subject of house rules, that this was one of the rules that tended to get dropped a lot in AD&D play, but it sounds like the campaign in question tends to have a lot of henchmen and such, so morale rules would matter significantly more than they otherwise might.

It's interesting -- I've never actually seen this sort of campaign, which really tries to follow the special rules for upper-level characters, and I wonder if morale isn't the only commonly-forgotten thing that could make high-level play fun.  Anyone out there have vast experience of upper-level by-the-book D&D play that might help deal with Hal's group's decline in interest in fighting, or rather the fun-value of such fighting, at those levels?  Comments about Hackmaster strike me as parallel here....

Chris Lehrich