Giving Players Choices: Trollhaunt Warrens

[SlyFlourish]

Recently I've been thinking about how I give players choices in my games, and my desire to give more meaningful choices in the future.

Right now, most of my game is focused around tabletop combat. I set up three rooms, they go through the three rooms, they collect loot and exp. There's an overarching story and often I do give them choices, but not as often as I like.

Warning - Trollhaunt spoilers ahead

So we've begun Trollhaunt Warrens and the group just got to the entrance. I plan on railroading the encounters because I don't want the party to skip any of these awesome battles and I can't really set up all the possible options using Dwarven Forge. So instead i set up three rooms at a time.

I don't think it matters much that I railroad the dungeon. It isn't like "go left" or "go right" are very interesting options. Without any real data, the party is just randomly picking a direction.

Instead, I want to offer meaningful choices without pre-determined outcomes. Once in a while, I'd like to give them a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" choice like the choice in the middle part of Fable 2 where you are really screwed either way.

In Trollhaunt, I filled out the initial Oni mage a bit to make him more of a memorable NPC instead of just a guy the PCs kill. He's assassinating people back in Moonstair while the PCs are battling through the Trollhaunt. I think there are some options for the PCs there, but I don't know what yet.

I also have an assassin hunting down one of the PCs. I think there are some options there too, but I need to fill them out.

So what do you guys do to stick meaningful options into your games?

 

[Rechan]

I don't think it matters much that I railroad the dungeon. It isn't like "go left" or "go right" are very interesting options. Without any real data, the party is just randomly picking a direction.

This caught my eye, as I had an idea while reading it.

The important point here is "without any real data".

So the question becomes: can you give them real data?

For instance, you present a fork in the road, and then you detail what left and right mean. "Left is a dark swamp, fog rolling in. Right leads through a ravine with steep walls on either side." That is real data, because the PCs can say to themselves, "Hmm, high ravine walls. We could get boxed in, and there's not a lot of places to flee to." You could even spice it up with some knowledge checks about "What lurks in the swamp", to give them an idea of what they might deal with if they took that path.

A good example of this is say, the assault on Moonstair. You tell the PCs "There's stuff happening over here, over there, and over there. What do you want to address first?" You could say have buildings on fire with people inside, or trolls wrecking the port, or whathaveyou.

Another option is to actually give them information that would make their path relevant. Let's say you gave them a map that was merely a blueprint of the Trollhaunt. Then you have 1 or 2 rooms detailed. Let's say... The Dragon's cave, and the Thrall pit. You offer the PCs an incentive to go to one of those areas first ("they need to recover the captives and get them out" "they are aware of the dragon's Mordant weapon and the skill challenge to negotiate with it").

This way, the PCs actually sit down with the map and chart their course. They could actually try to look for ways to slip past areas to come back later.

A third deviation from this idea is: offer them the option of going through the Feywild version of the Trollhaunt. "If you travel through the Feywild, you can get closer to Skalmad without alerting him of your presence. There are fewer, but far more dangerous battles ahead in the Feywild. Or, you could take the regular route, and fight more, weaker foes".

 

[SlyFlourish]

"For instance, you present a fork in the road, and then you detail what left and right mean. "Left is a dark swamp, fog rolling in. Right leads through a ravine with steep walls on either side." That is real data,"

Interesting thought but it still doesn't feel like a meaningful choice to me. We have a player whose leaving soon. I'm planning on some sort of kidnapping exchange thing going on. If he doesn't leave, his foes will kill friends in a town back where they came from. That's a real choice to me.

In Fallout 3 you can choose to do a bunch of quests in Megaton or blow up the entire town. Granted it was clearly a good or bad choice, but suppose some bad things were going on in the town that could only be cleared up by blowing it up?

I guess I want to offer my group more hard choices, real choices, that don't have right or wrong answers and have real effects. That's always the best element of storytelling - when characters make a choice and faces the consequences.

There are a bunch of other types of interesting choices:

Ends justifying the means choices. Do a little evil now for some good later.

Loyalty vs reward. Choose to be loyal and lose out on some clearly excellent loot.

What are some other choices like these that people have used?

 

[Rechan]

Ahh. I see what you desire now.

I hope this thread doesn't turn into one of those Moral Absolute vs. Moral relativist threads.

The first thing that comes back to me is the dragon. Partly because I just like that encounter. What I would do would try to create a moral question with the dragon. Let's say that the PCs have heard of this dragon, of the evil deeds it has done. Maybe something it did has actually harmed one of the PC's allies (like say, slayed a paladin of the same church as the party cleric). However, if the PCs fight the dragon, they lose something, and this loss is obvious to the PCs. Fighting the dragon would draw reinforcements, or they wouldn't get access to the Mordant weapon, or something.

So the question is, "Slay the dragon, whom has done bad things we know of, or ally with it and deal with the situation at hand."

As to what hard choices I have given PCs...

[sblock]I've given the PCs options like "You have just now destroyed the volcano god to these people. Yes, the people were going to sacrifice some victims to the volcano god, BUT that was to give them power in order to make war on the cannibals that are preying on the volcano people. That Volcano god also gave them protection from the cannibals; now they are unprotected, because of you.

You could wipe out the ghoul-worshiping cannibals. But the cannibals keep another scourge at bay - they ruthlessly hunt hyena. And hyena are gnolls that have yet to eat someone's soul - as soon as that happens, the hyena become gnolls, the gnolls begin worshiping demons. Unchecked, the gnolls would spread destruction and demons far and wide."

When it comes to "hard choices", I like "Choose to not stop/do a small evil in order to prevent a greater one".
[/sblock]

 

[SlyFlourish]

So the question is, "Slay the dragon, whom has done bad things we know of, or ally with it and deal with the situation at hand."

That's a great idea but I'd hate for them to not fight the dragon.

 

[Rechan]

So the question is, "Slay the dragon, whom has done bad things we know of, or ally with it and deal with the situation at hand."

What's the downside to slaying the dragon? What do they lose? It can't be the loot, because you kill the dragon, you get its hoard.

But yes. Turn the issue into "Which is more important: short term gain, or bettering things in the long term (removal of the dragon)."

I'd hate for them to not fight the dragon.

1) Why?

2) Part of players making a choice means that you can't use one of the two options.

3) The PCs can always fight the dragon later. Unless it's made clear that if they don't slay it now, they won't have the opportunity to track it down and slay it later.

 

[mac1504]

So the question is, "Slay the dragon, whom has done bad things we know of, or ally with it and deal with the situation at hand."

It appears (by the small amount of reading I've done so far) that Demon Queen's Enclave allows for this type of choice in the main plot of the adventure. I'm looking forward to running P2 for that very reason.

 

[LostSoul]

So what do you guys do to stick meaningful options into your games?

If you want those kinds of choices in your games (moral choices) you need to have a couple of things set up first.

1. You need players who are interested in making those kinds of choices.
2. You need characters who have goals.

If you have players who dig that kind of game, who have made PCs with goals, then all you have to do is to apply pressure.


Give me an example of a character (and the setting he exists in) and I'll throw out a few examples.

 

[bert1000]

So the question is, "Slay the dragon, whom has done bad things we know of, or ally with it and deal with the situation at hand."

That's a great idea but I'd hate for them to not fight the dragon.

For the players to make relevant choices you have to relax the importance of what you think would be the coolest outcome, otherwise you bias that outcome.

I agree that the slay the dragon that has done evil vs. ally with it for a big bonus (selfish) or ally to get a benefit in dealing with another more pressing problem (least of all evils) are good scenerios. The challenge is making the "big bonus" or "benefit" actually more or less equal to fighting the thing. This is what usually breaks down in the examples I see.

Here's a typical example of what could happen:

Fight a L+2 encounter and get a bunch of treasure and XP, with a good chance of short resting up before the next set of Level encounters

vs.

Ally with the L+2 encounter who gives you some piece of somewhat useful but not terribly important advice, avoid a fight you could win and the treasure/xp, your saved resources don't really come into play in a meaningful way against a bunch of Level encounters

 

[Rechan]

Ally with the L+2 encounter who gives you some piece of somewhat useful but not terribly important advice, avoid a fight you could win and the treasure/xp, your saved resources don't really come into play in a meaningful way against a bunch of Level encounters

One solution to that, or at least one step towards that solution:

Allying with the dragon gives you XP. Because you bypassed the challenge (of dealing with the dragon).