ThirdWizard

I've been thinking a lot about plot hooks recently. For years I've been a believer in putting plot hooks at the end of the session, dropping several of them at once, then allowing the players to decide which one they're going to go after next time we play. This lets me have a very open ended game while still being able to focus on the details of where and what the PCs are doing in the game. I don't have to make a bunch of stuff up on the fly because the players decided to go in a completely random direction (often anyway), and I can still allow the players to do what they want without feeling railroaded.

But, when thinking up some plot hooks for coming games, I also got to thinking about the concept of "Show, don't tell." It's a writing philosophy that says you don't want to do a lot of exposition - use action when you can instead, make the characters do something to advance the plot. If you want to explain something to the reader, use the story itself to explain it. Don't say the emotions of the characters, describe them and let the reader come to the conclusion that you want them to. It's more involving, more interesting, and it just makes for better reading.

It can also be used in adventure design to great effect. It's more fun when the players' PCs are involved in the world around them, discovering things for themselves, than when they're told about things. That's why whenever I feel the need for some exposition or long dialog out of NPCs, I make sure that there are interesting things going on around them at the same time, or that they're in an interesting location, something to keep them feeling that they're not just sitting around listening to NPCs going on about things.

So, I got to thinking about that with plot hooks, and I thought to myself, "Self, why not drop a plot hook in the middle of the adventure as an encounter." And, by this I don't just mean drop a letter on an NPC who they fight that points them to something bad happening elsewhere. I mean when they see this encounter they're going to think "Oh crap. Something bad is going down somewhere." Something that will make the players themselves sit up, take notice, and decide that they're going to have to look into this. Sure, there might be things in the aftermath to lead them elsewhere if they want: letters, interrogating hostages, that kind of thing. But, the encounter itself will be integral to the plot hook, and obvious. (Plot hooks have to be obvious most of the time - I'm sure you know why.)

What I came up for this adventure was a group of hobgoblins and goblins coming up the North Road (which is relatively untraveled) with a giant cart full of human corpses, being pulled by two zombies. Something like, 15x20 feet of corpses piled four people high. The first question they asked is what the heck were a bunch of hobgoblins doing with corpses. Well, the two zombies pulling the cart gave them a bad feeling about that one. Then they wondered where they were getting all these corpses. They had a bad feeling about that one. So, now they can investigate this. And, they probably want to pretty soon because not only are the hobgoblins apparently killing a lot of people, but they might be dealing with some kind of zombie army at the same time.

It also has the added benefit of mixing things up during the game. They get something they weren't expecting, something that leads them in a different direction. It gives me a good way to introduce these things, too, without breaking any kind of suspension of belief, because it will be dropped in a logical way.

So, I'm going to keep trying this. Not every session, but maybe half of them, I'm going to drop something in that they aren't expecting, something that can lead them in a different direction. I'm going to keep dropping the plot hooks at the end as well. I dropped two more at the end of the last session. But, there are just too many good things about how this worked out in game not to keep doing it.

I got invited to a 4e game Friday, as some of my friends were showcasing the new edition for their other group (I run a game for some of them) and I got to actually play! It was a blast, but that's not what this post is about.

It's about Mage Hand.

Ah, what an innocuous little spell. But, we thought of something that I just had to share due to its pure insanity. We thought it would be awesome to play a character who thought he was the Mage Hand. The Hand would float above the PC wiggling its fingers, and the PC is actually a puppet for the Hand! The hand would float around and do things while the PC stood there, catatonic, then return to start wiggling again and the PC would start moving, communicating and such for the Hand.

We thought it would be best to pull off with a PC that didn't use Minor actions often (to sustain the hand), so probably a Half-elf Fighter taking the Mage Hand power. We also wondered if you could do things like put gloves/gauntlets on the Hand to make it look more imposing. As an added plus, it could remove the gauntlet to "throw down" or slap someone to challenge them to a duel.

It could also communicate through hand gestures. It could give a thumbs up or the finger depending on mood. It could even write if the DM rules the Hand has motor skills enough for fine motion (and I don't see why not). It could also pinch the occasional barmaid's rear end, hold the PCs nose to keep out bad smells, control hand puppets, ride on the shoulders of other PCs, and all kinds of other random innane fun stuff.

I think I'm going to like you, Mage Hand.

I’m going to do something that I haven’t done in quite a while: play a non-Planescape game. And even beyond that, I’m homebrewing! Thus, I’ve been thinking about homebrewing and campaign setting design a lot recently, gearing up for starting my next campaign when fourth edition hits the shelves. There’s a lot of work I’m having to do with my currently running high level third edition campaign as well, so it’s quite the balancing act I’m having to do. I don’t want to lose any momentum on my current campaign as it comes to a close, but we’re adding some new players in the next campaign, and I want it to be great right out of the starting gate – especially since my game has been talked up by my current players!

Normally, this is when I would start thinking about bottom up campaign design. But, that’s too easy. Everybody has heard the same old schpeel about starting where the PCs are going to be, expand out, then work on the big stuff, yadda yadda yadda. Bottom up design is great, but I’m going a step further with my campaign design this time. As I was working on it, I was also thinking about all the stuff I want to do with the campaign that I don’t normally get to do with Planescape. I want to make sure this campaign stands out from where my games normally fall. So, I want the setting to facilitate this. Thus, my new design strategy: adventure up.

What I’m doing is not worrying about what goes where, how the land is laid out, or any of that other stuff that normally goes with homebrewing a setting, not yet anyway. I must resist the urge to draw maps or to describe the starting town. The first thing I’m doing is listing adventure possibilities, things I would like to do, at least at the beginning of the game. I want the PCs to have grown up in the area or at least be very familiar with it, so even though its points of light they’ll have a general idea of what’s beyond the town at least for ten or so miles, who their neighbors are, things like that.

And, I don’t want to be constrained by this initial offering. If I want to run an adventure with a zombie horde, I don’t want to look at the area I’ve created and find no place to put it. If I want some local elves to befriend the PCs, then they should be part of the setting. If I want a shadar-kai to play a key role in an adventure at some point, I want the PCs to have a working knowledge of what shadar-kai are. And so forth. I’ve got ideas for adventure piling up. Worlds and Monsters has been kind to me. I haven’t run non-Planescape in so long that it’s difficult to get out of that mindset sometimes. That’s fine; I’m still running a Planescape game at the moment after all!

This is an experiment, but I think it will go well. It’s not like I’m writing up every adventure ahead of the game; I’m just making a few outlines. “I want an adventure where the PCs rescue an eladrin baby from some fey. What scenery and players will I need to make this happen?” Then, based on the answers, I create a tenuous relationship between the fey of a forest to the north and the eladrin who must pass through in order to travel to their ancestral home. Will I use the adventure? Probably, I really like the idea. But, if the PCs don’t bite, it doesn’t matter: I’ve created a great location with adventure possibilities! That’s all I’m setting out to do.

I’m trying not to put anything into the initial setting offering that doesn’t have some king of plot hook associated with it. If there are some plains nearby, in what way can I use them in the game? That’s the most important thing to the players, so it’s going to be the most important question I ask when designing. Especially since I’m adding to the group, I want to really give a good game, and this is where it begins. Chekhov’s Gun is a literary term whereby if something appears in the story, it will come up later as an important element. That’s what I’m aiming for. I want to create a world where the PCs can constantly say “I made my mark there.” Sure, I want it to make sense, I want verisimilitude, but that comes later. It’s easily achieved. What I want is to squeeze the possibilities from every ounce of the world around the PCs and give them more things to do than they could possibly accomplish.

As a more involved example, my farm and outside the city has been hit with the hammer of adventure, beyond the normal raiders that come through. I want to avoid clichéd games, after all. I decided that the farmers have trouble with raiders, but the city decided to fight back. Every farm has to send a single family member to a fort on the edge of the farmland, who they are responsible for feeding and clothing. These people are trained as militia members to defend the farmland from attack. Here’s the adventure: the farmers are upset that they have to do this while the town-dwellers are protected by their blood without having to send their own family members. The strife between the two could make for some good intrigue, diplomacy, or some other adventure. It could even possibly lead to an attempted usurper! I love political and intrigue adventures, so I’m leaving myself an avenue there.

That gives me a few ideas for the town political structure. Why do the farmers put up with it? Obviously, because they’re often be under attack and need the defenses. Being alive under someone you consider a tyrant is better than being dead. Perhaps the town leader is a devout follower of Bane, who took the position by force years ago. He’s done a lot to protect the town from raiders, but has become even harsher in his old age. Insert strife between the worshipers of Bane and Bahamut and I can make the PCs choose between factions on various other adventures that these groups might have interest in.

I really have high hopes for this building philosophy. I’m so used to Sigil and portals leading to exotic locations that perhaps this is how I envision a campaign setting nowadays: a setting to facilitate adventure. I don’t think of it as a place for the PCs to live or expect them to be interested in it in and of itself. That interest comes from the adventures, from the PCs interacting with the land and creatures around them. Hopefully the better the adventures, the more the PCs will feel tied to the area, a part of it. I have some other ideas to help that along, but I think that’s enough for today. I don’t have any delusions that I’m the first one to look at designing a campaign setting like this, but I haven’t ever seen anyone describe it before, so I’m quite happy with the outcome.

(originally written 2/1/2008)

I find that there seems to be an easy trap to fall into when preparing for a session in which the DM lays out a problem for the PCs to solve and then goes on to list ways to solve said problem. Now, there’s nothing wrong with doing this. In fact, setting up for probably things that proactive players might look for is a good idea; it gives the DM preparation for probable actions of the PCs and ways to steer the session using the PCs’ own actions to further the story. It’s great!

However, that’s just one step, and not even the first step I take. The way I look at an adventure is with the PCs in the center of a constantly swirling storm around them. Whatever they do, they’ll find themselves interacting with it, so there isn’t any worry of them missing out on the adventure. The DM shouldn’t have to worry about steering them in certain directions, no hints need be given out, and even if the PCs do nothing that the DM expects (and really, do they ever?) the plot can still move forward.

Okay, now I need to backtrack a little. I look at what I wrote and see the implications of Thomas the Engine driving up already. Trust me; I’m not pushing a railroading agenda on you! When I say things like story and plot and whatnot, I’m merely referring to the natural outgrowth of the game being played. Of course, if the PCs do nothing, they won’t have as much influence on the story, but they can always exert their will if they want.

The point of keeping things moving is that the game doesn’t become bogged down. If the PCs never have to do anything for the adventure to reach a conclusion (note the use of “a” instead of “the” there), then you’re free to build branching points from a baseline of no PC action instead of assuming the PCs will do A, B, and C. In other words, if one thinks of the adventure as a branching tree starting at the roots and working its way to several different conclusions, if the base assumption doesn’t require the PCs must do such-and-such then one ends up with an easier flowing session.

That’s not all, however. The PCs in a Storm philosophy has one great consequence: the PCs are integral to the adventure. If you set up the situation and then figure out a way for the PCs to solve it, then you might be tempted to think of PCs as the outsiders to the problem instead of a part of the situation itself. I’ll try out an example and attempt to explain where I’m coming from here.

Take a part of an adventure where the PCs have to flush out a doppelganger. The PCs aren’t aware of whom the doppelganger is, and so they investigate the town to try and figure out who it might be. It’s just a small part of an adventure, but it seems fairly archetypal. The trap here is detailing various NPCs who leave clues as to the doppelganger’s identity that the PCs must piece together to solve the problem of finding the imposter. However, this presumes a lot on the part of the players and it could possibly bog down the game if the players miss something. There’s a second problem, though, in that the PCs aren’t really as involved as they could be. They’re an outside force looking in. They aren’t part of the situation itself, trying to push their way in. It isn’t as exciting as it could be.

Now, let’s take that doppelganger situation and spin it a little. The PCs still have to discover who the imposter is, but let’s add some danger and intrigue to the mix by starting with a different base assumption: the doppelganger has heard of the PCs and wishes to recruit them for his own purposes. He’s not going to give himself away, he won’t reveal who he is, but he will make contact with them through lackeys and such. Now the PCs find themselves embroiled in the situation. Where they were outside observers, now they are participants – whether they want to be or not.

I like to think of adventurers as those people who not only seek out fame and fortune or to right wrongs. I think of them as people who just can’t help but keep from falling into trouble. Wherever they go, happenstance grabs a hold of them. In the example above, now they have a vested interest in things, and if they don’t do as the doppelganger says, maybe he’ll try to assassinate them. Maybe whoever they’re working for will catch wind of it and test their loyalty. Whatever events unfold, the story will move forward without them having to prod and poke and blunder around.

The point isn’t to take anything away from the players – indeed I feel I have given them more opportunity when I set them in the storm. They’re part of the world, interacting and pushing and, yes, being pushed. The question becomes, “How hard will they push back?”

Sometimes things aren’t as easy as the doppelganger example. Sometimes it’s more subtle, and when I’m working on setting up the adventure I take PC actions for granted. A lot of the time this comes back to bite me. It could be as bad as the PCs deciding not to use the Inn in town, instead sleeping outside in a secure shelter messing up an encounter of mine. When that comes up I just have to roll with the punches and ask myself what the NPCs would do in such a circumstance. I try to keep things moving as best I can regardless of what the PCs do.

So next time you write an adventure for your home game, just read over what you have and ask yourself “What will happen if the PCs don’t do this?” whenever you come to a place where PC action is required for the game session to keep up its pace (and pacing is very important – if not the most important thing in a session). Look over it and think up some alternatives or write up something that pulls the PCs into the action. Leave them an exit strategy if they actively try to get away, but don’t let them accidentally walk away from adventure. Push it on them. I guarantee the game will be more fun.

(originally written 1/25/2008)

ENWorld 2 is finally here! Great!

I'll be porting over my stuff I wrote on my Gleemax blog, as I am not going to be using that anymore. No comment on that system beyond that.

I'm running a 4e game every other week, so that will probably influence what I write about. Two new people have been added to my group, so it should be great!

Anyway, good times ahead blogging, I hope, and I can't wait to read other people's entries. Just what I need, more excuses not to do work at work. Heh...