Players making their mark on the world

Byrons_Ghost · Mar 27, 2003

This is sort of related to the thread on whether DMs or players come up with more plot stuff, but different enough I thought it needed to be seperate.

As a player, my favorite characters have always been those that were actually able to make a difference in the world, able to work out their own goals and pursue their own agendas. My longest-running character ended up a rather influential noble, I've had other characters that wanted to form criminal syndicates, were rebelling against tyrants, etc. Now, I don't mind going through pre-made modules or following the DM's plans either, in fact I'd prefer a mix of the two.

As a DM, I tend to rely pretty heavily on published adventures, even if I customize them heavily (someone else described looking at a module as a "toolkit", which I think pretty much sums it up). The modules are then strung together into an overall arching plot involving the usual stuff- recurring villains, great quests, the fate of nations, etc etc.

I'd like for my players to take the sort of intiative to start their own plots as well. Not everyone does, some of them just sit back and wait for combat to start. That's fine, I can't force them. Others have come up with their own plans- opening a store, magical experimentation, taking over a stronghold, that sort of thing. Which is what I like to see, because it means they're getting into the setting and the characters.

However, when they come up with these plans, I can't think of any way to work plots around them. It just ends up being sort of background material while I keep running modules. I think what it essentially boils down to is that things tend to become too reactive, or combat-oriented. If, for instance, I have a plot where the shopkeeper is threatened by a local protection gang, she gets the party together, they go take care of the gang, end of story. Or if the wizard finds more monsters in the stronghold he's claiming, we just go through a smaller version of a dungeon crawl.

So I'm wondering if anyone else out there has problems with improvising adventures, especially when it's in reaction to player wishes. And for those that don't, what sort of things do you have occur when the playters have goals for their characters?

drnuncheon · Mar 27, 2003

Byrons_Ghost said:
However, when they come up with these plans, I can't think of any way to work plots around them. It just ends up being sort of background material while I keep running modules. I think what it essentially boils down to is that things tend to become too reactive, or combat-oriented. If, for instance, I have a plot where the shopkeeper is threatened by a local protection gang, she gets the party together, they go take care of the gang, end of story. Or if the wizard finds more monsters in the stronghold he's claiming, we just go through a smaller version of a dungeon crawl.

Well, it's difficult to improvise - but if you have an idea what your PC's plans are, you can - heh - plan for them.

Ask yourself these questions:

Who is going to be affected by those plans? Who among those people might want to stop them? How might they go about doing it?

If your problem is that it can be handled in a single quick session, then maybe the opposition is too small. Give them something they can't just whack easily and call it a day. Maybe the protection gang is backed by one of the city's biggest crimelords - and he's got friends on the Watch. The opposition to the wizard claiming a stronghold doesn't come from monsters in the basement, but from lords and nobles in the area who are afraid he'll threaten their lands and their political power.

J

A'koss · Mar 28, 2003

I touched upon this in the DM/Players thread and I wholeheartedly support players who want to set their own agendas and long-term goals. A player who gets involved makes it a more interesting game. On-the-spot improv is pretty much a requirement for any DM, you're players are always going to do something unexpected and it's your job to muddle through it.

Adapting adventures to long term goals takes a bit of pre-planning but you can always leave a bread-crumb trail for the players to follow into the adventure you want to run. For instance, your PC who wants to set up a crime syndicate sees an opportunity to gain allies in a beleaguered Thieves' Guild in a large city. Wipe out their enemies, offer them a little sugar deal and you'll have some new grateful allies. However, their enemies seem to be backed by the DMs Big Bad and are pissed at the PCs interference... blah blah blah (run DM's module which ends with the PC having the opportunity to create few turncoat allies, dig up files with dirt on a number of nobles in region that the BB was blackmailing and so on). That's very simplistic obviously, but it's just about allowing the players a chance to achieve their goals while you're creating hooks into the adventures you want to run.

Cheers,

A'koss.

Cedric · Mar 28, 2003

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name..

sorry...couldn't help it...

Reynard · Mar 28, 2003

I have been running a campaign for a few years now that involves a very heavy dose of player involvement in lots of areas. The biggest thing is making sure that you and your players communicate effectively. If you know the players and their PCs, you can be pretty sure that you know where they are going with things. And then you can throw a wrench in.

I usually go with the tact of allowing their plans to move forward as, er, planned until things get boring. Suddenly, the Ministry of Magic has a power shift and your Alchemical Research Facility loses its funding. Let the adventures begin. Or, if the PCs are carving out a nation or uplifting themselves to godhood, you put non hittable obbjects in their way (you put the hittable things in front of the solution to the nonhittable things).

Also, don't underestimate the power of email. Even if you get together weekly, political stuff doesn't necessarily make for good table time. Deal with the Guild building and political maneuvering via a yahoo group or some such, and let the table cover the segments of those events that require direct, physical action. If like me you only get together every once in a while, make the sessions the pinnacle of various plotlines running through the non-table stuff: the new Minister of magic is really a doppleganger, etc...

PC instigated worl building is lots of fun, and it takes some weight off your shoulders. It should be encouraged.

Byrons_Ghost · Mar 28, 2003

Thanks for the advice, sounds good so far. I did do some stuff online for my last game, since only one or two people wanted to do political type stuff they ended up dominating the sessions while everyone else sat around. Not an ideal situation. I may just take the game online, especially if I end up moving, but I have the feeling that only two players out of five would do anything online with any regularity.

How about everyone else out there? I want stories! Let's here some of the wacky, oddball, or just plain annoying things that you've done to players when they were trying to do this sort of stuff. I'll even start.

After going through an old module called "Night's Dark Terror", which ends in the looting of a lost valley, our party had more money than we knew what to do with (we weren't in the part of the world where we could just blow it on magic). So we found a good trade center and got permission from the ruler to open a bank. We did all the sorts of banks do- protected cash, handed out loans, that sort of thing. We got this halfling merchant that we knew to look after the place whenever we had to go off and kill orcs or whatever.

Well, we come back after one adventure and the place has been burned to the ground- and our manager with it. Needless to say, the money is gone. We do some checking around, and decide that it was a group of bandits we'd cheesed off a while back. So we track some of them down, finally get to their leader, and find that he was in on the scam with the manager, who isn't dead, and in fact took most of the money with him and was probably on the other side of the continent by that point. We never did manage to catch up to him...