How Do You Get Your Players To Stay On An Adventure Path?

Starfox said:

Off on a tangent here, but is this what is called narrative games in The Forge's Narrative-Storytelling-Gamist theory? I must admit I never quite grasped the concept of narrative as they use it, but this seems pretty close.

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Yeah, I'm referring to Forge theory here, and concretely to some of the Indy games that were designed on the basis of that theory.

I have a complicated relationship to Forge theory, in that I think that some of the basic precepts of the theory are wholly wrong and don't therefore subscribe to GNS, but I do think that a lot of the thinking about GNS was profitable anyway. At the very least, the attempt to define terms and grapple with all the unnamed concepts that made up an RPG was very valuable.

cmad1977 said:

Basically an except from an HoTDQ I'm running.
I like the philosophy of saying "yes, and" or "yes, but" to the ideas my heroes have. The "yes, but" is an important one in particular I think as it allows me to describe dangers the players may not be aware of(mechanical or otherwise)

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Choice is always good. In my opinion, the players can attempt to do anything they like, and I'll simply ask how they intend to achieve it. And if there are complications that they may not have thought of, then I'll inform them of it.

Recently we had a big battle with a bunch of ghost pirates in my campaign. The cleric wanted to use one of his water spells to try and cut off the hand of a ghost, so he would drop his ghost-touch sword. Well there was a river nearby, so I asked him if he intended to conjure up the water from the nearby river, which he did. I then made up some reasonable rules on the fly, with advantage because of the river. Obviously as a DM, you don't want this to become a new dominant strategy. But on the other hand, I want to encourage the creativity of my players. I don't want combat to feel like a boring game of whack-a-mole. Bone has a certain hardness, but I didn't know the hit points. So I figured that I could just use a single hit die of the ghost as a reasonable statistic for that. Obviously the foe is a ghost, and thus made from ectoplasma or vapor, but you can still cut through it, even if the lost hand isn't permanent (it reappears shortly afterwards). I figured that the ghost may react to the action as it would normally if it were still alive, before realizing that its already dead, and hasn't actually lost its hand.

There's also been cases where my players have attempted to perform some sort of holy ritual to keep evil creatures at bay. There's nothing in the rules about this, but if the players can give me a good description of what they want to do, and it sounds reasonable, then why not? I embrace this sort of creativity.

So that made for a pretty cool player action.

Imaculata said:

Choice is always good. In my opinion, the players can attempt to do anything they like, and I'll simply ask how they intend to achieve it. And if there are complications that they may not have thought of, then I'll inform them of it.

Recently we had a big battle with a bunch of ghost pirates in my campaign. The cleric wanted to use one of his water spells to try and cut off the hand of a ghost, so he would drop his ghost-touch sword. Well there was a river nearby, so I asked him if he intended to conjure up the water from the nearby river, which he did. I then made up some reasonable rules on the fly, with advantage because of the river. Obviously as a DM, you don't want this to become a new dominant strategy. But on the other hand, I want to encourage the creativity of my players. I don't want combat to feel like a boring game of whack-a-mole. Bone has a certain hardness, but I didn't know the hit points. So I figured that I could just use a single hit die of the ghost as a reasonable statistic for that. Obviously the foe is a ghost, and thus made from ectoplasma or vapor, but you can still cut through it, even if the lost hand isn't permanent (it reappears shortly afterwards). I figured that the ghost may react to the action as it would normally if it were still alive, before realizing that its already dead, and hasn't actually lost its hand.

There's also been cases where my players have attempted to perform some sort of holy ritual to keep evil creatures at bay. There's nothing in the rules about this, but if the players can give me a good description of what they want to do, and it sounds reasonable, then why not? I embrace this sort of creativity.

So that made for a pretty cool player action.

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I'm sure a lot of people would agree but it doesn't really explain how you keep players on an adventure path if you're running one

Zak S said:

I'm sure a lot of people would agree but it doesn't really explain how you keep players on an adventure path if you're running one

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Well, part of the problem answering the question is that it is very broad because you don't seem to have any experience with adventure paths, and you seem to have a very wrong idea in your head about how they actually play out in play. You seem to think that an adventure path goes off the rails the minute anyone does something not anticipated by the adventure, or indeed that an adventure path only anticipates one sort of solution and novelty inherently messes everything up. You don't seem to be very familiar with the real choke points in an adventure path, so you are proposing problems that usually don't really represent problems, and not asking good questions about the things that provoke the real problems. For insight into what causes real problems, you need to read essays like "The Three Clue Rule" as very direct attempts to answer the question, "How do you keep players on an adventure path?"

For me, if I'm running a published adventure path, the first thing I do is read the module and look for places where things can go badly wrong. A good adventure will have rather few of these, make few assumptions about player behavior, make no assumptions that players will behave illogically, and will have comments on how you might handle or how things might change for most of the obvious things players might do. I think the key thing to realize about any published adventure is that it's greatly constrained by its page count, which is merely an artifact of publishing the adventure. The published adventure needs to tell a novice GM how to run the adventure, but can generally afford to only cover the basics. It leaves it up to the GM to deal with unexpected changes in the adventure, while still using the content of the adventure as the basis of setting.

The second thing I tend to do is expand the content in areas that I feel are truncated or weak. If a town or haven is mentioned, I take some time to pre-create additional NPC's and detail important locations (see B2: Keep on the Borderlands and I6: Ravenloft). If a wilderness journey seems to play an important context in creating atmosphere, but the described wilderness is too small to create the impression desired (see I5: Pyramid, S2: White Plume Mountain, and I6: Ravenloft), then I expand the wilderness around the dungeon. Often this amounts to making the adventure effectively more Sandbox-y, even if in truth it's still a Small World with a central attraction.

I then tend to go over the details and make fine adjustments to correct for the overall atmosphere I want - making comic elements less unnatural, making horror elements more frightening, making the setting more medieval or at least grittier (Dickensian, for example) where the magical elements are too cartoony, removing treasure I consider excessive, and balancing content for my PC's.

Occasionally, the author will base the story on illogical behavior or specific behavior by the PC's. In this case, I will need to do some revision (perhaps adding an event/hook) or apply some railroading technique (often Schrodinger's Map) to subtly steer the players through the rocky narrows in the story.

At that point, I'm usually satisfied I can run the adventure without mishap. But the central thing to remember is that generally players have a 'buy in'. They want to investigate the adventure in the same way that a reader wants to read a novel. Inventing new solutions probably isn't going to disrupt a well thought out AP, though it may require a bit of improvisation to rule on the player's proposition (whatever it is, big or small).

The real issues are things like:

"How do I get the train back on the rails?" It's always possible. It just requires a bit of theater. Even if the death of the BBEG in scene 1 is not a very large derailment.

"Should I get the train back on the rails?" Sometimes the train goes off the rails because the players aren't enjoying the story. In which case, should I just go with their new idea and see where that takes me? At some level, an AP is often just a slice of a setting. So that content still stays viable if the game suddenly veers into territory you didn't foresee. Sometimes the train went off the rails because the players bit red herring and are now desperately searching for the rails again. In that case, you want to gracefully help them back on.

I have long since stopped trying to drive or direct at all. I have found that if they take the game even somewhat seriously, then out of at least some level of respect to the efforts of the gm (moi) they at least try and figure out/solve whatever puzzle that's been placed before them. This said, some of the best times my group has ever had was when they went off the reservation with regards to the story/quest/campaign etc. This, needless to say required some seat of the pants flying on my part - but these unscripted scenarios are utter gems.

Here is how players are kept on an Adventure Path:

1. The DM tells them: "We are playing this Adventure Path called ______. Here is what the theme of the Adventure Path is roughly about. We need PCs who have some attachment to this theme and a motivation to follow the course of the Adventure Path."
2. The players then make PCs that follow that lead. Then they start on the Path and follow it. And if they do not know where to go (a situation which only rarely occurs in Adventure Paths because most of the time the Path is pretty clear) then the DM is supposed to give the players a hint about where the Path leads.
3. If the players decide to play something else and do not want to follow the Path anymore, tough luck. The Path ends then. This is not a sandbox, after all, in which world exploration is a major factor. In an Adventure Path this experience might come as a side effect. But usually players who agree to play an Adventure Path want to explore the story of the Path. That is what the AP-game is about. To prevent players from leaving the Path completely, a DM will usually inform the players about the consequences of leaving the Path ("The world is going to end"). If a DM is not open about this, he or she will create an illusion of freedom of moving on and off the Path. Which is not possible, at least not in a major way. And usually the players have invested a lot of time and roleplaying effort and keep following the Path. Adventure Paths are just built this way.

Adventure Paths can be heavily looted for locations, NPCs, monsters, maps, pictures, motivations and ideas as well. So even groups that do not play the Paths because their game has a different focus can use the material. Which is why Paizo sells so many of them and has for years.

A thing or two about sandbox-play from my point of view. It is all fine and good. I have played this kind of game. What I do not like about it is the fact that the world usually does not care about my PC. Whether I play a Warforged with a secret or a PC with a certain background, the world of sandbox play is usually rather unemotional about this. The thing I look for in a RPG, however, is that I want to be challenged in the game based on what my character is about, the essence of it. I want to experience the challenges about what the other PCs are about. The world exploration comes only third, maybe fourth because I really like exiting combats. Also, the notion that a group of adventurers suddenly can turn to turnip-farming is not appealing to me. I like a rather tight theme framing.

Here is a chart that I like. It paints with broad strokes and does not fit everybody. I like it, though. I am in the Story Now department. APs are in the Participationalism department if done well.
http://evilbrainjono.net/images/Finding_your_GMing_Style.jpg

Celebrim said:

Yeah. We really need better words to describe what we are talking about.

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1e AD&D Dungeoneer's Survival Guide had a very good Open/Matrix/Linear campaign
typology. I wish people would use it. Open = Sandbox, Linear = 'Railroad' ('Railroading' is
properly the DM technique of forcing players to stay on the tracks). Matrix campaigns have interlinked nodes and lots of player choice, connected by threads such as the villain plots. They are neither
Open nor Linear but have some of the benefits of both.

I used a different method for keeping players on track, for one of my Call of Cthulhu campaigns. The basic goal was:

-Make sure the players always have a clue to investigate, and don't get stuck.
-Make sure that the story progresses each in-game day, introducing new problems/situations/clues/developments.
-Make sure the plot isn't predictable.
-Make sure it isn't clear right away who the villains are.
-Make sure there is at least one scare every session.
-Give the players a good reason to remain in the same city.
-Multiple endings.
-Player hand outs (CoC campaigns are best when you have physical clues to hand your players)

To do this, I wrote out a simple progression of events from day to day. The first day of the adventure, I simply introduced them to a mystery, which should give them plenty of angles to approach the adventure from. But the full scale of the terror does not become clear until 3 or 4 days into the story. This ensures that by the last day, the full scope of the situation is perfectly obvious, regardless of what clues the players may have found.

Next I made sure that there were plenty of clues to be found in every major location. Ideally, each location has a clue that leads them to the next location. And thus you lead them from scene to scene (only the order in which they follow the clues or visit the locations does not matter). I have played this same campaign twice, and only two or three locations ended up not being used (the library, the wellspring and the mausoleum).

I made sure to also tie the daily escalations to clues as well. Even if they are playing extremely poorly, each day would eventually give them something to chase. I also made a list of clues/npc's that I could bring to the players in case they were stuck, but those were only intended as a last resort.

I further wrote down all the details of each location in the campaign. Every location would have a mini story of its own (like a scene in a movie), but with an uncertain outcome. At best, the players can walk away from such a mini plot line with more clues than they started with. At worst, a player-character dies. But suspense would be guaranteed.

Since Call of Cthulhu is a horror game, I also made a list of various random frights that I could introduce at any time, regardless of where the players were.

Lastly I tried to think of several ways in which the story might end. I tried to think of a scenario in which the players are victorious, and one in which they failed completely. I also tried to come up with in between scenarios, where the players may be victorious, but maybe they are too late, or maybe they make a big mistake.

Now the players were free to explore the town in which this campaign took place, and choose which clues they wished to follow. But of course some things had to be a bit more linear than what I would usually do in a D&D campaign. I made sure that the players would eventually be lead to every scene that I intended for them, simply by controlling when certain clues would come into their hands. Eventually it all leads to the same location, and then its all up to the players to bring it to a happy conclusion... or not.

Imaculata said:

I agree on this as well. Say you have the players wander through the jungle, and then they stumble upon a mystical temple with a bunch of bad guys in it. You have a bunch of puzzles, traps, obstacles and fights, along with the usual treasure.

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That's funny - Celebrim has told me that me doing this - putting a dungeon in front of the PCs exactly as
you describe - is me Railroading them.

Celebrim said:

Well, part of the problem answering the question is that it is very broad because you don't seem to have any experience with adventure paths, and you seem to have a very wrong idea in your head about how they actually play out in play. You seem to think that an adventure path goes off the rails the minute anyone does something not anticipated by the adventure

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I've played with AP GMs who do indeed disallow anything not anticipated by the adventure.
This Truman Show effect is no fun, and I quit those games pretty fast.