Planetourist
First Post
[FONT="]Foreword[/FONT]
[FONT="] 'A Spring Saga' is a collection of my ideas about running D&D 4E in a 'dark heroic' way. It says about character creation, designing campaigns, getting players personally involved, running heroic combat and many, many more topics. I hope you'll find my ideas helpful, but first of all I'll be glad for feedback – my gaming experience isn’t particularly big and some ideas that sound good to me may not actually work. My English is by no means perfect, so please point me out any errors you'll notice. [/FONT]
[FONT="] So far I can show you three first parts of this series. Part three is the most stand-alone text, so I've posted it below – give my ideas a try by reading it. The others (and, for your convenience, part three as well) are on my blog:[/FONT]
[FONT="]Part one: Prelude[/FONT]
[FONT="]Part two: Character creation[/FONT]
[FONT="]Part three: Battles of brave beginners[/FONT]
[FONT="]Quite soon, I'll add another part – about cooperation in combat or maybe designing a Spring Saga campaign.[/FONT]
[FONT="] So, let the saga begin…[/FONT]
Part three: Battles of brave beginners
During a few first sessions, heroes won’t have a significant role in the world and wouldn't probably believe that one day they'll make it a better place. However, those first sessions are where the players should immerse in a Saga of desperation, determination, destiny – and success.
I'd like to present you a few techniques of giving them that feel. First of them is considering some character abilities 'heroic'. Three kinds of abilities are the most obvious candidates – daily and encounter powers, action points and healing surges (mostly those used in-battle). Their usage – particularly the first usage of a given power ever – should be described as a wild talent, the result of trying to do anything to escape dire straits. For a young wizard, using a Sleep spell could begin with a desperate attempt to weaken anyhow a host of wolves going to feast upon his friend. When it ends with a show of great magical might, the confused-yet-euphoric magic-user won't believe that he has done it himself. However, the player has known all the time that his character can do it. Here comes the nutshell of part three: Spring Sagas can benefit greatly from making players their co-directors.
In heroic tales, the tale itself is most important – even more important than its main cast. Such a tale is a greater whole – heroes are the main part of it, but how can a part be greater than the whole? I think players should agree that a Spring Saga campaign will be oriented more toward plot than their characters. If they accept it, they'll be able to enjoy the story from a sligthly different point of view, which will lead their characters not toward the biggest personal gain, but toward the most heroic outcome.
Don’t get me wrong - I'm not talking about a tragic story of glorious sacrifice. I like the fact that D&D parties should rather win if they won’t make bad decisions. I just want PCs' triumphs to appear more hard-won, more dramatic. To capture this feel I suggest assuming that players know that encounters waiting for them are not unbeatable – but their characters don't.
When confronting the villains, heroes will think that they have a very small chance of winning or even surviving. But they're, after all, heroes (although they would never call them so themselves) - trying to stop another mad intrigue is just the right thing to do and they simply have to try. Simultaneously, their players will know that the victory is possible and will use all their tactical sense to achieve it. Despite this, they'll describe their most important attacks as dramatic, uncontrolled and desperate. There'll be much place for desperation, because monsters tend to have higher 'nonheroic' stats (AC, hp etc.) so only the usage of characters' heroic abilities will be able to turn the tide of battle. The tactical aspect of 4E battles is at least as fun as the heroic one – and such a style of fighting will allow players to enjoy both of them.
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[FONT="] 'A Spring Saga' is a collection of my ideas about running D&D 4E in a 'dark heroic' way. It says about character creation, designing campaigns, getting players personally involved, running heroic combat and many, many more topics. I hope you'll find my ideas helpful, but first of all I'll be glad for feedback – my gaming experience isn’t particularly big and some ideas that sound good to me may not actually work. My English is by no means perfect, so please point me out any errors you'll notice. [/FONT]
[FONT="] So far I can show you three first parts of this series. Part three is the most stand-alone text, so I've posted it below – give my ideas a try by reading it. The others (and, for your convenience, part three as well) are on my blog:[/FONT]
[FONT="]Part one: Prelude[/FONT]
[FONT="]Part two: Character creation[/FONT]
[FONT="]Part three: Battles of brave beginners[/FONT]
[FONT="]Quite soon, I'll add another part – about cooperation in combat or maybe designing a Spring Saga campaign.[/FONT]
[FONT="] So, let the saga begin…[/FONT]
Part three: Battles of brave beginners
During a few first sessions, heroes won’t have a significant role in the world and wouldn't probably believe that one day they'll make it a better place. However, those first sessions are where the players should immerse in a Saga of desperation, determination, destiny – and success.
I'd like to present you a few techniques of giving them that feel. First of them is considering some character abilities 'heroic'. Three kinds of abilities are the most obvious candidates – daily and encounter powers, action points and healing surges (mostly those used in-battle). Their usage – particularly the first usage of a given power ever – should be described as a wild talent, the result of trying to do anything to escape dire straits. For a young wizard, using a Sleep spell could begin with a desperate attempt to weaken anyhow a host of wolves going to feast upon his friend. When it ends with a show of great magical might, the confused-yet-euphoric magic-user won't believe that he has done it himself. However, the player has known all the time that his character can do it. Here comes the nutshell of part three: Spring Sagas can benefit greatly from making players their co-directors.
In heroic tales, the tale itself is most important – even more important than its main cast. Such a tale is a greater whole – heroes are the main part of it, but how can a part be greater than the whole? I think players should agree that a Spring Saga campaign will be oriented more toward plot than their characters. If they accept it, they'll be able to enjoy the story from a sligthly different point of view, which will lead their characters not toward the biggest personal gain, but toward the most heroic outcome.
Don’t get me wrong - I'm not talking about a tragic story of glorious sacrifice. I like the fact that D&D parties should rather win if they won’t make bad decisions. I just want PCs' triumphs to appear more hard-won, more dramatic. To capture this feel I suggest assuming that players know that encounters waiting for them are not unbeatable – but their characters don't.
When confronting the villains, heroes will think that they have a very small chance of winning or even surviving. But they're, after all, heroes (although they would never call them so themselves) - trying to stop another mad intrigue is just the right thing to do and they simply have to try. Simultaneously, their players will know that the victory is possible and will use all their tactical sense to achieve it. Despite this, they'll describe their most important attacks as dramatic, uncontrolled and desperate. There'll be much place for desperation, because monsters tend to have higher 'nonheroic' stats (AC, hp etc.) so only the usage of characters' heroic abilities will be able to turn the tide of battle. The tactical aspect of 4E battles is at least as fun as the heroic one – and such a style of fighting will allow players to enjoy both of them.
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Is something wrong with this thread? Are my ideas simply not interesting or have I posted too much at one time and nobody wants to read it all? Or maybe I've posted in a wrong sub-forum - I though general RPG discussion would be the best, but maybe I'd find more readers in sub-forum about 4E? Or - I hope that I'm wrong now - my English isn't good enough?
