Campaign planning quandry

[Jurble]

Hey guys i have a quandry.

So im planning to run a SWRPG game with a bunch of friends and im getting into the planning for it. First time i tried i made the railroading mistake and the game didnt last very long. This time im leaving it more open, yet being my first campaign id like to work it into some prewritten adventures so i have a walking stick for the first few sessions.

Anyway i guess im trying to leave it open to the players choices, but then I have no way to plan adventures into the campaign. I havnt got an overarching story for it, nor a strong direction for it. Just an Era (ep3-4 period), and hoping to use some sort of mission to bring a really random group together (couple smugglers, couple of padawans who survived (for now mwohahaha! j/k).

Anyway im finding it hard to strike a balance between keeping it open and planning. Any suggestions in this area? What sort of balance do you have in your DM planning?

thanks for the help

 

[gizmo33]

I don't know what SWRPG or a padawan is, but hopefully this advice is generic enough:

IME players either do what interests them, or they do what they think the DM wants them to do. If it's the latter then your problem is solved, so we'll assume that they do what interests them.

There are two things, IMO, you have to do as a DM if you want to let players do what they want (and that's my gaming style):
1. understand your players personalities so you can predict what they do
2. learn to create things on the fly, and learn to enjoy doing it

#2 is something that comes in handy until you can figure out #1. Keep a pile of generic maps (castles, space ships, whatever) handy, as well as some characters and maybe a few general hooks. Of course the hooks depend on the personalities of the PCs, but it's a rare group that will ignore a big pile of gold, strange door that materializes out of nowhere, or cries of distress from somewhere in the distance. Granted, these things are a little heavy handed but they can buy you time while you prepare for what the players really want. Then again, it helps to plan between sessions for what the players want to do, but it requires that you listen and try to figure out what that is.

 

[The_Gneech]

1) Don't let them have a ship yet, but

2) Let them do whatever they want on the planet they're on.

A good start might be, say, "The smugglers are running from gangsters and the Padawan pops up to the rescue..."

-The Gneech

 

[ha-gieden]

I often ask my players to create characters that have some reason for traveling together. They could be related, or maybe they worked together in the past, or whatever. Even if the characters are already made and are drastically different, it's usually not too hard for the players to come up with reasons why their characters would stick together. When a character is presented, I just ask, "So why is this character going to get along with the others?" I've never had any complaints, and I don't have to worry about keeping fractious parties together.

Occasionally, I'll also ask them some "personality" questions about their characters. I'll want to know what a character really wants out of life, if they have any driving goals, what they're scared of. Once you know these things, it's really easy to create situations that will get the characters moving.

So I recommend that you get your players to give reasons why they would be together, then find out what the characters really want. From there, it's very easy to motivate them. Just place whatever they are seeking somewhere in the module you want them to begin.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

When I was first running a campaign after years away from DMing, I was also using pre-written adventures. I started them out with a classic railroad, and they went along, but it was obvious I could not keep doing it to them. As a result I read through several adventures, wrote up some ways to hook the players into each one and dropped them in their path. If they bit on the first, I still had the other two for next time (provided they didn't level beyond them). If they skipped the first, one of the others would become available. I never had them pass up every hook I placed before them. Once they were onto one of the adventures, I had some time to start preparing for the next time they would be deciding where to go or what to do. In addition, I sometimes placed mini-adventures within a larger one (really just a couple of linked encounters). It could be used just as a diversion, or in one circumstance it gave them a way to jump off the adventure that they didn't seem to be that interested in once they had started.

 

[painandgreed]

Anyway im finding it hard to strike a balance between keeping it open and planning. Any suggestions in this area? What sort of balance do you have in your DM planning?

Come up with a couple of NPCs. Decide what they are going to be doing in the time period of the campaign and how it will change the world of the PCs. Figure out how to inform the PCs of these changes and see if they wish to aid or hinder them in their efforts. Perhaps all the said NPCs at some point try to hire or otherwise convert the PCs to their way of thinking. Eventually, the PCs will decide a choice of action and you let them work into it. At the end of each session, you ask them what they plan on doing in the next session and prepare for that. Always keep around a couple of generic plot hooks and adventures to toss at the PCs when things get slow. When in a tight spot, drop to combat that will take the rest of the session and then you have till the next session to come up for a reason for that combat and for what comes next.

 

[The Lost Muse]

Since it's a Star Wars campaign, structure it like a Star Wars movie. Start with some ACTION! (Seriously, the first words out of your mouth should be, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... (insert basic explaination of what's going on) ... roll for initiative."

If the players don't follow up on one of your plots either someone else does, or no one does and the situation changes. You can always steal stat-blocks, encounters, points of interest, whatever from a module. If you have an outline with at least two storylines running, you should be just fine.

 

[shilsen]

Anyway im finding it hard to strike a balance between keeping it open and planning. Any suggestions in this area? What sort of balance do you have in your DM planning?

I absolutely hate railroading, as a player and as a DM, but I like overarching plots. So what I do is start a campaign with absolutely no overarching plot, probably making the first session focused on an interesting combat ("Roll initiative" is now my favorite way to start a campaign) and introducing the flavor of the specific campaign. And in the second and third sessions, I'll throw out half a dozen very different plot hooks. Whatever the PCs decide to follow is then the direction for the game. Every 5-6 sessions, I'll continue to put things in there which may turn into plot hooks if the PCs follow them, and about every dozen sessions, throw in another half a dozen plot hooks. Also, on a metagame level, I explicitly tell my players there is absolutely no direction they cannot go. So, the direction for the campaign is dictated purely by the PCs' choices and actions. Simultaneously, I try to create overarching plots by working backwards. I take the decisions the PCs have made, their individual backgrounds, and their various motivations, and weave connections between them, until I have a functional overarching plot going.

The big advantage of the above approach is that it lets me have both of my preferences, even if they seem contradictory. It also makes the players (and PCs) feel like their actions and choices are relevant, both in the sense of being the driving force for the campaign, and also because they are part of a bigger picture (i.e. the overarching plot). The downside, though I've never had problems with it, is that it requires significant flexibility and willingness to think on one's feet. Technically, another downside is that I'm adding meaning to things later, but as long as I'm internally consistent, I don't think that's any problem.

The result is definitely worth the effort, at least for me. I've done it in one 2 year campaign and have been doing it quite successfully in the campaign in my sig (just entered its 3rd year), and that's the approach I'll continue to use, unless I can come up with a way to improve on it.

P.S. Only ever actually plan a session ahead. Anything more than that is asking to have some of your work wasted. Have ideas in your head, but don't put anything down on paper (or computer).

 

[Steel_Wind]

On the subject of railroading and science fiction / space opera settings...

The problem with all futuristic settings is that they turn the entire game concept that began in Original D&D on its head and bring it to a complete polar opposite.

Think about it. You go from a dungeon setting game where the choices a player has are relatively restricted - (in terms of where they will go - left or right, through the door or take the passage to the north) and replace it with a setting where player choice leaves a GALAXY of directions and choices as to where to go and what to do.

While D&D started to branch out from this primitive dungeon into allowing the world to be more full explored as the game evolved - the choices for the players are still relatively restricted.

But a Sci-Fi setting - especially one where the players have a ship - is about as far removed from D&D in terms of campaign adventure structure as you can possibly get.

It becomes impossible as a GM to prepare for a Sci-Fi game where this level of player choice is available if the players are "wing-it" types. It's turns a controlled scenario into a totally 100% improvised game.

Some DMs are better at that than others - but I think, generally speaking, the plain truth is that this overabundance of player choices is the root problem of all future setting games.

How many SCi-Fi campaigns have you played in that lasted 50 or 80 sessions of improv play? Seriously. How many? Do you know other gamers who have played in such campaigns for years?

Because I don't. I've never met anybody who has. And I mean never.

There are some out there perhaps - but in my experience, this has to be a rare event.

My point: I think it is deceptive and mostly a delusion to apply the "railroading sucks" mantra that many ENworlders natter on about endlessly in a D&D setting, without understanding that most Sci-Fi games NEED railroading and overarching plots of some kind to have even a chance of survival.

Otherwise, the magnitude of choices presented to "players with a ship" is just so far beyond those of the "PCs with horses" that to pretend they are equivalent does a great disservice to everyone discussing it. They are NOT the same.

 

[The_Gneech]

How many SCi-Fi campaigns have you played in that lasted 50 or 80 sessions of improv play? Seriously. How many? Do you know other gamers who have played in such campaigns for years?

Because I don't. I've never met anybody who has. And I mean never.

There are some out there perhaps - but in my experience, this has to be a rare event.

Actually, I ran a Star Hero game along those lines for ~8 years; I was very flattered when "Firefly" came out and my players told me they didn't need to watch it 'cause they'd already played in my campaign!

It could be very tricky at times, but it wasn't impossible. The key was for the players to make strong characters and for me to put plenty of hooks out there. Once the party had chosen something to chase after, the rest was easy.

It helped that it was a HERO (skill-based) campaign and not a level-based system, because while the characters did get a bit tougher as time went on, there wasn't the ever-increasing arms race. The space pirate mooks that were a challenge to fight in the first session were still a challenge to fight eight years later.

On the other hand, when I ran a Star Wars game, I made all the characters be part of the Rebel Alliance so that they'd have to go on the Mission of the Week. But within the context of the mission, they could handle it however they wanted -- that way they had their freedom, but I had a finite amount of prep I had to work out beforehand. (The fact that the players' plan could usually be summarized as "Wing it!" helped in that regard. They'd happily take whatever hook I tossed them.)

-The Gneech