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<blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 8999545" data-attributes="member: 86653"><p>Jumping in without reading the thread. Sorry if these are redundant. </p><p></p><p>I really can't handle railroading or illusionism on either side of the screen. To me, the referee should never undermine player agency by engaging in either railroading or illusionism. An open-world sandbox is my ideal way to game. As the referee, there's lots of tools to use. As you say, fronts and progress clocks are a great tool. Check out Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master and the Alexandrian blog posts on prepping situations instead of stories. Prep events and locations. </p><p></p><p>Besides those, focus on what is under your control as the referee. You literally control the entire world and all the NPCs in it. Prep factions and villains with goals and motivations. Give them reasonable goals and motivations. Their plans should make sense and not include or rely on the PCs' actions. They should take some time and are easily represented by clocks. Make lots of these and give them various length clocks. They keep advancing towards their goals regardless of the PCs' actions. If the PCs ignore the villains, they reach their goals and the world changes as a result. And, of course, the villains change their plans based on the PCs' actions. </p><p></p><p>Use mini bosses and lieutenants. Maybe one per tier of play. The big bad is for the top tier of play. But they have lieutenants that harass the PCs at lower levels. Each of these is working toward their own goals and the big boss' goals. This gives you a good buffer between the big bad and the PCs. Otherwise you end up with a level 20 boss attacking level 3 PCs...which is lame and no fun for anyone. The mini bosses can be threats and the PCs can take them out without you needing to scramble to come up with a bigger bad after the PCs kill the big bad. </p><p></p><p>You can do a lot with theme. Work with the players to tie their backstories into the themes you want to hit on. Or use the PCs' backstories to inform the themes you bring in and repeat. Tie your events, locations, villains, etc into your themes. Just be sure to vary the themes. If you've already hit the "family" theme a few times in the last few sessions, you should switch it up to something else.</p><p></p><p>A lot of it comes down to simple action-reaction. For every action the PCs take, there should be a reaction by one or more NPC, villain, faction, etc. The reaction should match up with the action. If a thief steals, they should be hunted down and put in prison or have a hand chopped off, not murdered in the street. If the thief kills a city guard to escape, then escalate to kill on sight. Etc. Likewise, the big bad 20th level villain doesn't storm in after the PCs first interfere with the big bad's plans.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="overgeeked, post: 8999545, member: 86653"] Jumping in without reading the thread. Sorry if these are redundant. I really can't handle railroading or illusionism on either side of the screen. To me, the referee should never undermine player agency by engaging in either railroading or illusionism. An open-world sandbox is my ideal way to game. As the referee, there's lots of tools to use. As you say, fronts and progress clocks are a great tool. Check out Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master and the Alexandrian blog posts on prepping situations instead of stories. Prep events and locations. Besides those, focus on what is under your control as the referee. You literally control the entire world and all the NPCs in it. Prep factions and villains with goals and motivations. Give them reasonable goals and motivations. Their plans should make sense and not include or rely on the PCs' actions. They should take some time and are easily represented by clocks. Make lots of these and give them various length clocks. They keep advancing towards their goals regardless of the PCs' actions. If the PCs ignore the villains, they reach their goals and the world changes as a result. And, of course, the villains change their plans based on the PCs' actions. Use mini bosses and lieutenants. Maybe one per tier of play. The big bad is for the top tier of play. But they have lieutenants that harass the PCs at lower levels. Each of these is working toward their own goals and the big boss' goals. This gives you a good buffer between the big bad and the PCs. Otherwise you end up with a level 20 boss attacking level 3 PCs...which is lame and no fun for anyone. The mini bosses can be threats and the PCs can take them out without you needing to scramble to come up with a bigger bad after the PCs kill the big bad. You can do a lot with theme. Work with the players to tie their backstories into the themes you want to hit on. Or use the PCs' backstories to inform the themes you bring in and repeat. Tie your events, locations, villains, etc into your themes. Just be sure to vary the themes. If you've already hit the "family" theme a few times in the last few sessions, you should switch it up to something else. A lot of it comes down to simple action-reaction. For every action the PCs take, there should be a reaction by one or more NPC, villain, faction, etc. The reaction should match up with the action. If a thief steals, they should be hunted down and put in prison or have a hand chopped off, not murdered in the street. If the thief kills a city guard to escape, then escalate to kill on sight. Etc. Likewise, the big bad 20th level villain doesn't storm in after the PCs first interfere with the big bad's plans. [/QUOTE]
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