Stop and See the Sights - Campaign Advice

Umbran · Mar 15, 2019

pemerton said:
I'd suggest presenting situations that actually involve their attempt to rescue the boy. Whether you do that in the pre-planned way that [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] suggests (I seem to recall that Umbran GMs a lot of GUMSHOE) or the improv way that I personally would approach it seems secondary. The primary thing is to actually engage your players with the thing they care about.

To be clear - the action/rescue scene can be totally improv, no problem. I do run a lot of GUMSHOE, as the main game I run at home is Ashen Stars - and there what I plot out is the mystery. Folks tend to overestimate their ability to create a sensible mystery by improv - when you just make up mystery elements on the fly, without time to *think* about how they fit together, you tend to have plot holes and an incoherent mystery. The action sequence at the end where one typically deals with the BBEG, those you can totally improv.

Derren · Mar 16, 2019

I wonder why you introduced a kidnapped boy who needs rescuing in the first place when you want to run a political intrigue game.

Imo you should really ask yourself what kind of game you want to run and present it as such. Here you started with a typical adventuring plot and now wonder why the players act like typical adventurers.

Retreater · Mar 16, 2019

Derren said:
I wonder why you introduced a kidnapped boy who needs rescuing in the first place when you want to run a political intrigue game.

Imo you should really ask yourself what kind of game you want to run and present it as such. Here you started with a typical adventuring plot and now wonder why the players act like typical adventurers.

I think my idea was that it would embroil the party in a political issue they normally wouldn't care about - largely involving trade disputes. Simplified explanation: Country A was trespassing in Country B's territory, so Country B took the crown prince captive. Country A sends party into Country B to find what happened to the boy. Rival groups and factions within Country B offer to help the party if they get something out of it. Party keeps traveling to find a "better deal" (i.e. an "easier" mission) to get the information they want.

This is the basic setup. And even though I tried to take care when creating this campaign - and I've been running games since 1989 - I still make mistakes. I think the setup has been a mistake. Just trying to get it pulled back to a normal level.

S'mon · Mar 16, 2019

Political games IME work well when you have multiple competing factions and the PCs can choose who to ally with and who to oppose. Works best with ambitious & self-aggrandising PCs, so not the reactive superhero model - that means not the Three Musketeers model either, even though that may look ostensibly like a political/intrigue setting.

pemerton · Mar 17, 2019

Have you told the players what you want them to do?

I'm not talking here about plot elements and story colour. I'm talking about the practical play of the game - some of the stuf you've posted in this thread, like:

Retreater said:
I think my idea was that it would embroil the party in a political issue they normally wouldn't care about - largely involving trade disputes.

Retreater · Mar 17, 2019

pemerton said:
Have you told the players what you want them to do?

I'm not talking here about plot elements and story colour. I'm talking about the practical play of the game - some of the stuf you've posted in this thread, like:

Yes. I made a sheet detailing the central themes of the campaign, and we discussed at Session 0 before they voted on which campaign they wanted to play.

Immortal Sun · Mar 17, 2019

Retreater said:
Yes. I made a sheet detailing the central themes of the campaign, and we discussed at Session 0 before they voted on which campaign they wanted to play.

Perhaps they simply got a case of "the grass is always greener" and thought this was what they wanted, but turns out it's really not.

Maybe before making any radical changes to your approach you should have a Second Session 0 and see how the players are feeling about the game. Maybe they're loving it. Maybe they're bored. Maybe they're overwhelmed.

Derren · Mar 17, 2019

Retreater said:
Yes. I made a sheet detailing the central themes of the campaign, and we discussed at Session 0 before they voted on which campaign they wanted to play.

Still, you should probably not used a plot which can be solved by the typical D&D kick in the door way. Assuming your players have played a lot of D&D thats what they have been trained to do.

Retreater · Mar 17, 2019

Derren said:
Still, you should probably not used a plot which can be solved by the typical D&D kick in the door way. Assuming your players have played a lot of D&D thats what they have been trained to do.

Yeah. I'm realizing this now. :/

I think the only way to handle it is to have a metagame conversation with them.

gepetto · Mar 17, 2019

Id have whoever the boy actually belongs to just pay the ransom or whatever. You say its for political leverage? Okay the target caves. Boy is returned. However you can save them as villains by making it apparent that not only should they be punished but since it worked once they will do it again.

Then maybe you can get them to stick around somewhere looking for the best ways to strike at the kidnappers but without a ticking clock in the background.