But we now come to the problem that, if the group's goals are achieved, adding one or more new goals seems pretty difficult. Even if my character decides he wants to puruse some new objective, I have to get some buy-in from at least two other PC's. Didn't they earlier want to help because of their ties to PC#1, even if they had no tie to his specific issue? Why would they not want to help him achieve some new goal, then? It seems awfully contrived if, suddenly, 3+ PC's have a longstanding goal that has always been there but no one ever mentioned, much less took a stab at pursuing, before. Much more contrived, in my view, then one PC having a problem or an opportunity and his friends at loose ends helping him out, and certainly no more contrived than a GM concocted plot falling in their laps.
You're doing what? Surprising the DM
- Thread starter Greenfield
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But we now come to the problem that, if the group's goals are achieved, adding one or more new goals seems pretty difficult. Even if my character decides he wants to puruse some new objective, I have to get some buy-in from at least two other PC's. Didn't they earlier want to help because of their ties to PC#1, even if they had no tie to his specific issue? Why would they not want to help him achieve some new goal, then? It seems awfully contrived if, suddenly, 3+ PC's have a longstanding goal that has always been there but no one ever mentioned, much less took a stab at pursuing, before. Much more contrived, in my view, then one PC having a problem or an opportunity and his friends at loose ends helping him out, and certainly no more contrived than a GM concocted plot falling in their laps.
Hussar
Legend
Honestly, I think that's entirely fair. We did follow up on a few threads and they weren't exactly going anywhere. Like you said, we spent a fair bit of time in under Tyr and came up with nothing. That was a bit discouraging.
Hussar
Legend
But, in this case, that's the problem. There aren't really any group goals. Well, there are some really high altitude ones, but, nothing in the near future.
And, let's be honest, if you, the player, introduce a new goal into the game, you're going to have to get buy in from the rest of the table. If you want to go explore the Dastardly Dungeon, to pick a really lame example, and no one else wants to, you're not likely going to be exploring that dungeon. Plot hooks, whether generated by the DM or the players, still need buy in.
Hopefully though, with group templates, the goals are so large that no single character can really pursue them alone. But, let's go back to Bob's Cult example. The group has banded together and crushed the cult. The cult is no more. Bob's issues are resolved. There should be at least four more issues that haven't been resolved. At least one for each player. So, even if you do resolve one player's schtick, that shouldn't be the end of the campaign.
Granted, if everything is resolved, then, by all means, retire the campaign. That would be a huge win IMO. A campaign that wraps up everything? Fantastic.
The problem, as KM rightly points out, is that our game has lost a lot of focus and the DM is possibly running out of steam. Like I've always said, once you hit that 60-80 session mark, IME, campaigns end. Whether they end successfully or with a fizzle, they still end.
I think your observation about the "transition" in a campaign from following the GM's lead and invading random dungeon X, to having the PCs develop personality and motivation with a resultant move towards a player-driven game, is interesting and plausible. I experience something a bit like this in my own campaigns even though they are more deliberately set up to be player-driven out of the gate - some of the differences in this respect between my high fantasy campaigns and (say) BW came out in the BW thread from a month or two ago. (One major difference is levels - even if a PC is built with Orcus as a clear enemy from the get-go, a 1st level PC doesn't have either the ingame capacity or the metagame mechanical capacity to find and tackle Orcus, so is dependent on the GM to introduce undead or Orcus cultists in the meantime.)
I'm not so sure about the "less visceral", although maybe I'm silly to quibble over something so self-evidently subjective and experiential. But I think that PC built with motivations and goals can be visceral out of the gate provided the GM frames the early sessions well (or the players do - presumably this is something that a Sorcerer-style "kicker" is meant to help with).
Part of what I have in mind in saying this is that I have played Call of Cthulhu one-shots under good tournament GMs that are more visceral and engaging than D&D campaigns that are weeks or months into things. Which means I don't see time as such a big contributor to visceralness, as opposed to context and framing.
Well, if we're discussing a player-driven campaign, it seems like that puts the onus on you to assess what you can do now to advance those high altitude long term goals.
Sure. But if no one brings a plot hook to the table, then you aren't going anywhere. And, from your comments, you aren't going anywhere. You've said the past few sessions have been going nowhere. Thorughout this thread, you've been quite clear you don't want "GM breadcrumbs". So where are your player-initiated activities? You said:
Hussar said:
But you didn't say what you were looking for. Where were those clear GM cues that he was supposed to follow? He can't just drop bread crumbs in your path, can he?
This implies there are five big player goals which are not inter-related. If we're taking each player's goal in turns, then it seems like we're engaging each player in sequence, not engaging all of the players simultaneously. If BobPCs goals have all been resolved, does that diminish the enjoyment of running BobPC? Maybe instead of BobPC's Cult Issue start to finish, it would have been better to have the Cult issues cool down for a while, with a different PC's issues rising and being advanced (but not resolved) before that Cult rears its head again. But the tunnel vision "nothing can distract from the one goal of immediate focus" approach isn't, to me, consistent with an integration of issues. The latter is more like an ensemble cast, where most episodes have at least two characters' stories in focus, often running parallel without really crossing over. The "running in parallel" approach is much tougher in a game, where we want all players involved in the game, but moving between plotlines, story arcs and character focuses allow the story to shift between the players' schticks, not play one out in its entirety with tunnel vision, leaving that character as more of a hanger on for the rest of the campaign.
What happens when the character's story is resolved? I'd suggest it is either time for a new character (if the story is resolved, this one is resolved) or the character needs a new goal - a new story to explore. However, if that character is intertwined with the rest of the group, then HIS story is told (and now the player is bored with the character), but the telling of OTHER CHARACTERS' stories may still rely on this PC, at least in part. If half the party has their issues resolved, and half the players are now just along for the ride, how great is that? But the other players haven't gotten the same resolution for their characters, so if the party retires, then we never get to the aspects they wanted to play out. How fair is that to them?
If we can bring all the characters' stories to resolution in some linked fashion, or at least in rapid succession, that seems like a good campaign ender. Maybe it doesn't mean the end of the characters - maybe it's the season finale, and we start next season with new goals to achieve, or even introduce/establish. But we all know those shows where they really should have ended the series a season or two back because the characters are pretty aimless now, and we're just rehashing old plotlines.
Maybe this new campaign features some returning characters and some brand new ones, as some players feel their characters are done and resolved, but others find there are still new stories for their characters.
Again, I think this is, or can be, an outgrowth of that tunnel vision. The ground work for sessions 75+ can be laid in earlier sessions, with issues now coming back. Instead of 50 sessions of tunnel vision focused entirely on a couple of specific goals, or arcs, maybe that means 60 sessions, 10 of which seem kind of ancillary to the main plot and objectives at that time, but which lay some groundwork for Sessions 70 -110, where those issues come into larger focus (or sessions 70 - 120, with another 10 sessions that are laying the groundwork for the next major objectives/plotlines). I pick those numbers out of the air, obviously, but a mix of "main plotlines" and "sideline" sessions, probably including some "sideline" sessions that stay on the sidelines, whether because they were intended as one offs or because that plotline/objective din't pan out as being as engaging as desired or hoped.
If we just spent 50 sessions playing the Battle against the Cult of Orcus, and that plotline is now played out, retiring the campaign seems pretty logical. But if we spent 75 sessions, with that extra time opening up new avenues and objectives, perhaps there is still somewhere for the campaign to go after we catch our breath from the final resolution of the Cult. Returning to issues that were deferred as the Cult activities picked up and became an urgent, top priority seems a lot more natural, and likely, then starting fresh, and looking for new things to do after that climactic resolution when literally everything that went before was a direct link to that one overarching objective.
In your own game, it sounds like, maybe, the big plotlines are resolved, but some, if not all, of the players still feel there are stories in their characters. So what are those stories? It seems like someone will have to take some initiative to bring those to the forefront, or the campaign will fizzle. Or maybe it should have ended three sessions ago, when it sounds like all of the elements (remaining?) that were engaging to the players and the GM were resolved.
Ratskinner
Adventurer
To be clear, I think ab initio PC motivations can work just fine.* I do agree that GMing and I would also add system can really affect the degree to which this is true. I think a game like AD&D, with very few acknowledgements of this end of things, makes time more of a factor. (Unless the DM bolts on some other motivational exercises.) All of which is just IME.
*Although I have noticed that some old-school types appear to have difficulty with the idea of paying much attention to such things with a new character, if they are unfamiliar with that type of game.
Hussar
Legend
N'raac said:
Well, actually no. That's the problem with this conversation N'raac. You take everything I say to an extreme. What I said was that our immediate goals were resolved, but there are still long term goals to achieve. I'm not going to get into specifics because it would take too long and I hate gaming stories.
The problem is, we're at A and we know that C exists. We just don't know how to get from A to C. The group lacks information to make choices or to initiate action and the DM hasn't been forthcoming with more information.
Note, that's not breadcrumbs because "trail of breadcrumbs" means that the DM is laying out the path from beginning to end. No choices make any difference because we're always going to end up at the same place. If we engage the nomads, they will have things that will help us in the city. In a trail of breadcrumbs game, you automatically engage the nomads in some fashion because you know that the nomads are only there because they have resources for the group. The DM won't put stuff in the game unless it's useful to your goals.
But, in any case, the DM still functions as the window into the game universe. The players can only act on things that they know exist. Granted, they could ask, and in some games, they can assume, but, you still need some information to be able to get the ball rolling. As it stands, we're more or less flangeing around, trying to find the adventure. And, I really do blame the lack of group template for this.
Now, as far as playing in serial with each character's goal being taken in turn, well, no, that's your way of playing, apparently. The wizard gets to play out his goals and the cleric and the fighter get to wait their turn. So long as anyone is happy with what's going on, the rest of the group gets to wait their turn.
In a group template, none of the goals are mutually exclusive. So, you should be making progress in parallel with the entire group. No session should ever pass without some progress being made on the group's goals. Remember, at least two player's are tied to Bob, so, their goals are automatically forwarded when Bob makes progress. But, also, there should be several other group goals which are at least tangential to each other. So, making progress on one should trickle down to the others.
Imagine that we're playing with Bob. The cult has been defeated. But, is it completely defeated? Who was behind the cult? What about the being that is the focus of the cult? Right there, that's the next goal. But, how do you go from the smoking ruins of the cult's secret lair to finding Orcus himself? That's the point we're kinda at right now. We've solved the near term stuff, we still have the long term stuff and we're kinda stuck between the two.
So whose job is it now? Is it the players' job to investigate, or the GM's job to drop something in the PC's laps? I don't know the answer, because it depends on the specifics, and it's most likely some of each. Are the PC's overlooking resources they could use to further their objectives? I know we've had sessions in our games where we basically stopped the clock and the PC's sat down and brainstormed what resources we had, and what we could bring to bear against our current situation. [Bit of a different issue, but we were getting our heads handed to us by incorporeal opponents until we reviewed spells available, changed spell loads and revised standard tactics that had always served well in the past. After that, we walked over them.] I'd put the onus here squarely on the PC's to assess how they got to A, what resources they have (including contacts and knowledge from past aventures, not just skills/feats/spells) and which ones they might be able to leverage to advance their goals.
The other possibility, though, is information the characters would have that the players have not been given, such as some resource within the city which would be helpful, which all the citizens know exists and which the players don't. You might be able to nudge that along in a player brainstorm, though - what are we missing, and what would help us obtain it? It would be great if we had more knowledge of the underground catacombs? Hey, Mr. GM, does my Local Knowledge suggest anywhere we could go to do more research, or anyone we could question locally?
Haven't you been asserting that the GM should remove any and all extraneous elements from the game, so there will be nothing these that is not somehow useful to your goals? I don't know that "useful" is the right word, and I hate to go back to "relevant". Maybe "related"?
I think there's a continuum here. The GM needs to provide info the PC's would have or the players can't act on it. But if the GM keeps raising that one item that would be most relevant next, we're back to what I would classify as breadcrumbs - the players follow a trail laid out by the GM, whether it is to goals they set themselves or goals that were set by the GM. At the other end of the extreme is the GM who hands out a World Encyclopedia, and then assumes the players will be intimitely familiar with every scrap of minutia included therein, so if they don't realize that Vol 4, Ch 13 discusses a temple in a city across the sea which had a High Priest 175 years ago who undertook an extensive project exploring the catacombs beneath your city, and exrapolate from that the possibility that he may have left some notes preserved in that temple well, that's their own fault for not paying attention, isn't it?
I thought the group template links all the players to their goals. It sounds like there are no problems with cohesiveness of goals, but with what the viable next steps would be to achieve those goals. I don't see how a map of the interconnections between the PC's would assist in setting out the roadmap to achieve those goals.
"Rescuing my long lost parents" and "overthrowing the tyrant King" are not mutually exclusive. It does not mean they are highly interrrelated either. We can make progress one while there is a lull in the other, and resolve one before the other. When the plots can interrelate, that can be interesting, but tying everything together too tightly generally seems contrived and, to me, suggests an element of tunnel vision.
I thought being tied to Bob was enough, without being tied into each and every one of his goals. If I can help my friend rescue his long lost parents, that is a goal because he is my friend, not because of his parents. I dont need him to introduce himself with "Hi, Im Bob and I'm looking for my long lost parents". It can come up when a clue to his parents' fate or whereabouts surfaces.
At that point, I'd question whether we are not facing a good opportunity to change it up a bit an focus on a goal that has nothing to do with this cult. Its remnants may well surface later, or we may find ourselves involved in sme other machination of the person behind the cult (whether or not we know there is such a link). If we dont have a connection between that smoking ruin and Orcus himself, then we can start searching for the next step, which can become the focus. But we can also accept that, while the characters continue to investigate, no new leads have surfaced, and in the meantime, other things are happening. Other things that may eventually lead us back to the search for Orcus, or may simply occur between the smoking ruins of the cult and our next lead to Orcus.
I'd be much more concerned, as you seem to be, with the fact that nothing - whether directly and obviously relevant or not - seems to be happening.
I feel that D&D is particularly prone to this sort of problem because it's level system creates a fairly clear "gradation" of challenges, and of goal-stages, and hence creates a peculiar need for the GM to generate player-appropriate content along the way. Do you think this is a fair comment (whether in general, and/or in relation to your current situation)?
I think part of the rationale for 4e's spread of monsters over levels (in the MMs, etc) and its straightforward scaling/build rules is to help GMs do their job in this respect. And I personally have though about how I might run a Dark Sun game in the future, and worried a bit about finding enough material for that particular sort of game that I would need to fill all the levels - whereas I think with the default 4e cosmology there is plenty to choose from that fits.
Ratskinner
Adventurer
Not speaking for [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], but I think its basically the "adventure-dungeon" structure combined with the all-or-nothing tendencies of success.
Although, it could also be that we just notice it more in D&D because the campaigns last longer. ::shrug::
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