Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay

[prabe]

We have different ideas of cool. Unavoidable traps with nothing but bad outcomes don't make my list.

I believe that @Lanefan is presuming the party could have avoided the town. I also expect he is working from a formulation similar to this: Unavoidable traps: not cool. Avoidable traps: cool. Avoidable traps that rapidly reduce the good options available to the party: really cool.

I think, though, that this might be one of those things that is clearly on The Adventure Path (and therefore really hard to avoid) that then works to rapidly reduce the good options available to the party. Players accustomed to Adventure Paths might (correctly) intuit that they're "supposed to" go to this place, but not have any idea what's there until they get there, at which point their options start dwindling rapidly. So, a trap that the party in principle could have avoided but in practice figured out they weren't supposed to. I think that's even worse than one they couldn't have avoided, personally.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I believe that @Lanefan is presuming the party could have avoided the town. I also expect he is working from a formulation similar to this: Unavoidable traps: not cool. Avoidable traps: cool. Avoidable traps that rapidly reduce the good options available to the party: really cool.

I think, though, that this might be one of those things that is clearly on The Adventure Path (and therefore really hard to avoid) that then works to rapidly reduce the good options available to the party. Players accustomed to Adventure Paths might (correctly) intuit that they're "supposed to" go to this place, but not have any idea what's there until they get there, at which point their options start dwindling rapidly. So, a trap that the party in principle could have avoided but in practice figured out they weren't supposed to. I think that's even worse than one they couldn't have avoided, personally.

Pretty sure the only avoiding @Lanefan had in mind was deciding to not go to the town. Also pretty sure this would be a blind decision absent any information. Had a few years of @Lanefan posts to know he's super stingy with information in game, so is very unlikely to telegraph a "bad town" in any meaningful way.

Not that that's bad, Lan clearly has fun, just indicating it's very much not my cuppa.

 

[prabe]

Pretty sure the only avoiding @Lanefan had in mind was deciding to not go to the town. Also pretty sure this would be a blind decision absent any information. Had a few years of @Lanefan posts to know he's super stingy with information in game, so is very unlikely to telegraph a "bad town" in any meaningful way.

Not that that's bad, Lan clearly has fun, just indicating it's very much not my cuppa.

I also get the feeling @Lanefan doesn't run (probably doesn't play, might not see the appeal of) the whole Adventure Path thing, either. There's definitely a subtext when you're a player in one, telling you where the adventure is supposed to go. I'm very bad at Adventure Paths.

 

[Retreater]

I don't mind if they're going off the rails of the adventure path per se, but it's that I'm trying to run it using the module on a VTT, and not on a home F2F game I can easily adapt. So if the group wants to go to a new area not detailed in the adventure, to deal with different NPCs, face alternative challenges, etc, I can't easily change it in this format. Now given enough advance notice, I can make new maps, add new NPC stat blocks, etc, but we're all stressing out in our daily lives, I'm running a weekly session for them (instead of the normal biweekly or monthly) and I think going along with a general storyline the party agreed to play at the outset for the sake of DM sanity isn't too much to ask.

 

[billd91]

I also get the feeling @Lanefan doesn't run (probably doesn't play, might not see the appeal of) the whole Adventure Path thing, either. There's definitely a subtext when you're a player in one, telling you where the adventure is supposed to go. I'm very bad at Adventure Paths.

There's definitely a subtext that suggests if you're going to participate in an AP, you should make a character amenable to the AP's adventure hooks that take you into the overall story and look for ways to enhance and move the story along. I don't think that's quite the same as telling you where to go as much as you agree to be pulled there. Once you accept the premise that you should make a character who fits the AP's assumptions, I find the events of the AP will bring you along pretty well.

 

[Umbran]

The DMG. It's full of advice on how the rules serve the DM, not other way around

This isn't a rules question, though.

how to change things

The DMG has a whole whopping paragraph on page 72 that tells you that you can do so.

How to go about it, though - how to know when you might want to, what to consider as you do so - is notably lacking. It quickly goes into adventure creations - it has less than one column on general adventure structure, a couple of pages each on very high level approach to a couple adventure types. But it never links those points on creation back to addressing what you see as flaws or ill-fitting points in a published work.

 

[Fenris-77]

I feel like there's room for a short 3PP monograph here, titled something like How to Hack Your Module. Something that explains maybe what to look for in an AP, common issues, a little bit on massaging the CR to work with your actual party, and a longer bit about how to adapt to the changing fiction on the fly. I know, I know, someone is going to say, yeah Fenris, you should get right on that...

 

[prabe]

There's definitely a subtext that suggests if you're going to participate in an AP, you should make a character amenable to the AP's adventure hooks that take you into the overall story and look for ways to enhance and move the story along. I don't think that's quite the same as telling you where to go as much as you agree to be pulled there. Once you accept the premise that you should make a character who fits the AP's assumptions, I find the events of the AP will bring you along pretty well.

Yeah. Then the logic holes start to accrue and I start to ask questions. I start to behave in ways the writers didn't anticipate--not out of malice or a desire to break the AP, but because I think differently than the writers presume players will. Present me with smugglers and I want to know why they're smuggling. I mean, sure, they're trying to make a profit, but are they trying to get around taxes/tariffs/duties, or is there some officially-mandated middleman with monopsony/monopoly power they're trying to get around, or are there sumptuary laws in effect that the people resent, or are these products flat illegal here, or is there something else? (The NPCs weren't able to provide an answer ...)

 

[Lanefan]

I also get the feeling @Lanefan doesn't run (probably doesn't play, might not see the appeal of) the whole Adventure Path thing, either.

As the entirety of a campaign? Not for me, no.

I'll bake an AP-like series now and then into a bigger campaign, mind you, but even then if the PCs decide to go off the map then so be it - I have to adapt.

There's definitely a subtext when you're a player in one, telling you where the adventure is supposed to go. I'm very bad at Adventure Paths.

Me too, particularly if the AP's underlying premise doesn't hold much appeal and-or isn't clear. But if the AP's premise is engaging - or if the characters themselves are fun and engaging enough in their own interactions that it doesn't really matter what we're doing in the bigger picture - then I'll happily ride the rails.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah. Then the logic holes start to accrue and I start to ask questions. I start to behave in ways the writers didn't anticipate--not out of malice or a desire to break the AP, but because I think differently than the writers presume players will. Present me with smugglers and I want to know why they're smuggling. I mean, sure, they're trying to make a profit, but are they trying to get around taxes/tariffs/duties, or is there some officially-mandated middleman with monopsony/monopoly power they're trying to get around, or are there sumptuary laws in effect that the people resent, or are these products flat illegal here, or is there something else? (The NPCs weren't able to provide an answer ...)

...or how do I get in on the action?