GMs: How Much Do You Curate Your Adventures To Your Specific PCs, Mechanically Speaking

[overgeeked]

In D&D-likes, I mostly run open-world sandboxes. The world exists regardless of what the players bring to the table. It’s up to them to focus on their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. It’s on them to approach things in ways they prefer. If they want stealth missions, then they need to play the game as if it were a stealth mission. If no one wants to play a healer, that’s their choice. But they better be ready with backup characters because they’ll need them.

Zero curation beyond dropping any of their goal-related stuff into in-world reasonable places. They’re not going to find the Legendary Sword of Kicking Ass and Taking Names in the umbrella stand by their patron’s front door, but they will find it in the hoard of the demon king’s second-in-command.

 

[Reynard]

Ideally they will do it themselves, and one can be lazy. Though I definitely will try to get the other players involved by having something for their character to do.

That isn't what we are talking about.

 

[dragoner]

That isn't what we are talking about.

It is though, because otherwise in your example it's only having them hire NPC's to fulfil conditions, which it is better to skip over. Having the players watch you play the game by yourself is meh.

 

[Reynard]

It is though, because otherwise in your example it's only having them hire NPC's to fulfil conditions, which it is better to skip over. Having the players watch you play the game by yourself is meh.

I have no idea what this even means.

 

[dragoner]

There are usually easy work arounds for mechanics, and choice of adventure, game system is already curating to some degree.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I generally don’t do this. I’ve found that my PCs can generally handle most fights I throw at them, provided I don’t make it too ridiculously stacked against them. I exclusively run D&D 5e, and damage immunities and other mechanics that would heavily influence the effectiveness of a single character are pretty rare.

If I create an environmental hazard or obstacle, I generally have an idea for how the PCs will overcome it or leave it to the players to figure out. Once I put the adventure’s MacGuffin inside a pillar of lava with no idea how the PCs were going to get it out. One of the PCs had Wall of Force prepared, so they created a magical lava slide to divert the lava so they could retrieve the MacGuffin. Or if the PCs need to get to a floating island but none of them can fly, I put it on them to find a way up. They could cast Reduce on the party’s goblin and then use Mage Hand to fly them up, or cast Catapult on a spear that has a rope tied to it, or leave to buy a potion or scroll that lets them fly and come back later. I generally trust that the players are inventive enough to figure out a solution.

I have occasionally designed adventures without considering the abilities of the PCs in a way that had an unforeseen effect, but never to a hugely disastrous extent. Like when the party realized that the only “person” in the party with darkvision was the artificer’s steel defender during a fight with goblin archers in a dark cave. Or the time they were fighting a Flesh Colossus and discovered it was immune to the Artificer’s primary weapon. Or the time the Paladin decided to crit-smite a Core Spawn Worm and nearly TPKed the party through Radiant Mirror. This has never been too disastrous, and only made those encounters more interesting and memorable.

 

[Reynard]

There are usually easy work arounds for mechanics, and choice of adventure, game system is already curating to some degree.

For clarity: my question for you was about curating in a sandbox, which based on my experience and understanding of the playstyle, is kind of antithetical.

 

[dragoner]

For clarity: my question for you was about curating in a sandbox, which based on my experience and understanding of the playstyle, is kind of antithetical.

It depends on how set in stone the sandbox is, mine are usually some maps and NPC's so as just a rough framework. For D&D, I often see people playing a bunch of battles, level grinding; where I usually run trav/cepheus, there isn't an incentive to combat, some people still do want a tactical combat game. I warn them they might want to run multiple characters though.

 

[Reynard]

It depends on how set in stone the sandbox is, mine are usually some maps and NPC's so as just a rough framework. For D&D, I often see people playing a bunch of battles, level grinding; where I usually run trav/cepheus, there isn't an incentive to combat, some people still do want a tactical combat game. I warn them they might want to run multiple characters though.

I don't think that is particularly relevant to the question at hand. the real question is: if the sandbox says the PCs encounter some obstacle, do you curate the obstacle specifically to the PCs' mechanic capabilities, or do you base its mechanical specifics on what it is in the world.

 

[dragoner]

I don't think that is particularly relevant to the question at hand. the real question is: if the sandbox says the PCs encounter some obstacle, do you curate the obstacle specifically to the PCs' mechanic capabilities, or do you base its mechanical specifics on what it is in the world.

Is the obstacle interesting? That is what my earlier reply was to, such as needing a hacker, and they don't have one, then instead hire one. How does that play out? It could be an interesting little side adventure, or it could be just wasting time before a more crucial scene. Like "ok you hire the hacker, and they get you through the building's security system" and move on. I watched one gaming session where they wound up arguing about how much water a character could carry, and then later penalizing him for carrying too much with fatigue rules. It was super boring tbh, like why?