Scenario and setting design, with GM and players in mind

Lanefan said:

In the adventure write-up - particularly if it's been written for someone else to run - all of this info has to appear, even though all three of the above tables never learned more than maybe half of it.

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None of what you wrote really addresses my criticism of many of these scenarios. That criticism being the author doesn't offer any suggestions on how the background information might be introduced to the player characters. It's great that it might come up at different tables, but it's flaw of the scenario if there's no mention of how this information can be introduced. I understand no author can plan for every contingency because players can do some really unexpected actions, but even something as simple as, "The PCs might learn this if they talk to the suspect's brother." would be nice.

MGibster said:

None of what you wrote really addresses my criticism of many of these scenarios. That criticism being the author doesn't offer any suggestions on how the background information might be introduced to the player characters. It's great that it might come up at different tables, but it's flaw of the scenario if there's no mention of how this information can be introduced. I understand no author can plan for every contingency because players can do some really unexpected actions, but even something as simple as, "The PCs might learn this if they talk to the suspect's brother." would be nice.

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Ah, now I see what you're getting at. Yes, part of the background info ideally speaks to or at least strongly indicates which NPCs in the scenario know what, and-or if that knowledge is correct-accurate-truthful. Same thing goes for physical details, as in "If the PCs examine the ground around the corpse they will notice marks indicating it was dragged to its current location". If the PCs look, they learn this now. If they don't, they either will find this info out later by other means or will never learn it at all.

My point remains, though, that if the PCs never speak to the brother his knowledge won't come to light; even though the author has gone to the trouble of putting it in there.

Lanefan said:

Thing is, from my viewpoint the players discovering these things and the GM revealing them are the same event and occur at the same time; the discovery from the player side leads to, and thus is, the reveal from the GM side. That said...

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What makes it different is that discovering is something the players do. Revealing is something that happens to them.

My point is that such an event… a prominent NPC patron turns out to be a vampire… works far better if it’s something in play that is designed to be discovered.

The way you described it, it sounds more like something they never knew and the GM just revealed it to them, thereby casting all their past accomplishments and decisions in a new light. That they were in fact doing the bidding of a vampire.

Such a revelation would really bug me as a player.

Lanefan said:

...I also don't think third-act twists necessarily put the players in a passive state of participation. Their level of passivity will be shown by what, if anything, they do with or about this new information; or whether they care about it. Personally, I think if they don't care about the third-act twist and-or it doesn't spur them to significant action it just means I've done a lousy job of setting it up during acts one and two - and yes, over the years I've certainly had a few of these fall flat on their faces. I've also had some work out quite well, though, so it's not a technique I'm about to abandon completely.

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This all sounds like a very strongly GM-curated story. Which is perfectly fine in and of itself, but I don’t know if it has the kinds of levers for players that the OP was concerned with.

But I think that such a twist absolutely puts the players in a passive state because it’s not something that they do. It’s something that happens to them. It’s the GM revealing something as opposed to them actively discovering it.

Do you see the distinction I’m making? Look at it solely from the players’ POV.

Lanefan said:

Third-act twists are IMO a different sort of thing than a more basic setting reveal, in that a 3a-twist is (ideally) directly related to the PCs and-or whatever plot is going on or emerging at the time; while a basic setting reveal - e.g. the world is all on the back of a turtle - is more broad-based and applies equally to any PCs in the setting whether currently in play or not.

I do, if only because it allows me-as-GM to legitimately maintain a sense that there is always more out there to discover should they care to look for it. It also allows me to keep those things in my pocket as either adventure hooks or unexpected developments for later in the campaign, and as I run long open-ended campaigns havign a few of these in the chamber can be very handy sometimes.

Spoiler in case any of my current or former players happen to read this:

Spoiler

There's a secret about my current setting that's been in place since before the campaign started which, fourteen years in, nobody yet knows: their binary-planet system is held in place (and to some extent held together; it's otherwise astronomically impossible for two planets to be and remain as close to each other as these are) by several high-tech and divinely-created satellites. Sooner or later, should the PC levels ever get high enough, some adventure or other is going to take them to one of these satellites; at which point with any luck they'll figure this all out while also realizing that keeping these satellites in one piece and functional would be very beneficial to all.

They've already found in-play the means to get to the satellites (several vessels known to be spaceships) but don't know how to operate them or where they can go.

But if none of this ever happens and none of it ever comes to light, it's no skin off my nose other than the hour or two of thought and writing I put into it back in 2007.

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I don’t think that such GM presented revelations are necessary at all to remind anyone that there is more to discover. But I think this also depends on the purpose of play.

If the goal of play is to explore the setting, then these kinds of things are going to be more important. If the goal of play isn’t about that kind of setting exploration, then they seem kind of out of place.

Something that I think is important to consider when making a faction map as a play aid, is to decide what level of granularity do you need. A map that shows factions and relationships between those factions might miss that some factions contain significant and important sub-factions, the conflict between which is important to capture. However, there is a slippery slope that leads to a map that has a hundred different individuals and minute sub-factions listed and ends up being worthless at the table.

I'm currently working on some ideas for the format of faction maps, and I think that a lot of info can be conveyed using colour and size. For example, I made the following (very rough) faction map for an OSR town I wrote up for a Black Hack campaign (those of you who just saw this in a different thread will have to forgive me).



So all the blue boxes are parts of the Council faction, but just having one box wouldn't have captured the interplay between those parts. There is an additional layer of individual relationships that seemed like too much, so I left it out (it would be covered in the NPC sketches). The arrows show positive, negative, and conflicted relationships as well as directionality, when I thought it mattered. There are also some sub-faction elements in the mining consortium that I forgot about. Anyway, this is the sort of thing I like to use, although ideally it would look somewhat neater.

So, just a as quick comparison, here's a portion of the faction map above, but done in an actual mind map app.

Fenris-77 said:

Something that I think is important to consider when making a faction map as a play aid, is to decide what level of granularity do you need. A map that factions and relationships between those factions might miss that some factions contain significant and important sub-factions, the conflict between which is important to capture. However, there is a slippery slope that leads to a map that has a hundred different individuals and minute sub-factions listed and ends up being worthless at the table.

I'm currently working on some ideas for the format of faction maps, and I think that a lot of info can be conveyed using colour and size. For example, I made the following (very rough) faction map for an OSR town I wrote up for a Black Hack campaign (those of you who just saw this in a different thread will have to forgive me).

View attachment 261189

So all the blue boxes are parts of the Council faction, but just having one box wouldn't have captured the interplay between those parts. There is an additional layer of individual relationships that seemed like too much, so I left it out (it would be covered in the NPC sketches). The arrows show positive, negative, and conflicted relationships as well as directionality, when I thought it mattered. There are also some sub-faction elements in the mining consortium that I forgot about. Anyway, this is the sort of thing I like to use, although ideally it would look somewhat neater.

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Nice!

Were I to ever do something like this - and I probably should, for one specific major city in my world anyway - it would probably end up looking like a plate of spaghetti with lots of meatballs, as beyond just factions-groups-guilds etc. I'd want to include specific key NPCs to also show their own relationships with not just various factions but with various other individual people.

Lanefan said:

Nice!

Were I to ever do something like this - and I probably should, for one specific major city in my world anyway - it would probably end up looking like a plate of spaghetti with lots of meatballs, as beyond just factions-groups-guilds etc. I'd want to include specific key NPCs to also show their own relationships with not just various factions but with various other individual people.

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Funny you should say this as I was thinking about the same issue earlier today. I think one answer is a master map in useful detail, and then sub-maps for complicated sub-faction relationships. From a layout perspective I'd lead with the master map and then do sub-maps on the same page or facing pages facing the matching faction write up.

hawkeyefan said:

What makes it different is that discovering is something the players do. Revealing is something that happens to them.

My point is that such an event… a prominent NPC patron turns out to be a vampire… works far better if it’s something in play that is designed to be discovered.

The way you described it, it sounds more like something they never knew and the GM just revealed it to them, thereby casting all their past accomplishments and decisions in a new light. That they were in fact doing the bidding of a vampire.

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That they learn that they were all along doing the bidding of a vampire is largely the point of it all. This can be learned via a reveal i.e. the vampire at some point proactively discloses himself for what he really is, or via discovery where the PCs find out he's a vampire through their own investigations. I do see the difference here.

hawkeyefan said:

Such a revelation would really bug me as a player.

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It might really bug me in the fiction as a character, depending on who-what I was playing at the time. But as a player, remote from the fiction? Not so much - I see such things as just being a normal part of the game.

hawkeyefan said:

This all sounds like a very strongly GM-curated story. Which is perfectly fine in and of itself, but I don’t know if it has the kinds of levers for players that the OP was concerned with.

But I think that such a twist absolutely puts the players in a passive state because it’s not something that they do. It’s something that happens to them.

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Which is also part of the point. Things will sometimes happen to the PCs whether they want them to or not, as an outgrowth of their being significant actors in a dangerous and not-always-to-be-trusted world. People will be out to get them, and sometimes long-term deception is a bullet those people stick in their chamber and fire.

Keep in mind, if it matters, that I'm coming at this entirely from the perspective of long-running and multi-layered campaigns spanning years both in game time and real time, where it's expected that after the twist there will be ample time for the players/PCs to act on or with this new information.

A twist right at the end when there's no further time to do anything with-about it isn't any use to anyone, and not much fun to boot.

hawkeyefan said:

It’s the GM revealing something as opposed to them actively discovering it.

Do you see the distinction I’m making? Look at it solely from the players’ POV.

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Yes, to a point.

hawkeyefan said:

I don’t think that such GM presented revelations are necessary at all to remind anyone that there is more to discover. But I think this also depends on the purpose of play.

If the goal of play is to explore the setting, then these kinds of things are going to be more important. If the goal of play isn’t about that kind of setting exploration, then they seem kind of out of place.

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In my view setting exploration is always A goal to some extent, evne if it isn't always THE goal.

Lanefan said:

That they learn that they were all along doing the bidding of a vampire is largely the point of it all. This can be learned via a reveal i.e. the vampire at some point proactively discloses himself for what he really is, or via discovery where the PCs find out he's a vampire through their own investigations. I do see the difference here.

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Yeah, if the GM just reveals this to us at some point, I’m gonna feel like he’s telling a story and we’re just playing a part. That’s not how I prefer to feel when playing.

The PCs discovering it through their own investigations would seem to be more likely approach to involve the kinds of levers and details that players can use in play, I would say.

Lanefan said:

It might really bug me in the fiction as a character, depending on who-what I was playing at the time. But as a player, remote from the fiction? Not so much - I see such things as just being a normal part of the game.

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Lanefan said:

Which is also part of the point. Things will sometimes happen to the PCs whether they want them to or not, as an outgrowth of their being significant actors in a dangerous and not-always-to-be-trusted world. People will be out to get them, and sometimes long-term deception is a bullet those people stick in their chamber and fire.

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Sure, but there are so many ways to establish this that the “patron turned villain” trope is by no means necessary. And it could be damaging if the players feel like this was something bound to happen, and who knows if they even ever had a chance to figure it out.

The original point that @Campbell made that prompted the OP by @pemerton was that the players should have resources to gain information and to interact with things in the fiction. Allies and friends that can help them, or folks they can manipulate or bribe or what have you.

The patron turned vampire could really mess up player trust in NPCs, which also means trust in the GM.

Lanefan said:

Keep in mind, if it matters, that I'm coming at this entirely from the perspective of long-running and multi-layered campaigns spanning years both in game time and real time, where it's expected that after the twist there will be ample time for the players/PCs to act on or with this new information.
A twist right at the end when there's no further time to do anything with-about it isn't any use to anyone, and not much fun to boot.

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Yeah, I know you run long standing games with multiple play groups, but I don’t think that has much impact here. Though I’d say that if a GM were to do this, the earlier in the game likely the better.

Lanefan said:

Yes, to a point.

In my view setting exploration is always A goal to some extent, evne if it isn't always THE goal.

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For me, it’s something that happens, but isn’t really a goal. It’s more a means of working toward a goal, I suppose.

One of the things I am personally not a fan of is working out ahead of time what an NPC will do down the road. That means we are not really playing out all the interactions that might influence them. If I were going to have a mentor turn out to secretly be a vampire I would certainly establish what their resources are, who their allies and enemies are, what they actually want and desire and the initial state of their relationship to the player characters. Know what they were looking to get from those relationships and have those relationships change over time.

Basically treat them as a character (who wants specific things) that can be influenced by the player characters instead of a plot device.