Act structure in adventure design

[D'karr]

"there's no such thing" as playing D&D as D&D was originally designed to be played.

I'm sorry but everytime a proponent of how D&D was meant to be played comes up with this assertion, I have a very hard time swallowing it.

Gygax himself, designed and redesigned parts of the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk with a bunch of teleporters in response to Rob Kuntz's nearly photographic memory. So he was continually changing the "sandbox." To say that sandbox style play is the way "the game was meant to be played", flies in the face of the evidence of how the designers of the game actually played it.

The game was designed to be played in whatever manner the DM, and players decided to take the game.

 

[Mallus]

Gygax himself, designed and redesigned parts of the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk with a bunch of teleporters in response to Rob Kuntz's nearly photographic memory. So he was continually changing the "sandbox." To say that sandbox style play is the way the game was meant to be played flies in the face of the evidence of how the designers of the game actually played it.

The game was designed to be played in whatever manner the DM, and players decided to take the game.

Well said (and thanks for raining a few facts onto the parade of cherished opinion and revisionist elf-history).

 

[D'karr]

Well said (and thanks for raining a few facts onto the parade of cherished opinion and revisionist elf-history).

Damn those revisionist elves...

 

[Janx]

and to sort of get it all back on track, the real point of the article is that you can use some story-writing technique to organize the events that happen in the game to make for a memorable adventure.

put another way, is it enjoyable to go to a dungeon, go room from room disarming traps and killing monsters, with each encounter having no bearing on the last?

It can certainly be a challenge. And each fight could be fun. However, try listening to a recounting of the tale. It's tedious and makes no sense. If the retelling of it isn't interesting, how good was it really?

Now wrap a story around all of that. Same encounters. But now you've got something. It's going someplace. Is there anybody who TRULY just wants to kill monsters? You'd be able to prove this in that they don't even care to sit in the room during the non-combat encounters. I think most folks enjoy a story, it's a matter of presentation, and emphasis on the elements they like (I want more stabby, less politics).

Given that most of the published adventures seem to follow the 3 act model (as other folks have pointed out), writing a story is pretty much ingrained.

My real beef against sandbox/simulation is that taken literally, by a poor group, the PCs either stand around and nothing happens, or they whine that everything they do has consequences. In a good sandbox, with good players, them GM is sub-conciously applying story-telling techniques and good judgement to what the players do, and the players aren't fighting it, because they are participating. At that point, we're actually talking the same thing, and I'd just as soon drop the sandbox term as it's an illusion.

The result is, a story IS the consquences and reactions. A group of players that fight this, is a group of players who aren't ready for an RPG.

I'd like to get off the sandbox, er soapbox. What'd be useful to see is how to implement KM's checklist, or timeline of where the party is in the story arc. And how to write/plan a story arc that isn't a railroad, and allows for a lot of adaptability.

For writing such a story arc, I'd recommend the following ideas:
create an initial problem, that the PCs are likely to want to solve
make it obvious and relevant what the consequences will be if the party doesn't undertake it (the village will be destroyed, as will be your base of operations)
Allow for the possibility that the party will quit the quest, at any stage
Allow for the possibility that the party will fail the quest, at any stage

Until you get to some specific encounter, there's a lot of predictability on what a party will do, you're not going to have to plan on a specific action, so much as a generic type of action. With any given problem, a party will likely try one or more of the following:
fight their way out
trick their way out (some spell or item, or sneakiness)
talk their way out (diplomacy, etc)
investigate their way out (sneak, find evidence and use it)
run away (stop trying anything else)
wait for the other side to act first (react in kind usually)

You can usually set the scene such that some choices are more likely. Confronting the party with a group of armed orcs with weapons drawn will most likely get the fight response. Orcs with weapons sheathed, at medium distance, with one orc calling out to the party opens up the talk option. Orcs seen nearby, but not seeing the party opens up the trick option. And in all cases run away and wait are still viable.

This is why as a DM you CAN plan on what the party will do next. Because while it is possible the party could do anything, many options are not probable. I've got a DM who's a long-time good friend with a long-time campaign (running since 1992). He can predict what we'll do as a party and only write that much material, and we hit each mark like clock hands strike the hour. Where we surpsise him is how we solve specific encounters (using items he's forgotten about, or new tactics). But that doesn't break his outline. After the adventure, we've even talked about how there was "no way he could have known for sure we were going to pursue X, and then goto Y." Which proves the point. The only party that isn't predictable is the party that is deliberately trying to be random. And those folks are simply being contrary for the point of being contrary

 

[Kask]

And, if the players don't follow the "script"? Railroading?

 

[Janx]

And, if the players don't follow the "script"? Railroading?

I think the concern of rail-roading has been addressed in a number of responses already.

In a real rail-road, you can't leave the scene until you do the expected thing. That's what's annoying about it.

What most people agree here, is that the GM adapts the material to a fitting reaction and consequence to the player's unexpected action.

In reality, when a player doesn't do the expected thing, it comes in 2 flavors:
1) they're trying to "quit" the mission
2) they're trying to "solve" the mission, in an unanticipated way

#1 is easy, let them start quitting, and start showing them consequences as the bad guy moves forward un-impeded. They'll either get back to the mission, or accept the consequences, which continue to roll forward while they "do something else" which you can run for them.

#2 is also easy. Pause the game, adjust the "script" to react to the new change, which will probably replace a few encounters and reveal information early, and move them to a different point in the story arc, which is the whole point of finishing any encounter.

Remember, it's not a rail-road to have consequences for the PCs actions or inaction. "I don't want to find the kidnapped mayor" means the bad guy moves forward. The world is not static. A rail-road is where the party can't choose to be inactive, or a specific action. They're not allowed to. A choice with a bad consequence (that a rational person would never make) is not the same as a lack of choice enforced by the GM who nullifies every action but the acceptable one.

The reality for most GMs is, whether they write it down before the game, or make it up on the fly, once they say, "the party hears a rumor about killings on the docks" it's been planned out. They have an idea of a clue to drop for the party to find. They have an idea of who the bad guy is, even if it's only in their head. At that point, a path has been drawn from party in the bar to party confronting the bad guy. A good GM keeps adjusting that path as the party advances through the story, based on what they do, and how they want to approach the problem. In any even, the goal is to always end at the party confronting the bad guy, though the image of what that scene looks like may keep changing.

 

[Kask]

Remember, it's not a rail-road to have consequences for the PCs actions or inaction.

That ALL depends on why there are consequences. If it is because the DM wants to funnel the characters to stay "on script" then it is railroading.

 

[CharlesRyan]

In a good sandbox, with good players, them GM is sub-conciously applying story-telling techniques and good judgement to what the players do, and the players aren't fighting it, because they are participating.

In the division between "sandbox" and "story," most people seem to think the classic dungeon crawl experience is pure "sandbox."

The funny thing is, even the typical old-school dungeon is designed to outline a sort of story arc:

• The characters find an entrance and go in.
• They explore a bunch of rooms and have some encounters.
• Eventually, they find a staircase going down.
• They go down, where they explore some more and face slightly harder obstacles and encounters.
• And so on. Often, the deepest or most remote chambers contain some sort of uber threat.

Now let's face facts: Most dungeon creators design to this pacing consideration, placing it (consciously or subconsciously) ahead of the strictly "realistic" dungeon concerns. A "realistic" dungeon wouldn't likely support such pacing--after all, when was the last time you entered a building and had to wander around for hours before finding the staircase that led to the more important parts of the building?

I think we'd all agree that that's not railroading, yet there's no doubt that the design choices do impact on the players' options and decisions. Guess what: there's nothing wrong with that!

When any reasonable advocate of storytelling techniques in roleplaying talks about outlining a plot, they're talking about an outline very comparable to that dungeon design. Instead of rooms in a dungeon (or maybe in addition to them), they're outlining clues and events. This outline is no more a straightjacket or "railroad" than the dungeon map--in fact, it's often more open-ended.

 

[CharlesRyan]

If it is because the DM wants to funnel the characters to stay "on script" then it is railroading.

Is this a real problem, or a straw man?

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I think "railroading" is a bogeyman. The last time I saw a GM try to run to a script was about the same time I played under a Monty Haul DM. Sure, it happened--when were 13 and none of us had played for more than 4 months.

Nobody's talking about "scripts." We're talking about, at most, outlines. More specifically, we're talking about applying storytelling technique to make campaigns more cohesive--whether or not they're following a specific arc outline.

A kneejerk reaction of equating that sort of GMing technique to forcing a script on the players is like saying if you give players a +1 dagger, you might as well give them Baba Yaga's Hut--either way it's Monty Haul!

 

[Janx]

That ALL depends on why there are consequences. If it is because the DM wants to funnel the characters to stay "on script" then it is railroading.

Go back and re-read the last post, or better yet, today's blog entry where I expound on it more. And read What CharlesRyan said. We're all about avoiding hard-coded super-detailed scripts. It's outlines.

But even then, sticking with the term "script" I would say the GM's job is to invent plausible consequences for PC actions. Regardless of his motive, that is the point of running a simulation or narrativist game.

Furthermore, it is reasonable and rational for the GM to funnel the characters to get back to the ending. To do otherwise would create more work (having to invent more material), defy internal logic of the game world (the murderer's identity does/doesn't change, just because the party investigates the wrong person. The GM makes it all work, to maintain consistency and pacing.

It's like I said before, if the party doesn't want to complete the mission, they accept the consequences of failure. That's not rail-roading, it's cause and effect. It just happens to also help the GM's goal of running a story about a murder mystery where the butler did it.

If the party is working on the mission, and just not doing the right thing, a DM is at risk of railroading, but the solution is to adjust the "script" to get things back on schedule.

If the murderer is the butler, and you investigate the flower garden, where the butler never goes, it's not railroading to change my notes such that you find a new clue there that leads to the butler, or to make it so the butler DID go to the garden. It's not like you're NOT trying to find the murderer, the GM is trying to help the party complete the goal the party accepted, which is to find the murderer.

Talking about railroading, really is a side-topic. There's other threads on it. Nobody here wants to rail-road. We're not trying to design a rail-roady system and we're cognizant of the pitfalls to avoid. We're simply looking at how to organize our adventure so it is cohesive, rational, and makes a good story as the party goes through it.