[Advice] Putting more options in my games

[Kugar]

Plan a little ahead and be flexible.

The A -> B -> C syndrome is mainly because the world isn't reacting to the PCs.

Lets ask ourselves: "Why arn't the PCs researching the mystic staff of evil goodness at the local library?"

Well,
1) Do they know the library exists?
The world has to have some life. Did you mention the library, put it on a map you gave them. Maybe they will make the intuitive leap if you tell them the city is full of scholars - but don't count on it.

2) Do the PCs really expect that the library holds any information?
If you want the PCs creative thinking to flurish, then their HAS to be some expectation of reward for doing so. Have they caught you off-gaurd before and you shut them down? Whenever this happens it will take the steam out of the most adventurous players for a session. Even if you get stuck in the corner and can't think of something reward the players with creative (IN CHARACTER) thinking. Something like "Even though the librarian didn't have any info it was a good shot - take XX experience points.

3) Are your players looking for that kind of game?
A wide open game can be very frustrating. From behind the screen, a lot of choices seem easy that can really frustrate the heck out of players. Rewatch some of your most favorite movies and pay attention to the plot. Some really great stories have a simple plot - to the point of being cheesy. If a plot gets too contriverted then it's hard to follow and may not make good entertainment. Your players may never think of going to the library and assume if there is a peice of infrmation they NEED then it will come. I guess some people don't find research heroic

Kugar

 

[rounser]

What follows is a theoretical framework I've been thinking about and planning for, but have yet to implement, so take it with a grain of salt and accept that a lot of it may be more academic than practical. Note that this sort of thing will require a lot more work to prepare than a single path railroad campaign, which seems to be the standard.

Rather absurdly, the best models I've found for semi-non linear D&D come from computer games(!) and "On-the-fly" DMing - most published P&P modules and prepare-in-advance DMs I've met make little effort in pushing even a semi-non-linear campaign theme, probably because of the amount of page count or work involved. Those modules and DMs who are an exception to this seem to be a rare and elite breed (and have been known to post in the Story Hours section of these boards from what I gather). In order to keep the amount of work down you may want to restrict your campaign to a limited area.

With that in mind...

One very simple device for making player choice meaningful is littering wilderness and urban areas with areas to explore. Lairs and dungeons in your wilderness just waiting to be discovered or found through rumours can give your players choices to make in exploring your setting. You can do the same with urban encounters and adventuring sites, with adventure hooks triggering based on entering certain areas. Of course, if the players explore more, you'll probably need to prepare more setting detail in advance. Adapted material from Volo's Guides might come in handy to save some work. The nice thing about this approach is that the PCs can go where they want, when they want, and perhaps take a break from the "scripted" side of the campaign to explore the city, looking for trouble - or go bash a dungeon they've heard about or stumbled across. There's a special kind of magic to actually discovering an adventuring site rather than having it dropped at one's feet through a hook.

Problems and issues I can see with this structure...

The tricky part could be in matching character level to the ELs of the static sites, because theoretically the PCs may be able to visit a static site at any time unless you put up barriers to doing so. Presumably you should be able to update unexplored lower EL grounds between sessions as the PCs gain power, "advertise" that a site is out of their league one way or another, or bring a site to their attention when they're the right level for it. "Thar's trolls in them thar hills."

To go up a notch, you could go for a hybrid railroad/non-linear approach, with an overall story arc supported by core plot adventures which provides the campaign direction. I suggest that the story arc adventures should be railroaded in order to give the campaign structure, a theme, a vehicle for the primary villain and a climax. But...they can be coupled with a bunch of "optional" adventures that are either unrelated to the main story arc or only somewhat related. You can present two or three "optional" adventure hooks to have as options at any one time that the PCs can pursue or ignore - they effectively choose what to do next, but the overall direction of the campaign is still under DM control because the PCs have a railroad obligation to complete the main story arc adventures sooner or later. I highly recommend Dungeon magazine for supplying "optional" adventures; it should save a boatload of work.

Problems and issues that I can see with this structure...

Balancing completion of the main story arc adventures against completion of the side adventures is something you'll probably have to consider. Players may attempt to delay doing the main plotline adventures for as long as possible in order to gain XP from the side treks and static adventuring sites - or ignore the side adventures and sites and go straight for the main plotline, because they have compelling in-character reasons to do so. I suggest putting up barriers to completion of the main plotline at certain points to slow down completion of the core story arc if the PCs are completing it to quickly without trying the "optional" adventures, or introduce a very obvious and urgent time limit to completion of the central plotline if the PCs are spending too much time on the side adventures and static sites in order to rack up the XP and gold.

Whatever approach you take, I suggest telling the players about the campaign structure well in advance and emphasising it so they don't forget. As has been pointed out earlier on this thread, players operate on assumptions about how the game is going to play. The default assumption among D&D players is usually that you're going to railroad them if you're not making it up on the fly, so make sure that they know that there are random locations to explore in the wilderness (if you have them), and that there is a realistic possibility that the rumours they hear or hooks they see will in fact lead to other adventures that are either unrelated or only cursorily related to the main plotline that's (usually) being dumped in front of them.

Note also that I suspect that some of the implications of these suggestions are in direct violation of Dungeoncraft Rule #1 (Don't prepare more than you have to). Probably best to repeat this as a mantra if preparing such a campaign, and keep obsolescence to a minimum (or update and re-use the material later in the campaign if it gets "skipped").

 

[Nightfall]

My advice, if a player does something stupid, and you don't call him on it (like attacking a small band of well armed gnolls while the party just came off a MAJOR fight with some other big group/major monster), you don't appear realistic. Thus don't hesistate for a party kill IF the player acts stupid. Stupidity should not be tolerated.

 

[Rune]

Here's what I suggest:

• Bury tons of plot hooks into the infrastructure of your campaign. Some of them should be pretty obvious and many of them should be as subtle as you can make them.
• Create a few (say, three) plot events that will likely happen in the course of the game, but do not feel constrained to what you've planned if the players carry you away from your designs. You need to get lots of practice in improvising for this to work. Which means you need to try it.
• DO NOT be arbitrary. Even if you are winging the adventure, stick to what you've planned as much as possible. If the players start to feel you're changing things on them--either for good or ill--you've compromised your game and your position as the DM. Be fair. I suggest rolling combat dice in front of everybody, in addition to this, but some good DMs like to reserve the ability to fudge in dire situations. Note: rolling the dice in front of the players usually gives more of an advantage to the monsters/NPCs that they are fighting, since they are usually the underdogs.

Anyway, good luck and tell us how it goes.

 

[ThomasBJJ]

Here is some simple advice. This is what I did a couple of months ago while I was planning the start of my Forgotten Realms campaign.
I was having trouble getting started... on anything. Adventures, plots, prepairing encounters. Just couldn't do it. (And I've DMed since 1986).
I sat down with the DM Guide (3rd edition) and read it cover to cover. I spent alot of time on the creating adventures and campaigns sections. I had a note pad and took notes on the advice in there. From those notes, I was able to make a few lists of things that I needed to come up with to get things rolling. For example: I need some interesting locations, interesting antagonists (NPCs & Villians), a mixture of encounter types, and situations that make use of the Player Character's abilities.
From that I made lists of locations I think would be cool to use. An old bell tower, a rickety old rope bridge (like in Indiana jones Temple of Doom), an old mayan/aztec style jungle temple, etc.
I made a list of the types of encounters possible. Roleplaying, Combat - pc's attacking, Combat pc's defending, exploration, political, etc. And tried to come up with ideas for each type.
once I had all my lists, I had a menu of sorts to choose from while designing my campaign. I had already written down elements I wanted to use, I just had to choose what items were going to fit together.
For plots, I think it is a must to occassionally read fantasy fiction (R.A. Salvatore, Ed Greenwood, Robert Jordan) or even watch movies. Anything can inspire plot. I read somewhere that there are only a very few plots, its the details that make them different.
As for not rail roading, DMG has good advice for this. What I'm doing is this: there are always at least 3 plots happening that the PC's can get involved in. I try to make them want to get in on all of them, but have to choose only one or two. I make sure that down the road, they will hear something about the plots that they passed up, so they know that something happened without them.
For the plots they do get involved it, I try to have at least 3 ways they can approach the situation. If they miss one way, I can try to put another opportunity in thier path for the same plot. I still have one more if that doesn't work. All the while, Im weaving in small elements of another storyline, that may catch thier imagination.
Last, preparation is my biggest enemy. For that, I've made a list of NPC names. at least 20. Business names, ship names, city names, etc. I also am working on very simple items, things that the pc's can get involved in that take almost no time at all. Stop a mugging. Encounter an NPC for like 5 minutes, etc. That way I always have SOMETHING to fall back on if things go in a direction the I didn't plan on.

I hope that helps. Take notes when you read dragon or dungeon mag. Inspiration is sometimes fleeting if you don't write it down.

Thomas

 

[Olive]

That all seems like good advice. I already have some name lists, but I think the key is to a) take notes for ideas more and b) just play a bit more until I get to know the players and their characters.

 

[Teflon Billy]

The advice you've been given thus far is good stuff Olive.

I'll add (or rather, agree) that the key to non-linear DM'ing is to have an understanding of your setting, and of your NPC's goals and motivations.

If you know how most of the important folks in your setting will (re)act to any events that occur (and assuming that some or many of thm have opposite goals) then adventures will spring up of their own accord.

Good luck

 

[Voadam]

A couple of suggestions:

Be flexible and have multiple hooks and or modules ready to go so that the players can choose what they want to do. For example, in one of my ravenloft games a fallen paladin had a religious visitation about what quests for atonement he could pursue to regain his powers. I modify and use modules to fit my game and I had three that were about right for the party level so I offered him inspiration about a mass murderer, a chronic undead problem, and terrorizing monsters, he could have chosen any of the three paths or said screw it and I had stuff for the party to do. He chose the undead path and then he went to work convincing the rest of the party to follow him into known danger. The party could have made a different decision and I would have been fine with it.

Similar example, in a greyhawk campaign I was running the slavers series. The evil party halfway through decided to join the slavers, that lead to some interesting stuff for a while and then they decided to blow off the whole situation and took an opportunity to leave the area. Same game a little earlier, after capturing a slaver and bringing her back to Safeton, the mage falls in love with her and convinces the party to attempt a rescue of her from the city. The rescue goes disastrously and the party is captured, and gets sent through a gate to fulfill a quest on a celtic world or no gate back. No geases or quests, their choice then to fulfill the quest (and modules I had) or to once again strike off on their own.

Even though modules and quests are often linear, the greater situations don't have to be, and player choice should still be relevant.

Also be ready to wing things occasionally and let them develop naturally. I have had great games where the party has just screwed around with random wilderness encounters or experimented with new powers (one of the PCs was turned into a wight). Similarly, Cities are great for PC choice, they can seek out different things (shops, temples, libraries, taverns, etc.) and there are lots of npcs to interact with (thieves, merchants, beggars, nobility, street performers, etc.)

 

[Olive]

the idea of having some pre-fab adventures to hand is a good one...so that if mymplayers say they need to leave town, the option of them going to freeport is there!