pawsplay
Hero
That works out great the 90% of the time that event can be worked in somehow and make logical sense. The rest of the time, you have to break some eggs and cook something.
Confession: I like Plot
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That works out great the 90% of the time that event can be worked in somehow and make logical sense. The rest of the time, you have to break some eggs and cook something.
Hussar
Legend
Why not?
Why can I not hang my entire campaign on a high fantasy style epic quest? Take the Macguffin to the Place of Great Danger over the course of Several Chapters, is a pretty standard form for fantasy.
Why is it bad for RPG's?
To put it more specifically, what are the specific issues you have with the idea of having a concrete, known goal for the campaign?
Herobizkit
Adventurer
The most difficult issue is maintaining player interest.
While playing through the RttToEE mega-module, there weee times that I simply no longer cared about reaching the end. It was long, painful, and at times, completely inane. My DM and I worked together to have our own personal mini-campaign set up outside the Temple when the dungeon crawl got too tedious, otherwise I would have quit the Temple about a third of the way through. The game would have continued, to be sure...
... But what if the DM has a homebrew campaign and the grand, sweeping uber-plot is completely ignored or bypassed by the players? the DM must then decide the ramifications (if any) of ignoring his carefully-crafted plot, and must now create new adventures for the players. Less savvy DMs will have likely not planned for such a possibility.
Now, my DM (the one from the example) has an epic uber-plot as the backdrop of his homebrew world. He likes the storytelling style of Tolkein, where the World Continues As It Does regardless of what the characters may or may not do. If Frodo had given up the ring quest, Sauron's army would still have been assembled, great wars still would have happened, Smaug still would have been killed, etc. In the same way, the characters I play are a part of the world, but can choose to step into and out of "The Plot", but no matter what I do, Something Will Happen. In some ways, it makes me (as a player) feel powerless, that I can make my mark on the world but said mark barely scratches the surface of what's Really Going On.
Personally, I prefer to run games the other way. The PC's are the heroes, the movers and shakers, and it is the world that is created around and for them. Stuff Happens, of course, but most things only change if/when the PC's interact directly with the scene. YMMV, of course.
pawsplay
Hero
Because you do not know if the PCs will go to the volcano. You do not know what they will do with the McGuffin. You don't even know who's side they'll take in the Final War. What if they decide the elves are evil, and helping Sauron will humble the elves and allow humans to rise in the aftermath?
Oh, there's no problem with that. That is consistent with what I said about plot earlier. It's just important to keep in mind the distinction between some goals and player goals. Even assuming you're players aren't ornery, which may be a big leap with some groups, they may simply see things different than you or the module writer.
It's quite Ok to invite the players to take the whatchit to the volcano and throw it in, and in fact that's often a good design for a campaign. But you can't make them do it. In an RPG, failure is always an option, unless you are willing to both cheat for the players and railroad them against their wishes.
Crothian
First Post
As a DM though you can make sure the PCs goto the Volcano. A good DM can even make it so the PCs decide on their own without DM interference. It doesn't matter what they do with the MacGuffin or what side in the conflict they take. Though in a game with this going on I would try to have the players think about the sides ahead of time so I and they knew in advance.
pawsplay
Hero
How?
Crothian
First Post
Depends on the campaign, the players, and the characters. There are too many variables in gaming to say specifically how to get this to happen and no one way is going to be 100% effective all the time.
Crothian
First Post
That's a book, not a campaign. In a campaign at that point I'd have at least a year or two to learn the players and the character motivations and shape the campaign as it is needed. That's what DMs do, they don't enter the campaign at a specific late point with a specific sitution happening and then are expected to fix it.
Rel
Liquid Awesome
This is really not a problem if you have what I call "player buy in". That is where all the players have signed on to this ultimate goal of the campaign. I think this stuff needs to be ironed out at the beginning of the game though. Like you need to say, "Folks, this campaign is going to be all about you guys going to the big volcano. Everybody ok with that? That means that your character should have good reasons to go there, or at least no good reasons NOT to go there. Understood?"
The problems I've seen have been where the GM wanted us to go to the volcano but didn't tell us that. Instead we got our butts whipped by this one particular crime lord along the way. We wanted revenge and to put a stop to this crime lord's evil designs. All the players were well motivated to do it and were excited about the prospect. And then the GM said to us, "Look, you guys need to drop this and follow the plot about going to the volcano." From that moment on, that campaign completely sucked because we didn't really care about the volcano and were only going there because the GM made us do it.
I don't have any problem with campaigns with epic goals. I just prefer not to design them from the start because it makes the campaign feel more organic to me if those goals form along the way. I like being surprised by how the campaign turns out.
But that doesn't mean I don't have the "buy in" speech at the start of the game anyway. I think it can be important for the players to buy into a particular theme or idea for the campaign, even if it isn't a specific goal. Like when I ran my WFRP Pirates of the Caribbean game, I said, "This game is about you guys sailing the seas of the Warhammer Caribbean and having many exciting adventures. Ultimately you can be pirates, privateers, law abiding members of the Imperial Navy or merchants out to make a buck. But it's about sailing around on a ship in the Warhammer Caribbean. This means that you don't sell the ship and set up a lemonade stand in Port Royal. And it also means that you don't sail back to the Old World as soon as you lay your hands on a ship. Is everybody cool with that?"
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