[DMing style] Semi-freeform??

[Malin Genie]

I have been thinking about starting a campaign. There will be a couple of new players, and a couple of more experienced players. I had thought of the following way of running the game (at least at the beginning):

The players do not have access to character sheets. They provide a detailed description of the character to me, probably with a few set questions to guide the description, like "Describe how your character appears to others" "What is your charaacter's reason for adventuring" etc Based on the description I would allocate stats (point buy) and skills (presumable race and class would be obvious from the description, although I may, depending on how the background is presented, use the 'variant Core Classes' rules from the DMG.)

From their own description, and feedback during the game, the character would know how strong, wise, good at various tasks etc she is. Rather than the player saying "I have Climb +12, what's the DC?" "The DC is 20" it would be "Does it look like I can climb this wall" "You're an excellent climber, and you think you could probably make it, given time. It's a tough climb, though, and you wouldn't want to be distracted...."

Chars would roll their skil checks, attack rolls etc but wouldn't know their bonuses, DCs of tasks or ACs of opponents, even their own hp, although I would give frequent feedback on how weak they were feeling.

I'm hoping that it will both add something to even the most experieced player, while emphasising the roleplaying and not the calculation side to the newbies.

Has anybody here tried a similar style? Even if not, what do people think of it?

 

[spacecrime.com]

It's fun, but it's a lot more work for you. Looking everything up all the time is a non-trivial task. It also removes one of the pleasures of being a D&D player, which is tweaking your character along from level to level.

This sort of thing tends to work best with a stat-light system like Fudge or Amber. But it can work with D&D, so give it a try!

yours,

 

[Grandpa]

Based on my (different) experience as a (newbie) DM, I think this is a bad idea. I find that character advancement is an integral part of the fun for my players. It provides a piece of control over something that is otherwise entirely controlled by me, and gives them something to look forward to regardless of the things in my game they may dislike. Hell, I have players that still see no point in gaming without XP. If I took their character sheets...

I also think you risk losing fun elements metagaming. Your players may have less desire to read the rules, think about future decisions, and talk to you, your fellow gaming buddies, and us at the EN Boards about them.

I say give 'em cake, and let them eat it.

 

[Malin Genie]

Based on my (different) experience as a (newbie) DM, I think this is a bad idea. I find that character advancement is an integral part of the fun for my players. {snip} I also think you risk losing fun elements metagaming. Your players may have less desire to read the rules, think about future decisions, and talk to you, your fellow gaming buddies, and us at the EN Boards about them.

I say give 'em cake, and let them eat it.

Thanks both for the replies!

I certainly don't want the characters not to think about character advancement, but I guess I was hoping for it to be more 'in-character' - Bob the fighter practises swinging through saplings every evening: his next Feat might be Cleave. He meets a dark figure, festooned in jangling chains, who teaches him the secret of the 'chainblade' - Exotic Proficiency - Spiked Chain. If Bob wanted to learn how to cast spells, he could get a friend, or an NPC wizard he'd met, to show him the basics (which he might not make any progress with, depending on intelligence...)

Interested in any and all further feedback...

 

[Agamon]

I tried that about 6 years ago. While it was fun, man, was it a lot of work. Plus, of the 4 players, only 1 enjoyed the more freestyle system, the other three were going crazy over not knowing their exact stats. So it only lasted one session. Maybe someday I'll try it again, my players are much more roleplay-oriented these days.

Oh yeah, I'd just like to say that I use the "you don't know how many hps you have left" rule. I describe each attack, what it does, how injured each person feels, but they never know their exact hps (except when they are exactly at 0, it's a bit obvious). Makes getting to, and healing, unconcious PCs more of a priority. The players have no probelm with this at all, and I think everyone finds it more fun.

You just have to make sure you convey their state of health a lot, make sure they know how hurt they are. I failed to do this once and almost got the party slaughtered. It's useful to make notes on the wounds they've aquired, as well, just to stay consistant.

My rule of thumb is to say the first half of the hps are fatigue, luck, skill, only resulting in near misses, with scratches, bruises, etc. Once the second half begin to be removed they start to get wounded, with the more vicious wounds coming from the more telling blows, and as the PC gets closer to 0 hps.

 

[Left-handed Hummingbird]

It might be doable - or, it obviously is, since some of you already have tried it - but I remain sceptical whether or not it is, in fact, more fun for the players.

As others have noted you are going to work much harder, and I think you might as well roll the players attack and skill rolls as well. Without them knowing what number to roll for, it really is no fun. They can't see, if they were close to, or far from, succeding.

 

[Altalazar]

I tried a variation of this with a game called Shadowrun.

At the begining of a new campaign, I asked everyone to come up with detailed character backgrounds. But NOT to make characters. I would instead make their characters for them, based on the backgrounds they wrote up. I would mostly stick to the system, but I could make adjustments not normally in the rules but that were part of the backgrounds. It forced them to think of their characters in abstract terms instead of worrying about stat points, etc.

Then, when the campaign started, they got the character sheets and took it from there normally.

It was a bit rough in the execution, but having tried it once, I'd refine it and do it again for Shadowrun. D&D leaves a bit less leeway - character creation is much more open ended in Shadowrun - there are no levels or classes.