Gaming in an open enviroment

[barsoomcore]

Hope it clarifies.

Ah, faint hope.

I guess I'm not communicating my question very well. Let me try again:

Given that it's impossible to predict with 100% accuracy what the PCs will do in response to any particular stimulus, how do you propose a DM in your described style handle the situation in which some element they've prepared turns out to NOT be encountered by the PCs?

A very simple example: The PC faces a door. Behind the door the DM has decided is a blue room. The PC does not open the door, instead choosing some other direction.

In my thinking, it's sensible for the DM to hang on to the idea that behind the door is a blue room -- UNLESS there appears some reason to change it. Of course anything the party hasn't encountered is open to change at any time. But I would just by default assume the room is sitting there, being blue, until such time as the party comes by again. Which may NEVER happen, of course.

I don't think this is materially different from what you're describing, except that you keep insisting that the DM ONLY prepare material he KNOWS will be used. I'm just trying to point out that I at least have not proven to be 100% accurate in determining what my players will do, and so sometimes I develop material that doesn't get used -- or at least not in the way I expect. And, further to that, I often develop MORE material than I imagine I'll need, just to make sure I have my imaginative bases covered in case of crazy PC plans.

If it's really important to you that I say those bits I develop that don't get used AREN'T part of the game, I'm happy to do so.

I'm interested in how you handle the case where the PCs arrive in a new place and decide to find out what is going on there. Do they know that whatever you tell them will be their next adventure?

The fact that they know it or not is irrelevant

I don't know what you mean by "it". I mean, seriously. Your PCs arrive in a new town. Player X says, "I'm just going to spend the day walking around, talking to people and finding out what's going on around town."

What do you say?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Bastoche, I think the POV reference of GM vs Player is highly important... here is why.

The GM, when faced with the presupposition of an 'Open Game' thinks: Design and plan out a world with NPC's whose actions/plots continue without PC involvement. Allow the PC's to seek out any number of plot hooks pre-prepared.. or even hare off after some figment of thier imagination.

The Player, when faced with the presupposition of an 'Open Game' thinks: Cool, the GM will wing whatever we do so lets have some fun.

Its hard for a player to understand the GM's view until he/she has tried a turn behind the screen. GMing is not anywhere near being a 'player with special privilages'.


Truely open games, where the players motivations are driving the story lines only arise when you have players who become engaged in the world prepared for them. I started a camapaign with this state in mind.. running some predegenerated modules to get the players into the world... and waited for one of them to start having self driven motivations.
Eh.. experiment failed. My current set of players were happy to show up and ask what this months episode featured.. and oh, by the way, do you have a spare copy of my character around?



Honestly, it sounds like you are one of the types of player I enjoy.. considers the characters backgrounds and motivations and is willing to actively seek out plot lines. The best games I have run were due to players like that. Even those games, however, never got to the point of pure 'just wing it'. A number of sessions ended up that way, but for the most part the players told me what they were planning on doing so I could prep for the session.


barsoomcore: what class is the character?
Fighter: After a thirsty afternoon and meandering you learn that a caravan was attacked by Orcs a couple days out and is in need of replacement body guards, the Red Rooster inn has some of the best Ale but the lasses are all daughters of Huretik.. keep your hands off or you might lose them.
Rogue: A guildsman spots you in the second hour, and suggests a donation be dropped at the Smithy, freelance is allowed but stay out of the Merchants quarter. Lord Gaston is throwing a ball in two days, leaving lots of empty houses... The city watch appears competant and skilled. You hear a rumor about the Night Watch being rather fervant in thier pursuit of Justice. Most belong to the church of St Cuthbert.
Bard:... all the above, plus some other fun stuff.
etc...

If its one of the cities they have previously visited, plotlines will have played out and they may learn that, as they refused a widows plea for help.. the southern quarter has been overun by undead... or hear about some heroes who saved the day.
Continuity is important. Change is also important. Next visit to the town things will be slightly different.
Whenever a player says ' I go looking for a plot hook'.. toss him three or four.

Oh.. you didn't ask me!

 

[LostSoul]

The GM, when faced with the presupposition of an 'Open Game' thinks: Design and plan out a world with NPC's whose actions/plots continue without PC involvement. Allow the PC's to seek out any number of plot hooks pre-prepared.. or even hare off after some figment of thier imagination.

The Player, when faced with the presupposition of an 'Open Game' thinks: Cool, the GM will wing whatever we do so lets have some fun.

Truely open games, where the players motivations are driving the story lines only arise when you have players who become engaged in the world prepared for them. I started a camapaign with this state in mind.. running some predegenerated modules to get the players into the world... and waited for one of them to start having self driven motivations.
Eh.. experiment failed. My current set of players were happy to show up and ask what this months episode featured.. and oh, by the way, do you have a spare copy of my character around?

Here's what I think about doing Open Gaming:

You get the players to make characters. (Some games have pre-built backgrounds that force the players to make character who have to adventure (or whatever). Those games are easier to do the Open Gaming thing with.) They all create hooks for their characters.

You look at the PCs - their skills, their backgrounds. You figure out what they want to see in the game. You create NPCs that will bring those things out and increase tension.

Game starts with the player-generated hooks.

Then while you play, you have no idea where things will turn out. You play with the idea of increasing tension, making the players face difficult decisions, and you play your NPCs to the hilt.

If you start things up like this, no matter what you do you will have an Open Game.

You can break it by saying, "I need the PCs to go to the Tower of Evil to stop JoJo the Malicious from opening the Screen Door of Doom..." That won't work - what if they don't go, and the Screen Door of Doom is opened, and the game is ruined because of it? The players have to choose to go there or not.

(I'm starting to think that any situation where the stakes are game-breaking - eg. the world ends, or the game changes so much that nobody wants to play - are not suitable for Open Gaming. Unless, that is, the players force those stakes from their choices.)

 

[Bastoche]

Again lots of stuff!

I'm not talkin g about using things from the player's background, I'm talking about polling them at the end of the last play session to find out what they want to do in the next

From my point of view, there's no distinction between the two. In both cases the players says *out of game prior to play* "We want to do X next". Wheter it's from the background or between session, it assumes the feedback given out of game from the players will allow the DM to prepare an "environment" in which the PCs may or may not "stumble" on the "adventure" (assuming no railroad here).

"God mode" meanse no chance of failure.

What is failure? It can be many things. If "failure" is "not accomplishing what you had in mind" you are right. But if "failure" means "not accomplishing it the easy way"? Or "accomplishing it while losing a great deal in the end?". But since you introduce the Forge vocabulary I'll dive in. As far as I understand, there's no notion of "challenge" in simulationist play. Basically in a too broad categorization, simulationism is about enjoying how much the "world feels real". It might include instances of play where your PC goes to the bathroom. The character's motivations are more or less irrelevant. The player's motivation is to "play them right". Challenge is reserved for gamist play. Let's put "hybrids" aside for the moment.

Ok so "success" and "failure" in simulationist play is not on the action level but on the resolution vs the imagined reality. In gamist mode "sucess" is on the action level itself: beating the monster or not. Staying alive, saving the princess, etc. Openness to me would relate to the level of force. If there's no force, it's open. If there is, it's closed. Ok now I believe that gamist play as implicitly implied by 3E D&D requires at least a little force. You can't go "force free". Because then you fall in pseudo sim play where an entire session may revolve around *nothing* (in other words, no challenge faced). If you're into sim play, no prob. But a gamist will wait for the "challenge" to happen. If he has a hard time identifying the challenge, he'll become frustrated. "hidden" challenges falls in the illusionism category where the DM consiously or not let the players play illusionism on himself by pretending that they found the plot/challenge by choice rather than by running around in circle searching a challenge just for the sake of finding the challenge (rather then, say, for "roleplaying reasons" in the sense of "that's what my guy would do").

You're not making a general argument for open vs closed play here. You're making an argument for winging it rather than using prepared material if the point of your game is to explore your characters' personailty. This is a pretty specific and unusual style of play.

Yes. The argument I'm making however is that exploring character personality is one way to facilitate open gaming. And yes, it's a specific style of play.

Again, "the world revolves around the PCs" vs not is a different issue than open vs closed. You can have a high level of openness in your game without requiring that your PCs are the center of the universe. Personally, I find that this style lacks versimmilitude.

Yes. And again I say it facilitate open gaming. I think at this point the notion of "open" vs "closed" as I envisionned it in my first post self destruct right here. The point being: open or close, it doesn't matter as long as your take on open vs close facilitate the player's (DM included) shared style of play.

One challenge or another is not the same in the players' eyes. Some challenges are more fun than others. Some challenges will advance their goals better than others. Some challenges are harder than others. (They don't have to be, but I found that having all encounters near a party's CR (again) lacks virisimilitude.

My point is that versimilitude is on par with the close vs open issue. It's irrelevant unless it "get's in the way" of the expectations of the players vs the game (in other words "what they find fun"). If the players don't think it's fun to face a too big challenge or a too small, something is incoherent in the play. In other words somebody's not having fun.

It's starting to sound like your desire for openness is due to a DM that's railroading you. "Nothing happens until you do what I want you to" is just as much a railroad as "You head back to town? Okay, you're surrounded by a swirl of lights and find yourself entering the dragon's lair" There are better ways to address this issue.

I never said I desired to have openness. I was saying that we are currently running a campaign that pretended to be open and ends up frustrating because the technique used to introduce "openness" does not address my desires (or the player's) vs the game! In fact I wish our DM were railroading us instead of having him "wishing we get *it*". He creates "plausible" situations and hope a "challenge" emerge from it. If we figure out something to "get things done" that avoid a challenge, he gets frustrated and when we reach dead ends because of the lack of clues (ie. minor railroad via hints). I get frustrated as a player on mainly 2 levels. The first one is that I was expecting "open" gaming and I saw through the DM's veil that either we *magically* follow his lead (he wants us to be 100% free so no railroad) and once I've realized that and faced the game with a new axis (the gamist one ie. Where's the challenge that I can take it?) it still did not work because of the sim emphasis that crept in. So I came with the conclusion that the plots are flawed by design due to a desire to address many styles of play at the same time that are incompatible. Anyway, I never intended to adress MY issues with MY current gaming experience but rather tell what, from my point of view, may lead to incoherent open ended gaming. (in other words not fun open gaming).

I must point out at this point that I do not pretend to understand all the Forge mumbo jumbo neither does I think I understand how a gamists open game should be run. I'm just trying to point out that the aforementionned suggested "open gaming" by you barsoomcore would not adress my expectation of "open gaming". I'm not saying I wouldn't find them fun. I'm just saying that to find them fun, I would have to approach them from a certain way that exclude my personnal definition of "open gaming". Wow I think we're getting somewhere fast here!

I think the reason I had a hard time understanding you at first is not your English (which is just fine) but the set of assumptions you're working from. If you had said "I want a super-open game" because it supports exploring characters' personailities, playing with the PCs as the center of the universe, and narrativist play goals I would have understood much more quickly. I took this as a discussion of open vs closed play in general terms.

I wanted to keep it general and failed miserably. But I think my point remains. Focusing on "openness" rather than having it as a feature requires (IMHO) a narrativist agenda.

Given that it's impossible to predict with 100% accuracy what the PCs will do in response to any particular stimulus, how do you propose a DM in your described style handle the situation in which some element they've prepared turns out to NOT be encountered by the PCs?

I'm saying that the way the DM prepares implies that the "prepared turns of event" WILL be encountered. An example: A NPC come up to a PC and say "X" where X prompt a choice from the player because that's what he expect to do during the game. Therefore your blue room example will not be addressed because it's not an encounter that the DM should prepare for such a game. And if ever a player says "I open the door to see the color of the room" if it's not prepared, it's irrelevant. That's texture. On the fly, the DM says "hum.... It's... hum... Blue!" Then it's recorded on paper that the room was decided to be blue and so should remain as such for sake of credibility. What is relevant and to be prepared by the DM is why the room is there and how does the presence of that room generate opportunities for the players to make choices (And I'll even further extend the definition of "significant" further away from "inner conflicts".)

So to wrap it up, from your point of view a room or NPC is there "hopefully" to provide adventure but they are also there because it makes sense in a sorta "inner imagined universe logic". From my "different type of game" point of view, the NPC is there to prompt choice from the players. And the imagined universe makes sense afterwards, not before.

I don't know what you mean by "it". I mean, seriously. Your PCs arrive in a new town. Player X says, "I'm just going to spend the day walking around, talking to people and finding out what's going on around town."

What do you say?

I assume you mean "What would you say if you DM'ed your proposed way to play?". Well, in such a play style, never will a player say such a thing. They will be there on purpose right from the start. So the question will be more precise than that. Always.

Let's also assume it's the very first game play session and the start of the campaign. It is assumed there is an agreement on the purpose of the presence of the PCs. The "introduction" to the game is done "So you guys met (as decided during character creation) and now are at this town to address what you where to address (let's suppose it was to investigate a murder that may very well be linked to the backgrounds of the characters).

The question will then be "I ask around about the murder" And it may be even more precise than that "I try to find out who's in charge of the murder investigation". Now you'll tell me that you would need to prepare ahead of time who's in charge in case they ask or prepare the familiy of the victims, witnesses, etc. Yes. During preparation, you will plot (pun unintended) a web of "contact" among the citizens and leave out the irrelevant ones (they can be improvised on the spot and don't need stats). Once this web is plotted, you will determine what in the relation between these characters helps or hinder the players to reach their goal and more importantly how each encounter with these characters prompt "choices". There should be conflict. It may be inner or not, but the charcters must be built in order to be involved/motivated to face the choices. If I stick to my example of inner conflicts, the PCs may discover that The PCs themselves are responsible for it either because of, let's suppose amnesia. The "amnesia" thing (as overdone as it may be ) was introduced by the players during character creation and it must generate "conflict". This is what will get the story going and "force" the players to follow a path the DM can efficiently predict without railroading them.

I'll admit it might be considered as "built-in" railroading but for which the outcome is unpredictable because there never is an obvious choice to make. And at each "choice" stage, the outcome is unpredictable, therefore you can't prepare too much ahead because you would have too many "plot lines" to draw. From that diagramatic point of view, I'll also agree that there's no distinction between your way and my way. The distinction comes from the fact that in your way, the various plot lines are pre-written wereas in my way, they write themselves "live" during play because the encounters are designe to provoke it. It generally requires a mechanic that encourage that sort of play and we are now REALLY far from D&D 3E

 

[Bastoche]

Here's what I think about doing Open Gaming:

You get the players to make characters. (Some games have pre-built backgrounds that force the players to make character who have to adventure (or whatever). Those games are easier to do the Open Gaming thing with.) They all create hooks for their characters.

You look at the PCs - their skills, their backgrounds. You figure out what they want to see in the game. You create NPCs that will bring those things out and increase tension.

Game starts with the player-generated hooks.

Then while you play, you have no idea where things will turn out. You play with the idea of increasing tension, making the players face difficult decisions, and you play your NPCs to the hilt.

If you start things up like this, no matter what you do you will have an Open Game.

You can break it by saying, "I need the PCs to go to the Tower of Evil to stop JoJo the Malicious from opening the Screen Door of Doom..." That won't work - what if they don't go, and the Screen Door of Doom is opened, and the game is ruined because of it? The players have to choose to go there or not.

(I'm starting to think that any situation where the stakes are game-breaking - eg. the world ends, or the game changes so much that nobody wants to play - are not suitable for Open Gaming. Unless, that is, the players force those stakes from their choices.)

Yes on all counts especially the last sentence in paranthesis concerning world breaking games.

Truely open games, where the players motivations are driving the story lines only arise when you have players who become engaged in the world prepared for them.

My point since page one is that is the exact opposite.

"Truely open games, where the players motivations are driving the story lines only arise when you have have a DM prepare a world that engage the players character in it."

Think of it as players creating PCs for the DM instead of DM creating a world for the PC!

 

[Bastoche]

And for the sake of addressing the issue with my groupe:

" Whenever a player says ' I go looking for a plot hook'.. toss him three or four. "

We can't do that in our campaign and I believe that's why I don't enjoy that game.

 

[LostSoul]

neither does I think I understand how a gamists open game should be run.

Let me give it a shot.

The players create PCs with a motivation to adventure/face challenges. They come up with some sort of hook that will provide a challenge right away.

The DM looks at their character sheet, checks out their skills: "Ah, the Ranger took Favoured Enemy: Orcs, and the Cleric took Extra Turning. That means encounters with undead and orcs." He creates challenging NPCs (including monsters and traps) based on these things.

Game begins with the challenge the players provided with their opening hook.

Play follows the PCs as they attempt to do whatever their motivation is. The GM uses the NPCs that he's created in whatever environment he's created (dungeon, city, etc.) to challenge the PCs.

For example:

The Ranger takes Favoured Enemy: Orcs. His hook is "I'm heading home one night and I see fires burning at my home. I rush home, hoping my wife is okay, and two orcs jump out of the shadows!"

The Cleric takes Extra Turning. His hook is "I'm doing temple services when someone runs in, covered in blood. He falls down, and his last words are 'Skeletons...' Then I see a bony figure at the door!"

The DM has the PCs come from the same town. An orcish Necromancer has attacked the town and taken the Ranger's wife. He comes up with some stat blocks for the NPCs and grabs a map from the WotC site. He fills the map with the NPCs and traps. He comes up with a list of wandering monsters that is heavy with undead and orcs.

Play begins and the DM runs the first encounters. The Ranger fights the orcs, and the Cleric fights the undead. The Ranger finds out that his wife has been taken and starts tracking them. The Cleric finds out that the orcish Necromancer has taken a holy relic and heads off to get it back. (Or just heads out to slay undead, as any radiant servant of Pelor would do. )

The two PCs meet up and face many a challenge together. They decide when to rest, which room to hit and when, how much scouting they should do, tactical considerations in combat, etc.

The next adventure features more orcs and undead and fallout from the first adventure. The DM takes into account the challenges the players really enjoyed and the ones they didn't, and uses that to create new challenges.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Bastoche, I am sorry to hear your game goes that way..
One of my recent breaks I laid out somewhere around 25 potential plot hooks, the most entertaining of which was a little lady who had heard how great the heroes were.. and wanted them to come find her cat
Kinda hoped they would grab that one as I had/have no idea how I would turn it into an adventure!

Lost Soul.. that looks good from my POV!

 

[Raloc]

The nature of any game, RPG or CRPG or other, neccesitate that it be in at least someway bound by the limitations of the resources available to the one constructing the enviroment, DM or programmer. However, I feel like most of the games I have played in or run were a little to "closed" for the PCs. That there hasn't a feeling that the PCs could do anything they wanted and still continue to play the game. I am sure that this is because all the DMs in my group, myself included, are really big on Plot and Story, to various degrees. When we have tried to give the PCs more freedom the players, again myself included as both player and DM, often feel frustrated, not knowing what to do next. I think that the players have liked the games that where they were basically the main characters in the story that took them through certain key story points, even if they meandered a bit between them, but I also think that they would like the experiance of being able to create the "story" themselves.

To this end I have a "No Plan" Plan:

1) Get a highly detailed enviroment, I am thinking Ptolus when it comes out but Sharn or another city book might work too.
2) Go through my Dungeon magazines and index them based on level, enviroment, elements etc.
3) Get a big list of NPCs ready and in a format I can make notes on.
4) Have an initial "adventure" or three ready for 1st level characters the first day of play.
5) Subsequent games have the Dungeon adventures with encounters and plots appropriate for their level on hand. Scatter hooks throughout and and see if they take any of them.
6) As the game develops see what they have done and how they have reacted, bring in elements later to possibly hook together a "metaplot" if such a thing works out. (For example, if they PCs seemed to run afoul of a Cult periodically, later this might draw the attention of that Cults leadership who would then proactively start dealing with the PCs.)

Now, I can deal with all of that pretty well I think. The problem I see is how to have the hooks of 5) integrated in such away that they seem natural and organic. I know that lots of books have rumor generators and such, and maybe thats how I will do it. But I know thats the sticking place for me and my group.

So, suggestions? Does anyone run a pretty much Open Campaign? What are your experiances with running/playing such a game?

I am obviously thinking way ahead on this, but I usually do, so any advice or comments would be appretiated.

I actually do the "no plan" plan thing myself, sort of. In this case, I have the entire campaign roughly planned out in my head, and allow the PCs to do whatever they want. I am much too lazy, however, to actually plan every place in the campaign. So what I do instead is, just reason through what kinds of things would be in said place etc.

So, for instance, a tower in a keep. What's going to be on the upper level of a tower? Likely some sort of lookout, maybe a couple of guards standing watch, probably arrow slots and the like etc. I just apply this sort of logical extension of the game world to any place that the PCs decide to go.

 

[Raloc]

This is the only way I really know how to run a campaign anymore. For years now, unless I'm using a published module I have at best a page of notes or some pre-generated stat blocks for specific encounters I want to run. Oh, and sometimes a general idea of what direction I want to specifically take the game during a given session. The rest is off-the-cuff, by-the-seat-of-my-pants, on-the-fly improvisation.

In some ways I just keep throwing things against the wall until something sticks. The thngs that the players pick up on is as often as not the trivial details rather than the neon-lit signs that say "THIS BE THE PLOT HOOK MATEY!" It is when I am most descriptive that the players seem most apt to pick up on ideas that I didn't even intend to be there and run with them. If I simply plop the world down and ask them, "Where do you want to go today?", they know they have all the options in the world but their characters have none of the motivation to do anything except what they've written into their backgrounds (if they WROTE a background which they don't).

As an example: When I'm describing a room in a dungeon with a book on a shelf rather than say it's a book about history in a kingdom across the sea, I'll give them a title and author off the top of my head, I'll mention the author again later when they find a letter in a desk, I'll decide I may be giving them a bit too much money and tell them that the coins are from another country and they'll get lower value for them when they exchange them at the money-changers - and the coins are from the country mentioned in the book. The players may or may not pick up on these connections that I'm just throwing out all the time at random, but when they do the adventures write themselves as we go along. The world feels alive to them because it IS alive. Not even I know what shape it's really going to take when I start the game.

When I start a new campaign I may have a general story arc about the release of captured evil gods upon the world that will cover the entire campaign but it will be the players reactions to my random descriptions that will create secondary themes like statues making repeated appearances, or having a lot of the information they discover coming from books rather than people, or repeated travel to foreign lands, or other planes of existence being prominently featured, etc.

One of the techniques I use is that whenever the players are talking about the piles of information I've been giving them I SHUT UP and let them talk. They WILL ALWAYS find connections and ideas that interest them that were never intended to really be there. The really difficult part - and the part that most challenges MY creativity - is finding a way to tie together a lot of loose ends into a cohesive whole. Failure to do so tends to make the game a lot like the X-Files - there's always more questions and seldom any real answers. You have to know when to tell them that what they THINK is important and related information actually ISN'T in order to wrap up some of the plot and story lines that you wind up weaving. In fact that's a good analogy - you're weaving a cloth out of random threads but you can't weave it in every direction at once. Some of the threads make up the EDGES of the cloth you're weaving.

I would recommend Terry Pratchett's Discworld books as good inspirational material for how your campaign might wind up looking as you use this technique. As his books initially unfold you get information about seemingly unrelated events, people, and things. As they progress you find that certain of these are more important than you might have thought at first. As they reach the story climax it is revealed (sometimes gradually, sometimes all at once) how these things actually relate to each other - sometimes intimately so. Then it's all wrapped up and you can proceed with the next book.

Edit: forgot to mention - one of the keys to making this really work is to take lots of notes. I actually slack off even more because I have a player or two that will wind up taking all the notes I need. As long as I can occasionally read THEIR notes I can devote even more of my time during the game to making it up. If it weren't for that I'd probably end up taping our game sessions so that I could review later, take notes, and mine for ideas.

This is basically how I DM, although in the current campaign I'm running, there is a huge plot going on as well, which the players luckily happened to get tied into in the first session. Quoted due to it being said more elegantly than I did.