Gaming in an open enviroment

[Dannyalcatraz]

"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.

I've been running my campaigns open-ended since 1990, the first one was a Superheroic campaign set in the Wellsian/Vernian/Space: 1889 world, using HERO 4th.

The best tools I've found so far to help an open campaign run like a well tuned machine are these:

1) Detailed PC backgrounds. They help integrate the PCs into the world and gives you plot hooks. If you have a particularly gifted writer among your players, you'll probably get a gold mine of ideas.

In that first campaign, I got player backgrounds involving an orphaned Atlantean unaware of her origins, a British noble "slumming" playing strongman, an American Secret Agent a la Wild Wild West, and so forth.

They also provided me with a list of virtual NPCs who either loved, hated or depended on their PCs in some way.

2) Some kind of physical (or email) memo that serves as a campaign news-sheet...and I mean that literally. The first time I tried this, it was the "in-house newspaper" for the organization to which the PCs belonged. The next time, it was a representation of the Town Hall's message board.

In it, detail the rumors and official notices that PCs would hear or be aware of, including news of their exploits, consequences of their exploits, and other news of the world that would be of interest to the PC's organization.

3) Your ears. Listen to your players' table talk and discussion about the various plot points you've laid around them like Easter Eggs.

In my gaslight supers campaign, the players would read the blurbs and openly speculate about the rumors. Sometimes their ideas were better than mine, or they added a plot twist I hadn't considered...*YOINK!* it entered the campaign. Stuff they generally ignored tended to dissapear from the headlines, or vanish completely.

How well did this work? Brilliantly! It was like networking a bunch of Cray Supercomputers.

After an initial story arc involving plots cribbed from Michael Moorcock books, James Bond movies, Alien Nation, and a couple of other locations, I didn't have to search for another adventure idea for 3 years. My players' idle speculations drove the campaign.

They did the sketchwork, I just did the coloring in. It was eeeeeeeeeeeeeeaasy.

By way of contrast, the campaigns I've done where I haven't used a "news sheet" have been poorer in comparison... Sometimes, the players lose interest; I occasionally have writer's block...its just simply (and counterintuitively) more work.

 

[Torm]

Player: Okay, I finish performing the demonic ritual we found in the cult's Black Book of Bad, Bad Things.
DM: Okay, you open a portal to hell. Demons start pouring through.
Players: Hang on, I don't want to play in a game where demons are invading the world.
DM: Oh, okay. Well, in that case, you opened a portal to Candyland. Free chocolate for everyone!
Players: Yay!

I think that if Henry shows up in this thread, he'll tell you that Candyland isn't necessarily a better outcome - or even all that different from a portal to hell.

 

[barsoomcore]

The earthquake seems to me to be an "upping of the stakes" where you're making it more challenging to get the goodies rather than imposing arbitrary consequences on the PCs.

Well, my point is that imposing arbitrary consequences on the PCs isn't in itself a bad thing.

In Season Four, I bought a copy of Cook's When A Star Falls, and Barsoom was subsequently struck by meteorites. Bad juju meteorites that started twisting all life around their impact points into hideous mockeries of what had been before.

You COULD define that as "upping the stakes", but come on -- we're splitting pretty indistinct hairs here.

Part of the job of the DM is imposing arbitrary consequences on the PCs. One day it's foggy. One day it's clear. One day a messenger appears. These things have nothing to do with the choices of the players.

What we're really talking about here is bad DMing versus good DMing. Bad DMs are those who come up with arbitrary events that make their games LESS fun in whatever fashion. Good DMs are those who come up with arbitrary events that make their games MORE fun. What, exactly, is MORE or LESS fun varies from one group to the next, which is why there's no set of rules by which awesomely fun campaigns are guaranteed.

 

[Bastoche]

Then more power to them. But that doesn't mean that their previous actions are suddenly without consequence.



You don't get to assasinate the President and then bitch-and-moan because the Secret Service keeps trying to hunt you down. If you don't want the Secret Service trying to hunt you down, don't decide to assassinate the President.

For some reason there are people who think "let the players pursue their own goals" means "the players can do whatever they want to and you should change the gameworld so that they're always right and everything is lollipops and roses for them".

Those things are not synonymous. If you want to run the latter type of game, more power to you. But I'd be bored out of my skull as a player or a DM in such a campaign.

YHou compare here two COMPLETELY different things and mixing other things at the same time.

1) assassinating the president is an ACTIVE choice. Whereas having the save the universe is passive. The former is not necessarary and conscequences happens because you DO the thing. The later is necessary since conscequences happen if you DONT do the things.

2) Changing the gameworld is unecessary in the sense that the hand of "god" in the sense of "DM" is doing the world's bad things. But anyway, that's completely irrelevant. The idea here is that saving the world, stopping demons etc is [i|a[/i| story. What makes it open ended or not is the way it is actually played. If the players meet an NPC who tell them "come quick evil was unleashed you are require to stop it!!" and them answering "Yeah sure, whatever..." and then go do something else the DM then say "Ok you are all dead, evil was unleashed and you failed to stop it" that's what lost soul was refering to.

You are drifting away from the real issue at hand here.

 

[LostSoul]

Well, my point is that imposing arbitrary consequences on the PCs isn't in itself a bad thing.

I think we just gotta disagree on this and move on. At least until I have a more clear idea of what I'm talking about.

 

[Bastoche]

Part of the job of the DM is imposing arbitrary consequences on the PCs. One day it's foggy. One day it's clear. One day a messenger appears. These things have nothing to do with the choices of the players.

What we're really talking about here is bad DMing versus good DMing. Bad DMs are those who come up with arbitrary events that make their games LESS fun in whatever fashion. Good DMs are those who come up with arbitrary events that make their games MORE fun. What, exactly, is MORE or LESS fun varies from one group to the next, which is why there's no set of rules by which awesomely fun campaigns are guaranteed.

Wrong on both counts. The DM's job is NOT about imposing arbitrary conscequences to the players. It about imposing consceqences that the players find fun. And that's all what's needed to define "good" DMing.

Think of it this way: Playing "close-ended" DnD is like the DM's book with a bit of latitude. A Good DM writes a book the players want to read (this adress Justin's issues and your issues about good/bad DMing). Open-ended gaming is the PC writing the book with the DM as a referee and a referee only

"No campaign is COMPLETELY open. The very idea is nonsense."

False. Some games are. Granted 3E DnD ain't the best system for such play. But COMPLETELY open ended gaming do exists. And as soon as you're not completely open-ended, you are close ended. There's various degrees of close ended but it is. You can call that "various degrees of closedness" if it sits better to you.

There is some games where the PC completely decide whatever happen to their characters and it's not exactly a candyland lol. Anyway, lost soul, carry on the narrativists propaganda while I'm away

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"No campaign is COMPLETELY open. The very idea is nonsense."

Gotta disagree with that one. If my players want to ignore the main plot point, chicken out of a mission, or attack the fierce gazebo, so be it.

 

[Justin Bacon]

This also brings up a question of ownership in the game. A DM should feel free to do whatever he wants with the NPCs in his world, except when the player owns part of that world. The player's home, for instance, or an important NPC. The DM shouldn't kill that NPC out of hand without input from the player - he should offer the player a choice: do you want this, and let your NPC die, or will you choose to save your NPC and give up that/suffer the consequence of that action? Or even better: your home is going to be burnt to the ground, or your NPC is going to die. Which one is more important to you? (Although that's pretty harsh, and the player could get upset. But that's life.)

I think the use of the word "should" here is too strong. That's certainly a valid way to run a game, but -- personally -- I have no problem with angry cultists burning down a PC's house because the PC helped ruin their ritual last week without clearing it with the player first. Nor do I have any problem with having the PC's NPC friend get killed because he's been playing the ponies and got in bad with the mob.

There's no reason not to use the grand-daddy of all gaming contracts -- you control your character; the DM controls everything else.

Which isn't to say you can't use other gaming contracts and share more of the "traditional" tasks of the DM. But "should" is far too strong a word to use for such gaming styles.

Justin Alexander Bacon
http://www.thealexandrian.net

 

[Justin Bacon]

When does it go wrong, though? When the player makes no choice but has to suffer the consequences anyway. The wizard who says, "Get me the horn of the fabulous MacGuffin or perish!" when the player had no intention of ever doing anything with the wizard.

Bullcrap. There are not-nice people in the world who will use death threats to coerce people.

Now, if what you really mean here is that the DM is using the wizard to say, "Take this plot hook I'm going to kill your characters and there's nothing you can do about it." Well, that's bad. But just having a character show up and say, "Do what I want or I'll kill you." Isn't railroading. Even if the character has the ability to back-up their threat.

Justin Alexander Bacon
http://www.thealexandrian.net

 

[Justin Bacon]

2) Changing the gameworld is unecessary in the sense that the hand of "god" in the sense of "DM" is doing the world's bad things. But anyway, that's completely irrelevant. The idea here is that saving the world, stopping demons etc is [i|a[/i| story. What makes it open ended or not is the way it is actually played. If the players meet an NPC who tell them "come quick evil was unleashed you are require to stop it!!" and them answering "Yeah sure, whatever..." and then go do something else the DM then say "Ok you are all dead, evil was unleashed and you failed to stop it" that's what lost soul was refering to.

You are drifting away from the real issue at hand here.

No. Lost Soul is the one who misread my post and misinterpreted my point. He figured it out once it was clarified. You, on the other hand, have critically failed your Reading Comprehension check.

Justin Alexander Bacon
http://www.thealexandrian.net