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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bastoche" data-source="post: 2750394" data-attributes="member: 306">My definition of "open gaming" is "story written by the players as their characters evolve in the game world". Having "strong background goals" is not open gaming. It's an agreed beforehand list of plot hooks.But I'll just live with the fact that most posters in this thread assume that "open gaming" means a choice os plot hooks to choose from.So from my personnal experience, I'l suggest the following:- Restrain from introducing situations and encounters just for the sake of "realism/credibility". In other words all encounters in which the PCs have choices to make should be important to the story. Why? Because they won't be able to make the difference between "mundane" encounters and "plot hooks". Unless they are dead obvious in which case the magic is lost (in other words the PCs sees through your "veil").- If you buy all that "encounters must be challenging to grant XP" when you run your games, make succesful checks count. For example, suppose the PC want to find info about a certain secret organisation and ask the wrong person when they make a succesful check (let's say roll nat 20 on diplomacy check), it's frustrating to be told: "you masterfully discover that this guy knows nothing!" Once in a while, it might be fine. But in principle, succeeding a skill check (difficult or not) should lead the PC *somewhere*. The example I showed here is avoided by making all encounters count.- Pick up as much feedback from the PC as possible. When they seem involved in the game, when non-verbal languages speaks they're having fun TAKE NOTES!- Most importantly, talk with your players out of game before the start of the campaign about "open gaming". Ask them what they think it is. How important it is to them, etc. They may not want "open" gaming...- If you want to run "open gaming" as "not predefined solutions" allow them to have their solutions actually work. This points requires to be explained a bit further. Once they have suggested their solution, figure out a check or a list of checks to be made for the solution to work. If you judge it's impossible to do it that way, allow them a int/wis or knowledge check to reconsider. I remember a session we had a while back in which we had found a great plan. We were spying a lady that possessed a certain artifact we needed to recover and at some stage, we learned she had some accomplices with whom she did awfful things. So we manage to disguise as one of them to intimidate another one. We had some bluff, diplomacy and disguise checks successful. But since it was determined in advance by the DM that this guy knew nothing, we encountred a dead end. All in all in that specific quest, we faced 5 dead ends in which we had all successfully win the checks. VERY FRUSTRATING!!!I think that's about it. Good luck!EDIT: IMO, overdetailed background may also feature some problems. For instance, a player might include a fact about his PC just for the sake of credibility or completeness. It may not be important for the PLAYER to explore that aspect of his character. The background as a pseudo open gaming "carrot provider" should stick to the IMPORTANT facts.</blockquote>

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