General Question: How off-track do you go?

[Trit One-Ear]

One thing I've found in my playing, and after talking to friends who have had similar playing experiences, is that while 4E runs much smoother in combat, encounter building, and to some extent, skill encounters, it doesn't initially have the flexibility when it comes to story-telling.
Now, I don't consider myself a strong enough DM yet to throw together fun encounters based on every player decision, but I do miss feeling like I could just roll a handful of Orcs at players if they stumble into an ambush, mess up an important diplomacy check, or simply make a mistake.

I do like feeling like I can actually build encounters and know how difficult they'll be, but I'm wondering if you all have tips for a new(ish) DM on how to make the players feel more like they -shape- the story, rather than just follow the linear events I've set out for them (even if they get to shape each event individually).

Trit

 

[Pentius]

I find that how off track you go depends heavily on the group. I've seen groups that treat 'the track' like a plague, and those who wait like sheep for you to tell them what to do when there's a fork in the road. The game can accommodate both styles easily enough. It sounds like your main difficulty is in how to throw out those spur of the moment encounters. Here's an idea that has worked well for me in the past. Keep a sheet hanging on the inside of your dm screen with some basic stats of a couple monsters at the party's level(replace as needed). Put on a couple different types, a controller, a leader, a minion, etc. You don't need anything too fancy. Whenever you feel a spur of the moment encounter is called for, just use those stats. If they've been fighting goblins lately, give them Goblin Tactics and call them goblins, if it's Orcs, give them Warrior's Surge, etc. Vary up the compositions a little and use differing descriptions and the players won't know the difference.

 

[the Jester]

One thing I've found in my playing, and after talking to friends who have had similar playing experiences, is that while 4E runs much smoother in combat, encounter building, and to some extent, skill encounters, it doesn't initially have the flexibility when it comes to story-telling.

First of all, I completely disagree with you here. Why do you feel this?

I've heard this assertion since 4e was released and yet haven't had trouble running my campaign in an old-skool, sandboxy way, probably the playstyle least supported by 4e. Yet here we are, second 4e group almost at 13th level, and they have run the game as much as I have.

They've taken over a territory; defended it against a mercenary company that would've taken it over from them; done a lot of negotiating, including forging agreements with wererats, a young purple dragon, goblins, the yuan-ti equivalent of Indiana Jones, two hags and far more.

Here's my advice for running the type of campaign you want: Do what you did to run that type of game in earlier editions. Seriously, that's all it takes. Want to run a sandbox? Establish that not all encounters are the pcs' level- and stick to it; if they head to the ancient dragon's cave at 3rd level, they are asking either for a tpk or to leave all their loot behind as a bribe. If the 10th level group attacks a clan of goblins, they can cut them down like wheat before the scythe.

Here's one good tip: Don't be afraid to 'revalue' monsters. So the 10th level pcs attacking the goblins fight a lot of minions that, had the pcs been 5th level, would have been 'standard' monsters goblins. When the 3rd level party bungles into a hook horror, make it a 3rd level solo instead of a 10th level standard. (Examples off the top of my head.)

 

[OnlineDM]

Yeah, I don't see why this would have anything to do with an edition thing. I've run a pre-published adventure path (War of the Burning Sky), which tends to be pretty linear... but that's because it's an adventure path! I also ran a home-brew game for a while, which ended up being much more free-form.

At one point my home-brew game party was ambushed by thieves, killed most of them, and took two captives. They decided they wanted to turn them in to the Thieves' Guild in town, so I created a Thieves' Guild and put together another battle there. Seems pretty off-the-rails to me, and it was no big deal to put together. If they decided to go in a completely different direction than I had expected, well, I'd roll with that.

From what I've heard about 3rd Edition compared to 4th, people tend to say that putting monsters and encounters together in 4th tends to be quicker rather than slower, so I would expect that to translate to it being easier to change things on the fly. Then again, I'm really only experienced with 4e, so I can't say for sure, and I don't know how it would compare to 1e or 2e at all.

 

[S'mon]

I haven't seen much trouble winging it in 4e. You can generally open a monster book at a monster type you want, select 2 variants of monster from the pages, and run a reasonable encounter with no prep. All the info is right there, unlike in 3e.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I think you've got good advice here. Keep one or two sets of stat blocks around for a quick ad-hoc encounter you can pull out when you suddenly need one.

Beyond that, as the_jester says, 4e will run pretty much like earlier editions if you just run that style. It can be sandboxy, highly linear, multi-path story arcs, etc.

The nice thing is 4e does have a couple added tricks up its sleeve. Skill Challenges can be interesting, though making a good one can be a bit tricky. Recasting monsters and releveling and refluffing them is quite handy. You can rewrite a higher level standard monster as a low-level solo for instance (though doing it on the fly is probably not a good idea).

In terms of ways to get players sold on engaging with a story and really getting into it, that's a harder one. Some groups REALLY do want to be totally on rails. Others want to just wander around doing their own thing and exploring a sandbox with the story growing out of their choices. I'd look into making sure the PCs have a good solid background that you can use to figure out what their goals and interests are going to be is. Just remember, you can only lead the horse to water. If you have a group that doesn't really want to drive the story forward then give them what they want. Heck, ask them.

 

[jbear]

I have done the following in my current campaign:

Narrow start to get things underway: This was when both me and the players were learning the game. We all had enough to deal with without worring if there were a variety of options to follow adventure wise.

Along the narrow start I created alternative routes, some slightly more advantageous than others.

At a certain point I began adding flash elements to foreshadow the big events they would soon become involved in.

I also began adding in sidetreks, which had no importance storywise initially, but as they followed them up, I fleshed them out and they became important variant elements of the big picture itself. Here the PCs made a dark pact with the evil god of venom Zehir, a pact initially beneficial that they are currently trying their hardest to get out of.

I began adding in elements from the PCs backstories which hindered their progress and completely changed their chosen travel itinery

And when they eventually reached the place they had set out to reach from the beginning I gave them the choice to expand out in 5 or 6 majorly different directions. I had prepared only up to that point. I didn't know nor could I forsee what they would want to follow up or how they would propose to go about whatever it was they wanted to do. So I asked them 'So what are you going to do now?' I then ran through the 6 major directions that different hooks up to that point had opened up, and underlined that they could ignore all of them and do something else. They just had to tell me and I would prepare it.

And from that major cross road, things got narrow again. and begin the process gone through above, similar structure, different themes. Until they reached the next majo cross roads and chose where they wanted to go next.

That is how I organise things anyway, which is a compromise between you can do anything you like all the time and you can only do what I say. I let my players do what they want, but I ask them to let me know with a good bit of warning so I have time to prepare that path properly.

 

[Kannik]

One thing I've found in my playing, and after talking to friends who have had similar playing experiences, is that while 4E runs much smoother in combat, encounter building, and to some extent, skill encounters, it doesn't initially have the flexibility when it comes to story-telling.

I find I go off-track often, and concurrently I find it very easy to create whatever I need on the spur of the moment to react to player choices. The structure of and the tools provided within 4e make it a cinch.

If the party walks into a combat, I can find and plunk out a series of adversaries very quickly, and best of all I can customize them on the fly by adding whatever power I would think would be appropriate for them to have just by saying they have that power. (Hmm, these orcs live in a wooded area and use vines with grapples on the end to traverse terrain quickly -- they have a Range 3 attack that pulls 3 and restrains save ends... cool).

If they are doing something creative (and I gave each player a "Do Something Creative" power card) I can adjudicate it with a delicious combination of powers and skill checks in an ad-hoc skill challenge, if that's appropriate.

If they blonk up a diplomacy check, well I handle that like it's always been handled in all other versions I have played. Let's hope they didn't insult the king at the same time!

With the openness and clarity of the game design I've found it very flexible to tell all manners of story. I'd say give it a whirl with less lockdown than you might normally do and you may find it has more adaptability for you than you may have thought it did. }

peace and exciting gaming,

Kannik

 

[Crazy Jerome]

If you are having trouble with improv, prepare to improv the things that are causing the trouble.

This may be preparing monsters as several have mentioned. But what if you do that, and you find that the fights are boring? Well, this is probably because you also had to improv the location, the terrain, the situation, etc. And maybe those are the things, or at least some of them are, that needed more work. You might find, for example, that having a prepared interesting location--a rickety rope bridge over a 30 feet drop into a narrow stream, with rocky ground and heavy vegatation haning over the edges, is what you need. Given that, I can grab some orcs or kobolds or whatever out of the MM, reskin in 5 seconds, and run a very interesting fight. Put your same prepared monster list in an empty, featureless room, and you can't save it.

I actually learned this well prior to 4E, which is why I haven't had trouble adapting to 4E on those terms. I'd already come to terms with improv of the location as being the critical skill for me, in Fantasy Hero and earlier versions of D&D. But like anything else, the more you work with it, the better it gets. So I can improv those in 4E fairly well. Now, the thing I have to prep more ahead of time is the situation--what are the goals of the participants and why are they here right now? If I improv that too much, it will be boring. But with a little practice, you can build those more generically, as easily as you can build encounters or terrain or locations.

But Jester nailed it: "Here's my advice for running the type of campaign you want: Do what you did to run that type of game in earlier editions."

My addition to that is that if his advice seems not to work for some reason, then probably the things that you did to run that type of game in the earlier edition weren't fully working then, either. It is just that something compensated and made it not so noticable.

 

[S'mon]

This may be preparing monsters as several have mentioned. But what if you do that, and you find that the fights are boring? Well, this is probably because you also had to improv the location, the terrain, the situation, etc. And maybe those are the things, or at least some of them are, that needed more work. You might find, for example, that having a prepared interesting location--a rickety rope bridge over a 30 feet drop into a narrow stream, with rocky ground and heavy vegatation haning over the edges, is what you need. Given that, I can grab some orcs or kobolds or whatever out of the MM, reskin in 5 seconds, and run a very interesting fight. Put your same prepared monster list in an empty, featureless room, and you can't save it.

That's the 4e philosophy, but I'm not sure I agree. When I've run heavily prepped-encounters with major terrain challenges like your rickety rope bridge example, the PCs tend to flounder and/or die. Improvised 'neutral' terrain on an ad hoc encounter typically seems both more naturalistic and less threatening to the PCs. If the encounter takes place beside a stream, that's pretty simple but the players still get good use out of pushing monsters into the stream, and vice versa. Or some trees which give cover, concealment & difficult terrain. I find it's easy to make things too tough if you pre-prep the terrain along DMG suggested lines. At the least that rickety rope bridge should count as a challenge that adds to the XP of the battle.