GM/DM-challenge: Make everything players have count

[Jon_Dahl]

Idea is simple:
Adventures should be about heroes and built around them.
All the abilities, skills, feats etc. PCs have should count in some way during the sessions. If a player has a skill called "farming" it should count in some way because hero has invested in it.

This sometimes is a big challenge for me. Let me give you some examples from D&D 3.5:
- A cleric had Extra Turning feat. Because he was a mid-level cleric and quite charismatic, it took two sessions and hordes of undead without letting the PCs to rest to FINALLY make the feat count. Damn it was hard but I was happy to make the feat worthwhile.
- Knowledge (geography) is always tricky. Ok, so you know about geography but not about the history of that area or any monster special powers or vulnerabilities and you are not a guide either if you don't have any Survival... This one is hard to make important as a stand-alone skill.
- Also bardic knowledge at lower levels is hard. You basically get information which is more useful in high-level games but still you are a puny 1st-level bard. One of my players was frustrated due to the lack of importance of this class feature.

 

[Storminator]

Idea is simple:
Adventures should be about heroes and built around them.
All the abilities, skills, feats etc. PCs have should count in some way during the sessions. If a player has a skill called "farming" it should count in some way because hero has invested in it.

Awesome plan.

- Also bardic knowledge at lower levels is hard. You basically get information which is more useful in high-level games but still you are a puny 1st-level bard. One of my players was frustrated due to the lack of importance of this class feature.

Bardic knowledge is the best power ever. It's free license for the DM to impart any background or setting knowledge to the players, at will. Every time they go to a new town, give 'em bardic knowledge. Meet the mayor? Bardic knowledge (about THIS mayor, and about city governments in general). Hired by a baron? Bardic knowledge.

Honestly, you could start every session with a bardic knowledge tidbit. You could prep up the bardic knowledge ahead of time and feed it to the bard, and HE can share it with the group.

Best. Power. Evar!

PS

 

[Nagol]

Sure, everything the players decide to buy (and not buy) should have the capacity to be consequential at some point in the campaign.

Some purchases like Extra Turning have two values: they decrease the likelihood of running out of a resource and provide additional options for character growth in the future (i.e. prestige class entry requirements, further feat requirements, etc.).

Other purchases like Bardic Knowledge can be long-term investment that probably will take until later in character development to pay off. Though I've often used Bardic Knowledge to give historical lore about the area, dungeon, and personages of reknown.

My favourite examples are from a CHAMPIONS campaign. A super-agent was able to detect the poison in the fancy-dress ball with his Professional Skill: Gourmand 17- (there are certain flavour in the vinagrette that really shouldn't be there) and hold off an incarnation of Death until help arrived with his Professional Skill: Chess 21- (a challenge!).

From the same campaign, there was a consequence for something not bought. One of the superheroes was a Russian who only purchased conversational English. Confronted by a sometimes-friend/sometimes-enemy in the sewers, the Russian is told to "Take her out" over the radio -- so he escorts her back to the surface and lets her go.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I see the issue as more of a two way street. When discussing the campaign and character creation, as the DM I try and convey what types of abilities and skills are likely to be most useful in the majority of situations. For example if political manipulation and diplomacy were very important for a given campaign I would let the players know this before the game begins. The players are free to use or ignore that knowledge as they see fit when creating characters.

It is not my job, as DM to come up with convenient situations for players to use random off the wall talents that they choose. A good player finds ways to make such abilities useful.

 

[Rune]

Awesome plan.



Bardic knowledge is the best power ever. It's free license for the DM to impart any background or setting knowledge to the players, at will. Every time they go to a new town, give 'em bardic knowledge. Meet the mayor? Bardic knowledge (about THIS mayor, and about city governments in general). Hired by a baron? Bardic knowledge.

Honestly, you could start every session with a bardic knowledge tidbit. You could prep up the bardic knowledge ahead of time and feed it to the bard, and HE can share it with the group.

Best. Power. Evar!

PS

Commune is great for that, too. I give commune questions away like candy to the cleric every level (even in 4e) because of how awesome they are for driving the plot along (best part is, it gets the players to create their own hooks by figuring out what their questions should be!).

 

[Mark CMG]

Idea is simple:
Adventures should be about heroes and built around them.
All the abilities, skills, feats etc. PCs have should count in some way during the sessions. If a player has a skill called "farming" it should count in some way because hero has invested in it.

This sometimes is a big challenge for me. Let me give you some examples from D&D 3.5:
- A cleric had Extra Turning feat. Because he was a mid-level cleric and quite charismatic, it took two sessions and hordes of undead without letting the PCs to rest to FINALLY make the feat count. Damn it was hard but I was happy to make the feat worthwhile.
- Knowledge (geography) is always tricky. Ok, so you know about geography but not about the history of that area or any monster special powers or vulnerabilities and you are not a guide either if you don't have any Survival... This one is hard to make important as a stand-alone skill.
- Also bardic knowledge at lower levels is hard. You basically get information which is more useful in high-level games but still you are a puny 1st-level bard. One of my players was frustrated due to the lack of importance of this class feature.

Systems that are heavily codified during character creation, build and advancement almost require that adventures/campaigns be finely tailored to character abilities (and even gear) if those choices made by the players are going to prove to be more meaningful. And, as illustrated, many of the lower level abilities can become relatively meaningless or outgrown. I've found myself winging a lot of moments to shoehorn meaning retroactively whenever a player would bring up a particular abilty during play but I'm not sure this is a solution just anyone can easily implement, nor that it is always a satisfying result. It can lead to some interesting places if the GM doesn't mind dropping the reins and just letting the horses run where they will.

Edit: Thread title was supposed to read "players" not "player's". Please excuse my error.

After you click on Edit you can click on Go Advanced if you want to edit the title/subject line of a thread.

 

[Oryan77]

If players start complaining that some ability isn't being used enough, then just run an entire session where they get to do nothing but make knowledge geography checks or get to cast the lame 0 level spells that they always have prepared but never use.

I'm sure they will be more than happy to roll combat dice and use their more commonly used abilities again during the next session. They'll probably never complain about not using their lesser used abilities again.

 

[S'mon]

I don't expect the GM to write adventures around the ability of my PCs, but it does annoy me when logical applications of my PCs skills/abilities are banned in order to maintain the plot of a railroady adventure. It's up to the player to step on up & make their PC abilities count, but it's necessary that the GM not clamp down & stop PCs 'derailing' the adventure.