Has complexity every worked for you as a DM?

[Ry]

Here's a question to really get your dice tales flowing:

Have you ever used complexity in a way that the players found satisfying? Mostly, I'm thinking of complex quests (intricate prophecies with multiple requirements and stages, a la Morrowind), complex locales (twisting and winding maze-temple-cities), or complex plots (the extremes of political intrigue). Heck, have you ever had success with characters who have complex motivations?

 

[The Goblin King]

Nah, I'm too dull for that. I prefer to start simple and add complexity as things go along. Besides, if you spend too much time planing out intricate things you will just get burned out when players invariably screw up the quests, set fire to the locations and ignore the politics.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I've never run a campaign that didn't have intricate plot elements, from deceptions to double-dealings to multiple layers of surprises discovered at various points throughout the campaign.

AFAIAC, if I just wanted to roll dice, I'd play a board game. As a DM and player both, give me a plot, with mysteries to uncover and discoveries to make, any day of the week.

 

[Ry]

I've never run a campaign that didn't have intricate plot elements, from deceptions to double-dealings to multiple layers of surprises discovered at various points throughout the campaign.

Do you think you could give an example (or summary of the kind of plot you use) - and why you thought it worked? Have you ever used one of the other kinds of complexity I mentioned?

 

[Crothian]

Yes, but they were slow developing and grew complex as the players discovered they were complex

 

[Mouseferatu]

Do you think you could give an example (or summary of the kind of plot you use) - and why you thought it worked? Have you ever used one of the other kinds of complexity I mentioned?

Well, it'd be difficult, since--well, they're complex. (And, as with Crothian, it's all stuff that's revealed over time, slowly, as the PCs encounter it.) I'm honestly not sure I could even summarize them in less than several thousand words. It involves allies and enemies who aren't what they appear, sides and allegiances shifting (or never having been what they seemed from the start), a chance encounter with a nobody NPC in the first game of a campaign having provided the clue needed to defeat the villain in the last game of a campaign, that sort of thing. (Yes, I've actually done that last.)

 

[SableWyvern]

Yes, but they were slow developing and grew complex as the players discovered they were complex

That's the crux of it, in my opinion. I tried once to come up with a really complex plot from scratch, and ultimately it was beyond anyone's ability but mine to fathom.

OTOH, my most successful campaign ever was very intricate, but that intricacy grew naturally and gradually over the course of two years.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I tried a game where I came up with about 15 npcs, then threw out loads of plot threads tying each of them together. Didn't have a strong master plan - just waited to see what the players made out of it. They came up with some really neat plots from this complicated mess.

Unfortunately I had a bit of work related burn out and the game came to a crashing stop.

My current campaign is just starting, looks simple but it'll get messier.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Have you ever used complexity in a way that the players found satisfying?

Never. The last thing you want to do is bury the players under an avalanche of information.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

m

You know, I think there's some truth to the idea that it starts simple and gets complex.

First level characters are young, relatively untrained and unexperienced people. They are simple people. They have not experienced betrayal and so on.

Tenth level characters have pretty much seen a lot. They've been betrayed. They know how it works. They even begin to use it for their own ends.

Pretty much all (bar hack-n-slash) campaigns I've played in always end up this way. All starting as young, idealistic wannabe's who are cruelly used up until they happen to start pulling strings themselves