Has complexity every worked for you as a DM?
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Pbartender
First Post
el-remmen said:You just described my favorite kinds of villians and heroes - esp. the former, villians the party doesn't want to kill makes the moment when they realize they are going to have to kill him/her that much sweeter.
Ha! Right now I'm using the converse of that...
A couple of villians the PCs really want to kill off, but can't because of extenuating circumstances...
Pbartender
First Post
So, to answer the OP's question... Yes, complexity has worked for me as a DM.
In general I make work by cheating with smoke and mirrors. Let me exaplain...
I don't often have time to fully develop an adventure on my own, so usually my first step is to find a published adventure to use as a basic framework. From there, I build simple goals and simple connections between the major players in the addventure. To use my current adventure, Dark Harbor, as an example:
The Celtiberians: The recently united Celtiberian clans want to take advantage of the wealth of Tartessos. They would rather draft a treaty that accomplishes this and places Tartessos under the control of King Arganthonios, but will invade, if necessary. Lord Juthe has been sent to Tartessos to negotiate the treaty on the behalf of Celtiberia.
The Aristicians: The faction of the Tartessian City Council that welcomes a treaty with Celtiberia. They see it as a way to acquire the wealth, power and military might of the barbarian kingdoms from within, and also as a way to avoid a costly war.
The Mariners: The faction that opposes a treaty with Celtiberia. They would rather keep the wealth and power of Tartessos to themselves, and don't believe the barbarian army to be a signification threat to the city.
The Via Sanguinaria: A reckless death cult that seeks to incite rebellion within the the city slums and overthrow the City Council.
And so on...
Now here's where the cheating comes in... I tend to keep the major plots point simple and fairly straight forward. I add in little details that fill in the gaps, and I feedback any little musings and discussions the players have within my earshot. These details don't appreciably affect the complexity of the major plots, but give the appearance of complexity.
My other trick is to plan far ahead for the bigger plot points, but only in a simple, vague way -- flexibility is the key when you plan that far ahead. That way I can add in little foreshadowing hints early on that let the players say, "Aha!" much later. Again, this gives an illusion of complexity without necessarily complicating the plot.
For example, a magic book about summoning demons was purchased by the leader fo the Via Sanguinaria. The book was recovered, but the leader escaped and was obviously taking notes. This will resurface as a hook and a major plot development for a later adventure.
Or, the players discovered the cryptic last page of a blood-spattered letter written by "V. Servius Strado". It has practically nothing to do with the current adventure, but will be a obscure tie-in to Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, which I plan on running sometime in the future in the Victorian Age version of the same setting.
For actual complications, I can usually leave that to my players... Whenever they do something a little unexpected I simply ask myself, WWTBGD? A adjust the adventure accordingly, and plot twists naturally ensue.
For example, during their search for the magic book of summoning demons, the players spoke to a local herbalist who was rumored to be a magician as well to see if he had any leads on it. This herbalist is also a poisoner behind the scenes, an actual wizard (which are exceptionally rare in Iron Heroes), and a rather shifty fellow on top of it. He agrees to make his own investigations (which he will), and also to pass along any info to the PCs (which is a blatant lie). And now there's a third party looking to acquire the book for his own purposes (which I haven't detailed just yet).
In general I make work by cheating with smoke and mirrors. Let me exaplain...
I don't often have time to fully develop an adventure on my own, so usually my first step is to find a published adventure to use as a basic framework. From there, I build simple goals and simple connections between the major players in the addventure. To use my current adventure, Dark Harbor, as an example:
The Celtiberians: The recently united Celtiberian clans want to take advantage of the wealth of Tartessos. They would rather draft a treaty that accomplishes this and places Tartessos under the control of King Arganthonios, but will invade, if necessary. Lord Juthe has been sent to Tartessos to negotiate the treaty on the behalf of Celtiberia.
The Aristicians: The faction of the Tartessian City Council that welcomes a treaty with Celtiberia. They see it as a way to acquire the wealth, power and military might of the barbarian kingdoms from within, and also as a way to avoid a costly war.
The Mariners: The faction that opposes a treaty with Celtiberia. They would rather keep the wealth and power of Tartessos to themselves, and don't believe the barbarian army to be a signification threat to the city.
The Via Sanguinaria: A reckless death cult that seeks to incite rebellion within the the city slums and overthrow the City Council.
And so on...
Now here's where the cheating comes in... I tend to keep the major plots point simple and fairly straight forward. I add in little details that fill in the gaps, and I feedback any little musings and discussions the players have within my earshot. These details don't appreciably affect the complexity of the major plots, but give the appearance of complexity.
My other trick is to plan far ahead for the bigger plot points, but only in a simple, vague way -- flexibility is the key when you plan that far ahead. That way I can add in little foreshadowing hints early on that let the players say, "Aha!" much later. Again, this gives an illusion of complexity without necessarily complicating the plot.
For example, a magic book about summoning demons was purchased by the leader fo the Via Sanguinaria. The book was recovered, but the leader escaped and was obviously taking notes. This will resurface as a hook and a major plot development for a later adventure.
Or, the players discovered the cryptic last page of a blood-spattered letter written by "V. Servius Strado". It has practically nothing to do with the current adventure, but will be a obscure tie-in to Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, which I plan on running sometime in the future in the Victorian Age version of the same setting.
For actual complications, I can usually leave that to my players... Whenever they do something a little unexpected I simply ask myself, WWTBGD? A adjust the adventure accordingly, and plot twists naturally ensue.
For example, during their search for the magic book of summoning demons, the players spoke to a local herbalist who was rumored to be a magician as well to see if he had any leads on it. This herbalist is also a poisoner behind the scenes, an actual wizard (which are exceptionally rare in Iron Heroes), and a rather shifty fellow on top of it. He agrees to make his own investigations (which he will), and also to pass along any info to the PCs (which is a blatant lie). And now there's a third party looking to acquire the book for his own purposes (which I haven't detailed just yet).
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I suppose for the most part the homebrew campaigns I DM are complex (onion-layered truths, "ah-hah" moments, etc.) However, I've learned over the years that just about every 4-hour game session should have a plot point of some substance. (This rate could be stretched to every other session...but never much longer). So, the more complex I desire the plot to be, the more often I should feed the campaign's pace.
I gamed as a player in the Age of Wyrms campaign, and felt like the above rule of pacing was completely ignored (by the writers of the arc and our DM): we would slug our way through multiple-session grinders (and I'm an avowed hackmaster), and 12 hours later (3 weeks in real time) we would have nearly no clue as to what was going on--or whatever we had gleaned was fairly quickly forgotten or ignored.
Bottom line:
Complexity? Yes, why not. Dazzle me with your creativity.
Pacing? Keep it very high (much, much higher than Dungeon's campaign arc rate...)
I gamed as a player in the Age of Wyrms campaign, and felt like the above rule of pacing was completely ignored (by the writers of the arc and our DM): we would slug our way through multiple-session grinders (and I'm an avowed hackmaster), and 12 hours later (3 weeks in real time) we would have nearly no clue as to what was going on--or whatever we had gleaned was fairly quickly forgotten or ignored.
Bottom line:
Complexity? Yes, why not. Dazzle me with your creativity.
Pacing? Keep it very high (much, much higher than Dungeon's campaign arc rate...)
kigmatzomat
Legend
There's different kinds of complex.
You have cat's cradle complex, which is an almost artifically confuscated series of events. History may be entangled but very rarely are the actual plots of multiple people so closely intertwined.
Then you have juggling complex. Juggling one ball is easy. Juggling two balls is doable. At three it starts getting messy and hard to track. This is what I use, several individually simple plots that are in various stages of completion. Some bit of the intermingling of plots happens but rarely on the Machiavellian level. The fact that players almost never see the entire picture adds an inherent level of complexity as far as they are concerned.
I've got about a dozen plots in play right now. I'd say four of them are campaign driven (meaning they are related to the core plot), a half dozen were spawned by player actions (leaving a BBEG alive, making an enemy of what should have been an ally), and the remaining two or three are player driven (players are actively working to cause certain events).
The "game" is now quite complicated but each plot is moderately simple if you can figure out what events were really part of which plot.
You have cat's cradle complex, which is an almost artifically confuscated series of events. History may be entangled but very rarely are the actual plots of multiple people so closely intertwined.
Then you have juggling complex. Juggling one ball is easy. Juggling two balls is doable. At three it starts getting messy and hard to track. This is what I use, several individually simple plots that are in various stages of completion. Some bit of the intermingling of plots happens but rarely on the Machiavellian level. The fact that players almost never see the entire picture adds an inherent level of complexity as far as they are concerned.
I've got about a dozen plots in play right now. I'd say four of them are campaign driven (meaning they are related to the core plot), a half dozen were spawned by player actions (leaving a BBEG alive, making an enemy of what should have been an ally), and the remaining two or three are player driven (players are actively working to cause certain events).
The "game" is now quite complicated but each plot is moderately simple if you can figure out what events were really part of which plot.
Wraith Form
Explorer
I feel mostly the same way. I'm no dummy, but I'm not THAT smart, and I actually think my players will find loopholes in my plots...or find them to wonky to follow. I'd prefer to create smaller, short-term plots that are maybe a little less Machiavellian but faster to resolve.DragonLancer said:
