The big pitfall is the players. In both how honest they are with themselves and how articulate they are....How close is that? How far off the mark? Some pitfalls to look out for? General advice?
A lot of players will say they like the same default stuff, often whatever is popular or cool. Or if the group has a person that stands out as "cool", often other players will just suddenly like whatever they like. And they won't want to say what they really like.
Then there is the problem of getting them to even just say "what do you like". So many players give vague, incomplete answers.
The reality part is:In reality, independent adventure hooks aren’t more realistic, they just outsource to the player the work of finding a reason why their character should care about the adventure hooks the DM has created.
Triad: the hook is generic. Nearly anyone can take the hook based their individual personality. A good character does good deeds, for example.
Neo Triad: The Hook is personal. The warlord of the evil empire is your Father, and he has the Force...and you the Son are the only other one in the galaxy that also has the Force and has a chance to stop him.....
It is unrealistic for some to have every bad guy in the world somehow directly related to the PCs as well as every hook tailored to the PCs too.
Agrees with one. Disagrees with two. Does not care about three.Depends on how you read rule 0:
1 The DM is Daddy and gets their say at all times
2 Any rule can be changed at the will of the group
3 No one can criticize the game's design because the real job of designing the game is up to the DM.
Triad is more Hard Fun then "screwing over the players." But most players don't bother to make the distinction: anything they don't like is "wrong".I always thought "the DM arbitrarily screwing over the players" was Classic style-- using Tomb of Horror-style trap dungeons and stating that X number of spells just don't work for no discernable reason other than it would make it too easy for the players to get through all the DM's Saw-like traps that they expected the players to stumble through with no way of knowing how they were supposed to get past them other than trial and error.
Even a lot of Classic is more Hard Fun then just "being screwed". Like when the characters walk into a dungeon and find teleport spells don't work....many players just toss up their arms and say "the DM is screwing us over". And it does not matter at all to the players that there is a teleport suppression field.
The thing is...it is not binary. Very little is. It is more a scale. Some Neo T games are where the players tell the DM what to do. Say 10 on the scale. Most games are in the middle at 5, where the DM does most of what the players want. Some games are at the other end of 1, where the DM just considers a player note or two. They are still all Neo T games.Maybe in some other neotrad games, the GMs are a little more constrained.
The traditional game is: Dm does whatever they want at 10. The DM takes some of the vague suggestions of the players...maybe...and puts them in the game the way the DM wants too at 5. And down at 1, where the DM does a "fair amount" of what they players want.
So Traditional 1 is Neo T 4.....because they are "related".