Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="schnee" data-source="post: 7158994" data-attributes="member: 16728">Look up a video by Matt Colville on YouTube, specifically the one where he talks about the West Marches.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGAC-gBoX9k" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGAC-gBoX9k</a>It has some stuff that doesn't apply to you (i.e. running a large group with rotating DMs), but it has a lot of stuff about the problems you're facing also.The TLDR summary: make a map. Throw some 'hooks' on it in the form of legends of treasure, weird happenings, political rumblings, and the like. Encourage the party to do some rumor mongering locally that gives them additional hooks nearby. Give them a wide variety of types of things to do. Impending danger, invasion, dragon horde, looming faction war in the city, whatever. Let the characters choose to pursue the ones they find interesting, and then build from there. It's easy to then grab pre-made stuff and flavor it to fit, or roll your own, since it'll be towards a goal the party has chosen to follow.Since they'll be hooked on a goal, you won't have to worry about them wandering off and being distracted. You can plan a certain chunk of the adventure based on that, and just design it up to 'breakpoints' that lead to other significant choices. In other words, plan the idea that the adventures will be branching, and those choices will not force you to lose any work, because you didn't build the content for every choice first. You'll stop railroading them, they will make legitimate choices, and you'll stop feeling so responsible for thinking way into the future.That help?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="schnee, post: 7158994, member: 16728"] Look up a video by Matt Colville on YouTube, specifically the one where he talks about the West Marches. [URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGAC-gBoX9k[/URL] It has some stuff that doesn't apply to you (i.e. running a large group with rotating DMs), but it has a lot of stuff about the problems you're facing also. The TLDR summary: make a map. Throw some 'hooks' on it in the form of legends of treasure, weird happenings, political rumblings, and the like. Encourage the party to do some rumor mongering locally that gives them additional hooks nearby. Give them a wide variety of types of things to do. Impending danger, invasion, dragon horde, looming faction war in the city, whatever. [B]Let the characters choose to pursue the ones they find interesting[/B], and then build from there. It's easy to then grab pre-made stuff and flavor it to fit, or roll your own, since it'll be towards a goal the party has chosen to follow. Since they'll be hooked on a goal, you won't have to worry about them wandering off and being distracted. You can plan a certain chunk of the adventure based on that, and just design it up to 'breakpoints' that lead to other significant choices. In other words, plan the idea that the adventures will be branching, and those choices will not force you to lose any work, because you didn't build the content for every choice first. You'll stop railroading them, they will make legitimate choices, and you'll stop feeling so responsible for thinking way into the future. That help? [/QUOTE]

Verification