How do I run a campaign like this?

[Randomthoughts]

I construct my campaign and design my adventures very similar to Janx. Great stuff.

The problem expands to "How do I write 1-session adventures when I don't know how many, or what class, of PCs show up" but we're at least starting to get at it.

What I do is send a request to play about a month before the anticipated Game Day. I ask that players respond in 2 weeks. If there are at least 2-3 players, the Game Day is entered into the schedule (we share an electronic calendar system) and players who have committed are expected to show up on Game Day (barring emergencies of course). This gives me about 2 weeks to prepare for the session. By this time, I know the number of players who are committed to attend (and their corresponding PCs).

However, this system really works if players respond by the deadlines. My group is pretty good, but sometimes I don't get a response until a week or so before Game Day. Often though, I make a decision by the deadline, which could result (and has resulted) in no game that month.

One messy issue with the problem is how you gauge time. ...Which means the guy might be going home early because I overestimated time.

Yeah, this is the hardest part of running this type of campaign. But with the system I mentioned above, at least I would have a good idea of who will show up on Game Day, and can plan accordingly. I also tend to over prepare; I haven't had a session yet where we stopped early b/c of not having enough content prepared that day.

The problem I see with the 'anyone who shows up' method is that it cuts into sandbox....

It might, but not by much IME. The way I would describe the way I run my campaign is that it's "open ended". It's not a pure sandbox (e.g., you start in a town, now what do you do?); there are plot hooks that PCs choose from or create their own. But I only prepare that "path" (and logical branches from that path) once the PCs have selected it. The path or outcome itself isn't "set"; there have been many times players have deviated from point A to point B. But wasted preparation is kept to a minimum (or is recycled into a future adventure ).

What it sounds like I'm going to have to do is that I'm going to have to write about 10 adventures in advance, and sort them based on how "This adventure is for X players"....

All power to you, but I couldn't do this myself given time restraints. Players tend to go in different directions anyway. So, while I try to have some direction of where the story could go, I don't really anticipate that far out, and only prepare a session or so ahead of time.

This all being said, I'm not saying my way is a silver bullet. There's frustration, wasted effort and (sometimes) long dry spells despite my best efforts. So, I'm pretty interested too to see what solutions others have come up with.

 

[Li Shenron]

@Li Shenron that playstyle isn't how I play games. I mean, lack of character development is fine, but I don't do "death is cheap and easy" style of play. I don't find it fun.

That's ok, it was just one option.

 

[JustinAlexander]

For starters, check out Opening Your Game Table for a slightly different take on this. In particular, note how a truly open game table accepts the problems that come with the format because it also has unique benefits it can offer. The style you're talking about -- a small, essentially dedicated group that just tries to roll with whoever can show up -- is more difficult to pull off because it has a bunch of weaknesses but no commensurate advantages (other than a hypothetically more regular gaming schedule).

A few general tips:

(1) The one essential for non-4E versions of D&D is magical healing. As long as you have magical healing, it's generally pretty easy for a party to find challenges that will work. Without magical healing, they're going to have problems.

(2) I strongly recommend embracing either full or partial troupe-style play or having each player maintain a stable of characters. Why? Because it will give the group a lot more flexibility in customizing its line-up to whichever players happen to show up that day.

(3) I really wouldn't recommend trying this in 4E. 4E is designed around a razor's edge of balance. Where other editions request a standard adventuring party, 4E demands it and requires the DM to be responsible for designing tightly balanced encounters to challenge it.

(4) What you want to be doing is restoring that responsibility to the players where it belongs: They need to choose what they feel capable of doing with the current roster they have, and they need to accept the responsibility if they choose poorly. You simply cannot run a sandbox campaign without this being true. And you're going to need the sandbox if you want to run this kind of campaign without driving yourself nuts with wasted prep.

When I read your statement, I read "Write an adventure for 4 players, and if less than 4 show up, have the players deal with the discrepancy". Which does not work. If only the Cleric's player shows up, then he's not really going to be able to tackle an adventure that is balanced for 3 other people, regardless of class.

Options include:

(1) The player running multiple characters.
(2) The PC seeking out NPC companions or hirelings.
(3) The PC choosing to do something else.

It's this third option that I keep hammering at because it really is essential if you want to run this kind of campaign.

If you're going to have a flexible group composition, then your campaign needs to be equally flexible. Trying to mix a hyper-flexible group composition with the kind of rigid, balance-is-my-only-god-and-this-is-the-adventure-we're-running-tonight approach you're describing is like mixing oil and water.

 

[S'mon]

So if only 1 person shows up, I have to have something for him to do. Hence, balance.

Yet in the old days running AD&D, this was never a problem for me. The player found his own thing to do, and the game's content generation tools made it easy to GM on the fly, with no specific prep necessary. If the player wanted to delve a dungeon, either he'd take on a lower level one, or recruit NPC allies.

 

[S'mon]

(3) I really wouldn't recommend trying this in 4E. 4E is designed around a razor's edge of balance. Where other editions request a standard adventuring party, 4E demands it and requires the DM to be responsible for designing tightly balanced encounters to challenge it.

It often feels that way, but I recently ran my 9th level 4e party through a 5th level adventure (& I halve monster hp) and they had fun, they certainly weren't bored. I think 4e encounter design advice encourages that razor's-edge of balance approach, but the game can work with less threatening encounters - 3e likewise - as long as the players are not complacent. One reason they enjoyed that 5th level adventure so much was that it came after an 8th level adventure where I had killed 3/5 of the PCs (two escaped) in the final ca EL 12 encounter.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

(3) I really wouldn't recommend trying this in 4E. 4E is designed around a razor's edge of balance. Where other editions request a standard adventuring party, 4E demands it and requires the DM to be responsible for designing tightly balanced encounters to challenge it.

In my experience 4E does a great job of telling you what a balanced encounter is but the game is not put in jeopardy if you stray from that. We often have parties that are missing one or two of the roles, are smaller sized groups, or face encounters that are rated much higher than our level. But we make it through just fine.

 

[Rechan]

For starters, check out Opening Your Game Table for a slightly different take on this..

Sadly that's not for me.

(3) I really wouldn't recommend trying this in 4E. 4E is designed around a razor's edge of balance. Where other editions request a standard adventuring party, 4E demands it and requires the DM to be responsible for designing tightly balanced

Actually 4e is overbalanced if anything.

With 4e I can design an adventure for 1 PC. I just need to know in advance what their class is, so that monster roles can be adjusted. With 2 PCs it's easier; back when 4e first came out, I ran a game for about about 9 months with only 2 PCs. I've also ran several adventures with only 2-3 players. It just took intentional design beforehand. Also in 4e it's easy to build a companion PC (a bare bones character with few abilities) of any class, so theoretically it would have 2 PCs.

If you're going to have a flexible group composition, then your campaign needs to be equally flexible. Trying to mix a hyper-flexible group composition with the kind of rigid, balance-is-my-only-god-and-this-is-the-adventure-we're-running-tonight approach you're describing is like mixing oil and water.

Well, no. From my standpoint it's not "this is the adventure we're running tonight". I admitted upthread that my best bet is to basically write 10 adventures. Some of those for 1 PCs. And whichever party makeup I have tonight, I drop the stuff I have prepped that's suited for them. And by "adventure", this is a single session, so theoretically the effort won't be that great 'n' necessary. If I have enough things prepped for 1 person, then I could offer them options.

But then, I'm very bad at Winging It, period. I can wing a fight, but not story. Going off-road is fine, but typically my answer to 'going off road' is either 1) there's nothing interesting there, 2) I pull out something I had prepped with the intention of using later, or 3) Time-wasting RP encounter. So it's either "You do what I have prepped, or you don't get to game".