How far do you go in planning solutions to problems?

[Rafael Ceurdepyr]

That pretty much matches my approach too. I just make sure that there isn't only one solution, since that can become a serious pain in the ass for players.

Oh yeah, very good point! This current campaign I'm working on is intended to be remedial for me after some not-too-satisfying games in which I tended to lead players by the nose, er, run the game in a much too linear fashion. I'm trying to give them multiple options--this particular scenario is one of three they can choose from--but here I was making it too linear within the scenario too. :\

 

[BSF]

Heh - Been there Rafael!

As a slight threadjack...
Think in growing storyarcs instead of storylines.

What I mean is you have your BBEG with his/her/it's Master Goal, as oppossed to Master Plan.

- In two game years the BBEG will be ruling the city-state of Maktios.
- The BBEG starts from a small base in the Sedgewick Fens.
- The BBEG will stop at nothing to achieve the Master Goal.

So, you start putting together events that the BBEG will try to achieve the goal. During the next two game years, you be sure to drop in scenarios that somehow tie into the BBEG's Master Goal. The PCs determine how they interrupt those events.

Do not make any preconceptions on how they must stop things. Just figure out things that the players may, or may not, become involved with.

Now, do that two more times with different Master Goals for different BBEG's.

Here is the key, let events run themselves. If the PCs aren't picking up any of the story arcs, then make it a little more personal. Maybe they are duped by one of the BBEGs into retrieving a useful item. Maybe the PC's favorite tavern is burned to the ground by the BBEG's cheap labor. Just toss the hooks in front of them with tasty bait and see which hooks get bit.

The advantage to this is that you have other story arcs happening and other events in the game world. Maybe the PCs bite at hooks for two story arcs, that's great! Maybe they abandon one story arc for another, that's fine as well. In between adventures, you can have the PCs hearing about the other story arcs are distant events. They know the world doesn't revolve around them, even though the campaign does.

Verisimilitude. The game world is a dynamic environment and the players get to see exactly how the actions of their PCs are affecting things. BBEG #1 was the guy they shut down when they got really torqued off and hunted him down in his lair when they were 5th level. That guy definitely should not have hired that punk thief to steal the wand of fireballs from the PCs. BBEG #2 is the warlord that just overthrew the tyrant 3 kingdoms over. (Too bad there weren't any adventurers to stop that guy eh?) BBEG #3 is the innocent looking priestess that just asked them to retieve a holy artifact from a vile dragon. OK, she neglected to tell the PCs that the dragon was a bronze dragon and the holy artifact is an Angel Bane morningstar, but you know, these things happen. But over the last few levels she has already asked the PCs to clear out that tomb and return that magical iron crown that was buried there. And then she recognized that the brigands in the hills were in possession of a Staff of Necromancy and hired the PCs to retrieve it so she could safeguard it in her temple. She has been so helpful with cheap, or free, spells. She couldn't possibly be evil, could she?In the meantime, you have begun putting hooks out there for two more story arcs to plan for higher levels and to keep options open to the players. That way, they never feel that they can only do one thing.

You just need to remain a couple of sessions ahead of them as far as planning & prep goes. Maybe even just one session at times. Know where your story arcs are going, but don't know exactly how they have to arrive there. As well, you need to sometimes throw in encounters that have nothing to do with the major story arcs. Verisimilitude. Not everything in the world is happening just because of the three major story arcs.

I once built a fortress for some yuan-ti on top of older ruins. The PCs decided to investigate the ruins below to see if they could sneak into the fortress. They found a bunch of undead, had some encounters they didn't anticipate, learned more about history, found a nifty treasure, caught a terrible disease and still did not find a way into the fortress. They did find out the yuan-ti had sealed the passages from the ruins though. It had nothing to do with the major story arc. But the players all had a sense of satisfaction at what they had achieved, and what they had learned. They got themselves cured and headed back to deal with the real story arc.

In the current campaign I run (in which Macbeth plays), the PCs chose their latest adventure. I had several other options floating out there, but they thought hunting gnolls sounded the most interesting and feasible. Since then, they have found out how ruthless these gnolls are, and I think they hate the gnolls for it. They have also found information about an ancient culture and they are thinking about investigating that in further detail. As well, those other story arcs are still moving. So when they finish this story arc, or leave it, or whatever, they will hear about what else has been happening. Then they can decided if any more folk in the world need their help.

I call it juggling tension points. I create events that will occur, unless tension is applied. The PCs cause tension and then I figure out how story arcs will adjust to that tension. Sometimes, the PCs cause so much tension that they break things. Say they expose the BBEGs plans so others deal with them, or the PCs personally take out the BBEG. Either way, the tension the PCs caused had a result and the story arcs without any tension keep trucking along.

I'll be quiet now. I tend to babble when I begin discussin some of my DM thoughts.

 

[Zappo]

I make sure that there is at least either one obvious solution, or three non-obvious ones. If there is only one non-obvious solution, players will be unable to overcome the obstacle more often than not.

 

[Rafael Ceurdepyr]

I tend to babble when I begin discussin some of my DM thoughts.

Hey, if this is babbling, then, er, babble-on! (Sorry)

Excellent advice. Stormborn and I have been designing a world (that he then gets to play in), but I tend to get heavily involved in detail. Your point about verisimilitude is well taken--I want the PCs to believe there's a larger world going on, and you've given me some great ideas of how to achieve that without forcing them down particular paths.

 

[barsoomcore]

BSF is, as always, completely correct.

Your NPCs are PEOPLE, right? So they have goals, they have needs, they make mistakes, they try their hardest, all that.

Really, a great campaign is about great NPCs who cause trouble.

I remember pitching a series idea to a producer, and he came back to us, saying, "You don't have a Relic".

Now that's not gonna mean much to people who aren't 30+-year-old Canadians, but there used to be a Canuckistani TV show called The Beachcombers about life in a small coastal BC town. One character was named Relic, and practically every episode was about Relic coming up with some scheme to get rich quick or just cause our heroes pain, and our heroes' efforts to foil him.

This producer had been one of the original creators of the show, and what he meant by saying "You don't have a Relic," was that we didn't have a character who could reliably generate stories -- who would ALWAYS be up to SOMETHING and thus always provide a problem for the heroes to solve.

Your campaigns should have lots of Relics -- NPCs who are always up to stuff, sending out minions, feuding, scheming, lying, crusading, whatever. But doing things and having an effect on the world around the players. Some of those NPCs will doubtless be doing things that affect the PCs directly, and they'll be motivated to get involved in those schemes. And if they don't be sure to have at least a couple of NPCs whose schemes involve the PCs with or without their motivation!

 

[Rafael Ceurdepyr]

Really, a great campaign is about great NPCs who cause trouble.

Definitely my favorite quote of the day! You're so right. That really is a key to great adventures. In Leviathan campaign I'm playing in, we all tend to forget that one particular NPC is indeed that, he seems just as real as the other PCs and we're sure that he has his own agenda. And the very thought of an NPC from an Unknown Armies game gives me a major wiggins to this day. In fact, I tend to wonder just what evil deeds he's up to even now...

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

This is why I love these boards.

Thank you BSF and Barsoomcore, you have managed to calrify for me what has been tikcling my brain for some time now, but I had not managed to pull it together into a coherent thought. I have been trying to work out how to get my BBEGs to seem more real, but I have been doing so more as a storyline than an arc. It has been too linear in thinking and always ends up looks like it will be a railroad adventure. It should be interesting to see if I can handle ending the railroading without ending up with a train wreck.

 

[BSF]

Wow, thanks for the kind words everyone.

It is important to note that I choose 3 story arcs as a somewhat arbitrary number.
With three, there is usually the feeling that the PCs could do this, that or the other thing. It creates the illusion of free choice. If you can have the time to prep more storyarcs, go for it. Don't stop with the BBEGs either. Create friendly good guys with storyarcs as well. Maybe those folks need help that the PCs can offer. Maybe the PCs inadvertently interfere with those plans and while they are not BBEGs, they are adversaries.

Obviously, the PCs don't really have completely free choice. If the players expect you to have a good adventure ready for them on game night, there have to be limited options. The goal is to change your DM strategy.

I shoot for the following goals in my games.
- Enough options that the players feel like they have a say in the game. They are participants and their input is important.
- Very little "wasted" effort. I prep one-two sessions in advance. Now this does not mean I don't plan further. I just don't do hardcore prep for the game until I am reasonably sure that work will be used.
- Know my world and the plans of major NPCs well enough that I can wing it if necessary. By using a storyarc process, I know what an NPC will be trying to achieve. If there is an opportunity, or a setback, I am able to decide quickly how the NPC will scramble to recover.

I used to put in a tremendous amount of up front effort prepping for a game. I would map and stat everything out (pre-3.x) and then I would come up with how the PCs needed to solve the problems and then I would run the players through the "scenario".

None of us were happy. With all that work, I felt a stupid obligation to try to make the PCs see everything and do it the way I thought they should. I was too married to the work I had put in. I don't remember exactly where the epiphany came from, but it was being exposed to Johnn Four's newsletter and EN World that helped me break out of that. I think my games are better than they were. I can do better. I can always improve my games. But with some changes to my thinking, I have been able to envision a greater portion of my game world, and accomodate unexpected player decisions much, much better.

Hey, I can keep babbling if you like. If you want to hear more, tell me what you want me to elaborate on. There are also a lot of smart folks here whose ideas I have leeched off of. Maybe they will pitch in too.

 

[Macbeth]

Hey, I can keep babbling if you like. If you want to hear more, tell me what you want me to elaborate on.

Well, you could elaborate on what solution you had in mind when you put 100 gnolls close to a 4th(ish) level party... We could use the ideas

Really, I liked reading your posts. You have a lot of the same ideas as I do for making the world run without the PCs, but letting the PCs change things.

 

[BSF]

Solution? Actually, I can think of a couple of options. I just don't see a combat solution to your situation. Mostly though, that is verisimilitude. You know a gnoll army is in the area. Would it feel right if you didn't see a company of gnolls know and again?

What Macbeth is referring to is in the current campaign that I mentioned above. The one where the PCs decided to go after some gnolls. This particular situation came about in a rather interesting manner.

See, the PCs are travelling to the next town looking for gnolls. They are also kind of exploring and they came across an ancient ruin. They could look around, but some sort of golem was blocking progress. Knowing it was some sort of construct, they searched for a non-combat method to bypass the situation.

In the campaign, we are using a lot of material from the Oneiromancy chapter in Penumbra's Occult Lore. So it is possible to journey in dreams. I knew the PCs could eventually travel into the dream world and recover a key to bypass the golem. I figured they would investigate the golem and then move on since the PCs have been real antsy about preventing more gnoll raids. Then they would start having dreams about how they might recover a key. It was meant to be a staging hook. But you know how players are.

They had also recovered potions of dreamwalking. On a lark, one of the PCs downed the potion right there. I had to scramble to go through the dream sequence. Fortunately, even though I hadn't prepped the encounter, I had planned it. So I was able to wing it with decent proficiency. The PCs ended up recovering the key the next day when the lucid dreamer went dreamwalking next.

They checked out the ruins and ended up spending something like 9 days there. More than I anticipated, probably more than they anticipated as well. But it was cool because I think we were all having fun. However, the PCs did not get to the next town in time to find out there was a gnoll army getting ready to attack. Nor did they have any chance to avert the attack, evacuate the town, etc. Basically, however they decided to address the situation. What is a DM to do? Have the PCs wander through another burned out town? Find more tortured refugees?

Well, I know where the gnolls are going next. I predict they will pass by this area right around this time. I figure the PCs won't know the gnolls are there, but maybe they will see the ritual fires and hear the drums in the middle of the night. Then they can help more tortured refugees, track the gnolls and try to save the next town. But no, the PCs take that out of my hands as well. The Shaman sends his spirit hawk up to look for anything interesting. Hawks have great bonuses to spot right? Well, the hawk also rolls a natural 20 for spot. Even with distance penalties, that is a great spot, and 120 humanoids walking across the grassy plain aren't all that difficult to see.

So now the PCs know the gnolls are coming their way. Unfortunately, the PCs are low on spells and hp. The gnolls are camped ~ 2miles away. There are only 108 or so of them. They have a dozen survivors that will likely be tortured and mutilated. Perhaps even eaten. The PCs are generally good hearted and would like to save these people.

Can they do it? I don't know. I ran with the story arc and this is where we are. It is far more interesting than walking into another burned out town. The PCs have the chance to affect the lives of these people. Can they do so without being killed? There isn't a right or wrong solution. There are events and results.

I feel a bit bad for the players to have put them in this situation. On the other hand, I can see some great characterization coming from this. I also see creativity. They might learn a lot about their adversaries too. We shall see how it all works out. Tomorrow night actually.

Macbeth - Think of this as a tension point. You guys are in a position to create tension that the gnolls will have to react to.