Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5793348" data-attributes="member: 54877">I kind of appropriated Janx's CHOICES thing, but what I took him to mean, and certainly what I mean, is not only meaningful but outright juicy. Yeah, left or right door with no info is not meaningful. Let the players find out that left is fast and risky while right is relatively slow and safe, and it is meaningful but not much more. Let the players find out that fast gives them a good shot at the legendary artifact, but likely leaves a beloved NPC to a grisly fate--and you probably get passion. You'll especially get it if they need that artifact to do something relatively noble.  On this I may diverge from Janx a bit on the opportunity versus problem thing. I mostly agree with opportunities being the main draw--more carrot than stick. But I like the way problems complicate the action and make the players care. So in Janx's terms, I see it as instead of giving the PCs a problem they must deal with (e.g. being shot), you give them several opportunities that each have associated problems. And when necessary, you telegraph the problems (or some of them). Now, the players are picking which opportunity they want and which problem set they want. So on how much information to give, it is not so much amount as what you give. People can handle large numbers of choices when they are structured somehow. So keep those opportunities down to a relatively small list (no more than seven, often around 3-4). Then use as many problems as the group can handle to complicate things. Now, it can get complicated when you tie the problems together, and the whole thing becomes impossible to graph. It sometimes works better with new sandbox players to have: 1. Opportunity 1: Problem A, Problem B, etc.2. Opportunity 2: Problem X, Problem Y, etc. Nor do you need to give them the whole list. They need the whole list of opportunities (explicitly or fairly clear in game). With the problems, you can, and probably should, be more circumspect. You tell them about the rabid undead crocodiles because you know two of the characters will be creeped out about it. You reserve the plane hopping goblin thief, because that is a nasty surprise. And one opportunity might even be explicitly listed as "Problem To Be Discovered Later, No Doubt At the Most Inconvenient Moment". <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> BTW, what really makes this sing for me is once the players get accustomed to it, the next step is to inform them that I will lie to them about the nature of the problems. I'll do that in background material. I'll do it via NPCs. I'll plant misleading clues (not mere red herrings). Not much, but just enough to keep things in doubt, no more than 1 in 20 clues. So now, just getting told about rabid undead crocodiles is the best of both worlds. Two players are creeped out now at the mere thought, and the party may be surprised to discover there was never such a threat. You have to be careful about bait and switch here, of course, but as long everyone knows that information is suspect until confirmed, it works great.  The best thing about it is when analysis paralysis does set in (as it inevitably will with that much complication), all someone has to say is, "We don't know enough to decide. So the real choice right here is what to do to get more information so that we can decide." After I prompt that 10 or 15 times, some of the players catch on and start managing that aspect themselves.  You might not prefer the lying bit if the players are wanting more action adventure than intrigue/skulking, as it definitely encourages the latter. But like anything else, if you want a mix, it is fairly easy to callibrate once the players get into the spirit of the thing.</blockquote>

Verification