non-linear, non-site-based adventures - your thought process?

[GlassJaw]

This isn't my strength so I'm going to be watching this thread carefully for ideas.

Same here. Lots of great stuff so far.

I expect the heroes to take the bait, try to solve a problem, etc. I don't really have sessions where the PCs are just wandering around wondering what to do next.

Well that's certainly a potential problem. I think it also depends a lot on the players. Some players want to know where Ye Olde Dungeon is, enter it, kill everything, and head back to town with the treasure. If you throw a lot of choices at a group like this, you'll probably have to do some prodding.

 

[devilish]

As others have mentioned, I have a timeline, xp progression, and events of
the major BBEG NPCs that happen "off-camera."

I then flood the campaign with potential plots that the characters may or may
not pick up on --- legends of a lone undead creature roaming the south road,
rumors about the ArchDruid in the forest, bombadier-beetle acid burns on the
eastern road, crops in the next town not growing this year, etc.

I then will gently put forth the adventure-du-jour and see if the characters
are interested. If not, they have the slew of plot hooks to pick. "Goblin hordes?
Again? Let's go visit the ArchDruid, instead..."

Then, I'll tie back the overarching story with the BBEGNPCs .... if they went the
goblin horde path, they'd find out the BBEGs were sponsoring them. If they
went to the bombadier beetle, they'd find a dissolved lackey of the BBEG and
a note from the Duke of a neighboring kingdom (i.e. not the same plot hook,
so it doesn't feel canned)

I try to keep it as open as possible --- as carpedavid said,
create the simulation and see what the adventurers do to it.

 

[Psion]

Ooh, ooh, another point:

"The magician's choice".

Called so after the magician's trick where they ask you to pick an object like a card, but don't tell you in advance what they do once they pick the object -- letting you decide whether to put the card away or keep it on the table -- or whatever.

Similarly, if you have set peices you want to run, consider different ways that the character can get to the same point. Say the party has the choice of going to Jhelom or Moonglow. If they go to Jhelom, then the villain they face will be their. If they go to Moonglow, then the villain they face will be there. With appropriate flavor and situation tweaks, of course.

Free will is not so important as the illusion of free will...

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

The “Open” Campaign: A (short) Guide to non-linear adventures/campaigns in FRPGs

In order to run an “open” Dungeons and Dragons (or any game system) campaign I would suggest you follow a few simple guidelines. I have done this in the past and it worked out great. My most successful campaign ever was run this way. It fell apart at the end when I tried to force the BIG PLOT on the PCs too fast. Had I continued with my starting strategy it’s very possible I would still be running the same game now.

Anyhow, here’s my strategy for running an open campaign:

1. Know the game world: first and foremost you must be intimately familiar with the setting you are using. I have used the same (homebrew) campaign world for most of my DMing over the last twenty years or so. It’s like an old friend. I can pick up my world map, point out a spot on it and conjure up tons of what-ifs and how-fors. Know the history of the world. What happened where, why it happened the way it did and what’s likely to happen in the future. Do all of this with no knowledge of the PCs or their motivations. Super detailed information is not necessary. Broad brush strokes are fine.

2. Know your players and their characters: what kind of adventures are your players interested in playing in? What kind of adventures will motivate the PCs? It is imperative that the PCs have well-defined backgrounds (that fit your game world) that you can use to jump start adventures and plots. I have a standard character questionnaire (stolen from DnD 2nd Edition Complete Bard’s Handbook) that I make every player complete before they can make a new character.

3. Build NPCs and Organizations: think about who the movers and shakers of the game world are. You don’t necessarily need detailed dossiers on all of there characters, but at least a couple of lines about who they are and what motivates them. When and if the PCs decide to interact with them you can build more detail as needed. Also, build organizations for the NPCs and PCs to interact with: the Thieves’ Guild, the Order of Holy Knights, the Druidic Cult, and the Mages Order. What motivates the organization as a whole and what motivates its primary members?

4. Build Adventures: I routinely steal adventures wholesale from all kinds of sources. Some I buy, some I find online, and others I’ve played in and “borrowed” from other players. I rarely build my own adventures from scratch. Before I start a new campaign I find at least ten or twelve low to mid level adventures that MIGHT interest the PCs. I find a way to tie some or all of these adventures together and tie them to my NPCs and Organizations from step three above.

5. Get a “Big Plot”: think about a long-running storyline that you can tie into your world. Is there a powerful archmage or lich planning something awful? Is the ancient wyrm Scratamongulous awakening from a long slumber? Is there a war brewing between two good-aligned nations? It doesn’t matter what the big plot is, just find one. Now, how will the NPCs and Organizations from step three interact with this big plot? Work it out. What will happen if the PCs do nothing? Don’t worry so much about what will happen if the do something. Let them do something and then change the big plot to react to what they do.

6. Go: introduce the PCs to some of your NPCs and Organizations from step three. Throw out a couple of hooks from the low-level adventures in step four. Now, ask the players, “What are you gonna do?” Watch what happens. If the PCs have really thought about their characters and the characters’ backgrounds they will make quick work of diving into one (or more) of the hooks you threw out to them. As things progress you need to find more adventures (higher level) that you can fit into the overall game. You will also need to more fully develop some of the NPCs and Organizations as the PCs develop relationships with them.

This style of game is not for everyone. Some players WANT the DM to railroad them along a pre-planned plotline. They’re not interested in motivation or finding out what they need to do through exploration and discovery. If your game goes flat when you try this style of DMing you’re either not paying enough attention to the details or your players just don’t want to do the work of finding adventure for their characters.

 

[GlassJaw]

Just wanted to try to keep this thread going...

So once you get some NPC's and organizations and plots hooks laid out, how do you keep track of things? I mean can you potentially have too much going on? What are some good ways to keep track of everything?

 

[Janx]

I think it's difficult for a human to run a true simulationist game. We're not built for tracking all those variables.

While it would be good DM practice to build tons of NPCs and have their motivations and plans mapped out and such, mapping and revising their actions while running the game for the PCs is a bit challenging. It may not even be worth the effort, considering how much material may go unused, just because the players went east and not west. And that breaks one of the DungeonCraft adages, "don't create more than you need"

Case in point, early in my DM's career, he had one piece of an adventure, where he drew up a forest and rolled up encounters all over the forest. He had them all written down, and knew where each one would take place. During the game, we simply walked from point A to point B through the forest. We hit several of the encounters of course, but the majority of them were missed entirely. Now the premise was valid, we could go anywhere we wanted to in the forest, and get all sorts of interesting encounters. But the reality was, we weren't very likely to deviate from a predictable path. As such, it was not worth the time to write up those extra encounters. In fact, he could have spent that time improving the quality of the likely encounters or reduced the time spent writing the adventure.

Further evidence at human inefficiency in running this style lies in the example of a dungeon. Here we have a place filled with NPCs (monsters), and the PCs go busting into room after room. How many DMs are guilty of NOT having the monsters react to the noise of the invasion. Most DMs leave the monsters where they were written and have them activate only in the PCs presence. We all know this is not realistic behavior, but it is hard for a DM to track all the reactions that would be likely and respond accordingly. The main reason it is so difficult is that there are cascade reactions. There's just too much to really track.

To the PCs, all adventures are linear. They play out as "I woke up, ate some gruel, killed an orc, rescued the princess, collected the reward, avoided the town guard when it was revealed that the princess was a doppleganger, collected some info on who swapped her, hunted down the real princess, killed the princess because she was scheming a take over, and fled the kingdom." They can't see if you're running multiple threads contingent on their actions or if you've got one plot line with twists in it, and it doesn't matter if they can't tell the difference.

Janx

 

[Rel]

I think this is an interesting question and many good points have been made in this thread that I won't try and restate. But I'll underscore one point that I think is important: Eventually the PC's are going to go somewhere and do something and at that point the adventure probably becomes either site based or a series of related events (linear) to one degree or another.

So, in my opinion, we're not really talking about different kinds of "adventures" so much as allowing enough flexibility that the PC's don't have to tackle these adventures in a particular order or on a particular time frame. If you are skilled at making site based or linear adventures then you're well over half way to the goal.

Here's three adventure ideas:

Defeat the kobold spider cult of the Black Woods. (site based)

Liberate the slave miners from their evil masters. (site based)

Investigate the series of grisly murders in town. (linear)


Now you could run these in succession by simply stating to the players that "this is your next adventure" or even by putting in good plot hooks that involve their PC's (which you'll hopefully wind up doing anyway). But you're trying to give choices. So you instead say,

"You arrive in the small town of Woodhill to find the mood grim. Almost everyone you see is armed and wary. After doing some chatting at the local tavern you find that they are beset by a host of problems. The Spider Cult of the Black Woods is a constant problem for the town's logging industry. To defend themselves they are more and more purchasing weapons and armor from the unsavory Slavers who run the nearby iron mines. As if that wasn't bad enough, people are turning up murdered at the rate of about one per month. Things in Woodhill are desperate and the town council is talking about sending for help from the Duke."

Now in that circumstance, most players are going to decide to address these problems but they'll be the ones deciding what they do and when. They're making the choice and you're not forcing a particular direction. What you've got to do is to remain flexible.

In the above situation what I'd do is almost nothing. I would prepare a Kobold/Spider encounter, one more wilderness style encounter and have a decent handle on a couple folks in town who might know some clues about the murders. Then I'd sit back and see which way the PC's went and be prepared for them to say, "This town is doomed! We're outta here!" Now my players would almost never say that but they will call your bluff once in a while and if they do then you just drop the little bit of work that you've put in and move on.

Assuming that they go along with one of the leads you've tossed out then you run the "random encounters" to round out the session and use the prep time prior to the next session to actually flesh out the lead they've picked. You also think about ways that you can advance the difficulty of the other plotlines so that they'll be appropriately challenging when the PC's get to them. Make a few notes about this but avoid doing much more than that until they commit to that plotline.

Voila! You do a minimum of work and the players have a maximum amount of choice.

 

[GlassJaw]

I think it's difficult for a human to run a true simulationist game. We're not built for tracking all those variables.

Very true. Good point. As a DM I like to "control" everything, or at least keep track of everything that's going on. I want some tips on "letting go" a bit, hence this thread.

they will call your bluff once in a while and if they do then you just drop the little bit of work that you've put in and move on.

This brings up another good point. With this style of campaign, how much is improv and how much is prepared? How do you "prepare for improv" in advance? I'm fairly good at improvising but that last thing I want is for whole sessions to be improvised. I guess it gets back to that whole "illusion of choice" thing.

 

[carpedavid]

Very true. Good point. As a DM I like to "control" everything, or at least keep track of everything that's going on. I want some tips on "letting go" a bit, hence this thread.

I used to be the type of DM that mapped out every corner of the dungeon and wrote up descriptive text for every encounter. Because I put so much work into it, I was always forcing the PCs to go places and do things that they didn't want to do.

Through experience, and through my participation in the IronDM contests, I learned to focus on the macroscopic parts of the game, and improvise the microscopic parts. That way, I'm much more flexible when the PCs end up doing what they normally do (which is mucking things up).

This brings up another good point. With this style of campaign, how much is improv and how much is prepared? How do you "prepare for improv" in advance? I'm fairly good at improvising but that last thing I want is for whole sessions to be improvised. I guess it gets back to that whole "illusion of choice" thing.

I'd say, at least in my game, that it's about 80% improv. If you prepare intelligently, then the improvisation becomes easy. I was initially suprised the first time that Piratecat said that he spends very little time doing prep work, compared to the time spent running the game. However, the more I learn about being a good DM, the more I understand how to focus on what's important, and the less time I need to prepare.

Also, read everything that Rel said - that's basically how I run my game.

 

[Psion]

So once you get some NPC's and organizations and plots hooks laid out, how do you keep track of things? I mean can you potentially have too much going on? What are some good ways to keep track of everything?

You can absolutely have too much going on. It's not hard to get there.

Occasionally, it behooves the DM to introspect a little and ask "does this element go too deep". If something doesn't fit well or is too hard to work in, and makes it way too complicated to work in, it might be worth considering taking it out.

Of course this varies according to your group. Players who are thinkers/problem solvers relish in deep mysteries more than players that likes to sit down with some cheetos and kill monsters.

I used to keep a card file program (CorelCentral, if anyone cares) that could hyperlink secrets, and let me map them to NPCs and campaign sessions. Before the campaign session, I would pick out four events/elements/secrets that I wanted to highlight. It was pretty effective; I might consider doing that again. (The program was just buggy and didn't like to shut down correctly. )

You can use real, physical index cards. Ray Winniger recommended something to that effect in his excellent Dungeoncraft series in the pre-3e Dragon. What he recommended is that whenever you make an element to your campaign (NPC, organization, religion, nation, whatever), make up a secret associated with that element and jot it down on a card, and put those cards together. Then, at the beginning of your planning for every session, pull out one of your secret cards and highlight it or exploit it. (This is what, in fact, inspired the above computer card file system I was using.)