Payn's Ponderings' To script, or not to script?

[payn]

Greetings,

Recent discussions have my mind on adventure design and GM style. Some adventures are written where a scripted event happens, or the adventure comes apart.
Here is a list of possibilities as examples;

• Bad guy encounter where bad guy escapes
• PCs are arrested, relived of their effects, and jailed
• The sailing/space ship crashes and PCs are marooned
• NPC travelling with PCs is untrustworthy, and will betray them, but they cant ditch for story reasons

I am sure a lot of folks are seeing red flags and getting ready to declare railroad. I am probably with you too. Though, I dont necessarily believe that any game is railroad free. There are always tracks, but sometimes they are nearly invisible. How present or not the tracks are is a matter of taste. My position has always been that an RPG adventure should be a set of happenings that will be impacted by the decisions of the PCs. While a plan is in place for things to happen, they are not predetermined. Which means, I need to consider what happens if the bad guy gets away, if the PCs get arrested, if the ship crashes... Key word here is "if" not when. I firmly believe that smart play and/or having the right abilities and luck during play should not be denied the players.

I do wonder sometimes about using these literary tropes in play though. My take has always been that if any of the above examples are to happen, its at the very beginning of the adventure. Once the adventure is kicked off, the PCs are free to achieve whatever they are capable of. I will not jack in the box on them and have something in which they don't at least have a chance to avoid or impact. The result is that I plan and write very nuanced and expansive adventures. There are so many paths and what ifs built in for the PCs to explore. I enjoy this, but sometimes I do wish for something a little simpler. An adventure that perhaps last a session or two instead of taking many to complete. I feel like maybe I'm missing the chance to explore some of these pulpy episodic experiences?

I'll keep it short here and open it up to commentary. I'll provide y'all with a few questions below for the discussion;

What is your take on adventure writing? Do you make expansive plots, or are your adventures simpler to complete and move on?
Do you go with predetermined events? If so, how do you make them enjoyable and get buy in from your PCs for the temporary suspension of agency?
Are these literary trope explorations better suited for one shot style adventure? If not, how do you weave in and out of these events during play?

 

[ninjayeti]

In my experience, no matter how cool a "cutscene" type event may seem in theory, that tends to get outweighed by players' frustrations at not being able to meaningfully interact with the event.

An example from SKT:

Spoiler: SKT event

the PC's get attacked by an ancient dragon in a ruined temple and a giant ally holds the dragon off so that they can escape. This SEEMS like it should be really cool - a dragon and giant battling it out in old temple is incredibly cinematic. And yet the PCs role in this is to run away while an NPC does something heroic. The adventure really bends over backwards make sure PC's have no choice but to run (the giant starts knocking down the temple on top of everyone if they don't). While this scene would be great for a book or movie, I just don't think it works in the context of an RPG.

 

[payn]

In my experience, no matter how cool a "cutscene" type event may seem in theory, that tends to get outweighed by players' frustrations at not being able to meaningfully interact with the event.

An example from SKT:

Spoiler: SKT event

the PC's get attacked by an ancient dragon in a ruined temple and a giant ally holds the dragon off so that they can escape. This SEEMS like it should be really cool - a dragon and giant battling it out in old temple is incredibly cinematic. And yet the PCs role in this is to run away while an NPC does something heroic. The adventure really bends over backwards make sure PC's have no choice but to run (the giant starts knocking down the temple on top of everyone if they don't). While this scene would be great for a book or movie, I just don't think it works in the context of an RPG.

I get that, and sometimes its not even a cut scene. I ran a Paizo AP once that had this incredible fight. One large and one huge construct battling it out. The PCs are in the fight, but they are doing things to distract and assist one of the constructs. Eventually, the PCs give enough boost to help end the fight. It's very heroic and cinematic, but the PCs dont win the day by directly fighting the enemy themselves. We had a blast, but I know many groups were pissed that they were forced to take second fiddle in the encounter.

 

[Haiku Elvis]

I plan out a main story path with some rough either/or variations that the PCs could take and a few key set piece scenes (mostly in terms of atmosphere rather than outcomes) and then well not exactly ignore it but don't really follow it per se.
I find it much easier to improvise off something more than a fully blank canvas and thinking up the scenes often inspires other ideas that can be repurposed in response to the PCs actions.
Plus I find I'll think of something better half way through anyway.

No quantum Ogers here, but if I think the PCs will turn left and plan scene X but they turn right I'll happily scavenge what I think are the good bits of scene X and use them down the line if/when they seem appropriate. There are only so many cool ideas I can come up with I can't afford to waste them.

 

[John Dallman]

What is your take on adventure writing? Do you make expansive plots, or are your adventures simpler to complete and move on?

The opposition, and other parties, have plans, on various scales, and they try to make those happen. But they're constrained to what they can accomplish within the game world's reality.

Do you go with predetermined events? If so, how do you make them enjoyable and get buy in from your PCs for the temporary suspension of agency?

I don't do them, in that sense. I may create ambiguity - an injured villain fell over a cliff out of sight, rather than waiting around to be killed - but I don't override player's actions or impose events. I sometime narrate a few events at the very start of a campaign, before the players take up their parts, but I would regard a cutscene that the characters were present for but could not influence as a gross abuse of the player's agency. Cutscenes showing events that the characters aren't present for need to be explainable in terms of the game world's reality, or they can't happen.

Are these literary trope explorations better suited for one shot style adventure? If not, how do you weave in and out of these events during play?

Tropes from different story forms can take a walk as far as I'm concerned. RPGs are their own form, and I treat them as such. If someone wants to watch a film, or read a novel, they should do that. Trying to emulate those forms in a game is a foolish move as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Lanefan]

Greetings,

Recent discussions have my mind on adventure design and GM style. Some adventures are written where a scripted event happens, or the adventure comes apart.
Here is a list of possibilities as examples;

• Bad guy encounter where bad guy escapes
• PCs are arrested, relived of their effects, and jailed
• The sailing/space ship crashes and PCs are marooned
• NPC travelling with PCs is untrustworthy, and will betray them, but they cant ditch for story reasons

I am sure a lot of folks are seeing red flags and getting ready to declare railroad. I am probably with you too. Though, I dont necessarily believe that any game is railroad free. There are always tracks, but sometimes they are nearly invisible. How present or not the tracks are is a matter of taste. My position has always been that an RPG adventure should be a set of happenings that will be impacted by the decisions of the PCs. While a plan is in place for things to happen, they are not predetermined. Which means, I need to consider what happens if the bad guy gets away, if the PCs get arrested, if the ship crashes... Key word here is "if" not when. I firmly believe that smart play and/or having the right abilities and luck during play should not be denied the players.

I do wonder sometimes about using these literary tropes in play though. My take has always been that if any of the above examples are to happen, its at the very beginning of the adventure. Once the adventure is kicked off, the PCs are free to achieve whatever they are capable of. I will not jack in the box on them and have something in which they don't at least have a chance to avoid or impact. The result is that I plan and write very nuanced and expansive adventures. There are so many paths and what ifs built in for the PCs to explore. I enjoy this, but sometimes I do wish for something a little simpler. An adventure that perhaps last a session or two instead of taking many to complete. I feel like maybe I'm missing the chance to explore some of these pulpy episodic experiences?

I'll keep it short here and open it up to commentary. I'll provide y'all with a few questions below for the discussion;

What is your take on adventure writing? Do you make expansive plots, or are your adventures simpler to complete and move on?
Do you go with predetermined events? If so, how do you make them enjoyable and get buy in from your PCs for the temporary suspension of agency?
Are these literary trope explorations better suited for one shot style adventure? If not, how do you weave in and out of these events during play?

I'll put in predetermined plot elements, but in full awareness that they might (as in almost certainly will!) not come off as I originally had in mind.

For example, if my idea is for a bad-guy encounter where the bad guy escapes (or better yet, captures a PC and escapes!) I'll be fully ready for the PCs to come up with some way of preventing the escape - usually involving killing the bad guy far more easily (or luckily) than I thought possible.

Predetermined events such as a shipwreck I'll use sometimes, and tend to be much more "reliable". If it happens as an organic part of the normal course of events, even better. But if the PCs decide not to get on said ship in the first place then so be it, I ain't gonna force them.

As for buy-in, the players generally know that sometimes they'll drive events and other times events will drive them; it's rare anyone ever has an issue with this unless the resulting adventure itself turns out to be crap (which has happened now and then).

 

[aramis erak]

What is your take on adventure writing? Do you make expansive plots, or are your adventures simpler to complete and move on?
Do you go with predetermined events? If so, how do you make them enjoyable and get buy in from your PCs for the temporary suspension of agency?
Are these literary trope explorations better suited for one shot style adventure? If not, how do you weave in and out of these events during play?

My modes for adventure writing are generally prepped encounters that are not entirely dependent upon the prior ones, and often, don't have fixed sequence. Not quite sandbox, but more "railroad switching yard" than "railroad".

 

[James Gasik]

To paraphrase, "No carefully planned out adventure ever survives contact with the player characters". I find it's better to set long-term goals and try to nudge players towards them. If you're too obvious, they feel railroaded. If you're not obvious enough, they stare at you going "duh, what do we do?"

If you plan out something in detail, they will ask the questions you didn't, and find ways to circumvent your challenges. If you think they will come up with a clever plan, their strategic brains will dribble out their ears, and they'll get close to a TPK.

Players are unpredictable, but a living world should be to an extent as well. Always remember, no matter what you want to do, Chaos will make you her b-.

This isn't to say you can't have plans or goals, but you need to be like Emperor Palpatine- Dark Lord of the Plan B!

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I prefer an emergent game with no scripting - I.e. we make it up as we go along.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I have general chains of events, but learned years ago having a single point of failure is--really bad.

Always have a drop-back situation, and try really hard not to make it look like "What you just did doesn't matter."

(Alternatively, you can keep some potential failure states just out of reach--events happening too far for the PCs to reach them in time, even if they realize it'd be useful).