Player Complaints About Pre-Gens

[delericho]

Well, I don't speak for everyone, but in my case, it is. I quickly developed a good background and personality for the halfling thief.

I'm inclined to think that you're experienced enough to ignore whatever background is on the character sheet if you see fit. For an inexperienced player, though, I think it really should be there. I'm of the opinion that new players should be introduced to both the "role-playing" and the "game" parts of RPGs.

The thing is, as an experienced player you know that characters should have personalities, histories, and so forth, to give them a bit more depth than the characters in Clue. A new player doesn't have that, so the character sheets have to provide that information or it's likely to be missed. That the characters (can) actually have some depth to them is a fairly unique feature of pen-and-paper RPGs, after all.

(Of course, this would rely on the DM being aware enough to say "feel free to ignore the suggested background" when giving you the character sheets, which is not guaranteed - otherwise you might assume the background is intricately tied to the adventure and should be adhered to.)

 

[D'karr]

the biggest problem seems to be that the adventure itself was not engineered to account for the characters abilities (and inabilities).

I can understand that to a point, but should it? Should every adventure account for a characters inabilities?

I think the player should account for the characters inabilities and plan accordingly.

The characters as designed were not even really effective in their niche field. I think that is what causes most of the complaints. The Senior GM for this event provided alternate characters at the same level that were effective in their "schtick".

BTW, I ran this adventure, we had lots of fun. I even made some adjudication calls that would have been anathema in the RAW world but they all enhanced the player experience. For example after the cleric and wizard were stuck on the web with hardly a chance to escape the wizard asked if he could use "scorching ray" to "burn" a path through the web. This is obviously not covered by the RAW, but I gave him a 20% chance of it working that way. He tried it and failed. He was disappointed that it failed but actually excited by the fact that I even considered the alternate function.

Sometimes you just have to roll with the punches.

 

[Psion]

Did you have access to the materials in advance?

I had no idea I was even going to be running in advance. I showed up and was recruited.

That said, had a player asked to have swapped out a feat or something else comparably simple that could have been done quickly, I likely would have allowed it.

 

[delericho]

I can understand that to a point, but should it? Should every adventure account for a characters inabilities?

No. But a pregenerated adventure using pregenerated characters intended in large part to introduce new people to D&D absolutely should. In short, this adventure should have.

That said, the problem here was not with the adventure, it was to do with the characters. The characters should have been generated with reference to the adventure, to ensure that they were up to the challenge. (In particular, giving the Rogue a +8 Search modifier in an adventure with no locks, no secret doors, and in which the only trap has a Search DC of 30 was really bad.)

Further, while the pregenerated characters don't need to be super-optimised, they do need to be designed to be reasonably good at the basic functions of their respective classes. To do otherwise is just dumb.

I think the player should account for the characters inabilities and plan accordingly.

Normally, yes. But when producing an adventure and characters intended for use with new players, that's a bad assumption to make.

 

[D'karr]

No. But a pregenerated adventure using pregenerated characters intended in large part to introduce new people to D&D absolutely should. In short, this adventure should have.

I ran the adventure. The characters were not provided with the adventure. So for all intents this adventure might not have been built with any specific characters in mind.

I agree with you that a D&D Gameday Adventure SHOULD be more "organized" to highlight the strenghts of D&D.

I haven't seen that from WotC with any of their adventures for Gameday.

Normally, yes. But when producing an adventure and characters intended for use with new players, that's a bad assumption to make.

If the adventure is really geared for new players, then I'd say that making it a 4th level adventure is a mistake to begin with. That being said I don't see how this adventure failed to do what it was meant to do; "entertain" players for several hours.

The adventure itself could have been run with any group of 6 4th level characters.

 

[delericho]

I ran the adventure. The characters were not provided with the adventure. So for all intents this adventure might not have been built with any specific characters in mind.

Agreed. Sadly, it looks like the PCs weren't built with this adventure in mind, which was a mistake.

Ideally, though, they would be built together, or perhaps the PCs just after the adventure is designed. Design for a one-shot is a rather different challenge than design for a campaign or undefined usage, and someone at Wizards seems to have forgotten that.

I haven't seen that from WotC with any of their adventures for Gameday.

Several of us (and also Orcus from Necromancer Games) have said that we're going to do our own adventure(s) for Gameday next year. There's a thread where we're discussing the elements that should go in to an adventure for this purpose; wider input would be appreciated.

If the adventure is really geared for new players, then I'd say that making it a 4th level adventure is a mistake to begin with.

Actually, 4th level is a really good level to go for with new players (although 3rd or 5th might have been better). At that level, characters can be competent at their chosen professions, and are not so fragile that one attack takes them out of the game* (usually). However, they also haven't hit any of the complexities that come at higher level, such as 3-dimensional movement (the Fly spell), Dispel effects, or Iterative attacks.

* This is actually a really big advantage, since it also means that the DM doesn't have to feel the need to 'play nice' to keep a player in the game. It would really suck to be a brand new player who lost his character from the first attack in the first round of combat, which is a real danger at 1st level and less so later. But it's also generally a bad thing for them to see DMs fudging to keep them alive so early on. Better to just avoid the situation entirely by giving that first character some built-in sticking power.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

August 9th, 2005, The "Incentive to play a kobold thread" is posted. Pun-Pun goes on-line August 28th, 2005. Human decisions are removed from character optimization. Pun-Pun begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

ROFLMAO

 

[Hawkshere]

I used to be part of a con tourney DM team that ran large AD&D open tournaments for several years at local conventions in the 90's--we always spent a lot of time on the pregens. We wanted them fairly buff, and closely matched to the challenges in the adventure. We also went pretty high level for the tourneys (high in those days being 9-12 level). If you were only going to play this character once for 4 hours (assuming you didn't advance, of course), then at least you got the fun of driving a 'ferrari' character while it lasted.

 

[Mark CMG]

I had no idea I was even going to be running in advance. I showed up and was recruited.

Sounds like there was more interest in the event than the location expected. Good thing you happened to be available for them.

That said, had a player asked to have swapped out a feat or something else comparably simple that could have been done quickly, I likely would have allowed it.

Certainly nothing wrong with that. A quick fix and right into the action keeps everyone rolling and happy, IMO.