Players: status quo or tailored?

[Virel]

The ooze speaks the truth.

Indeed that is true. A DM with a long running campaign will see players come and go as real life intervines. The campaign world may running for years. Mine is working on it's 17th year. The NPC's, creatures etc that are establish are not going to be undone to please a new group of players. The status quo of the past remains for the present adventures to adapt to. There are 25 "current" players currently involved in my long running Greyhawk/Celene Campaign.

Should they delve to deep in an area known to be very dangerious even for high level characters when they are low level or decide to go against a well established NPC, nothing is changed to accomidate them. The game is player directed but the world is not redefined to please any particular group of players - it's set up to please me the DM. Since over a hundred players have adventure in Greyhawk/Celene since 1980, I think it pleases players most of the time. Player actions can and do effect the world. Over time several dramatic changes have took place. For instance a tribe of lawful good orcs was established at the edge of the Celene border with the Queens approval thanks to the PC's. Wars have been started by PC's and avoid because of PC actions etc.

Drow are very well established as vile & evil without exception based on what's occured to date with Drow. I have a player who wants to run a Drow PC - which doesn't not fit with the setting in any manner. Should the PC's venture into the underdark - who knows what will happen, they might learn not all Drow are predisposed to evil. The player that wants a Drow PC very well may have the chance when he encounters Drow. I'm not about to give a him a Drow just because he wants one - he must earn the character, by showing he has the maturity in RPG to be allowed to player such a complex character.

IMO - The DM does not change the world to accomidate PC's - PC's must adventure and change the world to accomidate them.

YMMV

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Status Quo, the players are not the center of the game and should not be tailored to as such

The ooze speaks the truth.

No, I don't think he does.

The players should absolutely be the center of the game. If they aren't, then the DM is the center of the game - and we all know the hue and cry that shows up any time a DM inappropriately railroads, or has his uber-NPCs show up to Deus Ex Machina everything. And if this is the case, why are the players even there (and why are they playing D&D)?

Rather, I might believe Crothian to be correct if he had said, "The characters are not the center of the world (at least, not always)." I believe that it is an important distinction.

 

[Quasqueton]

Here is a paragraph from my D&D game web site:

The game revolves around the Players, but the campaign world does not revolve around the player characters. The world has existed before the PCs arrive on the scene, and plots major, minor, and unknown are always in motion whether the PCs take part in them or ignore them or miss them. The world in which the campaign takes place is a living, active place. I organize the campaign world to make sense within itself and I let the PCs loose in it. The world does not change or scale depending on the PCs' levels or power. Even when the PCs are first level, the world has liches, ancient dragons, and massive armies on the march. And when the PCs are twentieth level, there are still dire rats, goblins, and petty pickpockets in the world. Don't assume everything you meet or see or hear about is meant as a direct challenge/obstacle for your PC. Think and work in-character and everything will make sense and the game will be most fun.

Quasqueton

 

[Tom Cashel]

...the players are not the center of the game...

The world goes on whether I as a player gets involved or not.

Kind of a tangent, but statements like these strike me as so disingenuous. Yet I see them all the time.

As a thought-experiment for the DM, the ongoing milieu that persists with or without players is interesting.

But the most important facet of the game, the thing without which there would be no game, is real live people interacting to create a shared experience. The fact that the faces change is irrelevant.

Some seem to think the most important facet of the game is the imaginary chain of events created by the input of everyone involved. I just disagree completely with that.

***

On topic, I go for the mixed approach as both a player and a GM. Sure, the world is big and wide and stuff happens whether or not the players get involved, and sometimes the players get themselves in over their heads...but I'll also design some encounters with CR & EL in mind.

 

[ThirdWizard]

The game revolves around the Players, but the campaign world does not revolve around the player characters.

Agreed. If the PCs rush off to the Black Dragon occupied territories (element of my campaign) at level 6, they're in for a world of hurt. This is status quo. Many many status quo elements should exist in a campaign, and they definately do in mine.

However, the PCs rarely interact with these things. As Tom says:

As a thought-experiment for the DM, the ongoing milieu that persists with or without players is interesting.

In my mind, if the PCs arn't interacting with something, it's setting background. The myriad of Black Dragons is a status quo element of my campaign, but it also acts more as a plot device than anything else. The PCs fought their minions, Lizardfolk. When I created the Lizardfolk encounters for them to face, I definately took into account when creating encounters. I didn't just say "Well, there's probably a 10th level druid in charge of this group." It might make sense. The PCs would die, though.

Like I said before, I'm sure the status quo elements in campaigns are extremely important. I doubt there are status quo encounters in the ratios that people here claim. Actually, more precisely the appearance of the status quo is what is important. The element that things are happening around the PCs that give the world life. Verisimilitude brings the world to life.

Take the example above where the Dragon has minions who the PCs are going to fight. The question becomes, when the PCs go off to fight the lackies, what are their levels going to be? Are they going to be of a CR to give the players challenging encounters? Are we looking at an average of four encounters a day of equal EL to the party level with some variance, maybe a more poweful boss at the end with some lower level lackies?

If the answer is yes, then the way I look at it that means its tailored. Perhaps we have a differing oppinion about this?

 

[The Shaman]

The players should absolutely be the center of the game. If they aren't, then the DM is the center of the game - and we all know the hue and cry that shows up any time a DM inappropriately railroads, or has his uber-NPCs show up to Deus Ex Machina everything. And if this is the case, why are the players even there (and why are they playing D&D)?

Rather, I might believe Crothian to be correct if he had said, "The characters are not the center of the world (at least, not always)." I believe that it is an important distinction.

I was about to disagree with you on this, but I think I can just make out the hair you're splitting.

My game-worlds, regardless of genre, have NPCs (humanoids, monsters, outsiders) major and minor with goals and ambitions, good and evil alike, and their plans and schemes move forward without regard for the PCs until or unless the adventurers do something to interfere or alter them.

If that's what you mean by the charaters not being the center of the world, then I believe we're in agreement.

However, I don't think there is a causal link between powerful NPCs pursuing their goals and a heavy-handed GM forcing the PCs to dance like puppets. I think the latter happens more frequently in abundant-magic games where the GM creates NPCs that are beyond god-like in their omniscience (El*cough! cough!*minster). For my part, my powerful NPCs are so few and far between, and the world so vast, that there is little chance of the sort of "The Simbul teleports in to close the gate and banish the demons!" scenario that I think you're describing. It's a big world, and it takes some time before the adventurers become big enough fish to (1) be noticed by the powers-that-be and (2) be enough of a threat that the powers-that-be would act against them...in which case the PCs are probably of high-enough level that the challenges are commensurate with their abilities. (Even status quo worlds have a certain symmetry to them...)

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

If you ran a strictly status quo world, middling level PCs would spend a lot of time squashing low level challenges. If the PCs are heroic types they cannot easily turn down a task just because it is too easy. And how the heck would they know either way beforehand?

If your PCs run into EL appropriate challenges the majority of the time, it is because the DM is tailoring the world to have clusters of bizarrely predictable difficulty encounters and giving hints that will help the PC point themselves in the right direction. It is tailoring by another name.

It is only by the conventions of tailoring syle DMs that you even have BBEGs often enough for it to be a stereotype. There is no logical requirement even in the world of D&D that the head honcho be more dangerous in combat than any of his henchmen. This, too, is a type of tailoring. It is tailoring the structure of the challenges to rise in a manner that fits a dramatic story convention.

 

[Darkness]

Mostly status quo.

Low-level PCs are free* to challenge great wyrms if the please; high-level PCs will still meet orc raiders (level 1 warriors and such) if they are in an area where those can be encountered.

(*I'll certainly try to discourage them but if they insist...)

Further, my important NPCs aren't static. Many 'named' NPCs will gain more power over time, but often more slowly than the PCs, so most of them will become less and less of a threat* as time goes on. Though of course not as fast as if their levels were static - that's the point.
I set their rate of advancement well in advance, though - I don't simply advance them whenever I want. (Of course, campaign events might influence their advancement - if I decided a character would advance X levels over the next two years but the PCs imprison him for these two years, he's quite possibly not going to advance nearly as fast.)

(*Their personal threat will decrease, that is. Independent of their advancement in level, though, they also might have stronger or weaker forces of followers than they initially did, depending on campaign events.)

 

[Quasqueton]

There is no logical requirement even in the world of D&D that the head honcho be more dangerous in combat than any of his henchmen.

Isn't there a mechanical requirement, with a level-based system? I mean, the chieftan of an orc tribe is going to be the toughest, baddest orc of the tribe. The headmaster of the evil wizards' guild is going to be the most powerful mage of the lot. The leader of a thieves' guild isn't going to be a 2nd-level expert, right?

Quasqueton

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Isn't there a mechanical requirement, with a level-based system? I mean, the chieftan of an orc tribe is going to be the toughest, baddest orc of the tribe. The headmaster of the evil wizards' guild is going to be the most powerful mage of the lot. The leader of a thieves' guild isn't going to be a 2nd-level expert, right?

Surely they will typically be high level, but I do not see why they always have to be. And usually they will be badass. But not necessarily as measured by raw combat prowess, even if they so happen to be the highest level.

I can easily see the head of a wizard's guild having more Skill Focus feats than combat usable feats.

I can easily see a worn in tooth orc chieftain whose physical stats have gone far south, maintaining his grip on power by playing younger rivals against each other through intratribe politicking.

I can easily see a thieves' guild leader who could survive on politics, too. Stronger and more dangerous men work with him because he has a way with the local officials and keeps the cash flowing.

I can easily see a ruler whose brother has the real martial skill. Kill the brother in the forest or at the gatehouse, and the showdown at the throneroom becomes pure roleplaying.