[POLL] What style of game do you prefer? (please respond!)

[shadow]

I know that this question has been done to death, but since I'm planning on writing adventures, I need some data on what style of game is prefered. Since ENworld has such a large number of members, I figure I can get a good number of diverse responses here.

Do you like hack n' slash dungeon crawls with little emphasis on role-playing, or do you prefer deep immersion role-playing with little dice-rolling and fighting? Why do you prefer the style you do? ( Please no replies like "Hack n' slash is immature" or "Deep immersion role-playing is for White Wolf goths".)

As for me I prefer more straight forward dungeon-crawl adventures, although I do enjoy role-playing interesting characters. This is because unless you have a really good DM and a group of equally talented and dedicated players, it's hard to do a serious deep immersion story session. Furthermore in a lot of heavy role-playing campaigns, the most talkative and charismatic people tend to dominate the game (since the focus is on speaking and acting) leaving the more quiet and shy players in the background. Hence, a lot more care must be taken in such games to ensure that every player gets his/her moment.

No flames please, and not pejurative words such as "munchkin" or "Drama Queen". I'm just interested in the opinions of the gamer population.

 

[Renaissance Man]

When you say that you are planning to write adventures, do you mean for publication? The reason that I ask is that IMO, the role-playing aspect is quite difficult to capture/present - the hack'n'slash is very straight-forward, and much easier to convey. More to the point, those products that do emphasize the role-playing aspect of RPG's are oftentimes not to my tastes... I'll be curious to see how you tackle it.

BTW, I voted for a 50/50 split. Moderation in all things.

 

[Lalato]

I agree. 50/50 is definitely where it's at. That's not to say that I can't enjoy a deep immersion game. .. or a straight up hack & slash affair.

I think it really depends on the DM and the players. An experienced storytelling DM can take you on a deep immersion escapade without you even noticing. It's easier to play hack & slash when the DM is inexperienced or doesn't enjoy the storytelling aspects of the game.

Deep immersion to me seems like less of a game, and more of an improvisational session... whereas the hack & slash seems like more of a game. The important thing to remember is that neither way is wrong.

As far as writing adventures... I think that if you take the middle path, you can't go wrong here. A Hack & Slash DM will ignore some of the roleplaying aspects, and a Deep Immersion DM will ignore some of the combat encounters. Most DMs modify adventures to fit their needs anyway. It's a win-win... as long as the overall story is good. That's the hard part.

--sam

 

[megamania]

Mix it up.

 

[Al]

There is a major problem with using ENWorld as a survey sample for writing adventures, assuming that these are adventures are for mass publication.

ENWorlders are not typical of the average gaming community. They tend to be more 'hardcore' than most of the average gamers, and, from what I know, slightly older. I would probably argue that ENWorlders will tend towards roleplay more than hack n slash, due to the fact that the average casual gamer will have a greater propensity for hack n slash than the more experienced, more longterm and more involved gamer. Just a thought.

No flames please.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I would probably argue that ENWorlders will tend towards roleplay more than hack n slash, due to the fact that the average casual gamer will have a greater propensity for hack n slash than the more experienced, more longterm and more involved gamer. Just a thought.

Though the poll seems to say something entirely different.

Myself, I prefer a mix of the two. Role-playing is good, but I like to roll dice and throw my character into combat as well. I wouldn't want to play in a game where there wasn't any combat, any more than I'd want to play in a game that was only combat.

 

[Leopold]

the crawl man..it's all about going down into the earth and coming out...alive...

 

[Drawmack]

I voted for a 50/50 mix. The reason being is that every adventure should have either a mondo super cinematic encounter that takes hours to play out or a kick as dungeon crawl. However for the sake of realism you need to get to that encounter or dungeon reasonably. Generally here is how I design an adventure. I concieve of either the climactic battle of the dungeon. Then I take the major NPC/Group from that encounter/dungeon and give them an adventure hook. I usually lay four to six of these in front of my players at a time and they decide where to go then I fill in the details once they are following a path. Though I might be a bit more on the role-play side as somethings happen around the PCs and they decided wether or not to get involved.

****SPOILERS MY PLAYERS STOP READING THIS POST NOW***

We play in Freeport which has a news paper. So this past session we did a month of game time with each player doing about a 45 minute synopsis with me. Then we ran a mini adventure. Part of this was them being handed some excerpts from the news paper with about 10 adventure hooks in them. One was Jack the Ripper, a coupld have to do with some elections going on, one was at the local assylum, one was about an upcoming holiday. The PCs decided that the asylum sounded interesting so they wanted to investigate that one. Now I am making up this adventure, but the next time they get newspaper excerpts there will be another ripper murder and more on the elections in it and probably something on the asylum thing that they are on now.

***END SPOILERS***
So you say that you're doing this for pulication. I would say that you need to think about what company(ies) you wish to submit too then read some of their already published adventures and write your adventures in that style. I hate to say this but if you want a publisher to print your stuff you've got to write stuff they want to publish, not stuff your buddies from enworld want.

To be fair to the publishers they do generally put out good stuff and have good taste this is in no wat inteded as a backhanded jibe at the publishers it is simply a statement of my opinion. When you read something to decide if you want to publish it, it is your (or your teams) opinion of it that matters and not other peoples.

 

[smetzger]

I said an even mix, but I really don't know what that means.

 

[GnomeWorks]

There must be a storyline to a game. There doesn't really have to be a background, but there has to be a reason that the party is doing what it is doing, and how all of its members know each other (even if its the over-used "you meet in an inn" type of meeting). Even if its a dungeon-crawl, there should be a reason that the dungeon-crawl is happening in the first place.

Combat scenes should be spread out, unless there is a specific reason that there should be several smashed together. The combats should be tied to RPing events and not static - random encounters should be used sparingly, if ever. If an event that a combat is tied to doesn't come to pass, then neither should the combat.

A smart DM should take advantage of player backgrounds. If at all possible, integrate a player's bg into the campaign - for instance, in the Psionicle, I have three character's backgrounds all intertwined together to form one of the main villains. This sort of thing is hard to do with a pre-written module, but perhaps providing sidebars for how to integrate a certain NPC into the game via a character's background would be a good idea.