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Respect Mah Authoritah: Thoughts on DM and Player Authority in 5e
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8431521" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I think Bastion of Broken Souls - a high level 3E D&D adventure - has a terrific backstory and situation that the module itself wrecks with an incredibly railroady presentation.</p><p></p><p>Eg, there are compelling NPCs - a banished god; an angel who is the living key to the banished god's prison (ie she <em>has to be killed in order </em>to unlock the prison); but the module explains why - for inane backstory reasons - these NPCs must be fought for the PCs (and thus the players) to get what they want.</p><p></p><p>There's also more standard stuff like suggestions for how to make sure everything stays on track if a key NPC is killed (by brining in second-string NPCs to play the same story function).</p><p></p><p>When I used this module I just ignored all that railroad-y nonsense. One of the players in our group had his PC make an impassioned speech that persuaded the angel-gate to let him kill her (we were playing Rolemaster at that time, and this was an influence check at the highest level of difficulty the system allows). And the PCs befriended the banished god, indeed allied with him, and this turned out to be key to resolving the problem posed by the module set-up. (I completely ignored the second-half of the module which is a bog-standard 3E-era dungeon crawl.)</p><p></p><p>This contrasts markedly with a module that establishes a situation but is open-ended in its own presentation. Like The Crimson Bull (which I think [USER=7026594]@Mannahnin[/USER] is conflating with A Prodigal Son In Chains - the latter is the railroady Prince Valiant scenario that contrast with the Crimson Bull as an incredibly deftly executed, slow-but-effective framing over multiple "scenes" but with none of them forcing the stakes of the situation until its climax). Or, in my view, Maiden Voyage. Or another Penumbra module, which I've not run but which is also comparable in having a complex framing for a climactic resolution: Three Days to Kill.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8431521, member: 42582"] I think Bastion of Broken Souls - a high level 3E D&D adventure - has a terrific backstory and situation that the module itself wrecks with an incredibly railroady presentation. Eg, there are compelling NPCs - a banished god; an angel who is the living key to the banished god's prison (ie she [I]has to be killed in order [/I]to unlock the prison); but the module explains why - for inane backstory reasons - these NPCs must be fought for the PCs (and thus the players) to get what they want. There's also more standard stuff like suggestions for how to make sure everything stays on track if a key NPC is killed (by brining in second-string NPCs to play the same story function). When I used this module I just ignored all that railroad-y nonsense. One of the players in our group had his PC make an impassioned speech that persuaded the angel-gate to let him kill her (we were playing Rolemaster at that time, and this was an influence check at the highest level of difficulty the system allows). And the PCs befriended the banished god, indeed allied with him, and this turned out to be key to resolving the problem posed by the module set-up. (I completely ignored the second-half of the module which is a bog-standard 3E-era dungeon crawl.) This contrasts markedly with a module that establishes a situation but is open-ended in its own presentation. Like The Crimson Bull (which I think [USER=7026594]@Mannahnin[/USER] is conflating with A Prodigal Son In Chains - the latter is the railroady Prince Valiant scenario that contrast with the Crimson Bull as an incredibly deftly executed, slow-but-effective framing over multiple "scenes" but with none of them forcing the stakes of the situation until its climax). Or, in my view, Maiden Voyage. Or another Penumbra module, which I've not run but which is also comparable in having a complex framing for a climactic resolution: Three Days to Kill. [/QUOTE]
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