So, whos game is it anyway?

[DragonLancer]

I do think though that as DM you should think through what you know of the PC's and how they act, so you can try and plot actions in advance.

Its not a good idea to ignore the PC's when plotting future events even if that means writing down how you expect them to react to a given encounter/plot.

 

[Storminator]

The trick? Plan in detail what the bad guys do, and NOT what the good guys do. Then let the PCs thwart your bad guys, who change their plans to adapt.

If you try to script the actions and plans of the heroes, you might as well not even bother.

I always thought the point of D&D was for me (as DM) to come up with a cool and intricate plotline, then watch the players trash it.

Isn't that the whole story of Temple of Elemental Evil? Bad guys have huge nefarious plot, good guys come in and ruin everything.

It's only a problem if your plot requires certain actions from the players (you won't get them...) or if your plot continues on despite the players best attempts to derail it.

PS

 

[Dimwhit]

It depends on exactly how detailed your pre-thought-out plot is. Mapping out key encounters, major NPCs, campaign themes, and the occasional cool scene in advance is not only fine, but is often the key to a memorable campaign. It's when you railroad the players by predetermining outcomes or accepting only one solution to a given situation, or when you have their characters (the true protagonists of the story) upstaged by your pet NPCs, that players become dissatisfied. The trick is to give the players the illusion of free will while letting their characters have the spotlight--get to know both the players and their characters, and use their own tendencies and desires to subtly lead them down the path you have planned (although they will generally do so in a meandering fashion, with the frequent side-trip off the path).

The responsibility for cooperation and compromise in creating a fun campaign goes both ways, by the way. Players have just as much obligation to work with the DM and generally follow the campaign outline set up by the DM, and not deliberately torpedo all of his hard work by running off in a direction they know that he is completely unprepared for. Too many players forget that the DM also deserves a share in the fun and campaign direction that is at least equal to their own.

What he said.

 

[swrushing]

I wrap my campaigns around the characters I am given. While my plots and stories have general definitions and directions, they also all come with generic hooks i can use to TIE THEM TO THE PCs, not the other way round.

The PCs are the stars and almost everything is done to highlight and spotlight the PCs.

As just one example, from pre-game discussions, it sounds like two of my four stargate players will be playing medics while a third will be playing an alien healer. hearing this, i began thinking of having this team not be your "typical exploration team" and instead be a medical team or search and rescue.

That will significantly alter the majority of the missions and move in many more "you are going in after another team..." style missions instead of the usual "see what's there..." walkabouts.

My basic response was... cool.

Now the new challenge is, after chargen gets further along, to get the secondary skills so I have things to differentiate our two medics. I think one is going to be more the doctor type with science skills and such and the other is more your pararescue medic trauma guy... so thats easy enough to spotlight the advantages and differentiate them.

when i run games, my goal is almost totally to make tem happy and spotlight them. All the serious work goes into that. if thats not something i will enjoy, I dont run that game.

 

[ciaran00]

It's possible, but it's a great deal of effort and a single off session can ruin everything.

In my opinion, you're better off avoiding trying to map things in advance. It didn't work for me when I tried it, and the players didn't have much fun.

Maybe write a book instead?

No kidding, man. That lich we stole Orichalchum from was WAAAAAAY too informed about our whereabouts. Screw that guy dead

ciaran

 

[ciaran00]

upstaged by your pet NPCs, that players become dissatisfied.

Equinamity of rules is always important. What's good for the DM should also be good for the players. If you have an elven bladesinger wielding two longswords chucking spells left and right, the players should also have the ability to do the same. This doesn't mean that they get to argue for having dracolich characters when they run into one... but if the dracolich is B.S.ing in some way, the players ought to be able to as well (DM's that say they can't are traditionally called "Cheater DMs").

My players know that since my NPCs are often not nice people, I want to punish them. Because they're all equally expendable (no matter how cool they are), the ph33r factor is significant. (Ie: I'm not very predictable. The DM that's "into" NPC-saving IS predictable)

ciaran

 

[Dave Turner]

The solution to your dilemma is to embrace the "No Myth" style of DMing. I first stumbled across it at The Forge a few months ago and it's really the way to go. I'll try to sum it up here.

The idea is that the world is empty until your PCs actually interact with it. Maybe "empty" isn't the right word. "Undetermined" is a better word, like in quantum physics. This doesn't mean that the entire campaign is free-form, although it's close. What it means is that you shouldn't sweat-out exact details regarding your new campaign. The broad outline is fine. Once you have that broad outline, start creating "slices". These are individual and unconnected game elements, like NPCs, locations, treasures, and so on. Make them all relevant to your broad outline and ideas, but don't link them up with each other.

When you get down to playing, you simply incorporate these slices into play as you go along? Need an innkeeper? Well, you've got this gruff, ex-adventurer NPC (cliche, I know) that you could use. Suddenly, this particular NPC is the innkeeper. Need to know what's in the treasure horde? Pick a couple of treasure slices and they're suddenly there. The trick is that the PCs will never see the action "behind the curtain". They have no way of knowing that you didn't have the treasure horde mapped out in advance.

What is the advantage in this system? You can tailor the campaign to your players. They can accept the broad premise of your campaign but pursue their own path. You don't have to sweat the path they take, since you're just placing interesting obstacles and twists on the path they choose. This level of player control over the course of the campaign will draw them in regardless of the fact that the broad strokes have already been painted by you.

I've probably mutilated the spirit of the No Myth approach due to my brevity. You can go to the Actual Play forum on The Forge and search for "No Myth" for a better explanation. Better yet, I can email you my condensed version of the information that I cut-and-pasted from when the discussion occurred.

 

[Arnwyn]

Or, rather, how much responsiblitity do I have to DM a game that my players want to play, vs DMing the game I'd like to run?

I'll answer this part first. This is the simplest (yet most accurate) answer: it depends on you and your group. There, that was a lot of help, no?

For me as DM, I will put all my effort into DMing the type of game I'd like to run. I'm the DM, I put hundreds of times more work in than my players, and I don't DM this game for my health - I play this game to, uh... have fun (which, I suppose, could improve my health - but that's neither here nor there). There are just certain types of games that I wouldn't have fun DMing, and therefore I won't DM them.

Now, this runs the possibility that players won't want to play, because they have a different type of game in mind that I'm not interested in. They want to play an all-evil character game? Forget it. All wizards who want to pillage dungeons? Go away. Anthropomorphic races? Not on my watch. Etc. A possible result? No game at all for me.

And you know what? I'm okay with that. I play this game to have fun, and if I'm not having fun, then there's obviously no point in playing.

(Now, the neat part is that my players like the same things that I do, and we've played quite happily for more than a decade - so everything I typed above is simply academic for me and my particular group.)

I'm wondering what everyone else's expierence with games built around specific situations is. Is it possible to make a game with a pre-thought out plot and events that isn't horrible?

Absolutely. However, I think Joshua Dyal's post above is good stuff, so I'll just put down: "what JD said". Oh, and same with Piratecat's post. I do those things, and it's been working fine for years.

 

[eris404]

I'm wondering what everyone else's expierence with games built around specific situations is. Is it possible to make a game with a pre-thought out plot and events that isn't horrible?

Every game I have played in the DM did have a "big story behind it all. " However, there was always enough room for the characters to go do what they wanted to do or to fit in little side plots, especially when it was based on a character's background and/or personal goals. The best DMs were able to put in tantalizing little clues in the "side quests" that tied back into the major storyline in some way. Did they railroad us players by doing this? I didn't feel like they did and the story was usually so interesting that we couldn't resist investigating it anyway.

When I run a game, I do have an overall story, but I create three or four threads (plot points or side quests, locations, NPCs, etc.) and let the characters investigate them as they want. If they go in a different direction then I have planned, I either make something up on the spot (and take good notes so that I can keep track of what happened) or use a stall tactic until the next session so that I can plan something in the direction they are taking. Books like En Route are good for this. Most of the time, the players wrote the story without even realizing it. They would discuss among themselves what they thought the Big Bad was up to and usually would come up with something much worse than I had planned and so I would simply go with their idea(s).

In Dragon magazine about a year back or so there was an article about planning a campaign like a TV show, such as The X Files or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both of those shows had a "big story" and rich mythology, but not every episode was a "mythology" episode. Those were spaced out in between "one shot" episodes that were more or less "monster of the week" type episodes. I like this style of campaign, because although it's structured, it gives the players room to do other things besides chase the big bad evil behind it all, whether it's time to make that special staff or to investigate that tomb they passed two weeks ago. It takes a little more planning in some ways, but it makes for a great game.

So I don't think what you're proposing is a bad idea at all as long as you are open to the wishes of the players.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Sometimes you have an idea for a campaign, and sometimes you have an idea for a story. They're different things.

I played an online game where the DM was basing the adventure off of a TV show or movie or something he had seen. Problem is, none of the rest of us had seen it so we didn't know what our characters were "supposed" to do. He got mad whenever we deviated from the plot or when our characters did something he thought they "wouldn't" do. We never got far in that game, out of sheer lack of interest. I'm sure the TV show was good, though.