Story Designing and GM Authority Help

[Barastrondo]

One more thing. How do you manage to keep up with all those mechanic challenges. I am now struggling to learn optimizing my encounters and it is a hell of a task to create a challenging battle (for a high level PCs) or a skill challenge.

This is where inspiration is doubly important. From what I've seen, the best GMs for Pathfinder or D&D 3.0/3.5 are those who are inspired by the system -- who enjoy spending time on enemy-crafting and group composition. If that's as much fun as world-building or whatever else you enjoy best, you're golden. But if you don't enjoy the process as much, that'll drag your enthusiasm down. It's a noble thing to run a game your players are all excited about, but if you don't get excited to rummage around in its guts, be aware that can affect campaign longevity as well.

When I was running 3.5, I admit I never went all the way up to 15th level, but what I would do was create reusable stat blocks. Put most things except bosses and on 3x5" index cards, and reused them. This made it easier for me to "deal" out encounters as I went along; the up-front prep of putting a troll's stats on a card meant I saved a lot of prep every time I used a troll. It also meant that I was using simpler monsters overall; if it didn't fit on an index card, it was too complicated to use on a regular basis. I do it now that my game's shifted to 4e, and if anything it works even better than before, since I can reskin the stat block on a card to be whatever I need with a couple of cosmetic changes. It makes ad-libbing very simple.

That said, that approach may not work for 15th level, as the escalation gets to the point of counter measures and counter-counter measures; anything that fit in 3x5" may not have what it takes to challenge the party. One thought is that you can prepare some combat encounters that are outside of the character's normal reach as "default challenges" -- say, an encounter that'd make a 17th-level party work for victory. This might encourage the players to pick and choose their combats when they can, and spend a greater portion of play time out of combat plotting. Big complicated fights are less of a problem if the players need only one every session or two, and spend their time on lesser challenges, planning and roleplay the rest of the time.

 

[Umbran]

One more thing. How do you manage to keep up with all those mechanic challenges. I am now struggling to learn optimizing my encounters and it is a hell of a task to create a challenging battle (for a high level PCs) or a skill challenge.

PCs have very limited resources, and so have to play the optimization game if they want to have maximum effectiveness.

GMs don't have limited resources. You can spend the time taking a level X monster or NPC and optimizing it so they are challenging. Or, you can just start with a monster that's higher than X in the first place, so that you don't need to worry about the details so much.

I mean, you can start with an orc, and optimize, or you can start with an ogre, and not worry so much about the details.

 

[billd91]

Thanks for all your advice

I choose the good guy aproach and tried to think positive about the campaign and the game despite all the things I would dislike in an evil, power hungry setting like this.

Personally I am more of a "If you can play someone better than you are in reality why would you want to play someone who is worse?" type of roleplayer so its hard for me to understand why the dark side is so seductive but I understood the players wishes and mingled with the setting, as much as I could, to my liking.

The reply was very very astonishing. It seems that the players were thinking very hard about the concept they have given me and agreed with my ominous thoughts about the story and design flaws in their idea that lead them to a conclusion where they agreed on a self-discovery adventure, which I really like.

Unfortunatly the issue about them giving me demands on what they want to see still looms over the game. If the problem escalates, I will try to make them GM instead.

Once again thank you very much

Sounds like things are working themselves out. Congratulations on that.

One thing everyone has to keep in mind is that, ideally, all RPG campaigns are negotiated between the GM and the players. A GM can say, "This is what I want to run," but players can say "Nah, I don't wanna play that." Similarly, players can say, "I'd like to play in this setting with these rules," but a GM can say, "Nah, I'm not comfortable running that." And in the course of things, you eventually settle on something both groups can accept. That can be easy depending on how easy-going one group or the other is, or hard.

It sounds like this time, the player group was less easy-going, more insistent, when before they were more interested in following your lead. That may mean that they've been harboring something akin to this desire for some time - to play a high level campaign with political stakes (or domination) on the line.

I would suggest you bring them into some of the setting creation right away, particularly if you're interested in having them GM. Have them flesh out some of the power groupings - guilds, high society clubs, secret societies, etc that they might want to interact with (or have to interact with) in the course of the campaign. Have them write it up with some info on principal NPCs without specifying specific game mechanics (levels, stats, etc) other than in general terms (high level wizard, bard of reknown, retired fighter once known for his prodigious strength). That will be a public resource for the campaign for everyone to know the basics about. But whoever is the GM will run them independently based on the descriptions. That gets everyone involved and invested, takes some work off you, and provides a resource for anyone else to take over as GM. If they want input into the campaign - give it to them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

PCs have very limited resources, and so have to play the optimization game if they want to have maximum effectiveness.

GMs don't have limited resources. You can spend the time taking a level X monster or NPC and optimizing it so they are challenging. Or, you can just start with a monster that's higher than X in the first place, so that you don't need to worry about the details so much.

I mean, you can start with an orc, and optimize, or you can start with an ogre, and not worry so much about the details.

Optimization does produce a unique challenge for GMs. I can't speak for a 4E game but when I was running 3E I had a group that liked to optimize (so I basically went with it since it was their prefered style). But once you have real optimization going on, things like challenge rating are almost meaningless. But like you said, the GM can optimize his monsters and NPCs to make them challenging as well.

 

[hopeless]

Okay

Untill now I enjoyed playing the games I prepared but now players demand from me to designe the story to their liking or there will be no game at all. This demands feature things like: setting the starting power level, choosing the setting, designing their own equipment without me butting in and simmilar.

In conclusion I was made to designe a story for Pathfinder set in the Faerun's Dragon Coast about a 15th level party set on ruling the city with a potent guild of assasins.

When I asked them why are they doing this, they said it was because this way they will get the most of what they want to have rather than waiting for the occasion to earn it which may never come.

Please, give me some advice on how should I aproach them and somehow mend this situation. I don't want to lose this gaming group as this one was my first durring my career as a GM.

First off what characters are they planning on playing?
It sounds like they have definite ideas and this should be the first part they should reveal before you develop the game they're looking to play in,

Secondly what equipment are they asking for, please note I did say ask since there should be a well defined limit on what they can make use of.

In a 3rd level game I was involved with a few years ago we started off with 3rd level characters and the best my half elven ranger had was some masterwork weapons and perhaps a potion or two I'll need to check on up on that old character (Thank you Paizo.com have lost more than a couple of things when my computer went belly up or had a dvd or memory stick end up reformatting for some reason!).

Anyway if it was up to me I'd have them include some npc levels perhaps a couple of player character aristocrats to explain "why" they're in charge of the city if they were just heads of an assassins' guild then they would have to explain what position they hold and why whether it was due to inheriting from their predecessor or some other character background story.

Now my viewpoint would be find out what characters they want but point out at least 2 of those 15 level characters must be devoted to an npc class to explain their background.

In addition to why they're running the city with access to their own assassin's guild they'd need someone in the clergy, someone in the wizard's guild and so on how many players would this involve by the way?

Hmm I'd also want a legitimate reason for their presence there, it has to be more than a simple lets play evil characters, for example how about one player is a member of a former noble family whose line was all but wiped out by a group of the other nobles who saw them as a threat to their rule and loe and behold the player is running a character in disguise seeking revenge by turning the families against each other and is aided by the rest of the party who assume control of the city but its hold is far from complete!

So did they give you any background story on their characters?

Sorry ended up posting more questions than advice!
Hope that helps

 

[Gilladian]

Thanks for all your advice

One more thing. How do you manage to keep up with all those mechanic challenges. I am now struggling to learn optimizing my encounters and it is a hell of a task to create a challenging battle (for a high level PCs) or a skill challenge.

THIS is why the PCs dictating to the DM is a bad idea. I HATE running high level games. I just won't do it. I run E6. Nobody advances beyond 6th level; well, they gain feats after that. I can keep up with that!

I love 3.5 edition at lower levels, but above about 8th or 10th level it becomes totally unmanageable. If my players TOLD me I was going to run them a game like that, I'd just say NO. I would NOT be as nice as you've been!

You'll spend about 2 hours working up encounters for every hour you play, in my experience. It just isn't worth it!

 

[Hussar]

Yeah just to chime in here at the tail end, but, that's a pretty damn tall order they're making on you. Designing for that high of level 3e/Pathfinder D&D is a LOT of work. And, since the game is starting at such a high level, it's not likely going to last all that long unless you guys are interested in Epic level play.

I wonder if they'd be willing to compromise and drop it down to say, 7th level and start from there. The PC's are still pretty bad ass, but the workload for the DM drops a whole lot.

 

[DragonLancer]

My response to said players would be that I'd happily run a game where they were the lords and highups of a city or kingdom, but how it was run and with what constraints would be my decision as DM.

I don't hold to this idea that players should have the power to dictate how the game goes. By all means discussion between you all what sort of campaign and what system you want to use but it sounds to me like the players are taking the micky.

 

[hopeless]

Okay what would you do?

My response to said players would be that I'd happily run a game where they were the lords and highups of a city or kingdom, but how it was run and with what constraints would be my decision as DM.

I don't hold to this idea that players should have the power to dictate how the game goes. By all means discussion between you all what sort of campaign and what system you want to use but it sounds to me like the players are taking the micky.

Interesting let's assume that you were planning such a game how would you handle it?

What level limit would you impose?

Would you have them use npc character levels at all say if it was to explain why they were where they are?

What magical equipment would you tolerate?

Say they could have a suit of magical armour say no more than +3-+4 in total, perhaps a magical shield if they can use it, one or more magical weapons, would you use the limitations present in the pathfinder core rules or have your own method of what would be allowed?

Most importantly if you had to devise a storyline for this setting how would you start?

For example the PCs are the secret heads of various orders in the city, as said previously one is a cleric, one a wizard, one a rogue and one a fighter controlling the respective orders their control is limited since there is obviously noble families present they cannot completely control nor wipe them out since they would unite to fight them and that would be catastrophic to their plans therefore they plan carefully using their assassins' to pit each noble family against each other however there are other factors involved say an ancient lich has awakened and is seeking to resume control over the city and they find themselves to be the only ones who can fight it but whilst doing this they need outside help to complete this task perhaps even have them decide this is a better path than dominating the city since obviously whoever is in charge will ultimately be the first one slain when the next would be conqueror comes along or perhaps they try to ally with the lich well how would you handle it?

 

[Mallus]

As an inveterate homebrew setting-creator and longtime DM, I don't give one whit about my "authority", or how much of it, if any, I cede to my group w/r/t/ the campaign's premise.

If I want to run a particular campaign, I'll pitch it to my players. If I don't have a specific game in mind, I'm more than happy to let them define the parameters. If it sounds interesting, if it sounds like I could make a game of it, off we go.

Do I want to run the campaign? That's the only question worth asking.

(and for the record, I'd give the campaign outlined by the OP a shot... sounds like fun... though I bit high-level for my tastes/ability to run)