Styles of Play

[DEFCON 1]

For me personally, I garner absolutely no enjoyment of world-building for the sake of world-building. To me... spending hours upon hours trying to come up with entire regions of "stuff" that end up never getting used is such a waste of time that I wouldn't DM D&D at all if I was forced to do so.

I'm much more a story-focused DM. I care about the player's experiences engaging with the area they are in and their personal place and stakes within it. Everything I put in front of them is for their benefit as characters. To me, "sandboxes" are pointless. That's creating a whole crapton of areas that are completely worthless to the game if the players gain nothing from engaging with it (either because the areas are too low-level to be uninspiring cakewalks or so high-level that they are guaranteed to be TPKs).

If there are areas on a map the PCs have... I guarantee that those areas will level up with the PCs so if/when they decide to go there at some point down the line, the area will still be of use to them. Now I'm not saying these areas and the encounters within will all be balanced equally to each other and the party-- some encounters will be easier for the party as constructed and leveled, others could be very hard-- but they will be "doable" at their level. Because for it to be otherwise is a waste of time and resources. That dragon's lair up in the mountain could very well have any one of the four ages of dragon from the MM in there. And what the dragon inevitably ends up being will be based upon the story reasons for the party engaging with the dragon and thus what makes the most sense based upon the level of the party when they arrive.

To me, D&D is a story about these player characters. And everything I put in front of them will be done expressly for the purpose of building their stories and who they are as people. And if something in the game doesn't do that... then I'm not going to waste my time with it nor put it in front of them.

 

[el-remmen]

Some recent threads on here have gotten me wondering how I'd describe my DM playstyle/approach, but I find it difficult to encapsulate. This thread is giving me more to think on. Honestly, I think my players would be in a better position to describe my style, esp. those I've played with since 2E days.

I will say while I occasionally fudge (never against the players, tho) I also have a rep as a merciless DM

 

[prabe]

While I don't usually write out what the bad guys will do, I completely agree with the sentiment. That said, the bad guys have to have enough flexibility to be able to react to events as-when they happen in the chaos of war.

I have had some success with writing out a priorities list for the opposition (or at least for part of the opposition) and sticking to that.

 

[Larnievc]

What do you like as a player and as a game master? Meaning do you like prep but due to the challenges of life you live with less of it in some groups.

As a DM I play the scenes out in my head when my mind idles. I do a few passes of what is going to happen until I have it all straight in my head.

Then I cut and paste stat blocks and I wing it from there.

 

[Lanefan]

For me personally, I garner absolutely no enjoyment of world-building for the sake of world-building. To me... spending hours upon hours trying to come up with entire regions of "stuff" that end up never getting used is such a waste of time that I wouldn't DM D&D at all if I was forced to do so.

Thing is, if you make the campaign long enough such that those areas all do have a reasonable chance of getting used, it's not wasted effort.

I'm much more a story-focused DM. I care about the player's experiences engaging with the area they are in and their personal place and stakes within it. Everything I put in front of them is for their benefit as characters. To me, "sandboxes" are pointless. That's creating a whole crapton of areas that are completely worthless to the game if the players gain nothing from engaging with it (either because the areas are too low-level to be uninspiring cakewalks or so high-level that they are guaranteed to be TPKs).

Worthless right now. Not worthless in five years when the party's much higher level or a different group are looking at taking it on.

If there are areas on a map the PCs have... I guarantee that those areas will level up with the PCs so if/when they decide to go there at some point down the line, the area will still be of use to them.

So, setting-level illusionism. Got it.

Now I'm not saying these areas and the encounters within will all be balanced equally to each other and the party-- some encounters will be easier for the party as constructed and leveled, others could be very hard-- but they will be "doable" at their level. Because for it to be otherwise is a waste of time and resources. That dragon's lair up in the mountain could very well have any one of the four ages of dragon from the MM in there. And what the dragon inevitably ends up being will be based upon the story reasons for the party engaging with the dragon and thus what makes the most sense based upon the level of the party when they arrive.

To me, D&D is a story about these player characters. And everything I put in front of them will be done expressly for the purpose of building their stories and who they are as people. And if something in the game doesn't do that... then I'm not going to waste my time with it nor put it in front of them.

To me the players characters are fish in a big sea, no different from lots of other fish. They start out as very small fish and, if things go well, they eventually become bigger fish. The only reason these particular characters are special is that their progress is followed and directed by the players; but the players could jump to playing those at-the-moment-NPC adventurers over there instead and the setting wouldn't miss a beat.

And there are always bigger fish out there, and the sea is a vast place.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Thing is, if you make the campaign long enough such that those areas all do have a reasonable chance of getting used, it's not wasted effort.

Worthless right now. Not worthless in five years when the party's much higher level or a different group are looking at taking it on.

So, setting-level illusionism. Got it.

To me the players characters are fish in a big sea, no different from lots of other fish. They start out as very small fish and, if things go well, they eventually become bigger fish. The only reason these particular characters are special is that their progress is followed and directed by the players; but the players could jump to playing those at-the-moment-NPC adventurers over there instead and the setting wouldn't miss a beat.

And there are always bigger fish out there, and the sea is a vast place.

5 years? Ick. My campaigns only last long enough for the party's stories to come to fruition, and the longest I ever got was 3 years for my 4E campaign. All my 5Es have ended before 2. So I just use pre-made settings that have a lot of the information already written, and I only flesh out those areas as the party moves towards them through their desires and stories. Throwing down the tracks in front of the train makes for much less wasted material on my part. And because I don't use the same setting areas twice between my games... I always vary my campaigns up... stuff the party doesn't engage with won't ever get used (unless I'm able to re-purpose bits for new adventures down the line.)

I am admittedly using D&D in new school ways, rather than old school "kill or be killed" crawling. But it works for us so I've been good with it.

 

[Lanefan]

5 years? Ick. My campaigns only last long enough for the party's stories to come to fruition, and the longest I ever got was 3 years for my 4E campaign. All my 5Es have ended before 2. So I just use pre-made settings that have a lot of the information already written, and I only flesh out those areas as the party moves towards them through their desires and stories.

If your campaigns are that short on average and you don't re-use the settings then sure, it doesn't make sense to put too much effort into world-building. But to me, two years in a campaign is just nicely getting going - maybe a few of the longer-lasting PCs are up to 4th level by then, maybe not.

I am admittedly using D&D in new school ways, rather than old school "kill or be killed" crawling. But it works for us so I've been good with it.

Cool.

 

[turnip_farmer]

I'm almost the same as Emirikol, with the exception of #3 on his list. I'm a big-time prepper, so with my group I generally write the adventure for the given session and that's the one we're going to play through that time. (This allows me to not only write the adventure but also figure out all the enemy stats, build the maps, assemble the initiative cards for each monster/NPC, and create any player handouts - all of which means I need to know ahead of time that that's the adventure we'll be going through that session.) So I've never run a "sandbox" in the sense of the players deciding during play where their PCs will be going and what all they'll be doing. Instead, they trust that I'll set up an adventure each session that they'll enjoy. Now, that said, my campaigns aren't complete railroads, as the players give me inputs on what overall course they'd like for their PCs and I try to steer the adventures in those directions, but if I come to the session with, say, a dungeon exploration adventure then they'll be going through that adventure that session, not decide to spend the game time shopping or making future plans or randomly heading east to see what's over in that direction.

I also like to do a lot of prep, but I don't come prepared with a specific adventure I expect the players to do this week.

I try to consider all the reasonable options they could go for, and prep for all of them. This is sometimes very time-consuming up front, but it's not as bad as it sounds in the long run. Maybe they don't go to the Temple of Wangdoodle next week, but if they have caused to head there later in the campaign I've got a bunch of maps and stuff prepared.

Recently, it occurred to me that my players may just decide to trek straight across the mountain range to stop the villain at his source. I hours thinking through how this would work, planning interesting environmental challenges, setting up some fights with encounter maps, preparing handouts for the Shangri-la style hidden city up on the mountain plateau etc etc.

In the end, they didn't go there, and all that prep was wasted. Except it's not. I know that, at some future point, in this campaign or another, someone will need to cross a mountain range. And then it will only take a very short time to reskin all this content to be campaign and level appropriate, and I'll finally get to use my mountain chasm encounter map.

 

[pemerton]

I'm a very big fan of Luke Crane's Adventure Burner. It's written for Burning Wheel, but before I ever played BW the Adventure Burner was excellent for GMing 4e D&D.

 

[Reynard]

I had one of my newer players strategizing with her husband on how to take out the enemy they were facing and she was whispering her plans so I wouldn't hear. When I straight out asked her what her plan was, she said she didn't want to tell me because I was running "the enemy." That's when I pointed out to her that my role, as the DM, was hopefully to lose every battle I entered against the PCs, not by throwing the match but by doing my best to beat them while (hopefully) just not being able to kill them. That's when I made it clear that if I killed the PCs my "bad guy team" might have won but overall we all lost because we'd have to start the campaign over with new PCs. That was kind of an eye-opener for her.

Johnathan

I absolutely love it when the players conspire against my bad guys without my knowledge. It means that I have sufficiently scared them and/or angered them that they want to not only win but to show up the bad guy. I don't need to be part of the planning session and I get to be surprised when the plan comes to fruition.