Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
The Glass Cannon or the Bag of Hit Points
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="chriton227" data-source="post: 6672579" data-attributes="member: 33263"><p>Usually we talk as a group about the general theme and style we want to play, and work together to make a party, not a random assemblage of characters. If I choose to make a character bad at combat in a combat heavy party, the consequences of that should flow naturally. If I bring something else to the table (money, social ability, contacts, etc.), maybe the rest of the party will pick up my slack. We may decide to stick to safer areas to reduce the risk. If my character doesn't bring other things to the table, maybe the rest of the PCs will tell my PC that things just aren't working out, and then recruit a new PC that is a better fit (note PC, not player). He might decide that these lunatics lead too dangerous of a life and as a result he retires early. Or maybe he'll just have an early demise. But whichever of those happens, it is a natural consequence of the choice I made. </p><p></p><p>If a player makes a ranger and he knows going into the game is framed as primarily an urban campaign, that is his choice, and the consequences are his to deal with. His skills may open avenues for the party to do other things, like rather than take that sea voyage down the coast through pirate infested waters, they could go overland instead. Maybe the "fish out of water" concept is one the player wants to explore and is using it for the role-playing opportunities. Or maybe the player has some ideas up their sleeve that you don't know about, like using their ranger skills as a springboard towards being something more like a bounty hunter that isn't as reliant on the wilderness environment. It's true that not every PC fits every party or every campaign, just like in the real world not every career choice is a good fit for each individual's circumstances. Someone who decides to pursue a career as a professional surfer while choosing to live in the Himalayas is going to have a rough go of it, but it is the natural consequence of the choices made. </p><p></p><p>The encounter issues you are describing appear to me as only an issue if your PCs don't have any choice in where they go or the encounters they engage in. I expect a game world to be like the real world in that some areas are more dangerous than others, with some areas being perfectly safe, while others may carry a significant risk of death. Just like in the real world, there should be some information available to give the PCs a clue as to which areas are more dangerous than others, although that information may not always be perfectly accurate. Even just info like "that's the area where local families go for picnics" or "we don't know what is through that pass, no one has ever returned to tell us". Working to ensure that the encounter compositions makes in-game sense also helps with the balance. Unless orcs in your world are known for having a substantial mage presence, it wouldn't make sense for every orc patrol to have a powerful orc wizard, even if that would make for the most challenging encounter. Underground races making an incursion to the surface world probably aren't going to be using longbows instead of more culturally appropriate weapons unless there is a good reason how they got them and the training to use them. A manticore, an aboleth, and a bullette probably aren't going to be working together even if that happened to make a powerful encounter. And if any of these things did happen, that would be a clue to the party that there is something unusual going on that they may choose to look into further.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't expect the GM to come to the game with a story to tell. I expect them to come to the game with world with interesting things happening, and the story is what the PCs decide to do in that world. Maybe it is a coastal town with an active thieves guild, pirates off the coast, with a dwarven stronghold nearby. Spice it up with some factions vying for political control of the town, and maybe some ruins not far away. Then let the party decide what they want to do. Do they want to hunt pirates? Get involved with the local politics, maybe working with (or against) the thieves guild to bolster their power? They could always explore the ruins, or maybe make their fortunes establishing a trade route between the town and the dwarven stronghold. Think of how things would progress if the players weren't there to interfere (good or bad, not everything should have cataclysmic consequences), and then let that happen unless they do interfere. If they ignore the pirates, there might be some shortages they have to deal with in town as merchant ships can't come and go as easily. Maybe that is a problem that the PCs would want to deal with, or maybe they are content letting the merchants deal with it, after all they have enough money they could hire someone else to help them with the problem. Or maybe that shortage provides a perfect opportunity for the party, they could find a way to bring supplied in some other way, or maybe even make a deal with the pirates to cut them in on the profits if they let them through unmolested. If the town is attacked by a plague of undead, the players can decide whether they want to try to stop it, try to go for help, or just leave and never look back, with each choice leading to a different story and different consequences. There is no reason why you can't still incorporate the players' backgrounds; if a PC has an uncle who was a merchant, he could be a contact in the town or someone they could travel to talk to for advice. If a PC was a veteran of a recent war, the town may be recovering from the war and struggling to reintegrate all the returning soldiers, or even experiencing a boom as the widows of the fallen solders are spending the compensation they received, not to mention the influx of male suitors attracted by the abundance of suddenly wealthy single women. Any of these could make an interesting story, and it would be the player's story resulting from their choices, not from a story the GM brought to the table. This is what I mean by the players forging their own story from the GM's raw materials. The GM provides the pieces, and the players choose which pieces they are interested in to assemble into their story. If the GM had come into the game with the preconceived story that the players would explore the ruins and in the process find the mcguffin they can use to defeat the pirates, it may be a good story, but it closes off all of the other stories that may be better or worse.</p><p></p><p>Ideally in this style, the players should communicate clearly with the GM what is catching their attention and what they plan on following up on to give the GM time to prep. For the abandoned ruins, the GM could just have a note like "old mine, inhabited by kobolds on the lower level, magic weapon in a hidden chamber", and then if the party expresses interest the GM can take the time to flesh it out or find a published adventure to use for it. If they choose not to go that way, the GM hasn't invested much work in it, but even the quick notes might give them some hooks they can use in the future, like maybe umber hulks have broken through into the mine, driving the kobolds to the surface where they start causing trouble, or maybe a local woman wants the party to see if they can find a family heirloom sword, last seen when her great-grandfather died in a mine collapse decades ago. Likewise, if there is something that the players show no interest in, the GM can let it fade away if he wants. Questions the players ask may give hints of things they would be interested in doing, like a player asking merchants arriving in town if they had heard of any humanoid incursions on the borders, or looking in the marketplace for vendors selling treasure maps. The GM could say no, or the GM could take the idea and run with it, adding new elements to their game. Just because they weren't explicitly mentioned before doesn't mean they weren't there all along. And sometimes the players can be blunt about things; a perfect example is I'm running a Monster Hunter International game set in modern Detroit, and one of my players emailed me a link to an article about a very controversial religious display happening in the real world that they think might be an interesting addition to the game. They didn't give me an adventure to run, but they did give me a hook that they would be interested in to do with as I please. I also do a rumor mill of things the PCs hear during down time and many of the things in it are little tidbits that players have suggested, they may be nothing, they maybe true, or they could be something that is completely different from what it seems. They help me with hooks, I decide where I want those hooks to lead, and the players decide what hooks to follow, how, and how far. They've even had some that they followed only to realize they were about to bite off more than they could chew, and decided to leave it alone and try to call in the big guns to take care of it instead.</p><p></p><p>Granted this style is a lot of work, can require a fair amount of improvising, and only works when you have players that will take initiative and not try to wreck the game. But when it works, at the end of the campaign instead of the players having experienced the GM's story, the whole group (players and GM) will have experienced a story that they all built together.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="chriton227, post: 6672579, member: 33263"] Usually we talk as a group about the general theme and style we want to play, and work together to make a party, not a random assemblage of characters. If I choose to make a character bad at combat in a combat heavy party, the consequences of that should flow naturally. If I bring something else to the table (money, social ability, contacts, etc.), maybe the rest of the party will pick up my slack. We may decide to stick to safer areas to reduce the risk. If my character doesn't bring other things to the table, maybe the rest of the PCs will tell my PC that things just aren't working out, and then recruit a new PC that is a better fit (note PC, not player). He might decide that these lunatics lead too dangerous of a life and as a result he retires early. Or maybe he'll just have an early demise. But whichever of those happens, it is a natural consequence of the choice I made. If a player makes a ranger and he knows going into the game is framed as primarily an urban campaign, that is his choice, and the consequences are his to deal with. His skills may open avenues for the party to do other things, like rather than take that sea voyage down the coast through pirate infested waters, they could go overland instead. Maybe the "fish out of water" concept is one the player wants to explore and is using it for the role-playing opportunities. Or maybe the player has some ideas up their sleeve that you don't know about, like using their ranger skills as a springboard towards being something more like a bounty hunter that isn't as reliant on the wilderness environment. It's true that not every PC fits every party or every campaign, just like in the real world not every career choice is a good fit for each individual's circumstances. Someone who decides to pursue a career as a professional surfer while choosing to live in the Himalayas is going to have a rough go of it, but it is the natural consequence of the choices made. The encounter issues you are describing appear to me as only an issue if your PCs don't have any choice in where they go or the encounters they engage in. I expect a game world to be like the real world in that some areas are more dangerous than others, with some areas being perfectly safe, while others may carry a significant risk of death. Just like in the real world, there should be some information available to give the PCs a clue as to which areas are more dangerous than others, although that information may not always be perfectly accurate. Even just info like "that's the area where local families go for picnics" or "we don't know what is through that pass, no one has ever returned to tell us". Working to ensure that the encounter compositions makes in-game sense also helps with the balance. Unless orcs in your world are known for having a substantial mage presence, it wouldn't make sense for every orc patrol to have a powerful orc wizard, even if that would make for the most challenging encounter. Underground races making an incursion to the surface world probably aren't going to be using longbows instead of more culturally appropriate weapons unless there is a good reason how they got them and the training to use them. A manticore, an aboleth, and a bullette probably aren't going to be working together even if that happened to make a powerful encounter. And if any of these things did happen, that would be a clue to the party that there is something unusual going on that they may choose to look into further. I don't expect the GM to come to the game with a story to tell. I expect them to come to the game with world with interesting things happening, and the story is what the PCs decide to do in that world. Maybe it is a coastal town with an active thieves guild, pirates off the coast, with a dwarven stronghold nearby. Spice it up with some factions vying for political control of the town, and maybe some ruins not far away. Then let the party decide what they want to do. Do they want to hunt pirates? Get involved with the local politics, maybe working with (or against) the thieves guild to bolster their power? They could always explore the ruins, or maybe make their fortunes establishing a trade route between the town and the dwarven stronghold. Think of how things would progress if the players weren't there to interfere (good or bad, not everything should have cataclysmic consequences), and then let that happen unless they do interfere. If they ignore the pirates, there might be some shortages they have to deal with in town as merchant ships can't come and go as easily. Maybe that is a problem that the PCs would want to deal with, or maybe they are content letting the merchants deal with it, after all they have enough money they could hire someone else to help them with the problem. Or maybe that shortage provides a perfect opportunity for the party, they could find a way to bring supplied in some other way, or maybe even make a deal with the pirates to cut them in on the profits if they let them through unmolested. If the town is attacked by a plague of undead, the players can decide whether they want to try to stop it, try to go for help, or just leave and never look back, with each choice leading to a different story and different consequences. There is no reason why you can't still incorporate the players' backgrounds; if a PC has an uncle who was a merchant, he could be a contact in the town or someone they could travel to talk to for advice. If a PC was a veteran of a recent war, the town may be recovering from the war and struggling to reintegrate all the returning soldiers, or even experiencing a boom as the widows of the fallen solders are spending the compensation they received, not to mention the influx of male suitors attracted by the abundance of suddenly wealthy single women. Any of these could make an interesting story, and it would be the player's story resulting from their choices, not from a story the GM brought to the table. This is what I mean by the players forging their own story from the GM's raw materials. The GM provides the pieces, and the players choose which pieces they are interested in to assemble into their story. If the GM had come into the game with the preconceived story that the players would explore the ruins and in the process find the mcguffin they can use to defeat the pirates, it may be a good story, but it closes off all of the other stories that may be better or worse. Ideally in this style, the players should communicate clearly with the GM what is catching their attention and what they plan on following up on to give the GM time to prep. For the abandoned ruins, the GM could just have a note like "old mine, inhabited by kobolds on the lower level, magic weapon in a hidden chamber", and then if the party expresses interest the GM can take the time to flesh it out or find a published adventure to use for it. If they choose not to go that way, the GM hasn't invested much work in it, but even the quick notes might give them some hooks they can use in the future, like maybe umber hulks have broken through into the mine, driving the kobolds to the surface where they start causing trouble, or maybe a local woman wants the party to see if they can find a family heirloom sword, last seen when her great-grandfather died in a mine collapse decades ago. Likewise, if there is something that the players show no interest in, the GM can let it fade away if he wants. Questions the players ask may give hints of things they would be interested in doing, like a player asking merchants arriving in town if they had heard of any humanoid incursions on the borders, or looking in the marketplace for vendors selling treasure maps. The GM could say no, or the GM could take the idea and run with it, adding new elements to their game. Just because they weren't explicitly mentioned before doesn't mean they weren't there all along. And sometimes the players can be blunt about things; a perfect example is I'm running a Monster Hunter International game set in modern Detroit, and one of my players emailed me a link to an article about a very controversial religious display happening in the real world that they think might be an interesting addition to the game. They didn't give me an adventure to run, but they did give me a hook that they would be interested in to do with as I please. I also do a rumor mill of things the PCs hear during down time and many of the things in it are little tidbits that players have suggested, they may be nothing, they maybe true, or they could be something that is completely different from what it seems. They help me with hooks, I decide where I want those hooks to lead, and the players decide what hooks to follow, how, and how far. They've even had some that they followed only to realize they were about to bite off more than they could chew, and decided to leave it alone and try to call in the big guns to take care of it instead. Granted this style is a lot of work, can require a fair amount of improvising, and only works when you have players that will take initiative and not try to wreck the game. But when it works, at the end of the campaign instead of the players having experienced the GM's story, the whole group (players and GM) will have experienced a story that they all built together. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
The Glass Cannon or the Bag of Hit Points
Top