There have been some recent WotC artilces which give ideas on adventure design and encounter resolution. I haven't noticed any thread discussing them yet, so thought that I'd start one.
Save My Game - Dirty Tricks
Stephen Radney-MacFarland talks about three tricks: fudging; "railroading"; and changing the backstory mid-game.
I'm not a big fan of the advice to fudge in the interests of play. My preference is either for free narration, if no one at the table objects, or else to use the action resolution mechanics if there are different desires at the table as to how things should unfold. (This is my understanding of "say yes, or roll the dice".)
I think the discussion of "railroading" is a bit confused - as I read it, it is really encouraging GMs to be a bit more deliberate in their scene-framing:
Personally I think this is good advice - the GM frames the situation, and then opens it up to action resolution (which includes the players' use of their abilities and powers to "modify" the situation). Taken to its natural limit - free narration proceeding by consensus until we come to a "true decision point", at which time the dice start rolling - it should mean that there is no need for fudging.
The discussion of "changing the facts" - that is, writing or rewriting the backstory on the fly to keep the story moving and to keep the pressure on the players, and the stakes as gripping as they can be - I also like.
Design & Development - Siege of Gardmore Abbey
Steve Townshend talks about his design of this adventure. I gather it is going to be run at a US convention (PAX?), and so I won't actually get to see the module. But he has some interesting things to say about adventure design:
It would be good to see WotC think more about this in future module design, and also to provide more tools to help GM's with preparing and resolving these sorts of situations.
The article provides some modest hope in this direction:
Hopefully, this sort of thinking about skill challenges, and scenario design more generally, can be built on to give us adventures that are story-driven but don't require the "dozens of outcomes" or the mere "illusion of choice", by instead setting up opportunities for genuine choice in the sort of structure Steve talks about, and then having the "dozens of outcomes" be emergent consequences of the players engaging with the situation as presented and mechanically structured in the module.
Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium - Artefacts Preview
The Jacinth of Inestimable Beauty has this property:
This is good stuff, in my view. Rather than new subsystems for rulership, or treating it as something to be handled simply via free narration, it recognises that (at least in 4e, and presumably 3E as well) skills are the relevant mechanic for handling the challenges of rulership.
Now we just need to see this sort of idea generalised to other relevant elements of the game - especially paragon paths. Afterall, shouldn't a Knight Commander be better at rulership than a Demonskin Adept - and, conversely, shouldn't the latter be better at interactions with wild cultists?
All in all, I think these articles show WotC designers are thinking sensibly about important issues concerning adventure and encounter design and resolution, and what mechanical and other techniques they can offer to RPGers (and especially to GMs).
Save My Game - Dirty Tricks
Stephen Radney-MacFarland talks about three tricks: fudging; "railroading"; and changing the backstory mid-game.
I'm not a big fan of the advice to fudge in the interests of play. My preference is either for free narration, if no one at the table objects, or else to use the action resolution mechanics if there are different desires at the table as to how things should unfold. (This is my understanding of "say yes, or roll the dice".)
I think the discussion of "railroading" is a bit confused - as I read it, it is really encouraging GMs to be a bit more deliberate in their scene-framing:
Railroading is bad only if you do not allow your players to use their abilities and powers to help modify the situation. . . If it sets up an interesting encounter, they will often thank you for it. It allows them to move quickly into the true decision points, and that is where the fun happens.
Really, railroading at its best is the conceit that not every little action in the game needs to be played out with mechanical precision—that it is okay for the DM to take a group of vague or broad statements from the players and then tell them what happens in broad
strokes.
Really, railroading at its best is the conceit that not every little action in the game needs to be played out with mechanical precision—that it is okay for the DM to take a group of vague or broad statements from the players and then tell them what happens in broad
strokes.
Personally I think this is good advice - the GM frames the situation, and then opens it up to action resolution (which includes the players' use of their abilities and powers to "modify" the situation). Taken to its natural limit - free narration proceeding by consensus until we come to a "true decision point", at which time the dice start rolling - it should mean that there is no need for fudging.
The discussion of "changing the facts" - that is, writing or rewriting the backstory on the fly to keep the story moving and to keep the pressure on the players, and the stakes as gripping as they can be - I also like.
Design & Development - Siege of Gardmore Abbey
Steve Townshend talks about his design of this adventure. I gather it is going to be run at a US convention (PAX?), and so I won't actually get to see the module. But he has some interesting things to say about adventure design:
In many ways the characters are what this adventure's all about. In an RPG campaign, you're typically playing a character of your own creation that you invest in over the course of several sessions. But that's not the case with a convention game, where you've got about four hours from the beginning to the end of your story. The trick is to give each player a unique vessel through the adventure: a character whose conflicts are tied to the adventure's environment, who has something personal to gain or everything to lose in the drama that's about to unfold. . .
To this end I did my best to hardwire roleplaying opportunities into the game by giving each pregenerated character a want or goal to accomplish within the adventure.
I think this is good advice for adventure design for a campaign as well as a one-shot with pregens. Perhaps the stakes can't be quite this high in every session of a long-running campaign, but still in every session I try to integrate the PCs' goals and conflicts into the adventure environment (be that the physical, the social, or the "mythological"/magical environment).To this end I did my best to hardwire roleplaying opportunities into the game by giving each pregenerated character a want or goal to accomplish within the adventure.
It would be good to see WotC think more about this in future module design, and also to provide more tools to help GM's with preparing and resolving these sorts of situations.
The article provides some modest hope in this direction:
I think it's hard to design a story-driven module for publication. Most of the time they rely on characters and events that the adventurers should ultimately affect. The story-driven module either has to cover dozens of different outcomes or find the means to give at least the illusion of choice to the adventurers. . .
Nevertheless, combat encounters don't make a story, and I needed to find a way to make the adventure meaningful. Therefore, I put a significant roleplaying bias on the beginning of the adventure, and placed additional roleplaying checkpoints throughout it. . . The adventurers are always striving to accomplish complex tasks throughout the adventure, and they usually complete those with skill checks. . . I've brought my own notion of skill challenges into this adventure: Instead of going around and around the table with the most skilled adventurer making checks, each adventurer in the party commits to an action. A scene forms around that action, and the adventurers performing that action interact with one another and with characters. At some point during each scene, a skill check is rolled, its success or failure influenced by the scene happening around it. The outcome affects the adventure. Later on, other scenes work similarly. . . To be fair, I think that's somewhat how skill challenges were meant to be executed from the start.
Nevertheless, combat encounters don't make a story, and I needed to find a way to make the adventure meaningful. Therefore, I put a significant roleplaying bias on the beginning of the adventure, and placed additional roleplaying checkpoints throughout it. . . The adventurers are always striving to accomplish complex tasks throughout the adventure, and they usually complete those with skill checks. . . I've brought my own notion of skill challenges into this adventure: Instead of going around and around the table with the most skilled adventurer making checks, each adventurer in the party commits to an action. A scene forms around that action, and the adventurers performing that action interact with one another and with characters. At some point during each scene, a skill check is rolled, its success or failure influenced by the scene happening around it. The outcome affects the adventure. Later on, other scenes work similarly. . . To be fair, I think that's somewhat how skill challenges were meant to be executed from the start.
Hopefully, this sort of thinking about skill challenges, and scenario design more generally, can be built on to give us adventures that are story-driven but don't require the "dozens of outcomes" or the mere "illusion of choice", by instead setting up opportunities for genuine choice in the sort of structure Steve talks about, and then having the "dozens of outcomes" be emergent consequences of the players engaging with the situation as presented and mechanically structured in the module.
Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium - Artefacts Preview
The Jacinth of Inestimable Beauty has this property:
You gain a +2 bonus to any skill check associated with ruling, governing, or leading a realm.
This is good stuff, in my view. Rather than new subsystems for rulership, or treating it as something to be handled simply via free narration, it recognises that (at least in 4e, and presumably 3E as well) skills are the relevant mechanic for handling the challenges of rulership.
Now we just need to see this sort of idea generalised to other relevant elements of the game - especially paragon paths. Afterall, shouldn't a Knight Commander be better at rulership than a Demonskin Adept - and, conversely, shouldn't the latter be better at interactions with wild cultists?
All in all, I think these articles show WotC designers are thinking sensibly about important issues concerning adventure and encounter design and resolution, and what mechanical and other techniques they can offer to RPGers (and especially to GMs).
