Have you ever run an online 4e game through Maptools?
-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Would you play in this game?
- Thread starter Kzach
- Start date
Have you ever run an online 4e game through Maptools?
The Shaman
First Post
I've never run any game through Maptools; can you tell me a bit about it?
I'm assuming one of Kzach's reasons for doing pre-gens is to handle the disparity in optimization he'd seen in another group. Basically sucky PCs and super-PCs don't play well together.
I think the idea to handle all upgrades for the player is one method.
Another, is to create these builds as if they were pre-3e classes (because that's basically what they are).
I would not go as far as handing out pre-gens with name and background picked. That's usually an area more personal to the player (even in 1e).
Also, on the topic of goals. Make the group always have to pick and choose a goal. Then design for that goal. You get what you need, which is focussed play to plan for, they get what they need, which is choice of goals that matter to them.
I think the idea to handle all upgrades for the player is one method.
Another, is to create these builds as if they were pre-3e classes (because that's basically what they are).
I would not go as far as handing out pre-gens with name and background picked. That's usually an area more personal to the player (even in 1e).
Also, on the topic of goals. Make the group always have to pick and choose a goal. Then design for that goal. You get what you need, which is focussed play to plan for, they get what they need, which is choice of goals that matter to them.
I would have no problems playing this game as stated. I'm one of the types of player who couldn't give a rat's ass what the numbers on my sheet look like, since all I care about is the improvisation and interaction that comes with roleplay.
That being said, Kzach... you are right in that the odds of finding enough players like S'Mon and myself are probably a bit long. So if you were to really attempt to run a game like this, here are the places where I, as DM, might go a bit differently that what you stated in the original post.
As far as character generation / leveling:
* If you make pregens, that's fine. I would, however, give each pregen a male and female name to choose from, so that the player can play the gender they are more comfortable with. Unless the gender of each of these characters is super-important and integral to the PLOT of your story... being male or female shouldn't matter, and it probably would affect the quality of the roleplay unnecessarily if the player was forced into a less-comfortable choice.
* When it comes to level-up... you seem to have a firm grasp of what feats/powers you think would make for optimized selection, so that no characters become too over or under-powered compared to his compatriots. You obviously then realize that each level has actually has several valid choices which are all relatively equal to your goals. So rather than tell your players "you are taking X power or feat"... create a list of like 3 of them to choose from at each leveling point, any of which you feel would be good choices. You thus get the best of both worlds... you can be assured that the selections to be made are all within the set power-level of optimization you want... which the players still get to make choices at level up. This is no different than telling players that you're only running a PH1 game for example, where the PCs don't get the entire breadth of the D&D Character Builder to select stuff... just a small selection suited for this particular campaign.
* You hamstring yourself by referring your storyline as a 'Railroad'. That word has negative connotations that have only gotten larger over time so that people use it or think of it in ways that were never meant to be intended (like how the word 'broken' has lost all of its meaning at this point.) As a result, they'll respond negatively to your words without even considering what you actual mean.
Railroading was traditionally about stopping a player's MICRO choices... not MACRO choices. The DM set up a building with a trapped front door... but any time the player wanted to try to get into said building by any way other than that door (like through the roof or upstairs window)... the DM found some excuse for it not to work and to not allow the PC to do it (because the DM didn't want the PC to avoid dealing with his 'ingenious trap encounter'.) THAT's railroading. Throwing up imaginary roadblocks on small PC decisions and curtailing inventive play.
But having an actual storyline in place that the PCs are meant to follow, rather than just wandering off the map because "hey, the world's a sandbox and if I want to ignore the King's pleas to find his daughter and instead go hiking up that mountain range with the cool name I heard about for absolutely no particular reason, and you should let me do it because otherwise you're 'railroading' me?" Eh... not so much. To many of us, having a plot is what's called an 'Adventure Path', not a Railroad. And there are quite a number of companies making good money selling these 'plots' to us, that we as DM expect our players to follow on a macro scale.
*****
So if you do decide to try and pull this off... best of luck to you. It certainly won't be easy to find enough like-minded individuals willing to go along with what you want to set up... but you can certainly help yourself by being a bit more flexible in places where stringent adherence is not absolutely required for your game to be effective. If it works, bravo!
That being said, Kzach... you are right in that the odds of finding enough players like S'Mon and myself are probably a bit long. So if you were to really attempt to run a game like this, here are the places where I, as DM, might go a bit differently that what you stated in the original post.
As far as character generation / leveling:
* If you make pregens, that's fine. I would, however, give each pregen a male and female name to choose from, so that the player can play the gender they are more comfortable with. Unless the gender of each of these characters is super-important and integral to the PLOT of your story... being male or female shouldn't matter, and it probably would affect the quality of the roleplay unnecessarily if the player was forced into a less-comfortable choice.
* When it comes to level-up... you seem to have a firm grasp of what feats/powers you think would make for optimized selection, so that no characters become too over or under-powered compared to his compatriots. You obviously then realize that each level has actually has several valid choices which are all relatively equal to your goals. So rather than tell your players "you are taking X power or feat"... create a list of like 3 of them to choose from at each leveling point, any of which you feel would be good choices. You thus get the best of both worlds... you can be assured that the selections to be made are all within the set power-level of optimization you want... which the players still get to make choices at level up. This is no different than telling players that you're only running a PH1 game for example, where the PCs don't get the entire breadth of the D&D Character Builder to select stuff... just a small selection suited for this particular campaign.
* You hamstring yourself by referring your storyline as a 'Railroad'. That word has negative connotations that have only gotten larger over time so that people use it or think of it in ways that were never meant to be intended (like how the word 'broken' has lost all of its meaning at this point.) As a result, they'll respond negatively to your words without even considering what you actual mean.
Railroading was traditionally about stopping a player's MICRO choices... not MACRO choices. The DM set up a building with a trapped front door... but any time the player wanted to try to get into said building by any way other than that door (like through the roof or upstairs window)... the DM found some excuse for it not to work and to not allow the PC to do it (because the DM didn't want the PC to avoid dealing with his 'ingenious trap encounter'.) THAT's railroading. Throwing up imaginary roadblocks on small PC decisions and curtailing inventive play.
But having an actual storyline in place that the PCs are meant to follow, rather than just wandering off the map because "hey, the world's a sandbox and if I want to ignore the King's pleas to find his daughter and instead go hiking up that mountain range with the cool name I heard about for absolutely no particular reason, and you should let me do it because otherwise you're 'railroading' me?" Eh... not so much. To many of us, having a plot is what's called an 'Adventure Path', not a Railroad. And there are quite a number of companies making good money selling these 'plots' to us, that we as DM expect our players to follow on a macro scale.
*****
So if you do decide to try and pull this off... best of luck to you. It certainly won't be easy to find enough like-minded individuals willing to go along with what you want to set up... but you can certainly help yourself by being a bit more flexible in places where stringent adherence is not absolutely required for your game to be effective. If it works, bravo!
To run a game at the level I do (I'm not disparaging people who run games differently, it's just that the particular way I do it, is more complex than others) requires mega-ass tons of work. Custom maps, hidden objects, hidden objectives, secret areas, tactical 3D encounters that take into consideration all the elements of an area, customised monsters, fully fleshed out NPC's with their own tokens, etc.
Basically, it takes a lot of time to put together. Anything I can do to reduce that workload makes running the game that much easier and makes it flow that much better. After running numerous Maptools games, the thing I find most draining and time-consuming is dealing with the players and their characters. If the players had a character that levelled up on a set path and already had a strong tie-in to the setting and wasn't created as a 'lone-wolf', then half my job is done and I can concentrate on delivering an awesome adventure every week.
Not really. Optimisation was definitely a consideration but at the same time I wanted to avoid cheese so super charop builds were avoided as well. There was definitely a desire to create an even playing field so that every player could shine through their character, however the driving goal behind it wasn't even what I just posted above, but rather that I wanted everyone to concentrate on playing through the adventure rather than on what their character would get next level.
And DEFCON1 is right, calling it a railroad was possibly the wrong term to use. The way I was going to run the adventure was to have strong and obvious goals that had a clear-cut path to success and an expectation that the players would follow and achieve those goals. How they achieved them, though, was up to them and I actually encourage inventive and imaginative play.
The reason for this is that online play can be very slow. If anything is obscure or requires investigation, you can spend your entire session trying to muddle through something that would take fifteen minutes in a face-to-face game. I wanted the game to maintain a good pace and to do that, it needs to have strong and obvious goals with a clear-cut path to success.
Regardless, it was just a concept and one that I've now abandoned. This thread has fulfilled it's purpose for me.
The Shaman
First Post
Do I understand correctly that you're talking specifically about Maptools here?
If so, I can certainly understand why you would consider the approach you outlined in your original post; as [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] notes, this starts trending toward a crpg (and no, I don't mean that in a disparaging way).
'Must spread XP etc...'
delericho
Legend
For me, there are three red flags in the concept you outlined.
The first is the use of pregenerated characters. These are fine for one-shots, but if I'm going to dedicate some months to a game, I want to be playing my own character. And while having the option of the DM doing the levelling is fine, requiring it is not.
The second was your describing the game as a railroad. This has now been clarified, of course. Still, giving the players pregen goals (beyond the very first adventure) is a no-no for me.
And, finally, your comments about 'optimisation' are rather a worry. If your game is so sensitive to PC power levels that you feel the need to craft all the characters just so, it's almost certainly not a game I want to play. While I want to control the mechanics of my own character, I don't want to have to worry overly about optimal and sub-optimal builds - I just want to play.
So, given those three things, this isn't the game for me.
The first is the use of pregenerated characters. These are fine for one-shots, but if I'm going to dedicate some months to a game, I want to be playing my own character. And while having the option of the DM doing the levelling is fine, requiring it is not.
The second was your describing the game as a railroad. This has now been clarified, of course. Still, giving the players pregen goals (beyond the very first adventure) is a no-no for me.
And, finally, your comments about 'optimisation' are rather a worry. If your game is so sensitive to PC power levels that you feel the need to craft all the characters just so, it's almost certainly not a game I want to play. While I want to control the mechanics of my own character, I don't want to have to worry overly about optimal and sub-optimal builds - I just want to play.
So, given those three things, this isn't the game for me.
Wednesday Boy
The Nerd WhoFell to Earth
With that aim in mind if it doesn't have to be all or nothing, I think you'd get the best results by offering to make the characters mechanically for whoever wants to and let everyone else create their characters themselves.
Similar Threads
