Writing useful game material efficiently

[Tewligan]

I'm just glad that lousy dwarf got his comeuppance. What kind of a jerk pokes a leashed bear with a stick?!

 

[Woas]

The process you have displayed here is very interesting. It flows well with my own Game Material mantras that are the Rules of Dungeoncraft. Basically the idea is "Cut the fat" out of gaming.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Very interesting.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Is there another bear that clobbers the dwarf?

Say there's Pandy and Mandy. Pandy's being poked with a stick and clobbers his dwarf.

Mandy's in a cage in the back; the players can talk to the circus owner afterwards and purchase Mandy and Pandy (if he lives). That's a resource. Mandy is in.

Mandy's in a cage in the back; both she and Pandy are mistreated. The circus won't part with Mandy or Pandy except for an exorbitant price. That's a problem. Mandy is in.

Okay, let me try this again.

Assuming that the DM doesn't say "You can't fix it", can you give me an example of "waste". What I mean is, the DM declaring that "sucn & such is going to be this way no matter what" is IMHO a much bigger problem than designing waste. So, if we assume that the DM is a reasonable person, what constitutes "waste"?

 

[Ry]

Imagine there's no Pandy - there's no bear that hits that dwarf with the stick. In that case, this encounter is a waste:

Mandy is a well-cared-for bear who lives in a cage in the tent at the back of the circus. Mandy has a pleasant disposition for a trained bear. While the players are at the fair, a dwarf brings Mandy out from the back. He proceeds to play with Mandy in front of the party. This goes on for some time. Mandy balances a ball on her snout, shakes the dwarf's hand, and dances on its hind legs for a moment. Then the dwarf leads her back to the tent and puts her back in the cage. The dwarf feeds Mandy fish offstage. If players come to the tent with Mandy and the dwarf, the dwarf answers any reasonable questions but then politely asks the PCs to leave.

 

[Capellan]

rycanada: I wonder if you might find less resistance if you simply change your nomenclature. "waste" is a strong term that's getting people's backs up, I think.

For instance, I can see some players thoroughly enjoying the "Mandy is a well-cared-for-bear" encounter you outline above, even though it might have no bearing on the campaign, not drive the narrative forward, etc.

What I think you're actually saying is "Use this as a technique to focus your writing so you get the most central elements done first." (correct me if I'm wrong). What you currently term "waste" isn't necessarily wasted effort; but it is a "non-core element": a nice-to-have that is best addressed only once the must-haves are plotted out.

 

[pogre]

This is very close to my current approach.

I try to integrate any background and foreshadowing I need into active encounters as well. I do not always succeed, but I am improving.

I agree with Capellan, however - waste is a strong word.

 

[Ry]

What I think you're actually saying is "Use this as a technique to focus your writing so you get the most central elements done first." (correct me if I'm wrong). What you currently term "waste" isn't necessarily wasted effort; but it is a "non-core element": a nice-to-have that is best addressed only once the must-haves are plotted out.

I think that I'm somewhere between this statement and "waste" - which you're right, is probably too strong a word.

When you say "only once the must-haves are plotted out" I think I'd raise that bar quite high. I wouldn't want to spend time on those other elements until after all of this is done:

1) the "main plot" of PTRRs
2) situational PTRRs that round out the individual encounters
3) PTRRs for when PCs wander off
4) zone PTRRs for where the PCs are likely to go
5) follow up PTRRs for various PTRRs listed above.

 

[Li Shenron]

Nice job.

Although it's not the main part of the thread, this one made me think:

Bad design, whether it's railroading, DMPCs, or boring settings, all have one thing in common: They put inert elements in front of players (a.k.a. they're all a waste of time).

"Here's the prince of Roundheria, he's thinking of invading the peaceful land of Overtheria, but you can't convince him not to."

"Here's the dragon of the west mountain, but he's so powerful he'll kill you all instantly, so listen to his monologue before he flies off to what I've already decided he's doing, OK?"

"You're in a town. There's an inn. No, nothing interesting is happening."

"Elminster talks to you for half an hour, here's his 20-page explanation of why he's not going to help you. No, you can't convince him."

In short: if it comes time for the DM to add some element to the game, and it's not a problem, threat, resource, or reward, it's a waste.

Very agreeable by RPGers, but aren't these things happening all the time in CRPGs?? I think that in most computer games, there's a good bunch of things which are just "inert", but the key point is that almost always they will become something that the players can interact with, only later.

This is actually something which I've been trying to achieve (but it's very hard!) in D&D, because I think that having something like 10% (not more, otherwise it's very frustrating) that NOW it looks like you can't interact with, but LATER you can become able to do so, may create a good motivation towards character advancement and levelling up.

Maybe the dragon is unkillable, but one day...

 

[FireLance]

Let me preface my comments by stating that I run very challenge-focused games, and so almost everything in the games I run can probably be classified into a problem, threat, resource, or reward.

That said, I think the more important idea here is the need to include active elements in a game, but these active elements need not be limited to problems, threats, resources and rewards. A game that included only (or mostly) these four elements would likely be a very challenge-focused game (like most of mine). However, an exposition- or interaction-focused game might have other active elements that do not fall into any of these four categories, e.g. an NPC that has no game effect apart from being an interesting conversationalist.