Writing useful game material efficiently

[Yair]

I like it. Like everyone else, I'm leery of saying everything outside problems, threats, resources, and rewards is a wsate - but thinking in those terms seems like a good technique to come up with complications and motivations.

 

[Odysseus]

I think the title of this thread is a little misleading.
I like rycanada idea, and I think it will try and use it next time I prep an adventure.
But I don't think its means to write good or bad game material , just a more focused/efficient way of doing it.

 

[Ry]

Sure, Odysseus. I have no problem changing the title of the thread to "Writing useful game material efficiently."

Done

 

[Raven Crowking]

Do your players never want to buy/steal the bear? Do they never want to polymorph to pretend to be the bear to keep an eye on their enemies while prancing on stage? Do they not want to befriend the dwarf or pick his pockets?

IOW, couldn't the encounter without the stick be a resource?

 

[Ry]

Do your players never want to buy/steal the bear? Do they never want to polymorph to pretend to be the bear to keep an eye on their enemies while prancing on stage? Do they not want to befriend the dwarf or pick his pockets?

IOW, couldn't the encounter without the stick be a resource?

Sure - but if the DM wants to prepare such an encounter, then the DM should prepare it as a resource. That changes how it would be prepared from what I wrote above.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Sure - but if the DM wants to prepare such an encounter, then the DM should prepare it as a resource. That changes how it would be prepared from what I wrote above.

Not really.

The difference that makes it a resource is that the players think of it as such. If I used the encounter in my notes exactly as you wrote it, it would be the players that determine how the encounter was used in game play. I would have to modify on the fly, but creating an interactive world requires that anyway.

 

[Ry]

The difference that makes it a resource is that the players think of it as such. If I used the encounter in my notes exactly as you wrote it, it would be the players that determine how the encounter was used in game play. I would have to modify on the fly, but creating an interactive world requires that anyway.

I agree that the players turn things you wouldn't have thought of as resources into resources - see in the diagram how one goes to find the city watch? That'd different from the mini-resource provided by the DM (the musicians pit between the bear and the children).

But this is all about what you prepare - I'd say that you should prepare the resource as such, and let all those other uses (which are inevitable) come out of ad-libbing off of the players (which is also inevitable). That ad-libbing might be the thing that created Mandy as Pandy's companion, for example.

 

[Raven Crowking]

OK....Much clearer now.

 

[KingCrab]

I like your idea and think I would enjoy playing in your game. How does this scenario fit into the problem threat resource reward theory?

The party has had some conflicts with the thieves guild in town. One rogue from the guild approaches the party cleric saying he wishes to change his ways and try to become a follower of the cleric's deity.

In this situation, there is no immediate threat and there are both problems and rewards for different courses of action that the party might take.

If they take him in, they may learn he needs protection from an enemy he recently made in the guild. The party may become a target if they protect him from assasination and they may have to keep him at the temple which may also become a target. Also, they will find that he is serious about changing his ways, but still has links to the seedier elements of the city and falls to weakness sometimes (occurring gambling debts that he can not pay). However, the reward will be an informant that knows the city well and will tell them everything he can. They'll have additional information at the beginning of every quest that starts in the city. So along this path they have risks and rewards.

If they don't take him in he will need to flee the city and end up hiding out in a village where he could either have to continue a life of crime to get by (and turn into a BBEG for them to fight someday) or find a way to go straight on his own (and someday become an ally but perhaps one that is bitter towards the party). The party will not have information for their conflicts with the guild in the near future. The party will not have the focused attention of an angry local theives guild for protecting someone they are trying to off.

The difference here is that there is no real problem and no immediate threat yet the players do have a chance to shape the way the story will go.

 

[Capellan]

I'd suggest just using the term "inert" instead of "waste".

I think the recent discussion about writing "Mandy the well-cared-for-bear" as a resource encounter rather than an "inert" encounter is a useful one for clarifying where you're going with this.

It seems like the key concept is "don't write dead ends". i.e. don't write encounters where the only allowable result is that the PCs interact with it for a while and then leave with everything unchanged. This can always be a possible outcome to an encounter, depending on the PCs' choices, but it should not be the only one.