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You're doing what? Surprising the DM
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6112055" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Depending on who you have as a DM, you are perfectly in your rights to join the Dragon Armies. Indeed, the temptation of joining the Dragon Armies is present in the story as written, at least for some of the 'stock' characters. The problem with modules is that there simply isn't room in them to provide guidance to the DM for what to do when the players are off the path. But you can play the DL AP in the same way you play any other series of modules, and the DM can treat them like any other sort of source material to elaborate upon. I never run a prepared module without 10-20 hours of prep to flesh it out, integrate it with the world, and generally change it to suit me. I've have heard tales of fabulous DL campaigns with fully empowered players, running characters of their own and taking the campaign in directions the writers could never have imagined. Taken as a whole, the modules represent a huge amount of scenarios, locations, and adventures to draw from. The average campaign may start more or less predictably, but eventually who knows where it will go.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>My own campaign, revolving around the cryptic 'Esoteric Order of the Golden Globe' would pass your litmus test. The villains are meant to be at least somewhat sympathetic. Depending the mix of players and characters, it's not entirely certain whether the players would end up working against or for the EOotGG. This current party, featuring as it does a priestess of the Sun Deity and a Champion of Aravar the Traveller, is pretty much fixed by its 'beliefs' in the role of foil of the cult and I don't expect that to change. But with a different composition and different players with different beliefs, and I'm not sure that they wouldn't eventually end up siding with the cult. Both are interesting, and since the general outline of the campaign as I've plotted it consists essentially of races to obtain various dingus's, whether the party is trying to get the dingus to use it or to destroy it doesn't upset me. Of course, as I was explaining to one of my players after the last session, lots of things haven't gone as I thought they would and they were never really locked into a plot in the first place. But, I'm usually pretty good at knowing where to poke to push the players along and this particular party at least has several players that prefer to be reactive rather than proactive. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>In other words, whether or not this is color or a test depends to a certain extent on whether it is reasonable for the character to accomplish given the character's resources? Or in other words, in 3e terms, can you accomplish this by taking 10? (or by taking 1 or 0!) This kinda gets to the heart of one my objections to handwaving the hiring process or hand waving the travel across the Abyss. I'm quite glad to handwave them if the PC resources or such that the process has a trivially easy outcome. I hesitate to handwave something if it doesn't. I might still handwave it, but the fact that the PC's face hardship, danger, and difficulty is a mark against handwaving them. That is rather independent of whether I am going to make the scenes therein relevant to player goals. We may presume that I know how to 'challenge beliefs' as BW calls it. The choice isn't between handwave and something irrelevant and uninteresting, but between something relevant and interesting and handwave. If I'm going to have a journey across the Abyss, it's going to be meaningful. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You keep saying things like that, and maybe I'm not clear on how BW works. Is the expectation that at the beginning of each session the group will outline the agenda of play, se out the scenes that are going to occur and then signal whether something is at stake in each one? How does the player decide nothing is at stake? All I see is the player can signal the sort of things that they want to be at stake in a not particularly descriptive manner, and its up to the DM to interpret - hopefully with the players help - what sort of things relate to those stakes.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, that's strikes me as an interpretation by you. What you claim to find in the text, I'm not seeing as being clearly there. I don't at all deny that the player should be proactive as part of being an artful player, but I don't see what you quote as empowering the player to declare stakes or to scene frame. All I see is the player being called upon to make propositions and frame those propositions within the rules.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I have no real experience with either of these game systems. My experience is with D&D 1e-3e, Chill 2e, CoC, Gamma World 2e, Star Wars 1e, GURPS, Exalted, VtM, a bit of Boot Hill, and a bit of Paranoia (and one session of Rifts, which was more than enough). I tend to approach them all more or less the same way, which means I decided really quickly that I could be a player in Paranoia but I couldn't run it (too impartial, too serious when in GM mode).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not sure I really believe that. I suppose that is true if the GM is really a worshipper of the text and hidebound to it, but I've always looked at the text more as guidelines than rules and the players wishes as weighing at least as much as the rules. I expect GMs to be creative and flexible. If I do have some opponents picked out, I may signal the players what sort of things to expect so that they can decide how they relate to it. And regardless of what the players choose, I'm going to riff on it and improvise - not during the session - but between them and prior to play (like a musician practices a peice in order to be able to seem to play it effortlessly). And if players lose characters in play, they often build to the setting, establishing characters whose beliefs compel them into the drama in a way the player finds interesting.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, in point of fact, that does happen in the scenario that Hussar wanted to skip. Again, the scenario is written more weakly than I think it should be, with less clear motivation for good players than evil ones, less satisfactory possible endings for good players than evil ones, and less challenging of beliefs for good players than evil ones than it could have, and more tedium than strictly speaking it needs... but, it isn't so inartfully written as all of that. If the party is all evil, it's actually a really interesting module with just a little bit of polishing. The Abysmal journey, if it is irrelevant, is no less irrelevant than the first destination within that Abyssmal plain/plane (the Cathedral, with Hussar remembers as 'the city'). If the party is all good, a bit more work is required to provide scenes that reward those beliefs and make it a bit less of a railroad, but I think it could be done and the central idea is pretty novel. Honestly, as a Binder, Hussar's character - if he had any beliefs at all - was quite possibly tailor made for this module. I believe by dropping out, he missed what could have been a true moment of shining awesomeness in his RPG career.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The connection is a GM that finds the player's stated belief ridiculous is likely to stage the scenes that challenge that belief in a way that make the character a comic and ridiculous figure, even if the GM is not being intentially vindictive. Some players may really enjoy that, but some may not. A truly great player might even find a way to display his nobility in such a way that those that ridicule him are made to look vulgar, and he kingly even in his humiliation. But often I think based on experience that level of depth is going to be beyond the player, and what you'll end up with is a player frustrated despite the GM following the letter of the BW rules and guidelines. And often based on my experience with GMs, the GM may feel he's being perfectly reasonable. After all, it's not like the players lifepath says he really is the king, and its a ridiculous thing to believe that you are the king when all the evidence suggests otherwise. And besides, GMs are prone to looking askance at any player who tries to use backstory to draw more than they think is their due worth of spotlight.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6112055, member: 4937"] Depending on who you have as a DM, you are perfectly in your rights to join the Dragon Armies. Indeed, the temptation of joining the Dragon Armies is present in the story as written, at least for some of the 'stock' characters. The problem with modules is that there simply isn't room in them to provide guidance to the DM for what to do when the players are off the path. But you can play the DL AP in the same way you play any other series of modules, and the DM can treat them like any other sort of source material to elaborate upon. I never run a prepared module without 10-20 hours of prep to flesh it out, integrate it with the world, and generally change it to suit me. I've have heard tales of fabulous DL campaigns with fully empowered players, running characters of their own and taking the campaign in directions the writers could never have imagined. Taken as a whole, the modules represent a huge amount of scenarios, locations, and adventures to draw from. The average campaign may start more or less predictably, but eventually who knows where it will go. My own campaign, revolving around the cryptic 'Esoteric Order of the Golden Globe' would pass your litmus test. The villains are meant to be at least somewhat sympathetic. Depending the mix of players and characters, it's not entirely certain whether the players would end up working against or for the EOotGG. This current party, featuring as it does a priestess of the Sun Deity and a Champion of Aravar the Traveller, is pretty much fixed by its 'beliefs' in the role of foil of the cult and I don't expect that to change. But with a different composition and different players with different beliefs, and I'm not sure that they wouldn't eventually end up siding with the cult. Both are interesting, and since the general outline of the campaign as I've plotted it consists essentially of races to obtain various dingus's, whether the party is trying to get the dingus to use it or to destroy it doesn't upset me. Of course, as I was explaining to one of my players after the last session, lots of things haven't gone as I thought they would and they were never really locked into a plot in the first place. But, I'm usually pretty good at knowing where to poke to push the players along and this particular party at least has several players that prefer to be reactive rather than proactive. In other words, whether or not this is color or a test depends to a certain extent on whether it is reasonable for the character to accomplish given the character's resources? Or in other words, in 3e terms, can you accomplish this by taking 10? (or by taking 1 or 0!) This kinda gets to the heart of one my objections to handwaving the hiring process or hand waving the travel across the Abyss. I'm quite glad to handwave them if the PC resources or such that the process has a trivially easy outcome. I hesitate to handwave something if it doesn't. I might still handwave it, but the fact that the PC's face hardship, danger, and difficulty is a mark against handwaving them. That is rather independent of whether I am going to make the scenes therein relevant to player goals. We may presume that I know how to 'challenge beliefs' as BW calls it. The choice isn't between handwave and something irrelevant and uninteresting, but between something relevant and interesting and handwave. If I'm going to have a journey across the Abyss, it's going to be meaningful. You keep saying things like that, and maybe I'm not clear on how BW works. Is the expectation that at the beginning of each session the group will outline the agenda of play, se out the scenes that are going to occur and then signal whether something is at stake in each one? How does the player decide nothing is at stake? All I see is the player can signal the sort of things that they want to be at stake in a not particularly descriptive manner, and its up to the DM to interpret - hopefully with the players help - what sort of things relate to those stakes. Again, that's strikes me as an interpretation by you. What you claim to find in the text, I'm not seeing as being clearly there. I don't at all deny that the player should be proactive as part of being an artful player, but I don't see what you quote as empowering the player to declare stakes or to scene frame. All I see is the player being called upon to make propositions and frame those propositions within the rules. I have no real experience with either of these game systems. My experience is with D&D 1e-3e, Chill 2e, CoC, Gamma World 2e, Star Wars 1e, GURPS, Exalted, VtM, a bit of Boot Hill, and a bit of Paranoia (and one session of Rifts, which was more than enough). I tend to approach them all more or less the same way, which means I decided really quickly that I could be a player in Paranoia but I couldn't run it (too impartial, too serious when in GM mode). I'm not sure I really believe that. I suppose that is true if the GM is really a worshipper of the text and hidebound to it, but I've always looked at the text more as guidelines than rules and the players wishes as weighing at least as much as the rules. I expect GMs to be creative and flexible. If I do have some opponents picked out, I may signal the players what sort of things to expect so that they can decide how they relate to it. And regardless of what the players choose, I'm going to riff on it and improvise - not during the session - but between them and prior to play (like a musician practices a peice in order to be able to seem to play it effortlessly). And if players lose characters in play, they often build to the setting, establishing characters whose beliefs compel them into the drama in a way the player finds interesting. Well, in point of fact, that does happen in the scenario that Hussar wanted to skip. Again, the scenario is written more weakly than I think it should be, with less clear motivation for good players than evil ones, less satisfactory possible endings for good players than evil ones, and less challenging of beliefs for good players than evil ones than it could have, and more tedium than strictly speaking it needs... but, it isn't so inartfully written as all of that. If the party is all evil, it's actually a really interesting module with just a little bit of polishing. The Abysmal journey, if it is irrelevant, is no less irrelevant than the first destination within that Abyssmal plain/plane (the Cathedral, with Hussar remembers as 'the city'). If the party is all good, a bit more work is required to provide scenes that reward those beliefs and make it a bit less of a railroad, but I think it could be done and the central idea is pretty novel. Honestly, as a Binder, Hussar's character - if he had any beliefs at all - was quite possibly tailor made for this module. I believe by dropping out, he missed what could have been a true moment of shining awesomeness in his RPG career. The connection is a GM that finds the player's stated belief ridiculous is likely to stage the scenes that challenge that belief in a way that make the character a comic and ridiculous figure, even if the GM is not being intentially vindictive. Some players may really enjoy that, but some may not. A truly great player might even find a way to display his nobility in such a way that those that ridicule him are made to look vulgar, and he kingly even in his humiliation. But often I think based on experience that level of depth is going to be beyond the player, and what you'll end up with is a player frustrated despite the GM following the letter of the BW rules and guidelines. And often based on my experience with GMs, the GM may feel he's being perfectly reasonable. After all, it's not like the players lifepath says he really is the king, and its a ridiculous thing to believe that you are the king when all the evidence suggests otherwise. And besides, GMs are prone to looking askance at any player who tries to use backstory to draw more than they think is their due worth of spotlight. [/QUOTE]
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