Worlds in Motion
- Thread starter Archon
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You lost me at "the genius behind I Hit It With My Axe." In theory, that series does sound brilliant. In reality, it's boring and unwatchable.
EDIT: I was being unfair here. In the past few years i've gotten to know Zak's rpg work outside of the IHIWMA series and it is almost universally great. I still think IHIWMA is not fun to watch, but Zak's other RPG stuff is brilliant.
Here's an example: http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2010/05/snakes-are-books.html
EDIT: I was being unfair here. In the past few years i've gotten to know Zak's rpg work outside of the IHIWMA series and it is almost universally great. I still think IHIWMA is not fun to watch, but Zak's other RPG stuff is brilliant.
Here's an example: http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2010/05/snakes-are-books.html
As far as triggers go, how "railroad-y" do you think you should be with them? I'm currently writing up a campaign where several tribes of underground dwellers are in the process of allying to invade the surface - would you say a few separate events in nearby areas where the adventures can find the remains of a raided caravan with a few dead undergrounders, or just one which is put in wherever the players go?
Also, what would you say is the best way of getting a party who utterly ignores multiple storyline triggers back on track? It's something I've yet to find a decent way of doing short of my current favourite - "Roll spot checks, you see the railroad tracks going off in this direction with the sign saying 'talk to the priest about the undead...'"
Also, what would you say is the best way of getting a party who utterly ignores multiple storyline triggers back on track? It's something I've yet to find a decent way of doing short of my current favourite - "Roll spot checks, you see the railroad tracks going off in this direction with the sign saying 'talk to the priest about the undead...'"
Bribes (i.e., free content) are always appreciated. Feel free to include these every week.
Regarding the rest of the article - I enjoyed it. Each installment in this series is slowly convincing me that the "sandbox" campaign style has more going for it than I previously assumed - and that I already used several elements of this style without realizing it in what I always thought of as scripted campaigns.
Regarding the rest of the article - I enjoyed it. Each installment in this series is slowly convincing me that the "sandbox" campaign style has more going for it than I previously assumed - and that I already used several elements of this style without realizing it in what I always thought of as scripted campaigns.
I used to use the gods as triggers. Taking the Odyssey as an example, Odysseus blinds the Cyclops who then tells his Farther Poseidon. Being the god of the sea he can blow Odysseus to where he wants. To take it to the general case, your party hunts the sacred cows of the storm god. The enraged God's torso appears in a thunder storm throwing lighting bolts at the party, the priest in your party appeals the god that he worships, say the earth god, who then opens an entrance to cave. Hey presto, the start of a new adventure. I limited the actions of the gods in the world I used to protecting against the actions of other gods rather than direct intervention in human affairs stop it becoming over powered. Placating a previously annoyed God can be used as a plot hook as well.
I think either is fine. It's a question of allocation of your resources. If you have sufficient time and creative energy that you can create a web of clues, that's a better solution. On the other hand, if the time/energy spent creating multiple events will prevent you from, for instance, being able to flesh out a key dungeon, then you'd be better off focusing in other areas.Chipperz said:
If a party is utterly ignoring multiple storyline triggers, I think the best thing to do is talk to them about it *outside* of the game session. Here's how the conversation should go: "Guys, I'm concerned that you and I are not in synch on this campaign. I have offered multiple storyline seeds, but you haven't followed up on any of them. Instead you've done [whatever else they've done.] My question is, are you not following up on the story seeds because the story does not interest you, or are you not following up on them because you haven't realized they are story seeds?"Also, what would you say is the best way of getting a party who utterly ignores multiple storyline triggers back on track? It's something I've yet to find a decent way of doing short of my current favourite - "Roll spot checks, you see the railroad tracks going off in this direction with the sign saying 'talk to the priest about the undead...'"
If they say "the story doesn't interest us" then you either need to find a new story or find new players. The one thing you can't do is force people to enjoy a story they aren't interested in.
If they say "we didn't realize there were story seeds" then I think the appropriate response is something along the lines of, "I am experimenting with new DMing techniques that are less railroady, but as I'm learning these methods, it may be that sometimes I am failing to make you aware of the opportunities for adventure. Would it make sense for me to point out a few that you've missed, so then going forward you are aware of that sort of thing?" If they say "yes" then out of game mention a few things they missed.
Again, this should be done out of game. One participant in a campaign to another, working together to create an enjoyable play experience.
I kept reading - the advice in the article itself was good, but it did make me stop and wonder, "If that's the kind of stuff he views as great gaming..." I'm choosing to pretend i never read that now.Archon said:
It seems to me that the net effect of these techniques is to give the illusion of a deeper story and world than what actually exists. Not everyone has the ability or the time to build the kind of depth that these tricks hint at, and even those who can aren't always able to give it the feeling of a living, breathing world like some of this stuff could. So all-in-all - good ideas.
Okay, no. This article is full of crazy and is seriously way too time consuming. I wonder, can I post a link to this thing for a bit of advice that works so much better:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=517294
Apparantly I can. Awesome!
Okay children, listen up. This is one of the best points of advice that I have found, and it can be summarized thusly: When in doubt, make shit up! Don't plan a bunch of shit out, you don't have that much time and you will run out of energy. Every now and then, just make something happen that you think makes sense. Trust me, no one's going to be checking up on you. Also, write it all down, kay.
In fact, I've been gming for a very long time, and I would say that Check for Traps advice column on how to be a good Game Master is full of all the wonderful amateurish rubbish that those who have survived the gauntlet do best discarding. Also, you can find everything that he's suggested somewhere else... let's see:
http://www.gnomestew.com/top-30-game-mastering-articles
Right, now some of this is good, a lot is bad. Be discriminating, people!
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=517294
Apparantly I can. Awesome!
Okay children, listen up. This is one of the best points of advice that I have found, and it can be summarized thusly: When in doubt, make shit up! Don't plan a bunch of shit out, you don't have that much time and you will run out of energy. Every now and then, just make something happen that you think makes sense. Trust me, no one's going to be checking up on you. Also, write it all down, kay.
In fact, I've been gming for a very long time, and I would say that Check for Traps advice column on how to be a good Game Master is full of all the wonderful amateurish rubbish that those who have survived the gauntlet do best discarding. Also, you can find everything that he's suggested somewhere else... let's see:
http://www.gnomestew.com/top-30-game-mastering-articles
Right, now some of this is good, a lot is bad. Be discriminating, people!
I've met a lot of guys who thought that they could run good game by just "making shit up" at the spur of the moment. Very few of them actually could. Most of them end up running shallow, schizophrenic hackfests.
Next time, perhaps you could provide the interesting link to other resources with a little less douchebaggery?
Next time, perhaps you could provide the interesting link to other resources with a little less douchebaggery?
Nope, can't be done. He's offering the same advice that's been offered before, and I've had to break so many people of these bad habits that seeing the bad advice just makes for a full on rage.
Okay, so biggest point, pick your content carefully and make as little as you can get away with, 'cause you won't use but about 10% of it anyway. So, to avoid being bitter, avoid doing work.
Like I said, though, I've been gming for far too long to just let bad advice go anymore, especially when the author is making no effort to mention that his column is giving out advice that is as old as rpgs themselves.
So, yes, condemnation, from me, is spades.
Okay, so biggest point, pick your content carefully and make as little as you can get away with, 'cause you won't use but about 10% of it anyway. So, to avoid being bitter, avoid doing work.
Like I said, though, I've been gming for far too long to just let bad advice go anymore, especially when the author is making no effort to mention that his column is giving out advice that is as old as rpgs themselves.
So, yes, condemnation, from me, is spades.
Argonnsi:
I've been gamemastering for 23 years. By age 14, I had two officially sanctioned RPGA modules to my name and never scored less than 2 points from perfect in any game I ran. By 16, I was running demo games for Cyberpunk 2020 to packed tables at Gencon and had been published in Interface magazine. In high school, college kids and 20somethings would buy me rules and chauffeur me to their campuses and homes just to run games for them. In college, my campaign had over 12 players at every session and an actual waiting list of people who'd signed up to play and would come to the sessions *just to watch me run.* I currently juggle 2 D&D campaigns, and the players in my current campaign include the president of a major videogame studio and the lead level designer of its best-selling game. These are gentlemen who make some of the world's best games. They could play RPGs with anyone they'd like. They choose me to run for them.
Your condemnation is, therefore, a sad joke. I'm sorry for your players that you think that being lazy and making shit up is a good way to GM. They deserve better.
I've been gamemastering for 23 years. By age 14, I had two officially sanctioned RPGA modules to my name and never scored less than 2 points from perfect in any game I ran. By 16, I was running demo games for Cyberpunk 2020 to packed tables at Gencon and had been published in Interface magazine. In high school, college kids and 20somethings would buy me rules and chauffeur me to their campuses and homes just to run games for them. In college, my campaign had over 12 players at every session and an actual waiting list of people who'd signed up to play and would come to the sessions *just to watch me run.* I currently juggle 2 D&D campaigns, and the players in my current campaign include the president of a major videogame studio and the lead level designer of its best-selling game. These are gentlemen who make some of the world's best games. They could play RPGs with anyone they'd like. They choose me to run for them.
Your condemnation is, therefore, a sad joke. I'm sorry for your players that you think that being lazy and making shit up is a good way to GM. They deserve better.
That's the intent, yes! At least some players will appreciate the sense of the world being "real". And I certainly enjoy creating that sense of versimilitude. But you can't actually create a truly real world, so it's a matter of how best to simulate what you can...Mutak said:I kept reading - the advice in the article itself was good, but it did make me stop and wonder, "If that's the kind of stuff he views as great gaming..." I'm choosing to pretend i never read that now.
It seems to me that the net effect of these techniques is to give the illusion of a deeper story and world than what actually exists. Not everyone has the ability or the time to build the kind of depth that these tricks hint at, and even those who can aren't always able to give it the feeling of a living, breathing world like some of this stuff could. So all-in-all - good ideas.
Archon said:
I agree thats why I enjoyed playing in the Glorantha world of runequest, I think its had the deepest and largest setting ever created. The D&D worlds all ways seemed to me a little "by the sacred jockstrap of Robert E Howard" to be taken seriously to me.
However I must say that when I ran things I preferred things a little more free forum. I would use a basic setting from the real world say the Mediterranean around 800 BC and go from there. To make it seam real you have to be flexible and knowledgeable of the time period your using. I took the greek myths as starting point and used the less well known ones at as plot lines. In 800 BC you have once great empires in decline (Egypt), a new strong ferocious empire in Assyria and the long abandoned capital of a vanished empire (Hattusa). You have a real breathing world, with real customs, gods and legendary monsters to start with, but you have really know more about it than the poeple you are playing with. The research takes effort but I think its less than drawing up hex based grids. When I was doing this there was no google or wikipedia, so its should be easier now than it was then.
For example as lets use our lvl 1 characters from Greece, put all the players on a ship for a short journey to across to a near by island. The ships captain being a greedy and impious man fails to make the proper sacrifice to Zeus. The enraged God send a storm that drives them far out to sea and only abates when the captain is thrown over the side and drowns. Now drift them to shore in Egypt. Now they can engage in a little tomb robbing in the valley of the kings and face undead, sign on with Egyptian army and help prepare and defend a fort against the on coming Assyrians, or spy for the Assyrian royal corps of magicians.
Gotta say, I pulled up a tad at that sentence - I didn't get past the first two minutes of the first episode of that show! Fortunately, the rest of the article had plenty of food for thought. To throw in my tuppence, here's another trick that I've seen used to good effect: Arrange for major NPCs to be "played" by someone else in absentia. It's a good way to involve someone who can't get to sit at the table for one reason or another and it makes the NPC more interesting in ways that the GM might not have considered. When I saw it done, the NPC-player created a character with an outline backstory and motivations, then the GM and the NPC-player exchanged emails between sessions to decide how the NPC would respond to the PCs' actions. Any face-to-face stuff was handled by the GM, keeping as close to the original character concept as possible.Mutak said:
So that explains why you essentially tell people to create rpgs like video games, which are sub-par.
In all seriousness, I've only once used a published gaming module, and the results were a complete disaster. I never worry about more than 1 or 2 game sessions ahead, because the actions of the PC are the plot, not what I work up, and world feels more real if I let the players fill in the details. After all, there are more of them than there are of me, so they can do more.
Also, I don't do dungeons, ever. My players seem to prefer a heavy politics game, which leads to few combats and action driven by the players, so planning out more than what the NPCs want and how they can get what they want is more than enough, and, again, remaining vague is always for the best.
And, yeah, in case I haven't made my opinions clear, "professional cred" just means that you've been published. It doesn't mean that you are good. I mean, look at Michael Bay. He's made $100 million dollar movies, but they are total crap.
Finally, all the advice that you've given in your column has been written dozens, if not hundreds, of times before, been written better, and it still sucks. Bad advice stays bad, no matter who gives it or why.
In all seriousness, I've only once used a published gaming module, and the results were a complete disaster. I never worry about more than 1 or 2 game sessions ahead, because the actions of the PC are the plot, not what I work up, and world feels more real if I let the players fill in the details. After all, there are more of them than there are of me, so they can do more.
Also, I don't do dungeons, ever. My players seem to prefer a heavy politics game, which leads to few combats and action driven by the players, so planning out more than what the NPCs want and how they can get what they want is more than enough, and, again, remaining vague is always for the best.
And, yeah, in case I haven't made my opinions clear, "professional cred" just means that you've been published. It doesn't mean that you are good. I mean, look at Michael Bay. He's made $100 million dollar movies, but they are total crap.
Finally, all the advice that you've given in your column has been written dozens, if not hundreds, of times before, been written better, and it still sucks. Bad advice stays bad, no matter who gives it or why.
Your rebuttals contain nothing that contradicts anything in this series of columns, and instead merely add to the aura of laziness you embrace, since you appear to have done nothing more than skim for things to be outraged about. You proclaim flexibility and creativity, while presenting only hostility and closed-mindedness.Argonnosi said:
You've made a sad case for your preferred style, and are just digging a deeper hole by attacking the person behind the message because you can't defend your own. The existence of "dozens, if not hundreds" of articles offering similar concepts as advice is a far better indicator of what GMs have found useful than what you've shown, by far. Your failure to adapt one gaming module to your needs are not exactly damning evidence of modules being at fault. Professional, published works may not guarantee your enjoyment, but it's far more likely you'll find something useful and well made, and in less time, than browsing the offerings of people not held to any standard.
Since you seem to have charged in here blindly, you've likely also not read and understood the Posting Guidelines. When the hammer falls in response to your behavior, remember ignorance and arrogance make poor armor here, in real life, and in most gaming systems, too.
Argonossi, I will take you at your word that your players enjoy your DM style and that your technique works for you. There are as many schools of thought on DMing as there are styles of painting. I don't wish anyone ill for enjoying their game.
But if you are going to show up on my thread and announces my advice is rubbish -- not just "not to my player's preference" but, literally, amateur rubbish -- you better step up and take some time to explain, in as much detail as I've offered, why your way is better. Any BA student in philosophy knows it's easy to tear down the works of others, and a lot harder to offer a constructive edifice of your own thought. That's why there's a 1,000 critiques of Aristotle and only 1 Aristotle. I'm not Aristotle, but I AM offering the edifice of my DMing philosophy over a dozen columns. You showing up and saying it's rubbish doesn't make it so - it just means you're another in a long line of people who find it easier to criticize than construct.
As for the notion that "this advice has appeared all over the place," I really beg to differ. Some of the ideas have appeared elsewhere, and where they have, I've linked to them (e.g. last column and Rob Conley). Some have not. I've certainly never seen my agency theory of fun, or the differentiation between the DM-as-God and DM-as-Satan, appear anywhere else, and in fact they were fairly controversial when I published them here. Even if they have appeared elsewhere... so what? If the requirement for publishing on the Internet is that everyone should shut up if it's been said before, then essentially no one could say anything, as it's all been said before.
Indeed, by that line of thinking, you should shut up, as people have already said I suck dozens of times, and better than you.
But if you are going to show up on my thread and announces my advice is rubbish -- not just "not to my player's preference" but, literally, amateur rubbish -- you better step up and take some time to explain, in as much detail as I've offered, why your way is better. Any BA student in philosophy knows it's easy to tear down the works of others, and a lot harder to offer a constructive edifice of your own thought. That's why there's a 1,000 critiques of Aristotle and only 1 Aristotle. I'm not Aristotle, but I AM offering the edifice of my DMing philosophy over a dozen columns. You showing up and saying it's rubbish doesn't make it so - it just means you're another in a long line of people who find it easier to criticize than construct.
As for the notion that "this advice has appeared all over the place," I really beg to differ. Some of the ideas have appeared elsewhere, and where they have, I've linked to them (e.g. last column and Rob Conley). Some have not. I've certainly never seen my agency theory of fun, or the differentiation between the DM-as-God and DM-as-Satan, appear anywhere else, and in fact they were fairly controversial when I published them here. Even if they have appeared elsewhere... so what? If the requirement for publishing on the Internet is that everyone should shut up if it's been said before, then essentially no one could say anything, as it's all been said before.
Indeed, by that line of thinking, you should shut up, as people have already said I suck dozens of times, and better than you.