Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => Topic started by: Druss_the_Legend on March 11, 2017, 10:33:14 AM
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imo the standard RM combat rules make having a large entourage problematic due to slow combat resolution.
How many NPC's do you allow to join he party and go on e=adventures with them?
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imo the standard RM combat rules make having a large entourage problematic due to slow combat resolution.
How many NPC's do you allow to join he party and go on e=adventures with them?
As few as possible, due to the problem you mentioned of slower combat. But sometimes the party needs a healer.
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imo the standard RM combat rules make having a large entourage problematic due to slow combat resolution.
How many NPC's do you allow to join he party and go on e=adventures with them?
As few as possible, due to the problem you mentioned of slower combat. But sometimes the party needs a healer.
this seems to be a common theme. Slow combat resolution = battles with large number of combatants = snail pace combat.
i dont know if ive cracked the code on this exactly but ive been using the super fast combat system from RMCIII.
we also play on Roll20 platform now so we have marcos which allow you to programme in weapon OB and roll damage at the click of a button.
Iv eliminated the three main issues that slowed large scale combat (8+ combatants).
1) table referencing
2) adding up damage dice
3) numerous crits and lag caused by ongoing crit effects (penalties, stun, hits per round etc)
Roll20 also has a hand initiative tracker so you it orders all the initiative scores and you go down the list, click on each combatant and away you go.
i only allow crits on open ended rolls rules u are using ambush. Its not to everyone taste. Its just how my group play. we have tried a few variants and have come up with an interesting blend of table combat and Super Fast Combat.
We are actually going to use table combat again but only for 1-1 battles. I quite like this idea as thats when the table referencing is manageable and it makes the 1-1 battles different and slower and more detailed. Just like they would be in an epic movie where the villain has an epic showdown with the hero :)
The biggest benefit of using the super fast combat is that you CAN more easily manage larger battles with more combatants. Right now we have 5 player characters. They typically hang our with a handful on NPC allies, especially on dangerous missions.
The odd NPC dies in combat, thats expected but they can also advance in levels and upgrade skills similar to PCs can. Its a bit like a company. You have new guys arrive and some stick it out and some leave (or die), the stalwarts the glue guys hang in here and eventually get promoted up the ranks. They become part of the furniture and add to the setting. I quite like that. They are seen as an important element and help drive the story although they are in the background and when they do die, its a little sad when they are gone. This is how it should be. They shouldnt be used as JUST fodder for enemies. They might even become a villain or henchman of a villain if they are mistreated :) that happens all the time in the real world, but more commonly in movies... the worker who is mistreated vows to have their revenge, the last laugh.
it would be busy as but i could run a combat of 16 characters, maybe more with a little practice. As long as the players are making decisive decisions themselves. We have a player who is notorious for slow rolling his decisions. If he had his way he would take 15minutes to decide what OB/DB he was using and ask at least 5 questions about the surrounding environment... in the heat of battle! dont worry i speed hi up. he misses his opportunity if he doesnt think faster. one-on-one? now thats different we play as slow as you like. Its your show too.
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I've run very large battles with dozens of allies and similar numbers of enemies. Using software to track combat helps a great deal but for a lot of the unimportant NPCs, I just abstracted down to a roll "is he dead yet? is his opponent dead yet?". For important characters fighting in the room with the PCs, I made real rolls and tracked accordingly.
But that aside, I prefer not to put NPCs in the party. My feeling is that making an NPC part of the party takes attention away from the PCs. It provides a mouthpiece for the GM to tell the players what to do (whether directly or indirectly by giving them information) and does some of the work for the PCs. I would rather leave the in-party discussions to be discussions between the players, and let them do all the work. If I want them to have certain abilities available that they don't currently have, I can give them herbs or magic items without adding an NPC. That's not to say they can't interact with NPCs -- which they should -- but those NPCs don't need to be omnipresent.
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I've run very large battles with dozens of allies and similar numbers of enemies. Using software to track combat helps a great deal but for a lot of the unimportant NPCs, I just abstracted down to a roll "is he dead yet? is his opponent dead yet?". For important characters fighting in the room with the PCs, I made real rolls and tracked accordingly.
Yup, this. More work by a bit, but this for me.
-Pregame, Note how many times a Max damage hit a particularly used weapon can do against each NPC's AT.
This is a benchmark to gauge how many times either can be hit within the mass battle before being removed.
For Militia this can be reflected by John's number of one, most times, or higher depending on "strength, discipline, or numbers".
Multiply the number by however many combatants per side there are to get an Army HP total.
-Roll d10s for each foe and ally - easier if using different coloured dice(dark vs light colours, heh).
Group the two opposing colour schemes byway of however they fall closest to one another in a horizontal line on the table or sort them from highest to lowest or however else you want to skew things.
Run down the d10s and for every side that is lower, put a tally mark on that side's space.
-Cross hatch every 5th tally mark for ease of counting, like normal.
At a certain amount of loss(25/50/75 or 33/66), have a side make a 1st LvL vs 1st LvL RR to rout - you can even make this easier or harder as per "strength, discipline, or numbers" mention above by increasing either side's level, or allowing bonuses based upon the Race makeup of the opposing armies’ Will or SD Bonii.
This is actually nice and fast, though looking at it, it is lengthy to report on, LOL!
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We've never let NPCs be "directly involved" in major gaming points. Example; in combat, the NPC would be "fighting another target" or "he seems to be preparing a spell to cast." We never involved any rolls for them. They weren't the ones playing the game or earning XP for the session and were therefore just additional persona that the GM controlled anyway. Whatever the GM decided, that's what happened to them. The only exceptions were if we had a player show up who wasn't really consistent in playing, so we'd give him an NPC to control for that session and it was no different than having a player and a PC for that session. Similar to how we handled an actual player's PC if the player couldn't make it for a game night. The GM just had that player do some things in the back ground and the PC was an NPC for the night. There shouldn't be any slow down really for the GM unless he decided to treat the NPC as a PC and to make all of the rolls, but now he's no longer an NPC.
The caveat all of our players know is that adventuring NPCs are fodder. Not the same as the shop keep NPC whom the players meet regularly, or the mayor of the town, the persistent NPCs. There is an example in another thread where the party wants to hire an NPC Healer. We would make him less "fodder" and more "persistent NPC persona" but the party now has to babysit the NPC.
I let a group of 12 NPC militia travel with the party and there was no slow down in combat. The other militia were simply fighting other NPC baddies and I let a die roll determine how many militia died that day. 1D10/2. Of the 12, 1-5 died or suffered game ending wounds that day, then we moved on.
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Generally I do not allow NPC's to join the party. That said last night we had 2 NPC's, neither survived the combat which was unfortunate, but hey it happens.
The rules allow a certain amount of natural healing with just an overnight rest. So other than major damage which can happen easily in RM combat a healer is nice, but not an immediate need. Most Channeling users learn the open Concussion's Way list for a quick HP top-up.
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Four to five. Four is nice from a time standpoint, but five tends to provide a significantly better profession diversity. I'd usually have a single NPC in the party beyond that. The 'Healer' of the part if there isn't one, otherwise one that simply helps drive the plot.
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it sounds like everyone seems to treat the NPC's as nobodies or cannon fodder
There is a major opportunities here to use them to add tot the game not just the side fight that no one pays attention to.
Yes i normally use NPC's to round out the group the missing healer or thief but you need to round them out. They can add so much
The healer who only just keeps you alive unless you convert
The thief who is constantly pocketing items instead of sharing with the group
The fighter who takes insult at almost everything and causes more fights outside of a dungeon than in
They all should have their own motivations themselves and their own personality
Yes they can help the group occasionally with info but this is limited to their field of knowledge only.
They are not omnipotent
But sometime using a mage NPC with this personal view could send the group into all the wrong places because "he knows better than you he has studied this at length" when he is just guessing
Many of you seem to be missing major opportunities by not developing an NPCs character as well
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I tend not to give the party an NPC healer. If they are lacking in that department then it is up to them to solve it though learning the right skills, spell lists and investing in the herbs. I do use NPCs that stay with the party and those that come and go as their own stories happen to intersect the parties.
The biggest combats I have run recently have been 6 bodies on the PCs side vs 30 enemy goblins and hobgoblins, the same PCS vs 15 kobolds, PCs vs 45 Gorcrows, PCs vs 60 class I & II undead. I don't find combat slows down that much. I use the condensed combat system so that eliminates most page flipping. I don't use any software though.
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I tend not to give the party an NPC healer. If they are lacking in that department then it is up to them to solve it though learning the right skills, spell lists and investing in the herbs. I do use NPCs that stay with the party and those that come and go as their own stories happen to intersect the parties.
Ditto.
If the party wants a Healer with them, then someone rolls up a healer. In our world, there are ample opportunity to get the help needed through potions, herbs, First/Second Aid, Surgery (LOL), towns, etc.
If a persistent NPC is with the party, it's because he's integral to the story line and he'll have his own quirks and storyline motives.
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Generally if no one wants to play a healer type I'll toss in one if necessary. If no one finds playing that role fun, and one is going to be needed (i.e. we don't have other ways to solve the problem for the setting, etc) I see no reason to force a player to be one. After all, first and foremost, we play for fun.
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Generally if no one wants to play a healer type I'll toss in one if necessary. If no one finds playing that role fun, and one is going to be needed (i.e. we don't have other ways to solve the problem for the setting, etc) I see no reason to force a player to be one. After all, first and foremost, we play for fun.
Only a couple of times has someone opted to roll up a Healer type PC in our groups because they thought it would be good to have one for the campaign and we've always done fine for ourselves. They aren't that popular I guess. I started to roll one up for my self a while back but I never completed it. There are healers in towns to varying degrees of skill, or healers in small towns and tribes. We've never forced someone to play a PC type. Everyone rolled up the PC they wanted. We've restricted some PC types based on game setting though.
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I find the PCs naturaly gravitate toward a enjoyable gaming experience one PC was running a low level mage operating as a goblin king, he once took 20 goblins on the adventure. This many low disciplined creatures created more head aches for him that it was worth, then i really had some fun when they blundered into a flight of fellbeasts, somehow one of the goblins survived and he became the new bodyguard, the pc who managed to flee and hide from the slaughter seemed happy with this as did the rest of the party. Then unless there was an actual battle the gobos stayed home.
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I've never really had this be a problem. Using the standard RMFRP XP rules, additional NPC combatants means the PCs would not gain as much XP from a combat.
And my players just looooooove their XP. So any retainers, lackeys, hirelings, helpers, i.e. the "Bob Squad" usually get left at camp.
In instances where ambushes happen and the Bob Squad is with the party at the time, the Bobs aren't nearly as effective as a PC. And so they tend to die fairly quickly/easily. And the costs for replacing Bobs (both financial and social) gets pretty steep after you lose enough. This also reduces the incentive for PCs to use Bobs in combat.
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I have run campaigns with 0-1 NPC's and my Privateers campaign had as many as 60 NPC's (treated as one ship crew).
In my current fantasy campaign, which is a world and mythology I created from scratch, I run between 2 and 4 NPC's with my 5 players. Most of the NPCs are in the party for a limited period of time, to complete a particular mission or achieve a major goal. The one NPC I keep constant in the party is a lore heavy Bard to serve as an imperfect reference book for the geography, politics, and mythology of this new world. I plan to move that bard out (or maybe kill him off) once the players have enough information to run around the world without major structural questions.
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I try to keep NPC's out as much as possible. That being said I do try to keep one in the group, even if that happens to be camp cook, pack carrier or the like.
Preferably a hireling or subordinate position to keep out of the gaming decisions
But I occasionally need to use them to nudge them the right way or give reminders that the characters should know but the players seem to have forgotten
"Oh you're looking for a cave Thought I seen one a mile back"
"Isn't that shortcut through the mountain pass you want to take an Orc stronghold?"
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Re: slow combat time with large amounts of comabtants: try War Law.
All you need to do is convert the NPCs & PCs party into a WL Unit (easy to do with the normal RM2 stats) & use the WL combat rules. One role & you can find out quickly what happens to your PCs and NPCs alike. I've used this a few times when the combat got too big for the usual AL&CL combat rules.
Nightblade ->--
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NPCs are a GM tool IMO and mostly for non-combat purposes. Why waste time rolling attacks etc? Just have them do what you want to, add to the story when appropriate, and fade to the background again.
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Four to five. Four is nice from a time standpoint, but five tends to provide a significantly better profession diversity. I'd usually have a single NPC in the party beyond that. The 'Healer' of the part if there isn't one, otherwise one that simply helps drive the plot.
I realized that may be mistaken for 4-5 NPCs. I should clarify... 4-5 players and a single regular NPC.
Other NPCs may join temporarily, but I wouldn't do more than one long term.
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We generally do not have NPC's unless it's and escort or essential to story line. That being said the healing classes were difficult to get someone to play especially at low level. Since the channeling companion came out and you have the priest class someone is now more than willing to play a priest as you get different bases spells and some give weapon skills as every man so the priest was able to hold his own or defend himself in combat. Channeling companion made healer class more survivable and fun.
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Since the channeling companion came out and you have the priest class someone is now more than willing to play a priest as you get different bases spells and some give weapon skills as every man so the priest was able to hold his own or defend himself in combat. Channeling companion made healer class more survivable and fun.
I love seeing this. Number one goal of that book was to make 'Clerics' not so damn boring.
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Over the years using RM and RM variants, I've tried several options, from none to about as many as there are PCs in the group (I'm not including one-shot hirelings such as guides, caravan guards, or similar - just "named NPCs" if you wish).
Given the nature of the system, I'm obviously more comfortable with the lower end of the spectrum, but even then I feel dragged down by the number of dice rolls and table reading. Still, I've ended up with a number of dos and don'ts that tend to work for me
- do have the named NPCs be there for a reason other than filling a technical weakness. Romantic relation, friendship, professional buddies, whatever, but no "this is the healer NPC because no one wanted to play a healer".
- do not have the NPCs be the focus of the plot. This is PC territory. The NPCs might be peripheral to the plot but not central (conversely, NPCs that are central to the plot should not be in the same company as the PCs, at least until the PCs actively attach themselves to them).
- given a relative (to the PCs) expertise ranging from "complete nobody" to "nearly omnipotent" with "same as PCs" in the middle, do try to keep named NPCs in a band between "noticeably weaker but not crippingly so" to "slightly better but not in a field that is central to a PC".
- do not have the PCs provide definitive answers to PC questions and problems, but do have them offer opinions... and do not forget to have them being wrong sometimes. NPCs are not paper soldiers, they are fully fleshed characters with their own demeanor, problems and ideals.
- try to avoid attaching more than one NPC to any given PC specifically (see "relations" above). Players tend to relate to one related NPC just fine, but more than that tends to split attention and stunt self-reliance.
- do NOT force a relationship upon a PC. Talk to the player beforehand or, even better, have a pre-campaign solo play that involves the NPC to see if they both click. If they do and the PC finds it natural to have the NPC tagging along, that's great and your NPC is OK. Otherwise, have the NPC live his own life and use it differently (if the PC did click with the NPC, they will likely cross paths sooner or later anyway).
- do not have the NPC displaying one of a kind powers or abilities. They can have abilities none of the PCs have, but those abilities should be at worst known in the world and at best fairly common for someone with the NPC's background.
I must add that I broke most of those rules at least once. I most cases, I wish I hadn't.
Then there are the system-side aspects (which I also try to use for opposing NPCs and faceless opposition):
- try to avoid rolling dice for NPCs for manoeuver actions, unless the NPC is the focus of the scene and there is a real interest in cheking whether they succeed or not. Otherwise, have them perform "as can be expected".
- when an NPC is put against a PC, try to "reverse" the RM engine and have the PCs make all the rolls. The RM combat and critical tables, for instance, can easily be used by replacing an NPC attack roll with a PC defense roll against a NPC-defined base value (NPC base value - PC modified roll = result on the table). Critical rolls can also be made by players (using 101 - player roll as critical result).
[honestly, I can't figure why this mechanism is not proposed as a standard part of the GM toolset].
- when two (or more) NPCs are put against each other, do not roll. Rather, guesstimate the average outcome and how much time it would take to reach that outcome barring any situational change. Then, run the clock until a) the average outcome plays out, b) PCs intervene, or c) the situation changes. Players do not have HUDs with real-time NPC combat status updates - they only know what they see and hear, and you only need to know precisely how much an NPC is hurt when it's healing time (and even then, only if the PCs provide the healing).
I yet have to implement all those aspects formally (i.e. in writing), but the general rule is "focus on PCs all the time, including when NPCs are involved".
I am also working on a mildly heretical variant where combat tables would be drastically compacted : for each AT/AR, only have
- result threshold for crit-less hit and average number of CH inflicted
- for each crit level, result threshold for that crit level and average number of CH inflicted
The more heretical variant would include a streamlining of the critical tables, which would be read on a single d10 (taken as the "units" die of the d100 attack roll). Ideally, I would find a way to have that variant applied to the RR mechanism as well, with the objective of having a "single roll resolution" for all actions - and all rolls on player side.
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Over the years using RM and RM variants, I've tried several options, from none to about as many as there are PCs in the group (I'm not including one-shot hirelings such as guides, caravan guards, or similar - just "named NPCs" if you wish).
Given the nature of the system, I'm obviously more comfortable with the lower end of the spectrum, but even then I feel dragged down by the number of dice rolls and table reading. Still, I've ended up with a number of dos and don'ts that tend to work for me
- do have the named NPCs be there for a reason other than filling a technical weakness. Romantic relation, friendship, professional buddies, whatever, but no "this is the healer NPC because no one wanted to play a healer".
- do not have the NPCs be the focus of the plot. This is PC territory. The NPCs might be peripheral to the plot but not central (conversely, NPCs that are central to the plot should not be in the same company as the PCs, at least until the PCs actively attach themselves to them).
- given a relative (to the PCs) expertise ranging from "complete nobody" to "nearly omnipotent" with "same as PCs" in the middle, do try to keep named NPCs in a band between "noticeably weaker but not crippingly so" to "slightly better but not in a field that is central to a PC".
- do not have the PCs provide definitive answers to PC questions and problems, but do have them offer opinions... and do not forget to have them being wrong sometimes. NPCs are not paper soldiers, they are fully fleshed characters with their own demeanor, problems and ideals.
- try to avoid attaching more than one NPC to any given PC specifically (see "relations" above). Players tend to relate to one related NPC just fine, but more than that tends to split attention and stunt self-reliance.
- do NOT force a relationship upon a PC. Talk to the player beforehand or, even better, have a pre-campaign solo play that involves the NPC to see if they both click. If they do and the PC finds it natural to have the NPC tagging along, that's great and your NPC is OK. Otherwise, have the NPC live his own life and use it differently (if the PC did click with the NPC, they will likely cross paths sooner or later anyway).
- do not have the NPC displaying one of a kind powers or abilities. They can have abilities none of the PCs have, but those abilities should be at worst known in the world and at best fairly common for someone with the NPC's background.
I must add that I broke most of those rules at least once. I most cases, I wish I hadn't.
Then there are the system-side aspects (which I also try to use for opposing NPCs and faceless opposition):
- try to avoid rolling dice for NPCs for manoeuver actions, unless the NPC is the focus of the scene and there is a real interest in cheking whether they succeed or not. Otherwise, have them perform "as can be expected".
- when an NPC is put against a PC, try to "reverse" the RM engine and have the PCs make all the rolls. The RM combat and critical tables, for instance, can easily be used by replacing an NPC attack roll with a PC defense roll against a NPC-defined base value (NPC base value - PC modified roll = result on the table). Critical rolls can also be made by players (using 101 - player roll as critical result).
[honestly, I can't figure why this mechanism is not proposed as a standard part of the GM toolset].
- when two (or more) NPCs are put against each other, do not roll. Rather, guesstimate the average outcome and how much time it would take to reach that outcome barring any situational change. Then, run the clock until a) the average outcome plays out, b) PCs intervene, or c) the situation changes. Players do not have HUDs with real-time NPC combat status updates - they only know what they see and hear, and you only need to know precisely how much an NPC is hurt when it's healing time (and even then, only if the PCs provide the healing).
I yet have to implement all those aspects formally (i.e. in writing), but the general rule is "focus on PCs all the time, including when NPCs are involved".
I am also working on a mildly heretical variant where combat tables would be drastically compacted : for each AT/AR, only have
- result threshold for crit-less hit and average number of CH inflicted
- for each crit level, result threshold for that crit level and average number of CH inflicted
The more heretical variant would include a streamlining of the critical tables, which would be read on a single d10 (taken as the "units" die of the d100 attack roll). Ideally, I would find a way to have that variant applied to the RR mechanism as well, with the objective of having a "single roll resolution" for all actions - and all rolls on player side.
thanks for posting this! ur gming experience is obvious to see. iv broken a fair number of these rules myself. the biggest is perhaps having the npcs at the centre of the story or having a bit too much importance. easily sorted by killing them off i guess. heroic death or tragic death perhaps to move the plot fwd.
i agree the tables esp in combat are a hindrance to having many NPCs in the party. ive done away with them in favour of a home brew system that is based on the super smooth combat system. we play exclusively online now. wasnt always the case. but roll20 does lend itself to quick dice rolling and adding up damage etc. we still use the crit tables but the refined combat system ensures they happen rarely and damage in general is about 3-4x what it would normally be if tables would be used. just found it tedious to run larg combats where u had to keep track of all the mods to combat incurred by crits.
back to the NPC topic... i have successfully used 'flashback' bacstorries for two of my longest running pcs and it was quite fun to flesh out them a bit more and give some detail about their NPC father/uncle or other NPC linked to the larger plot. in an ideal world we would have done this in the beginning and had more of a hook built in to the story but its actually worked pretty well and allowed my to drop in some intersting links to the current story arc.
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as GM im big on having the pcs drive the story although there is a definite balancing act involved with u sometimes needing to steer them in a certain direction. another mistake u can make, and i have made this one is being too heavy handed with suggestions to the player. i counciled a pc from making a rash decision (he is quite a stressed out person in real life). He changed is mind and he later said he felt i had manipulated him. honest hard hitting feedback and u just need to learn from these situations.
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back to the NPC topic... i have successfully used 'flashback' bacstorries for two of my longest running pcs and it was quite fun to flesh out them a bit more and give some detail about their NPC father/uncle or other NPC linked to the larger plot. in an ideal world we would have done this in the beginning and had more of a hook built in to the story but its actually worked pretty well and allowed my to drop in some intersting links to the current story arc.
I think using flashback scenes has two advantages over doing pre-campaign play:
- what you play is relevant to the game at the moment you play it. The drawback of using pre-campaign play is that the information provided at that time risks getting buried under later info.
- the information is available because it is relevant (flashbacks are played "as the need arises"), while pre-campaign play provides information that might never be relevant.
Conversely, pre-campaign play has advantages over flashbacks:
- the character is played in chronological order, which tends to be easier to memorise than hopping back and forth.
- having pre-campaign play tends to anchor characters in the game world better and provides information that the players are free to use as they wish, even in ways you, as a GM, have not foreseen.
All in all, I think it depends on the kind of game you want to manage: if it is very plot-driven and tightly run, flashbacks, in my opinion, are better. The more long-term and "setting first" the game tends to be, however, the more the advantages of pre-campaign play come to the fore.
Except if you are running a very freeform game where player input drives not only the resolution but the very definition of the plot. In this case, flashbacks are better because they can be initiated by players.
The caveat, of course, being that not all players are comfortable with flashback scenes. I know flashbacks tend to be significantly out of mine's comfort zones :)
as GM im big on having the pcs drive the story although there is a definite balancing act involved with u sometimes needing to steer them in a certain direction. another mistake u can make, and i have made this one is being too heavy handed with suggestions to the player. i counciled a pc from making a rash decision (he is quite a stressed out person in real life). He changed is mind and he later said he felt i had manipulated him. honest hard hitting feedback and u just need to learn from these situations.
From past experience, any advice provided by *the GM* to *the players* during actual play is a bad idea. The GM already has many tools to provide "in context" information to the players - NPCs can have their own ideas and opinions, events can be set in place, and clues can be dropped to either confirm that the trail they are following is connected to the problem they are trying to solve (or, conversely, that it is related to some other world issue). Providing in-context information has the additional benefit that the information can be incorrect, vague, or biased, and players expect it to be so depending on who or what give them the info.
But trying to steer PCs in some predefined direction when they would, on their own, go another direction is IMO always counter-productive and can be perceived as railroading (which is a capital sin for a GM). The PCs can make mistakes, can follow false trails, can misjudge a situation - it is part of the players' freedom of choice. The role of the GM, as far as I'm concerned, is NOT to ensure the PC stay on the "right path" but to make sure that 1) something interesting happens wherever they go and 2) barring PC death or crippling injury, they will have the opportunity to get back to the main plot if they want. The only thing to monitor is the players' expectations versus the actual duration of the campaign: if players are getting impatient, it's better to give them an opportunity to catch up with the main plot soon :)
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back to the NPC topic... i have successfully used 'flashback' bacstorries for two of my longest running pcs and it was quite fun to flesh out them a bit more and give some detail about their NPC father/uncle or other NPC linked to the larger plot. in an ideal world we would have done this in the beginning and had more of a hook built in to the story but its actually worked pretty well and allowed my to drop in some intersting links to the current story arc.
I think using flashback scenes has two advantages over doing pre-campaign play:
- what you play is relevant to the game at the moment you play it. The drawback of using pre-campaign play is that the information provided at that time risks getting buried under later info.
- the information is available because it is relevant (flashbacks are played "as the need arises"), while pre-campaign play provides information that might never be relevant.
Conversely, pre-campaign play has advantages over flashbacks:
- the character is played in chronological order, which tends to be easier to memorise than hopping back and forth.
- having pre-campaign play tends to anchor characters in the game world better and provides information that the players are free to use as they wish, even in ways you, as a GM, have not foreseen.
All in all, I think it depends on the kind of game you want to manage: if it is very plot-driven and tightly run, flashbacks, in my opinion, are better. The more long-term and "setting first" the game tends to be, however, the more the advantages of pre-campaign play come to the fore.
Except if you are running a very freeform game where player input drives not only the resolution but the very definition of the plot. In this case, flashbacks are better because they can be initiated by players.
The caveat, of course, being that not all players are comfortable with flashback scenes. I know flashbacks tend to be significantly out of mine's comfort zones :)
as GM im big on having the pcs drive the story although there is a definite balancing act involved with u sometimes needing to steer them in a certain direction. another mistake u can make, and i have made this one is being too heavy handed with suggestions to the player. i counciled a pc from making a rash decision (he is quite a stressed out person in real life). He changed is mind and he later said he felt i had manipulated him. honest hard hitting feedback and u just need to learn from these situations.
From past experience, any advice provided by *the GM* to *the players* during actual play is a bad idea. The GM already has many tools to provide "in context" information to the players - NPCs can have their own ideas and opinions, events can be set in place, and clues can be dropped to either confirm that the trail they are following is connected to the problem they are trying to solve (or, conversely, that it is related to some other world issue). Providing in-context information has the additional benefit that the information can be incorrect, vague, or biased, and players expect it to be so depending on who or what give them the info.
But trying to steer PCs in some predefined direction when they would, on their own, go another direction is IMO always counter-productive and can be perceived as railroading (which is a capital sin for a GM). The PCs can make mistakes, can follow false trails, can misjudge a situation - it is part of the players' freedom of choice. The role of the GM, as far as I'm concerned, is NOT to ensure the PC stay on the "right path" but to make sure that 1) something interesting happens wherever they go and 2) barring PC death or crippling injury, they will have the opportunity to get back to the main plot if they want. The only thing to monitor is the players' expectations versus the actual duration of the campaign: if players are getting impatient, it's better to give them an opportunity to catch up with the main plot soon :)
yep. guilty of railroading on this one. not my usual way of operating at all. in hindsight i can see we were feeling the pressure of time constraints during this session. dealing with an indecisive player is a challenge. the temptation is to help them make the 'right'decision or just make a decision.
i think i was myself suffering from GM burnout (the reason im taking a well earned hiatus from the campaign).
i give plot clues and am always intrigued by how the players interpret these, the often give me ideas for future sessions when they talk out load about what they think is going on.
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MisterK, have you ever tried using both Pre-Campaign Play & Flashbacks in the same campaign? In my mind, you might get the best of both worlds. The Flashbacks might have more depth because of the Pre-Campaign Play; while the Pre-Campaign Play material might have more impact if revisted during a Flashback.
I wonder if anyone has tried both within the same game?
Nightblade ->--
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MisterK, have you ever tried using both Pre-Campaign Play & Flashbacks in the same campaign? In my mind, you might get the best of both worlds. The Flashbacks might have more depth because of the Pre-Campaign Play; while the Pre-Campaign Play material might have more impact if revisted during a Flashback.
I wonder if anyone has tried both within the same game?
Nightblade ->--
No, I have not. As I said, flashbacks are out of my regular player group comfort zone :)
I have used directed flashbacks several times, but this is different - it typically involves getting information directly from the mind of someone and the players are passive, whereas flashback as a RP technique actively involves players and gives them interpretative agency.
So, no.
I am, on the average, much more a pre-campaign solo play type of GM. My last RM campaign had several months worth of solo and duo play before the campaign proper began (the campaign itself ran for five years and a hundred sessions). When directing shorter campaigns, I tend to cut down on the solo play (sometimes replacing it with written background, as I did in the previous campaign).
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I can understand that. Flashbacks can sometimes come off as a little hokey. Though, I think the tie-in with the pre-campaign play would reduce the hokeiness.
I was just wondering if anyone had tried it. No biggie if no one has.
Nightblade ->--