Topic: Rolemaster Adventures

[Elton Robb]

Do you prefer linear adventures ala "Shackled City?"  Do you prefer open ended adventures for your role master campaigns, ala Tales of the Loremasters?

[RandalThor]

I sort of like linear adventures, but ones that may not be obviously linear - if you understand that at all.

Of course, I am not adverse to the other kind either. I'm easy. (OK, now take your best shots, people!)

[intothatdarkness]

I think you need both. Sorry...but it's true. Sometimes a linear adventure is just what a party needs (especially, IMO, early on), but once they get their feet under them they need room to grow and stretch.

[chippermonks]

I think you need both. Sorry...but it's true. Sometimes a linear adventure is just what a party needs (especially, IMO, early on), but once they get their feet under them they need room to grow and stretch.

agreed, I usually have a linear adventure planned for the first bit, and as the characters fill out the plot may go a whole new direction due to character interactions with their environment. I always allow them free reign and if I don't I am usually sorely disappointed in how things end up

[yammahoper]

sandbox leads to linear, and these adventures lead to memorable ganes via character growth.  use them to "pad" pc history and good moral delimas.  The hooker desperate to score the wealthy adventurer so her owner wont beat her family members, help prisoner and used to make the hooker with a heart of gold believable.  be sure to have a back up plan if your player says no to her advances!  anyway, linear is good.  look at TV shows and how we keep watching them for proof.

[Roll 3d6]

I like linear adventures that have a definite ending, but still have threads open to lead to other adventures.  Similar to the story arcs using in TV, movies and comics.  The episode ends, and there is a defeated opponent, yet there is more work to do and a fresh clue has been gained.

[arakish]

I tend to create linear adventures that are also open-ended.  If that makes sense.

I have found that players will tend to follow a linear adventure, but you never know if they will go off on a different tangent, thus the need for open-ended.

rmfr

[VladD]

Railroading is perfectly legal, just hide the tracks!

I use a sand box that goes on either side of the rail road and the tracks will tend to crawl to the path of the PC's anyhow.

BUT, I've been proud of designing an adventure that went much like this: large open area, filled with little adventures, ruined tower here, lost dwarven mine there, small nature refuge with ents, few scattered villages of war like locals... and then had a theme running of an evil schemer that wanted to exploit everyone in that area. The PC's stumbled on his machinations here and there and finally put the puzzle together, pointing at his lair, where they confronted the bad guy.
Beauty was that the locals weren't suffering from his involvement, so they did it all on their own... no major renown, no big rewards, etc.

Railroading does tend to carry such rewards.

[dagorhir]

The nice thing about linear adventures, they are fairly predictable to run and makes my life easier as a GM, but oddly enough I never seem to produce any.

I essentially create a world in which the characters exist and they are free to go where ever they like, to their death on occasion. In this I throw in multiple story lines. The players only see and hear from their character's point of view and never really have a large scale view of the world around them. They have to go by stories, rumors and various events to find adventure. They are like people living in the world which goes by it's business no matter what the PCs do, although their actions can change that business. Like if they stumble upon the plots of some bad guys and muck up everything for those said bad guys.

I can use some limited amount of railroading with the use of the stories, rumors and events by either pulling or pushing the PCs towards a specific location, but they are always free to go somewhere else.

[Fnord]

I prefer the sandbox approach, specifically hexcrawling campaigns.

[Dougansf]

In modules, I like linear.  If I'm going to run a book module at all, I want it to make sense and be internally consistent.

I really like Story Seeds... though I forget where I first heard that term.  D&D probably.

Present a map, monster, etc.  Include a short paragraph suggesting what story it could be involved in.  Inspire the imagination of the GM to do the rest of the work.

[Jon Joe]

Open.

I prefer a complete setting with many plots where PC go from A to B to F to C to A again, than "just another Inn -> A -> B -> C -> Dark Lord #752".

[Suzune]

I tend to write a really loose story only plotting out the beginning and then the scenes surrounding the boss battles. Otherwise I let the character decide what they are going to do. It would common for me to go into a game with no idea where it is headed and to just improv the entire game. Then later I will keep track of what I did and see where I can connect it to the boss battle.

[Vecnath]

I tend to write a really loose story only plotting out the beginning and then the scenes surrounding the boss battles. Otherwise I let the character decide what they are going to do. It would common for me to go into a game with no idea where it is headed and to just improv the entire game. Then later I will keep track of what I did and see where I can connect it to the boss battle.

that is the same way I plan my games. I spent too much time working on linear games early on only to have the party go way off track and leave me at a loss. Now what I do is stat out the main NPCs, have a rough outline of the plot and have a few prepared "can happen anywhere" no importance side quests and just stitch it together as we play going by what feels right.

another thing I do is talk to my PCs after the game ask where they think the game is going. If their ideas are better than mine, I switch things up a bit. then they feel all smart for predicting the campaign.

[Cyanide Baby]

With less time on my hands to put in to dive into open ended scenarios, I prefer well crafted ones with a beginning middle and end. It feels to me that those require less homework than the freer ones. At the same time I love reading the open ended adventures, as they often are filled with geat ideas that usually help in getting a feel for the setting and the world in a way that straight scenarios don't.

[Robs]

I agree with Nofare. Both me and my players have day jobs. We don't have time to spend hours designing adventures or reading source books. Keep it simple and keep all the clichès, so that I can just get a 1001 nights adventure or a classic fantasy or whatever, and play it without major overhaul.

[Morgian]

I like my campaigns  to be as the novel Silverlock: first the players have the path of chance, then one of choice, and finally one of fate, as it arises out of their choices.

For the adventures forming the campaign, I like them as Nofare - not too long, with a clear start, story and ending. Me and my players all have our jobs and lives, so we can't play very often. Long and/or complicated stories have the problem of becoming forgotten over several sessions, too.
Nothing wrong with linear adventures, btw - and on the other side of the screen things look way less simple and linear than from the GMs view, who knows what is going on.

I had only three really long and involved adventures in over 20 years, when the players started one by themselves and I played along. That was the conquering of a kingdom of their own, the creation of a trading company and it's exploits to make a profit, and the founding and running of a village (that grew to a town later). Its a pity players come up so rarely with an initiative of their own, as they are really motivated when they do 

[mocking bird]

The problem with 'open ended' I have found you end up with a party wandering around aimlessly really doing nothing.  In reality all campaigns are just a series of shorter linear adventures stuck together.  Parties need a purpose.  Good players have a character goal.  Good GM's feed off that.

One of my favorite source books was Horrors for Earthdawn.  In the front was a story about the specific horror - about 10 pages long or so - about what it looks like and probably a story of an encounter with it.  There is a page or two of stats for each one in the back but if you are familiar with Earthdawn, they are all waaaay to powerful for top circle character's to take on.  But it still makes great reading.

[yammahoper]

Good players have a character goal.

This is what makes open ended sand boxes work.

I made a PC named Poppy.  He was a halfling cook in a mercenary band.  When he joined as a scout with a group hired by his master in the mercenary band, and then the mercenary band was wiped out while tghe adventurers were recovering the stolen supplies from local caves, he became an adventurer.

The first town the party stopped in, Poppy set up a road side bakery and sold muffins and cakes, with the goal of getting a new building and opening shop.  This led to some great fun dealing with street gangs and local thugs, meeting the other business folk in town, bribing officials to get the right lot, late night dice games, fighting over the prostitute with a heart of gold, etc. 

Nothing was originally planned by the GM, rather he made a local in a well develoed game world and we ran with it.  My characters desire for a store became a focal point of our party, providing base of perations and a launching point for the other PC's (initially I hired them for protection until their own inspiration took them...I AM the old man at the table lol).

[Frabby]

The problem with 'open ended' I have found you end up with a party wandering around aimlessly really doing nothing.  In reality all campaigns are just a series of shorter linear adventures stuck together.  Parties need a purpose.

This.
I've seen several RPG groups break up after the group lost their focus, botched their mission, and literally ended up wandering aimlessly through a forest with dwindling food rations. Other groups started serious in-fighting, and I can recall two cases off-hand where the group was wiped out. One survivor in one case (my character, who decided the group and mission weren't worth it and ran away), and two survivors in custody and facing down a murder trial in the other (here I was GM, I strictly followed through with what the PCs did and how the NPCs would reasonably respond - we simply restarted the campaign with new characters, as the players had completely missed the plot).

In a well-written "railroaded" game, something happens even if the players remain passive and they can live through a story even if they do nothing relevant, and have tales to tell later. I found that to be the vastly more rewarding gaming experience, but then I'm GMing most of the time and I'm a stickler for storylines.

What I'm missing in this discussion is the (obvious, imho) assertion that any "railroaded" adventure can turn into an open-ended one at any time. I've repeatedly had players acting against what the adventure author assumed they would do, and always with perfectly good reason. Sometimes, as a GM, you roll with it (especially if the players are finally doing something proactive). Otherwise, there's a plethora of means to herd the players back into the direction the adventure goes. Most of the time, there are NPCs or events that guide the players along the storyline without ever being recognized as railroads.