Topic: GM/Campaigning styles

[Athelstaine]

I will have the meta plot and npc's pretty much set, but leave it up to the players to determine how they get to where i need them to be. There are times i have to drop little hints,but I feel that players become more immersed in the world when their choices affect/effect the world.

On the other hand i have some players you litertally have to hold their hands and lead them across the street. It is a bummer for me at times, because i plan based off their actions. They used to play in games where everything was laid out for them and they rolled dice when told to. So i am trying to break them out of their shells, without making them feel like they are being put on the spot or ridiculed.

[Cory Magel]

I've found, even in real life, sometimes you need to push the timid persons buttons until they exclaim they don't like what's going on... then ask them "Well, what do you want to do about it?"

[Warl]

Here is My theory behind the/My Idea of the Open sandbox world.

In the real World, Unless I get super involved in politics, I have very little control or effect on what is happening in the world.
Even if I were to get supper involved and Become something like president of the US, I would only be effecting those things that come into my preview, i wouldn't be effecting things on a local state or city level. I wouldn't be getting directly involved in crime fights and so forth.

So, Yes, a Gm has his "Plot of events" for his world. I My games, Things May or May not Happen dependent on whether or not the PCs get involved with events that will effect that particular event. THey DO have a chance to change what will happen if they don't get involved, but only if they take that course. I don't see this as rail-roading, I see it has creating a Living world around my players, one where the world continues to evolve around then, rather than revolve around them. They have a choice as to whether or not to get involved in those events they see and hear about, but they will never be able to get involved directly with all events.

And in my own defense, When I start my campaigns, (not my current RM campaign because I did have a planned event to start it) I don't tell them what they are doing, I Ask what they are going to do. the only choice I make is where it all starts.

[markc]

  I also find games that have set things happening that are independent of the PC actions to be interesting now those events might not take place because of the PC's but if the PC do not interfere then they will happen.
MDC

[Spectre771]

If you have players who normally roll for their own checks one of the best ways to keep your players on their toes is just randomly ask for everyone to roll the dice once in a while.  That way they get them used to not being overly suspicious when it's meaningful. 

[...]

Really just depends on your players.  But sometimes it's fun to mess with peoples heads once in a while.

I like to throw in the "OK, Everyone roll Sense Ambush"  or  "OK, everyone on who is sitting near the windows in the tavern, roll General Perception."  But to make things more interesting, I don't always reward the highest or open-ended roll.  Sometimes, things just happen by dumb luck.  Someone stumbles upon something.  Sometimes quite literally, stumbles on it.  If I tell the entire group to roll General Perception and no one is/was actively looking for something, then I look for the fumble roll.  "Kevin, -83?  OK, you nearly smack your head into the door jamb as you try to peek around the corner.  As you wobble back to catch your balance you look up at the rafters and you catch a glimpse of that street urchin who had picked your pocket this morning.  He starts scrambling along the beams and heads for the small round window at the peak of the roof.   He's making a run for it." 

Sometimes crap happens!  I'm sure all of us at some point in our lives did one of those "Hidden Item Puzzle games" and just sat there studying and studying the photo and couldn't find that yo-yo or that cherry.  Then we leave, answer the phone, sit down and Holy Crap!  It was right there? WTH!!!  It also keeps the players honest.  In the older days, we had one player who was notorious for switching the "high die" for his rolls without telling anyone and always having the highest rolls.  It's not always good to have the highest possible roll.



Oh, and yes, sometimes it's fun to mess with people's heads once in a while

[markc]

 At times to speed up the game I have been just using the PC's raw score and no roll to determine non-critical outcomes and just everyday events. It can speed up play a lot if I have the numbers in front of me but I have had players that roll very high on average and as such they build their PC's a bit differently, thus they tend to lose in my quick resolution method.
MDC

[tbigness]

I usually run a Sandbox game with a few choices of adventures with a seasoned group. I run a mission game with new players so they get use to the system and skills I am looking for characters to have developed (lores, Driving, Observation, ect..) for character leveling. I have done a time line campaign that events happened on specific dates that may be averted by timely interventions in a grand campaign that was really fun. Although the Dragon Lord was successful in his quest to dominate the world because of a bone headed move from one of the PC's. I had 8 possible outcomes which were 5 successful options and 3 doomed outcomes. They fumbled into the later, but this was fun and talked about even till today.

[yammahoper]

An overarching grand campaign is fun. There is always some bigger story in the background.

One of my favorite campaign failures involved the group deciding notto chase down the leads they had discovered regarding the agents of Shrek seeking "the ultimate weapon."  Looking back, I had no idea just how much fear their one brief (and barely survived) encounter with Shrek had put in them, but it was significant enough to avoid any possible future contact.  I probably should not have punished them for that, but...

Six months later Shrek showed up, in orbit, with an ancient Kitaviir Dreadnaught.  He hammered the eyes and the world with anti-matter bombs, shattering Kulthea and allowing an extension of the Void to invade the Prime.  Game over.

[Spectre771]

Six months later Shrek showed up, in orbit, with an ancient Kitaviir Dreadnaught.  He hammered the eyes and the world with anti-matter bombs, shattering Kulthea and allowing an extension of the Void to invade the Prime.  Game over.

Holy crap!!

[yammahoper]

That was not the first time.  The first time would be back in the 80's running in Middle Earth.  The party was well established and level 11-16, just getting interesting.  I had a four hobbits banging on their door one night crying about Black Riders chasing them.  The party slammed the door in their faces. So, a few days later Sauron regained his wring and summoned an army of dead from the underdeeps and conquered the west. Game over.

That time I was again just stunned they refused the adventure.  Really?  Have I been boring you?  Oh, you just don't think your character would get that involved against Nazgul?  Leave it tosomeone else, huh?  Ok, well, someone else failed and no one else stepped up, so Sorehead WON.  As I recall, their are bounties on each of your heads, which Sauron will have soon enough I'm sure.

I did not make them lay down and die.  I just described the method of deaths.  We had fun with it.  Imagining your best death has some charm to it.  Better than being vaporized anyway.

[Cory Magel]

I think I would have had a last combat with the whole group and let them go down fighting.  Sometimes those can be fun fights.  They give it their all, use all their items and tricks, and take down as many foes with them as they can.  I mentioned earlier that we once ended a campaign with a party combat... which was unwittingly driven by the GM himself being a bit of a jerk.

What happened is we were fighting Kobolds in a foggy setting.  I finished off my foe and said "I turn around" (looking for another enemy) and the GM says "You see a figure behind you." and waits for my action.  I won't get into the details, but based on how the fight had been going and the GM's lack of elaboration I assumed this was another Kobold.  So I said I swing.

The GM looks at another party member and says "What's your AC?" at which point we both respond with "Uh, we're human height. The Kobolds are short, we'd be able to tell the difference."  The GM pretty much said "You said you swing, so you swing."  So I swing and miss.  So the guy I swing at says "Ok then, I swing back."

Now, at that point we just thought it was funny and were going to leave it at that... but the GM decides to have a NPC 'vital to the plot' attack the guy I swung at, who then swung back at me.  It's at this point that we basically decide we've had enough (obviously there were previous issues with the GMs style).  An all out party combat breaks out, I think there were seven of us... three were left standing at the end (one of which had sat out the fight).  The 'vital' NPC was dead.

At the end the GM thinks I'm going to rez the dead NPC (I'm a Ranger/Cleric), but instead I walk over to her body and take the Mace of Disruption she has, which was placed in the game for my character, but when the GM made us roll off for loot, when it appeared, the NPC took it cause she rolled higher.

I have to say, it was one of the most fun fights I ever had in D&D.  The GM had this totally dumbfounded look on his face the whole time.  It was pretty funny.  Because, once the NPC went down, there was nothing for him to do.  We were fighting each other.  Campaign over!

[Spectre771]

That was not the first time.  The first time would be back in the 80's running in Middle Earth.  The party was well established and level 11-16, just getting interesting.  I had a four hobbits banging on their door one night crying about Black Riders chasing them.  The party slammed the door in their faces. So, a few days later Sauron regained his wring and summoned an army of dead from the underdeeps and conquered the west. Game over.

That time I was again just stunned they refused the adventure.  Really?  Have I been boring you?  Oh, you just don't think your character would get that involved against Nazgul?  Leave it tosomeone else, huh?  Ok, well, someone else failed and no one else stepped up, so Sorehead WON.  As I recall, their are bounties on each of your heads, which Sauron will have soon enough I'm sure.

I did not make them lay down and die.  I just described the method of deaths.  We had fun with it.  Imagining your best death has some charm to it.  Better than being vaporized anyway.

That is so awesome!  I have to say it's hard to find a GM who would TPK a group, but when lack of action dictates, that it happens!  You're right.  They CHOSE not to adventure.  They CHOSE to let the event go about their own course.  However, you ran into a challenge any GM has.  What would even motivate the PCs to open that door or to help out?  I've had instances where I really had no choice but to let PCs die.  A knight who chooses to sit down in the middle of a battle because his idea didn't work out, so the player pouted and decided he was going to teach me a lesson because he thought I wouldn't kill a PC.  He poured a flask of oil around himself, in the middle of the field, set it on fire and sat down.  He was right.  The skeletons didn't want to cross the ring of fire.  So they shot him with arrows.  What was I supposed to do?  He didn't even bother to hold his shield or to dodge.  He sat down!

I had a huge challenge with the new to RM group I started a few months back.  I knew the players were well seasoned and would play their PCs well enough to be a real challenge.  I had to come up with some really interesting motives to get them to want to work together, and honestly, I had a freaking blast doing it.  I spent so much time working out all these little plots and motives and how to get 8 people together, from varying backgrounds and how to get them wanting to be on the same track.  The beauty of it was that while they all did the same quest, they had different motives.

Disenfranchised Knight - Lots of conspiracy and extremely questionable events that led to the confiscation of his lands and holdings
Burglar... errr.... Proprietor of Klamps Kasino's House of Gaming
Assassi..... errr  I mean "Hunter" - I told the player that the longer he could keep his true profession hidden from the other players AND PCs he would get more XP
Leader
Warrior Monk
Warrior Monk from same temple but with a curse from the Chaos gods that he also needs to keep hidden.  He needs to kill a child or a "holy" man once per week
Elementalist (electricity)
Romantic

I'm really hoping we pick up this campaign again.  I was having a blast running it and the players as well as PCs were really starting to mesh well together.

[Spectre771]

I have to say, it was one of the most fun fights I ever had in D&D.  The GM had this totally dumbfounded look on his face the whole time.  It was pretty funny.  Because, once the NPC went down, there was nothing for him to do.  We were fighting each other.  Campaign over!

That is great.  It's stories like this that I read here and I wish I was there just to watch!  Sometimes bullies need be stood up to, and that includes GM Bullies.  Once you saw the look on the GMs face, I'm sure it just fueled the fire and made the rest of the party want to really stick it to him LOL.

[yammahoper]

That was not the first time.  The first time would be back in the 80's running in Middle Earth.  The party was well established and level 11-16, just getting interesting.  I had a four hobbits banging on their door one night crying about Black Riders chasing them.  The party slammed the door in their faces. So, a few days later Sauron regained his wring and summoned an army of dead from the underdeeps and conquered the west. Game over.

That time I was again just stunned they refused the adventure.  Really?  Have I been boring you?  Oh, you just don't think your character would get that involved against Nazgul?  Leave it tosomeone else, huh?  Ok, well, someone else failed and no one else stepped up, so Sorehead WON.  As I recall, their are bounties on each of your heads, which Sauron will have soon enough I'm sure.

I did not make them lay down and die.  I just described the method of deaths.  We had fun with it.  Imagining your best death has some charm to it.  Better than being vaporized anyway.

That is so awesome!  I have to say it's hard to find a GM who would TPK a group, but when lack of action dictates, that it happens!  You're right.  They CHOSE not to adventure.  They CHOSE to let the event go about their own course.  However, you ran into a challenge any GM has.  What would even motivate the PCs to open that door or to help out?  I've had instances where I really had no choice but to let PCs die.  A knight who chooses to sit down in the middle of a battle because his idea didn't work out, so the player pouted and decided he was going to teach me a lesson because he thought I wouldn't kill a PC.  He poured a flask of oil around himself, in the middle of the field, set it on fire and sat down.  He was right.  The skeletons didn't want to cross the ring of fire.  So they shot him with arrows.  What was I supposed to do?  He didn't even bother to hold his shield or to dodge.  He sat down!

I had a huge challenge with the new to RM group I started a few months back.  I knew the players were well seasoned and would play their PCs well enough to be a real challenge.  I had to come up with some really interesting motives to get them to want to work together, and honestly, I had a freaking blast doing it.  I spent so much time working out all these little plots and motives and how to get 8 people together, from varying backgrounds and how to get them wanting to be on the same track.  The beauty of it was that while they all did the same quest, they had different motives.

Disenfranchised Knight - Lots of conspiracy and extremely questionable events that led to the confiscation of his lands and holdings
Burglar... errr.... Proprietor of Klamps Kasino's House of Gaming
Assassi..... errr  I mean "Hunter" - I told the player that the longer he could keep his true profession hidden from the other players AND PCs he would get more XP
Leader
Warrior Monk
Warrior Monk from same temple but with a curse from the Chaos gods that he also needs to keep hidden.  He needs to kill a child or a "holy" man once per week
Elementalist (electricity)
Romantic

I'm really hoping we pick up this campaign again.  I was having a blast running it and the players as well as PCs were really starting to mesh well together.

I volunteer to play the Burglar.

[HawksNut]

Spectre771,
 Brought up a game point that I think is important in RM, do you have to ask to roll Lie Perception or even Perception to use it in RM? The rules in various games I have played in and various GM's change.
MDC

Mark, I agree. I am introducing 4 new players to RM and two are new to RPG so I often ask for an observation roll or sense awareness roll etc. and it is starting to pay off. The new players are getting more accustomed to their skills.

[Telwyn]

An interesting thread. I've generally run a mixed style of games, there's always a main plot or series of plots to give direction but I'm happy to take inspiration from the characters actions or backgrounds for 'sidetreks'. Most of my gaming has been with the same small group of players so we know each other and our gaming style preferences (which overlap) very well indeed.

For those who have run a sandbox campaign, does player knowledge of the setting feature as an issue? I can imagine it could be difficult to encourage players to really take the lead consistently on direction for the campaign if they're largely ignorant of the wider world around their characters.

[Presidion11]

I’ve been running a 4th Age Middle Earth campaign in a sandbox style.

The players range from Tolkien fans to, “I saw the movies!” None are completely ignorant of the world, though all would have at best, their own conceptions of what a 4th Age might look like.

I think the way I launched the campaign helped to get them moving without a central quest line though like anything, your mileage may vary.

I specified non-evil characters; they would be working to secure the lands of the free peoples. (I'll add - one player asked to play a darker, sneaky character and I told them no. It was our least experience player. In hind sight I should have said yes. She has turned out to be quite competent and a dark character may have added some nice touches in various situations. Learning curve on GM's part!)

Any race or culture would work (half-orc might be OK, orc would not); be ready with a story if you were from a distant land or a land that had been sided with Sauron.

I provided a Campaign Prologue to give some insight. And prior to our first play session, I sent everyone other support information to get them on board such as a Call to Service from the King of Gondor. (Read that as, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but…)

A few times when they had “finished” a particular adventure/encounter/location, they looked at me as if waiting for the next bread crumb; I would pretend I did not notice and while flipping through my campaign folders ask, “Any ideas where you’re headed next so I can get any related information ready to go?”

They would begin checking their notes and debating options to decide on a course of action. It has worked out well so far 

[Presidion11]

oops.. how do i delete a double post? LOL

[yammahoper]

I’ve been running a 4th Age Middle Earth campaign in a sandbox style.

The players range from Tolkien fans to, “I saw the movies!” None are completely ignorant of the world, though all would have at best, their own conceptions of what a 4th Age might look like.

I think the way I launched the campaign helped to get them moving without a central quest line though like anything, your mileage may vary.

I specified non-evil characters; they would be working to secure the lands of the free peoples. (I'll add - one player asked to play a darker, sneaky character and I told them no. It was our least experience player. In hind sight I should have said yes. She has turned out to be quite competent and a dark character may have added some nice touches in various situations. Learning curve on GM's part!)

Any race or culture would work (half-orc might be OK, orc would not); be ready with a story if you were from a distant land or a land that had been sided with Sauron.

I provided a Campaign Prologue to give some insight. And prior to our first play session, I sent everyone other support information to get them on board such as a Call to Service from the King of Gondor. (Read that as, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but…)

A few times when they had “finished” a particular adventure/encounter/location, they looked at me as if waiting for the next bread crumb; I would pretend I did not notice and while flipping through my campaign folders ask, “Any ideas where you’re headed next so I can get any related information ready to go?”

They would begin checking their notes and debating options to decide on a course of action. It has worked out well so far 

Not to late to let her character go dark.  She can explain it away as "waiting for a worthy mark." 

[Spectre771]

I volunteer to play the Burglar.

He is a fun PC and the player is playing him fantastically!   The back story is that he has been trying to establish a "kasino."  He obviously named it after himself and who wouldn't?  The games are rigged in the house's favor so Klamps always gets a portion of the wins and even more of the losses.

"Surely the game is fixed, but you can't win if you don't play." - Lazarus Long

The problem is, the Thieves Guild is pissed because he is stealing from citizens, so they run him out of town.  The Merchants Guild is pissed because it's unlicensed business practices and they run him out of town.  The Banker's Guild is pissed because it's the exchange and handling of monies, investments, exchanges so they run him out of town.  He's never been able to remain established in any one location for too long.  The Patrician made him an offer he couldn't refuse.  Help with this task, work with these people, find the source of the disruption in trade and he will assist Klamps in establishing a Gambling Guild.  He won't be guild master since he has no experience and, like any other large organization, there has to be a CEO with knowledge of how things work.  However, Klamps will be on the "Board of Advisors" since no one in the town has the experience with running a gambling house.  This also frees him up for future adventuring.  If her were the guild master, he probably wouldn't have the freedom to adventure as frequently.

The Patrician is a very smart man