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Shottglazz
Sergeant
879 Posts
    
Quinte West, Ontario, Canada
 | | 09/17/2007 10:58 AM |
| So I'm contemplating a major shift in the way our game group plays. We're starting a new campaign in two days' time. I already have the first two adventures planned out, and the start of a few plot lines. What I'm considering is:
Instead of using the EL/CR of an adventure as is, (ie 1st lvl pc's in a 1st lvl dungeon, 4th lvl pc's in a 4th lvl dungeon, etc) that I would provide each PC with several "leads" to adventure.
Each of these "leads" would include a hint or two about the rough "danger level" of the adventure. This would provide the party a way to judge if it sounds too dangerous or too easy for them. I have never been a fan of using recommended levels as is.
I feel this will give the group more freedom in their choices, and ensure that the choices they do make will have more of an impact in their characters' lives. If they choose something too hard, that's their choice. It it's too easy - they get a cakewalk. (Obviously, I won't make it too easy for them to go into a 15th lvl adventure at 3rd level - TPK every time isn't a fun game).
Opinions/thoughts would be welcomed and encouraged... | |
Shottglazz
"Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand;
I don't care, I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me."
Completed trades ( 42 ): Pikel, Darrell, JeffDHarvey, BiggPappa001, Ghendar, Valinrook X2, Wolfgang x2, Wraithborne x5, Mr Ruffles, Anothermullen, CKissee x3, Browns_Scoundrel, Kyrin, GuJiaXian x2, Tyngfumv, Basic_Aim, Mickey Mouse, Berus316, Crisisman, Zoons, Rockfrd, Sterling40 x2, Brucemc, 2007 Magical Mystery Trade, Redskullz x2, Stephengroy, Lyus_Sleyden, Foolforthought, 2008 Magical Mystery Trade, Kilsek, Generic Fighter
Pending trades ( 0 ):
WotC trades ( 1 ): Red_Deceiver
Bad trades ( 2 ): LeftEyeofGruumsh, Yotebeth | |
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berus316
Sergeant
621 Posts
Markham, Ontario Canada
| | 09/17/2007 11:09 AM |
| I usually warn my PCs with rumours of what may lay ahead of them in different possible adventures. It's a lot of work to have 4 possible adventures ready to go but it seems to be working well. But giving them the freedom to choose is a great thing.
Though the absolute most significant thing I do in my campaign, is that I make *all* rolls as DM in front of the players. I cannot "protect" them from the rolls, and what happens, happens. It sometimes haunts me when a significant foe rolls a "1" on a save and completely squashes and encounter, or when the giant crits a PC and does like 68 hps to a pc with 28 hps left... but it has taken some of the blame or grief away from me when there is a PC death, as the players don't neccessarily blame me, they blame the dice and I find that to be a great thing. I heartily encourage all DMs to give this a shot. | |
Champion of the Aspect of Gruumsh
Nemesis of Gnomes and Warforged
References http://maxminis.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12304
H/W List http://www.maxminis.com/hw_list.asp?user=berus316 | |
| Knight of Argenis
Corim Danex
Warlord
6561 Posts
West Valley City, Utah
| | 09/17/2007 11:48 AM |
| | Shottglazz, I feel that the way you are describing it is the best way to go, if you have the time to prepare for it. I tried that during sections of my campaign. One problem is that we have an overconfident paladin (the player is overconfident) and it has gotten the party in trouble. | |
"Look to God and live." Alma 37:47
Ha 80/80---De 60/60---Ar 60/60---GoL 72/72---Ab 60/60---Dk 60/60---Af 60/60---Ud 60/60---WD 60/60---WDQ 60/60---BW 60/60---UH 60/60---NB 60/60---DDe 60/60---SSB 59/60 (Does anyone want to buy my SSB collection?)
Champion of Something, I imagine I will think of something
Vindicated Champ of Hippogriff (Arcadian Hippogriff) and Uncommon Horse | |
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Oryan77
Sergeant
950 Posts
| | 09/17/2007 3:57 PM |
| Posted By Corim Danex on 09/17/2007 11:48 AM
Shottglazz, I feel that the way you are describing it is the best way to go, if you have the time to prepare for it. I tried that during sections of my campaign. One problem is that we have an overconfident paladin (the player is overconfident) and it has gotten the party in trouble. There always seems to be one player like that in a group. And that's always the guy that complains first when his PC is in danger 
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| Knight of Argenis
Corim Danex
Warlord
6561 Posts
West Valley City, Utah
| | 09/17/2007 5:45 PM |
| | Yeah, he tried bargaining with a higher CR dragon as though he were an equal and the dragon got offended and the end result was the paladin got pushed off a cliff (unfortunately, he had a ring of feather fall) and the party druid ended up deciding to cast a mass energy resistance on most of the party instead of a serious healing spell on herself, resulting in her death. | |
"Look to God and live." Alma 37:47
Ha 80/80---De 60/60---Ar 60/60---GoL 72/72---Ab 60/60---Dk 60/60---Af 60/60---Ud 60/60---WD 60/60---WDQ 60/60---BW 60/60---UH 60/60---NB 60/60---DDe 60/60---SSB 59/60 (Does anyone want to buy my SSB collection?)
Champion of Something, I imagine I will think of something
Vindicated Champ of Hippogriff (Arcadian Hippogriff) and Uncommon Horse | |
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arbados
Underboss
1375 Posts
New York, USA
| | 09/17/2007 8:31 PM |
| The way you are planning on going is the way I have always done it. It is the best for role playing and forcing your characters to think about what they choose to do. I am always reading differnt adventures and have them prepared if necessary.  When the group is looking for work they may hear stories of a great dragon, a band of kobolds or just some mysterious evil lurking. They then sit back and discuss the possibilities as characters. It is always great fun to see them discussing what they think the challenge rating of the quest may be and which one they choose. Sometimes they make a mistake in their choice and it is something over their head. However, they can always try and abondon the mission and choose another journey. The players know this is the way we play and you should be sure that your players are aware of this as well. If they are thinking you are matching everything up to their character levels then they will be very bothered when a Tarrasque pops up!!! Go for it. It is the best way to play.  | |
Give me more MIND FLAYERS! | |
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Skyscraper
Sergeant
659 Posts
Montreal
| | 09/18/2007 7:56 AM |
| Although i agree with the general principle of providing choice to the players, i don't recommend a rigid setting in that all your encounters or adventures are pre-planned and your players need only "follow the lead" to find the proper CR-related encounters. In the end, encounters that are too difficult or too easy are not fun at the gaming table. If your PCs run through EL 1 encounters at level 6, they'll yawn all evening long.
However, i agree that giving them hints of what lies ahead and the occasional encounter that should be avoided if they think about it long enough, is good. Also, the occasional easy encounter because they planned things properly is a good reward IMO. These shouldn't be the norm however, at least in my opinion.
Here is how i run my homebrew. I do not believe this is the best way (if such a thing exists), just a way.
I prepare my adventures at the last minute, mostly. I give several leads to the PCs, and make some up as the adventure unfolds depending on their actions. I'm especially fond of making a right-angle turn when they find a very original way of trying to thwart their opponents or solve tricky situations. I'll then prepare the shortly upcoming encounters, and wait before preparing the others. That way, i feel that my campaign is not linear and that i do not railroad the PCs in any way. For example, at the start of my campaign, the PCs had hints about four groups of enemies to investigate, and as they searched they found a fifth which is the first lead they finally followed. One of the other four was eventually also investigated, and the other three were never (and likely never will be) visited.
What i do have are general guidelines of what the enemies and allies NPCs are doing. I like to throw in several interacting groups of NPCs in my homebrew, since i believe that's more realistic: you rarely have one group accomplishing things unhindered, with the single band of heroes trying to thwart those plans. Then, as the PCs cross the different groups, i prepare encounters relating to those groups.
One particular way to carry this out is to prepare a list of NPCs without statting them out upfront. Consequently, you can give them a suitable level when time comes. This works for 90% of NPCs (BBEGs can't really be 1st level, usually, so i'll often stat them upfront, although i may change their level as time goes by - PCs aren't the only ones that level up in the world!).
I like to throw difficult odds at the PCs, that will become feasible or even easy if they find an original way to go about accomplishing their adventure. For example, they recently needed to retrieve a powerful artifact from a heavily guarded castle with numerous NPCs in there, including some very powerful ones that alone could be too much for the PCs to handle, especially as part of a multi-encounter setting. However, when preparing the castle, i also imagined several ways to avoid many encounters. Firstly, some allies could be found within the castle, either prisoners, visitors and some rogue enemies (in the sense that those enemies didn't agree with their bosses). Then, there was an important encampment of opponents ready to attack the castle, which they eventually did. Finally, there were secret passages that allowed you to avoid the main guard posts. The players managed to make one important ally that allowed them to be invited into the castle. When the castle had first been brought into the game, i had no idea this would occur. That allowed them to gain knowledge that the artifact was indeed there. They also learned about the opponents ready to attack the castle, and managed to visit the castle and find other relevant info. The PCs returned when the other opponents did, finding one significant ally (same level as them) with her two henchmen along the way. The finally found the artifact and managed to exit the castle, taking advantage of the fighting between the castle inhabitants and their opponents to move about without the entire castle guard on their heels. They didn't find the relevant secret doors however (at least, not the most relevant ones, they did find a few). I think one key part of this entire mega-encounter is that when i prepared it, i didn't know how it would turn out or how the PCs were going to make their way through it. I just prepared a castle, thinking how i would guard it if it were mine; and then i added plenty of NPCs in there to flesh it out, and then imagined how the internal dynamic went: who is an ally with whom, who is a mortal enemy to whom, and so on.
Back on the CR topic, some of my encounters are too strong indeed for the PCs. For example, in the castle mentioned above, one inhabitant was a half-fiend ogre with fighter levels who by himself would probably have taken out half the party. And that's assuming he would have been alone, which is far from obvious. During their investigation, they learned about the half-fiend ogre and although they didn't know his race, they learned of his combat prowess and sheer power. They finally tried their best to avoid him. They also had some battles against 5-6 enemy castle guards that were far beneath their level (5-6 levels 1-4 against an equal number of level 7 PCs). Those easier battles were the result of their good planning IMO. More particularly, the castle guards weren't expecting them, and had their hands full with the other opponents besieging the castle. But in the end, the fun battles were the ones that had approximately a proper EL in that castle. So i believe that aiming for proper ELs in most battles remains the better way to go.
Anyway, that's my (long) two cents on the topic.
Sky | |
The wise man doubts often. The ignorant, sometimes. The fool, never. | |
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Shottglazz
Sergeant
879 Posts
Quinte West, Ontario, Canada
| | 09/18/2007 8:10 AM |
| | Skyscraper - you've hit the nail on the head for what I'm trying to accomplish...I will be doing something similiar, and the "leads" will vary in difficulty, from somewhat easy to "oh poop"...basically from 3-4 levels under the PC's to 3-4 above with rumours of more difficult stuff (and the occasional rumour of ridiculously easy stuff)...I'm used to running things on the fly, so improving when the PC's do something unexpected and taking the campaign down that angle should be feasible... | |
Shottglazz
"Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand;
I don't care, I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me."
Completed trades ( 42 ): Pikel, Darrell, JeffDHarvey, BiggPappa001, Ghendar, Valinrook X2, Wolfgang x2, Wraithborne x5, Mr Ruffles, Anothermullen, CKissee x3, Browns_Scoundrel, Kyrin, GuJiaXian x2, Tyngfumv, Basic_Aim, Mickey Mouse, Berus316, Crisisman, Zoons, Rockfrd, Sterling40 x2, Brucemc, 2007 Magical Mystery Trade, Redskullz x2, Stephengroy, Lyus_Sleyden, Foolforthought, 2008 Magical Mystery Trade, Kilsek, Generic Fighter
Pending trades ( 0 ):
WotC trades ( 1 ): Red_Deceiver
Bad trades ( 2 ): LeftEyeofGruumsh, Yotebeth | |
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