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10 months ago ::
Aug 24, 2012 - 7:29AM
#11
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Regarding "the DM will have no idea how the adventure is going to turn out and what's going to happen next": I understand the value of the shared storytelling and the danger that plot based narrative has in regards to railroading (the reason I'm really interesting in this method of preparation), however I'm also trying to prepare for a longer and grander campaign so I have like to have some idea of what is going to happen at least on a global scale. In this sense my overall arc "Chained god seeks freedom" is an overarching Danger beneath with are many smaller dangers. It will only be right towards the end once many smaller dangers have been negotiated with, that the plans of the Chained God might come undone, so in a sense this is a stable story element (for the time being) and only as the PCs approach this final Danger will it's stability begin to come undone.
The overall arc would be organized under "Campaign Front: Chained God Seeks Freedom" (with respective Danger(s)) as opposed to the "Adventure Front: Lumber Town" (or whatever you choose to call that LIM). One of the ways the method uses Fronts and Dangers is so you the DM don't have to worry about coming up with any of that stuff beforehand. Dangers that go unresolved by the PCs or that get to their Impending Doom can become Dangers that elevate to the Campaign Front level - they're bigger, badder, and more dangerous. (I gauge that by how much interest the players show in keeping something around.) Campaign Fronts and their attached Dangers are floating around "out there" so that when the PCs are engaged in a new Adventure Front, the Dangers attached to the Campaign Front can occasionaly stick their nose into things if it makes sense in the emergent story. They move and change, generally speaking, at a much slower pace than Dangers in the current Adventure Front. A Danger attached to an Adventure Front has 1 to 3 Grim Portents; Dangers attached to a Campaign Front have 3 to 5.
A Campaign Front is thus normally arrived at this way - you create a couple of Dangers in an Adventure Front, you shared storytell and worldbuild with your players, and then depending on the outcome of the first couple sessions, you decide what "graduates" to Campaign Front status. It might be an unresolved/advanced Danger from your first Adventure Front or it might be something you *poof* into existence because of something the players said or established about themselves, each other, or the world during collaborative storytelling. Done this way, the DM doesn't have total control over where things are headed - it's shared between him and the players. Thus, you're more apt to get a result everyone is excited about. You're really playing to find out what happens. And that's a good thing. Over time, it's easy to see how very little you need to run a great game.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 20, 2012 - 11:25PM
#12
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Date Joined:
May 12, 2009
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Hey guys, I thought I'd update regarding my campaign.
Firstly, strictly speaking I haven't gone all in on the concept. I still have an over arching plot and I tend to do the majority of the story telling at the gaming table. But the concept worked out really well in the opening game.
I did 'railroad' the characters a little, in that I started the 2nd chapter of my campaign in the Adventure Front town. I had initially planned on roleplaying the end of the first chapter, but as I had 4 new characters coming in (2 people changed characters, 1 person dropped from the group, 2 new people joined the group, so only 2 of the initial characters carried over into this chapter) instead of going through all the awkward 'you meet new people, get to know them!' I simply lumped them together gave them a montage of the last few weeks events and told them they'd accepted the initial adventure hook. So they started the session arriving in the town.
Then they spent 5 hours (real time about 1 day game time) walking around the town, talking to NPCs. I had prepared some combats as the game is 4th ed. and my players tend to enjoy the mechanical aspects of their characters (that is smashing monsters in combat), but we never managed to get around to a combat, as the whole session was spent unravelling the various mysteries and factions in the town. Everyone seemed engaged and they've picked up roughly 5 different threads to follow and are discussing whether they should hang around town to locate the cultists, or should they go into the woods and visit the druids/defend the lumberjacks, or track down and bounty hunt some of the wild folk raiders. They strong armed the overseer into paying them to help investigate a disappearence and uncovered a love triangle that they're still trying to untangle. And they got clues regarding the whereabouts of a tomb they're seeking (honestly the initial hook I forced on them which made them arrive at the town in the first place) and also clues as to the where abouts of the big bad, based on rumours from a travelling merchant. All in all, there was a lot of great roleplaying and the whole session was driven by the players seeking out various NPCs to uncover information.
The most helpful thing I found was thinking about the NPCs in relation to the factions they care about. The list of NPCs made it really easy for me to keep the information flowing. Rather than focusing on a great deal of detail I simply had rough connections a motivations and then played on the fly. I can certainly recommend the LIM structuring of resources, as it saves a lot of time and plays out very freely, even if you don't incorporate all the elements of shared story-telling.
If people are interested I'll post up the adventure town resources I produced (with thanks to iserith for his initial tweaking).
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9 months ago ::
Sep 20, 2012 - 11:46PM
#13
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I'm really glad to hear it went well! Isn't it interesting what effect the style has on the group? What sort of feedback did you get from the players? I wouldn't call what you did a railroad - it's just good pacing. You're putting the camera on the action which is where the focus of a session should be. The only thing I'd do differently is I'd make the "montage" a Q&A between the players and me. Put them in the location, ask them how they got there, and what it was like along the way. The information you get from there is also useful for future emergent story. All of your subsequent LIM's and hooks should emerge naturally just by playing and asking questions. If builds upon itself, you'll see. It's so cool to watch it happen all on its own. Next session, I'd recommend starting with some tense action. Throw something at them, put them in a spot, let them explain how they got into that mess. Then see what they do. After a whole session of interaction and storytelling, I think they need a little combat reward.  Please keep us posted on how it goes!
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9 months ago ::
Sep 21, 2012 - 1:31AM
#14
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Date Joined:
May 12, 2009
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The thing with the montage, is that it wrapped up some of the major events that happened in the first chapter of the campaign. Visits from royalty and foreign emmisaries wondering what happened in the town. A funeral for the character that died at the end of the last session and research that led to clue which sparked this part of the adventure.
This is part of my over arching story, and also a way of showing how the world at large is dynamic, and that the player actions have lasting impacts.
As some examples: The Baron's household was almost completely wiped out by a cultist imposter, so the baron refuses to go back and his nephew is now in charge (perhaps the players could have avoided this by acting earlier against the person they knew to be an imposter).
The warlock who is loudly devoted to Bane, has gathered some followers (he is a hero of town, even if he is a drunk Bane worshipper!) and they have been granted permission to build a temple in the town (I have also adopted his desire for Bane to have a larger influence on the campaign by seeding the capital city with a growing community that worships Bane).
The merchant house the players were working for has increased in prosperity and influence, and has gifted the players with farmland (one of my players is really keen on this, so I'm letting him decide how much land and how much income is reasonable).
And one of the old PCs (the player elected to change character because he wasn't enjoying the class) was given the authority and resources to build an order to defend an ancient artifact (that the PCs uncovered in chapter 1) and thus becomes a powerful NPC ally, and it suits the character's motivations to give up adventuring.
These are ideas I had, so perhaps I'm just being selfish by not sharing the storytelling with the players, but I feel this is part of the larger world, and I want it to feel dynamic and responsive. I think the players are enjoying that too, although it is more work on my part that shared storytelling.
However as the campaign progresses now, I can see how the players taking part will shape the future of the game, so I won't have to do so much background work.
RE: Player feedback - firstly they were all very keen to meet up again next week, which is a great sign. One player said "it doesn't feel much like a 4th ed. game." which I'm not sure I should take as praise or criticism. I think he prefers the combat side of things, so I'll make sure he gets a chance to swing his Glaive in combat next session.
I always follow up my sessions with an email to send through a list of NPCs the characters met, and any flavour text that I read them during the sessions, so that they have the info on hand if they care enough to re-read it (some of them do, some of them don't). I always ask for feedback, but they rarely respond. I tend to take no news as good news.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 21, 2012 - 5:16AM
#15
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One thing that struck me from reading the initial post is:
Wildfolk invade town and drive out inhabitants
Altered Forest grows over town
The order in which these happen could lead to some interesting results.
If forest overgrows town first, then what do wildfolk do? Do wildfolk still want the overgrown town, or do they seek a more favoable staging area?
If wildfolk seize town first, will they fight off the forest when it encroaches?
If both things happen at approximately the same time -- wildfolk could be pillaging one end of town while trees are overgrowing the other end of town!
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9 months ago ::
Sep 21, 2012 - 7:28AM
#16
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RE: Player feedback - firstly they were all very keen to meet up again next week, which is a great sign. One player said "it doesn't feel much like a 4th ed. game." which I'm not sure I should take as praise or criticism. I think he prefers the combat side of things, so I'll make sure he gets a chance to swing his Glaive in combat next session.
Interesting feedback. You should press him on that point and see what he says, just out of curiosity. After you bloody him in the opening scene next session, of course!
One thing that struck me from reading the initial post is:
Wildfolk invade town and drive out inhabitants
Altered Forest grows over town
The order in which these happen could lead to some interesting results.
If forest overgrows town first, then what do wildfolk do? Do wildfolk still want the overgrown town, or do they seek a more favoable staging area?
If wildfolk seize town first, will they fight off the forest when it encroaches?
If both things happen at approximately the same time -- wildfolk could be pillaging one end of town while trees are overgrowing the other end of town!
That's an interesting point. It could go all sorts of ways. Could the PCs convince Chief Kaoru to actually help the town? Now that would be amazing.
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