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10 months ago ::
Aug 24, 2012 - 1:35PM
#11
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Date Joined:
Feb 20, 2011
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And that's why it's better to be prepared for POSSIBLE outcomes rather than trying to force particular outcomes. And then don't be surprised if what in fact does happen is nothing you prepared for. Some of your possible outcomes sound like they could be fun for the right group and you know your group.
I would just encourage you to stay open to things going in unexpected directions. And when they do, don't try to correct their course of action to line up with your plans.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 24, 2012 - 4:03PM
#12
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Date Joined:
Jun 12, 2009
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Before you start reading the following...here is why I'm posting this...I'm looking for advice that will enhance this experience. If you've done something like this before, I'd love to hear about what you did...if you have suggestions about ways to make it better, great. I'm looking for positive feedback, not the typical trolls who state 'You shouldn't do something like this'...
I could go all Wesley Crusher on this but I won't Good luck on trying to predict the outcomes of encounters.
We summoned a devil once. All we used was the D&D books, too. It was pretty kwazy.
God of Arrested Development and Intelligence 
Resident Left Hand of Stalin and Banana Stand Grandstander
Pie-Cooling-On-A-Windowsill of the House of Trolls
In the morning HK'll be sober but you'll still be a meatbag.
I know I misspell "Danke" in my posts. It's an inside joke.
"Ten cents gets you nuts." -George Michael
Spoiler:
Show
''Being president is like running a cemetery: you've got a lot of people under you and nobody's listening.''
—Bill Clinton
You are not a moral man. There are not enough middle fingers in the world for you.
Actually, Santa just didn't like you. However, you weren't on the Naughty List, so he had to give you something "better" than coal.
I'd take coal. Heating your house is expesive, and engery cost arn't going down.
Mabey if i beat enough homeless people, i won't have to be cold this year. 
"Heroes"...I wish I had those. I remember in my first-ever campaign one PC went around shootin all the unconscious baddies in the head to gain Dark Side Points...
Whaaaaaat?!??
Wow...way to waste perfectly good potential slaves.
Er...no wait I mean..uh...something not evil!
(Quotes screwed up on the next one, won't give the poster's name. It's in the Best Lines thread on the D&D forum)
First, an experience from a game I played in a few years back. Our DM didn't like 3.5 as a whole but liked parts of it. So he hands us a big ass rules packet for his modified FR campaign, complete with quotes from important NPC's on the front. I can't remember most of the HRs, just that some how gods like Cyric and Bhaal existed at the same time, despite the obvious problems there. In the end the game became a problem more because of the railroading than the HRs, but it ended with this classic line, after our ranger tried to disarm the strange woman following us WITH HIS BOW: DM: You just killed (insert random noble sounding name here) JP: Was she important? Jack: Dude, she's quoted on the front of the rules packet!
"Why in the wide,wide, world of all things irrational would I help you?
-Daniel Jackson
"Fun will now commence."
-Seven of Nine
"Excellent."
-Mr. Burns.
Whey is a crotch.
Cut the last encounter on your way out after dealing with the Darth. He's the BBEG. Treat him as such. Play up that Darth Revan is THAT much of a badarse. When the shuttle landed, I had no less than 13 JEDI MASTERS step off the shuttle. The PCs were slack-jawed. After the meetup with Bastila (as she's carrying Revan's body), only TWO jedi masters remained with her. Let me tell you, the player whining about not getting to fight Revan himself shut up pretty quickly when he saw that. 
There's so much you can do with insanity, especially when it has alot of resources.
1. Cleric cast protection from fire on Tank.
2. Tank goes in and get surrounded by enemies.
3. Wizard cast fireball and blows them up.
4. ???
5. Profit
I go by the saying," If it ain't friendly fire then it's not working."
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10 months ago ::
Aug 25, 2012 - 7:34AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Jun 20, 2010
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I read through your plan and it sounds fun, so Kudos for a solid storyline and some interesting setups (especially the intrigue side quests which would be my favourite). As for advice, well I guess all you can hope for here is praise since you already sewed this up pretty tight (way more than I could) so holes are not easy to spot. First of all it sounds like you have a LOT of content there, enough for many sessions of gaming which is way further ahead than I normally plan. I tried to examine it for holes but all I could come up with was a very useless "If I were the player, I'd get interested in doing this here instead - oh that sound cool - shame the game doesn't go that way. We would fight to the death here and end the game." I can't predict my players like you can, nor do I wish to really. It is their game, it is about their character's stories. They dictate, with there actions, which way the story flows. i react to it on a weekly basis ensuring that I'm only a step or two ahead (rather than about 20 like you are here). I'd be too precious with this - I'd feel like they HAD to do this stuff like I planned or they'd miss all the cool things I have in store. Kind of like making a sketch before you paint it, I want to see where we are heading first then I can keep revising it as we go so it might turn out to be something completely different but none less valid in the final art. Keeps me on my toes but then the story becomes more of a discovery for me too, which is fun and the players are always free to react in whatever way they wish since I don't have to steer. I could tell you that the players will usually do what you don't expect, will frustrate you and make you railroad to keep things on track which in turn will frustrate them and lead to the feeling they just pressed A or B at the apropriate moments of an interactive movie which is precisely why I could not pick holes since the things you can't predict are, well, unpredictable. I used to do this years ago and failed like this a few times. I'm not saying you will - after all as has been said there are lots of styles and everyone is different. I just couldn't write adventures like that any more. I think I play a lazy game but to be honest, I have evolved the style this way to make it player friendly, rather than DM friendly. It is THEIR game as much as mine and they like telling stories as much as I do. I'd have just thown the first encounter down (maybe low cost - like the intreague one first) then gone from there, seeing where the players THINK the story is going and twisting it along to suit. Eventually it will end in a big fight but i wouldn't know how or when exactly - I'd let it happen naturally as the sessions offer me ideas. This is way easier for me to manage and adjudicate and none less story driven or authentic to the players. If this type of second-guessing of outcomes and long-distance planning suits you and your group - good for you. I'm not helping you one bit, so I'll sign off here but Kudos for the planning - I really don't have time for that kind of meta thinking myself. Maybe I'm just stupid and lazy
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10 months ago ::
Aug 25, 2012 - 4:55PM
#14
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Date Joined:
Mar 21, 2010
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First off, I really like this idea. If it's ok with you I'd like to use something similure for my group. They could use this same thing.
Secound, the only thing I could see with this, is what others have already said. It's very hard to plan for everything. You did a good job here covering all the bases, and you have backups for your backups. All good things, however if players see options A-D in front of them, they are going to sprint right for option P. So the few things I would suggest changing would be instead of having the General himself come talk to the party on a flying mount, have a small group of troops do it. The General is obviously busy with running an army, so he would send out dignitarys to make the offer.
This way, if the players decide to fight them, and kill them, the general has his awenser, AND isn't hurt. As for the gold, say it's a "once this is all over" you'll get paid thing. That way they wont have the gold on them, so if the players kill them.....no gold. Except what the troops might have had on them at the time.
For the recon en-force in the town of Hope, that encounter sounds like a lot of fun. But if you want to add a feeling of dread and defeat, as each wave enters the fight describe the scenery of the town behind the area the fight is in. Describe buildins burning, troops swarming in through the streets, people being drug from thier homes and beaten or even killed. Make them feel like, "even if we beat this wave, there will be another and another, and by the time its all over there wont be anything left to save. So the players run to fight another day (hopefuly).
Then the deception of the faction leaders is great. What I would change, have that one artifact be a fake. Obviously the spies don't want the real things getting back to thier rightful owners, so they make a fake. So when they get caught and the players deliver all the artifacts to where they belong, it's no big deal. You attempt to destroy one, to keep the rift in the factions. If you fail, it's ok because it was a fake anyway. The true owner can tell it's a fake, thinking it was some clever ruse to trick his faction into giving in, while getting nothing in return, ect..ect...ect. That way, if you succed in destroying it in route, great. The plan continues as normal, but if they manage to save it, also great, cause it was a fake and drives an even LARGER gap in the factions.
And the finale fight. The big moment. The players have standing orders to fall back and protect the council. They may not do that right away. You may have to throw out a big clue like out of no where there is a massive piller of black smoke coming out of a random tower or window at the keep. (or where ever the council is) Just something to say "the council is already under attack."
Keep in mind, this is just what I'd do. But all in all I really like this idea. The players are going to feel fantastic when this is all said and done. Great job!
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10 months ago ::
Aug 25, 2012 - 8:43PM
#15
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Date Joined:
Sep 20, 2010
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Looks great, hope it works out. My general suggestion is keep it simple, which doesn't mean get rid of everything you planned, but try and give your players little chunks instead of large portions. Don't overload your player's with information. My experience doing a story arch this big. Intro
Last year I started a Dark Sun game with a couple friends. Overtime the game got better and better, but I had to stop DMing due to graduating. I have since handed the reigns of the game to one of the other players. The Setup
The plan was one of the City States(Gulg) is sending an army to take control of a key settlement in between it and another City State(Tyr). Three Templars of the City-State(Gulg) were given different missions, one of them was given the task of cutting off supply routes to the settlement while one was told to capture an elemental to help break through their defenses and another dug under the settlement walls. Another City-State(Balic) was defending the Settlement, but in actuallity was also planning to an assault. The Mission If they chose to accept it
- Defeat the Templars before they reach the Settlement.
- Stop the capture of the Elemental
- Defend the Settlement
Where it went wrong:
- Hooks weren't taken care of fast enough
In one case a dwarven camp was attacked. The players saw the fire in the distance but decided to head to the settlement for shelter, because of this the entire camp was destroyed. No survivors as the Elementalist cremated all the bodies.
The fix: An agent of one of the player's allies investigated the destruction
When going up against the Templar trying to capture the Elemental the players focused on the Templar's bodyguard and Illusions, when they knew the Templar was still performing the binding chant. As such the Templar succeeded.
The fix: The Templar is now going to use the power later to rebel against their master and take control.
- They didn't know what was going on
A lot of the time the players misinterpretted information that was given to them. Most likely because of how I represented the actions to the players. In one case the players thought the temple guards were still around when they knew that the Templar had succeeded in capturing the Temple.
Fix: No fix, but did have a nice roleplay session because of it.
- Too many things going on at once
Not only was the City attacked by the Templars, but an assassin was going to use the attack to kill one of the players. They actually tried to communicate with the assassin to help them with the fight.
Fix: The Assassin was preoccupied and couldn't make it
The End:
Instead of the nice big fight I had planned with the Assassin and the Templar's goons, the players set off explosives over the cities many catacombs to cause a giant cave in. Turning the city into a Crater. Since the Settlement was a choke point that means the City State(Tyr) will recieve less and less traders. In the end I gave them a nice body count, though it was very much a haphazard game.
Overall
No matter how much I planned I realized keeping the session as simple as possible would have helped get the plot points across more easily. I had five boss encounters planned and we only got to one of them. Time was a factor however, both in game and out of game.
Ant Farm
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10 months ago ::
Aug 26, 2012 - 6:08PM
#16
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Date Joined:
Mar 29, 2012
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@Storyspeaker, great suggestions there, I like all those ideas, thanks...feel free to steal whatever you'd like. I'll let you know how it goes, etc.
@everyone who doesn't know what an outline is...nevermind.
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9 months ago ::
Aug 27, 2012 - 6:30PM
#17
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Date Joined:
Mar 21, 2010
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No problem Tharc, totaly let me know how it goes. Can't wait to hear it.
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