As everyone knows iserith and others has been championing a fantastic style of DMing known as Location-In-Motion, or simply LIM. Advice on it has been handed out on lots of threads recently, so I thought it might be a good idea to set up an FAQ, so wise DMs could check it out. I'm no expert, but I think I have the idea down, feel free to criticize and suggest additions/deletions. Based on suggestions, i've attached links to some of the questions. Those are recent threads relating to that subject. What is LIM?
LIM is a style of DMing in which there is no predetermined plot. Rather, the heroes are dropped into a location with various dangers and factions, and everyone (including the DM) plays to find out what happens next!
How is LIMdifferent than "sandboxing"? Spoiler:Show
LIM differs from sandboxing in one major way. In sandboxing, the PCs are dropped into an environment, and start up trouble/ solve potential problems, etc. However, in LIM there are barbarians at the gate, so to speak ( or even inside them! :O). The PCs have enemies around, the setting is in't merely sitting there like block of gelatin waiting for a prod (Hence the "in motion"). community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...
Why is LIM any better then another style, such as railroading? Spoiler:Show
Short answer: Nothing. Playstyles are determined by group preference. Railroading can be a perfectly fun style, it allows epic and dramatic encounters to take place, with grand plots arcing over the whole campaign. However, many prefer a more fluid game, with unplanned events.
It may be a good idea to run a test game, to see what style your group prefers. One important rule is DON'T PRE-PLAN THE PLOT. It may seem easy to avoid, but the urge to throw in a cool plot direction surfaces from time to time. It's probably a good idea to start off in a dungeon of some sort, and from there just go where your layers lead you, rather than a more complicated location like a city. A central part of LIM is the idea of dangers, the "bad guys" of the area. First off you might want to divide the area into wards, like sectors, and give a few keywords to describe each ward. It's very helpful to have a sheet of notes ready with details of the environment. Here's an excellent template to use.
Location-In-Motion Adventure Font _______________________________
Dangers
Danger: Name (Type)
Impulse: This is what the danger may try to do in any given situation. For example, an evil army's impulse might be to conquer. It dosen't have to dictate specific action, but is more of a guideline for unexpected situations.
Impending Doom: This is what might happen in the case of a total victory for the danger. The aforementioned evil army's Impending Doom might be conquest of the city of Habinathe, sacrificing enemy priests in the name of Bane and converting the population into a slave workforce.
Grim Portents: These are little events you can toss out there in case the players are ignoring the danger. They show the party that the danger is still there, and ready to kick some PC butt if they don't do something. For example, an advance guard outpost of the city might fall to the evil army of Bane.
DM Actions: These are relatively simple actions that the danger might take, potentially in reaction to another stimulis. For example, the evil army could grow in numbers by conquest. They should be more general, and less of a sign of approaching doom, then the Grim Portents.
Same thing again for any other dangers.
Description and Cast: Give yourself a basic summary of what is going on, as well as descriptive keywords for some major players. i e. General Tarrion (Hobgoblin Leader of the Holy Army of Bane) Cunning, Manipulative, Determined
Map key:
It's advisable to make a rough sketch of the location and its wards, as well as setting up some special locations like a small dungeon delve, and maybe a BBEG lair or some other set piece.
That's it for now, although I have no doubt there will be additions to this. Mad props, so to speak, to iserith and others who have brought LIM to these boards. This template is straight from him, and all of the ideas as well.
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.
"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
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.
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."
Perhaps it may be beneficial to list some links to the LIM threads (like the Writer's Block thread for example) where many people discussed what it is, in case those who have not been reading/people who stumble onto this want to examine things in further detail?
Perhaps it may be beneficial to list some links to the LIM threads (like the Writer's Block thread for example) where many people discussed what it is, in case those who have not been reading/people who stumble onto this want to examine things in further detail?
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.
"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
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.
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."
It would be a little more work, but I suggest instead of having the links at the bottom, you have them next to their specific question, hyper linked to save space. I'd also suggest playing around with some various formats, such as the CharOp handbooks or maybe just the Complete Collection.
Good luck on keepng this up. I'm sure it's going to be a busy thing to update :D
Looking good so far, thanks for working on it. Let me know what you need.
No amount of tips, tricks, or gimmicks will ever be better than simply talking directly to your fellow players to resolve your issues. Reduce DM Prep & Increase Player Engagement:Don't Prep the Plot | Structure First, Story Last | Collaborative Roleplay | "Yes, and..." | Prep Tips Games I'm Running on Roll20: Island of the Frog | Vanguard of Dis | Star*Juice | Tesseract | The Crucible | Fimbulvetr | The Delve | Draj, City of the Moon Follow me on Twitter:@is3rith
It would be a little more work, but I suggest instead of having the links at the bottom, you have them next to their specific question, hyper linked to save space. I'd also suggest playing around with some various formats, such as the CharOp handbooks or maybe just the Complete Collection.
Good luck on keepng this up. I'm sure it's going to be a busy thing to update :D
That's a really good idea, I'm about to leave my house but I'll get on later and set that up/
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.
"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
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.
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."
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.
"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
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.
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."
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.
"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
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.
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."
Maybe a section for "Related Topics." Then throw a link to Svendj's Alternate Goals FAQ in there?
No amount of tips, tricks, or gimmicks will ever be better than simply talking directly to your fellow players to resolve your issues. Reduce DM Prep & Increase Player Engagement:Don't Prep the Plot | Structure First, Story Last | Collaborative Roleplay | "Yes, and..." | Prep Tips Games I'm Running on Roll20: Island of the Frog | Vanguard of Dis | Star*Juice | Tesseract | The Crucible | Fimbulvetr | The Delve | Draj, City of the Moon Follow me on Twitter:@is3rith
