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2 years ago ::
Aug 01, 2011 - 5:28PM
#1
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I have seen a few MYRE adventures which make sweeping changes to skill challenges, combats, etc. all under the purview of "It's a MYRE - I can do what I want."
Personally, I don't think this follows the spirit of what a MYRE is supposed to be. Yes, having the PCs explore your world is nice, but the rules of that world cannot be so far different from LFR (or D&D 4e) that it alienates any player. Is that the correct way to think about MYREs or should those of us who want to play LFR avoid MYREs?
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2 years ago ::
Aug 01, 2011 - 5:32PM
#2
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I have seen a few MYRE adventures which make sweeping changes to skill challenges, combats, etc. all under the purview of "It's a MYRE - I can do what I want."
Personally, I don't think this follows the spirit of what a MYRE is supposed to be. Yes, having the PCs explore your world is nice, but the rules of that world cannot be so far different from LFR (or D&D 4e) that it alienates any player. Is that the correct way to think about MYREs or should those of us who want to play LFR avoid MYREs?
Last convention I was at, I enjoyed the MYRE I played more than the battle interactive or any official adventure I played. It stayed pretty close to what LFR is about, however.
If somebody is going to take a MYRE that far away from the LFR standard, why are they bothering with making it a MYRE at all? Why not just run a home campaign?
...whatever
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2 years ago ::
Aug 01, 2011 - 7:22PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Sep 20, 2007
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From the MYRE3-1 document, page 6, "Adventure Guidelines": All the standard rules for RPGA adventures hold true for My Realms adventures. My Realms adventures may be offered at either Wizards Play Network events or as private play events.
When running a My Realms adventure, you must follow the rules found in the Living Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide and other campaign documentation. All characters playing this adventure must be legal characters created according to those rules.
Seems pretty clear that My Realms adventures are SUPPOSED to be run like any other LFR adventure.
I really don't know what else to say, without any more specific examples of the "house rules" you're talking about...
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2 years ago ::
Aug 01, 2011 - 8:05PM
#4
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One had the adventure take place on an island where only rituals based on Nature would work. No other rituals were allowed.
Another (by a different DM) had us (individually) fighting at least one old 3.x character converted up to 4e as some kind of monk slaad with some sorcerer powers thrown in. The tactic was shift back one square and daze. One on one, not many PCs have a chance against that, especially since the daze power was targetting Will and it was assumed that a Fighter type was going to be going against it. This particular MYRE rubbed me the wrong way because we ended up doing one fight at a time (one on one, PC vs. monster) and that is boring to everyone else at the table... ie, not fun. When I pointed that out, the DM said he felt I was biased because of the two fights in which my character was completely ineffective: one against an undead beholder which was either insubstantial or had crazy resist all; the other against that 3.x monk "Slaad" character.
Granted, I have no doubt that these are within the rules of the game ... but I didn't feel it was within the "spirit" of the game. I voiced my opinion and the DM shot me down because I was "biased". So, that is a strike against MYREs for me.
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2 years ago ::
Aug 01, 2011 - 8:23PM
#5
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Don't play MYREs. Simple as that.
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2 years ago ::
Aug 01, 2011 - 8:27PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Jan 21, 2003
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The main problem with MyRe's will always be that they are up to the maker, and they are unvetted. But on that same end, Night I called the Undead Out and ADCP 3-1 both have similar strikes in my circle. As both also broke what we consider some of the spirit of LFR.
The thing with MyRe's is that they are there to let the DM..and PCs play the adventures they want to play inbetween all the stuff they are doing in the official adventures. The group I'm with tends to use it to either do strange things (we also had a module that involved one on one fights, though we went into it knowing this sort of stuff would happen), or to just do things that usual modules don't do. One of our Adco's uses MyRe's to do much of its adco related stuff (infact part of the requirement to officially join..is to play a specifically designed MyRe). We've had occasional roleplay heavy MyRe's, and we have MyRe's to satisfy the rest of my groups thirst for harder and harder encounters (as opposed to long, drawn out, and frustrating ones).
I've also had a char play online and go through a fun and whimsicle set of heroic teir adventures, that basically stuck a template on all chars involved and gave them all a leader like power (burn a surge for one of several leader type effects)...of course the template only got applied in the special realm the MyRe's took effect in. That character is now level 20, and those adventures that ended at around level 6 still affect him. He has a strong hatred of shadow creatures, has protective tendancies towards children, and due to the finaly story award of the series of adventures (when he leaves this plane of existance he's been offered to be taken by the ruler of the plane he adventured in) it's going to affect his Epic Destiny..as I'm looking for one that has the proper flavor..as well as maybe providing some holy (and/or leader) type powers.
But, sadly, the goodness of MyRe's will all come down to the people who make MyRe's in your area. There is one who's MyRe's I hate to play, because he loves soldiers and thinks they are the best monsters ever to fight (because he enjoys their low hp..but high defenses.....they reward him for his accuracy and autohit powers). Meanwhile I hate fighting soldiers and prefer brutes (which he hates) because they reward damage. He likes solo's (to fight) as his character can just stun them for 5 rounds no questions asked. I like a group of regular monsters..so that I can clump them together and just do a tun of AOE damage and kill 4+ in the time it takes others to kill just 1.
So thats honestly the real trick with MyRe's. The person making the MyRe needs to be on the same page as you. On that same side the person running any normal module also needs to be on the same side as you. So many modules just say 'PC starts here' and gives no reason whatsoever why the party would actually stand in that specific spot. Group I'm in tends to play with that, "why in blazes would we walk up and stand around the very obvious magical rune in the middle of enemy territory?'. "Why would we start off in a killbox when we are fully expecting to face an enemy that we suspect has area attacks? No we stay seperated enough." And I've seen DM's who hear that..and agree..it is silly to force PC's to start there..and other DM's just say no..you must start there, module can't be run any other way.
So long story short I think your problem is really with the DM....and not really with the MyRe system.
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2 years ago ::
Aug 02, 2011 - 6:10AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2007
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So long story short I think your problem is really with the DM....and not really with the MyRe system.
+1
The MYRE system is an option. If you do not enjoy MYRE adventures (and the "freedoms" it provides the table DM), avoid exercising that option.
Dan Anderson
@EpicUthrac
Living Forgotten Realms Calimshan Writing Director
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
Meet me at TotalConfusion:
http://www.totalcon.com/RolePlaying.html
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2 years ago ::
Aug 02, 2011 - 7:22AM
#8
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Undrhil - I feel your pain. I have suffered through several extremely painful MYREs over the years... Such as setups designed as "gotchas!" to trick the players and adventures written with absolutely no understanding of what an XP budget means... For example, one of the MYREs started with a boring level 1 fight (when we were all around level 8) and then the rest of the adventure used triple or quadrule the XP budget it was supposed to and had fights that were way above our level (the "climatic" fight poured out insane amounts of auto damage and the creatures were such high level that we could barely hit them..., and they couldn't miss us...). The DM also announced what the DCs were for everything and the DCs were all either ridiculously low numbers (like a DC 2) or ridiculously high numbers (like DC 55). It was certainly a painful, unfun experience.
After a few bad apples, now I won't play MYREs unless I know the judge and am familiar enough with their playstyle and their understanding of the game that I trust them. And even then, I have run across judges that are perfectly good judges when running published material but when designing their own adventure are terrible.... MYREs are tricky. Some of the adventures can be really great and some can be absolute disasters. There are some cool, fun, interesting things you can do with MYREs. They can be especially useful for expanding on the story/roleplaying of a particular adventuring company or character. But they can be a very mixed bag and it's hard to tell if an adventure will be any good. (I have the luxury of gaming with several LFR/4e authors, so I trust them to be able to write a good adventure and am happy to play in any of their MYREs... But obviously most players aren't in that position.) I'd say if you want to play MYREs, be selective about who the DM is and only play the MYREs of people you know and trust (or if other people in your gaming community give a particular MYRE a good review).
Lori Anderson
WotC Freelancer, LFR author
@LittleLorika
CALI3-3 The Agony of Almraiven (co-author)
NETH4-1 Containing Shadow (co-author)
CALI4-1 Plain of Stone Spiders (author)
QUES4-1 Liberation (co-author)
EPIC5-1 Plaguewrought Prism (co-author)
TotalCon: http://www.totalcon.com/RolePlaying.html
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2 years ago ::
Aug 02, 2011 - 10:21AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Sep 21, 2006
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I don't use MyRe for global level house rules but I do frequently make custom monsters or other in game elements that are very unusual. LFR mods do this sometimes too. For example, there's a mod set in Evereska wherein, because of the nature of Evereska's mythal, you are able to walk on walls. I set a MyRe in Evereska and tweaked my interpretation of that to where you could basically as either a move action or after any square of movement change your personal 'down' to any direction and fall accordingly. In one fight the badguys not only used that to drop rapidly into positions around the battlefield, but also had a psychic attack that normally knocked people prone but in this scenario I allowed it to force the target to agree with them on which way is down. It was a lot of fun and a crazy 3d combat.
The second combat in that mod had the same subjective gravity but in a trap lined cooridor, and the boss badguy had a magical version of the Aperture Science Dual Portal Device.. in other words he could open a portal connecting too surfaces and then replace one or the other end of it with a different spot as a minor each round.
Both fights, I think, were a lot of fun and very much outside the mainstream of 4e. My players had a good time, so, success! I've also had players have a good time fighting my custom 'elite solo' monster that is a recurring villain in my MyRe games. But things like this are inherently risky. Maybe I'll screw it up some time and people will have an extremely unfun time, as some of the posters in this thread have had with some of their experiences.
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2 years ago ::
Aug 02, 2011 - 11:08AM
#10
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The key to having MYRE adventures be fun for everyone is communication. If the DM wants to do something completely off the wall (like walking on walls! Hehe - that sounds like fun!  ), the DM should let players know that things will be wacky before the players sign up for the game. For example, if the MYRE is going to be an intense roleplaying extravaganza with no combats, advertise the MYRE as a roleplaying extravaganza. If the MYRE is going to be extremely difficult and designed to challenge the cheesiest of builds, inform players that that's what the adventure will be like. If the MYRE is going to feature PCs going toe-to-toe with monsters, the DM should tell the players that it's going to be a one-on-one cage match. If the MYRE breaks the laws of physics, you don't have to necessarily say "You can walk on walls with this adventure" (if that aspect of the adventure would be more fun as a surprise), but the DM can tell players that he/she is trying out some wacky stuff.
The baseline assumption is that a MYRE will be similar to other LFR adventures in terms of difficulty, setting, and content and will follow the 4e/LFR rules. If a MYRE severely deviates from that, the DM should inform the players beforehand. If the player still decides to play the adventure and then doesn't like it - well, at least they were warned that things were going to be unconventional and it was the player's choice to try it out anyway. Players who don't want to risk the unknown will just not sign up to play the MYRE. For example, there was a two-table MYRE that had 2 judges, 12 players, roleplaying/skill challenge interaction between the 2 tables, and a combat that involved all 12 players on the same map. All the players knew about this setup ahead of time and thought it would be fun to try out. It wasn't conventional, but since all the players knew about the wackiness in advance, they could make an informed decision of whether they wanted to play or not. (This doesn't help the situation of a DM who attempts to run a conventional MYRE adventure but is just terrible at designing fun encounters.)
Lori Anderson
WotC Freelancer, LFR author
@LittleLorika
CALI3-3 The Agony of Almraiven (co-author)
NETH4-1 Containing Shadow (co-author)
CALI4-1 Plain of Stone Spiders (author)
QUES4-1 Liberation (co-author)
EPIC5-1 Plaguewrought Prism (co-author)
TotalCon: http://www.totalcon.com/RolePlaying.html
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