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Pay Authors and Admins

I would support a $5-$10 charge (about $1-$2/player) to download official (i.e. non-”MyRealms&rdquo campaign modules if I knew that every dollar of that was going to module authors, campaign admins, and DM rewards. While some would argue that seeing players enjoy the fruits of your labor is a reward unto itself, I would counter and say that being an author or admin in a living campaign is often a thankless job.

Look, I agree that authors and admins have a thankless job, and I wish they could be compensated for it. However, the reality is that DM's and local organizers also have a thankless job, and we aren't getting paid for it either. We are generally putting forth our cash for module printing costs, maps, miniatures and any other stationary or DM tools that are needed. Now on top of that you're asking DM's to pay for the privilege of running the mod.

Don't bother with the argument of "players reimbursing the DM". It's a non-starter. Players aren't going to do that. If you charge players to play LFR, you'll lose players, and if you charge DM's to run LFR, you'll lose DM's. Worst of all, it's the DM's who volunteer the most who will absorb the heaviest costs.

I like the idea of a donate button on LFR.com better.

Jan 17, 2012 -- 8:50AM, JohnduBois wrote:

Doesn't Pathfinder Society have some sort of charge for events or adventures?

They do.  Paizo "sells" the PFS scenarios through their online store, usually for $3.99 (though it looks like some Introductory adventures are free). 

Here's my thoughts:

I like living campaigns, and I was a representative for Cormyr early on in LFR, still involved as a POC for LFR in general. Before that, I was an enthusiastic DM for Xendrik Expeditions, and I had 2 favorite Living Greyhawk characters. I have DM'd an adventure at least once a week or more in a mostly unbroken streak that starts back in late 1999. Right now I am on a rare hiatus because I am reassessing everything, as well as writing up a dungeon and campaign for Labyrinth Lord.

I have written a blog post "Here's to No Living Campaign This Time"
Link: terrible-and-true.tumblr.com/post/155733...

This post, I hope doesn't upset anyone, but this is where I was wondering if maybe we were to blame for the perceived difficulties with 4th edition. The very idea that 1) Every DM should try and run things the same way and 2) to facilitate this the DM should be replaced by rules to the greatest extent possible are ideas that I think can be traced to Living Campaigns.

But there are other problems:
Many DMs treat the Living Campaign as if it is not a regular game of D&D. I'm assuming a lot of you (as well as nearly all of the living campaign bosses past and present) are probably like "well, of course they don't, it's a living campaign" and I'm telling you, that's wrong and screwing us all over. No offense, but I worry that we may be destroying the public perception of this game by not actually even playing it like it was intended to be played.

The tried and true format we do use also lends itself to a fast-food DMing style that amounts to reading box-text, appreciating the writers story, and running encounters by rote (including an exact placement of dungeon tile) until you get to the end. the format is only mildly interactive, and has unrealistic standards for writing the adventures.

This also means the most rules-knowledgeable DMs sometimes turn out to be the least talented people at the table and the least fun to play with. I have personal experience with some of what I will call "the worst DMs I have ever encountered" with Living Realms. They are prefectly knowledgeable about the rules, and they will tell you so, while they take their 10 minute battle turn. (haha). Ok, but seriously, I knew who the bad DMs were in LG, and they were bad because they didn't know what they were doing. In LFR the bad DMs actually know what they are doing, they just treat the entire thing like chess. They make it suck and pretend the fault is the system, not the style.

We give lip service to the idea of story, and in fact these living campaigns go on and on about the story ..of the NPCs, the lands, and the big epic plot that the adventurers are not to get in the way of at any moment. This goes for 'the Adventure Path' style as well.

I have a firm belief that the only story that matters is the story of the players at the table. Thank the Gods for MyRealms or I would have quit two years ago, they are almost all I run. Map and matrix solves nearly all of these problems.

The Forgotten Realms is itself a very tense setting to use because everything that comes out for it counts as a publication, and publications must be cleared by the writing team and the WOTC legal department, and thats the last thing they want to do. Thats why we can't share MyRealms. Anything the lawyers haven't already pounced on is savaged by a certain segment of fans who read and guard the Realmslore like it's a favorite set of novels. This can only be addressed by making the next "shared world" one that is not guarded by lawyers. One owned by  the campaign itself.

I like what Mithreinmaethor said about regions and TUs, but what is really needed is regional leadership and accountability. Once they pulled the regions, LFR's regional accountability and support went away, and a lot of the momentum for the campaign went right down the drain. 

I personally don't like the idea that if you live in a particular region you can only play adventures from that region, maybe the TU thing is a good compromise.


That said: I love Living Campaigns and I hope we have another one! But I would only suggest the following:

1) It has to be treated like regular D&D.

2) It can't be in the Realms, because that's been a nightmare, and the Realms we got aren't even allowed to be authentic anyway.  Make a new campaign world, that is specifically set up to have a special licensing (or no license whatsoever) so that there are no legal IP battles. Allow DMs to share their creations. GNU, Creative Commons or whatever you want, but keep it clear for use.
 
3) map and matrix. Do a study on this if you don't beleive me, but this is a much more direct path to the core D&D experience.

Re: Money.  I'm not interested in paying to buy a module (that's a bit of an understatement, actually).  I'd never have started playing if there had been dues.  Keep it free to run and play, and put a donate button on the web site.  (I will donate)

If the donate button doesn't work, sell module naming rights.

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Re: "Just play some D&D"

I'm a big fan of that.  When I'm comfortable with the players, I do that very willingly and frequently.  But as a DM, I've gotten weird pushback when I've gone off-script.  I see in adventure commentary threads comments about how the DM manged the module.  I remember that DME basically got invalidated.  So when it's an organized game, I stick to the script.  Yes, games devolve into "D&D Tactics, with small RP additions".

If you want the game to be D&D, you need to enshrine DME as a core tenet.  Not the "you can add a monster of the same type that's already in the module.  Maybe." pitiful excuse for empowerment that it currently is, but actual "Wow, that's a completely different module than the one I remember playing" DME.

Which also means you have to be willing to put spoilers for future mods in the current ones, so that the DM core CAN go wildly off script and still end up typing into future mods.  (And focus more on NPC characterization than the bullet list of info the NPC has.  And paint everything in broad strokes.  Tropes are your friend: keeping everything rather cliched means that DMs have an easier time picking up the module quickly.  It means that DMs have an easier time making things up.)

(And the current skill-challenge-as-exploration concept has to die.)