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I think the title says it all.

I would prefer a plan other than just jumping in feet first when the books hit the shelves.

Things to consider (all of this is just slightly-informed speculation, based mostly on being active in the RPGA for a very long time):

It seems extremely likely to me that, unless 5E has very strong backwards compatability to 4E (and, based on what I've read so far, I'd be surprised if it does), the current LFR campaign will probably end at, or shortly after, the formal release of 5E. 

This prognostication is based on a couple of bits of historical precedence:

1) The RPGA's old Living City campaign was originally a 2E campaign.  When 3E was coming out, the RPGA polled its players on how to proceed, and, based on player request / demand, Living City converted from 2E to 3E.  This conversion was widely considered, in retrospect, to have been a poor idea, as the editions were different enough that the conversion did not work smoothly or fairly.

2) During the 3x era, the RPGA had a very strong, global OP campaign in Living Greyhawk (a campaign which was chugging along quite well up until the announcement of 4E at GenCon '07, which caught a lot of players flat-footed).  At that point, the LG staff was given until mid-2008 to wrap up all of their storylines, as the final new LG adventures were mandated to be released no later than Origins 2008 (which was in late June) -- the first 4E books came out in May '08, and LFR started at GenCon '08.  With 4E being a radical departure from 3.x, the decision was made to start a new OP campaign, rather than continue / convert the existing OP campaign.  (It may also be that there was a desire in WotC to switch to a campaign world which was being actively supported by the company, as well.) 

Additionally, as RPGA / WotC OP now exists to support sales of WotC products, they weren't going to continue supporting a 3.5 campaign, when they were no longer selling 3.5 books.  I don't see that this policy would change when WotC ceases selling 4E books.

There's also the as-yet-unanswered question as to what form D&D OP will take with 5E.  As we've seen in recent years, WotC seems to be going away from the traditional "Living Campaign" model, with their emphasis on Excursions and Lair Assault, and LFR being run more independently of WotC's direct control.  I guess it would not surprise me if WotC did not have an official Living-style campaign at all with 5E.

Finally, we've seen that WotC doesn't give the LFR staff new books or other materials in advance of their general release.  ISTR, also, that the LFR staff didn't have a whole lot of lead time to put together the initial campaign structure and adventures (they might have gotten 4E materials a bit early, but not tremendously so).  Given that 5E will likely not be released until next summer, there's probably very little that whoever WotC assigns to 5E OP (which may or may not be people currently involved with LFR administration) could be doing to "plan for" it.

There is nothing we can announce at this time.

Alternate theory: something is being worked on, and will be announced when NDAs allow it to be announced.

Aug 2, 2012 -- 12:07PM, kenobi65 wrote:

It seems extremely likely to me that, unless 5E has very strong backwards compatibility to 4E (and, based on what I've read so far, I'd be surprised if it does), the current LFR campaign will probably end at, or shortly after, the formal release of 5E.

Agreed. I've heard Wizards OP staff say that Living City really taught us to never attempt a conversion. And, really, I agree. Think of something like LG... how do you convert those PCs? It's a nightmare. Similarly, we can look at 4E and current playtests of Next and it is clear a conversion would be difficult. An additional issue is that conversions bring in players at higher levels. For a new edition you want players to learn the system naturally, starting with new characters. I would say the chances of conversion should be really close to 0%.

Somewhat similarly, I don't see a good reason to maintain storylines. When you have new PCs and new mechanics you also have a perfect time to change your campaign, refresh the story, try new things, etc. That's even if the new campaign would be in FR.

Aug 2, 2012 -- 12:07PM, kenobi65 wrote:

During the 3x era, the RPGA had a very strong, global OP campaign in Living Greyhawk (a campaign which was chugging along quite well up until the announcement of 4E at GenCon '07, which caught a lot of players flat-footed).

I'm not sure Wizards properly understands how poorly the situation was handled with regards to the player base, but especially with regards to the admins that had serious work invested toward many more years of LG and felt the rug was pulled out from under them. I know a couple of LG admins who went from incredibly dedicated fans to not touching 4E ever because they so hated the way it was handled. I've mentioned this to a few Wizards people, but I'm not sure to what extent it is understood.

That said, there is recognition that admins need more of a heads up (I'm just not sure how much of one - might be great, might not be). As has been said, various individuals were brought into Wizards' offices in December 2011 to discuss OP, and at that time also playtested Next. One of the admins for LFR said at some point that there were conversations about LFR at some point. My take home, not knowing anything, is that so far admins are being brought in to a certain extent.

As an Ashes of Athas admin I'm a bit removed from current discussions. We aren't central to Wizards' plans the way LFR is. We also had already announced plans to end the campaign after a few years (current plan is January 2013). That could change if Wizards wanted a certain time-frame (we've alwasy told them we are happy to adjust for their benefit).

Aug 2, 2012 -- 12:07PM, kenobi65 wrote:

There's also the as-yet-unanswered question as to what form D&D OP will take with 5E.  As we've seen in recent years, WotC seems to be going away from the traditional "Living Campaign" model, with their emphasis on Excursions and Lair Assault, and LFR being run more independently of WotC's direct control.  I guess it would not surprise me if WotC did not have an official Living-style campaign at all with 5E.

The new Gen Con page went up yesterday, and it is very interesting to see the new term "D&D Community Campaign" used for the traditional Living/RPGA content. It is also interesting to see these events put in one room (with no special collectible die reward) and Next and other events taking place elsewhere.

The big question is whether there will be the conclusion that traditional RPGA campaigns are no longer needed, or that they can be ancillary/independent. Even when I try to remove my personal bias, I think that would be a mistake. I keep seeing clear signs that there are many demographics in play and that the greatest benefit to Wizards is to create various vehicles that speak to as many of those demographics as possible. We can look to how Pathfinder Society has been so integral to Paizo as an example of the benefits. Importantly, we can look to PFS personnel and find many people that were once big in the RPGA and now consider their home to be PFS. That's a form of brain drain that hurts the brand and marketing of D&D.

Aug 2, 2012 -- 12:07PM, kenobi65 wrote:

Finally, we've seen that WotC doesn't give the LFR staff new books or other materials in advance of their general release.

Are you sure of that? I thought that one of the benefits was getting the books on a slightly pre-release schedule.

Aug 2, 2012 -- 12:07PM, kenobi65 wrote:

ISTR, also, that the LFR staff didn't have a whole lot of lead time to put together the initial campaign structure and adventures (they might have gotten 4E materials a bit early, but not tremendously so).  Given that 5E will likely not be released until next summer, there's probably very little that whoever WotC assigns to 5E OP (which may or may not be people currently involved with LFR administration) could be doing to "plan for" it.

As I recall, they had some early/limited drafts (such as some monsters but not all). Regardless, that's often unavoidable - if you want to launch the new campaign when the books release then you have to deal with low knowledge. The best approach is to keep things simple and focused on what makes great adventures. As an example, the Dark Sun Arenas event came out before the Dark Sun books were released and yet were really well done. That was in part because 4E was a known entity, but with D&D Next having an open playtest that should be a bit easier than it was for early LFR (where 4E was such a departure from what anyone had seen and playtesting had been so limited).

In the end, the big question is around Wizards' vision. I'm sure Next could have great living play if Wizards wants it to exist. I think that will be the case, but I'm never sure. Over the years Wizards' opinion of OP has changed drastically and often quickly.

Aug 2, 2012 -- 3:36PM, Alphastream1 wrote:

Aug 2, 2012 -- 12:07PM, kenobi65 wrote:

Finally, we've seen that WotC doesn't give the LFR staff new books or other materials in advance of their general release.

Are you sure of that? I thought that one of the benefits was getting the books on a slightly pre-release schedule.

Granted, I'm not campaign staff, so I may well be wrong, but I strongly suspect that, if they get books early, it's not very early.  One can look at any number of threads on this board, in which players ask about "Is {rules item from book that came out last week} legal in LFR?", and the response is nearly always, "We just got it ourselves, so please give us a little time to digest it before we can make a ruling."

Global Admins getting routine pubs is probably not much in advance of store release.  However, starting a new campaign is different.  For LFR and 4E, the campaign was announced at Gencon 07, staff selection was completed (as I recall) by October 07, and in January 08 we had received the pre-publication proofs of the PHB, DMG, and MM. A few changes were made due to observations of teaser adventures at DDXP08, and all the campaign staff received final, printed copies of the published books by or just before they were publically released.

I assume that Chris Tulach has probably talked to the LFR Global Admins, but as to who is developing the Next campaign and what will it look like, I guess we will know when it is announced.  WotC has not announced yet when 4e ends and 5e starts, just that they are working on it.

Do not assume the present LFR campaign staff just rolls into Next campaign, anymore than the LG staff rolled into LFR, or LC into LG.

Keith

Aug 2, 2012 -- 3:36PM, Alphastream1 wrote:

Aug 2, 2012 -- 12:07PM, kenobi65 wrote:

It seems extremely likely to me that, unless 5E has very strong backwards compatibility to 4E (and, based on what I've read so far, I'd be surprised if it does), the current LFR campaign will probably end at, or shortly after, the formal release of 5E.

Agreed. I've heard Wizards OP staff say that Living City really taught us to never attempt a conversion. And, really, I agree. Think of something like LG... how do you convert those PCs? It's a nightmare. Similarly, we can look at 4E and current playtests of Next and it is clear a conversion would be difficult. An additional issue is that conversions bring in players at higher levels. For a new edition you want players to learn the system naturally, starting with new characters. I would say the chances of conversion should be really close to 0%.

I think that was in part due to how badly the official 3e conversion document was set up. You could have two characters with identical experience scores have wildly different levels based solely on how they had multiclassed.

The official example is a character who is a Ftr/Wiz/Thf of 8/9/9. That means he has somewhere between 135000 and 160000 per class, or roughly 450000 XP. A Fighter with even 480000 XP is still a 9th level character. The conversion document put that specific multiclassed character at 14th.

The goal should have been to have a conversion document where you take a gaming group where everyone had the same amount of XP and therefore all ended up at the same level in 3e. I'm not sure if Living City used that document or not as that was before my RPGA time, but if they did, that would have been a monkey wrench.

Aug 2, 2012 -- 3:36PM, Alphastream1 wrote:

Somewhat similarly, I don't see a good reason to maintain storylines. When you have new PCs and new mechanics you also have a perfect time to change your campaign, refresh the story, try new things, etc. That's even if the new campaign would be in FR.

I think things would need to be changed simply from the standpoint that the way combats are set up are going to be wildly different - presumably they're going to want adventures that demonstrate both gridded and gridless combat and not necessarily set# of encounters. And going straight to say 14th level is going to create a lot of issues with expectations being unrealistic.

Aug 3, 2012 -- 6:18AM, Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:

The goal should have been to have a conversion document where you take a gaming group where everyone had the same amount of XP and therefore all ended up at the same level in 3e. I'm not sure if Living City used that document or not as that was before my RPGA time, but if they did, that would have been a monkey wrench.

Players could barely endure the conversion docs that came out within the edition! Each conversion that came out (there were at least three?) was met with storms of criticism and demands for all sorts of candy. There is no way any conversion document for an actual edition would be accepted by the community. The player of the gnome will say that the race was key to their experience (and probably it was). The player of the Arcane Trickster will say that prestige class was key to their build (and it almost certainly was). Gnomes and Arcane Tricksters didn't exist with early 4E, so you end up with problems and unhappiness. Yeah, you can say "just build something", but then you aren't converting - you are rebuilding and leaving everyone unhappy. When most will be unhappy, it is far easier to just not convert. After all, with a new campaign you don't want to start PCs at all sorts of different levels and with different stories they want to somehow maintain. Said simply: with a new edition you want a new campaign, so why go through the trouble of converting?

Aug 3, 2012 -- 6:18AM, Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:

I think things would need to be changed simply from the standpoint that the way combats are set up are going to be wildly different - presumably they're going to want adventures that demonstrate both gridded and gridless combat and not necessarily set# of encounters. And going straight to say 14th level is going to create a lot of issues with expectations being unrealistic.

I don't think the nature of combat is a big deal. While I expect some adjustments, it hasn't been hard for my group to write 4-hour Next playtest adventures. The experience can be quite similar to that of 3E adventures and not that different from 4E. For example, I might have a minor den of many monsters before having a second fight, some RP, and then the final fight. That's similar to many 3E adventures and only a bit different from 4E. The components are very different, but I don't find it to be a reason to switch campaigns. The reasons to switch campaigns, for me, are around energy levels, new stories to bring in new players, opportunities to bring in what you have learned, starting fresh, being approachable, new staff, try new things, etc.

Aug 3, 2012 -- 7:31AM, Alphastream1 wrote:

I don't think the nature of combat is a big deal. While I expect some adjustments, it hasn't been hard for my group to write 4-hour Next playtest adventures. The experience can be quite similar to that of 3E adventures and not that different from 4E. For example, I might have a minor den of many monsters before having a second fight, some RP, and then the final fight. That's similar to many 3E adventures and only a bit different from 4E. The components are very different, but I don't find it to be a reason to switch campaigns.

That's precisely my point. It isn't different compared to many 3E or 4E adventures. And it should be.

One of the points that the R&D seems to think is valuable is that you could have an hour to play D&D, spend 30 minutes on the combat pillar, and end up fighting 2-3 combats. If you have 4 hours, 3 hours of which is devoted to the combats as many LFR mods tend to be, then you shouldn't be fighting only 3 fights. Say 6 combats of 15 minutes each in the Theatre of the Mind(TotM) and 2 45 minute combats on the grid.

8 combats might sound wildly improbable from a 3e/4e perspective, but that's thoroughly plausible from a D&D Next perspective. Now whether or not that succeeds or not, I don't know - but just as there has been pressure on the 4e OP to use Skill Challenges when they weren't working all too well, I think there's going to be pressure on the OP community to significantly use TotM in every adventure. Regardless of whether or not the OP community players like it initially or not or possibly ever.

Changing those expectations with 1st level characters and a new campaign is a lot easier than trying to change expectations at a higher level game. 

My perception would be that campaign staff are hoping just to help the campaign limp over the finish line next year, after which they can lay down and rest.

I see LFR as barely alive right now, so it's a little inconceivable to me that it would survive into a new edition.  A campaign that is stretched so thin that it's still using a year-old draft version of the campaign guidelines isn't even in the ballpark of having enough resources either to convert to a new edition or to restart the campaign.

It would actually surprise me to see a real organized play campaign at 5e's inception.

The lead time for a LC/LG/LFR-level campaign is at least six months (and that's probably underestimating things).  Add in the lead time to staff the campaign, and assuming a Gencon 2013 release for D&D Next, my assumption is that unless this Gencon brings us an announcement of the next living campaign, D&D will cease to have a tentpole campaign next year.

Aug 3, 2012 -- 7:48AM, Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:

That's precisely my point. It isn't different compared to many 3E or 4E adventures. And it should be.

Sort of/to a point. I don't think we want to return to the era of an Organized Play adventure being Tomb of Horrors and "how far do you get". Similarly, we don't want games to be Caves of Chaos, where an author would create all of this potential content and an individual table might go into any of dozens of places and "create their own experience". It would be a shame to throw out so much narrative progress.

My guess would be that the next campaign would take the strengths of what Next could offer and marry them with what we've learned. Some 3E adventures actually show this pretty well. You can have a strong narrative while having some options, series of short combats, and the like. When I ran Next at DDXP this January it wasn't more awesome for having all those caves I didn't use. It really wasn't. My narrative was focused around a single plot line woven around two competing tribes and a few auxiliary foes (two hobgoblin tribes getting ready for a wedding and picking on the goblins, who hire the PCs; owlbear/ogre as mini quests to resolve plot points). It was a great 4 hours, but did not need all the other caves at all.

It isn't necessarily about 3 fights in the 4E sense, but more in the "3-4 groupings" that works well for narrative flow. For example, we interact with the goblins, we explore some of the caves, we fight one hobgoblin tribe, we interact to learn what happened to the wedding ring, we explore the trail of the jewelry caravan, we fight the ogre, we fight the owlbear and recover the ring, we fight the last hobgoblin tribe. At the high level, 2 ogre tribes and 2 monsters, but it isn't framed as simply 4 fights. And yes, there is a lot more flexibility for DMs. That is a good reason to reset as well.

Aug 3, 2012 -- 7:48AM, Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:

8 combats might sound wildly improbable from a 3e/4e perspective, but that's thoroughly plausible from a D&D Next perspective. Now whether or not that succeeds or not, I don't know - but just as there has been pressure on the 4e OP to use Skill Challenges when they weren't working all too well, I think there's going to be pressure on the OP community to significantly use TotM in every adventure. Regardless of whether or not the OP community players like it initially or not or possibly ever.

We can find 4E OP adventures that use many small combats or waves. We can find OP adventures that use theater of the mind. I've never felt forced as admin or author to use skill challenges - I've used them because they are valuable in storytelling. While there are issues (foremost to me is how they were portrayed in the DMG), I find the experiences are usually superior to what we had in 3E (often a very weak situation where 1 or 2 PCs autosucceed and everyone else watches). We've had a lot of fun with skill challenges in AoA, in part because we aren't wedded to a fixed interpretation of how to organize/frame them and in part because we work hard to help the DM make them an ongoing and reactive part of the narrative. Similarly, in AoA we've used TotM at least four times, often to speed up play and keep things imaginative.

I'm catching up on the Going Last podcast with Shawn Merwin. I like many of the points made about LFR's history.

In all fairness to the end of LG and the OP organizers at WotC: the triads were warned after the first 5 years, to NOT do another 5 year plot run and to stick to something shorter - two or three years at the most (and that was at the end of year 5). While the ending of LG could probably have been handled a bit better, epsecially in regards to the players*, there were also some odd expactations.

* The grand final was only two months before the start of the new campaign. Around here very few people bothered playing it simply because by the time the reached those levels they had started with the new edition. 

Aug 4, 2012 -- 6:02AM, Madfox11 wrote:

In all fairness to the end of LG and the OP organizers at WotC: the triads were warned after the first 5 years, to NOT do another 5 year plot run and to stick to something shorter - two or three years at the most (and that was at the end of year 5). While the ending of LG could probably have been handled a bit better, epsecially in regards to the players*, there were also some odd expactations.

* The grand final was only two months before the start of the new campaign. Around here very few people bothered playing it simply because by the time the reached those levels they had started with the new edition. 

My problems with how the end of LG was handled were:

1. As Triads, we were told to have proposals for adventures a year in advance. Our Q4 release convention was in September, and I liked to work ahead. This meant that I had three proposals approved and ready to be submitted to the Circle (with others being worked on dependent on having 8 or 9 adventures) at the time we were told we'd only get six. It was something of a scramble to rearrange an 8-adventure plan into a 6-adventure plan when the first four adventures were already being written.
2. ENWorld knew that LG was ending before the Triads did. They leaked the night before the announcement, meaning that I was getting texts from players, authors, and other Triad members who weren't at GenCon asking me what was going on, assuming that I just hadn't had a chance to e-mail them - and they knew more about what was going on than I did. Officially, the Triads found out the campaign was ending at the same time everyone else did.

Obviously I wasn't as put off by this as others, but as people who were there with me know, I was pretty upset, especially about the last one.

Never said that people did not had reasons to be upset, merely that some of the complaints about plotlines and the like also came from wrong expectations Although I see what you mean about the potential problems of making the final date at Origins...

One fear for 5e organized play is that you won't have a 5e player base, as 5e won't be "one system".

If the modules can vary the game as much as they claim, then I don't really see how it's still "one edition" in the traditional sense.

That's just putting one label over X different editions to pretend all players are playing the same edition and thus this edition has a huge market share.

That's like saying 2e, 3.5e and 4e are actually one edition played with a different module selction and that you could somehow writen a living campaign adventure that players of all three could just bring their PC and play together.

With 2e, 3.x and 4e the players knew what to expect when they sat down at a living campaign table, with 5e I fear that each customizing will be so different from the others as to effectively be an edition on it's own. How to bring players together?

IMHO the only soultion would be to build a "5e Living Campaign Edition" and use that module selection as the basis for all adventures and not to try to mix the modules wildly to try to cover any possible approach one could take to 5e

I suspect, for a D&DNext OP campaign, that some of the social choices that would normally be made by a DM and his gaming group on which optional rules will be used will have to be made by the OP campaign admins or WOTC (or whomever is in charge of the OP). That said, I think part of the design intent is to allow characters using different edition-style options to be roughly equal and functional so it might not matter. I guess only time will tell.

Another possibility is to use modules as a special experience and communicate the module used on the cover. This is very easy if it is more of a DM module rather than PC one. But, even on the PC side there is potential. We've seen LFR adventures where PCs receive special powers. We can imagine an adventure could use a particular module and provide PCs with a handout where they quickly choose a feature each (or whatever is the case). As an example, an aquatic adventure might have a module... an astral travel adventure another. It all depends on what modules end up being, but I'm sure OP can work with that and make it a strength rather than a hindrance.

Aug 5, 2012 -- 4:40AM, Mirtek wrote:

If the modules can vary the game as much as they claim, then I don't really see how it's still "one edition" in the traditional sense.

I don't know what the final version of 5e will look like, but one could assume that the game should be playable without any "optional" modules. I can't imagine the game being an unplayable mishmash that requires one or more options to make it work.

So, even if everyone doesn't like the base version of the game, there will be a version that can be used for a living campaign. It just won't be the exact version everyone might want to play. Of course, the globals could choose a set of optional modules to be required for living campaign play, but it seems to me that the majority of groups would tend toward the base engine as that will probably be built off the majority of playtest feedback.

Aug 3, 2012 -- 3:16PM, Alphastream1 wrote:

I'm catching up on the Going Last podcast with Shawn Merwin. I like many of the points made about LFR's history.

Listened to the podcast - this is what I took away from it:

- As a player, 'broken' characters are boring because I'm now just somebody else's torch-bearer. As a DM, 'broken' characters are fine because they end combats quickly and let the DM get to the good stuff.

- The fundamental challenge of OP is how to prevent certain players from getting ALL THE THINGS.

- Any OP campaign that presumes that you can run the game in the same way you'd run a home game is doomed. The two campaign styles are vastly different, in the sense that in a home game, you can let the players take possession of things or follow alternative adventure pathways that, in an OP campaign, would derail the adventure.

I will say that the guy in the podcast that criticizes 4E for being a bad system for creating new DMs is crazy -- from experience, I can say that 4th Edition has been the simplest and best way to get people who would otherwise be too intimidated to get behind the screen to do so. We've seen it in our own area.

--
Pauper

Keep in mind that podcasts are conversational in nature. They discuss point x but skip over point y. In other words, they aren't disertations on a topic, but rather conversations on interesting aspects.

I would agree that 4E is the best edition we've had for new DMs. That doesn't mean 4E doesn't have some cases where it makes life hard for DMs - skill challenges are an example I would point to for where a great idea is showcased poorly and thus often executed poorly by confused DMs.

4e is definitely the easiest of the D&D editions on DMing, but it does not train DMs in improvisation, dealing with unexpected weird rules items or rules design as well other editions simply because it is much less needed. Mind you, I am not sure whether that is a good or a bad thing, especially not when compared to the steep learning curves of earlier editions...

I don't think Justin (or possibly Ian) said that 4e was bad for DMs. I think he noted that the various DM books and resources created for 4e did not do a great job in training DMs how to handle creating stories on the fly and, as Pieter says, improvisational techniques. Part of it is the metric ton of adventures available to DMs that was simply not available in 1980--when if you wanted the game to tell a great story, the DM pretty much had to create it with the help of the players. I would say that 4e is a great edition for helping DMs become good. There needed to be more to help many DMs take the next step.

The structure of OP adventures also trains DMs, and in some respects the players themselves, to play in a certain way. There is a mandate in most OP adventures that guide the play of the game to flow in a certain way: stay on track, focus on the goal, don't wander, etc. There is nothing inherently wrong with this structure, and many prefer it. But if that is the only structure that a DM plays within, that DM gets no practice is handling events that are common in other structures.

Creating the adaptation of the 3 Halls of Undermountain adventures for LFR play made it more clear than ever to me those differences in structure. Even though those adventures have clear stories and goals, there are many different ways to get to those goals, as well as complications that a DM could provide to make it more than just a pure, one-track dungeon crawl.

I also didn't say "The fundamental challenge of OP is how to prevent certain players from getting ALL THE THINGS." What I said was that the main challenge for the admins was to make sure that some players didn't get all the things while some players get none of the things. In more general terms, the challenge is how to handle the distribution of rewards (xp, gp, magic, boons, etc.) to keep the campaign viable in the short term and in the long term. This challenge ends up touching all aspects of a campaign, from power creep to PC balance to the recruitment of new players.

The question of being able to run an OP campaign like a home game is an interesting one, and cannot be summed up in podcast, let alone one sentence. I think it actually could be done, and possibly even done well. But that's a whole 'nother discussion.  :-)

Aug 6, 2012 -- 1:26PM, Pauper wrote:

Aug 3, 2012 -- 3:16PM, Alphastream1 wrote:

I'm catching up on the Going Last podcast with Shawn Merwin. I like many of the points made about LFR's history.

Listened to the podcast - this is what I took away from it:

- As a player, 'broken' characters are boring because I'm now just somebody else's torch-bearer. As a DM, 'broken' characters are fine because they end combats quickly and let the DM get to the good stuff.

Just to be clear, I was just talking about my own experiences and preferences. My only experiences playing at the same table as a player with truly "broken" PCs came with high-level 3.5 games. And I was bored. Others' experiences may be different.

As a DM, I don't mind broken characters because I am still in control of the game, and most importantly the game is not me vs. the players. I can change things to make sure that the rest of the players at the table are still having fun, including throwing more monsters on the map that the non-broken players can fight, or get them more involved in the interaction and exploration portions of the game, if that entertains them more.

I'll admit that I was listening to the podcast while doing other things, so I may have misunderstood some points. And it's true (as noted above) that the informal, conversational format isn't always the best for -- for lack of a better term -- academic philosophical discussions.

Aug 7, 2012 -- 5:54AM, smerwin29 wrote:

I think he noted that the various DM books and resources created for 4e did not do a great job in training DMs how to handle creating stories on the fly and, as Pieter says, improvisational techniques.

As both a long-time DM and a theater major, I'm dubious as to the value of getting improv training out of a book. Certainly you can provide tips & tricks, and the DMG and DMG2 both do this, but the only way to really get good at seat-of-the-pants DMing is to sit behind the screen and do it.

If anything, that's part of why 4E makes for such a good starter-DM system -- the underlying structure of the system helps keep you from inadvertently messing up your game with a well-meaning but disastrous bit of improvisation. Best example: what DM hasn't blown up a campaign by giving the low-level paladin a holy avenger sword? 4th edition DMs, that's who, since the holy avenger in 4E is (correctly) marked as an item that only epic-tier PCs should have access to.

I would say that 4e is a great edition for helping DMs become good. There needed to be more to help many DMs take the next step.

I'd say that the next step can't be taken out of a book, so WotC isn't going to be much help here. More useful would be the idea mentioned in the podcast about having gatherings of DMs at conventions like GenCon where one DM runs the game and the rest both play and offer questions and feedback (why would I do this in this situation? what other options do I have?)

WotC could certainly be helpful in this regard -- I'd pay money to sit at a table with Chris Perkins and pick his brain while we run though the opening of 'Tomb of Horrors' together -- but publishing a book on 'advanced DMing techniques', especially if the book is heavily tied to a specific edition of D&D, is likely not the best answer.

The structure of OP adventures also trains DMs, and in some respects the players themselves, to play in a certain way. There is a mandate in most OP adventures that guide the play of the game to flow in a certain way: stay on track, focus on the goal, don't wander, etc. There is nothing inherently wrong with this structure, and many prefer it. But if that is the only structure that a DM plays within, that DM gets no practice is handling events that are common in other structures.

Agreed. On the other hand, the structure of OP adventures exists not because someone made an arbitrary decision to do OP adventures that way, but to best exist in the format they're most commonly played (public play at conventions or in game stores where you have limited time to finish the adventure). To say that DMs running OP adventures tend to replicate that adventure structure is akin to saying that playing pre-gen characters tends to convince players to create characters that look like pre-gens. It is true to a point, especially for neophytes, but the ability to break away from that is the indication that the individual has grown and is demonstrating increased mastery of the material, just as creating a 3rd edition fighter that doesn't seem like a Regdar or Tordek clone shows that the player is beginning to grok the 3E system.

In other words, it's OK for DMs to create their own adventures that feel like OP adventures, at least at first -- it's if they never grow out of that mode that things become a problem.

I also didn't say "The fundamental challenge of OP is how to prevent certain players from getting ALL THE THINGS." What I said was that the main challenge for the admins was to make sure that some players didn't get all the things while some players get none of the things.

Is there really a difference? : )

And in specific, I was responding to your comment about "OK, you own the world. Now what do we do?" In a home game, you can either reboot or have a game about the players being the evil overlords that the NPCs now try to overthrow. An OP campaign can't do either of those (which I figured was your point).

The question of being able to run an OP campaign like a home game is an interesting one, and cannot be summed up in podcast, let alone one sentence. I think it actually could be done, and possibly even done well. But that's a whole 'nother discussion.  :-)

I'm a bit less sanguine about the likelihood of running an OP campaign like a home campaign. It would seem that, in order to say you're going to run a 'home game focused' OP campaign, you have to throw out the fundamental presumption of OP campaigns -- that is, that the players are participating in a shared, persistent world. A campaign where hundreds of DMs have the ability to put their own spin on campaign adventures, and thus can say things like 'oh, you want to use a Dark Sun theme even though this isn't Dark Sun? sure, go ahead,' is going to lead to chaos when those hundred different worlds try to merge back into one at a major convention.

But as you say, that's a different discussion. : )

--
Pauper

Aug 7, 2012 -- 8:12AM, Pauper wrote:

I would say that 4e is a great edition for helping DMs become good. There needed to be more to help many DMs take the next step.

I'd say that the next step can't be taken out of a book, so WotC isn't going to be much help here.

I disagree. I think we can educate. It can be as simple as the DMG or PHB having a sample game. I know that in my early days I read and re-read the sample games in early Basic and AD&D products. They were my guide in a world without online communities and "Find a Store" search icons. Those sample games show everyone how DM and players are supposed to interact. Done well, they really help us understand how to improvise, how to make decisions, how to guide the game's flow, etc.

Adventure design can also do that. We can take an adventure like Caves of Chaos and improve upon that idea. It doesn't have to be that a bad DM makes it a boring delve and a good DM makes it this awesome improvisational memorable experience. CoC can be rewritten to give the DM many great ideas on what is taking place in each cave section and ideas on how to improvise.

4E really helped DMs master the Encounter, which is logical given that the Encounter was such a "unit" of the game and the emphasis for play. But, because those Encounters are so well laid out and the narrative and goals so clear, it also means DMs couldn't easily move beyond that and couldn't see how to improvise. The creative work in 4E is often up front, such as designing a mountain encounter with lava pools and fire creatures. It becomes very hard for the average DM to on-the-fly adjust if the party decides not to go to the mountains and instead approach by sea. We can watch Encounters and LFR tables and see that. We can read forums and see that. "It was a TPK. Not my fault, that's what was on the paper." Or, "They were really frustrated with the encounter, but I'm sure I ran it correctly."

One of the benefits of RPGA play is being able to see how different players and DMs handle situations. And to me (and probably to Shawn, Ian, and Justin) it is very clear that there is a lot more sameness with 4E. Using a printed power card is much more prevalent than "let me think of something I can improvise for this situation". It is true of combat, but also of skill challenges (where I would argue improvisation should be a large part of what is taking place).

Aug 7, 2012 -- 8:12AM, Pauper wrote:

I also didn't say "The fundamental challenge of OP is how to prevent certain players from getting ALL THE THINGS." What I said was that the main challenge for the admins was to make sure that some players didn't get all the things while some players get none of the things.

Is there really a difference? : )

Yes. Equity is a big deal. If everyone has all the things, the monsters can have all the things. But as soon as some people do and some people don't you have big problems.

I think loot can really make or break a campaign. It is really interesting with Ashes of Athas to work with guys with absolutely no OP background. They come up with reward ideas we have to shoot down immediately, and they are in utter disbelief when we explain why it can't be done. "People would do that?", they ask in disbelief. Then we explain what "Greyhawk the bodies" meant, and how PCs would try to pry the nails out of tables if you let them sell them. Or, we might explain why in LG statues that cast Mordenkainen's Disjunction on PCs, stripping them of all their loot was a fate worth than death in the minds of players, which it should not be.

A campaign's loot strategy requires a lot of consideration. It hasn't been perfect with Ashes of Athas, but we find our conservative approach has given us a fair bit of room. As the campaign comes to a close we can actually give out some really broken stuff and not have it be such a big impact, since it isn't stacking with a ton of other loot.

Equity is a big deal. We've heard/read the reactions when LFR said PCs starting at higher level didn't get the same loot as PCs starting at level 1. We've seen how item access in LG created a culture of haves that drove away the have nots.

Getting loot right is probably one of top things an OP campaign has to get right to survive. Done well enough, it ends up being a small background thing people don't discuss much. Otherwise it becomes a big deal that constantly hurts the campaign and ties up the admins.

Aug 7, 2012 -- 2:07PM, Alphastream1 wrote:

The creative work in 4E is often up front, such as designing a mountain encounter with lava pools and fire creatures. It becomes very hard for the average DM to on-the-fly adjust if the party decides not to go to the mountains and instead approach by sea. We can watch Encounters and LFR tables and see that. We can read forums and see that. "It was a TPK. Not my fault, that's what was on the paper." Or, "They were really frustrated with the encounter, but I'm sure I ran it correctly."

I think that's more an issue of LCD DMs in OP. There are some DMs who are great at improvising. There are some DMs who are horrible. And there are some who think they're great at improvising and are actually horrible. At a table, OP tends to encourage not improvising because you can't actually count on the average DM to do it well - can the DM work up a balanced encounter on the fly? At what point does he write off the main event? What if a player is cut off from some special reward because the DM went out of the box?

In NETH4-1, I designed a slightly off-kilter section and every time I run that particular section, I've been asked by the players an obvious question in context of LFR, but only obvious in that context.
Spoiler: Show

If it is difficult for me, as a mod writer, to mix things up, it is going to be even more difficult for a DM at the table to overcome the expectations of the institution. If OP wants improvisional play, it has to be designed into the adventures themselves in a way that allows for a straight railroad or veering way off the rails. I personally would design mods to be straight arrows, but create a regional supplement that contains all kinds of detours for a particular group of mods.

To use NETH year 3 as an example, it might consist of NETH 3-1, 3-2, 3-3 and a regional 'mod' that contains several NPCs referenced in the previous mods and mini-missions that can be performed either in place of or to add additional content. If the DM has time, they can improvise. They don't, they don't have to do that. And the very presence of the regional supplement alerts players to the fact that it is possible to improvise the plot rather than worrying about getting back on the rails.

It's hard to know. If the game is simple like AD&D, then an author has time on their hands. Instead of spending hours crafting an encounter, they can choose some monsters, place them in various less-complex rooms, and spend time on how/why a party ends up in different rooms and how that interaction can progress and lead to the goals.

It's sort of like this:

Right now, we might have encounter progression A -> B -> (choice of C or D) -> E.

That's in part because each of those encounters is so meaty. When they are less meaty, we can have the Caves of Chaos, and define that experience very differently.

Consider this adventure:
- Caves of Chaos map
- Start of adventure, 5 different adventure leads are presented. A noble may have been kidnapped and evidence points to orcs. A jeweler lost a ring. A goblin tried to create an alliance with a caravan, then the guards shot it. Cook says his master was on a caravan raided by hobgoblins, wants revenge. Etc.
- PCs approach the caves and can pursue one or more of those leads, but not all. None of the leads are very detailed. They are more like sketches, but with lots of great hooks so a DM can create a story with the PCs. (Not for the players).
- PC choice dictates where they go, what they accomplish, etc.
- In the conclusion, the choices made feed into what happens for the campaign. The cook's chef might die or be recovered. The ring might be found, etc. Some of these can be important, and there can be progression. Both the cook's master and the hobgoblins know the big bad thing that will be appearing in the next adventure.

The point being we can have a very solid narrative, great story, but we are in a very flexible framework and without the heavy established pattern. BUT, we have to switch to that model and authors are spending real time on that part of the adventure. We shift form crafting this narrow story with real meaty encounters to creating a very good framework with flexibility.

Obviously, this is me just guessing. I have no ideas how meaty encounter design will be by the end of D&D Next's evolution. Part of me would like it to be much meatier, and that would change the above. Part of me really likes the potential of a less meaty design.

Aug 7, 2012 -- 8:12AM, Pauper wrote:

If anything, that's part of why 4E makes for such a good starter-DM system -- the underlying structure of the system helps keep you from inadvertently messing up your game with a well-meaning but disastrous bit of improvisation. Best example: what DM hasn't blown up a campaign by giving the low-level paladin a holy avenger sword? 4th edition DMs, that's who, since the holy avenger in 4E is (correctly) marked as an item that only epic-tier PCs should have access to.

But it is from those kind of mistakes one learns. I think that 4e has a few too many safety nets. Looking at my own experiences, I love the game but it in some regards it does not favor experimentation. It is a bit too predictable and too balanced (I know the level of a monster in one or two rounds as a player simply based on its defenses), and it places a bit too much emphasis on avoiding gotchas at all costs even though most players I know really like them if used fairly and in moderation (people like to be surprised). I think a section discussing experimentation and stepping away from the baselines would really have helped.

Aug 8, 2012 -- 1:03AM, Madfox11 wrote:

But it is from those kind of mistakes one learns. I think that 4e has a few too many safety nets. Looking at my own experiences, I love the game but it in some regards it does not favor experimentation. It is a bit too predictable and too balanced (I know the level of a monster in one or two rounds as a player simply based on its defenses), and it places a bit too much emphasis on avoiding gotchas at all costs even though most players I know really like them if used fairly and in moderation (people like to be surprised). I think a section discussing experimentation and stepping away from the baselines would really have helped.

I disagree. In my experience, DMs in older versions of D&D, especially new DMs, rarely had a good understanding of what monsters would be pushovers and which ones would be really hard. It can be a good thing when a monster surprises the players with its capabilities. It's not a good thing when a monster surprises the DM with its capabilities because it usually means that a cakewalk or a TPK is soon to follow.

In 3.x, where I had most of my gaming experience before 4e, fights often became binary. If I'm playing Torment the necromancer who specializes in save-or-die spells, and the DM puts my party up against something with immunity to death effects, I'm radically reduced in effectiveness. On the flip side, if you are the DM and are looking at monsters, you're either going to go with non-spellcasters (who need a ton of resistances and immunities to deal with magic once you get past level 5 or so) or spellcasters (who require a lot of prepwork). I think that amount of freedom was detrimental to being able to tell good stories or provide good challenges, since there was no good way (CR notwithstanding) to tell how tough something really is.

I like that level means something more than how many hit points a creature has.

Aug 7, 2012 -- 4:54PM, Alphastream1 wrote:

The point being we can have a very solid narrative, great story, but we are in a very flexible framework and without the heavy established pattern. BUT, we have to switch to that model and authors are spending real time on that part of the adventure. We shift form crafting this narrow story with real meaty encounters to creating a very good framework with flexibility.

I agree, and I wish there was more flexibility in story and design in 4e and hope to see it in D&DNext. I think some of the more successful LG adventures where those that had multiple options for RP, investigation, even seperate fights based upon your choices. In LFR/4e OP its been harder to pull off this flexibility though you find some of it as an experiment in CORE3-1 which other than the first and last encounters there are many different stories or threads to explore, many of which are not necessary but more or less move you towards one of the ends. It would also like to see site based OP adventures again (see LG's COR4-19 as another good example), where maybe there is one major plot (the part that unifies the story between tables) but there are the potential of several mini-plots that show up, or not, based on where the PCs explore and the players can choose to follow up on some or none of them based on the PC's choices.

One of the lurking variables here is convention play. Preparing all of the avenues that the PCs might take is more work than preparing a more linear adventure. While that alone is fine, asking DMs at a convention to prepare multiple adventures of this style is an added burden. 

That is to say - if the time/effort/resources to prepare a single adventure is increased, convention organizers will need to redefine the expectation of the number of different adventures a DM is expected to prepare. 

Aug 8, 2012 -- 5:43AM, Herid_Fel wrote:

Aug 8, 2012 -- 1:03AM, Madfox11 wrote:

But it is from those kind of mistakes one learns. I think that 4e has a few too many safety nets. Looking at my own experiences, I love the game but it in some regards it does not favor experimentation. It is a bit too predictable and too balanced (I know the level of a monster in one or two rounds as a player simply based on its defenses), and it places a bit too much emphasis on avoiding gotchas at all costs even though most players I know really like them if used fairly and in moderation (people like to be surprised). I think a section discussing experimentation and stepping away from the baselines would really have helped.

I disagree. In my experience, DMs in older versions of D&D, especially new DMs, rarely had a good understanding of what monsters would be pushovers and which ones would be really hard. It can be a good thing when a monster surprises the players with its capabilities. It's not a good thing when a monster surprises the DM with its capabilities because it usually means that a cakewalk or a TPK is soon to follow.

In 3.x, where I had most of my gaming experience before 4e, fights often became binary. If I'm playing Torment the necromancer who specializes in save-or-die spells, and the DM puts my party up against something with immunity to death effects, I'm radically reduced in effectiveness. On the flip side, if you are the DM and are looking at monsters, you're either going to go with non-spellcasters (who need a ton of resistances and immunities to deal with magic once you get past level 5 or so) or spellcasters (who require a lot of prepwork). I think that amount of freedom was detrimental to being able to tell good stories or provide good challenges, since there was no good way (CR notwithstanding) to tell how tough something really is.

I like that level means something more than how many hit points a creature has.

O, I agree that as a basis 4e is much better. I just thinks that there should be something on experienced DMing where people are pushed more into experimenting with defenses and damage output and the like... mind you in an OP enviroment this somehow always generates a lot of complaints so in LFR that will always be difficult, especially when we assign some kind of level and xp reward to a specific encounter.

Aug 8, 2012 -- 7:59AM, Madfox11 wrote:

O, I agree that as a basis 4e is much better. I just thinks that there should be something on experienced DMing where people are pushed more into experimenting with defenses and damage output and the like... mind you in an OP enviroment this somehow always generates a lot of complaints so in LFR that will always be difficult, especially when we assign some kind of level and xp reward to a specific encounter.

There are some house rules I've been experimenting with that allow 4e to pull in some of the options of D&DNext for combat.
If you're half the level or your target or greater, a 16+ is an automatic hit and 5- is an automatic miss.
If you have conditional modifiers of +4 or greater, you instead have Advantage(i.e. roll twice instead). If you have conditional modifiers of +2 or +3, you have Advantage, but roll a d6 if you need the Advantage die to hit - 1-3, you miss, 4-6 you hit. i.e. practically speaking, because CA gives advantage and is the most common reason that someone might not miss on a 5, the 5- isn't that bad even for the to-hit specialists.
All minions now have hp = 5+level and can be affected by attacks that have effects on a miss. When they do damage, you can add a d6-3/d12-6/d20-10 to it depending on tier.

Basically, that frees up a lot of minions to have the bounded math of D&DNext and have just enough survivability that they're not 4e Minions who can be auto-killed by many characters - a 5th level Minion is a threat to a 10th level character. The 10th level character is quite likely to kill the 5th level Minion in a single swing, but the 10th level Wizard doing an OA with a dagger is not, even if the Wizard hits.

Which makes the D&DNext combat structure of Elite Controller/Leader+many minions practical in 4e without worrying about PCs explicitly designed to auto-kill minions. So making it into a theatre of the mind combat that lasts about 15 minutes is therefore very practical.

This is obviously not useful for LFR, but I think this is just an example of where WotC said, "We're moving on to the next edition, we're not going to tinker with the old one in such a big way."

Aug 8, 2012 -- 7:54AM, Uthrac wrote:

One of the lurking variables here is convention play. Preparing all of the avenues that the PCs might take is more work than preparing a more linear adventure. While that alone is fine, asking DMs at a convention to prepare multiple adventures of this style is an added burden. 

That is to say - if the time/effort/resources to prepare a single adventure is increased, convention organizers will need to redefine the expectation of the number of different adventures a DM is expected to prepare. 

Not necessarily. In January I didn't find it harder to prep Caves of Chaos for 4 hours than it was to prepare my Ashes of Athas adventures. That's because CoC is so much lighter on things I need to understand beforehand, whereas the AoA adventures are complex, have deep storylines, have plot big things and small things I need to get across to the PCs, etc.

It should be possible in that outline I gave to still have it no harder to write, develop, DM, or play. The key is to keep focus on possibilities rather than must-happens. Let the DM and PCs create the details based on really cool hooks. Of course, people like me will still make a wordy complex adventure, I'm sure! (Bangs head against desk)

Aug 8, 2012 -- 9:47AM, Alphastream1 wrote:

Aug 8, 2012 -- 7:54AM, Uthrac wrote:

One of the lurking variables here is convention play. Preparing all of the avenues that the PCs might take is more work than preparing a more linear adventure. While that alone is fine, asking DMs at a convention to prepare multiple adventures of this style is an added burden. 

That is to say - if the time/effort/resources to prepare a single adventure is increased, convention organizers will need to redefine the expectation of the number of different adventures a DM is expected to prepare. 

Not necessarily. In January I didn't find it harder to prep Caves of Chaos for 4 hours than it was to prepare my Ashes of Athas adventures. That's because CoC is so much lighter on things I need to understand beforehand, whereas the AoA adventures are complex, have deep storylines, have plot big things and small things I need to get across to the PCs, etc.

That's in part due to Caves of Chaos not having any complex tactical combats nor is it important that the players understand X for the next adventure that follows it. If Organized Play consists of non-tactical combats where getting the deep storyline right isn't important, then there's no problems.

Probably won't appeal to many people playing LFR, though. 

Aug 8, 2012 -- 12:06PM, Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:

That's in part due to Caves of Chaos not having any complex tactical combats nor is it important that the players understand X for the next adventure that follows it. If Organized Play consists of non-tactical combats where getting the deep storyline right isn't important, then there's no problems.

Probably won't appeal to many people playing LFR, though. 

That's not what I'm saying.

Could we not have an Elturgard adventure where there are outbreaks of spellplague and PCs have options of where to explore, learning different bits of lore depending on where they go? Where they go would be much lighter - the author isn't spending much time on encounters in terms of big descriptions, terrain, etc. Instead, it is more about the framework (alchemist's shop, table of things that happen on a miss, NPC ideas, stuff PCs learn, stock monsters with a spellplague power/attack/spell). With a lighter system you could go to 2-4 areas, or each area could consist of various events or sub-areas, creating a different experience. Some combats might be tactical (grid, terrain, etc.) but likely still play much faster than a 4E equivalent.

During the adventure you have just as much story as in any other adventure. But you had a lot of choice and a lot of freedom to create your own story. You even have a reason to talk online about what happened and share theories and learn from what other adventurers did (even in character, as was common in 3E days).

The big difference is approach when writing (more options but each is lighter/simpler, focus on potential rather than explicit must-happen), what the DM reads and how they take on the task of DMing (a lot more storytelling and response to players), and how the players approach things (more decisions, ability to create own story, flexibility, exploration, etc.).

I actually did try such an approach in LFR adventures in a special with a goal that could be reached easily, and some secondary goal in exploring and learning what is going on. Since combats had xp assigned to them though, people complained not being able to finish the adventure (not to mention discussion about rewards). I have seen the same happen in LG adventures (3e) with the same setup. In 3e I have also had people complain loudly about finishing such adventures in 1 hour even though they paid for the full slot because the group never RPed, did not bother dealing with the mystery and simply rolled the dice. Fact is that people apparently feel they need to explore anything and the DM lacked the skill to just throw in a few time drainers (and 3e LG was not really suited for imprompto improvised fights ). At the very least the campaign should do away with xp.

Furthermore, my experience with DMs and improvisation/filling the gaps/allowing players to do their own story telling is far from positive. It doesn't even have to do with experience. The DM might simply be tired, not having his or her day. In a home game a DM can call it a day, or simply plan in a challenging fight. In a convention game were people paid for the slot, that is not an option. It also depends highly on the players. If they do not get actively involved, if you depend too much on proactive player involvement things can run stale real quick. I really like AoA for example, but at DDXP last winter I have had two very boring games because both players (the majority anyway) and DM simply were not up to the task in filling in the blanks or doing more than rolling dice. And that was with a game were players and DMs are expected to fill in the blanks unlike in a more generic widely oriented campaign such as LFR. Of course, if you do fill in the blanks you have a group of DMs who treat the text as holy and don't allow the players, let alone himself, to deviate. It is a delicate balance...

In short, I have no illusions in this regards on what is and is not possible in a generic accesible OP campaign regardless of edition

Those are all good points. I saw something similar with D&D Next tables at D&DXP - tables that had improvisational DMs really shone, while those that treated Caves of Chaos like just a delve... well, they delivered!

I still think we can improve. I really wasn't much of an improvisational judge in 2000, but it was seeing LG judges that did improvise that helped me learn how to do that. I think the game and the campaign can facilitate that.

For me, Living Spycraft is the gold standard for improvisational (though other games do it as well). The DM would describe some situation and players would scheme and plan and execute some cool spy idea (some PCs infiltrate a hotel room while another seduces the guards and a third entices the playboy foe into a high speed race). Then I would later look at the mod and that whole thing was just two paragraphs of ideas. As Shawn says in the podcast, it wasn't perfect (choosing gear really could be terrible), but I really liked how nearly everyone I played with was able to improvise this way. (Then again, counter to what I'm arguing, the adventures didn't really tell you how to do that. DMs seemed to just know.)

Aug 8, 2012 -- 9:47AM, Alphastream1 wrote:

 In January I didn't find it harder to prep Caves of Chaos for 4 hours than it was to prepare my Ashes of Athas adventures. That's because

... you're a top-notch, extremely talented DM! 

I'm thinking of the average DM I see at conventions, and the new DMs in our area who have given "scripted LFR" a chance and found that they are better at it than they thought. These DMs shine when they are fully prepared (and when they are not, they really-really-really suck).

While I agree that the top-tier DMs could run these adventures without any additional prep-time, the average DMs who do well when they are fully prepared and fully understand the adventure will need to invest a lot more into getting to their comfort level with a more free-form adventure than one that provides a straightforward response for what the PCs should generally be doing.

At game days I run as "Senior DM/organizer," I still get good DMs coming to me during the game with the question: "The PCs want to do this, but it's not specifically covered in the adventure. Is it okay for me to let them do that?"  -- and they are perfectly happy with an "official" yes.

It takes a lot more practice and talent to run a more open-ended session than one that is generally scripted. For less-experienced DMs, this often equates to much more time preparing the adventure.

Aug 9, 2012 -- 5:50AM, Uthrac wrote:

Aug 8, 2012 -- 9:47AM, Alphastream1 wrote:

 In January I didn't find it harder to prep Caves of Chaos for 4 hours than it was to prepare my Ashes of Athas adventures. That's because

... you're a top-notch, extremely talented DM!

That is very kind, and I really appreciate it coming from a talented DM like you.

Aug 9, 2012 -- 5:50AM, Uthrac wrote:

I'm thinking of the average DM I see at conventions

You make good points and I truly hear them. But I think everyone in the long run is better off with adventures that don't protect us so much that new DMs don't learn good techniques.

The trick is in providing good adventures that support DMs in building those good techniques, while not creating barriers to DMing and still supporting DMs who already have those skills.

4e/LFR did a great job removing barriers to recruit new DMs. Minimizing those barriers should always be a goal of OP.  

We totally agree there. I think Caves of Chaos as it exists does the game a disservice. It is too wide open. But, I think it could still be new-friendly by providing what DMs need to run that kind of game. It does need to keep being easy.

I could be wrong here, or just biased, but I don't think very many people outside of those with organized play experience truly understand that. RPG company staff (any RPG company) tend to have so much experience and are so wedded to how they play with their (talented) home campaign groups that they often forget what needs to be in place for the general public to have a great time.

Agree 100%.  

Aug 11, 2012 -- 6:51PM, Alphastream1 wrote:

We totally agree there. I think Caves of Chaos as it exists does the game a disservice. It is too wide open. But, I think it could still be new-friendly by providing what DMs need to run that kind of game. It does need to keep being easy.

I could be wrong here, or just biased, but I don't think very many people outside of those with organized play experience truly understand that. RPG company staff (any RPG company) tend to have so much experience and are so wedded to how they play with their (talented) home campaign groups that they often forget what needs to be in place for the general public to have a great time.

That's the reason I think having a supplement for a year's worth of mods might be the right way to go - no time, under pressure, at a convention, have a cold DM? Run the mods just as they would have been run in LFR. Have extra time or a great DM? Have references in each mod to easily look up the supplemental material.

Given most mods are pdfs, this could be included as a link to a webpage and as a pdf. So if you're running it on an iPad, you click on the link when they're talking to NPC X if you have time - it brings up the supplemental materials and then you, the DM, can decide what to do with it.

Obviously, you've looked at the supplemental pdf already , but now you know the actual amount of time you have to go indepth. 

I think and I hope that the Next Living Campaign will consider allowing the insertion of plot hooks into adventures, whether in the conclusion or elsewhere, so that a DM of a home play group could add content for sidebar or followup adventures, tailored to the specific PCs in the group.  While the My Realms adventures offer some potential, worries about messing up plot lines and copyright issues led to a fairly tight firewall between the standard LFR adventures and the My Realms when we started. In my view, experience suggests the benefits outweigh the cost or risk and a more flexible arrangement is warranted.

The formating we used in LFR and some of the 4e construct did make the task of a DM easier IMHO.

Keith

Keith, Uthrac creates a special MYRE for Calimshan to do exactly that. We hope to upload it pretty soon. The option is there even with LFR, but it requires a bit of attention from the organizers and more importantly, it means that the organizers must accept that some plotlines from that moment onwrd are unusable.

Aug 14, 2012 -- 12:32PM, Madfox11 wrote:

We hope to upload it pretty soon.

Ooooooo ...