Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Subway 11-30-05, 03:38 PM	So I created the world, a rough design of the globe with various cities. I outlined/mapped the cities they start around with npc names, buildings, government system, etc. Very simple design, nothing too detailed until they get to it. Here's my question. Do you DM's decide everything beforehand, or do you make up story elements as you go? For example: My group is investigating an orc invasion on this island that they have no escape from except to the portal that is supposivly heavily guarded by orcs, and by boats, which have been burned at night during the construction process many times. It's a relativly new city, so it's small. There are some ruins that hold the secrets of the portal and why the orcs have gained access through it, so I decided as they were traveling at night, the first time they have done this, that they will look up and see a skull in the clouds. They have not noticed this before because they don't travel during the night (happens around midnight). Is something something legit to do? I know it's my call, but I'm wondering if other people do this? I didn't even have the ruins mapped out because I knew it'd be a while before they reached it, they havn't yet, so I was making up more plot elements as they explored, real-time almost. Deciding this and that. I even made up a part about a gem they found on the guy that kidnapped them in the beginning, and ended up turning that gem into the eye of a statue that would open the ruins. Most of it being adlibbed as I went. It went quite well and really sparked interest and questions about what they should do with the gem. Do other dms do this to keep the players on their toes?
Chobemaster 11-30-05, 03:46 PM	I think this is critical to a good game. You can't detail the whole world, nor (without railroading) force the players to go only to where you've detailed. But don't change things randomly, either....what you'd detailed before should only change w/ reason, and what appears "new" should interlock with what was there before consistently.
Subway 11-30-05, 03:55 PM	Right, I'm not going to change an already made fact. But I can manipulate it to make it something they didn't think it was.
Sereno 11-30-05, 03:57 PM	Since I'm currently DMing an Eberron game, I'm not ad-libbing/creating-on-the-fly the world itself, but I tend to do a fair amount of this within each adventure. I develop the story-outlines of several adventures I would like my PCs to experience and come up with some hooks and inter-relationships between them and then I let my PCs pick which threads they want to follow. Also, if an encounter seems to pique the players interest I start thinking about how to incorporate it into future adventure stories. I've also been writing my adventures without specific encounters, just the overall "style" so if my PCs are 10th level before they get to a plot I wrote when they were 2nd level, I won't have useless encounters prepared (and wasted). I just mark areas/encounters "a team of mooks", or "BBEG's Lieutenant", or "aquatic creature" and fill in the scale/CR when I need them. I also like to throw in the occasional encounter that's far above of below the average party level to remind them that the whole world doesn't scale with them. Just 'cause they're 2nd level, doesn't mean that everyone in the bar is 3rd or less ... there might just be a 10th level bad-guy there, minding his own business.... :) Likewise, if a PC takes a liking to a particular item (such as found in treasure) I like to work that into the story. I also like to keep a high degree of mystery so my players never know if the things they find are part of the ongoing adventure or just hooks for something in the future ... kind of like a Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode!
Board_Rider 11-30-05, 04:01 PM	I do this a little bit however I run a Forgotten Realms game so most of that kind of work is done for me. I have adlibed many things though and the one thing I would recommend is to write it down. Just for consistency if the need should arise later. Nothing worse than hearing: Player: "Hylara? I thought you said Desmont?" DM: "Well, uh, thats what I mean...." Player: "What, Hylara or Desmont?" DM:"*ahem*...erm...Desmont.." Player:"Whats Hylara than? I even wrote it down.." Boy, some players hate inconsistancy!!!
Subway 11-30-05, 04:03 PM	See yeah, I love the idea of "Hey if you go too far towards a powerful area, the monsters are gonna be 5+ levels above you". As you go further from town, it's gonna be more monsters and harder battles.
Milandros 11-30-05, 04:55 PM	I recommend a balance of both. You need structure to make a believeable and coherent world, but unless you detail *everything* then you're going to get into trouble when players do things you didn't expect - and players do things you don't expect more than you'd expect... This is worth splitting into two parts, campaign-level planning and adventure level planning. For campaigns: What I do is create my major NPCs early on, along with their grand plot, their heirachy and a rough timeline of what will happen if the players don't foil their nefarious schemes. I then add an "expected" player action to the timeline, so I can see how I expect things to change. After each session, I "improvise", or rather re-evaluate the evil scheme and timelines based on how the players have acted. For adventures: I prepare quite a bit of the background - I know the NPCs, their combat tactics, their strengths and weaknesses, some expected floorplans and maps. If the players move away from that area then I improvise, based on the area map and on the motivations of the bad guys. Balance is the key. If you're properly prepared the improvisation is quite easy; you only have to fill in blanks or extend on what you currently know. Improvising on improvisation can be great, but it's a lot harder to keep things consistent and not get lost. Also, always take notes when you improvise. Anything you improvise is now official background for your game - and if you do it right, your players will never know when you're reading from your notes or making it up as you go along.
mike_beavers 11-30-05, 05:26 PM	I will add and modify things during the story to keep things interesting. I generally keep everything consistent but there are times to improvise. For instance in my current game, the group defeated badly lead troops and the players let them go with a promise not to come back. Some of the bad guys are heading back home to inform their leaders about the defeat. Some of the bad guys wandered in to a old cave that contained a vampire who had been impaled and of course set her free. The vampire was there from a previous campaign and had been defeated but not completely destroyed. I remembered this from reading my notes on the area. I keep all sorts of notes. So things are planned and improvised. The bad guys going back home was planned but the vampire thing was improvised and I think will provide a nice side story to the campaign
Rocketboy13 11-30-05, 05:30 PM	I create nearly everything as I go along. Whenever I create things ahead of time, those areas get used about 15minutes before the PC's leave forever. Creating locations on the fly means that the characters will buy a house in the area and never leave, but as soon as you flesh the area out, they'll go, it is some kind of rule of irony or something. :nonono:
Subway 12-02-05, 12:18 PM	Well recently my group killed 3 zombie orcs. I thought it would be cool since they chopped the zombies up that the pieces start moving and start trying to reform. I did spot checks after that moved on and they spotted 4 arms, 4 legs, 2 torsos and 2 heads. They burned those and then I did intiative because the other one reformed around the corner from where they were.
clarkvalentine 12-02-05, 12:44 PM	I think this is critical to a good game. You can't detail the whole world, nor (without railroading) force the players to go only to where you've detailed. I can't even imagine planning the whole world out in detail ahead of time. Some of my best ideas as a GM - plot ideas as well as setting ideas - weren't really mine, they came from players. Take what your players give you and run. If you have good players, they'll intentionally toss you things to run with.
Kyuketsukiouji 12-02-05, 12:56 PM	Make a frame, and add to the parts you need as the game progresses. After all, you'd have to be nuts (or paid) to design a whole world into too much details. One of the things I do spend time on, and that my players love, is time. The 1rst Edition Oriental Adventures book had a section on planning out events in a year/month/week span, and I've used that a lot. It always makes worlds richer when events that have nothing to do with PCs are going on, though I usually have to break new players out of their PC-centrists attitudes a bit ("no, the wedding you're hearing rumors about between lord so-and-so and lady whatnot three provinces over has nothing to do with you") So frame your space, frame your time, and fill in the parts your players are in. And take notes obsessively.
Subway 12-02-05, 02:14 PM	Yeah. What I've done recently is use a few pieces of scratch paper to jot down everything that happens during the session. Then when it's over I make a better copy of it into my Notebook. I keep track of their current XP, Gold, Treasure obtained that journey, what they killed and any details about something they did in particular (IE: Nailing a shield to a tree 8 hours due north on the beach their cleric died). I love running with player's ideas, because they think they've found something out I've planned, but in reality i'm just going with their ideas ;)
Talonz 12-02-05, 02:17 PM	All the time. You need a skeleton to get going, but you can always add meat as you go. Case in point; i had my last group at very low level meet a skeletal spectre on horseback in a swamp that caused fear. The whole group ran from their camp into the swamp. An entire adventure later, I had now built a new adventure around who this spectre was and why he was searching out people in the swamp. Rather than simply a 'there are bigger things out there than you' low level encounter, the spectre now became the dead knight that was cursed to wander the swamp near the manor house where his ward, a noble daughter he was escorting and had an illicit affair with, met her demise. Until he found the party and brought them to the house to find and properly bury her remains of course. Most recently, I have managed to meld 2 adventures into part of a larger campaign. A cairn that was disgorging undead to assault a local village had a priest with an interesting skull mask. In a later adventure, they happen to be chasing a priest who stole a key/book into another cairn. Guess what that priest might be found wearing and thus be part of a larger campaign plot now? And of course, there are the little bits I add all the time. Like the old boatsman who ferried the party across the harbour to mudtown, who stopped half way there and complained of his poor health and tried to bargain up the price for his services. Little things like that are appreciated by the players, little things that make your world and its inhabitants more real.
Ertai Planeswalker 12-02-05, 02:47 PM	I used to try and design literally everything ahead of time, but I'm not doing that anymore. It takes a lot of time, and you always end up forgetting things anyway. I'm kind of a control freak though, and find it hard to come up with names. Improvising isn't as hard but oh boy how i suck at naming things and people. Anyway, my party will be planehopping not far from now. I design the material plane (They think they're on it but they're not) in rough lines, but for the rest of the planes i simply use whatever lore is out there. You can't design infinite planes ahead of time. So i'll just design things per session. I will be looking for a premade list with a lot of names for cities and people though...