Post/Author/DateTime	Post
HappyDragon 10-22-05, 01:49 PM	I find myself with a small problem and come to ask those with more wisdom than myself how to possibly remedy it. The problem----As a Dm I believe I'm not directing the story enough and the pacing of the story is suffering because of this. My concern----How do I focus the story more without falling into the trap of railroading my players? Possibly important details that may have impact on any responses. -I am a first time DM for DnD and have only refereed in one other non-DnD game...we are going into our 8th session tomorrow night. -There are currently 6 players in the group, soon to be 7, (I admit I probably bit off a bit more than I can chew on this one). -There are no real 'problem' players, but there is a varying degree in the group of experienced players, as well as 'roll vs. role' players. -As a Dm I am more story and character driven than rules and regulations. - All PCs are now at 2nd level. Basic premise so far----They are in a competition with another group to see who can first discover the original location that an artifact was discovered. The prize being membership into a highly prestigious Adventuring Guild. In case it matters, it is an Eberron campaign and the players are currently in Sharn. I'm trying to keep it a more gritty Indiana Jones/noirish style game, but the pacing of the game is killing the atmosphere. I've given the players clues, but very few have been followed up. The wizard researching in the library has actually gotten the lion's share of the info, but many of the other players haven't done much with the other information that they've either been given or have the potential to find. Perhaps I've been making some of the clues too obtuse and I will admit there are times I've unnecessarily allowed some in-game anticks go on a bit too far which is one of the thiings I will be attempting to curtail in the future. Another thing I will be attempting to do include playing up the other group in the competition more to try and stress the limited time of the goal. Overall I find myself being frustrated because I've shown the horse where the water is but they aren't drinking. Or if they are, they are taking baby steps to even reach the pond. Everybody playing seems to be enjoying themselves enough, but if anyone could perhaps give some more suggestions of how to focus a story more without railroading, it would be greatly appreciated. If anyone would like more information on either the campaign or characters just ask and I will expand on the information I've already given. Thanks in advance to those that actually read this long winded thread and take the time to respond. Thanks. :)
imperialjunkie 10-22-05, 02:01 PM	Learn to use NPCs. These drive the story without driving the PCs. If you make them imaginative and interesting, they easily create plot hooks that the PCs will want to follow. Learn how to roleplay with different NPCs so they aren't all the same. Find ways of making the players love and hate the NPCs and things will move along quite easily. Make them boring and they will care only about monsters and treasure. As well, consider what your key NPCs-- both good guys and bad guys-- are doing while 'offstage.' The world still moves when the PCs are wasting time looting the dungeon or breaking into the house. When they come out for shopping, they might be suprised at how things have changed. Of course they can keep their head in the sand, just looking for monsters to kill and gold to collect, but eventually they have to interact with their world. Especially if the world is demanding to interact with them. ;)
Bloodtide_the_Red 10-22-05, 02:16 PM	Couple of things to keep in mind about mysteries- 1.Not everyone has the same thought prossess as you do. You think it's a huge red flag whentold 'Obar the dragon is only 10 years old', but if the players don't know dragon ages, they won't figure out something is wrong. 2.Subble clues are easly missed, as they are subble. They have to realy pay attention to get them. 3.The clues look easy to you, as you know the answer, but on the otherside they may look very hard. 4.You have had days or weeks to think up of the cules. The players have had a couple hours to figure them out. This comes down to if you don't have a good detective group, all the clues you drop will be useless. If they don't follow the bread crumbs, they will never find their way home. They may not want to have the 'fun' of going all over the world tracking down clues(like Indinana Jones). You may need to drop the hardness of the clues. Go a little more 'Blue's clues' then 'Agatha Cristie'. You can also throw then a nice big bone to get them on track. you might also want to make things flexable. So the players don't HAVE to go to the red wizards to get the red key. If they figure out a good reason that the blue wizard might have it, then make it so in the game. You should remember that a little 'railroading ' is good for the game. There is nothing wrong with putting everything right in the characters path. Also railroading gives the players no choice in what to do, your your just leading them to a spot, it's not railroading if they want to go there. BT
strike277 10-22-05, 02:19 PM	The first thing I'd like to know is the average age of the players. That in and of it's self could be part of the problem. Most younger people are not as attention based as we older folk. Trying to have an average 14 year old pay constant attention to the story vise giving him mosters to fight, well there is no comparision. Thats not to say all younger people are like that, but most are.
Magness 10-22-05, 03:01 PM	Since I run most all of my campaigns as open world I've run into this problem before. The most common problem is that the players expect things to just happen to them. They expect to hang out in the tavern until something literally falls in their lap. To fix this you need to let your players know that the world is open and that they need to do things. One way to help get the idea across is to allow them to fail a few adventures. Let them hear that the contest is over because the other team found it. Then every now and again drop in things about the grand adventures the other team is having. Once they get the idea let them get word that the other team is in trouble and if they rescue them they can get into the guild. This way you can go on with what you had planned, but they understand that they can fail. Many PCs think that the only fail condition is death, and so as long as they are still alive the DM will cater to them. The down side of this is if the PCs don't want this type of campaign. If they all want a hack and slash plot falls in our lap type of game then they may not give this type of game a chance.
HappyDragon 10-22-05, 06:10 PM	imperialjunkie - As far as I've been told my NPC's have been enjoyed by the players and they aren't paper cut-outs, but perhaps I could try to be a bit more agrressive with them to help foster the idea of interacting with the game world a bit more. One of my problems I think is that I believe the PCs should be the ones driving the story and not external forces. The world still moves when the PCs are wasting time looting the dungeon or breaking into the house. When they come out for shopping, they might be suprised at how things have changed. Of course they can keep their head in the sand, just looking for monsters to kill and gold to collect, I'd almost be happy if the characters were doing this as it would mean they are at least doing something. The world is continuing but many of them seem to take little interest. Bloodtide_the_Red - I think you're right about mysteries and such and I will be attempting to make things a bit more obvious in the future for the players. This comes down to if you don't have a good detective group, all the clues you drop will be useless. The funny thing abut this statement is that almost half the group is more than capable of detecting on paper. Two of the players even have Urban Tracking, one of them even has Tracking on top of it's urban cousin. you might also want to make things flexable. If anything I may of made things too flexible, giving at least 3 solid leads for any one situation. It may come back to what you already mentioned about the subtley of the clues that I need to work on. it's not railroading if they want to go there. Nicely said and something I will definetely keep in mind. :thumbsup: strike277 - I wish age was the reason, it would be easier to deal with then. We all range in age from 21 to 35, the average being around 25-27. The most common problem is that the players expect things to just happen to them. They expect to hang out in the tavern until something literally falls in their lap. You've hit the nail on the head with this one. I'm finding that most of the players wont actively do anything unless they are directly challenged by an enemy in an obvious way. In fact when I asked for critiques and comments from the players last week a couple of them mentioned the fact that if the IN-game chatter gets too carried away just have some bad guys bust in and break up the scene. Nice enough idea I suppose, but I'm not a big fan of random encounters for one, and secondly the PCs simply haven't done enough to warrant this type of treatment from any of the story element antagonists yet. Just as an example of when I did have an outside element.....From last weeks game session ....I had plans for a small team to break into the inn the PCs were staying at and attempt to steal the PC's artifact they were using as clues. Half the group made the initial listen checks that they heard something out of the ordinary in the alley way beside the inn. One went to fetch the city watch, one figured it was just an alley cat and the one player who decided to somewhat investigate looked out their window, saw a couple of shadowy figures slip into the darkness....the character shut the blinds, made sure he was armed and went back to sleep. Some of it was admittadly well played in character by some of them, but no one seemed particularily alarmed when the explosion went off a few minutes later. Like they expected it to happen and were simply waiting for the proper cues. The inn was successfully robbed. When the players got outside to the explosion site, they found canisters with the right smells to consitute explosive materials. The Druid got his Animal Companion hunting dog on the scent, all the group was together in the back alley and they decided not to follow. It seems like I will indeed need to make some modifications to my DMing style to better fit in with the groups needs. All of the comments have been appreciated and has definetely given me some things to mull over. More comments and suggestions are always welcome.
Badapple 10-23-05, 12:13 AM	Wow. Based on that example above it seems the problem isn't that they aren't getting enough cues and clues - it seems the players are actively trying NOT to follow up some clues. Whether its by roleplaying a character that would normally be disinterested, or the player just messing around and seeing what happens when they ignore the natural path. I think they should probably fail this mission. Have the theft that they didn't follow up on prove to hinder them so the other group wins. This is very important as it reinforces that there are consequences to every decision, even if the decision is inaction. You can always give them another opportunity to join the guild or interact with the other group later, but I think it's time to throw another goal at them. Having them hit by some bad guys isn't a bad idea. Perhaps have one of the players be a long lost relative of a royal bloodline marked for extinction by a high level tyrant or something and start throwing some progressively more powerful assasins at the party or something. Once the party bands together to fight this encounter, they can then all be marked as targets. Then you can always throw an encounter at the party whenever things need to get back on track and it won't be out of the storyline. If this idea doesn't fit into your plans, I'd encourage you to think of some other way you can reasonably introduce a combat or two into the game to stir things up. As far as freedom of choice vs. railroading, usually what I do with a new group is to start small. Give them a narrow, fairly easy to obtain goal to focus everyone to begin the very first game session of a new campaign. Once that quest is done have the ramifications of the quest cause some sort of basic choice. At the end of every session give the party a couple options of what to do. This causes a nice branching plotline, as after a few adventures the party has multiple paths and options open to them.
SneakyPetey 10-23-05, 12:47 AM	Happy Dragon, There is one problem I've consistently seen with wide-open campaigns like yours: Lack of character motivation. If the players are sitting around waiting for things to happen, then they're not motivated. I'm not saying they're lazy, I'm saying that in their character background there's probably a hole where the character's motivation should be. Why are they adventurers? How did they arrive at this point in their life? Do they have enemies? Allies? Friends? Family? Are they hungry for wealth? Fame? Power? What has driven these characters to get to the point where they now stand: On the threshold of their first adventure? I suspect what your campaign needs is a few "carrots" dangling out there and calling out to the characters. Take a few days and think about that aspect of your campaign. (Unless, of course, you've provided each character with compelling and valid motivation, then ignore the first two paragraphs and move on to my next suggestion! :D ) Bloodtide also touched on a good point, and it's a point I constantly struggle with as a DM. When you are the DM, YOU HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION. The players ONLY HAVE THE INFORMATION YOU GIVE THEM. I used to get so frustrated with my players because they just couldn't figure anything out. Then I realized they couldn't read my mind... ;) Try to be more generous with the clues and information. If the players are still floundering, you may have to cause an NPC informant to literally drop into their laps and tell them what needs to be done! Everything is so obvious when you're the one creating the story. On the other side of the DM screen, well... Things get a lot less obvious. See if you can get one of the players to take notes during a session. Make sure the players review the notes periodically. I've found that this helps a great deal. We tend to get bombarded with information in our society, so the clues from last week's gaming session tend to get lost, or pushed to a dark corner of our minds.... One last suggestion (and this one will make folks cringe): Try to start off the campaign with a couple mindless dungeon crawls. Let the players get to know their characters. Let them develop group tactics and a party pecking order. All this can help you figure out how to challenge them later on. Pay attention to how they react to certain elements of the game, this can help you motivate them. If you want to sustain a worthwhile campaign, you're going to have to cater to the players' tastes sooner or later. So figure out what they like and give them plenty of it! Use the stuff they like about the game to draw them into your storyline. Then you'll be giving them what they like, and they'll be happily advancing your storyline (and the campaign)! Which will make you happy! It's always good when everyone's happy! :D I hope this helps!
UmbraLux 10-23-05, 02:06 AM	Use a 'carrot'. In other words, make the path you want the to follow look attractive, lucrative, and maybe even easy. Note I said 'look'. :D If you have players going off on major tangents, you probably aren't making the carrot attractive enough. Part of what helps with this is simply knowing what your players/characters want. If they have a goal of starting their own city, give them a king willing to deed land and title for completion of some deed. If it's about riches, give them a city terrorized by a dragon. Whatever their goals are, incorporate at least a part into your planning.
KDSN 10-23-05, 02:24 AM	The best type of Railroading is Railroading the players think is Open Ended.
SneakyPetey 10-23-05, 11:47 AM	Use a 'carrot'. In other words, make the path you want the to follow look attractive, lucrative, and maybe even easy. Note I said 'look'. :D See, sometimes I don't give all the necessary information when talking to other DMs, either! :P There are a couple ways to create motivation in characters: 1. Work with the players to add motivation into the character background. One that worked well in our current campaign was a player whose family name had been besmirched when his father was wrongfully accused of high treason. It explicitly said in this character's background: "More than anything, your character wants to clear his father's name and restore the family estate." There's no room for interpretation there, but we do have motivation! :) The player didn't mind (what some would call "railroading") and took this character (who was initially a pariah) and made him into one of the most reknowned heroes of the land! I *never* had a problem with this player following leads or sticking within the storyline I intended. Why? Well, he's a good player, but I also think it's because I gave his character motivation from day one of the campaign. 2. Give them reasons to be motivated. For example: The character's family was destitute and at the mercy of a cruel overlord who caused half the family to perish; or the character's best friend was killed, maimed, or kidnapped by [insert evil thing here], etc.) This is more open-ended. The player has the choice to take the events from his/her character's past and use them to create goals or form beliefs that influence goal-making, yada yada. The character whose family was destitute, may yearn to overthrow the current government, so no families will have to suffer like his/hers. That character may also choose to gain as much wealth as possible to ensure that his family will never again be at anyone's mercy. There are all kinds of possibilities here. If you're going to do things this way, be sure to keep tabs on each character's motivation... Because odds are they'll change or at least evolve as the campaign moves on. In the open-ended method (which I think Happy Dragon will prefer) the players can still cause problems if their goals don't match the campaign storyline too well. But at least you'll have a way to get the characters off their collective butts and into a storyline! If worse comes to worse, you could also just ask the players to tweak their motivation a bit. I hope this clarifies things! ;)
wrecan 10-23-05, 04:58 PM	I agree with others who said the players are insufficiently motivated. They all seem to be "role-playing" the encounter, but the characters in question don't seem to be all that interested in sticking their necks out for anything. Why are they adventuring? What would make them want to risk their necks? It doesn't seem like a friendly competition to get into a guild is going to cut it. They need: 1) A compelling reason to join the guild. 2) A compelling reason to hate their rival. 3) A compelling reason to find the artifact. Not all PCs need all three motivations. Some could realize their hated enemy has joined the rival team. Some could find out the artifact would help a loved one. Some could learn that the only way to reach some goal is to join the guild. Then they have a reason to act.
HappyDragon 10-28-05, 01:29 AM	Been away from the computer for a bit, but I was able to peek in on the thread before game night on Sunday. All the comments and suggestions have been greatly appreciated. :) The session went better than it had been which is good, still needs some improvements, but at least it was a step in the right direction. I've pretty much dropped the treasure map in the party's lap with the a big X marks the spot. Was able to finally get past a sub-plot that was taking up too much time for one of the characters. The 7th player joined our group and I think they'll be a good influence as they have already e-mailed me a list of things they would like their player to be doing or looking into. Motivations is the key thing I'll be working on now as I'm sadly realizing that their characters motivations for adventuring need to be reinforced much more than I have been, (One of the few requirements I had for the game was that everybody's character have a reason for adventuring....greed, glory or the greater good....I didn't paricularily care as long as the player knew why their character would want to do things. This alone has not been enough for some of the grouo and I will attempt to dangle tastier 'carrots' infront of the players). I have a love for the subtler nuances that I am having problems bringing to a game with so many players with many differing views of prefered play styles. Hopefuly I'll be able to find a happy medium that will keep both the players and myself interested and enjoying the game. One last suggestion (and this one will make folks cringe): Try to start off the campaign with a couple mindless dungeon crawls. Let the players get to know their characters. Let them develop group tactics and a party pecking order. All this can help you figure out how to challenge them later on. Pay attention to how they react to certain elements of the game, this can help you motivate them. Ironically enough this is actually what I had hoped would originally happen, but things have taken far longer than I ever expected for them to actually enter the dungeon. Wth the new found information in their hands and the fresh smell of possible loot in some of their noses I'm hoping that this weekends session will finally have some fun dungeony stuff in it....with a Hallloween twist of course. :schemes: See if you can get one of the players to take notes during a session. Make sure the players review the notes periodically. I've found that this helps a great deal. We tend to get bombarded with information in our society, so the clues from last week's gaming session tend to get lost, or pushed to a dark corner of our minds.... Funny story. Before I decided to try my hand at DMing that person was always me. Okay, so it wasn't that funny but it made me chuckle. :P Thanks again, one and all, for your helpful advice. It has not gone wasted. :tiphat:
jonthegm 10-28-05, 01:43 AM	I just skimmed through the above posts, but here's my two cents anyway: If you're suffering from tangents, I have found three good ways to get around it: 1) Plan an "else" statement into your flowchart/adventure plan. (If the PCs don't pick hook a through f, then go to hook g no matter what) 2) Use the "Lady and the Tiger" or "Schrodinger's Cat" effect (Options B, C, D all have the same outcome, or the left AND right cooridor actually leads to the action) 3) Use the Raymond Chandler effect. (Have a guy with a gun break down the door.) Use #2 and #3 sparingly enough that your PCs won't catch on. Also, inherent in the above is the "Shotgun" approach to adventure hooks. Come up with a LOT of ways to subtly track the PCs onto the story. One of 'em should stick. There are also metagame considerations to look at: Are your PCs challenged enough? Too much? Do you reach into their backstory? Do you give them enough treasure? Are you trying to get them to sneak around when all they want to do is go in like gangbusters? Or vice versa? I've found ALL of those contributed at some point in my career to PC dillydallying. Once you hit the stride, though... MAN... you know it!
Useless83 10-28-05, 10:13 AM	I too am new at DMing, and am also trying the open-ended approach. What I have taken to doing is set up the story a lot like a choose-your-own-adventure book. The PCs get to a branch where they decide what to do, from there the story diverges. An example from my own to help clarify (I tried to avoid explaining this way but couldn't make sense): The PCs were sent to go stand guard at a small farm town in case it gets attacked by orcs that have raiding lately. On the way out of town they get asked for help by a child whose sister 'fell down this door.' If they help the child, they get to the town late that night and it is already under attack. If they don't, the attack doesn't occur for two more days, but the child they didn't rescue gets infected by a magical plague and the city gets infected. One choice that has two completely unrelated consequences. Fair? Probably not. Effective? Most definitely. I do have to second the idea that they fail, or, to be really cruel, that they get to the place as the other victorious group is leaving. Make them aware that because they stalled they lost--maybe one of the competition laughs as they pass by saying "and I thought -we- took forever to figure this out." If you don't they'll most likely be irked that you had them jump through hoops to gain nothing. It's a hard way to learn the lesson, but the sooner they realize that what they do (and don't) will actually affect the world around them the more likely they will be to start to care. If they are expecting that no matter what happens they will 'win' the competition they won't try as hard.
jonthegm 10-28-05, 10:59 AM	I too am new at DMing, and am also trying the open-ended approach. What I have taken to doing is set up the story a lot like a choose-your-own-adventure book. The PCs get to a branch where they decide what to do, from there the story diverges. The main problem with this is why I specify #1 of my suggestions: 2/3ds of the time, the PCs are going to either completely miss the point, or deliberately try to find away around doing anything dangerous. You can't possibly plan for everything, so plan for the big game breakers and then plan for them doing something inane, wrong, or clever. An example from my own to help clarify (I tried to avoid explaining this way but couldn't make sense): The PCs were sent to go stand guard at a small farm town in case it gets attacked by orcs that have raiding lately. On the way out of town they get asked for help by a child whose sister 'fell down this door.' If they help the child, they get to the town late that night and it is already under attack. If they don't, the attack doesn't occur for two more days, but the child they didn't rescue gets infected by a magical plague and the city gets infected. One choice that has two completely unrelated consequences. Fair? Probably not. Effective? Most definitely. I do have to second the idea that they fail, or, to be really cruel, that they get to the place as the other victorious group is leaving. Make them aware that because they stalled they lost--maybe one of the competition laughs as they pass by saying "and I thought -we- took forever to figure this out." If you don't they'll most likely be irked that you had them jump through hoops to gain nothing. It's a hard way to learn the lesson, but the sooner they realize that what they do (and don't) will actually affect the world around them the more likely they will be to start to care. If they are expecting that no matter what happens they will 'win' the competition they won't try as hard. My main concern with the above is that you really shouldn't punish the PCs for not going the "right" way. I know that my players are generally happier when I allow them to do something that they've cooked up on the spur of the moment, and they're even happier when it works. The key to remember is that while the overarching story is written by the DM, the players also should feel that they are the ones writing the story.
Jagyr Ebonwood 10-28-05, 11:08 AM	Sometimes, you not only have to lead the horse to water, but you have to push it into the pond. If you keep dropping clues that you think are obvious, and they're not picking up on them, give them a little shove. Maybe an NPC with an urgent problem comes to them for help, and within the problem something is blatantly revealed. Or, let the characters notice. Sometimes players can't follow clues that their characters certainly could. Allow INT checks (memory) or WIS checks (common sense) to see if a PC interprets a clue immediately. For example, if they find a diary that mentions Bob The Important NPC, one of the PCs would probably remember him if he was mentioned in another session, even if the players don't. Allow a DC13 or 15 INT check for the PC to remember Bob. Even if he doesn't make the check, it might prompt the player to think "Hey, why did I just make a check? Maybe I'm missing something..." In my experience, players are adept at missing clues that seem as obvious as a third eye to the DM. Remember that the PCs don't know what in your world is important information, and what is just background. Take care to make important things stand out a little more if they are essential to the plot.
Useless83 10-28-05, 11:50 AM	My main concern with the above is that you really shouldn't punish the PCs for not going the "right" way. I know that my players are generally happier when I allow them to do something that they've cooked up on the spur of the moment, and they're even happier when it works. The key to remember is that while the overarching story is written by the DM, the players also should feel that they are the ones writing the story. I see your point, but there really wasn't a 'right' way. I had force-fed them the "go here, do this," but after that I wanted the world to evolve around their actions. No choice had a good outcome--I was setting up the next adventure or three based on the one simple choice of helping the child or not. Now here's my question, especially with the flor chart. When you say "a-f else g", does each plot hook have a different outcome? If so, how in the world do you plan 6 or 7 alternative each week or two? I mean, if a or b are taken, sure, you still have 4 left over, but if you're forced to else g, you can't re-offer a-f again and hope they take it this time around...
SneakyPetey 10-30-05, 01:18 AM	All the comments and suggestions have been greatly appreciated. :) Glad to help! :) Ironically enough this is actually what I had hoped would originally happen, but things have taken far longer than I ever expected for them to actually enter the dungeon. Another thing to remember as a DM is this: Things almost never go exactly as planned, so have a back-up plan (or two, or three). Funny story. Before I decided to try my hand at DMing that person was always me. When I'm not DMing, it's usually me too... :doh: Have good gaming! :D