Post/Author/DateTime	Post
killedquickly 07-29-03, 02:33 AM	i am a new DM and am working on my first campaign. i want to allow my players to choose where they go but am unsure how to do this. i dont want to use rumors over and over again so they will have to do some exploring eventually. however, when they do this the most likely will not end up in the place they are supposed to be. i will most likely have my entire campaign made out before this happens, so what do i do when level 4 characters enter and an area that is meant for level 6 characters? any help or advice would be most welcome
JusticeZero 07-29-03, 03:00 AM	If there's no indicator of how challenging an encounter might be, then it's silly to have places available that will shred the party. If there is a clear indicator, blast them until they know how to run, either they or an iteration of replacement characters.
Dash Branaghan 07-29-03, 03:02 AM	Well, if the encounter is too powerful, they learn a valuable lesson...run. Too often PCs don't run when they should because they think the world revolves around them and they as Heroes (or Villians) can't die. Wrong. Sure it sucks to lose a character, but as I point out to everyone I game with, you won't go up to a guy with a gun and start smacking him across the face. Likewise, your character won't walk up to a dragon and mouth off. Offering your players many choices is good...especially if they are varied level encounters. One way to prevent the situation is to leave clues as to the order of the tasks, or have NPCs talk about powerful adventures who failed at the task (to give the PCs some hesitation on doing it...not that this ever works, but it is worth a try). I like freeform style DMing. I let the players do what they want and if they happen to come across an adventure, great. But I refuse to lead them by the hand.
Moblin 07-29-03, 04:36 AM	Giving the player choices is always a good thing, but at least two things you’d be wise to remember. Giving the players several choices means more work for you. For every choice you give them you’ll have to prepare an adventure for that choice (trying to “wing it” is actually very difficult if you don’t have plenty of experience) and some of these adventures may never come in to play (nothing worse then planning an entire adventure and never have it come into play). Unlike the PC’s the players don’t have a lot of knowledge about the world the PC’s live in. Helping the players to understand what would be an appropriate course of action would be, is part of your job as a DM. Good luck Moblin
Arashi Ravenblade 07-29-03, 11:00 AM	YES!!!!!!! See my curse and a blessing thread. With those types of people your bound to go off track nad be forced to say you cant do that, im using DM magic (our term for when the DM makes crap up). Too much choice has often destroyed carefully planned scenarios ive made up, they have often made me angry and stopped the gameearly from the offtopic discussions and side quests they want to embark on. It seems that unless thier an evil overlord or some ultimate weapon to find they dont want to do the quest.
devinmdp 07-29-03, 07:33 PM	Here's what I do. I ask my players, at the end of the session, what they want to do next time. That way they get a choice, but I get advance warning to make the adventure. Devin
Dungeon Cat 07-29-03, 09:00 PM	Getting anyone to do what you want them to do can be difficult. You have to use a "lure" that will attract them toward your planned activities, something that would entice the players to help the little boy down in the well or the blind man who lost his son. Make good use of your characters quirks. Don't have quirks that you know of? Ask your players. These quirks, and interesting histories, can act as "Plot Hooks" and give you ways to incorporate the players into the story. It's always a good idea to ask the players if they have a prestige class in mind (provided you allow such a thing) or if they have a goal..these too can help as well.
Nephet 07-30-03, 01:05 AM	If you are running a setting-based campaign (and it sounds like you are) it's perfectly acceptable (and realism demands it) to have a range of challenge levels side by side. Just make sure that the players know that you don't necessarily tailor challenges to match the party's level. That way they'll know that sometimes running is the only option.
ConfusedUs 07-30-03, 02:16 AM	Choice is a good thing. When it comes to giving the player's a choice in the campaign, there's several options. a) Give them different leads to follow up. A rumor the rogue caught via gather info. Whispers of a mad wizard filtering down through the Academy. Troubles among the clergy. A strange man a bit too close to the Queen, etc. When they decide which one to follow, flesh it out. Keep track of the others as well, so that shortly after they get done finishing off the mad wizard, the strange man has usurped the throne from the Queen. b) You could just ask them out of game. "What do you want in this campaign?" and follow from there. If you get a mixed response, try making the campaign planar. You can get everything from a man-hunt in Sigil to an underground cave-crawl on the Plane of Earth. And don't forget subjective gravity...you can make interesting encounters where people are figting on the walls/celings. c) You can rail-road the story and pretty much only give the characters one set course. The only thing to watch for when doing this is to make sure that your straight-track storyline doesn't get boring. Mix things up. Put in brief interludes and one-session sidequests. Don't let the PC's get bored, or they won't be happy. My current game is a mix of B and C. I asked what they wanted from the campaign before I started. I got such a different mix of wants and desires that the one PC's desire to go planar was the only course that offered everything. So the party is currently on a quest to recover various 'artifacts', stolen and scattered by the Devils of Baator. The artifacts are part of a magic device, made by the major NPC of the game, that keeps the planar boundaries from collapsing. The Devils see the collaspe of the planar boundaries as a way to conquer the cosmos and to end the Blood War, at the same time. Of course, with the narrow storyline, the PC's were getting a bit bored, and I was low on ideas. So I put in an interlude where the party really didn't have anywhere to go. At the advice of the main NPC, they joined in the summer games in their home city. This gave me a chance to experiement with different types of encounters, and gave me time to develop the basis for the next few week's plotline. So don't be afraid of choice. The best thing to do is simply to ask your players what THEY want, then put a twist on it they don't expect. One of my PC's wanted a dungeon crawl, as he hadn't been in a true crawl in years. He got it...but on the Elemental Plane of Earth. ;)