How to Keep the Players from Getting Lost? (in a web of lies) - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

How to Keep the Players from Getting Lost? (in a web of lies)

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
asura8
Jul 20, 2011 13:44:58 So, I come to my favoritest forum with a discussion that I believe is fairly relevant to 4th Edition Eberron. As we are all familiar with, a lot of the 4th Edition focus represents a shift towards combat based elements. As a result, the current party that I am DMing for is very familiar to combat rules and combat tactics, but tends to flounder about when presented with any sort of real downtime between combat encounters. Which is fairly unfortunate, as I've already started to bring a tangle of plots and schemes around them. So: I bring up the following question for our DMing discussion, with further details.

And if you're one of my players and you're reading this thread, I will shake a fist at you. Or something.

Currently, the party has run into several factions in a rather loose manner throughout their adventures. They've retrieved an artifact from a House Cannith vault with the ability to bind elementals (or souls) and at the same time, break those binds, from the depths of Sharn forgotten during the War of the Mark. During this, they were assaulted by members of the Emerald Claw seeking to retrieve the artifact for their own nefarious purposes, who hinted that they even leaked the information to begin with, with hopes that somebody else would clear out the traps and defenses, and then just be defeated by their forces.

They then decided to rest while their House Cannith contact secured the artifact in the House Cannith enclave, at least until she came running about shouting that it had been stolen from her. 30 minutes late. And claiming the artifact was stolen from the streets. And yet the party was not in the least bit suspicious for the most part before heading off to reclaim the artifact. Long story cut short, a member of the ir'Tain family had the rod, demonstrated it's soul binding properties, and with a powerful ritual manifested a false and flawed version of the Mark of Death before leaving. Furthermore, she was associated as working for the Aurum, but with some sort of patron giving her powerful ritual magic.

So, now ir'Tain is off to Xen'drik with the plan of using the artifact (which she doesn't understand) to open a vault (that she thinks will give her untold wealth and power) under the advice of her patron (a member of the Lords of Dust) who is just putting things in the right position for the Blood of Vol to later (in Epic tier), perform a horrible ritual to attempt to revive the Mark of Death. The magical power from the ritual, once it is stopped, will be utilized to finally break free the Whisper in the Flame.

So. The problem is like this. Lady ir'Tain ran off with the artifact, was linked to the Aurum already, and it still took poking and prodding to get the party anywhere. Now they are searching for the Lords of Dust patron (who I am thinking will need to manipulate them in the right track next session) and also planning to head to Xen'drik in pursuit of the artifact. But I can't help but feel that the party does not feel involved with the factions, nor is pursuing much more than the next combat encounter. I ideally do not want to railroad the plot, but it is looking more and more like that might need to be the case. Any advice from people who have hit similar sorts of situations with their PCs?
#2
Ogiwan
Jul 20, 2011 16:35:58 Have they established any backgrounds? Not the mechanical backgrounds, but the stuff you can use. For my group, I had them write what I call "Threes": Three friends and enemies, three virtues and vices, and three defining past events and future goals. So far, the friends and enemies are quite useful to me, and the virtues and vices are useful to the players.
#3
asura8
Jul 20, 2011 22:22:01 With regards to backgrounds, I have already killed off (and had a new character) introduced by a party member who did not like his original one. The background being that she's an assassin from the Lahazaar Principalities and prefers the company of adventure types. She stole the artifact (if you can call taking it from somebody trying to have it stolen to be stealing) and was betrayed by her employer before joining up with the current existing party.

The only other person with a really strong background that I can think of is that I have a Dragonmarked Heir of House Lyrandar. I've tried to set him up with investigating on the behalf of House Lyrandar, based around the idea that they have a vested interest in an artifact that can bind elementals as well as an interest in doing anything to weak House Cannith a little bit. However, I really don't wish to portray House Cannith as the bad guys (not in this particular case at least), as much as just letting a bit of mad science get out into the world.

Several of my characters have future goals, but not in the sense that particularly functions in the current framework. The House Lyrandar heir is an aberration due to how his Mark is more elementally inclined (Genasi PC reflavored) and his interest is in solving what makes his Mark different from the others. And the thief had murdered one of the Princes in the Lhazaar Principalities, so that makes for a good potential arc later. But I'm unsure how to get the players motivated in the here-and-now with a sense of something other than next combat. I figured stealing from them indirectly would motivate them, but it seems to have not done the trick.

Do I have to beat them over the head with a member of the Chamber or something at this point?
#4
Gilo
Jul 22, 2011 7:24:25
Eberron has allot of cool power-groups so its very tempting for a DM to throw into his campaign more and more of them. On top of that there is the desire to make the plot more noir by having more power-groups plot in the background (e.g: "under the advice of her patron ...a member of the Lords of Dust.."), I tend to "sin" in that regards myself. like a good movie director you need to edit stuff out.

The players usually have a week (or more) time in between sessions and if you drop too many plot-hooks too fast they can get lost. So I think the first step here is to not introduce any new subplots/power-group in the near future (also drop any background plots that the PC are still not aware of) and focus instead on flushing the existing plot and NPCs that where already introduced.

There is a common DM advice which is to write an Elevator Pitch - a short, concise description of your campaign, like if you were trying to sell someone over a new game within the time an elevator ride takes, it helps keep the campaign main plot in focus.

One thing I sometime do in a campaign when I feel that my players (and myself) got off track is to use Vignettes (the kind explained in DMG2), for example do a time transition - jump a week/month/year forward and start them up in the jungle of Xen'drik, then the DM (or the players) can describe what happened in the elapsed time. you can then flashback to a key past event and run it as combat-encounter, skill challenge or just role play them out.

You can do a third-person teaser scene, for example: the players play in the shoes of guides,body-guards of Lady ir'Tain getting attacked (and maybe die) by Drow as she gets near the vault (shown to the PC by magewright's augury ritual while looking for the artifact in Sharn or sent to them in a dream by the Silver Flame).

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 asura8 Jul 20, 2011 13:44:58	So, I come to my favoritest forum with a discussion that I believe is fairly relevant to 4th Edition Eberron. As we are all familiar with, a lot of the 4th Edition focus represents a shift towards combat based elements. As a result, the current party that I am DMing for is very familiar to combat rules and combat tactics, but tends to flounder about when presented with any sort of real downtime between combat encounters. Which is fairly unfortunate, as I've already started to bring a tangle of plots and schemes around them. So: I bring up the following question for our DMing discussion, with further details. And if you're one of my players and you're reading this thread, I will shake a fist at you. Or something. Currently, the party has run into several factions in a rather loose manner throughout their adventures. They've retrieved an artifact from a House Cannith vault with the ability to bind elementals (or souls) and at the same time, break those binds, from the depths of Sharn forgotten during the War of the Mark. During this, they were assaulted by members of the Emerald Claw seeking to retrieve the artifact for their own nefarious purposes, who hinted that they even leaked the information to begin with, with hopes that somebody else would clear out the traps and defenses, and then just be defeated by their forces. They then decided to rest while their House Cannith contact secured the artifact in the House Cannith enclave, at least until she came running about shouting that it had been stolen from her. 30 minutes late. And claiming the artifact was stolen from the streets. And yet the party was not in the least bit suspicious for the most part before heading off to reclaim the artifact. Long story cut short, a member of the ir'Tain family had the rod, demonstrated it's soul binding properties, and with a powerful ritual manifested a false and flawed version of the Mark of Death before leaving. Furthermore, she was associated as working for the Aurum, but with some sort of patron giving her powerful ritual magic. So, now ir'Tain is off to Xen'drik with the plan of using the artifact (which she doesn't understand) to open a vault (that she thinks will give her untold wealth and power) under the advice of her patron (a member of the Lords of Dust) who is just putting things in the right position for the Blood of Vol to later (in Epic tier), perform a horrible ritual to attempt to revive the Mark of Death. The magical power from the ritual, once it is stopped, will be utilized to finally break free the Whisper in the Flame. So. The problem is like this. Lady ir'Tain ran off with the artifact, was linked to the Aurum already, and it still took poking and prodding to get the party anywhere. Now they are searching for the Lords of Dust patron (who I am thinking will need to manipulate them in the right track next session) and also planning to head to Xen'drik in pursuit of the artifact. But I can't help but feel that the party does not feel involved with the factions, nor is pursuing much more than the next combat encounter. I ideally do not want to railroad the plot, but it is looking more and more like that might need to be the case. Any advice from people who have hit similar sorts of situations with their PCs?
#2 Ogiwan Jul 20, 2011 16:35:58	Have they established any backgrounds? Not the mechanical backgrounds, but the stuff you can use. For my group, I had them write what I call "Threes": Three friends and enemies, three virtues and vices, and three defining past events and future goals. So far, the friends and enemies are quite useful to me, and the virtues and vices are useful to the players.
#3 asura8 Jul 20, 2011 22:22:01	With regards to backgrounds, I have already killed off (and had a new character) introduced by a party member who did not like his original one. The background being that she's an assassin from the Lahazaar Principalities and prefers the company of adventure types. She stole the artifact (if you can call taking it from somebody trying to have it stolen to be stealing) and was betrayed by her employer before joining up with the current existing party. The only other person with a really strong background that I can think of is that I have a Dragonmarked Heir of House Lyrandar. I've tried to set him up with investigating on the behalf of House Lyrandar, based around the idea that they have a vested interest in an artifact that can bind elementals as well as an interest in doing anything to weak House Cannith a little bit. However, I really don't wish to portray House Cannith as the bad guys (not in this particular case at least), as much as just letting a bit of mad science get out into the world. Several of my characters have future goals, but not in the sense that particularly functions in the current framework. The House Lyrandar heir is an aberration due to how his Mark is more elementally inclined (Genasi PC reflavored) and his interest is in solving what makes his Mark different from the others. And the thief had murdered one of the Princes in the Lhazaar Principalities, so that makes for a good potential arc later. But I'm unsure how to get the players motivated in the here-and-now with a sense of something other than next combat. I figured stealing from them indirectly would motivate them, but it seems to have not done the trick. Do I have to beat them over the head with a member of the Chamber or something at this point?
#4 Gilo Jul 22, 2011 7:24:25	Eberron has allot of cool power-groups so its very tempting for a DM to throw into his campaign more and more of them. On top of that there is the desire to make the plot more noir by having more power-groups plot in the background (e.g: "under the advice of her patron ...a member of the Lords of Dust.."), I tend to "sin" in that regards myself. like a good movie director you need to edit stuff out. The players usually have a week (or more) time in between sessions and if you drop too many plot-hooks too fast they can get lost. So I think the first step here is to not introduce any new subplots/power-group in the near future (also drop any background plots that the PC are still not aware of) and focus instead on flushing the existing plot and NPCs that where already introduced. There is a common DM advice which is to write an Elevator Pitch - a short, concise description of your campaign, like if you were trying to sell someone over a new game within the time an elevator ride takes, it helps keep the campaign main plot in focus. One thing I sometime do in a campaign when I feel that my players (and myself) got off track is to use Vignettes (the kind explained in DMG2), for example do a time transition - jump a week/month/year forward and start them up in the jungle of Xen'drik, then the DM (or the players) can describe what happened in the elapsed time. you can then flashback to a key past event and run it as combat-encounter, skill challenge or just role play them out. You can do a third-person teaser scene, for example: the players play in the shoes of guides,body-guards of Lady ir'Tain getting attacked (and maybe die) by Drow as she gets near the vault (shown to the PC by magewright's augury ritual while looking for the artifact in Sharn or sent to them in a dream by the Silver Flame).