MMORPG Setting - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

MMORPG Setting

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
AdmiralRanger
Jul 14, 2010 5:36:40
I have some players who like MMORPGs (paticularly Runescape,) and I have agreed to make a setting based on a MMORPG. While it is easy to convert the landscape, plots and most charecters I have no idea how to transplant the "feel" of a MMO. Any ideas?
#2
pluisjen
Jul 14, 2010 6:09:44 Make 90% of the people they meet more powerful than them, make all quests feel pointless and occasionally have someone come running in and steal their kill and grab the reward they were getting?
#3
Ramius613
Jul 14, 2010 6:22:19 Off the top of my head, run them through the same dungeon over and over again trying to get the one piece of gear that the Wizard needs.

If one player can't make a session, make up a PC and run him like a 1. Complete idiot 2. Loot **** 3. a bastard (would use a more colorful term, but will keep it civil), 4. a 1 percent chance of a decent player that knows what he is doing.

Make them have to travel across continents and planes to get to their destination fighting avoiding monsters along the way.

Mount feathers on your miniatures that you use to represent NPCs that give quests.

Have NPCs run up the entire time they are in town asking for gold/gear.

Oo oo, I got one more. Put up a PC monitor with a chat window from a Real MMO with the most benign chat going on (ie no filters).

/sarcasm off

I am not really sure what you are looking for in the 'feel' of an MMO. The common thing that D&D has to MMOs is the RPG part. The benefit of D&D over MMOs, is that it is up to the players and DMs to create the feeling of the game experience using imagination and dialogue, as opposed to programmed responses etc.

I am not trying to be condescending or put down your idea. I think it's pretty cool. The first part was just some of the frustrating part that I had from my MMO experience (EQ II for 5 yrs).

You already mentioned transferring over landscape, plots, characters, etc. And here is where the fun part of table top wins over MMO. The PCs are the heros they complete the quest, kill the BBEG, etc, it's done, they reap the rewards. You decide what's next on their plate.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help, but I couldn't resist the urge to throw in the the sarcasm. It's time to finish up work and go home.

Ramius
#4
lizardmage
Jul 14, 2010 9:18:31 Have random NPC run up and start:

1) Jumping up and down
2) Solicite them 10000000000000gp for $35
3) Be lewd
4) Wave randomly
5) Challenge them to a duel over and over again (make sure the NPC is at least 10 lvls higher)
6) Write little notes and hand them over like "whispers" offering.....favors;)

The only actual useful advice I have is actually having several NPCs that are also adventuring and incorparte alot of guilds/ adventure halls.
#5
jetshield
Jul 14, 2010 10:54:28 lets not forget having creatures pop out of thin air every time the characters try to take a rest. and no matter how many times the evil vampiredemonthing that the PCs were hired to kill dies, it gets back up, so nothing is ever actually accomplished.
#6
AdmiralRanger
Jul 15, 2010 1:35:26 Thanks I will try to be more sarcastic when I play. Amazingly I never thought of meeting other players!
#7
AdmiralRanger
Jul 15, 2010 10:05:08 To summerise. Add npc pcs (I know that this is a contradiction) and make 90% of them annoying.
#8
Jharii
Jul 15, 2010 12:12:18 Yeah, MMO's try to mimic RPG's. The other way around really does not work that well.
#9
AdmiralRanger
Jul 16, 2010 2:13:03 Annoyingly true.
#10
ordrus
Jul 21, 2010 22:39:06 As a joke you should have NPCs dancing inappropriately in very odd locations such as outside a tavern, or a dungeon that your players are about to go into.

On a more serious side you may want to focus on visuals for your players. MMOs are a very visual experience, yeah the stats to a sword might be nice but being able to show it off is what matters. In this case, you may want to look into some miniatures for your players. Also the areas in which you fight should be epic. Buy some Dnd tiles, but use other things for your combat encounters. As a kid, I had a lot of medieval lego and now I use it to build obstacles. Walls, platforms to jump from, pillars, trees, all that kind of stuff can be made with enough lego.

Also, if you're an artist try drawing things out for your players, such as the flag of a kingdom, front cover of an old spellbook, or even the epic sword the party's defender found. If you can't draw, there are numerous art sites their that you can browse through and look for artwork to give your players a feeling for the campaign. I'm pretty sure the artists who work on DnD 4e and WoW have accounts on deviantart.

I used to play Ultima Online back in the day and that game had pretty bad graphics compared to what we have now. But even then players were concerned about finding unique colours that they could put in their dye tubs so they could have neon blue capes, or solid white hats. Back in the old days of MMOs people were just as concerned about how they looked as players are today.
#11
feyberry
Jul 22, 2010 23:40:50 arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-...

Read that. Read part 2. You have your MMO style sandbox campaign with various dungeons that the players can set up raids for.
#12
pnxer
Jul 25, 2010 15:04:15 You could try just flavoring the dialogue with the NPCs. Don't think so much an MMORPG world, but a world populated by MMORPG geeks. Your players will appreciate it if they are given a quest by a local noble to go out and collect a piece of Epic Gear for him. You might create a couple of NPC guilds and have them warring as factions. Finally, change the names of some of the things you run into, call Elite monsters l33t monsters, give the evil wizard a Ray of Fail that imposes a penalty on attack rolls etc.

oh and let the players have a chance at joining those guilds.
#13
snarls_at_fleas
Jul 25, 2010 15:19:47
Make every monster drop some loot - some useless (vendor trash), some cash, some regs (in terms of 4E they give residium), some greens items (consumables), some blue/purple stuff (magic items).

Make random encounters deck with fancy pictures and names (Battle at Fallen Tree, Inn of Goat Scull etc.). Let players keep them when they pass them. Let them make an album of them.

Make achivements (kill 100 orcs, find 1000 gold, defeat the Dragon of Northern Woods) cards and give them to the party when they... mmm... achive them.

Play it sandbox style with map they will open during their travels

Hide some points of interest and reward the party for finding them.

Have high level zones for the party to return later. Make them interesting, so they return

That's how I plan it.
#14
AdmiralRanger
Jul 28, 2010 14:16:36 Some good advice; some nonsense but here we have it, my guide to a MMORPG setting...
Step 1. Make a basic map. This should have two or three towns and the sourounding wilderness.
Step 2. Make details of the areas you just mapped. The starting town should have at least three adventures (quests) from it for heroic thir charecters and another one or two for paragon thir charecters. It should also include a pub, blacksmiths, a temple or three and a magic shop. Other towns can just have a shop or two and at least one quest. The Wilderness should have a encounter table that is rolled each time the pcs go through it. The pcs can choose to ignore most monsters in the wilderness. Now design the dungeons. Their should be about four for the pcs to investigate. The monsters here are harder to ignore.
step 3. Meet with the players and get them to make their charecters.
Step 4. Make achivment cards. they can be about exploring areas, defeating powerfull monsters, defeating lots of monsters or any thing you choose.
Step 5. Actually play a game. The players will choose what they do. They can go and walk through the wilderness or raid a dungeon or start a quest.
Step 7. Once the dynamics of the group and setting are worked out make the stat blockes for about five npc adventurers at a range of levels.
Step 8. Expand the map following the guidelines from step two. Label on your map how many npc adventurers are likely to be in any new area. Each time the pcs arive in a area that amount of npc adventurers are their, give or take 1d4.
#15
AdmiralRanger
Jul 28, 2010 14:27:29 Step 8 (con.) Roll 1d8 to determine the npc adventurer's behaviour.
1. Dance randomly.
2. Ignore the pcs and repetitivly kill things. (bots)
3. Wait for the pcs to kill the monster and then grap the treasure.
4. Chalenge the pcs to a duel.
5. Swear.
6. Call the pcs noobs and anounce "FAIL!" every time the pcs miss.
7. Try to scam the pcs.
8. Offer to help the pcs with any quest or dungeon raid they are doing.
Step 9. Continue to add areas. If the Npcs get two annoying have plot where a force is killing off all adventurers and at the end only a handfull of adventurers (including the pcs) survive.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 AdmiralRanger Jul 14, 2010 5:36:40	I have some players who like MMORPGs (paticularly Runescape,) and I have agreed to make a setting based on a MMORPG. While it is easy to convert the landscape, plots and most charecters I have no idea how to transplant the "feel" of a MMO. Any ideas?
#2 pluisjen Jul 14, 2010 6:09:44	Make 90% of the people they meet more powerful than them, make all quests feel pointless and occasionally have someone come running in and steal their kill and grab the reward they were getting?
#3 Ramius613 Jul 14, 2010 6:22:19	Off the top of my head, run them through the same dungeon over and over again trying to get the one piece of gear that the Wizard needs. If one player can't make a session, make up a PC and run him like a 1. Complete idiot 2. Loot **** 3. a bastard (would use a more colorful term, but will keep it civil), 4. a 1 percent chance of a decent player that knows what he is doing. Make them have to travel across continents and planes to get to their destination fighting avoiding monsters along the way. Mount feathers on your miniatures that you use to represent NPCs that give quests. Have NPCs run up the entire time they are in town asking for gold/gear. Oo oo, I got one more. Put up a PC monitor with a chat window from a Real MMO with the most benign chat going on (ie no filters). /sarcasm off I am not really sure what you are looking for in the 'feel' of an MMO. The common thing that D&D has to MMOs is the RPG part. The benefit of D&D over MMOs, is that it is up to the players and DMs to create the feeling of the game experience using imagination and dialogue, as opposed to programmed responses etc. I am not trying to be condescending or put down your idea. I think it's pretty cool. The first part was just some of the frustrating part that I had from my MMO experience (EQ II for 5 yrs). You already mentioned transferring over landscape, plots, characters, etc. And here is where the fun part of table top wins over MMO. The PCs are the heros they complete the quest, kill the BBEG, etc, it's done, they reap the rewards. You decide what's next on their plate. Sorry I couldn't be of more help, but I couldn't resist the urge to throw in the the sarcasm. It's time to finish up work and go home. Ramius
#4 lizardmage Jul 14, 2010 9:18:31	Have random NPC run up and start: 1) Jumping up and down 2) Solicite them 10000000000000gp for $35 3) Be lewd 4) Wave randomly 5) Challenge them to a duel over and over again (make sure the NPC is at least 10 lvls higher) 6) Write little notes and hand them over like "whispers" offering.....favors;) The only actual useful advice I have is actually having several NPCs that are also adventuring and incorparte alot of guilds/ adventure halls.
#5 jetshield Jul 14, 2010 10:54:28	lets not forget having creatures pop out of thin air every time the characters try to take a rest. and no matter how many times the evil vampiredemonthing that the PCs were hired to kill dies, it gets back up, so nothing is ever actually accomplished.
#6 AdmiralRanger Jul 15, 2010 1:35:26	Thanks I will try to be more sarcastic when I play. Amazingly I never thought of meeting other players!
#7 AdmiralRanger Jul 15, 2010 10:05:08	To summerise. Add npc pcs (I know that this is a contradiction) and make 90% of them annoying.
#8 Jharii Jul 15, 2010 12:12:18	Yeah, MMO's try to mimic RPG's. The other way around really does not work that well.
#9 AdmiralRanger Jul 16, 2010 2:13:03	Annoyingly true.
#10 ordrus Jul 21, 2010 22:39:06	As a joke you should have NPCs dancing inappropriately in very odd locations such as outside a tavern, or a dungeon that your players are about to go into. On a more serious side you may want to focus on visuals for your players. MMOs are a very visual experience, yeah the stats to a sword might be nice but being able to show it off is what matters. In this case, you may want to look into some miniatures for your players. Also the areas in which you fight should be epic. Buy some Dnd tiles, but use other things for your combat encounters. As a kid, I had a lot of medieval lego and now I use it to build obstacles. Walls, platforms to jump from, pillars, trees, all that kind of stuff can be made with enough lego. Also, if you're an artist try drawing things out for your players, such as the flag of a kingdom, front cover of an old spellbook, or even the epic sword the party's defender found. If you can't draw, there are numerous art sites their that you can browse through and look for artwork to give your players a feeling for the campaign. I'm pretty sure the artists who work on DnD 4e and WoW have accounts on deviantart. I used to play Ultima Online back in the day and that game had pretty bad graphics compared to what we have now. But even then players were concerned about finding unique colours that they could put in their dye tubs so they could have neon blue capes, or solid white hats. Back in the old days of MMOs people were just as concerned about how they looked as players are today.
#11 feyberry Jul 22, 2010 23:40:50	arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-... Read that. Read part 2. You have your MMO style sandbox campaign with various dungeons that the players can set up raids for.
#12 pnxer Jul 25, 2010 15:04:15	You could try just flavoring the dialogue with the NPCs. Don't think so much an MMORPG world, but a world populated by MMORPG geeks. Your players will appreciate it if they are given a quest by a local noble to go out and collect a piece of Epic Gear for him. You might create a couple of NPC guilds and have them warring as factions. Finally, change the names of some of the things you run into, call Elite monsters l33t monsters, give the evil wizard a Ray of Fail that imposes a penalty on attack rolls etc. oh and let the players have a chance at joining those guilds.
#13 snarls_at_fleas Jul 25, 2010 15:19:47	Make every monster drop some loot - some useless (vendor trash), some cash, some regs (in terms of 4E they give residium), some greens items (consumables), some blue/purple stuff (magic items). Make random encounters deck with fancy pictures and names (Battle at Fallen Tree, Inn of Goat Scull etc.). Let players keep them when they pass them. Let them make an album of them. Make achivements (kill 100 orcs, find 1000 gold, defeat the Dragon of Northern Woods) cards and give them to the party when they... mmm... achive them. Play it sandbox style with map they will open during their travels Hide some points of interest and reward the party for finding them. Have high level zones for the party to return later. Make them interesting, so they return That's how I plan it.
#14 AdmiralRanger Jul 28, 2010 14:16:36	Some good advice; some nonsense but here we have it, my guide to a MMORPG setting... Step 1. Make a basic map. This should have two or three towns and the sourounding wilderness. Step 2. Make details of the areas you just mapped. The starting town should have at least three adventures (quests) from it for heroic thir charecters and another one or two for paragon thir charecters. It should also include a pub, blacksmiths, a temple or three and a magic shop. Other towns can just have a shop or two and at least one quest. The Wilderness should have a encounter table that is rolled each time the pcs go through it. The pcs can choose to ignore most monsters in the wilderness. Now design the dungeons. Their should be about four for the pcs to investigate. The monsters here are harder to ignore. step 3. Meet with the players and get them to make their charecters. Step 4. Make achivment cards. they can be about exploring areas, defeating powerfull monsters, defeating lots of monsters or any thing you choose. Step 5. Actually play a game. The players will choose what they do. They can go and walk through the wilderness or raid a dungeon or start a quest. Step 7. Once the dynamics of the group and setting are worked out make the stat blockes for about five npc adventurers at a range of levels. Step 8. Expand the map following the guidelines from step two. Label on your map how many npc adventurers are likely to be in any new area. Each time the pcs arive in a area that amount of npc adventurers are their, give or take 1d4.
#15 AdmiralRanger Jul 28, 2010 14:27:29	Step 8 (con.) Roll 1d8 to determine the npc adventurer's behaviour. 1. Dance randomly. 2. Ignore the pcs and repetitivly kill things. (bots) 3. Wait for the pcs to kill the monster and then grap the treasure. 4. Chalenge the pcs to a duel. 5. Swear. 6. Call the pcs noobs and anounce "FAIL!" every time the pcs miss. 7. Try to scam the pcs. 8. Offer to help the pcs with any quest or dungeon raid they are doing. Step 9. Continue to add areas. If the Npcs get two annoying have plot where a force is killing off all adventurers and at the end only a handfull of adventurers (including the pcs) survive.