tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post2830131407148385828..comments2024-03-28T22:00:35.840-07:00Comments on Playing D&D With Porn Stars: Do You Really Want To Know?Zak Sabbathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08812410680077034917noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-18439915721985971732012-12-22T13:11:28.843-08:002012-12-22T13:11:28.843-08:00Just had a thought. One way to possibly recapture ...Just had a thought. One way to possibly recapture the "first season" feeling is the conspiracy twist--the major powers turn out to be pawns manipulated by even-more-major powers. <br /><br />Cons: - you can't do it very often (more than once?) or it seems like a cheat;<br />- if the tone of the game changes, the players may feel like the victims of a bait-and-switch;<br />- if the tone of the game doesn't change, it may seem hollow;<br /><br />Pros: - might, if handled well, recapture the "first-season" feel;<br />- might, if handled well, give the DM a way to tie up a few of the inevitable loose ends and unfollowed clues that accumulate in any campaign;<br />- might, if handled well, give the game world an interesting way to advance as the PCs advance. So, once the PCs reach <i>n</i>th level the regional power is no longer very threatening--but the planetary/extradimensional/cosmic power behind the regional power is still big and scary.<br /><br />The biggest problem I can see is that if this is going to work, it needs to be a surprise (even if there are clues leading up to it), and if the PCs hate it, it's hard to take back. <br /><br />Still thinking out loud: maybe it would work better if it was presented as a choice to the PCs. Like, they start finding artifacts of the godlike powers in the throne rooms of the regional powers they topple. At some point, "leveling up" to take on the cosmic powers (and thereby reactivating the exploration aspect of the game) may become more attractive than going on to the next regional challenge.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-75851765607929945692011-09-22T03:06:50.005-07:002011-09-22T03:06:50.005-07:00I call it my "Here There Be Dragons" pri...I call it my "Here There Be Dragons" principle. When I design a campaign world, I very specifically leave chunks of it undeveloped so that I have some empty parchment to play with.<br /><br />(Example: In my current campaign world I have five major political powers in the lands of civilization -- Seyrun, Barund, Arathia, Hyrtan, and Vennoc. But I very specifically smashed Vennoc up into dozens or possibly hundreds of smaller nations. So whenever I have some idea for a nifty fantasy nation -- ruled by eighteen generations of lich-kings all ostensible ruling simultaneously; secretly manipulated by drow sorcerers who live in the secret catacombs lacing the palace walls; a complex feudal system based on bear paws -- I can just drop it into Vennoc.)<br /><br />I jealously "protect" the borders of these "Here There Be Dragon" regions (because, of course, the whole point is that they never get fully fleshed out). But I've also realized that the principle is effectively fractal in nature.<br /><br />(Example 2: I know that Aratha is made up of a bunch of merchant-ruled city-states. I've firmly designed 3-4 of these. I know the names of 4-5 others. And then there are another 5-6 of which I know absolutely nothing at all. Why? Because when I get a new idea for a potential Arathian city-state, I want to have some room to slot it in.)Justin Alexanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02227895898395353754noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-31230988326879873392011-08-26T06:41:09.955-07:002011-08-26T06:41:09.955-07:00I really don't like major disrepancies between...I really don't like major disrepancies between player knowledge and character knowledge about how the world works. If the party hear mention of the Monastery of the Obscene Flower, I don't want them to ask me what they've heard about the place before, and I roll a die and tell them some tidbit. I've tried that, and in our games at least it puts a noticeable damper on the moment. I much prefer the characters to be as in the dark as the players are, no more or less. It makes them much more inclined to pay attention to the details of the world, even when they seem incidental at the time - it makes the setting feel more real. Or, at least, I enjoyed that stuff when I was a player.<br /><br />On the other hand, I don't like giving infodumps to my players either. If I've designed some big complex world, and the characters should logically have a certain amount of knowledge about it, I can't bring the players up to speed by giving them handouts to read at the start of play. Maybe I've been conditioned by players with short attention spans, but I just can't. I'm here to DM for them, not to give them shitty fiction to read. I experimented once with a "guidebook", but that was a wash, too - although I think if I'd added big pretty pictures it might have worked a little better.<br /><br /><br />So, as a result, my preferred set-up when I'm designing a campaign in advance rather than by the seat of my pants is to have a fairly developed world with interplaying factions, but the players know absolutely nothing about it at the outset. They're from out of town. <br />At the start of the campaing the PCs are only 1st level and they know very little about the world, so it's a game of exploration. A lot of information is common knowledge to the natives, so they can quickly get a basic grasp of the situation just by asking about it, yet they can still be surprised down the road by some fundamental fact that nobody thought to mention to them.<br />As the players proceed, they uncover some factions and inquire about others, so that by the time they reach mid-level they should have a fairly decent idea what's going on, by which time they're in a position to influence events.<br /><br /><br />There are a couple of other tricks I use in the sandbox I'm currently designing in my free time. The first is to divide the factions between those with only local influence, and those with a more "global" reach. Each region of the sandbox is typically dominated by a single major power - their territory - but has multiple lesser factions within it, not necessarily a part of the major faction. e.g. the wild Hairy Elves are of little interest to anyone outside the forest, but they also interact with the Underground Empire, which is a major entity. This way I can have a lot of different groups, petty politics and situations ripe for adventure, without either reusing the same people over and over, or muddying the waters of the overall sandbox by having too many factions competing on the global level.<br /><br />The other trick is to have one "paradigm-shifting revelation", as you put it, that is unlikely to be discovered until late in the game, by making it unknown to any but a handful of factions and NPCs. In my case, it's a metaphysical conflict that's the ultimate cause of most of the temporal conflicts going on in the setting. The main factions and their intrigues make sense without this knowledge (since most of them are ignorant of it anyway), but once the players discover it, it should hopefully throw the whole setting into a different light, plus open up a new set of NPC-interactions for the party to get in the way of and exploit.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07090296806321882601noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-72094886991791035862011-08-25T21:26:29.661-07:002011-08-25T21:26:29.661-07:00My world is largely based of the simple "King...My world is largely based of the simple "King Arthur, Dread Cthulhu, Queen Isabelle, Lich King" dynamic, but it really only includes King Arthur (quite directly) and Cthulhu (and I hadn't decided on how he would grow)<br /><br />The main country, of which the PCs are citizens, is threatened by all sorts of things within it's own borders. These things are in dungeons and haunted forests and the like, and exploring these places and eliminating these threats will make the Kingdom of Kamenal stronger. By doing these things they would meet Knights of the Round Table (I'm pretty shameless when I'm ripping things off) and gain respect in the Kingdom.<br /><br />For the opposition, I had not worked out a system which would allow for PCs to have an effect on. I think now, I would just make this "change." Tzeentch, basically, is my foil to King Kamenal. Spreading ancient magics and ancient technologies that threaten the chivalrousness of the Kingdom will hurt it and will power it's enemies.<br /><br />Your questions about how fast the players learn about the game world is important, and I'm not sure how to answer it. I hope the amount of information I have given them (which amounts to a world map with lots of odd marks and a three exemplary characters, one of good, one of evil, and one of their hometown) is enough that they know the world has some coherency, I am sure it isn't too much. I did decide to make a world for exploring when I set out.<br /><br />Anyway this was a great post, I'll certainly point people to this when they tell me they are making a setting. The questions it asks are probably as important as the basic culture or geography questions. "Sure your world is like ancient Rome, with chainswords and in the Unknown Armies system, but you should totally check this post out"noworkethichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02727022927512047275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-67725194362412338852011-08-25T21:03:22.671-07:002011-08-25T21:03:22.671-07:00And a bad example in my view, in spite of it's...And a bad example in my view, in spite of it's popularity, was the X-files. They just made stuff up as they went along, and when they got tired of a thread, they just dropped it and went in another direction. The factions and meta-factions just got more and more convoluted without any hope of the "players" sorting anything out. After a while, it became too cumbersome to be interesting. So revelation and slow build, yes! But also coherence in some sense. Not sure this makes sense.Rob Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01251228298836736535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-19350757815416305322011-08-25T20:54:01.423-07:002011-08-25T20:54:01.423-07:00Actually, at first Star Trek didn't even have ...Actually, at first <i>Star Trek</i> didn't even have the Federation. It's not mentioned till about halfway through the first season; prior to that, the <i>Enterprise</i> seems to be part of the "United Earth Space Probe Agency". There's an early episode where McCoy mentions Vulcan having been <em>conquered</em>. It's kind of amazing, the degree to which they were making stuff up as they went. <br /><br /><i>Stargate SG1</i> is a show that did a pretty good job of explore, explore, explore, run-into-a-big-faction, explore some more.Avram Grumerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17798919258007637767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-9388007614843427992011-08-25T18:14:16.236-07:002011-08-25T18:14:16.236-07:00Stormy night on the east coast, catching up on som...Stormy night on the east coast, catching up on some blog reading - this is exactly something I needed to read. Today. (Thanks). It's a good reminder not to overwrite (anything) and that white space is an important feature.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18031181424520125213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-2258470945389997272011-08-25T17:57:39.416-07:002011-08-25T17:57:39.416-07:00Nice distinction you made -- intrigue versus explo...Nice distinction you made -- intrigue versus exploration. This is something I've been struggling with as I design (in all my years of play) my first sandbox. I've been looking to published materials and am still working out where to draw the line between them. I'm sure it is a personal preference where the line ends up.<br /><br />I've considered Vornheim, where a lot happens on the fly and things don't come into existence until the players interact with them, including relationship maps! Then I've looked at something like Carcosa that lays everything out hex by hex (although it still leaves plenty up to the referee by offering just a skeleton of ideas.) <br /><br />What I decided for myself -- and I still have to try it out -- is a little bit of both, governed heavily by charts. I don't want the sense that things only come into existence until the players interact with them. To avoid that, the charts (wandering encounters in the wilderness and powerful NPCs) have a logic that pushes a setting agenda. Perhaps spies from a neighboring country are attempting to kill the king and they have planted a double agent within the walls. Those spies are an entry on a small list of wandering encounters. When it becomes important to know who the spies are, then I'll row on the chart. <br /><br />The world will push hard on the PCs just like they do on the world. I have an idea of how the world will push back based off the logic of the chart, but there is still an element of exploration. Maybe the spy is one of the king's advisors, or maybe it is his son. Either result (they'd be more than two on the chart) would lead to interesting and varied places in the story.<br /><br />Anyhow, that my theory I'm hammering out.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12460232211687806213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-37123843731786389972011-08-25T15:57:09.043-07:002011-08-25T15:57:09.043-07:00& then of course, there are the PCs who say &q...& then of course, there are the PCs who say "I came up with an idea for a jellyfish medusa who rules the sunken city where my aquatic elf character comes from," & then that bit is all done for you.<br /><br />What I do is similar to your first pitch, except those forces are entirely supernatural & largely abstracted. Then below that there is a factional level, where those "in the know" can sign up. Then below that is the actual game world more people play in, with dukes & city-states & families & PCs. The actual game is episodic, but there is an over-arching meta-plot...though it might not be visible all the time.mordicaihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05713766652793265867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2638993969706011706.post-27956173877729437212011-08-25T15:55:27.793-07:002011-08-25T15:55:27.793-07:00I love the notion of exploration combined with int...I love the notion of exploration combined with intrigue. For me, it becomes a slow revelation for the players as they progress through the world. They discover these different factions and areas and they all have a part to play in the world. The slow revelation of things as plots unfold keep the games interesting for the players, and adds a bit of the unknown in how they might proceed. "Oh we could go do this one thing, but then this other thing happens as a result, which might not be so good either."RobChandlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07751057765555584823noreply@blogger.com