In the next game, I'd like to try to gain some of the advantages of sandbox play: the sense of freedom and surprise that comes with the style, the contributions that players make to the game world and the organic growth it produces, the anger and desire for revenge that pops up totally unbidded by the DM against the most unexpected of enemies, the real feeling of risk that occurs. While at the same time, I'd like to avoid the sometimes awkward beginning of each game session where players decide exactly what they want to do and I waste time trying to give some adventure hooks in a naturalist, organic fashion.
I think what I may do, is provide all of the adventure hooks explictily up-front in a meta-game fashion. Just provide a list of dungeons, lairs and quests available and some quick background on possible risks and rewards. That way we can get to the action faster and get more accomplished. I need to make sure there are at least 3 or 4 different, real choices (not one that all lead to the same adventure).
I still want the players to be able to what they want, (like when Jason slaughtered Chuck's mentor or when Bob hatched his feud with Wulfgar in Return of the Trolls), but I want some of the advantages of pre-planned dungeons, without going to the extreme of the fixed, multi-level mega-dungeon.
Slaughtered? The man practically begged me to kill him by not answering my questions directly.
ReplyDeleteI like this idea. In a lot of games, the players end up basically being led by the nose from area to area (unless they do a Smirkenburg just to piss off the DM). If we're feeling our oats (or we've hired a bunch of cheap cannon-fodder, er, troops) we can try to attack something further up the food chain. Or even down the chain, if we end up with fewer players one session.
I also like the idea of important areas from the Trolls campaign ending up as being important areas in the new game.
In the past I have distributed "plot" between players and so there is incentive to achieve similar but conflicting goals. That seems to lead to an interesting group dynamic where everyone is on the same team, but subtly conflicted with one another.
ReplyDeleteFor example, perhaps one PC wants to find an antagonist to extract sweet revenge while another PC wants to find the same antagonist to extract information about where the magic mcguffin is.
It takes a little more work on the GMs part, but it could prove to be a way to inspire gaming without railroading in a sandbox game.
Yes, Andrew, I liked it when you did that. I want to avoid tailoring things to the players, due to their distressing tendency to not come the night when it would be most awesome for them to do so, but I liked that general vibe.
ReplyDeleteAny time the plot device of the night revolves around one character...seems like that player is out sick.
ReplyDeleteYou know, one of the handful of times I DM'd for the group, I half-joking suggested that I was just going to make Dave's character the main plot device, because he was the only one who's basically always going to be there every time we game.
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