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Post by ripx187 on Oct 26, 2016 18:54:51 GMT -5
I recently blogged about a style of play that had disappeared from my game, the classic style of the players mapping their own progress; if you'd like, you can read the article itself here. I was able to learn some interesting things. I heard from a couple of fathers that they are teaching their kids to play this method, which I can see! There is a lot of old-school things that aren't being taught in the new one. Reading a map is definitely one of them, but drawing a map from verbal description teaches more skills than just reading a map; its benefits is many fold and it makes learning fun! Which is always a bonus, right? I had expected to get hassled most by the regular D&D crowd, but that wasn't the case, most of the grumbling came from the AD&D folks who was glad to see this system gone. They played it and they hated it, which really surprises me. It was the 5e crowd who appeared to be more interested in a classic style, and expressed that they feared that this element would be lost and forgotten forever. It appears from the small sampling of people who responded to my queries, that there are more 5th Edition players creating their own content than I gave them credit for. What do you think about the classic style? Is it something that you still do? I ask because I highly value the opinions expressed on this board. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2016 20:17:58 GMT -5
I never show players my map. They don't have to map, I'm not going to force them. Heh heh heh heh...
As a player I always ask what the refs expect, but I prefer being expected to map.
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Post by robkuntz on Oct 26, 2016 20:23:19 GMT -5
Players map or go it alone from memory. "There's No Free Mapping In Life." The Pros are many. The cons feed the instant gratification syndrome that has overtaken many today.
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Post by tetramorph on Oct 27, 2016 19:53:40 GMT -5
ripx187, all of my experience of D&D has been that of players mapping with two small caveats: I map on a battle mat for my kids as they move along because they are pretty little. Although I make my boy map for solo adventures (he is 10 now). I will check my players' maps and tell them if they are more or less cool. If it is really weird, like a cavern, I might sketch out a vision of if for them. But usually "3D" not floor plan. I still describe that and they need to map it. That is what makes D&D a game of imaginary exploration. What are people doing who don't map?
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Post by robkuntz on Oct 27, 2016 20:06:49 GMT -5
What are people doing who don't map? They're engaging their memories and instincts and imagining in a different way. |
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 27, 2016 20:30:27 GMT -5
The answer to that tetramorph, is that we don't give very many options. The mazes are gone, even when I don't map a huge section, such as an active mine that just goes all over the place, the descriptions are brief, it is always easy to get out, and, unknowingly to me, we created large set-pieces with just enough going on to keep the whole thing from being static. They aren't complex enough. Challenge was sacrificed for story, and now it has been forgotten about in favor of the You Win! mentality. |
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Post by tetramorph on Oct 27, 2016 20:45:00 GMT -5
That sounds like a real bummer, ripx187. What do you do in your own games? If you haven't been mapping before, are you starting (or going to start) to have your players map? Let us know how it goes! |
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Post by Admin Pete on Oct 27, 2016 21:53:36 GMT -5
The answer to that tetramorph , is that we don't give very many options. The mazes are gone, even when I don't map a huge section, such as an active mine that just goes all over the place, the descriptions are brief, it is always easy to get out, and, unknowingly to me, we created large set-pieces with just enough going on to keep the whole thing from being static. They aren't complex enough. Challenge was sacrificed for story, and now it has been forgotten about in favor of the You Win! mentality. I love very complicated complex places. When I think mega-dungeon, I think of massive multi-leveled labyrinthine places to get lost in. I have had players flee (no mapping possible) and get very lost. That leads to all kinds of challenges. I don't do story, story is what you tell afterward about what happened. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2016 22:54:15 GMT -5
What are people doing who don't map? usually, the referee is drawing a map on a dry erase battlemap. Makes me nuts. |
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Post by tetramorph on Oct 28, 2016 5:48:16 GMT -5
I read your blog.
One thing you left out that you may not have thought about or remembered is the way in which mapping is key to tactics.
How do you know where to set up your blockade if you don't know where the orcs are and you don't know where the pinch points are?
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Post by monk on Oct 28, 2016 8:45:31 GMT -5
I read your blog. One thing you left out that you may not have thought about or remembered is the way in which mapping is key to tactics. How do you know where to set up your blockade if you don't know where the orcs are and you don't know where the pinch points are? This is a great point. With my brand new student players, I tell them they need to try to map so they won't get lost. I also allow them to recognize certain landmarks in the dungeon if they pass them again ("you've returned to the fountain room but from the other side this time"). Still, being young and brand new to it, their maps are often pretty inaccurate. Because of this, they almost never know how to be strategic about fleeing and fighting, where to set up ambushes, etc. The good ones start to catch on, but bad or nonexistent maps definitely leads to poor tactics. |
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 28, 2016 10:26:22 GMT -5
That sounds like a real bummer, ripx187 . What do you do in your own games? If you haven't been mapping before, are you starting (or going to start) to have your players map? Let us know how it goes! We work on different things. I enjoy a variety of play styles. We've added miniature play, we try to avoid it, as we want to remember the games visually, in our heads. I think that mapping might take you out as well, but if it serves a purpose . . . I don't want the players to remember sitting around a table eating chips, I want them to remember carefully sneaking around a dark and ancient cave system. I do think, though, that it is high time that we bring this element out of storage, dust it off and allow my younger players to experience it. |
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 28, 2016 10:52:53 GMT -5
The answer to that tetramorph , is that we don't give very many options. The mazes are gone, even when I don't map a huge section, such as an active mine that just goes all over the place, the descriptions are brief, it is always easy to get out, and, unknowingly to me, we created large set-pieces with just enough going on to keep the whole thing from being static. They aren't complex enough. Challenge was sacrificed for story, and now it has been forgotten about in favor of the You Win! mentality. I love very complicated complex places. When I think mega-dungeon, I think of massive multi-leveled labyrinthine places to get lost in. I have had players flee (no mapping possible) and get very lost. That leads to all kinds of challenges. I don't do story, story is what you tell afterward about what happened. See, now story is important to me. I really need to figure out a way to express what I mean. We don't play anything scripted, the PCs are the star of the show, but without villains, without henchmen and well designed NPC heroes, there is no show. There is no role-playing, and that is what we love to do. We aren't the hack and slash players, we are the explorers, puzzle solvers, and role players. We enjoy dialog, we enjoy interacting and problem solving. When I'm playing my villains, I'm trying to win, I use the system to keep the games fair, but I don't like it when the dice are dictating everything, logic and motivation is more apparent in my games than randomized numbers. There are story games, we don't play those. There is also railroaded jobs, which we detest as well. We use elements of story, but it is more of a framework for an adventure. A theme that keeps us coming back for more. I'll design a large dungeon, and I'll also design a rival party to put down there with the players, just to see what happens. |
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Post by Admin Pete on Oct 28, 2016 11:18:17 GMT -5
See, now story is important to me. I really need to figure out a way to express what I mean. We don't play anything scripted, the PCs are the star of the show, but without villains, without henchmen and well designed NPC heroes, there is no show. There is no role-playing, and that is what we love to do. We aren't the hack and slash players, we are the explorers, puzzle solvers, and role players. We enjoy dialog, we enjoy interacting and problem solving. When I'm playing my villains, I'm trying to win, I use the system to keep the games fair, but I don't like it when the dice are dictating everything, logic and motivation is more apparent in my games than randomized numbers. There are story games, we don't play those. There is also railroaded jobs, which we detest as well. We use elements of story, but it is more of a framework for an adventure. A theme that keeps us coming back for more. I'll design a large dungeon, and I'll also design a rival party to put down there with the players, just to see what happens. villains, henchman and NPC's are not story, all of the adventure hooks and options and all the things going on around the PCs are not story, the dungeon is not story, the rival party is not story. The world you have designed and the things that are going on all the time throughout your world (assuming it is a living world) are not story. Story is the record of what happened when the PCs (your players) interacted with, responded to and in some way (for good or ill, a little or a lot) changed the world. Exploring, puzzle solving and roleplaying creates the story that gets told and re-told later. All of the stuff you describe that you are designing is not story, the players create the story through play and the story is the record of that play. Now if you force the players to go into the dungeon or force them to pursue a specific option instead of choosing their own, that is when you deviate from playing a game which creates story to a pre-scripted railroaded story where the players are not free agents. |
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Post by robkuntz on Oct 28, 2016 12:33:10 GMT -5
See, now story is important to me. I really need to figure out a way to express what I mean. We don't play anything scripted, the PCs are the star of the show, but without villains, without henchmen and well designed NPC heroes, there is no show. There is no role-playing, and that is what we love to do. We aren't the hack and slash players, we are the explorers, puzzle solvers, and role players. We enjoy dialog, we enjoy interacting and problem solving. When I'm playing my villains, I'm trying to win, I use the system to keep the games fair, but I don't like it when the dice are dictating everything, logic and motivation is more apparent in my games than randomized numbers. There are story games, we don't play those. There is also railroaded jobs, which we detest as well. We use elements of story, but it is more of a framework for an adventure. A theme that keeps us coming back for more. I'll design a large dungeon, and I'll also design a rival party to put down there with the players, just to see what happens. villains, henchman and NPC's are not story, all of the adventure hooks and options and all the things going on around the PCs are not story, the dungeon is not story, the rival party is not story. The world you have designed and the things that are going on all the time throughout your world (assuming it is a living world) are not story. Story is the record of what happened when the PCs (your players) interacted with, responded to and in some way (for good or ill, a little or a lot) changed the world. Exploring, puzzle solving and roleplaying creates the story that gets told and re-told later. All of the stuff you describe that you are designing is not story, the players create the story through play and the story is the record of that play. Now if you force the players to go into the dungeon or force them to pursue a specific option instead of choosing their own, that is when you deviate from playing a game which creates story to a pre-scripted railroaded story where the players are not free agents. Although "elements of story" are different from story itself, which I believe he was getting at. I mention this difference in my Hill Canton's interview of many years ago. and for goods reasons as explained in my BOOK (yes, that one). |
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Post by Admin Pete on Oct 28, 2016 13:07:42 GMT -5
]Although "elements of story" are different from story itself, which I believe he was getting at. I mention this difference in my Hill Canton's interview of many years ago. and for good reasons as explained in my BOOK (yes, that one). Yeah, I agree! And I understood what he was saying. I felt/feel it is important to make a clear distinction because of the phrase "story is important to me", because as you know the term story has an entirely different meaning now from what it meant when Arneson used it. The term now comes loaded with multiple meanings depending on who is using it and how they are using it. When Arneson used the term it did not mean (as I understand it) to imply railroad or story line that the players must follow. I want to point to be clearly stated for visitors who read the site and may not be aware of the nuances of the term over the last 45 years. Eagerly awaiting the BOOK. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2016 15:12:25 GMT -5
I love very complicated complex places. When I think mega-dungeon, I think of massive multi-leveled labyrinthine places to get lost in. I have had players flee (no mapping possible) and get very lost. That leads to all kinds of challenges. I don't do story, story is what you tell afterward about what happened. See, now story is important to me. I really need to figure out a way to express what I mean. We don't play anything scripted, the PCs are the star of the show, but without villains, without henchmen and well designed NPC heroes, there is no show. There is no role-playing, and that is what we love to do. We aren't the hack and slash players, we are the explorers, puzzle solvers, and role players. We enjoy dialog, we enjoy interacting and problem solving. When I'm playing my villains, I'm trying to win, I use the system to keep the games fair, but I don't like it when the dice are dictating everything, logic and motivation is more apparent in my games than randomized numbers. There are story games, we don't play those. There is also railroaded jobs, which we detest as well. We use elements of story, but it is more of a framework for an adventure. A theme that keeps us coming back for more. I'll design a large dungeon, and I'll also design a rival party to put down there with the players, just to see what happens. That's not story, that's "setting up a situation." Story begins when the referee thinks in future tense rather than past; i.e., "The players will" or "the players should" or "the players must," rather than "the players DID". |
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Post by tetramorph on Oct 28, 2016 15:46:22 GMT -5
That sounds like a real bummer, ripx187 . What do you do in your own games? If you haven't been mapping before, are you starting (or going to start) to have your players map? Let us know how it goes! We work on different things. I enjoy a variety of play styles. We've added miniature play, we try to avoid it, as we want to remember the games visually, in our heads. I think that mapping might take you out as well, but if it serves a purpose . . . I don't want the players to remember sitting around a table eating chips, I want them to remember carefully sneaking around a dark and ancient cave system. I do think, though, that it is high time that we bring this element out of storage, dust it off and allow my younger players to experience it. Drawing out a rough map for exploration and strategic purposes, in my experience, in no way detracts from the "theatre of the mind" and what I and players remember having played and visualized. We're taking about graph paper and pencil lines, not 3D geomorphs! |
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 28, 2016 16:24:36 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't know how to say it. Perhaps fictional theme? I tried getting rid of story once, just letting the players decide what they wanted to do, and they quickly decided that they didn't want to do that. The more prepwork they can get me to do, the happier they are. At least they respect and enjoy it. The session is always planned, I don't want to be totally unprepared for what comes next. I react to the players, and the players react to me. At the end of the session, I need to know what their course of action is, what to plot next. There is a lot of give and take and it is really hard explaining this to people.
I have it stripped down to very basic levels, in my search for what the game used to be, I find a very advanced game that works a lot better than modern methods. For example, in the past, when I knew that the party would be traveling, I'd prep just the road. No questions, no options. You'll go here, here, here, and here before you arrive. Sometimes I'd skip travel entirely! Now I enjoy creating travel, from learning how the game used to be played, I discovered that it is extremely easy and rewarding to prep an incredibly large area quickly. I can still have my triggered events, but there will be some surprises along the way. There is just so much depth to be found in this method, and all of that prep can be used again and again and again.
This isn't old fashioned, random stuff. This isn't boring. This is important, and can actually do most of the work for us so that we can focus on what I call story events, but yet it isn't. There is some serious zen going on. If you are forcing the game, you aren't playing the game. The human element is what makes Dungeons & Dragons unique, but too much interference limits what it can do. The system has to function. This goes back to Mega-Dungeons. Players out wandering around with nothing real to accomplish, forever, is what, in most modern players minds, is happening. You can grab the 1e DMG and play with dice, you can play indefinitely, yet accomplish nothing. It needs that human element to make it actually function. Perhaps the best word is motivation? Did this element disappear because it is hard, repetitive, and boring, or did it disappear because we can play down there as long as you want to with very little work?
Why rush through story events? Important things happen between them. Unexpected things that change the nature of the events we had in our heads, improve them. To get the most out of our plots and plans, we need a mechanical and effective system to rely upon. Finding this balance is key. The funny thing is that this system of world building is much easier to achieve than forcing story. I don't know if it was a conscious idea to move away from it, or if it was just meant to give us time to learn that human element, and it was assumed that we were still using the system. I don't think so. TSR always seemed to make it a point to defame what came before. 2e works best when it is applied to the core system, which I think was the original intention since many key ideas and theories were not carried over to those books, but then it was marketed as a replacement. A replacement that honestly doesn't function well on its own.
I've been here for under a month and only now am I finally seeing the chinks in the dragons hide. I really was severely off on my timeline of creating module dependence.
I have a new question. Do you think that Dave Cook was aware of what was happening while writing the PHB and the DMG? If I am interpreting things correctly, many writers had good intentions, at least from a user standpoint. Play the game with your own setting. Make the consumer setting your own. These themes were present, but at some point these suggestions stopped. Were these small little suggestions hidden in the text or the context as a kind of protest, or warning?
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Post by tetramorph on Oct 28, 2016 16:39:47 GMT -5
ripx187, now I've lost you. Is there a way you could just play a game with some old school folks and see how it unfolds? Like Gronan said, a lot of what you are talking about is just hooks and interesting world elements. We all do that too. We also think about what NPCs are doing between sessions. We also think about how campaign level events will affect PCs, etc. We are trying to simulate a world. We want the players to enter into the world. We want them to be able to tell great war stories after each session. What is the difference between what we are saying and what you are saying? "Chinks in the dragon's hide"? What do you mean? "Timeline of module dependence"? I just want to understand and follow better what you are talking about. Thanks!
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 28, 2016 17:02:28 GMT -5
Sorry tetramorph. I wasn't arguing with anybody, just trying to figure things out. I was talking to myself. I'm trying to piece together the history of the game itself, for my blog, and at the same time strengthen my personal game. I enjoy looking at elements to see how they fit, but really, I was just talking to myself. Finding a clear definition of story, or a replacement for the word will save me some grief on a personal level, as I guess that I throw that word around too loosely. I also don't sleep much, I work the graveyard shift and I got two boys, come Friday the world is always pretty foggy. I apologize for getting weird. |
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 28, 2016 18:20:54 GMT -5
This is an amazing thought and a perfectly pure definition @gronanofsimmerya
Thank you.
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Post by Admin Pete on Oct 28, 2016 18:26:38 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't know how to say it. Perhaps fictional theme? I tried getting rid of story once, just letting the players decide what they wanted to do, and they quickly decided that they didn't want to do that. The more prepwork they can get me to do, the happier they are. At least they respect and enjoy it. The session is always planned, I don't want to be totally unprepared for what comes next. I react to the players, and the players react to me. At the end of the session, I need to know what their course of action is, what to plot next. There is a lot of give and take and it is really hard explaining this to people. I am not going to attempt to address everything in that post, but I am going to comment on this part. I am confused about what you do. You say: And I am not completely sure what you mean. I always let the players decide what they want to do and always have. For me that works even with players that have no background in anything before 3E. I throw out a wide range of possibilities and the players decide where they are going and what they are going to do when they get there. I never decide for them and it sounds like (but may not be so) that you do the deciding for them at the beginning of each game. I don't think that is what you mean, but that is what I perceive from what you wrote. Then you say: Prep work to extent that you have time to do it is great. But I am not sure about what you mean by planned. To me planned, bearing in mind the full sentence quoted, means that the players can not go anywhere that you have not prepped for. I am always ready no matter where the players go. If/When they go off the map I create map faster than they can travel, I am never unprepared no matter what they do. In college when we started playing with a mixed group of 50/50 men and women from a wide variety of majors from the humanities to hard science and math they would sometimes intentionally try to stump me by trying to be completely unpredictable. We started with 12 players and sometimes had as high as 29-30 players at the same time. All the people who only played part of the time were usually there as an audience. We played every Friday evening from about 5PM to 1AM-4AM and on Saturday we played from about Noon-1PM to 1AM-4AM (roughly) and as a full time student and some work, I never had time to do any prep work beyond noting thoughts as they occurred throughout the week. I did that for four years and never was at a loss of what to do or say. Then you say: and And I feel like we are on the same page again. Please clarify where you are differing with me and where you are not. I am not saying you are wrong in what you do, I am just trying to be clear on what you do. |
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 28, 2016 20:12:14 GMT -5
Admin Pete I think that I probably prep more than normal, but it isn't anything that I don't use. I've cut down my prep by my own standards. My group doesn't have much time to game. We meet once a month and play for as long as we can. Our current game isn't set in medieval times, it is a gothic horror game set in the 1890's in a historic/fiction setting. We like it because it is so character driven. We work as a team, the players decide where they want to go, what lines of inquiry they want to explore. It is rather theatrical in pace. Our current scenario is from a published module, we aren't playing the module, it is just this section sounded interesting to us. I asked them if they would be interested in doing it and they all agreed, so we're doing it. It takes place in a mental asylum, the party is confined there and being experimented on in hideous ways with long term effects for the characters. The module was graphed into the setting by myself, and has very few triggered events. I broke the prep down into two different sections, escape which is your typical wilderness setup, and the asylum itself. The game is a mystery. In order to win, the players have to figure out exactly what they are dealing with. I hide my monsters behind masks of normalcy. If they can figure out exactly what the Doctor is, they can figure out what the orderlies are and can fight back, however if they attack prematurely, or get the solution wrong, they are doomed. It is a psychological game that isn't for everybody, but my group enjoys this stuff. The funny thing is that most of us have been orderlies in R/L. This game is unusual because I want the characters to feel confined, I want them to feel manipulated and controlled, but without actually railroading the players. We're also exploring a new style of play; because of the strange nature of this scenario, we had to adapt a more literary style. It is an experiment, one or more characters can be separated from the others, so that may mean that not everybody is in the scene taking place. It is totally different from how we normally play, but that is what made it so attractive to us in the first place. As long as we are having fun, I figure that we are doing it right! I expect to get a session or two out of this scenario, and have planted additional hooks inside of it. I'd also like to explore the idea of returning to the mega-dungeon mapping idea, but it is something that I'll have to work on. We do play fantasy, but Gothic Earth is my longest running campaign, and the one that my players really really get into. After the holidays are over, we might get more time to game, we used to be able to play every two weeks or so, but I ended up getting burned out. I think that the problem was that I just over-prepped, so I cut down considerably. As I get older this gets easier. I used to be terrified to play off the cuff, but I'm getting more used to it.
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 29, 2016 15:00:18 GMT -5
Okay, lets try again, Admin Pete. I have had a full nights sleep. I really need to stay away from computers when I'm exhausted. I will answer your questions here. It appears that yesterday all I did was talk in circles. I do not tell the players what to do. If they sense that I am railroading, they better get off the tracks because that usually means that they are being manipulated by an NPC plot. If we are getting ready to start a new arch, or play a new game, I generally will have an idea of what I want to do, and I'll try and sell them on the idea. The current scenario that we are running is an example of that. I really wanted to run a section of a module, I talked to them each outside of the game, and told them about what I thinking. They unanimously agreed that it sounded challenging and fun, so we did it. That is a special case, I don't do that often. In fact, I had originally asked them about it many years ago, and they agreed back then. When I started hinting that it was coming they were all kinds of excited. The end of the session is important to me and my style of gaming. At the end of the game, they have to commit to where they wish to go next. Only once in our games did they fail to do this, and it messed with my game really bad. I got mad, I tried to get them to finish the game because they were almost done, as I needed to know what happened at the conclusion of the scenario before we could begin a new arch with the same characters. I was also at fault for assuming to much, but I am dependent on the players. They didn't complete the goal that I needed them to accomplish, and I couldn't prep the next session. We ended up playing for half an hour and then we were done. This event also took place when I was about burned out. I was over prepping. This issue has never happened again, but it is a stain on our record. We turned it into a positive. You are an amazing Dungeon Master, I have a hard time doing that. Continuity is my issue. I can run things that way, but after the game I have to go back over things and reedit it all so that it makes sense. I hate errors. This is where OD&D comes in, my system of AD&D was not complete, and I didn't know this. I am working on figuring out what you folks have done in the past, and incorporating them into my own game. After a lot of work I was able to figure out hex crawls, this was really complex stuff for me as I've never went there before. Now that I've got it figured out, it makes prep a lot easier than how I was originally taught. When I say planned, I write so that the players can go anywhere, but I still have to know what my NPCs are doing. I also like to have things fleshed out by the time that they get there, especially if it is important to them. If they want to go confront a lich in a haunted castle, they are really looking forward to this, I owe it to them to have enough there. We don't like playing "cow manure", and they know when I'm playing "cow manure", they know when I am just making things up and they hate it because to them, it feels like that stuff doesn't mater. They can't interact with cow manure. Naturally, there is always going to be some element of cow manure going on, but in order to have a good game, my lich for example, cannot be made of cow manure. Now if I rolled this same scenario up during travel, they will forgive me. They will give me more leeway, they just stumbled upon this castle in the woods, and just wanted to see what was inside, and they find a lich. That is just fun all by itself, but a known lich, one that they had planned on and walk in with intent, I best make that encounter more than just a phantom. It has to be real, and it has to be fair. I also enjoy the creative process. When I'm drawing my maps, I'll have little background stories hidden here and there for the players to find. Stuff that tells about what happened here once. We love immersive environments, and so do my players. Many times, I don't actually write this stuff down. The day before we play I am physically distant in R/L, I am walking through the castle, seeing these things in my head so that I can describe them during the game. The feeling that I get from what I have read of your style thus far (which is conjecture) you are clearly way more experienced than me, I think that I require more details than you do before play. I am confident in my game, but it isn't a fixed thing. I do feel responsible for entertaining the table. I do feel responsible for making sure that everybody is engaged. I don't see myself as just a referee, but as an artist. My fingerprints are all over the place. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. I had backed off of this approach one time, which I had mentioned above, when I backed off, and wanted to play more of a random style, they got upset with me because they really want me to be there. I got told that if they wanted to play that way then they could find it elsewhere, but they were at my table and they wanted my games. Catering to my enormous ego, most assuredly, but we've found a comfortable balance between. Like I said, they hate playing games of "cow manure", they'll let me get away with it here and there, but they'll even call me out when they detect a bad random encounter. I want them to do this. I want to provide the games that they want to play. Is being an entertainer Dungeons and Dragons? I don't know. From what I get from reading OD&D, from reading articles written by the originators, and those who have been playing for much longer than I ever have, they appear to be less flashy, but stronger than I am. You have made it very clear that you can DM to a perfect stranger, and that is something that I cannot do. If some dude comes walking into my house on gameday, unannounced, I have a hang-up about that. I need to know where this character came from, he can't just pop into an ongoing game. I always talk with people who are interested in the game, talk about there characters, and together we figure out a way to fold them into the game. They are telling these stories, just by showing up, but I want to make sure that everything makes sense. Maybe the difference between us is that I force players to go deeper? They aren't just a fighting man, they must offer more. I require an investment, which seems to work great for my table. Sitting here, in this message board, among people that I respect so much for their experience, I am afraid that this style may sound silly or foolish. I am opening myself up, which I rarely do, thus I fear rejection. I don't know why I am so nervous here? It is what it is though. Maybe my approach is different enough to bring some kind of new dynamic to the board, maybe it isn't. Maybe I should just shut up and lurk for awhile. |
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Post by tetramorph on Oct 29, 2016 15:26:38 GMT -5
The more I trust myself the less I plan. The more I practice soloing the better I get at improv. In Jazz, there is a lead sheet, so that all the players will hit the right general notes of the chord progression over the right measures. Other than that, each player can interpret that chord anyway they want to. That's where you get the dense packed jabs of Thelonius Monk and then the almost empty, sparse, longing, drifting expanses of Bill Evans. Then, on top of that, you play the melody that everybody knows. When that is over, every player riffs however they want to over that shared chord progression. Heck, even the drummer sometimes gets to solo for several bars! No melody what so ever! You clap for every solo. Then they all return to the melody and the performance concludes and everybody claps. A Jazz performance, unlike a jazz recording, is a total and engrossing experience. (Man, I gotta get out to a jazz club again soon! I'm making myself miss it!) I would like to propose that a Fantastical Medieval Wargames Campaign is (or can be) a lot like Jazz: We have a lead sheet: the classic legendaria of our western medieval mythic and legendaria inheritance plus its crazy pulp reinterpretation in the early 20th century. We have a chord progression: maps at about three levels: Dungeons, Immediate environs of the "safety" town, the Wilderness. Heck we don't even have to make that map. Just use the Outdoor Survival Board. We have a melody: you meet in a tavern. You go out on an adventure together. There are monsters: fell beasts, undead atrocities, eldritch abominations. There are traps: pits and snakes and balls and blades. There are tricks: secret doors and doors to secrets. There is ancient buried antiquities, treasures untold, uncountable. If you survive, you come back and "level up": you enjoy fame and fortune and more luck and skill for the next adventure. Then we riff. Then we solo. And everybody claps. Heck, even the drummer gets to solo (that's you, the ref)! The players give you an idea mid dungeon? Change the dungeon. Roll with it. Run with it. Have fun. Make a note of NPC interactions to review between sessions for consistency. I find that no more is needed than that. That kind of improv is what rules lite allows for. The instruments, the chord progression, the melody are so simple, we can spend our time riffing and soloing rather than looking up music theory. My analogy or metaphor is, I think, the kind of play that Admin Pete is trying to describe. |
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Post by robkuntz on Oct 29, 2016 15:40:46 GMT -5
From that Hill Canton's interview I did many moons ago:
"If you want to gauge the extent to which you have mastered story try winging an entire adventure as EGG and I did countless times (and as I instructed the participants to do in my workshop at this past NTRPGCON). Scripting an adventure and running it thereafter is not as telling in promoting such improvisational story matter; it’s only when you’re at the crossroads of doubt and choice, this is where you’ll find whether you are a true “story-crafter” or a mere “story-repeater”."
"So there are no tricks, no shortcuts. You either master story--and thereafter know how, when and why to insert its elements into the forming adventure--or you don’t."
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 29, 2016 16:02:29 GMT -5
Okay tetramorph this makes sense to me. I think that I know where I stand now. No, we don't play rules lite, per say, but we have mastered our system to the point where this is a non-issue. I know it's limitations and frequently bust out of the confines of them. You mention an outdoor survival board. This is a hex map, yes? I must admit that I keep that in my head. When I draw, for the players, I include details that they know about their surroundings, and hang it up so that they can reference it and change it as they need to. I keep a more detailed one behind the screen. There are things that I know, and I have a list of things that might be out there that I roll against from time to time, along with random encounters. That is how I interpret and set up my outdoor survival board. It fleshes out a large space quickly. This is a great tool! |
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 29, 2016 16:22:32 GMT -5
From that Hill Canton's interview I did many moons ago: "If you want to gauge the extent to which you have mastered story try winging an entire adventure as EGG and I did countless times (and as I instructed the participants to do in my workshop at this past NTRPGCON). Scripting an adventure and running it thereafter is not as telling in promoting such improvisational story matter; it’s only when you’re at the crossroads of doubt and choice, this is where you’ll find whether you are a true “story-crafter” or a mere “story-repeater”." "So there are no tricks, no shortcuts. You either master story--and thereafter know how, when and why to insert its elements into the forming adventure--or you don’t." That is what makes you a master. Man. This stuff is gold! I think that every DM thinks that he is doing a good job, but like a horrible singer, we really need to be told what is going on. Are we as good as we think we are, or are we caterwauling and people are being polite about it. When ever we start a brand new game, we have generally picked a theme, but that first game is always improvised. The first time that I done this was for my Gothic Earth campaign, it started as a murder mystery in a big mansion, I made up names, and the mansion rooms as we went. I had a player writing details down, which she gave to me after the game was over. We had a great time! I did have to change the order of the mansion rooms to draw a map in physical form, but this has been repeated over and over whenever they go back to the mansion. Rooms shift and change. It works, this place is haunted. I didn't intend for it to be like Steven King's Rose Red, but it works. |
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Post by tetramorph on Oct 29, 2016 16:32:32 GMT -5
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