All Of A Sudden, A Tree Falls And...
Player: Okay, we go down the road toward Waterdeep.
DM: All of a sudden, a tree falls and blocks the road.
Player: Oh, we go around it.
DM: A band of goblins jumps out and chases you back the way you came.
Player: We try to jump the tree log to get over it.
DM: A wizard pops out and suddenly you feel compelled to go the other way.
We have a word for this type of game - "Heavy Handed," or "Leading By The Nose."
There are plenty of gaming gaming groups that suffer from this style of play. Ours is not one of them. Ours is one of the more 'believable' games because the characters possess free will and are provided with many choices. The characters in Sons of the Vast have not been led-by-the-nose, however, can too many choices cause a different kind of problem? Some experts in the field of product sales, say that offering too many choices can lead to confusion, doubt, and indecision. I am not a one-trick-pony and can run several different syles of campaign, but I dare say the multitude of possibilities that are offered our characters in SOV might fall into this other unique extreme.
If there were an observer watching our group who could see both sides of the screen (player view and DM view) she might say the options presented in our particular campaign are "existential", or "character focused and role-play intensive", or "deep-immersion storytelling." What would you say it is?
Consider the following:
Characters (not the DM) always choose the direction of travel, their length of stay, when they sleep & for how long, and how fast time passes in the game. Other factors such as time of day, random encounters, NPC agendas & timelines, location, PC attitudes & approach, and the DICE are all variables that help select: types of monsters/allies/opponents encountered, NPCs met and where, when and why monsters attack, how much information is gathered and by whom, and the results of situations that the PCs interact with. Outcomes, in this style are not pre-planned.
Man! Isn't that too much responsibility to dump onto the player-characters? Well, frankly, no.
Anyone can read a which-way book, play a video game, or run a game where the events are fixed, contrived, pre-selected, arranged, pre-determined, forced, or unavoidable! It takes a high amount of skill to participate in a game where the story, time-tables, events and opportunities are fully influenced by the players. This means the DM requires complete knowledge of everything and be ready to deliver that instantly, and the players must keep scribing the story forward. Wow—this is a lot of work! Yes it is, and the rewards are incredible.
There are, however, some pitfalls....
Things that can sometimes happen in this style of play:
*Occasionally, the PCs walk through the Underdark during morning hours and may wonder why there is nobody there? (Preparation means monsters could be there, but the time of day and the dice say they are not.)
*Occasionally, a player character keeps a secret to themselves, hordes magic items, or otherwise does not participate in the story. (PCs try to solve riddles without this character's information and fail, and the DM will not keep providing them clues just to make something happen.)
In other styles of play (one style in-particular that I will be moving toward after Module 4) involves the DM as a guiding-hand alternative where the DM sometimes "makes sure" that things happen. In this style, momentum is much faster, but detail is sometimes sacrificed, and some 'free-will' becomes limited. Caution must be used here, because if the DM does that too often, the players might feel led-by-the-nose. Geeez! I smell a plot hook already! (Pavel Sniffs)
Player: Okay, we go down the road toward Waterdeep.
DM: All of a sudden, a tree falls and blocks the road.
Player: Where should we be going?
DM: There is a rustic cabin on the side of the road back the way you came that has tonight's adventure in it.
Player: Okay. My nose hurts though.
DM: All of a sudden, a tree falls and blocks the road.
Player: Oh, we go around it.
DM: A band of goblins jumps out and chases you back the way you came.
Player: We try to jump the tree log to get over it.
DM: A wizard pops out and suddenly you feel compelled to go the other way.
We have a word for this type of game - "Heavy Handed," or "Leading By The Nose."
There are plenty of gaming gaming groups that suffer from this style of play. Ours is not one of them. Ours is one of the more 'believable' games because the characters possess free will and are provided with many choices. The characters in Sons of the Vast have not been led-by-the-nose, however, can too many choices cause a different kind of problem? Some experts in the field of product sales, say that offering too many choices can lead to confusion, doubt, and indecision. I am not a one-trick-pony and can run several different syles of campaign, but I dare say the multitude of possibilities that are offered our characters in SOV might fall into this other unique extreme.
If there were an observer watching our group who could see both sides of the screen (player view and DM view) she might say the options presented in our particular campaign are "existential", or "character focused and role-play intensive", or "deep-immersion storytelling." What would you say it is?
Consider the following:
Characters (not the DM) always choose the direction of travel, their length of stay, when they sleep & for how long, and how fast time passes in the game. Other factors such as time of day, random encounters, NPC agendas & timelines, location, PC attitudes & approach, and the DICE are all variables that help select: types of monsters/allies/opponents encountered, NPCs met and where, when and why monsters attack, how much information is gathered and by whom, and the results of situations that the PCs interact with. Outcomes, in this style are not pre-planned.
Man! Isn't that too much responsibility to dump onto the player-characters? Well, frankly, no.
Anyone can read a which-way book, play a video game, or run a game where the events are fixed, contrived, pre-selected, arranged, pre-determined, forced, or unavoidable! It takes a high amount of skill to participate in a game where the story, time-tables, events and opportunities are fully influenced by the players. This means the DM requires complete knowledge of everything and be ready to deliver that instantly, and the players must keep scribing the story forward. Wow—this is a lot of work! Yes it is, and the rewards are incredible.
There are, however, some pitfalls....
Things that can sometimes happen in this style of play:
*Occasionally, the PCs walk through the Underdark during morning hours and may wonder why there is nobody there? (Preparation means monsters could be there, but the time of day and the dice say they are not.)
*Occasionally, a player character keeps a secret to themselves, hordes magic items, or otherwise does not participate in the story. (PCs try to solve riddles without this character's information and fail, and the DM will not keep providing them clues just to make something happen.)
In other styles of play (one style in-particular that I will be moving toward after Module 4) involves the DM as a guiding-hand alternative where the DM sometimes "makes sure" that things happen. In this style, momentum is much faster, but detail is sometimes sacrificed, and some 'free-will' becomes limited. Caution must be used here, because if the DM does that too often, the players might feel led-by-the-nose. Geeez! I smell a plot hook already! (Pavel Sniffs)
Player: Okay, we go down the road toward Waterdeep.
DM: All of a sudden, a tree falls and blocks the road.
Player: Where should we be going?
DM: There is a rustic cabin on the side of the road back the way you came that has tonight's adventure in it.
Player: Okay. My nose hurts though.
posted by The Dungeon Master | 1:38 PM
5 Comments:
Anyone who has played D&D with me for the last few months already has a pretty good idea of my response to sacrificing play quality just to be able to scratch a villian off the list each week.
There are those chefs that carefully prepare a finely crafted meal of Dungeons and Dragons, using only the finest ingredients and letting the story simmer as long as it needs to in order to reach perfection.
They use a wide variety of story spice from all over the globe and the result is an adventuring meal that has nothing in common with the ordinary D&D served at those ‘other places’. You can close your eyes and relish the flavor of the role-playing, as you watch those dining with you, each enjoying a dish prepared specifically for them.
The meal excites all the senses- it has been expertly assembled and smells as good as it looks, as good as it tastes, as good as it feels going down. NPC courses and side dishes are painstakingly created to complement the main meal and lend richness and depth to what is already an amazing experience.
The chef asks you how you enjoyed his creation each week, tweaking his next dish in order to elevate his craft closer to perfection. It deserves nothing less than your full attention for as long as it takes to enjoy all there is to enjoy.
I suppose if you’re in a hurry to get to the dessert, then you may rush through the meal and much of the nuance and subtle gooddness is lost, but if that’s the goal- then there is the ‘other’ D&D meal-
The place where the DM with the paper hat says: “Lets see- one Balor, 3 Hezrous, a Bearded Devil and 4 orders of Lemure- does that complete your order?”
You grab your dice and nod.
"Please pull forward to the second window."
( You’ll need to go around the fallen tree to get to it ).
Don’t forget to peel the gamepiece off your waterskin to see if you won the
+5 vorpal sword.
i dont mind a game where you are lead by the nose a little..but if you have a heavy hand you loose a lot of fun that we have had so far...least thats what i think
I agree with Slyl. I just have a habit of spending the better part of a day saying so. (Why just use a sentence when you can ramble on for days...)
As long as the game can still have most of the depth and richness we enjoy, I'm okay with a little heavy-handedness. (Go ahead- supersize me.)
Pavel habituates.
Depth and richness... methinks of a triple-layer-death-by-chocolate cake. No point here, I am truly thinking of cake.
I can't wait to hear from the others when time permits...
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