[gamist RPGs] Player Driven Games and
Natespank:
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think presenting a game world like a menu of gamist challenges works out.
I really like the idea of a "game world like a menu of gamist challenges." Does help to have "quests" and such to take over between them though. GTA does that pretty well.
Callan S.:
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Does help to have "quests" and such to take over between them though.
Huh? Quests are another entry on the gamist menu, rather than between gamist menu entries? Quests add to the variety of the menu. Or atleast I'm describing how I look at it. Perhaps it'll seem that way for you too now I describe it, or do you mean something else?
In terms of your questions, I've thought of having basically a predesigned sort of campaign that takes all of that into account. BUT you also have the capacity to go 'off road' and leave the pre ordained campaign and simply head through the world. You tell the players the difference, as in what is designed campaign and what is off road. Because heading through the world doesn't, for example, guarantee the right difficulty level - just as in your AP example, players might head into the high level zone straight off the bat. But that's off road - if players can't take that, they stick with the pre ordained campaign and as GM, you never bump them into off road. It's always their choice to go off road and more to the point, they take responsiblity for their action in doing so, so if they decide to go off road end up in the high level zone where they can't kill stuff, they say 'Dang, that's our fault, not the GMs!'. One issue with this idea is how easily they can get back to the pre set campaign if they screw things up. But that's something we can talk about if it's of interest to begin with.
Natespank:
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Huh? Quests are another entry on the gamist menu, rather than between gamist menu entries? Quests add to the variety of the menu. Or atleast I'm describing how I look at it. Perhaps it'll seem that way for you too now I describe it, or do you mean something else?
I was vague. Yes, they're another item on gamist menu. However I prefer to set up situations and develop settings. The players, when driven, will assign themselves tasks and pursue them to completion- thus, "quests" are technically unnecessary. What I like to use quests for is to pick up the slack when the players aren't inspired to pursue some interesting goal- then they can fall back to DM provided adventures and such which might promise more detailed preparation or deliberate hooks. They're all optional but I mainly use them to give a sense of cohesiveness to the campaign, to make them explore or learn about the setting, but mostly to hold the slack when the players aren't entertaining themselves.
An analogy from GTA: imagine the game with no missions. It'd still be fun, but the player would occasionally get bored or uninspired- the missions are perfect for those times. I sorta preferred it back when the missions were less important than, say, GTA 4- when the missions were less essential to the game and more optional fun/challenges.
Callan S.:
I think I agree with you on that! In GTA the missions were like an overall spine, but the shit players would get up to provided the meat. I used the missions exactly as you say, I'd have enough of doing whatever, or couldn't think of anything, then I'd think "I'll knock off a bit of the main mission arc!". Usually after going through the rigid structure of the mission, I'd be keen to get to more freeform trouble making and avoiding.
Natespank:
Something I especially liked about GTA 3 was the optional missions- the ones I accidentally found while I wandered the city.
I ran my weekly game. I'll summarize it in "quotes" format, and analyze it below. Play reports are pretty handy for learning about gameplay styles.
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We have 3 players and 1 DM- to the dismay of some of our friends we prefer that group size. The region is mostly water: the adventure areas are typically islands and the party has a crappy sailing ship. In the previous game the party had discovered the adult blue dragon's island and the lizardman's island, thinking they were the slaver's island from rumors back in town. At the end of the session they'd lost their first character to drakes and the dragon had forced them to agree to bring monthly food sacrifices. Them having mixed up the islands was a nice side effect of vague directions (earned through streetwise) combined with player mapping (on hexes)- I'm gonna use it all the time now.
The game began back in town at "The Rusty Aye" tavern where the party recruited 2 new members due to Bartok's death (he's a ghost and haunts/pilots their ship now) and one character remake- I encourage character remakes for the first few levels so they get one they want to stick with. They recruited a crazy shifter paladin and a gnomish street magician and, still believing it was the slaver's island, returned to the lizardman island to actually find the slavers.
They raided a rat-infested cave network and discovered a rogue who the rats were eating. They bandaged him up and won his trust- he told them why he was on the island. A princess from the West had shipwrecked nearby and the lizardmen had captured her. The rogue was part of a group of adventurers whom the dragon had attacked- the dragon demanded that he capture this princess and feed her to him in exchange for his and his friends' lives. He revealed that he'd died many times on this quest, but because he had earned entry into the "cult of the Parrot" he was able to respawn- he showed them the tattoo. The players asked how to join and he said that it was full- you could only get into it by replacing a current member. I decided to make the respawn mechanic a little exclusive- they're determined to get in now, next weeks session they will investigate the cult.
For foreshadowing, inside the rat cave were various dead men wearing matching tabards.
The rogue said the princess was in the lizardman village. "Are they cannibal or slaver lizardmen? I think we're on the wrong island..."
The party circled the island to find the village; they rolled some knowledge checks and discovered that lizardmen don't speak common so only the paladin could communicate with them. They also discovered that they frequently trade with others, though not if they're a raider group. The PCs decided to try negotiation and walked into the village to speak to their leader, since they'd learned the lizardfolk are hierarchical. All this stuff is in the Monster Manual and I was unaware of it until it popped up- spontaneously incorporating it greatly spiced the interactions up.
The paladin marched into town and searched out their religious leader. Since the princess spoke common and the lizardfolk spoke draconic, they'd actually failed to communicate with her. The chieftain said they planned to ransom her off and the paladin offered his services as a translator. The chieftain accepted the offer and, long story short, the princess came from a kingdom that had sunk under the ocean except for the highlands. She had fled, and was essentially heir to a wasteland. She signed a contract in blood giving over her kingdom in exchange for her freedom. The lizardfolk, by contrast, felt that an underwater kingdom was ideal- the leader renamed himself to King Grimscale (or something, my notes are elsewhere), and he began summoning the other lizardfolk tribes for an eventual mass exodus which will add a new faction later in the campaign when they travel to this kingdom.
With the princess in tow, they decided to save her instead of feed her to the dragon; they tied up the rogue and went to town where they planned to keep her at the tavern in disguise as a serving wench. The rogue broke free and told the story to the barkeep though and he refused to accept the princess because it might summon the dragon's wrath. The party left town and went to the dragon island; they gave the princess a haircut and boys clothes, and then badly disfigured the rogue, put him in a dress, and spent hundreds of gold disguising him as the princess. I figured that most humans look alike to the dragon, and since technically the princess had given up her claim upon her homeland the dragon couldn't use magic to tell if she was the princess anyway- he'd have to rely on memory, clothes, presentation, etc. They cut the rogue's tattoo off to prevent his respawn and fed him to the dragon, who rewarded them with magic plate armor and an optional quest to capture an orc bloodrager from a far off island and feed it to him.
The party set sail for the lizardman island again; the princess revealed that her sunken ship had a lot of treasure aboard, but they couldn't find it- it was too far underwater. She mentioned that she had retainers aboard who may have survived, so they dropped her off at the tavern (promising potential nobility to the dwarf barkeep in exchange for his hiding her, which is plausible) and returned to the lizardman island to search for retainers. The ended up in a dungeon where somebody was conducting experiments on zombies- a story/setting issue I'm introducing. We ended the game after they cleared the first floor.
We'd played from 3-9pm, 6 hours total, and only wrapped it up because our wizard had to study for her new job in the morning- she's a "professional fundraiser" as of tomorrow.
My gf just arrived so I'm gonna delay the analysis part until tomorrow... the short of it is that the player driven aspects are working great but I need to offer more introductory quests to get them into it more.
Player quotes from after game chat online:
Thunder: "I usually do better when I'm given a goal"
Matey: i think you can focus it in more as we go, as you see what it is we want. The dragon is giving out interesting quests now so thats cool. Basically making use of what we show interest in sounds good. [I improvise a lot and develop things as we go- next session i'll know where they'll be and i can detail a lot more stuff)
Matey: i just worry that if its too sand box... then the easiest thing is to find a random dungeon-ish thing and then fight, but it lacks purpose a bit. I want us to have a goal to work towards. I think the sandbox works for that- we just need to get enough group unity to decide on a goal
Matey: i think you should have intro quests to link us into the big picture but a main quest might not work we might end up having a different ambition
NateSpank: alright, any other feedback before I start planning next game?
Matey: naw im good
I figure the structure works but I should add a backbone of "main quests" to get them going a bit. I can explain better tomorrow- it's about how humans are social animals and often need to be given tasks to think they're important and worthwhile, and how the world needs to have interesting, important things going on in it. Alas, sleep!
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