Stuff I've learned about running games

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thirdkingdom
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Re: Stuff I've learned about running games

#21 Post by thirdkingdom »

I disagree -- though I would rather not derail the subject of this thread, which is not sandbox v. railroad -- a module is not railroading because it has a linear plot. It is railroading when -- either by GM insistence or poor writing -- the players are forced to take actions they do not wish to. To reiterate -- and again, this is not the thread for this discussion -- it is only railroading if the players are forced into performing actions they do not wish to.

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AQuebman
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Re: Stuff I've learned about running games

#22 Post by AQuebman »

thirdkingdom wrote:I disagree -- though I would rather not derail the subject of this thread, which is not sandbox v. railroad -- a module is not railroading because it has a linear plot. It is railroading when -- either by GM insistence or poor writing -- the players are forced to take actions they do not wish to. To reiterate -- and again, this is not the thread for this discussion -- it is only railroading if the players are forced into performing actions they do not wish to.
I agreed with this above. I run modules but I keep it open and that's where i don't feel like i'm railroading. If half the party wants to do something else they can and I absolutely agree you can fly by the seat of your pants more in PbP just depends on how detailed you want to get with doing things off the top of your head.

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thirdkingdom
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Re: Stuff I've learned about running games

#23 Post by thirdkingdom »

To speed things along -- and this can be used in both pbp and IRL games -- I typically institute a Cost of Living. At low levels this tends to start at 50 gp per month, going up incrementally every so often as the PCs gain levels, and importance. Essentially, Cost of Living covers room and board and minor expenses such as level appropriate clothing (10th level PCs will tend to dress a lot better than 1st, etc.), basic bribes for rumors, fees to enter cities, etc.

Essentially, I don't want to have to bother with players wasting time counting up coins to sleep at an inn, or similar. They're supposed to be bad-asses, compared to the average person, and having to count coin to figure if they've got enough to eat kinda ruins that, I feel, in addition to adding more book-keeping.

When I use CoL the PCs begin play having their first month pre-paid. This is in addition to their starting wealth. So, for instance, the players in In Search of Adventure are on day 21ish of the first month. Their level range is currently 1-4; most should level fairly soon. They started play having 50 gp of CoL paid in addition to their starting wealth. At the end of the current month I will be charging a second CoL. Those characters that are between levels 1-3 will pay 50 gold to cover them through the second month. Those at level 4 or higher will pay 100 gp.

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Vargr1105
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Re: Stuff I've learned about running games

#24 Post by Vargr1105 »

I never understood why higher-level characters should have higher rates of life expenditure via simple handwavium. Just because my PC levels up it doesn't mean he starts wasting more money, quite the contrary a higher level character may well become more miserly because he is saving to get off this dangerous adventuring business in the future. ;)

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thirdkingdom
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Re: Stuff I've learned about running games

#25 Post by thirdkingdom »

Vargr1105 wrote:I never understood why higher-level characters should have higher rates of life expenditure via simple handwavium. Just because my PC levels up it doesn't mean he starts wasting more money, quite the contrary a higher level character may well become more miserly because he is saving to get off this dangerous adventuring business in the future. ;)
Well, my rationale is that higher level characters stay in fancier inns/rooms, drink liquor from the top shelf instead of the bottom rail, eat nicer food, buy more expensive clothes and give out more generous tips. Plus, given a system where gold=XP, at a certain point money becomes fairly irrelevant, and charging 600 gp a month instead of 50 is proportionally less of an issue.

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thirdkingdom
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Re: Stuff I've learned about running games

#26 Post by thirdkingdom »

It should be no secret to my players that I love rolling dice. I try and leave as many decisions as possible up to the dice, as opposed to making calls on my own. There are several topics involved here, but the one I would like to tackle today involves random encounters. Specifically, random wilderness encounters and how they work with pbp. See, the OSR games that we play on the board here, I feel, directly encourages one to make use of randomness, as opposed to plotting out every little encounter.

And this is where you can save time, because remember that a)plotting out an encounter takes time and b)there is a pretty darn good chance that the PCs won't do what you anticipated and will end up bypassing your random encounter totally. So, given that I run pretty sandboxy games I rely heavily on random encounters to make up plot hooks. The past two adventures the PCs have been on have been spun directly from the random encounter table.

This does require some thought on the DMs part, but remember to keep it minimal, as you can always expand upon it if the PCs bite the hook. For instance, the first adventure started when I rolled up a solitary elf during a night-time encounter. I asked myself, "why is there a solitary elf in the middle of the wilderness, traveling at night?" (for the PCs had camped). The first thing I thought of was "Well, the elf is obviously in trouble. Maybe his village is in danger and he's been sent to find help. Yeah, that sounds good. Now, why is his village in danger? Hmmm. Maybe some ogres have moved in." And that's the plot hook the PCs heard once they decided not to attack the elf that stumbled onto their camp at midnight. They eventually did decide to help out the elf, but I had a month or more of real time to figure out what was going on.

Likewise, they are currently exploring a necromancer's tower that I placed on the map as the result of a random encounter (I roll for random features as well as encounters). But again, I had a month or more IRL to think about the tower.

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Re: Stuff I've learned about running games

#27 Post by hedgeknight »

thirdkingdom wrote:This does require some thought on the DMs part, but remember to keep it minimal, as you can always expand upon it if the PCs bite the hook. For instance, the first adventure started when I rolled up a solitary elf during a night-time encounter. I asked myself, "why is there a solitary elf in the middle of the wilderness, traveling at night?" (for the PCs had camped). The first thing I thought of was "Well, the elf is obviously in trouble. Maybe his village is in danger and he's been sent to find help. Yeah, that sounds good. Now, why is his village in danger? Hmmm. Maybe some ogres have moved in." And that's the plot hook the PCs heard once they decided not to attack the elf that stumbled onto their camp at midnight. They eventually did decide to help out the elf, but I had a month or more of real time to figure out what was going on.
Perfect example of taking a nugget of an idea and building an encounter (sometimes an entire adventure) around it! Nice work! :mrgreen:
Winter is coming...

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thirdkingdom
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Re: Stuff I've learned about running games

#28 Post by thirdkingdom »

To continue the above thought, some of the D&D retroclones (ACKS does, and several others) makes use of a monster entry called "% in lair". I make extensive use of this stat, and will even port over or assign numbers if the game I am running does not use such a stat. The way it works is this:

If you roll a random wilderness encounter also roll the % in lair. If a success, it means the creature(s) is found in or near their lair. If not, it means the creature is simply wandering about. However, I often assign another percentile that means the lair is within the hex the PCs are currently in, if not close by. To get this number I typically double the % in lair. So, if a creature has a 25% chance to be in their lair, there is another 25% chance that the lair is within the current hex. In other words, the percentile chance would look like this:
1-25 found in lair
26-50 lair in hex
51-00 lair not in hex.

Likewise, a creature that is in their lair 40% of the time would be near their lair 40% of the time:
1-40 in lair
41-80 lair in hex
81-00 lair not in hex

For instance, let us say the part encounters a group of (using the ACKS rulebook, because that is what is in my .pdf reader right now. And let us say . . . Woods.) 1d8=5, 1d12=5: 5 is "Unusual", 5 again is . . . Hellhound. The hellhound has a 1-30% chance in lair, 2d4 appearing (in lair or not): (1d100=59, 2d4=5). So, the hellhound has a 1-30% chance of being in their lair, and a 31-60% chance of being within six miles of their lair. Given the roll, the hellhounds lair (with its attendant treasure) is somewhere in the current hex.

For encounters such as this I typically randomly generate a lair. It could be a simple cave the hellhounds lair in, a ruined temple with several rooms and perhaps some other encounters or part of a larger dungeon/cave structure that leads to more and more encounters.

As an example of this, on the way back to camp from the necromancer's tower the PCs randomly encountered a group of kobolds. I had rolled for the lair and determined it was in the same hex. Based on the interrogation of a surviving kobold, it seems as if the kobold's lair eventually ties into the lower levels of the Tower, which implies a fairly extensive network of tunnels under the mountains. If the PCs desire, they could spend quite a bit of time exploring what will likely turn into a bit of a megadungeon.

It is important to note that I have yet to design such a megadungeon, nor will I do so until the PCs decide to explore it.

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