What makes for a truly bad adventure?


Advice

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NineHostages wrote:

Wow! Thank you so much for the responses everyone, this is some great advice. I'm feeling kind of stupid for buying the Kobold Guide to Game Design now (not really, it's actually a pretty cool book).

A few things I am hearing consistently -

- Avoid railroading (I'm trying to go as sandbox as possible while still having it be investigation-focused)

- Let the players be in the spotlight, and let them feel rewarded (I do get attached to my NPC's, but yes, absolutely)

- Don't let back-story dominate the text (another personal pitfall of mine, I love Rise of the Runelords for it's attention to detail and atmosphere, but I see that there are lines to be drawn)

Here's something I'm hung up on. Some people are saying that in a "mystery-style adventure", you shouldn't place impassable brick walls in front of the players, in the form of tough skill checks or obscure clues. Other people are saying that you shouldn't hold the players hands as they work through the story, and that they should feel like they're accomplishing something. It's honestly a tough balance to strike, for me anyway. Right now I'm considering just having a fail-safe event occur after a period of time that points the investigators toward the final dungeon, where all questions will be answered. If they solved any previous mysteries, they will be better prepared and better informed about what they are facing, but they still get to go fight the Big Bad. Does that reduce the importance of their investigations to mere side quests? Am I being too nice here!?

There's a few ideas in the part you're hung up on.

Making the mystery impossible to solve unless the PCs make a DC 30 Perception check (assuming that's non-trivial) is not a good approach because they may fail it. That doesn't mean that you should make that a DC 10 Perception check (that would be holding their hands, essentially). The big thing is to have multiple ways the PCs can get to the target point. Multiple clues, from different areas, are a big way to avoid that impassable brick wall. (Also the wall where the party misinterprets the clues they do find.)

Depending on the fail-safe event, it can be a problem, or it can be not a problem. I would put it more in the vein of "If you solve the mystery before time X, great work. But if you haven't solved it (and taken action against the Big Bad) by then, he performs the next step in his plan, but is sloppy, and leaves more blatant clues. Unfortunately, this means more bad things happen before you solve the mystery."

A bad failsafe would be where Sherlock Holmes shows up, deduces the villain's identity after 5 minutes examining the areas, and tells the party. A better failsafe would be, say, if the Big Bad sends a couple of minions to kill the PCs because he thinks they're further along than they are, and they're able to interrogate the minions and/or find instructions on their bodies. Basically, the fail-safe is ok if it feels organic to the adventure and centered on the PCs.

Dark Archive

Petty Alchemy wrote:
In-game events that turn one or more PCs into spectators. Sometimes PCs will want to spectate, but they should always have the option of participation.

Yup. One aspect of this is to be very careful with long duration status effects (e.g. Fear, sleep, paralyze, harpy song, dominate). A PC sitting out a combat because of a status effect is a bored player. There's a reason NPC baddies tend to use damaging spells and effects, etc. Take extra care if multiple NPCs have status effects. The potential for TPK rises quickly.

Where status effects are used foreshadowing helps the PCs prepare.

Along the same lines is know your statistics. Requiring multiple successes to achieve something can quickly become statistically improbable.

Keep them wanting more. Don't let them know everything, keep some plot unexposed, let them extrapolate the missing bits. Don't feel you have to explain everything.


Umbranus wrote:

Among the worst thing is planning a fight that can't be won to capture the players only to have them rescued by some lowly NPC after the BBEG mocked them.

This is super specific. Is it a common mistake many GMs make? If so, why is it that so many GMs think it's a good idea, and that so many players despise it?


Ooga wrote:
Umbranus wrote:

Among the worst thing is planning a fight that can't be won to capture the players only to have them rescued by some lowly NPC after the BBEG mocked them.

This is super specific. Is it a common mistake many GMs make? If so, why is it that so many GMs think it's a good idea, and that so many players despite it?

I'd say its a common flaw of railroad heavy campaigns. I'll even admit to being guilty of it a time or two. One example was I began a campaign by press ganging the party and making them sailors(sounds like skull and shackles but I'd never read that). I thought it would be a cool way to start the campaign but it didn't go as well as I'd hoped. The party wasn't happy about it and It made for an awkward beginning to the campaign. They were the pawns an NPC and his men used to help commit a mutiny and they took it badly when I had the captain explaining they where no essentially slaves for a period of months. Should have just told them they were starting as impressed sailors in character creation to keep from leaving a sour taste in their mouths.

Silver Crusade

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Can I just say that the hatred of "railroading" is not universal. A linear story progression is fine, AP's use it all the time. In fact my favourite AP, Legacy of Fire, has accusations of railroading all the time and I thought it was wonderful.

In fact all the AP's have degrees of railroading because they have to.


As in writing 'Kill Cliches'... Or play against them.

Also the narrative is delicate and players are unreliable narrators at best. If you learn to interpret your story through them, that is better than any bard re-telling it. Why? Because they will.

G


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There is a lot of good advice up-thread, so I’m going to address more specifically the type of encounter you seem to be interested in writing – namely, that of a “mystery” using the example of a “murder-mystery” encounter (rather than that of a dungeon crawl).

The Real Rule 0: Is it fun? - make sure what you are writing will be fun for both you and the players – if your players won’t find what you are interested in writing fun, there’s just going to be a lot of frustration all-around (some players game almost entirely for combat – many of these will be bored to tears by most “mystery” encounters). When you’re done writing everything set it aside for a day or three and then go back through it asking yourself “would I have fun with this if I was a PC?”. Rewrite based on that assessment.

More detailed Wall-o-text™ advise below:

Plotting – not “write a good plot”, but “draw a plot” of how the mystery event actually occurred.:

Include:
1 who was involved (ex the murderer, the vagrant who stole the ring, the murderer’s wife who was accosted by the victim, etc.) ,
2 the venue(s) of the notable interactions leading to the event which is being investigated (ex the alley the murder took place in, the tavern the murderer’s wife was accosted in, the river the body was dumped, etc.) ,
3 how the event(s) occurred (include time, visibility, weather, temperature, sounds & smells, and the appearance of those involved at the time, what [if anything] was left at the scene of the event or what impact did the event have on objects or the environment there which may be discernable to those who come afterwards)

Expand the Circle:
1 plot out “who knows what” – details not needed, just a list and what they know or think they know (I’d recommend you avoid red herrings or misinformation until both you and your players are more experienced in these types of scenarios, but limited information and exculpatory evidence are perfect for these things – just keep in mind that you’re running in a world with magical disguises and expect your players to also recall this)
2 plot out who suspects what – Ex while it may not be known that Robert the Bald killed Jack the Taller in because of what Jack said to Robert’s wife Anna, Anna may suspect and her best friend may notice that Anna’s been upset a lot lately. Basically, you want to set map out several potential trails of investigation for the PCs to follow ; this is especially important in case they get bogged down or lost in other details as it gives you a chance to give another point of investigation or ability to introduce additional complications for your plotline.
3 establish MMO’s (Means, Motive, Opportunity) for those involved for the PCs to try to determine who COULD have done the deed that is being investigated so that the PCs can eliminate suspects and circumstances in their investigation. Ex If Jack the Taller was killed with magic, who knows that Robert the Bald was a journeyman wizard before he married Anna and became the town baker?

Guiding the Narrative – because you want to avoid “railroad”, but a mystery is more difficult to “sandbox”:

1 proactive clues – these are “clues” or events which are not initiated by the players which may draw the PCs further into the plotline , the mystery event , or the surrounding environment
ex NPCs who know the PCs offer information, PCs are harassed or attacked by those attempting to cover the mystery, PCs witness NPCs being attacked by those attempting to cover the mystery (and have opportunity to intervene or otherwise directly gain information about the events or perpetrators of the events from this act – this should only be a spectator event if the PCs want it that way) , PCs are told that a normal resource is no longer available to them as a result of the mystery event (though not necessarily the nature of the mystery event / ex the victim was the main source of diamond dust in town and hasn’t been seen in days causing them to go ask around about him to try to get diamond dust), the PCs are mistaken for those who were already involved or perceived to be involved in the mystery event and are accosted by those who either perpetrated it or were affected by it.

2 reactive clues - These are “clues” or events which occur because of player initiated actions and should be the majority of your encounters
ex venues destroyed after PCs investigate the area, threats delivered via whispering wind, message or more mundane sources, NPCs warning that people have been asking around about the PCs, NPCs running away when they find out that they’ve been spotted by the PC’s, ambushes set for the PCs, etc.

3 environmental clues – this could be as mundane as noticing that the sand in the alley has been partially fused to glass or as obscure as noting what the rocks will be able to say if someone casts “stone tell” on them (which is why plotting how the actual event occurred is so important)

4 tailoring to the PCs – make sure that you tailor some of the encounters specifically to the PCs … if you know that one of the characters has what would otherwise be a useless “Knowledge: Nobility” rather than the normal “Diplomacy” give them an opportunity to show off their knowledge of obscure heraldry to an otherwise intractable NPC who then becomes “helpful”

5 player feedback – in a mystery it’s often important to know what and why your PCs are thinking about the narrative and their theories of who is involved ; sometimes this can be handled in-play, especially if the PCs are reporting or answering to an NPC, but sometimes it’s best to do so out of play (especially if they start suspecting that their employer / patron is involved somehow).

Maintaining Verisimilitude – the game may revolve around the PCs, but sometimes it’s worth noting that the world doesn’t and this can have an impact on in-play events:

1 determine who else may be interested in the mystery event and how they would normally react and what the PCs investigation may change about their normal behaviors, and how the PCs may be able to come across this information.

2 NPC resources – if the PCs decide that they want to get outside help, who is (or isn’t) around to assist them and why ; this is a good thing to have decided ahead of time so that you don’t have to make up or justify the absence of unanticipated NPCs. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, you may want to do this for the other side of the fence as well – if the PCs are too successful too quickly, who or what is available for the BBEG to draw upon, by limiting their resources and showing that the PCs may be depleting their available pool of minions, this may aid them in their investigations by back-tracking new minions or utilizing speak with dead or similar to find out where and how they were recruited. Determine the NPC resources before PC involvement for best verisimilitude.

Pacing & Systems::

Make sure that if some of your players start staring into space if there’s not come combat, that you have some combat related encounters – be sure to tie at least the majority of these encounters into the plotline you’re running, though some random encounters when PCs are in rough areas are also appropriate (ex pickpockets, muggers, nosy or paid off watch patrols)
As mentioned several times above, don’t rely on PCs to make Perception checks – use this as a vehicle to accelerate a process rather than being dependent upon it. Also, don’t forget to give circumstance modifiers for PCs who are being smart in how and what they are looking for.
Make sure that if there is a time limit on the PCs investigation both the characters and the players are aware of it. If the PCs suspect a foreign noble who is supposed to be returning to their own country in six days, that gives them a time frame to try to figure out if the noble did it or to discern that the real culprit was Robert the Bald, homicidal baker. A time limit is usually a good idea as it both adds dramatic tension and motivates the PCs to stay on task and may eliminate more esoteric or "spoilery" solutions (like waiting for the archmage you told them is out of town to come back).

Hopefully some of the above advise is useful to your adventure writing.

-TimD


Em... Probably just my opinion, but...

Don't use a "Big Bad Evil Guy" as the main antagonist?


When setting up a campaign I start with the ultimate antagonist, their plan and their motivation for the plan. I then work out the response by the agencies impacted by the antagonist and delive into their background, motivation and goals. Through this I iterate a plot where the antagonist wins but in so doing have defined the actions and counteractions of all parties involved except the players.

Next I look at the alternative courses of action that could be taken if the script didn't occur as thought. Once this is done I have a pretty good idea of the resources available to all parties in the adventure and can flesh these out as appropriate. In many cases the fleshed out reources include minions that themselves have motivations, goals and plans and these go through the same cycle at a smaller scale. This is repeated as necessary (see below)

Now the party is introduced. They are playing in a game world that would carry on if they weren't interacting with it, but their actions haven't been factored as part of the antagonist's plan or response. Whatever the party decides to do [within reason] is already covered by the framework of interactions between the other agencies based on the outcome of the party's involvement.

The level of detail mentioned above is varied so that the elements the party are involved in are fully fleshed out (e.g. I keep a list of random names for different races to make sure I never have the scenario I interrogate Hobgoblin #2 occur) but keep the parts of the adventure the players are not interacting with at a vaguer level.

Of course the players will do things that weren't pre-thought and so between sessions I update the plans and interactions according to the current situation.

It's a lot of work but I enjoy it as the story changes and adapts according to the players actions


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Most campaigns start in the following manner:

1) Create characters
2) Have players introduce their characters to each other and find some excuse as to why they'll be adventuring together (such as the cliche, "you all start at the tavern.")
3) Introductory roleplay session for the characters to get to know each other in game.
4) start the campaign, and hopefully be able to test out the character's build.

I once decided to do the opposite. I started a higher level campaign (the players started with level 8 characters) in this fashion (without allowing them to introduce their characters to each other):

"You've all been traveling and working with each other for months on a grueling campaign. After solving the mystery of the missing townsfolk and rescuing the children, you've finally found the hideout of the culprit responsible." (paraphrased from memory)

I then had them start the game with a fight against the big bad evil guy and his minions. They faced a gargantuan snake-man with a snake lower body and human torso and a bunch of its minions, which were medium sized snake-man (snake lower body and human torso). There's probably a monster like that in one of the bestiaries, but this was back in the 90s, and I couldn't find a monster like that in 2nd edition AD&D, so I made one up (actually, I took the idea from this book). At the end of the battle, they came home victorious to a bunch of celebratory townsfolk hosting a feast in their honor.

Then the real campaign started.

My players loved it. They thought it was a perfect way to explain why the characters were adventuring together (because they already have been!). It gave them the much beloved "finale" of an adventure right at the beginning, which allowed them to test their builds. It gave them an opportunity to roleplay their characters as already being friends in a friendly environment, and because they've already been in battle together, they already had some idea of who was who and what they're capable of, which really helps with the introductory roleplay session.

So I ended up starting a game like this:

1) Character creation
2) Finish the previous campaign and give them the opportunity test their builds (and also give an excuse to why they're adventuring together)
3) Introductory roleplay session for the characters to get to know each other in game
4) Start the real campaign

It may not work for everyone, but a decade and a half later they still bring it up as one of the funnest starts to a campaign.


I started my last campaign (Jade Regent) with an "opening gambit" like in James Bond movies or MacGyver.

Basically I took a small part from the AP and just dropped the PCs right in the middle of it. They started the game out and about looking for goblins (which mildly play into the AP) and the fight was on, right from the beginning.

It was cool to start that way rather than the typical "this is my PC" descriptions. Everyone got to see who the other characters were really fast, in the middle of play.


FallofCamelot wrote:

Can I just say that the hatred of "railroading" is not universal. A linear story progression is fine, AP's use it all the time. In fact my favourite AP, Legacy of Fire, has accusations of railroading all the time and I thought it was wonderful.

In fact all the AP's have degrees of railroading because they have to.

Yeah, I'd definitely check your players' preferences. Our table greatly prefers railroady adventures to sandboxy ones (both as players and DMs).

In our case, that's at least partially due to only getting to play for a few hours a week and with very little thought to the campaign between sessions We want to see a strong story develop relatively quickly and although that's possible with a sandbox campaign, it's easier for the DM to drive the story forward when players are obligingly biting at all the obvious plot hooks and being heavily guided by what the DM seems to want them to follow up on. Our DMs often get no more than half an hour to prep between sessions, so limited options/contingencies to plan for is often a necessity (depending on their comfort with winging it).


NineHostages wrote:
littlehewy wrote:

- Don't assume they will understand clues.

- Don't assume they will make their skill checks.
- Don't assume they won't figure everything out quicker than you anticipated.
- Don't assume they will fail at something.
- Don't assume they will care about a cool backstory for your adventure/NPCs.
- Don't assume they won't retreat.
- Don't assume they will retreat!
- Don't assume they will like or hate someone they're supposed to.
Thanks! Those are very helpful actually, I'm trying to put together an investigative/roleplaying heavy story. Here's a much more specific question. Do any of you find the inclusion of NPC quoted text annoying? I find myself doing that a lot, and because I have lots of weird, grotesque characters I feel like it's necessary to evoke their personalities and quirks.

Imagine the absolute dumbest conclusion your PC's could possibly come to from one of your clues. Now, drink heavily and inflict massive blunt trauma to your head and imagine the dumbest conclusion in this state. Now imagine that your PC's are about seven levels of stupid below this. That is what they will do.

My PC's are bright people, they aren't stupid. But toss a simple clue in front of them, and by the nine divines. Immediately, one will take it at overly simple face value. They find pilfered library books at a cultist's meeting? "They must have rented them." - Dead end.

Next, there will be someone who wants to sell them. "They're not worth much. The library would probably be happy to see them returned, though, hint hint, it might be a small plot point."

Then, one or all of them will make a wild assumption and possibly begin infighting. "It was totally the blacksmith. I talked to him for like, 10 seconds buying my sword, but he did have weapons that kill people, and so do cultists..." most likely leading them to kill the poor blacksmith in his sleep once they're convinced he's seeking revenge for the death of his cult buddies, and get them chased out of town or killed by the guard.


Make sure the PC's have a reason to stay committed to the plot.

About a year ago, I played in a game where we were dragged all over the game world, many varied catastrophes happening everywhere. After the third or fourth massive disaster in a place none of the PC's was really connected to occurred, we kind of just gave up and said, "Hey, it's none of our business. We're going home."

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Mentioned already, but stay away from overpowered NPCs that just are "hanging out" - like 20th level assassin walking down the street who someone 'accidently' insults (Letting the PC's know that there's bigger people out there is fine, just don't force them into meeting them).

'Railroading' can be subjective to players - generally, driving the plot is fine, just don't force it on them. If you intend for them to end up in the Caverns of Doom, let them try to figure it out/go on their own terms (even if they know that's where you are intending).

Be proactive with monsters in some battles; don't have them "waiting around in a room"...give them some ecology. Showcase some areas that hint to a creature existing there (a lair, discarded meals, etc).
If you are running a castle/fort encounter, have the guards/troops move about and try to detect and thwart the PC's instead of awaiting in room 5B.


bookrat wrote:


3) Introductory roleplay session for the characters to get to know each other in game.

Do alot of people really do that? I've been playing for 5+ years now and I don't think the roleplay to introduce ourselves at the start of the campaign has ever lasted 5 minutes, much less a session.


Thomas Long 175 wrote:
bookrat wrote:


3) Introductory roleplay session for the characters to get to know each other in game.
Do alot of people really do that? I've been playing for 5+ years now and I don't think the roleplay to introduce ourselves at the start of the campaign has ever lasted 5 minutes, much less a session.

Depending on the number of players, 5 minutes total for all players would likely only include the basic "here's what my character looks like, his class, level, and abilities, and some other quirks you might want to know about." Doesn't sound like there's any roleplaying at all. Maybe perhaps an intro paragraph spoken in character. Maybe.

While introductions typically do not last an entire session (meaning 4 hours), mine usually last about an hour or so, including the start of the plot line and roleplaying with any appropriate NPCs. The point is to flesh out the character's personalities so the other players know who they're working with. Five minutes is not nearly enough time to do that.

If you want a bit of practice with the introductory roleplaying, try explaining your character's class, level, abilities, and quirks entirely in-character, without using any out-of-character terminology. And rarely is the person who explains or describes their quirks when meeting someone else; those usually show themselves during interaction and discussion with others.

Of course, all of that is for home games only, where gaming schedules are usually more flexible. At a PFS game, "class, level, and abilities" is about all the time you'll have.

Liberty's Edge

Steve Geddes wrote:
FallofCamelot wrote:

Can I just say that the hatred of "railroading" is not universal. A linear story progression is fine, AP's use it all the time. In fact my favourite AP, Legacy of Fire, has accusations of railroading all the time and I thought it was wonderful.

In fact all the AP's have degrees of railroading because they have to.

Yeah, I'd definitely check your players' preferences. Our table greatly prefers railroady adventures to sandboxy ones (both as players and DMs).

In our case, that's at least partially due to only getting to play for a few hours a week and with very little thought to the campaign between sessions We want to see a strong story develop relatively quickly and although that's possible with a sandbox campaign, it's easier for the DM to drive the story forward when players are obligingly biting at all the obvious plot hooks and being heavily guided by what the DM seems to want them to follow up on. Our DMs often get no more than half an hour to prep between sessions, so limited options/contingencies to plan for is often a necessity (depending on their comfort with winging it).

This is where my group is at. We get just slightly over 2 hours of game time per week simply because we can't meet until late at night, and we all work the next morning. Because of this, we tend to prefer the slightly cliched and direct storylines. We just recently started a new campaign that I'm running, and so far my players seem quite content to simply move from one plot point to the next with minimal fuss.

Now, they still get to decide how to approach each situation, and they've come up with some pretty odd stuff for me to work with so far, but as long as they get to do it their way they really don't care if I make blatantly obvious clues or simply let me narrate them along.

At least, no one has complained so far.


since there seems to be a lot of general DM-ing advice on here... here is what not to do...

So… on another thread I mentioned that I thought that DM’s who used modules/settings or who relied on DMPC’s really weren’t good DMs, or weren’t “real” DMs. Of course I got hammered with onetruewayist comments… so I thought what makes a DM good or bad, I’m sure each of you may have your own not so specific list but I decided to write up mine. I’d be interested to hear if there’s anything you think should be on the list but isn’t, or if you think any of these things can be fixed by a well designed well written system, if so which ones and how? And now… without further ado..

30 Habits of Highly Unsuccessful DMs

1) Isn’t prepared
2) Can’t wing it.
3) Can’t sell it.
4) Cant act it.
5) Cant make it.
6) No Girls Allowed.
7) Table Management Fail.
8) Cant Cope
9) Cant Say No.
10) Loves the Meta-Game
11) You Want A War…
12) Where the Choo Choo Go?
13) Cannot bend Like a Reed in the Wind…
14) One Skill to Rule Them All
15) Cant You Smell That Smell…
16) Who is Your Daddy...?
17) Your Soaking In It.
18) Cant Hack It.
19) Daddy YUP! YUP!
20) Captain Homebrew!
21) I WANT TO ROCK!
22) Lawful Anal/Chaotic Stupid
23) Die! Die! Die!
24) The Never Ending Story
25) DM’s Cant Cheat.
26) All Players Cheat.
27) You No Can Haz it!
28) Cheetoist
29) 20-4 meh.
30) Obsessive much?

1) Isn’t Prepared- the adventure is always left at home, or the encounter notes, or something that he desperately needs isn’t available which results in ending the game early or skipping encounters, etc.

2) Can’t wing it- he needs to have absolutely everything written down, and will spend three out of every eight minutes (yes I actually timed a DM like this once) looking up a rule or reading an entry absolutely killing any role playing, suspense, or action built up in-game. Also typically means if the dialog isn’t written down, he cant RP for the antagonists. About the only thing worse than the cant wing it DM is the DM who thinks he can and cant… see no. 18

3) Can’t Sell It-In professional wrestling “selling it” is convincing the audience the punches are real, in D&D it’s describing the scene or the action, in a way with a touch of emotion to really let the players feel like they are in-the moment with their characters. A DM who cant do this lacks an essential skill.

4) Can’t Act- Just has little or no ability to RP, every NPC sounds the same, uses the same speech patterns, uses a lot of modern slang, and the DM will often say something like “well he’s using a British accent but I cant pull it off” or “he sounds short” then speaks in a deep bass tone. Its typical that these DMs also have trait #1 and has to refer to notes or the AP to remember what the NPC needs to say.

5) Cant make it- If the game starts at 6 he doesn’t show till 7:00 if the players start showing up at 7:00 he starts showing up at 8:00, if he cancels a game night, he waits until everyone has changed their plans and is sitting at the table before sending the notice.

6) No Girls Allowed. Happens more than ya’d think, DM cant stop himself from using rude, profane or dirty language/conversations, encourages others to do the same, or simply cant RP with a girl without blushing or quickly changing players. Some DM’s have the same problem with GLBT players (I admit I have a problem with the T, and yah it actually came up once.)

7) Table Management Fail- Just generally cant control player demands, some players get all the spotlight, others get none, slow players never get the nudge, side conversations are loud and endless, game is constantly interrupted by cell phones or other distractions. Often leads to the next habit.

8) Cant Cope- either carpet bags all his anger till it explodes with yelling, cussing and/or throwing dice, or he gets extremely quiet and just reads books or shuts off when the game gets to be too much to manage, when called on this passive aggressive behavior claims its all the player’s fault.

9) Cant Say No- A-typical Monty Hall behavior, dm kinda sucks to begin with then hands out a lot of overpowering magic items, giving incredible amounts of XP, allowing access to feats or advanced class abilities the character cant qualify for to win back the favor of the players. This is often combined with…

10) Loves the Meta Game- yup wash his car get a +5 sword, Give him Pizza get a magic item tailored just for your character, bring an attractive girl to the table and watch her become the favored character of the week, plays favorites, holds grudges and generally cant take criticism without repercussions… often leads to…

11) You Want a War- I’ll give you a war… DM sees the game as a contest between the DM and the Players, and generally the players always loose until he feels guilty and goes all Monty/meta. In his game you’ll have flashbacks of Cartman saying “Respect ma Athorita!”

12) Where the Choo Choo Go? It go wherever the hell the DM wants it to that’s where… Your on the railroad and you cant get off. This DM cant freestyle anything, any attempt to do anything not covered by an AP leads to NPC’s forcing you back into covered territory, loss of everything your character values, world destroying cataclysm, etc. etc, in short if your in his game, neither you nor your characters have free will.

13) Cannot bend Like a Reed in the Wind… you cant solve the puzzle, oh well better spend two sessions going back to town, raiding a library, and getting back again, cant beat the unbeatable BBEG’s init? oh well guess you all die, make new characters. This DM gives you no hints, clues, help, or allowances if you cant tackle some aspect of his game. A little of this can be respected too much and your time is better spent on xbox.

14) One Skill to Rule Them All- DM has a way he likes characters to handle a problem… ONE WAY!, Either the diplomancer is god or everything is a nail to the fighter’s warhammer. DM rarely offers different ways to succeed at an encounter… this is often caboose of the Choo Choo.

15) Cant You Smell that Smell- Ya show up to the game at his place and he hasn’t washed, brushed, shaved, or put on a shirt. The house is filthy, covered in fast food wrappers, maybe the detritus of 100 other gaming sessions, the garbage was last taken out with the previous tenant… and oh.. A hardcore/thrash heavy metal drummer would envy the stink coming off him… Lets be honest, the hobby attracts a lot of anti-social anti-mainstream society types and while I applaud this occasionally there’s always that one guy (player or DM) who just cant take care of basic hygiene needs.

16) Who is Your Daddy… and what does he do… well apparently he’s the DM. This DM is better than you, he’s right, always. He voted for the right candidate in the last election, worships the right god (gods/goddess or is a devout atheist) he cheers for the right sports franchise, and if you disagree with any of his true convictions, you’ll reap the whirlwind buddy, blue bolt, save or die, or just steals your chips and never ever apologizes and will often…

17) Your Soaking in It- “IT” being the preternatural glow of absolute perfection that the DMPC the DM shoved into your party seems to radiate whenever he passes gas. This DM really wants to be a player in a game with a DM as cool as him, one that knows why this absolutely bad ass guy he created needs and deserves to get all the best weapons rewards, xp etc. You can be sure 99% of the time, your adventures will likely be following this NPC around as he buys cities, fights gods etc. Face it if your in this game, your character is just one of the supporting cast to his ultimately cool main character. Probably the best thing you can do is find another game, failing that having your character become Gilligan to his Skipper and learn to endlessly repeat variant phrases of “that guy is SOOOO awesome!”

18) Cant Hack It- Just no system mastery, never knows the rules to the game he’s running, is easily played by a metagaming player, makes quick brash rulings that if you argue about just leads to bigger problems (ala no. 11) has a tendency to DM fiat and is even sometimes correct. Lots of times this is a secondary habit to no. 9, and this DM will occasionally have a lil buddy (husband, wife, friend etc) that has to be around to rules lawyer for him.

19) Daddy YUP! YUP!- when you arrive at this DM’s house you’ll quickly suspect he has a wholesale accounts with Playschool, Pet Depot, and the local goodwill. At this game the game is secondary to the responsibilities of the parent, the kids aren’t in school and the spouse is taking off. Every five minutes one of the droolers is at his knee arms lifted saying “Daddy YUP! YUP!” and demanding to be held, roll the dice, knock your expertly painted tailored minis of the table or better yet finding that the old led orc is missing an arm and it turns into a game of CLUE as to who ate it and needs to go to the ER etc,etc. meanwhile the 4yr old is chasing the screaming 3 yr old, and the three dogs and two cats are fighting over a milk bottle spilled on the couch that the DM just needs “a few minutes” to deal with. If you’re at this game, you’re now a walk on cast member of this guy’s own personal sit com, bout the best thing you can expect is that in-between “incidents” you might get to game a little bit, and there will probably be a barbeque and beer… BYOM! (no tofu allowed!)

20) Here I come to save the day!- This system sucks and Captain homebrew is on his way. Captain Homebrew really wishes he was a game designer rather than just a DM. Before you ever get to the game this guy has sent you gigs of his tweaker manifesto aka homebrew world/rules, and tells you that’s just a smidgeon of what you should read before your first session. He hates the magic system so he made his own, hated the standard ways of rolling characters so he’s got a stat/feat/class ability point buy system, hated the skills and combat system so he’s changed it to the resolution system of some game no one’s ever heard of complete with chips to spend, dice pools, and homemade combat cards. The bad news is if your playing in his game your really not playing the game he advertised as xyz edition with “some” homebrew rules, and you’ve got no idea what to expect. The good news is if you jump on board the crazytown express and agree with his mad ramblings and rants he’ll likely give you a character that has been min/maxed according to his twisted system that will absolutely pwon anything else at the table… (except for his NPC… no.17)

21) I WANT TO ROCK! This Dm requires the right music to set the stage for the game… get ready, its either going to be some Danish unholy black deathmetal bands, or darkwave trance. You’ll be lucky if his speakers only go to 11.

22) Lawful Anal/Chaotic Stupid- you don’t know how to play your character but this DM is gonna teach you. This DM generally demands that the game be serious to the extreme, has little sense of humor, and he has his own very ridged ideas on how races, alignments, background traits etc. MUST be played and failure to play to his sense of right and wrong will lead to the spinning of the great Gigaxian Wheel of Repercussions. Nobodies a winner, bring on the blue bolts and xp loss.

23) DIE! DIE! DIE! no he doesn’t use too many dice… he just wants your PCs to die. His game is lethal in the extreme. More like a game of Paranoia than a game of whatever it was you wanted to play, where if your character lived longer than half a session you should consider yourself lucky.

24) The Never Ending Story- This DM is the exact opposite of no.23, nothing in this game will likely ever kill you and all combat is usually avoided. The DM loves sticking japananime type plots into the game, choc full of mysteries you’ll never solve, twilightesque romanticized NPCs and of course non-stop conflict free story telling. And whatever you do… don’t ask them about their art, poetry, or spiritual views…

25) DM’s Cant Cheat- If ya get the feeling rolling a 1 is not much different than rolling a 20 on any knowledge or influence roll this is probably your DM. Secretly he may claim the rules tell him to roll behind his indestructible DM screen and to fudge the die rolls if it will help the game, but more often than not the truth is more likely that no die roll matters in the least as this guy wants to get to the end of his movie, and is often accompanied by the rationalization that…

26) All Players Cheat- This DM is of the opinion that all players are secretly min/maxing munchkin jerks plotting against him to ruin the game. He may require that all players use a dice tower or he spends as much time as necessary to triple check all figures on any check, stat, roll, etc.

27) You No Can Haz it!- this is the opposite of no.9, you spend three sessions and two party members die to eventually kill a BBEG or mega boss dragon and find the mountainous pile of treasure is made of coppers painted gold and the ancient magic sword is really an illusion or horribly cursed. This Dm tries to give you as little as possible and rewards no successes (possibly due to a strong belief in no. 26), often when you think he may have given you something worthwhile he will complain that it has overpowered you and soon something must come to steal it back or weaken you in some way in the great name of game/PC balance.

28) Cheetoist- the DM is the opposite of no 22, he is a fun first game second DM, he is there to have fun and eat cheetos and if the seriousness of a game interferes with having fun or eating cheetos, something needs to change. This DM has tremendous difficulty addressing any adult or serious topics in the game, the characters and NPCs are typically over the top overdrawn stereotypes, and no effort is made to separate in-game or out of game dialog… unless its funny to do so. Bottom line, this is a goofgame, any desire for in-game seriousness will be punished with out-of-game public humiliation, so don’t try, eat a cheeto and do something stupid that everyone can laugh at and when it gets old (and it will) find a more serious game… or just buy more cheetos.

29) 20-4 Meh. Just a substandard DM in which every game he runs has 20 minutes of fun spread out into 4hrs of gaming. May have elements of all or none of these habits. Either way every week will be a pure meh experience and leave you wondering if there isn’t a better way you could be spending your free time and gas money maybe for years, actually I think this is the worst kind of DM to have.

30) Obsessive Much?- this DM has little or no life, probably spends every waking moment thinking about his game, characters, a new system coming out etc. He’s dangerous in that he has deep seeded largely idealistic views about what a game should or should not contain and what actions any type of player/dm should and should not do. A true onetruewayist. Just expect endless b*+~~ing and criticism. And oh yeah… he probably wrote a list just like this one once upon a time… ;-)


to be fair, alot of these "habits" are game mechanics in interesting games.

IF (can I make this bigger, ... Oh cool I can...) IF it is known beforehand. like the Gonna kill ya, or minimum item games... but should be known beforehand, certainly


"13) Cannot bend Like a Reed in the Wind… you cant solve the puzzle, oh well better spend two sessions going back to town, raiding a library, and getting back again, cant beat the unbeatable BBEG’s init? oh well guess you all die, make new characters. This DM gives you no hints, clues, help, or allowances if you cant tackle some aspect of his game. A little of this can be respected too much and your time is better spent on xbox."

As a brand new DM, I have no idea how to balance this. What's the point of a puzzle if you're going to tell your players the answer if they don't know it? And if your players sign up for a real campaign with no "fudging", should you really be fudging regardless to make sure they survive the BBEG encounter?

Dark Archive

Ooga wrote:

"13) Cannot bend Like a Reed in the Wind… you cant solve the puzzle, oh well better spend two sessions going back to town, raiding a library, and getting back again, cant beat the unbeatable BBEG’s init? oh well guess you all die, make new characters. This DM gives you no hints, clues, help, or allowances if you cant tackle some aspect of his game. A little of this can be respected too much and your time is better spent on xbox."

As a brand new DM, I have no idea how to balance this. What's the point of a puzzle if you're going to tell your players the answer if they don't know it? And if your players sign up for a real campaign with no "fudging", should you really be fudging regardless to make sure they survive the BBEG encounter?

As a new DM, my suggestion to you would to avoid reading too much into posts like this.

As to puzzles, clues and players figuring it out my advice to you is this: You don't need to fudge it so that they will get it anyway, this is the defeatist no imagination method of dealing with the problem.
You (as in the DM) should have several puzzles and clues/problems than can be solved, none of which should trigger the "I win" button in a module. If the players have the vested skill and use some creativity in problem solving, then they get rewarded with a nugget of information/shortcut/bonus - but you shouldn't hinge the whole adventure on solving one puzzle or problem - if you do, you can write up (in advance) several possible solutions to X. You may be surprised by what you players come up with that will not be on your list.

If they don't figure it out, hopefully they will go at a pace where they can react if they do not have all the hidden cards exposed before the end. You should reward problem solving, but a group that may not be configured right (skill set) or is new or just has bad luck on rolls should not fail due to their inability to solve a puzzle. The puzzle solving should be a boon, not a doom on the party if it isn't properly solved. They may also figure it out eventually before the big fight, catching onto clues and solving puzzles may just give them more information to be better prepared - but that doesn't mean certain doom when the final fight happens.

Don't be taken in by all the DM bashing going on here, it's been a d20 player hobby since 3rd edition came out (even before actually, just ramped up with 3rd ed). You have a problem, post in the advice section and state that you are a new DM, someone will jump in with good advice to help you out.


thats the big question, what's the point of the puzzle? generally as a player and DM I hate puzzles.

lets get specific, in the last game I was in we spent two sessions getting to the location of the dungeon, there was an ancient mostly forgotten lord for every school of magic, and there was a statue at the dungeon entrance for each lord, now figuring out that a spell had to be cast from each school on the correct statue was not hard, something just about any player in time and through the process of elimination (statue glows when you cast the right kind of spell) could figure out.

BUT if the puzzle would have required calling out the name of each lord, we would have been in deep bantha fodo. yes the DM provided many means for us to learn the names, yes we had many of them however if that was required we would have had to spend 2-4 sessions getting info we should already have gotten and another two sessions getting back to the dungeon.

so IMHO a puzzle should be solveable by any player given enough time and a minimum of resources. BTW in a sense this is also a new school gamer vs old school gamer issue. in old school games (like AD&D) there were no skills you could roll to figure out a puzzle, as a player you learned to take copious notes about everything. In new school games there are skill rolls, and with many modern DM's if a player cant figure out a puzzle they will simply say "make a skill roll" and even if the player misses the roll say "well you got close enough so..." and explain the puzzle. I personally find this annoying. If I do put a puzzle in an adventure, I wont let it be solved by rolling a few dice because then there really isnt any point to the puzzle other than maybe wasting some time on a nifty scene description.

Fudging is a different issue, as a new DM your likely going to be making some mistakes on encounter ballence vs character ability. its generlly best to start with having slightly underpowered encouters and build up till they become a challenge but not overpowering. keeping on that edge between challenge and TPK especially in a "no fudging" "real" campagin is often a difficult task for most DM's even with a lot of expirence. Thats where the fudging comes in, when mentioned in the habits above, it was more like every roll the DM makes is a fudged roll, I think a good DM does fudge a roll every now and then, but too much fudging makes the challenges seem fake,or auto-win for the players.

This is why a lot of games make use of "hero" or "fate" point systems, where the players earn points they can spend to keep their characters alive. I use a similar mechanic and it does allow me to better control character death, and helps me push that challenge slider up to near TPK without going over, BUT I dont agree with always letting the characters survive, I think one character kill per 4 mo (16 sessions) is about average for me, and most times the revolving door of fantasy character death allows for resurection reincarnation etc.

EDIT- in regards to Auxmaulous's post, "DM bashing" has been around since long before 3rd, its been around since the first poorly run game, probably with Gygax. I dont think pointing out bad habbits common to bad DM's equates to "bashing". If that were so any suggestion as to how to be a better DM or how to identify a bad DM is bashing not "good advice".

I had many of these habbits over the years and had to unlearn them to become a better DM. Its kind of like shooting, everybody who target shoots develops more and more bad habbits over time, and the only way to fix it is go to the range more often and keep shooting till you overcome them. Sometimes the hardest part is identifying exactly where you are going wrong, and that is the point of that peice I wrote.

Figure out where your strenghts are, and play them up in your adventures, then figure out what weaknesses you have that you need to improve on and improve. because knowing is half the battle ;-)


PhelanArcetus wrote:

Since you mentioned investigation, there's a couple of links I need to dig up.

Don't Prep Plots, Prep Situations

Three Clue Rule

These basically amount to "assume that your players will not follow the plot you designed, and miss or misinterpret most of the clues you provide".

These here really can't be stressed enough. Especially if you're looking to actually distribute a pre-written adventure, rather than just prepping for the next session in your regular ol' home game.

Someone brought up Legacy of Fire earlier as a "railroady" AP. Technically it does have two moments where the party is more or less forced into something (books 3 and 4 both more or less end with the party being dumped into the setting of the next book without much in the way of a chance to go off and do their own thing between adventures). I doubt anyone has a real serious problem with that though (aside from the repetitive nature of the execution anyway), because when you're playing a pre-printed adventure, there's an assumption that you're going to go on that adventure. Otherwise the GM has to throw the whole book out and start from scratch.

What Legacy of Fire DOES have however is an adventure in the path that's seriously guilty of taking an over-plotted approach. The Jackal's Price (book 3) in a non-spoilery fashion, is laid out something like this:

The party finds a particular MacGuffin they were never given any particular reason to seek out, which is actually squirreled away in a pretty out of the way area (technically, this happens in the previous adventure, so shame on it for that).

The party takes this item to show an NPC friend (again, no real reason they should especially be expected to do this).

This NPC urges them to go show it to someone else, in another city (this bit's a reasonable adventure hook, starting things off with something like this is kinda necessary, but it shouldn't require a setup like this to happen).

There's this whole cascade of events staggered over a few days with all sorts of crazy assumptions, where the PCs are expected to talk to a lot of strangers, let word out about what they've been up to, go along with someone else's plan, and agree to the demands of some shady characters (with a couple ideas tossed out on how to get them back on track if they don't play along with all of this, but even so).

Even once it eventually heads into a dungeon, the structuring of it makes it shockingly easy to reach their objective without ever running across the actual climax of the adventure, which is just as likely to be more of an anticlimax if they should stumble across an NPC handing out Get Out Of Boss Battle Free cards.

Now, to be totally fair, when I ran this adventure for my group, everything actually did play out according to plan, and it was a highlight of the AP, but if I hadn't done a good job of subtly steering the PCs decisions, I'd have had an awful lot more work on my plate. So enjoyable as it is if things go smoothly, it's a good example of what not to do.

The rest of Legacy of Fire on the other hand is wonderfully structured. Most chapters, or the main focus of them at any rate, begin by presenting a straightforward goal in a straightforward fashion. (i.e. This monster is a huge threat, kill it./This item is vitally important for something, get it. It's in that building over there.)

From there out, there's just a big ol' interesting map, and a bunch of interesting NPCs. Things are designed so that a party with no interest in being clever can (albeit with difficulty) just kinda charge in, methodically explore, kill pretty much everything they see, and accomplish their goal or die trying. However, they also make sure to include plenty of payoffs for clever things PCs might think to try. What if they want to sneak in? Here's some alternate entrances to certain areas scattered about. What if they want to catch their enemies off guard? Here's some notes about how various NPCs spend their day when they don't think they're under attack, versus when they're on guard. What if they want to try and get some extra help? Here's an NPC with some insider knowledge willing to provide some assistance. What if they want to cause some chaos and take advantage of the situation? Here's some rivalries or hazards they might be able to use to their advantage. No assumptions are made that they will find any of this stuff, but if they do, rather than have to improvise, the GM has notes right in hand on how to reward them for trying something clever.

The main thrust of the first adventures in both Kingmaker and Jade Regent, off the top of my head, are also excellent examples of this sort of design approach, just off the top of my head.

Oh, and a couple less intense bits of advise:

If you're going with a dungeon, try to give it a clearly tiered structure (lower floors/getting past nested fortress walls=more progress, harder enemies), and lay things out so that it's generally clear which way to go to reach the next tier. Some parties like to slowly crawl through a dungeon, making sure they don't miss anything, and have safe places to fall back to. Some parties like to just blitz in, deal with the biggest threat, and then double back at a more leisurely pace. Nobody likes being forced through a linear sequence of rooms.

If you're setting something up as a big ol' climactic boss, toss in some friends. One big NPC/creature rarely makes for an interesting fight, no matter what cool things it can do. When you have the big ol' nasty spellcaster, the big beefy brute, and the elite guard squad rushing in because they heard an alarm, that almost always leads to an interesting session.


baalbamoth wrote:

since there seems to be a lot of general DM-ing advice on here... here is what not to do...

So… on another thread I mentioned that I thought that DM’s who used modules/settings or who relied on DMPC’s really weren’t good DMs, or weren’t “real” DMs. Of course I got hammered with onetruewayist comments… so I thought what makes a DM good or bad, I’m sure each of you may have your own not so specific list but I decided to write up mine. I’d be interested to hear if there’s anything you think should be on the list but isn’t, or if you think any of these things can be fixed by a well designed well written system, if so which ones and how? And now… without further ado..

30 Habits of Highly Unsuccessful DMs

1) Isn’t prepared
2) Can’t wing it.
3) Can’t sell it.
4) Cant act it.
5) Cant make it.
6) No Girls Allowed.
7) Table Management Fail.
8) Cant Cope
9) Cant Say No.
10) Loves the Meta-Game
11) You Want A War…
12) Where the Choo Choo Go?
13) Cannot bend Like a Reed in the Wind…
14) One Skill to Rule Them All
15) Cant You Smell That Smell…
16) Who is Your Daddy...?
17) Your Soaking In It.
18) Cant Hack It.
19) Daddy YUP! YUP!
20) Captain Homebrew!
21) I WANT TO ROCK!
22) Lawful Anal/Chaotic Stupid
23) Die! Die! Die!
24) The Never Ending Story
25) DM’s Cant Cheat.
26) All Players Cheat.
27) You No Can Haz it!
28) Cheetoist
29) 20-4 meh.
30) Obsessive much?

Personally, I think that's a little harsh. A lot of those are just signs of an inexperienced DM, in my opinion - not necessarily an unsuccessful one.


my current DM is a no.2 (with a few minors in some of the others) he has been running TTRPG's for 30 years and is currently running 3 pathfinder games a week, and playing in one as well. He is anything but inexperienced. I think the gage of success or unsuccess depends on the feedback of the players themselves. In every one of those examples including no 29 I went to the extreme, most people will have elements of many of those but probably not to the n-th degree I am outlining.


i have to disagree with all the people who say railroading is bad. this really depends on the group, some groups love sandbox style play where anything goes. my group likes a very structured story / plot and to have it very clear what to do next. i think the fact that we are all adults with very busy lives and little time to play is a big factor in this. sandbox type games need a lot of time to prepare (or you have to be very good at improvising), where as structured stories are (usually) a lot easier to prepare. anyway, i guess i'm say don't discount railroading just cause some don't like it, cause there are definitely some out there who do like it. talk to your players.

The Exchange

Be very aware of what level you are writing an adventure for....
Make sure that you understand, fully, what resources and spells the party may have access to. There is nothing worse than spending a ton of time writing a wonderfully complex encounter/challenge that may lead the PCs in a desired direction that can be bypassed or overcome with a simple spell that you overlooked.
Good luck on the writing.


NineHostages wrote:


Here's something I'm hung up on. Some people are saying that in a "mystery-style adventure", you shouldn't place impassable brick walls in front of the players, in the form of tough skill checks or obscure clues. Other people are saying that you shouldn't hold the players hands as they work through the story, and that they should feel like they're accomplishing something. It's honestly a tough balance to strike, for me anyway.

Reward players for their choices more than for their dice rolls.

Say a love letter with important information is hidden under the pillow in someone's bedroom. Instead of (or in addition to) a perception check, if some thinks to check under the pillow, give them the clue. And, as I said never lay out only one copy of an important piece of information.

At best, you can improvise clue placement in such as way as to leave the story coherent and logical, but that is very difficult and requires a great skill of keep the overview.

Quote:
Right now I'm considering just having a fail-safe event occur after a period of time that points the investigators toward the final dungeon, where all questions will be answered. If they solved any previous mysteries, they will be better prepared and better informed about what they are facing, but they still get to go fight the Big Bad. Does that reduce the importance of their investigations to mere side quests? Am I being too nice here!?

Well, here is what shouldn't happen: The PCs don't achieve anything during the adventure and then suddenly there's the BBEG to fight. Such lack of context is not a good thing. So rather then just letting the adventure solve itself, drop in some events in order to nudge the PCs in the right direction or help them see something they've been missing. It would even be better to just point something out to them, rather then just dropping the hammer with no explanation or apparent reason.


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I think some interesting things have been touched on here. A lot of the responses have focused more on general GMing advice than on writing adventures. It makes me realize that writing an adventure is, to a certain extent, creating an incredibly detailed set of campaign notes for other people to use. A writer needs to make some good solid stat blocks, useful maps, but otherwise do the same thing any GM would do when planning a game (with more detail). Not such a deep observation I guess.

I find it challenging because I don't run campaigns that way. I improvise like crazy, I barely plot out encounters, I ignore a whole bunch of rules, and my games are usually really fun for everyone (maybe they wouldn't be for some of you). When I make storytelling mistakes, or the players don't do what I expect, I simply steer the story in a new direction, because that is one of the wonderful things that role-playing games allow you to do.

From what people have described, running a flexible, open-ended story, with emphasis on player choice and control is a recipe for success in this game, and I would agree. But an adventure module seems to be the opposite of that by it's very nature.

I'm not saying writing one isn't worth my time, I find it to be a rewarding challenge. But there's so much about them that are sort of inimical to a successful game (railroading). Eh, I'm not saying anything constructive here...

I really appreciate all of this advice though! I guess I'm curious now about how people think of modules as providing something "different" from normal homebrew campaign experiences. When is a module innovative or inspiring? When does it do something amazing that you couldn't do left to your own devices?


dotting to steal everyone else's good ideas because i'm uncreative


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Touc wrote:


Never include any description or text that tells players how they feel, act, etc. Don't ever make players feel like you're reading them a novel and they're along for the ride, rolling dice from time to time that really don't matter because your story will turn out the way you want regardless of the player's actions.

SO MUCH THIS. I've had some bad DMs, but the ones that did this were the most irritating. If the players wanted to be reading a novel, they would read a novel. My particular "favorite" example is a DM I know who constantly defaults to, "suddenly you're no longer in control of your body, and you do X bad things. And you like it!" Which is not only lame, but also insulting.

"Suddenly you wake up and it was all a dream" adventures I also personally detest, along with "reality isn't what you've been playing in for the last x months!"

Having NPCs then waltz in and easily do what the PCs were failing to do (sometimes using the exact same actions, like talking to NPCs that abruptly change their tune with no magic involved) is also bad. Or having NPCs dictate to the PCs what they should do, or worse yet, enforce their will in ways the PCs can't fight back against or get around.

Arbitrarily nixing solutions/actions that should either work or fail entertainingly is another bad idea. (Example that happened to me: For some reason, evil fire giants live in an underground rift very close to an underground lake. Like, a few meters away (I don't know either). You have to get past them (not in the rift, but past it), and they're way above your APL. Sneaking flat out will fail, as warned by the DM. Using the old Dig spell to dig a funnel for the water into the rift fails for no reason too. Not "Doesn't dig a channel wide enough to drown the giants quickly enough" or similar reasons; the spell just fails.)

/rant

TL;DR:

  • hijacking characters
  • "it was all just in your head/a dream"
  • have NPCs succeed where the PCs fail
  • have NPCs dictate what PCs choices are
  • don't give players a chance to come up with something unusual (or just disallow actions that should be possible for story reasons)


better campaigns have simple puzzles and open ended ideas

dont ever assume your players will do things, and always assume they will want things

im planning on basing a main arc of my next campaign on the assumption that my players are going to want to obtain magic weapons, and to do that, they will need to adventure to find the only NPC who can craft magic weapons (i plan on not having any NPCs above lvl 3 for this part of the campaign, so they have to find a forgemaster dwarf, in the dwarven city)

i always like to have A or B scenarios planned out depending on how my players interact with my NPCs

usually its a Good Path or an Evil Path

also they should feel like the decisions they make in game matter, dont let them be a bunch of selfish CN as*holes and then have the city treat them like heroes, and dont let the city treat them like heretics and rapists if they are LG

the character interactions should feel organic


Fanstastic thread here. I love all the info and perspectives, dotting.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

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I know this isn't specific, but...

A bad adventure is one where the players aren't having fun.

Look at your adventure and picture yourself playing it. In fact, maybe you COULD playtest it by yourself. If you don't think you'll have fun, then likely neither will your players.

A large part of this is knowing your players. Some players are perfectly fine being railroaded if it's a good ride. Some players want to direct where the story goes. Some just want to dungeon crawl all the time. Some prefer roleplay while others prefer combat. Find out what your players like and design your adventure accordingly. Be flexible and ready to change your adventure towards directions that interest your players.


I think it's important to remember that there are a lot of different players who like a lot of different games. If your campaign is for general use, and not for your specific players, don't try to be all things to all people. You will most likely end up with a big mess. Look at paizo- they mix it up. Shattered Star is a good example. It's a lot of dungeon crawling. A lot of people don't like dungeon crawling. A lot of people love dungeon crawls. So Shattered Star catches some flack from people who don't like dungeon crawls, but the campaign isn't written for them. There are other campaigns for them. Paizo intentionally tries to write a variety of different campaigns to appeal to different play styles. So pick a play style you want for your campaign and stick with it. Don't try to make a campaign that has it all.
From Bill Cosby: "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."

Some other people have mentioned this: don't be too afraid of railroading. Rails are just another tool in your campaign-writing toolkit. If you use them sparingly, and if they aren't too obvious (actually I think a good rule of thumb for rails is: rails are only a problem if your players can see them. As long as players FEEL like they are in control everything is fine) then they can be a good thing. Having a campaign where players are grasping at straws and without any sense of direction is bad, and a judicious use of a trolley here and there to get them where they need to go is fine.

With all that said, as to your question of what makes a truly bad adventure, I think one theme that is really showing itself throughout this thread is that your players need to feel a sense of agency. They need to feel like they are responsible for and in control of their characters choices, feelings and destinies. Any time you take that away, either by having NPCs win their battles, or by making their characters decisions for them, or by telling them how their character feels about something, as examples that others have mentioned, you are damaging the bond between the player and their character. In rare cases you can get away with this (for example the occasional curse or dominate used on a character, or the occasional (hopefully invisible) railroad) but do it too often and you have a bad campaign on your hands.

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