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Help. :( I have a story planned out but I don't know what to do if say, the players refuse to go to the village with the ninjas.
Plus I don't know what to do about making a village seem realistic, if they want to explore the woods do I make encounters completely off the fly? Argh first time GM panicking haha!
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Don't plan out a story in great detail. Having a vague outline is fine or even good. But planning out every little twist won't work. In particular, don't plan for the players taking a certain route. They'll often find a different one.
Having ideas for events at the village is good; planning on the party getting to the village by traveling with the ninjas is bad.
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Help. :( I have a story planned out but I don't know what to do if say, the players refuse to go to the village with the ninjas.
Plus I don't know what to do about making a village seem realistic, if they want to explore the woods do I make encounters completely off the fly? Argh first time GM panicking haha!
One of the rules that I use in adventure design is the "rule of three"; if there's something that you want the players to do, provide at least three hooks. So if they're supposed to go to the village, provide three different clues that point that way.
About making a realistic village.... there are lots of "village" maps available for download, either free, pirated, or for sale. I can specifically recommend the Snows of Summer adventure from Paizo as having a good village map, complete with some inhabitants. You can easily refluff it to put it anywhere in the world you need it. The most important thing, I find, is to treat a village is a set of reasonable and meaningful individual encounters. The party is not going to go into every hut or talk to every inhabitant, but if you can make the Pig & Whistle a believable country inn, that will go far.
Exploring the woods is easy. You can either say that nothing happens (and suggest that they find something more interesting elsewhere), of alternatively pick some random animals. Or, even better, have them find some clue that steers them to the next step of the adventure.
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Don't plan out a story in great detail. Having a vague outline is fine or even good. But planning out every little twist won't work. In particular, don't plan for the players taking a certain route. They'll often find a different one.
Having ideas for events at the village is good; planning on the party getting to the village by traveling with the ninjas is bad.
This. When I plan out a story, it is really just an outline with key events/stages. The steps to getting to those events is left blank. That way I can just steer the PCs to those events based on their actions.
Of course, I have to often pull stuff out of thin air, but it works for me. Especially when you have list of encounters, npcs, etc, to cheat with.
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Try reminding your players that you are a first time GM.
Tell them that you have a story planned out, but are a bit nervous and not confident that you can handle things if it goes off track.
Say "please" go with me on this, I know it's a bit of a rail road, but I really want to make my first adventure work.
Most players are adults, who are there to have a good time with their friends, and won't take the opportunity to stick the boot into you. Some players are also GM's and will almost certainly buy into helping out the new kid if asked politely.
Once you get your confidence, you'll learn to go with the flow, roll with the punches, and judge when to nudge the players back on your main track or just free form whilst they are motivated to do their own thing.
Remember:
The first rule of GM'ing is don't say "NO", set the difficulty.
The Second rule is don't say "NO", make up a mini encounter/scenario..... on the spot if need be.
100% agree. Railroading isn't fun, sure, but if you back a newbie DM into the corner, and they have no idea where to go with the game, that's no fun either.
"Well guys, I had four possible adventures worked out, you didn't take any of the bait. I guess this weeks game is over!" Yuck.
You'll get better at making stuff up on the fly as you DM, but for right now, talk with the players and try to remind them to help you out.
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Start: PCs going somewhere
End: PCs stopping in Ninjaville
That's what we know for certain. I don't know where you're having them start from, but here's what I'd do:
1. You've heard tell of Ninjaville, a lovely rural stop along the Trade Way. Currently they're readying for the annual festival to honor their cash crop. It's called the Parsnip Pandemonium and is three days of pure fun.
2. Near Ninjaville a recent mudslide has uncovered an ancient siege tower, buried in rubble in the side of a hill. Initial inspection suggests the thing runs deep into the earth, but a terrifying monster chased off the villagers.
3. A merchant is headed down the Trade Way bound for Ravenhurst. His route will take him past Ninjaville and he intends to linger a bit in the village for the festivities. He's looking to hire some guards since bandit attacks are always up this time of year.
4. The Church of Pharasma has taken an interest in dungeon recently uncovered near the village. Reports of a terrifying monster chasing off some villagers have led Pontess Hylgava, high-priestess of the church to suspect the undead. Currently her clergy is dealing with an outbreak of Filth Fever and she'd like to hire the PCs to head there and check it out.
You can feel free to invent some other hooks to get them there. Once you've got your hooks in place, generate Ninjaville. You know it'll be a ninja-infested village, but what else? Is it insular and clannish? Are the folks superstitious? Is the village sitting at a prosperous crossroads or stand next to a holy site?
Once you have the village built, then work backwards. Find ways to pepper in info you made about the village to keep the party attracted to it. For example, perhaps in making Ninjaville you decided it has a witch as its healer. Her name is Jabba Gaga and she is kind of frightening so she lives on the outskirts of the village.
Maybe the merchant they're traveling with intends to go to her for a "love" potion (wink wink); perhaps Pontess Hylgava knows the woman personally and tells the PCs not fear the witch of Ninjaville and to seek her out for healing potions. Perhaps a rumor is going around that a witch in the village had something to do with the mudslide that uncovered the dungeon.
Bottom line: if the players enjoy story and use the details you give them to guide their adventures at all, they now have AMPLE ammo to get them from start to finish, exactly where you needed them to be the whole time.
One thing I always do is plan out multiple adventures. Because, sometimes, players just don't want to go there. Make at least one of those adventures hook back into the place they were supposed to go.
For example, you need them to enter Spooky House and deal with it being haunted. They take one look at the house and run for it.
Well, instead, they visit the library, looking for a tome... and find out it was last rented out by a person who lived on 132 Generic Street. They visit there, find it is empty, fight off a ghoul in the basement, then find notes saying the guy went to Spooky House.
Well, now, they have to go to Spooky House. If, instead, they decide not to... shelve it. Let them discover while visiting Creepy Graveyard that the note was a fake, the guy went there instead, and... oh hey, there's the book!
Sometimes, you have to accept that the players simply won't go somewhere.
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Usually I'm the sole voice suggesting railroading for new GM's, but I'm glad somebody else got here first. This should also address some of your questions
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Thank you everybody. :)
I'm going to see how my first session goes and then brainstorm what I need to work on.
Railroading isn't all that bad. It beats watching PCs dither around in the woods doing nothing. But make sure your players know where your game lies on Moh's Scale of Railroadiness/Sandboxiness.
Don't limit your players' actions out of hand, though. But make sure they know that if the game is very railroady normally, if they go too far off the rails then you may need to break for the session so that you have time to prepare something worthy.
Also, even if you do preplan story events (and there's nothing wrong with that!), always plan several disparate paths that the players could take, and understand your NPCs well enough to roll with the punches if (no, when) the players surprise you and choose a path you didn't expect.
The Compass Rule is your friend. Have 6 villages an stud first one they go to isthe one with ninja. While technically it is railroady the illusion of choose is just as good as actual choice when the players don't know what will happen next.
The Compass Rule is your friend. Have 6 villages an stud first one they go to isthe one with ninja. While technically it is railroady the illusion of choose is just as good as actual choice when the players don't know what will happen next.
Players tend to catch on to that one eventually. Then they realize that none of their decisions really mattered. Then they find another group.
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One of the best tools in a GM arsenal is the magician’s choice. The magician’s choice refers to seeming to give someone a choice but in reality they have no choice. The classic example is having a person chose between two people. If they chose the one you want then you do what you planned to that person. If the chose the wrong person then make a big deal over sparing that person and then do what you were going to do to the other person anyways.
If you have an encounter that is absolutely crucial to the adventure and the players are heading away from it simply move the encounter. This works best when the players have missed the clue and not trying for some reason to avoid the location they are supposed to be at. If you originally planned the ninja village to be south of the main city, but the players head north then move the village. Don’t over use it and the players may never realize they have been railroaded.
What the Mysterious Stranger said.
You need the illusion of choice not actual choices.
Another way to do it is a bit more freeform, sketch out an area with some settlements and points of interest then jot down some things about each area, a few lines will do, find a list of names and some encounter tables that will work for level / area. And then add a few events that will happen, say town X will be raidef by orcs from PoI X3 on the 4th day. If the Pcs are there they get to fight, if they're not then news will spread in the following days depending on how far away. If the pcs visited PoI x3 and killed some orcs there's no raid or a weaker one. You'll want 3-6 or so towns, 20-40 random names (don't stat out all npcs, but do name each one they talk to), 3+ points and about that many events too. Drop the pcs in and let them play around.
After each session write down short notes on what events have happened, cross out names you've used and a line about the one that got the name and expand the world with a few new areas, poi's and events this will allow you to dynamically create a world around them that feels alive, try to key in things the pcs done or heard about into new events. For example town X was raided so now they have put out a reward for any one who can bring the orc leaders head. A few sessions in if they did nothing then they might hear that town X has been sacked and the orc problem is spreading, or maybe they overhear a small group of people in a tavern a few towns out talking about how they are going there to claim the reward.
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I normally plan three hooks for the adventure and three other things that may happen if they don’t take the bait, with these three other things having ties back to what I want the players to actually be doing. I've only had one adventure that this contingency planning didn't work and the entire thing was 100% on the fly. My players enjoyed it, I thought it a nightmare.
Plot Hook Cards: index cards with a cool picture, a title and a brief description of the conflict that the plot hook revolves around. Make a bunch of these then throw 'em on the table. As the players talk to NPCs, investigate clues or just generally amble around, drop others and take some away.
Example:
After the party kills a bunch of rats in the market square and begins talking to NPCs shaken up by the fight, toss out
1. Scour the sewers for other rats
2. Help the market get back in order
If they go down into the sewer and complete that quest, remove the other one; if they help out the market, get rid of the sewers. During the course of either quest, find a way to throw out other things:
(from Sewers)
1. Investigate weird rune on the wall
2. Ratcatcher Goyle knows about abandoned wine cellar cache treasure
3. Follow up with creepy alchemist Vyllethag who is buying rats from guild
(from market)
1. Help barmaid investigate husband's death
2. Save nearby villagers in the hinterlands for adventurer's guild
3. Hunt down and harvest rare herb for local herbalist in the market
Now, some of these might cross over one another. Some might remain viable after others have been completed while others might be time sensitive and cycle out instead. As players physically see adventure options appear at their fingertips and then disappear, they may be more apt to take one over another and their preferences and needs will begin to become more apparent.
What the Mysterious Stranger said.
You need the illusion of choice not actual choices.
If I found out my GM was doing this, I'd leave the group. Loudly.
You are asked to go on an adventure. You complain that adventures make one late for dinner and go back inside your house. Later that evening a bunch of dwarves invite themselves in and ask you to sign a contract to go on said adventure; you still say no. In the morning you wake up and the dwarves are gone. When you run out the door after them, what do you want your GM to do?
A. have them accept you anyway (railroading you into the adventure)
B. have them tell you to get lost leading to potential Diplomacy skill challenge you might lose and still get tossed out of the adventure anyway
c. the GM tells you you missed the dwarves and you have no skill at tracking so your adventure is now picking turnips
I guesss my point is if your GM has generated a couple main plot points for his adventure and you ignore them ALL, shouldn't your GM then try to get you back into one of those points at all costs? It'd be like starting Kingmaker, getting to the
I have no problem with a little sleight of hand once in a while. Of course, the few times I've been a player lately I've blindly accepted some ridiculous plot hooks just for the sake of keeping the game going too.
The Compass Rule is your friend. Have 6 villages an stud first one they go to isthe one with ninja. While technically it is railroady the illusion of choose is just as good as actual choice when the players don't know what will happen next.Players tend to catch on to that one eventually. Then they realize that none of their decisions really mattered. Then they find another group.
Yea, if you lean too heavily on it as a crutch. You need to have compelling plot hooks and players who are not prone to derailing campaigns as well to be completely successful.
I guesss my point is if your GM has generated a couple main plot points for his adventure and you ignore them ALL, shouldn't your GM then try to get you back into one of those points at all costs? It'd be like starting Kingmaker, getting to the ** spoiler omitted ** and having you go "oh, you don't have a pub here? Well screw it I'm back to civilization then..." and if that's the case, then why did you bother playing Kingmaker for then?
I have no problem with a little sleight of hand once in a while. Of course, the few times I've been a player lately I've blindly accepted some ridiculous plot hooks just for the sake of keeping the game going too.
This. It is also the player's responsibility to realize that there is a plot for them to find and follow.
There are 2 responsibilities for plot continuance in the game:
1. Players, trust your GM: go with one of the hooks, even if it's obvious and you know where it leads. Get involved in something your GM has planned because...
2. GMs, work with your players: chat w/your players before you even make your first adventure choice. Once you have a general idea what kind of game your players want, give it to them.
In my current homebrew I started with 2 guys that like classic gaming (dungeon hacks, not much plot) but are both just starting to enjoy roleplaying. We dialogued, I pulled together elements of a megadungeon design, and they made characters. Their characters showed the RP interests they had.
One of them is a paladin of Iomedae who hates kobolds and evil in general. He's also a skilled weaponsmith. He makes a point to go around town memorizing maker's marks to identify who made what weapon.
The other is a dwarf cleric of Saranrae. He's also got a hate-on for kobolds. In his spare time he's an engineer and a stone mason.
My first couple plot hooks were around heading into some sewers to investigate pre-town construction found below the streets and the other was helping a blind weaponsmith locate and secure a forge-shrine. They went with the weaponsmith one.
In regards to CR I find that factoring in player creativity is among the hardest factors to guess. I either think that players need things spelled out and make things too easy, or think that players are too clever and they immediately start dying. The worst is when I think players are stupid and they are way more stupid than I thought. I recently quit DMing a campaign for various reasons but one of those reasons was that my level 9 MR 1 players were being killed by a group consisting of 6 CR2s 2 CR3s and a CR4. Each of them aside from the CR4 had 16 hp.
but when I get told I can go down three different paths, and all lead to the same place with very little difference, it's kinda annoying.
Why couldn't three different paths lead to the same place? As long as the journey is different. Video games use this all the time.
Also to those that talk about not meeting character X if they go to a different pub, people move around he could be in pub A but move to pub B if he doesn't find what he's looking for.
And how would you know where he was? If you meet him you don't know he wasn't 'supposed' to be there. As long as pub B looks and feels different from pub A then you did have a choice.
However if it makes no sense for person X to ever be in pub B then that is a different story. He could however have someone watching it so he could catch you when you leave ect.
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If there's an obvious hook, and it's a case of we need to take it or we can't proceed, that's fair enough, adventure paths are built on those, but when I get told I can go down three different paths, and all lead to the same place with very little difference, it's kinda annoying.
Well, what if you had this scenario:
Your PCs have never met but a sudden bunch of giant rats in the market brings you together. After you're done fighting the beasts and your PCs have calmed, you meet several other NPCs
A local ratcatcher who's got a lead on a cache of rare wine in an abandoned cellar but needs the party's help to get past monsters
An adventurer guild captain that knows of a village near the city in need of aid against giant spiders that are acting very strangely
Now in all three of the above plot hooks you're going to meet mites and those creatures are all going to have ties to a ruined tower uncovered in the woods. Yet you wouldn't know all 3 had mites and the tower in common unless you followed up on all of them, which your GM prevents you from doing since 2 of them resolve to other consequences while you're away:
If the PCs don't go after the evil foreman he gives the axe to the mites and is subsequently killed
If the PCs don't help the village many die and one of the villagers is transformed into a drider kind of thing.
So then all the adventures all end up at the same place, but you don't realize it til after you've gotten on the road to adventure. Would that cheese you off? If so, what could the GM do to assuage your potential angst?
Agreed. As much as I dislike railroading, I'd much rather the DM be truthful about it, rather than giving us false choices. As a player, I prefer my choices to actually have an effect on the campaign, however small that may be. If I want to go to pub A rather than pub B, I'd rather the cloaked guy with a shady mission for us not be waiting in both pubs.If I found out my GM was doing this, I'd leave the group. Loudly.What the Mysterious Stranger said.
You need the illusion of choice not actual choices.
So you would rather run into a complete road block and have the game come to a stop because you are so far off the plot that the GM has no clue as to what to do? Using the original example the GM has an adventure planed out in a village down river from the city filled with ninja, but you decide to travel to an island a day’s travel out to sea for some reason. The GM does not have anything else prepared and had not given any consideration to the island. So if the GM decides to move the village to the island and run the adventure there you would get upset?
The key to a good GM is flexibility. The players are going to do things you never thought of just because everyone is different. If your adventure is so tightly designed that you cannot adjust it during the game it is poorly designed. When designing an adventure the best way is to have a general idea of what is going on, but don’t micro manage every last detail.
A game should run like a movie not a video game. A movie is a collection of scenes tied together by a plot. A Video game for the most part is a continual on going scene. In a movie they skip over the boring stuff and move the plot along. In most video games you have to traverse the whole area step by step, and if you make a wrong choice you go back to where you went wrong. A good GM will use whatever he needs to keep the plot moving.
The magician’s choice is good tool, but like any tool it should be used when appropriate. Give the players a couple of chances to figure out what they need to do, and if they are totally lost or going so far off the plot that your adventure is getting sidetracked then step in and adjust it.
You are asked to go on an adventure. You complain that adventures make one late for dinner and go back inside your house. Later that evening a bunch of dwarves invite themselves in and ask you to sign a contract to go on said adventure; you still say no. In the morning you wake up and the dwarves are gone. When you run out the door after them, what do you want your GM to do?
A. have them accept you anyway (railroading you into the adventure)
B. have them tell you to get lost leading to potential Diplomacy skill challenge you might lose and still get tossed out of the adventure anyway
c. the GM tells you you missed the dwarves and you have no skill at tracking so your adventure is now picking turnipsI guesss my point is if your GM has generated a couple main plot points for his adventure and you ignore them ALL, shouldn't your GM then try to get you back into one of those points at all costs? It'd be like starting Kingmaker, getting to the ** spoiler omitted ** and having you go "oh, you don't have a pub here? Well screw it I'm back to civilization then..." and if that's the case, then why did you bother playing Kingmaker for then?
I have no problem with a little sleight of hand once in a while. Of course, the few times I've been a player lately I've blindly accepted some ridiculous plot hooks just for the sake of keeping the game going too.
Re: Bilbo, you're describing NPC behavior in the face of PC decisions. My objection is to reality rewriting itself to negate player choice. It's a cosmic version of "But thou must!", and it makes players into puppets. It's okay to have little choice (e.g., piss off a wizard and a bunch of dwarves or go along with it and maybe get some loot). But if I want to have no choice at all, I'll read a book.
If I found out my GM was doing this, I'd leave the group. Loudly.What the Mysterious Stranger said.
You need the illusion of choice not actual choices.
How in the world is it ever anything but the illusion of choice? It is a game, after all. You're always only going to have choice within certain boundaries of what the GM has prepared / is willing to improvise.
Sometimes that's because players are prudent and cautious. Sometimes it's because players are in petulant "I don' WANNA!" mode, or are looking simply to disrupt the game/get a rise out of you.
Eh, I think sometimes it's also a pacing thing. Sometimes you need a breather episode.
How in the world is it ever anything but the illusion of choice? It is a game, after all. You're always only going to have choice within certain boundaries of what the GM has prepared / is willing to improvise.If I found out my GM was doing this, I'd leave the group. Loudly.What the Mysterious Stranger said.
You need the illusion of choice not actual choices.
Having limited choice is not the same as having no choice at all. See: real life.
Having limited choice is not the same as having no choice at all. See: real life.
I'm having a hard time teasing meaning out of that. My point is, you're always going to have limited choices in a game because both the players and the GM cannot plan for every contingency, and so there are always going to be situations where you would realize, if you were able to read the DM's mind, that your choices don't actually matter.
But a good DM is able to use storytelling, misdirection, and other such sleight-of-hand to make you feel like your choices were meaningful even in those situations where they're aren't. (And by the same token, to give you meaningful choices to make where it's appropriate to do so).
And if the player feedback is just insults, ask them not to be insulting.
If they still continue to insult, remember: the Tarrasque is on page 262.
Having limited choice is not the same as having no choice at all. See: real life.
I'm curious, does your group run purely simulationist games? Do you ever run premade anything or have campaigns with a specific goal to them?
(I don't know any player on earth who would not immediately kick the ninja's ---es and then got to the village and kick all those ninja's ---es too.)
I do. God help me, I had a player once who just drove a campaign into the ground in situations like this, purposely steamrolling away from ANY plot hook. He was in a situation kind of like this where some guards they KNEW were corrupt and working for an evil sheriff showed up to shake down the party. This guy laid down all his weapons and walked away.
...
After enough of his shenannigans I just handed him the game. He had more fun running and setting his own plot hooks; I had more fun not fighting him.
I'm very fortunate. With one of my players it's more like
DM: You hear rumors of a village full of ninjas that -
Player: We drop everything and head to that one, the ninja village.
DM: But I didn't tell you the plot hook yet.
Player: ... NINJA
As a GM I spend a lot of time and effort creating what I hope to be an interesting adventure. If you don’t want to go on the adventure I created what is the point. Sometimes in order for the player to have a choice he needs to be in a certain place so he can actually choose. Some details are important but a lot don’t make any difference. Do you really think it matters which tavern you go into? No what is important is what happens in the tavern, not whether you go in to the Rusty Duck, or the Lusty Buck.
I have been in many games where the GM is so stuck on his plans that if the players miss a single clue the game drags to a halt. What may seem obvious to one person may make no sense to another. When this happens a good GM will look for ways to move the adventure forward instead of allowing the players to get frustrated. This is what the original poster was asking about.
If you really think that any GM has complete write ups for every single person and building in the world you are crazy. It takes a lot of time and effort to create a good adventure and it is a lot harder than you think. Most of the time we only bother writing up what is important and wing the rest. Yea I will map out the entire dungeon if there is one, but I am not going to waste my time creating different maps for every tavern or shop, much less writing up every possible person the players may encounter.
Also if the GM does thing properly the players never have a clue that anything has changed. This is part of the art of being a good GM. The people who are getting upset with the GM railroading their characters should try running a campaign once and they will quickly change their minds.
Good stuff
Yeah! What HE said. Who was that mysterious stranger anyway...
Seriously though the GM creates an adventure or selects one. If you as a player don't want to get on board, don't play w/that GM. If you do, then no matter what decisions you make along the way you're bound to end up somewhere close to where the GM wants you to go.
Kingmaker makes the PCs into kings/rulers correct? Then why would you play that game with the character concept of "free-wheeling pirate that never wants to rule anyone ever or get tied down to one place"
Vice Versa the GM has an obligation to take your pirate into account when making their adventures. If you establish a game where the pirate's a good idea, why make a lot of railroad type adventures that end w/the PCs in charge of a land-locked town?
My point (and I think MS's) is that all the choices you make and that the GM makes will lead you from beginning to end of an adventure. Even if you make a lot of track switches, you're still on a rail sort of.
Good stuff
Yeah! What HE said. Who was that mysterious stranger anyway...
Seriously though the GM creates an adventure or selects one. If you as a player don't want to get on board, don't play w/that GM. If you do, then no matter what decisions you make along the way you're bound to end up somewhere close to where the GM wants you to go.
Kingmaker makes the PCs into kings/rulers correct? Then why would you play that game with the character concept of "free-wheeling pirate that never wants to rule anyone ever or get tied down to one place"
Vice Versa the GM has an obligation to take your pirate into account when making their adventures. If you establish a game where the pirate's a good idea, why make a lot of railroad type adventures that end w/the PCs in charge of a land-locked town?
My point (and I think MS's) is that all the choices you make and that the GM makes will lead you from beginning to end of an adventure. Even if you make a lot of track switches, you're still on a rail sort of.
This is exactly what I am talking about. The game is about telling a story. You as players control your characters. I as the GM control everything else and have to fit everything I control to your charters because you are the important ones. If you go off track so far that the story is being obliterated I need to adjust things to get it back on track.
This is not to say that I am going to ignore what you do. A lot of times the players will do something that creates an interesting scene that I had not thought of. Those are often the best part of the game and a good GM will always look to use them. But after that is dealt with then a GM needs to be able to get thing back on track.
There is nothing worse than having a party sit around doing nothing because they missed something or can’t figure out the next step. When the payers start getting frustrated the GM needs to adjust his adventure.
There's a wide spectrum between pure sandbox and reality contortions. I'm not interested in discussing false dilemmas.