I've been DMing for over 11 years now, and have of late begun to feel that my plots are becoming overly linear. When I create an adventure, I visualize the course of the plot in the same manner a writer might construct a short story, imagining dramatic moments, key betrayals and the discovery of clues and then setting them all up so that the PC's go from one to the next. The players have fun because I'm adept at creating fun stories for them to play through, but I'm beginning to feel that my games lack true excitement in that the players are always going from A to B to C without any real debate in the matter.
For example: The mayor hires them to arrest his rival whom he declares is a criminal. They learn en route that this 'criminal' is innocent and has been framed by the mayor in order to remove him from the next election. They then have to 'decide' whether to arrest the criminal or help him defeat the mayor, but in truth the outcome of this 'decision' is forgone; the players will almost always opt to side with the wronged party, and turn on the unscrupulous mayor.
So A leads to B which reveals the twist C which causes the players to actually do D instead of E. A simple formula, but one in which the players don't really 'decide' anything. They simply react in predictable manners as dictated by their alignment.
How do I break out of this mold? How do you guys present your players with real choices? In the Dungeon Master's Guide, they give the example of whether the PC's should stop the vizier from replacing the queen with his puppet, but again, that's not really a decision; of course the players will intervene. How do you create a plot where the players are truly challenged to take control of the course of the game?
Make the lines less clear. If the mayor is framing someone, make the mayor Lawful Good, and the framed party Neutral or Evil. Evil, but innocent.
Look for plots in TV shows where characters aren't clearly good or evil. For example, The Shield has morally ambiguous characters and behind-the-scenes deals, and the right thing to do isn't always obvious.
I'm sure that your plots look linear from your point of view, mostly because you know what's going to happen. But try looking at your stories from the players' perspective, and I'm sure they find every plot twist very exciting.
Sure they'll choose to side with the guy being framed, but it'll be their CHOICE nonetheless. I say, as long as the players aren't railroaded to choose something they don't want to choose, then you're "on the right track".
As the DM, you've developped the MOST LIKELY outcome of a scenario... And if your players go down that path, well, that means you're doing your job right, and haven't waisted your valuable time writting every possible outcome.
Give yourself credit dude... If the players keep comming back for more, you must be doing something right!
Game on!
Ultradan
Wow, this is cool. I understand how you feel. I have been DM'ing for forever it seems and I ran into this problem. Have you talked to your players out of game about this? Maybe over a beer and pizza somewhere? I did and learned a buch of stuff about what my players thought.
The first is that I was doing a better job than I thought, so don't be too hard on yourself. The second, a story path that is too tangled is worse than one that is too linear. If they know what they goptta do they can buckledown and do it, and accomplishing something is satifying as we all have to push jello up hill in our day jobs. If they have to figure things out and piece things together (and invariably go on tangents... I play with a couple of WOW judges)they feel like they have "wasted" part of the evening, two sessions or what ever.
As for your Mayor example, I have two factions in the main town they adventure in that are both lawful good, and wholly convinced the other faction is wrong (sorta like the Catholic church and the Knights Templar). This has led to some really cool Yojimbo/Last Man Standing type game where the characters play off each side to make themselves rich or establish thier own church, ect. So make both sides good. Or make the mayor and the arrested party doppleganger/changeling who have brought thier theives guild war to a new level. So where is the mayor and his/her rivals?
Hope this helps.
Do something not game-related that you haven't done before, or haven't done in a while. Sometimes you need a change of scenery or experiences to get that muse a jolt.
Alternately, play instead of DM. That will do it too. :) I've found that alternating between DMing and playing every week works out very nicely.
Make the lines less clear. If the mayor is framing someone, make the mayor Lawful Good, and the framed party Neutral or Evil. Evil, but innocent.
Look for plots in TV shows where characters aren't clearly good or evil. For example, The Shield has morally ambiguous characters and behind-the-scenes deals, and the right thing to do isn't always obvious.
Try Lawful Good and Chaotic Neutral. Or even Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Neutral, or Chaotic Good and Lawful Good. Making one guy Good and the other Evil is a bit more along the original track; yes, there is a choice, but it's not a very hard one. Unless, of course, the party is really into debates of whether Evil should be allowed until proven Evil, which isn't likely if one has Chaotic party members.
The Evil character could also have some important information he's acting on for the good of the town (someone can be pure evil and still care for the common good), although that once again may devolve into the original problem. The parenthetical mention of the Evil person's compasion will probably prove a better hinge-point in a story; Yes, he's despicable, but he has the common good at heart? What do we do?
EDIT- Upon completion of reading the remaining posts, I agree. Don't be too hard on yourself; you're probably doing a great job in the eyes of the players.
It always works to make both sides equally good. (note that if both sides are equally evil, they are also equally good ;))
That forces them to choose. Of course; this is assuming the players want to choose. If they feel you are doing a good job, you don't need to change anything.
Otherwise; maybe try this scenario: take an island; and add two species of creatures. Make one numerous, fairly pacifist and prey. Make the other less numerous, big, agressive and hunter. This generates a pretty fair balance where the big guys eat the little guys. The little guys in turn eat the plants and fruits.
Now upset the balance by introducing a leader among the small guys who has had enough and leads his small kin in a crusade to wipe out the big guys.
Now, if you want to make it worse: on the island is something (a spell component, something valuable, a special food source) that has an entire village (possibly including some of the PC's friends) depending on it. While the war rages, they can't obtain this and the village will be in trouble as they lose their main source of income/food.
Now, for the possible outcomes...
* if the little guys wipe out the big guys, the entire eco-system gets upset as the little guys will no longer be kept in check. They will increase in number like a plague. They will also more be organized and possibly a lot less pacifist; making obtaining the resource the village needs a lot harder.
* if the big guys wipe out the little guys, they lose their food source and will have to prey on something else or face extinction due to lack of food. If they don't wipe out the little guys; they will probably be wiped out themselves.
* if nothing happens, you have a civil war at hands that could last for a long time. And all this time, the nearby village will be without an income/foodsource, since access to the island becomes very dangerous.
So the options are: upsetting the balance of an ecosystem, wiping out two sentient and non-evil races, having an entire village starve to death, or forcing the PC's to make some tough choices and try and come up with a better plan...
(If this is not what you're looking for, gimme some info ;) I can probably do better.)
I would say if they lean towards doing the good thing, then present them with different options which could all be considered good.
For example, I was recently reading up on affiliations and came across two which have the same goal - recovering lost magic/information. But the two groups have very different ideas as to what should be done with this info. One group believes in guarding the info, the other sharing it.
Neither view is evil, and either option would be perfectly valid for a good party to pursue.
In my experience it is these types of choices which really get my players fired up and debating which in turn causes the greatest amount of roleplaying.
Here's a different way to think about things. Start with your characters. Who are they? What do they want? Make the games around the characters' backgrounds rather than a story that you have in your head and you will find you've got an endless list of possiblities--and it's great for characters because the choices they make when they make their characters actually mean something in the game. It's one thing when they have to overthrow the governor, but what if they end up getting a favor from the governor--one they can use however they want? What will they ask for?
That comes to another way to create fun nonlinear games--loose ends! Basically the idea here is to create future games from conflicts left unaddressed in past games. If the characters know that helping the innocent man clear himself will find them dodging revenge minded nobility in some future game it makes the choices less tidy (particularly if they might get an equally valuable boon from the grateful badguy if they comply and execute "justice" on the innocent man).
One idea I absolutely love that was suggested on the boards a while ago was to create encounters that might be likely based on the locale the characters are in, so if the characters travel to the mountains they find themselves encountering insidious yak folk or giants. If the characters travel by sea they run into merfolk. These could be straightforward combat, but certainly it's more fun to craft things like this into whole scenarios--and based on the allegiences they make to lead them to make commitments in future situations. Say they recover a mystic pearl for a kingdom of merfolk? Well then when the merfolk declare war on a human nation who compete with them for access to shallow coastal waters--the characters are already involved. Do they sue for peace, even though it might cost them a friendly relationship with a normally aloof race? Do they infiltrate the human city and help neutralize the defenses so the merfolk can launch a sneak attack? What if innocents end up getting targeted? Do they stick with their allies still? That sort of thing. You get the idea. Take their history and past adventures into account and use that as the thread to spin future adventures with. It's the way I try to run my games.
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While the primary storyline should star the players, it need not be the only significant storyline. I try to keep one or two noticeable stories going in the background along with the primary stuff. This works particularly well if the background stories gradually become more important/intrusive as the characters go up in power.
For example, when the characters are first level, they might be dealing with a gang war on the docks. At some point a warship lands and a heavily escorted noble debarks and travels toward the citadel, perhaps disrupting some plan by the players or their enemies.
A few levels later, the players are searching the nearby forest for bandits, and they see the same noble and his escort again traveling toward the city.
When the players reach mid-level, they find out that the noble is a diplomat involved in negotiations with the lord of the city.
At high level, perhaps they find out that the noble's country plans to invade, and as the commanders of the army, it is now their responsibility to stop the invasion.
At the same time, perhaps people are disappearing from the city every few weeks, but never at a rate disturbing enough to cause the authorities to enlist the party to investigate. It's never anyone important to the primary plot, but the players keep hearing rumors. (Vampires? Slavers? Soylent Green? Religious War?)
At any point, the players can follow any of these vaguely defined background threads instead of (or in addition to) whatever else they are working on. But if they choose to just follow the primary thread, things keep happening behind the scenes.
One of the nice things about this style of campaign is that you don't need to decide what the primary focus will be until later. You have foreshadowing of lots of different things that you can use when you decide the time is right.
Do watch out for "Robert Jordan" syndrome though. If none of your threads ever wind up, your players might get a bit frustrated. Keep the visible plots to a manageable number.
Do watch out for "Robert Jordan" syndrome though. If none of your threads ever wind up, your players might get a bit frustrated. Keep the visible plots to a manageable number.
Amen.
If only you had been there when R.J. began writing the WoT.
A way to plan for a less linear campaign is to break it into bits. Instead of pre-planning the whole session, create a few NPCs with strong motivations. When the PCs act, think like your NPCs and react to what they'd see. It's much more fluid, though it can be harder to come up with solid twists, etc.
Similarly, instead of planning specific scenes and events to occur, instead think up cool locations that you can use.
Neither of these is necessary, especially if your players are having fun as it is. It's a way of altering things so that your players really do affect the storyline more than you're currently experiencing.
Grimcleaver, Doug, and Delveg have the right idea for sure. If you have trouble with making their ideas happen, try one of the two things below.
First, when writing your adventure, if you are one who feels it must be all written out, write it out as a set of choices instead of linear. Decision points have two or three branches planned out for the most likely decisions. Consequences for actions planned. Don't write pages on this, but use two and three sentence summaries to guide your decisions so that they are not arbitrary.
Second, with each NPC, place up to three "triggers" that start a scene/plotline if those things are triggered.
Ex: Canong the Barbarian hangs out at the Warty Frog. Mention that he's there at the bar everytime the party enters or walks by. If the right question is asked, it triggers a scene. For instance, if asked why he's depressed, he will say his wife hates him. That leads to a scene with his wife coming in and serving him divorce papers written up by the cult she's joined putting Canong's kids in danger. Instant side trek.
Just be sure to list such events when triggered, because you have to make sure that they:
#1, don't overrule the main storyline.
#2, are closed to the satisfaction of the players.
For some reason, such tactics work better in a city or town. Having multiple storylines going (or an "A" story and a "B" story) make a city seem more alive and busy as it should be. Throw in a storyline offstage that the players just hear about, as one wise poster above offered, and things are very nonlinear as well as exciting and fresh.
Plus it builds friendships with NPCs. Getting PCs to care about NPCs forms a strong motivation for your storylines. Hey Canong put us up and helped us hide from his wife's cult. We need to help him now that he's been set up by the Assassins Guild.
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One of the things I've done that I think has worked out well is to have the NPCs that the PCs have saved actually come up to them in the street and thank them. Maybe they're just farmers who will never be of any practical use, but it's nice to be appreciated every once in a while.
Plus, of course, it helps to anchor the PCs to the world a bit:
"Heidewand? Oh, yeah, that's where those farmers we rescued ended up. You say it's being attacked? I liked those guys."
"You honor, as my good friend Klaus Bauer will testify, I would never do anything like that."
In addition to all the other advice above, I’d say that there are two other directions to look:
1) Go completely non-fixed story line. Flesh out the basics, plop the characters down cold. Arrange for them to get together (even if this involves some limited 1-on-1 play with a few before the group really forms) and let them decide what to do. Then YOU react the THEM! Let them decide where they go and what they do, whether it’s a bar fight or robbing a temple. Use their charisma reactions scores to come up with random reaction occurrences from NPC’s. Someone’s going to react badly enough to start a fight. Note the outcome and then begin fleshing out details for the surviving NPC’s, both dead and alive. Who had family who might want revenge and use their influence of whatever sort to get it (hiring assassins, pressuring politicians, bribing businessmen, etc.)? Who could go on to become a heroic type in their own right months or years down the road and how will they react to the PC’s when they meet again? After a period of time you’ll build a good stock of “sideline” activity that can keep them busy without having to drudge through the complexities of rewriting the Uniform Commercial Code for every game. If you decide to throw in a “main line plot” on top, all the better.
2) Try designing a game the way I do when I want a particular story done; in reverse. I decide what the ultimate point of the story is and then begin engineering things back towards the beginning. I arrange for a series of encounters of whatever type (combat, clue-solving, etc.) most of which are not set at any specific point in place or time. These events do not need to be encountered in any particular order so player decision determines when, where, and how they get the piece. For the pieces that are set in place, characters only get them when they’re ready for them, no matter how many times they cross that place. For those set in time, they get them at that time, ready or not. Spice this with some “side plots” both germane and dead-end. I work this back until I come up with a logical and believable beginning for the group, then wind them up and drop the kerchief.
Poverty...
Take everything away... everything...
(Don't give it back... not a scrap.)
Take everything away... no plot to get it back nothing.
Always the best adventures...
For all the "danger" characters face...
For the most part they get off lucky...
Do it... take it all away...
Skills like "fire starting" mean something...
Try being mid level in AC 10 going through a low level module with nothing but a log you picked up in the woods...
A rusty long sword starts to look good real quick.