I'm currently in the process of reading both volumes of "Kobold Guide to Game Design" in between several back issues of Dungeon and other modules. This has got me thinking.
Several of the modules seem to require the PCs to do certain things or find certain clues in order to move on. For example "Blood of Malar" requires the PCs to succeed on a spot check to follow the villains and their quarry into the sewers. Granted this check is quite low and also allows the PCs to use track search and survival to follow it seems forced. What happens if the PCs don't follow the fighting out back?
It seems several adventures need the PCs to succeed at critical skill checks or they lose out on the chase or important clues to solving a mystery. While this is fine in home games where you know the PCs and know what they have a reasonable chance of getting for skill checks and a back-up plan if things go astray--how is this dealt with in commercial adventures?
I hate the idea of forcing the PCs to succeed on something or else the adventure is derailed especially if you have no idea what the group will consist of. It feels like dumb design to force these checks to me and yet leaving skill checks out is too "Break down the Door" for me. There must be a way around this as many published adventures have this dilemma...
Suggestions?
Run published adventures the same way you would adventures you write on your own, though it also depends on whether you are using a published adventure to run a casual game or a more structured game like Pathfinder Society, Living Forgotten Realms, etc. It you are just playing a casual game, then make sure you have some backup plans in place in case the PC's miss what is meant to lead them to the next stage of the story. In your example, if they blow the search check or just do not bother, have them hear a distant shout or scream or something from inside the sewers. Published games run casually do not have to be run as written, so learn to improvise. More structured or organized play normally has a time limit of 4-6 hours, so official scenarios for them are more tightly written for what has to happen in order to get to the end within the time limit. There is no time for PC's to be bumbling around for a half hour or something before figuring out how to advance the story, so sometimes you have to steer them in the right direction.
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Suggestions?1) Be prepared to walk away from the adventure without regrets and offer your Players something else if they fail the one-and-only way to continue. Meanwhile, make the option satisfying for them;
2) Always build in a back-door or two that are keyed to abilities the PCs possess. Give them options;
3) If they lose track of the villain, keep the world complex enough that they can get involved with something else. After a level or two, bring the villain back in to their lives and either scale the original adventure, or modify it as the villains plans have progressed;
4) If you go with #3, then be aware that, as the villain's plans progress it will actually get easier to follow him or figure out "who done it" as things come to fruition, as his plots grow and become more involved (leaving more clues and loose ends), unlike when he was small-time and constantly watching his back and covering his tracks. Of course, he will be more powerful and harder to fight (i.e. scaled to the PCs new level), but just easier to detect.
Those are my generalized, immediate thoughts ...
FWIW,
Rez
+1,000. This is exactly what I would recommend, and well worded!
Suggestions?1) Be prepared to walk away from the adventure without regrets and offer your Players something else if they fail the one-and-only way to continue. Meanwhile, make the option satisfying for them;
2) Always build in a back-door or two that are keyed to abilities the PCs possess. Give them options;
3) If they lose track of the villain, keep the world complex enough that they can get involved with something else. After a level or two, bring the villain back in to their lives and either scale the original adventure, or modify it as the villains plans have progressed;
4) If you go with #3, then be aware that, as the villain's plans progress it will actually get easier to follow him or figure out "who done it" as things come to fruition, as his plots grow and become more involved (leaving more clues and loose ends), unlike when he was small-time and constantly watching his back and covering his tracks. Of course, he will be more powerful and harder to fight (i.e. scaled to the PCs new level), but just easier to detect.
Those are my generalized, immediate thoughts ...
FWIW,
Rez
Great advice, but also don't worry -too- much about jumping the shark to get the adventure back on track because seriously crazy coincidences can happen in real life:
When a Black Hand group attempted to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand with a grenade, he deflected it and the car sped away leaving the party unharmed. After the assassination attempt though, the archduke and his wife decided to visit the people who did get harmed by the explosion in the hospital.
Gavrilo Princip, a member of the assassin group, gave up and went to a deli to get a sandwich after the failed attempt. On his way out the door, he spotted the Archduke's car pass by. The driver of the car realized he made a wrong turn and began backing up, but the engine jammed and the car stalled right in front of Princip. Princip killed the Archduke and WWI was started as a result.
seriously crazy coincidences can happen in real life:Strange but true ... here's Linkiness.
I wouldn't call it "jumping the shark" so much as a bit of contrivance, but stranger things have happened.
Right, I was going to link a source, but forgot. Thanks for that.
I know dramatic pre-destination gets a lot of bad play these days as leading an audience on, but at the end of the day, there's something about all tropes that resonate with people in general. Don't be afraid to use it, players want dramatic more than they want to be sitting around doing nothing.
Bah, I thought of some more advice for OP too...
If the players are really fixated on sitting around the tavern hitting on the staff and getting drunk instead of following up on those clues, they may just need to relax from high adventure for a while. Let them goof off a while or run a light-hearted one-off adventure.
Even the most mercenary min/maxer has some motivation you can exploit. Even if it's one sentence, it might be in their background, or maybe they put one rank in Profession(Beer Taster). If they aren't interested in a contract worth a billion gold, they may jump at the chance to get a keg of rare beer or a pet monkey instead. They'll be willing to chase a pick-pocket through the nine hells too, as long as they can get their money back. You don't want to lead them by the nose too much, but no player has a problem with leading themselves by the nose.
With any adventure, there's also a chance it was designed more for GMs than players and that may be the reason they may not like the bait. Since pre-fabs are designed to appeal to GMs, that actually happens pretty often with ad copy that reads, 'The perfect way to torture your players.' You also end up with a lot of GM Rage adventures loaded with trapped choices, swerves and twists designed to 'teach players a lesson' and basically punish them for doing the sort of things players do. Did you kill that kobold? You need to be more open-minded because he was a key NPC and now the adventure's shot. Did you pick up the totally rad sword instead of the dog poop? I guess you've learned your lesson about greed because now you're CURSED! Did you fight that sailor that picked a fight with you? Well you just made the worst mistake of your life because Stringy Bill has a natural 25 strength, naturally!
Never underestimate a player's desire to be a part of an adventure and advance the story either. Killy McOptimised seems to love nothing but battle, but if he's rolling dice instead of clicking a mouse, he -gets- table gaming on some level and he wants to be as much a part of the story as anyone else. If they're trying any which way they can to advance the story and they're just not hitting the right mark, that's still interest in the adventure. Make an adjustment before they lose that interest. If they're coming up with things that are a hundred times more interesting than what was planned and working hard, reward the for that, let them re-write your story a little.