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Hey
I just ran the group through the ending scenes of Here There Be Monsters (and it was a blast). having come to the point where the Tides of Dread module start, I need to reach a decision, and I hoped to consult other GMs before I do: How aware should the players be of the victory points mechanic? should I not tell them of its existance and use it as a tool to measure success behind the scene? should I explain the system vagualy and than keep the amount of VP they have in any time secret? or should I just go, "cool, you recruited the aid of the Olman, +200 VP"?
thanks!
Don't tell them anything. Why would they need to know? How would you explain that RP-wise?
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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With each VP-worthy thing they did I mailed my players to let them know it was a good result.
Recruiting the Olman got them a conversation between the chief and the zombie master along the lines of
"Maybe it's time to trust these visitors."
"I believe you may be right, my brother, the wind is changing and we must tack with it."
"The big one with the axes has eyes like Tlaloc's storm. I can use that when I talk to my tribe - the Tortoise will stand with them when the pirates return."
"As will the Boar, I guarantee it. I also have a Brontosaurus skeleton that should be ready in time..."
"I like the way you think. Bloody Mary?"
Hey
I just ran the group through the ending scenes of Here There Be Monsters (and it was a blast). having come to the point where the Tides of Dread module start, I need to reach a decision, and I hoped to consult other GMs before I do: How aware should the players be of the victory points mechanic? should I not tell them of its existance and use it as a tool to measure success behind the scene? should I explain the system vagualy and than keep the amount of VP they have in any time secret? or should I just go, "cool, you recruited the aid of the Olman, +200 VP"?thanks!
I have to side with Cale on this one. I gave my players the "vague" explanation and throughout that section of the game they complained bitterly, because they didn't know if they were "doing it right" and had no way to gauge their success or failure. I think had they not known anything was different they would have enjoyed it more, though I bet they would have earned fewer VP (the new mechanic really got their meta- up).
One thing to consider, if your party (and the DM) isn't really big on Roleplay (rather than roll play), they could find themselves doing quite poorly due to them skipping some of the lesser encounters.
- Its a very modular adventure and nearly every encounter is a Set Piece. you either have to handle it as individual scenes, or will have to provide a lot of extra "filler" stuff. e.g. the Phanaton village, the Troglodytes, etc.
- The battle of Farshore is BIG. If you are using battlemats, you will spend a lot of time drawing out buildings and calculating distances. Know how you want to handle that before they get to it.
- Planning the defense of Farshore. This may not be an issue for you but my players were quite thorough and wanted to do many things that were not listed in the module as defenses. Its tough to balance what they come up with and be able to get past it for the story, while still allowing their plans to be effective.
- Be prepared for them to assault the Crimson Fleet ships and want to keep them! That's a lot of loot that will have their greedy li'l eyes widening.
I gave my players precise information on the amount of victory points they had.
I gave them no information on the amount of victory points they needed. I did inform them that if they got the total failure result, the campaign would be over.
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I gave my players precise information on the amount of victory points they had.
I gave them no information on the amount of victory points they needed. I did inform them that if they got the total failure result, the campaign would be over.
I did the same thing, allowed my players to know how many points they had accumulated. I did not tell them how many they needed. In the end it turned out to be a moot point because
So now I'm stuck turning the rest of the campaign into a type of Survival Horror one.
Lavinia along with two of our PCs failed their Will Saves and are now Savage Creatures. This will mark the second time that I have split my table into a Player-versus-Player dynamic. It should be good times.
I only told my players that they could influence the results of the battle by taking precautions. I also informed them after a session whether they had improved the situation or not, but not which actions caused the result and how many victory points they had. It made them very creative, and they went much further than described in the adventure.
We temporarily stopped the campaign on the eve of the battle (because of 2 players leaving), so though all the preparations are finished, we have not played the battle yet. This will probably be at some time at the end of this year.
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the last time I ran TOD I Clarified the mechanics of victory point and warned them about the "game over scenario" that could happen even if they won the actual encounters.
All the clarifications were made outside gametime and not once I have quantified the points gained or the point needed... I didn't even said if a certain action lead to a point gain or not.
only at the very end they knew they succeded when the crimson fleet turned its tail.
Actually they got a pretty huge result.
mainly due to the fact that vanthus never really had a chance of bringing down the savage tide... Being dropped from 40 hp to -25 in a single strike and falling right into the lap of the Pc fire giant. I made him reach for the pearl even if he was beyond dead but one attack of opportunity later he was chopped wood
My players were pretty upset at the financial limits on farshore. They did focus on that aspect quite a bit, even though I never said more than to increase Farshore's productivity work on X.
Their preparations in the outpost led to massive amounts of fabricate spells, cutting all the scripted fortifications to a day and half. After that I pretty much just ignored the points myself until the end. Oddly they planned to go from point C to point Z then to point A but as they actually did it pretty much followed the order the adventure was printed in. Vanthus got his shadowpearl off, but the mage was readying a globe of invulnerability in case the barbarian got into too much trouble. I let him make a reflex to change the target of the globe. A miles worth of madness contained in a tiny force sphere with only Vanthus for company. gave an A- on that one :)
EDIT: I really should read the OP more often, you are probably already done with this adventure.
While I agree with the notes about metagaming (i.e. how would they know in RP?), I think it's still important to give the players some insight into what's going on. It's not terribly different from awarding XP - the players have an idea of how "good" they did, and they know what their goal is (i.e. how many XP 'til next level).
That being said, I split the difference. I shared with my players how the battle would go; the concept of victory points and how their actions affected the overall battle. It actually severed to encourage them that this huge battle was being dealt with in a clever and measurable way. I further had a board on the wall where, as they completed a task, I would list it with how many VP it earned them. What I did NOT tell them was how many VP they need; I explained that this simulated the fact that their characters knew when they had improved their chances, but at no time did they know with certainty they were going to win or even if they could.
My group seemed to love this whole chapter and felt that the BoF was the best big-scale combat they'd ever participated in.
I told them that they got victory points, but never how many. But it is a moot point anyway now. My savage tide campaign is still on hold at the moment, since 2 players left the game because they were too busy with other activities. (This was after seeing the frequency of playing sessions decrease from once every 2-3 weeks to once roughly every 6 weeks, and everyone forgetting everything about the campaign - a very frustrating experience).
Since the 4 other players formed a suboptimal group, I suggested they make new characters at level 1 and that I would run them through some adventures until they were the same level as the other characters. Then they will choose which characters they will keep.
I ran them through the Freeport trilogy (at a frequency of once every 2-3 weeks again) and they are now almost 7th level. I expect them to reach Farshore at the end of this year, and then we can finally play the battle (we stopped just after they had fortified Farshore and just one session before this memorable battle).
I did something like that, but a bit vaguer. But one of the PCs has a cohort which specializes in knowledge skills, so the initiative for this lies with that player. He let the cohort check various points and draw conclusions on the basis of these points. The players then used these results to adapt their plans.
I also gave them updates on what had already been done, and what they had planned, but done nothing about.
The end result became very specific and we spent half a playing session discussing it.