As a player, I have 3 HUGE problems with all the puzzles.
See, I absolutely love puzzles and wish that I could play in a game that included them. And I'd be pissed if I could just roll to solve it. That's lame. I want to do it myself.
It makes me wonder--do people who want to roll to solve a puzzle also ask for an Intelligence roll because their character would know what square he could move to would be the best, tactically? How about rolling a check because their Wizard with 25 Intelligence would know better than they what spells to memorize today? Oh, I know, I can make a check to decide which feat to take--my Fighter is a seasoned veteran, he should know better than I what his best choice is. At some point, player skill is going to be involved, and that is not a bad thing.
Besides, solving puzzles is not a question of Intelligence, unless they are just straight up logic or something (which isn't much of a puzzle). Puzzle-solving is about sideways thinking and cleverness--something that is not represented in any of the traditional D&D attributes. If anything, Wisdom is probably the best fit, but even that is a stretch.
However, I have never met a single other roleplayer who liked puzzles even a little bit. At the slightest sign of a puzzle, everyone I've ever met sighs and shuts down. I ran one session once that included a couple of puzzles, and it was probably the worst session of any game I've ever run because nobody enjoyed them at all.
Mysteries fare far better than puzzles for most players in my experience, and they still provide a similar kind of fun for those of us who love puzzles.
3) The biggest problem I have is they just don't make any sense for them to be there in the first place. Why would anyone but a lunatic put a puzzle that needs to be bypassed in a dungeon, escape route, vault, library, etc...? If youare making a magic puzzle trap, it would be easier, cheaper, more effective, and use less space to just make a magic item the recognizes whether or not it is you (or person you authorized).
This is why the old classic dungeon created by a mad wizard exists.
Of course you're pretty much right as far as dungeons created by sane people go. The best justification I can think of is that perhaps the dungeon designer (by which I mean the character who made the dungeon, not the GM) figured "Hey, maybe if I put in a puzzle or two, people who are strong enough to get past the monsters/guards/whatever will get stuck on the puzzle, thus protecting my [Insert whatever valuable thing is at the end of the dungeon here]."
Think of writing for home games as impressionist painting, you paint the broad strokes, the players own imagination colours in the small details.
This is one of the prettiest and deepest things I've read on DMing. I'm glad this is the way I TRY to do things (some days are better than others) but my hat is off to your Sir for this post.
Puzzles can be unintentional, as mine were.
One major part of my grand puzzle was an immortal man who knew the secrets of the ancients - secrets which could threaten all humanity. To ensure he wouldn't utter these secrets, he cursed himself to forever speak in metaphorical riddles.
He also was a powerful prophet, so when he followed the party for awhile, he foretold a whole bunch of stuff, but spoke it in bizarre metaphors that were hard to understand. But there was a formula to his riddles, and the party would have to look for signs/clues in the coming events to reveal the meaning behind their encrypted prophecies.
...•M-1: For any adventure, have at least a rough draft of where you want it to go. Do not make a habit of “making it up as you go along,” as this will come back to bite you.
I am a fly by the seat of my pants GM. My rough drafts are sometimes one or two sentences about where I think the session will end up. I wing encounters. I hate, hate, HATE, sitting down and planning out an encounter. Maybe this is a crap maneuver on my part as a GM, but I will even select feats, items, and spells during an encounter, jot a quick note about it and go from their. I've been running this way since '91 when I first started GMing 2E and have yet to see a reason to change. I've run two campaigns where I didn't take a single note, that lasted 2 years of real time each, taking characters from 1st to 15th level and not taken a single note. Those are the two campaigns my players talk about the most fondly.
My GM burn out has more to do with the fact that my group have become so RAW or it's wrong, that it has made it pointless for me to GM. For me the story is more important than the detail. If it seems to fit the moment and will elicit excitement and enjoyment from my group, then rules be damned. Sadly, my 21+ year old group has gone technical and RAW...I have since left my group. Unless they change I won't game or run for them.
On the subject of puzzles...
... If I'm going to put a puzzle in the game, I want the players to actually puzzle it out. Yes it's best if they can do that in a role playing perspective, but the goal of puzzles is not to give the players another die roll to succeed at, but to get their minds engaged and immerse them in the game play.As a player, I have 3 HUGE problems with all the puzzles.
1) I as a real life person am not terribly great at most kinds of the puzzles seen in the game. My Char with a 14 wis and 17 int probably should be good at them. There is no way for me to role-play that.
2) Out of the last 5 puzzles I can remember seeing, 3 of them required knowledge that I don't have. Two of them were supposedly a come theme in the hold horror/slasher/monster movies. I don't watch those movies. The third required remembering an offhand comment made by the GM earlier in the campaign (almost 2 months real time). I actually missed that session so had no chance. But not a single other player remembered anything about the conversation.
3) The biggest problem I have is they just don't make any sense for them to be there in the first place. Why would anyone but a lunatic put a puzzle that needs to be bypassed in a dungeon, escape route, vault, library, etc...? If youare making a magic puzzle trap, it would be easier, cheaper, more effective, and use less space to just make a magic item the recognizes whether or not it is you (or person you authorized).
As my first sentece of my first post on this thread said "puzzles are very difficult to play." I also made it clear that for a puzzle to be playable it had to appear to be blindingly obvious to me as the GM or the players would have virtually no chance whatsoever to solve it. Then I said I have preset hints to give out when it is clear the party is stuck on something.
I also said that it only takes a few puzzles in a campaign to make a group feel like real detectives.
One of my recent puzzles had to do with an assassination of an NPC. The "puzzle" was that the party could accelerate the determination of the assassin by examining the rather uniquely fletched arrow and using a skill check by a character who made bows and arrows to identify who the arrow maker was.
In every case where I introduce puzzles, they are ways to accelerate the plot, they are not required to move the plot. I specifically avoid puzzles like mathematical devices that have to be solved to open doors before the room floods... It's not that I NEVER use them, there are some parties who get into the puzzle solving thing and are pretty good at it.
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I have enjoyed reading this thread, but sadly I started just glazing over the trap posts. I liked the original line of thoughts.
I have done many of the same mistakes and to a point still do but mainly because I am fully aware I am completely Obsessive compulsive when it comes to my hobby and passion for gaming.
I always want it all to be "perfect" for my group but sadly I do not have enough time in my life between my career and family commitments to do it all.
Designing own world. Check.
Must expand my notes and wiki (which I don't share because it is not complete) Check
Hirst arts addiction. Check.
Dunjinni addiction and having to have every map made custom. Check.
Realizing full well that flip maps or my game-mat and a marker would do just as well but are not "good" enough or specific enough and I want to use my custom maps. IE Hard headed glory seeking for my maps which people see to like and I love making. Check.
I love painting miniatures and have quite the collection, but no time to really paint so I have hundreds of "Primered" minis but few actually painted ones. Check.
My players like item cards, as they are new and forget what they have received as treasure (I refer to mainly potions and scrolls). Would index cards with the name be enough? Yes. But oh no, not for me...
I had to create a spreadsheet which has a drop down list with every potion in the Beginners Box (more to come I am sure) which on another tab fills in the description in game terms for them, has a pretty logo with alternating colors for the potion image, lists the value, and clearly states for one of my slower players that you cannot drink a potion while in melee combat in BB. It also lists what action is required to drink or retrieve a potion from a backpack etc so they do not have to look anything up. All this is "perfectly" formatted to print on 3x5 cards or from another tab to print three of the same potion on 8.5x11 with the icons randomly colored.
Yes I even roll my eyes at myself but I know my passion for this game (regardless of version or name) has been a major driving force in my life for coming up on 35 years. Thankfully my wife loves me anyways.
Do I also over-stress and over-analyze encounters and stat blocks and story and balance and...? Yup, and that is my own building "burn out" as a DM. It is a major reason I put all my Pathfinder books on a shelf in the den and play only Beginner Box. It is just easier in this hectic life to stick to the basics and have fun and not worry about whether the next game will be torn asunder because some powermad board-memorizer takes this feat or this build because it is "in* etc.
I also no longer play with the group which would habitually be late (biggest pet peeve in my life), spend half the game on cell phones, insist on the most outlandish, ridiculous builds because of an extra +whatever damage or hit with no consideration of the characters past play or the story... and my life is better for it.
I wiped the slate and started fresh and am having fun again. My wife made me smile our very first BB session by role-playing in a way I never imagined her capable of and really drive the most important point home.
Setting: Beginner Box published adventure.
Very first encounter, the goblins attack and the party retaliates. My wife, playing the cleric, wants to heal them and talk to them and see why they are attacking and to talk them into a different life.
We all just looked at her open jawed, when she said, "Look at the pictures of our heroes (pointing at the sheets and minis). Why would two little goblins attack three of us knowing they are going to die? I want to know what makes something so cute be so mean and I think Kyra would want to reform them, or at least try."
I was speechless to be honest, but I knew how she loved Pathfinder Goblins. They are "cute and awesome" and is really what made her agree to play. I let her try but "Valeros" wanted non of it and put them down.
Kyra - "Well I will heal the next one" with a smile.
She then leaned over to me and whispered, "You're right, this is a lot of fun. Thanks for talking me into playing."
The most important point reiterated and has given me endless motivation-
HAVE FUN!!
I feel for you. My gaming group doesn't play Pathfinder so much as we play F%&$ You A##!@$#s: The RPG, so I know burnout. I'll read over your suggestions more carefully. May be useful.Is that a new game? :-)
Yes, but it's more frustrating than fun.
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However, I have never met a single other roleplayer who liked puzzles even a little bit.
Pleased to meet you.
My players all say they hate puzzles, though they're actually wrong, they just think they do. I regularly put a few puzzle in my games, I just don't let the players realize that it's a puzzle. I also allow skill rolls for hints or partial completion of puzzles, but the players have to do some of the work. I find spreading the puzzle out over a few rooms, and making it obvious when they do something right gets everyone engaged. Props are good to if you have the time, and skill, to make some.
Good point Heck... I don't make any big deal about puzzles either, I just work them into the narrative as casually as possible. I am quite certain the party with the arrow thing I described above did not consider it a "puzzle" at all. They just thought they had a brilliant idea and it helped them solve a mystery.
Yes, but it's more frustrating than fun.I feel for you. My gaming group doesn't play Pathfinder so much as we play F%&$ You A##!@$#s: The RPG, so I know burnout. I'll read over your suggestions more carefully. May be useful.Is that a new game? :-)
I thought your gaming group woes were solved?
I thought your gaming group woes were solved?Yes, but it's more frustrating than fun.I feel for you. My gaming group doesn't play Pathfinder so much as we play F%&$ You A##!@$#s: The RPG, so I know burnout. I'll read over your suggestions more carefully. May be useful.Is that a new game? :-)
So did I. No such luck. Hopefully things will change when I move to Montana.
So did I. No such luck. Hopefully things will change when I move to Montana.I thought your gaming group woes were solved?Yes, but it's more frustrating than fun.I feel for you. My gaming group doesn't play Pathfinder so much as we play F%&$ You A##!@$#s: The RPG, so I know burnout. I'll read over your suggestions more carefully. May be useful.Is that a new game? :-)
Safe travels on your journey.
Dotting for reference
edit: I feel I need to add that I'm not looking for kind words to stroke my ego. If you have ideas or sugggestions on how I can improve my content, presentation, level of detail, etc. that would be greatly appreciated.
I wanted to chime in and advise that I tried to build a work like the game Oblivion and Skyrim. My one problem is that my group games via skype and now google +. I have scoured the Internet for pictures of my NPCs, monsters, treasures, textures to dungeons and castles etc., have made many purchases from Ebay for errata, purcahsed Profantasy Map maker so they could have colored and very detailed maps, and just about everything is a home brew. Also, I have a pad of graph paper and create my own dungeons and label the sides and tops of them with lettering and numebring so they can draw the map out on their battle maps. I am a very visual person and like that style of gaming, heck I even enjoy spending countless hours on that. My group enjoyes the amount of work I put in and it really helps. Also, we have minis and I mean a ton of them and that has been a great help.
My other problems were having the occasional puzzle and I could hear a pin drop from three states away. Man they disklike puzzles so I have limited them. Every now and then one of them is killed and then I have to mute my laptop so I don't hear the whining. They are good about creating new characters and I can input them into the game on the fly or they can raise dead etc. I have learned that trying to create details for everything is very time consuming and sometimes the group zigs when I thought they would zag. I am pretty flexible when it comes to rules and learned that being a rules attorney is not enjoyable, most of the time. Be willing to stray from the main story line and have a side quest lined up. Also, the players have huge egos and like to have their background storyline stroked. I don't mind, but try to have more than one characet involved so the rest of the group is not alienated.
More to come?
OK, guys, I have been DMing since 1974 or so, I have a few suggestions, they apply most to newer DMs.
Puzzles, riddles? Sure, go for it. Let the players have fun trying to figure them out or guess. But do remember that a player that isn’t so hot at this may be playing a Riddlemaster bardic genius. So, after they don’t get it on their own, let them get HINTS by making skill or INT checks.
Loot? Players love loot, but you don’t want to be Monty Haul. New DMs- use the WBL tables, but be a little more generous, remember that you can go one level above without breaking the game. So, with 5th level PC’s they can have up to 16K gps each. Err on the side of being generous, but don’t overdo it. Throw in some cool sounding loot once in a while like a “delicate hand carved ivory statue, worth 120gps”. (in the back of some older sourcebooks they have tables of this stuff) and make up a few fun but mostly useless in combat magic items like a “Toysong bird that sings along with you, adding +1 to Perform checks”. Never hand out a macguffin that they will NEED several games from now without making it real obvious.
Starting stats? Again err on the side of being generous. If the last DM had a 15 pt buy, try a modest increase to a 20 pt buy. Don’t go to “roll 6d6 keep the lowest 4, roll a dozen times, pick the best set”.
Source books- here’s where you should be conservative. Start with the Core & APG only.
DMPC’s- as in a NPC that you run, not the players. DON’T. Yes, some few experienced DMs can pull these off. You’re not experienced. Don’t.
Evil games, evil PCs or CN sociopath PC’s: at some point in time, experienced mature players/DMs will want to give this a try as a change of pace. You’re not experienced. Don’t. Same with PvP. Ask the players to come up with a background which includes why they are together as a team, or suggest a reason.
Pre-gen PC’s. Never. Do use modules, but change things up a bit.
Railroading. Yes, OK, within limits. Make sure you allow the players to “stop the train” to get off and visit a ‘whistle stop” etc. Read “DM of the Rings” Don’t be that DM.
Table time- make sure every PC has a chance to shine at least once a nite.
Splitting the party while adventuring; half the fun for the players, double the work for you. Don’t.
Lastly- have fun.
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Think of writing for home games as impressionist painting, you paint the broad strokes, the players own imagination colours in the small details.This is one of the prettiest and deepest things I've read on DMing. I'm glad this is the way I TRY to do things (some days are better than others) but my hat is off to your Sir for this post.
Well shucks.
Well shucks.Think of writing for home games as impressionist painting, you paint the broad strokes, the players own imagination colours in the small details.This is one of the prettiest and deepest things I've read on DMing. I'm glad this is the way I TRY to do things (some days are better than others) but my hat is off to your Sir for this post.
Just wrapping this in a giant "+1" as I am late to the game. Its a good way to think about things... the players have their own agendas, give their imaginations enough room to fill in the detail.
EDIT- And God knows we can't figure out what the players' agendas are half the time anyway. :-)
Go for it, but I wouldn't tell them in the slightest except possibly to have someone roll with a dungeoneering or engineering check to see if they notice the oddities. Even then I'd keep the clues general.
Haven't played it sadly wish I could help although I'm sure I'm in the minority here on that one so I'm sure someone could.
Dotting for reference.
I'll add: listen to your players. See what they react to. Do more of that.
And I'll second the person who said: just do a paragraph or son on what each major group or NPC is up to, every session or two. That generates an amazing amount of plot if you just pay attention to the NPCs. Don't have too many of them, though...
I can relate to the problem of not allowing a thing:
I had my players run in a zombies-are-smart(and not evil)-demi-plane, and the clerics first reaction to an undead was to turn them. I told him that the undead held an amulet in front of him and nothing happened. After the game, the player critised this, as nothing he knew could stop him from turning undead, he however accepted my decision during the game (an I'm very grateful for that).
Things just happen something, and everything goes wrong. If he had attacked and killed that undead, he would be the ennemy of every person in a small plane ...
anyhow, there's no moral in this story I guess, sorry for that.
Master_of_Plataea, you realize every mistake you make, but you still see a lot of problems in your GMing style? It's weird.
If I may be so blunt to categorize you(r problem), you seem to be the storyteller type with a heavy deus ex machina complex. You want to write books, only there is that bloody freedom of choice your heroes suffer from. There are probably players out there who like that, perhaps you should look for other players, as it's difficult to change a GM style. Or let someone else GM for a while and copy it a bit.
ok I understand.
Very interesting, I know this is not the reason of the thread but what class were you? I'll try to use the advice.