| bin0110001 |
First, sorry for such a long post and thanks for reading through it.
So, I am running the second campaign for a group of friends. My previous campaign was a high fantasy world, players were above wealth level, and I encouraged to be creative and think outside the box. The current Campaign is a Strategic Horror Survival game, where players washed up on a deserted island, where they started below the wealth curve. Before this campaign started I communicated the differences in what I was running to my players, though as the campaign has been going I have noticed that there are some of the more subtle aspects that I am running different that were not well communicated (Such as in my last campaign I fudged the numbers a few times to keep players alive. In the current campaign I am not). In an effort to better communicate how I intend to run a campaign I started a list of various attributes of a campaign that might change depending on type/setting/who is running it. As it grew I've decided that I'm going to turn it into a bit of a GM Sheet (modeled after a character sheet of course). I'm sharing what I have so far to see if anyone has thoughts on areas that I'm missing. Most of the options here are intended to be a 1-20 scale, with a few examples given, generally for the extremes.
Social/Combat split:
What percent of the game will take place in social situations vs combat situations?
Social
Difficulty of Social Encounters (1-20):
1. Players are in a thrown room talking to the king, one of them gets caught stealing, king looks the other way since they're "heroes".
20. Players are in a thrown room talking to the king king, player fails a diplomacy check to use the right greeting. Entire party is beheaded.
Influence in story (1-20):
1. No matter what players do, story will unfold as planned
20. There is no story, it all depends on what the players decide to.
Interconnection of Story (1-20):
1. The entire campaign is a random collection of encounters. There is no single thread tying everything together.
20. Everything is interconnected. No random encounter is truly random. Someone must have sent that slime after us.
Combat
Importance of Tactics (1-20):
1. All battles are Open rooms or empty fields
20. Careful use of the territory is required to survive
Difficulty of Encounter Design (1-20):
1. No real risk of dying, most CRs well below party level. Players only fight on their terms.
11. Most encounters within +- 1 of APL.
20. Every fight is at least epic, NPCs have tactical advantages against the players.
Difficulty in Encounter Strategy (1-20):
1. Monsters are universally stupid, go for the closest target or target the tank
11. Monsters are ran with their int scores in mind, and are never ran with meta knowledge.
20. Monsters Are universally intelligent. Slimes can be found cartwheeling past tanks to not provoke attacks of opportunity.
Build Options
Character Strength (1-20)
1. Characters are expected to be on an NPC track, forget the 10 pt buy, we're using the 0pt here.
20. At LVL 2, if you can't solo a Tarrasque, you're doing something wrong.
Source Material (1-20 as a base, but list out the specific resources)
1. Core Rulebook only
11. Official Only
20. Home Brew is common
Starting Stats
A. 25 Point Buy
B. 20 Point Buy
C. 15 Point Buy
D. 4 D6 drop lowest
E. 3 D6
Universal
Wealth (1-20)
1. Plan to fight with sticks for the entire encounter
20. 20th level wealth at 1st level, and it only goes up from there
Hand Holding
1. You might as well be playing the PCs in addition to the NPCs
11. Player is about to cast fog cloud, but you previously mentioned that there was a strong wind, so you remind the player of that fact.
20. Player is about to cast fog cloud. You have not mentioned that there was a strong wind but it's in your notes, you don't inform the character until the cloud dissipates one round later.
Number of puzzles (1-20)
1. None
20. You're really just playing a multiplayer game of Sudoku.
Fudging the Numbers to Keep Players Alive (1-20):
1. Never.
11. Only when dice are REALLY unfavorable towards a player (rolling max after rolling a crit on an Ogre's attack)
20. Might as well not even roll dice.
Going easy as the situation gets dire (1-20):
1. You push the advantage and try to finish off the players
20. One player knocked unconscious, better have NPCs run away.
Fudging the Numbers to Keep NPCs Alive (1-20):
1. Never.
11. Only to keep them long enough to deliver their plot.
20. Might as well not even roll dice.
Spontaneous House Ruling (1-20):
1. Rules Strictly by the book. If it's not in there you can't do it.
6. Try to fill in the blanks as they come up, using existing rules, whenever possible.
11. Add some additional interactions, such as lighting dispersing in water.
16. New rules or alterations come up frequently. Rolling down a hill because someone succeeded a bull rush attempt, lightning bolt killing the caster using it because it was raining, and using using an ice spell to freeze a lake so that you can get across are all in the cards.
20. Rules are only a suggestion.
Creativity Bonus:
1. No special bonuses for players doing something creative.
6. Players can, somewhat regularly, get up to +2 bonuses for their creativity. Higher is possible but exceedingly rare.
11. Players can regularly get up to+2 bonuses, somewhat regularly get up to +5 bonuses for their creativity and on rare occasion get even higher.
16. Players can regularly get up to +5 bonuses, somewhat regularly get up to +10 bonuses, and on rare occasion get even higher
20. Players can regularly get up to +10 bonuses, and somewhat rarely get auto successes.