Mary K. Kuhner wrote:
> tussock wrote:
>
>> Any extended plot arcs have to be ****ged into having the requisite
>> years available, or just accept that the PCs might have to let someone
>> else handle the problem.
>> They are perfectly allowed to push on, but there's little to gain
>> in game or out, and you don't want to stick your neck out too far
anyway.
>
> [snip]
>
>> The setting is the lives of the people around you; not the fights
>> or some external time pressure. Say the coming flood will destroy the
>> low-lying structures, so people are selling up and closing shop in
>> preparation. This causes devaluation, unemployment, vacant buildings,
>> and sees lots of minor crime and disorder springing up. An old friend
>> gets in debtors trouble with the magistrate, that sort of stuff.
>> In the downtime the players can work on providing for the new poor,
>> organising useful work boarding up abandoned buildings, clearing fire
>> dangers, and managing any refugees. It's not just a few fights over the
>> MacGuffin, it's a major event in the life of your city.
>
> I guess I just don't understand what you are advocating here, especially
> given your earlier comments in a thread on _Age of Worms_. I'm sure
> I'm misunderstanding you and that your games work well, but I can't
> make heads or tails of these descriptions.
I do struggle to put ideas in clear forms on paper. I know what I
mean, and I tend to read what I've written as agreeing with me, even if
it doesn't. 8]
> In the _Age of Worms_ thread you chewed me out for allowing my player to
> have PCs who would try to protect their relatives in town, and cared
> whether the bad guys might retaliate against them.
I was trying to point out that doing those things added difficulty
to the adventure as written, difficulty I didn't think you'd allowed
for. Doing AoW "as written" doesn't assume the characters suffer such
extra vulnerablilties or time pressures.
> Here, you seem to be expecting the players not to care enough about
> the town to work hard at trying to stop the flood ("there's little to
> gain in game or out").
Personally I prefer to leave any PCs family out of direct conflict,
as I don't think it adds anything to the game. It's not particularly
realistic or productive for the bad guys in most cases anyway.
In the mean time players are helping their families, but it's not
worth playing out in any detail.
Anyway, I'd delay the flood for a year, which is easy enough to do
AFAICT. Their attempts to finish the module _right now_ won't provide
any leads. Or maybe it will, but I don't force it by design.
Players get used to that a bit, act a little more like politicians
doing something about global warming. 8]
> You want the players to accept their failure to find the enemy, rather
> than continuing to try. But you also want them to care about the
> townsfolk and be motivated to do something once the flood happens.
Yes, and the lack of any path to find the McGuffin will allow that
to happen. Any care for other folk will lead to them helping out as best
they can, even though they can't immediately end any threat of a flood.
"We're on the lookout for clues, using everything we've got."
"Sure, time p*****, what else are you doing? The prediction of the
flood's causing a bit of trouble ...".
> You also seem to be saying that you don't want the module events
> ("a few fights over the McGuffin") to matter, but you want their
> results (a flooded city) to matter. I don't see how this can happen.
> If the flood matters, doesn't preventing the flood matter?
I'd hope so, and when the first chance comes up to do something
about it next year I'd hope they'd be interested in doing just that.
> Maybe the PCs cannot possibly prevent the flood, but won't they spend
> many sessions trying, if they really care about the city?
A few minutes, at most, I don't much see the point in playing it
out. It all takes a certain amount of game time and provides certain
answers, which in my case wouldn't be anything that solves the mystery.
So time p***** and lives happen until the game kicks in again.
Style example; 10th level PCs decide to clear the sewers, a 1st
level adventure. Play time about one minute, "you succeed, it takes a
week, loose 250gp to cover costs, no XP". Next.
Apply that same style to the search for clues.
> The resources available to a mid-level D&D party to find someone are
> truly staggering: diplomacy, intimidation, bribery, gather information,
> bardic lore, hiring spies, mindreading, Commune, Divination, Locate
> Person, Locate Object, Lesser Planar Ally....
And when there's literally one person knows what's going on, very
little of that has any effect. When Ms Anonymous sticks the MacGuffin in
an extraplanar space and doesn't tell anyone there's nothing to be done
to find it.
There's plenty of module series where the final bad guy isn't
confrontable or even knowable immediately; you don't have to save that
shtick for the /final/ opponent.
> I guess I don't see why you would use the module events at all, if you
> don't want the PCs to react to them. Why let the players think they
> might be able to stop the flood? Why not just have a flood?
But they /will/ be able to stop the flood, assuming they're
interested in doing so, that very thing set up in the module. It's just
happening next year, no big deal.
If they don't keep their ears to the ground in the meantime (not
all parties have the applicable abilities) they'll miss the first cues
and we'll have the flood, and that'll be interesting too: they can go
deal out justice and help rebuild afterward.
> I know that as a player I can't tolerate very many repetitions of
> having my characters hooked strongly by a plotline and then having
> them fail utterly to be able to make progress by their own actions.
> The soft spots where hooks are supposed to set just get torn out, and
> my PCs stop caring. I don't suppose that's really what you're doing,
> but I don't understand what you *are* doing.
It is frustrating for the /characters/, they're stuck for months
watching their lives turned upside down unable to find any answers to
these mysteries.
It's fine for the /players/, we skip foward. We go over what's
happened in their lives in whatever detail people are happy with (some
can go on for ages getting into their characters lives, others just want
an occaisional few words of summary), and get back to the game, one
level up, better trained, better equipped, and a little more lived in.
--
tussock
Aspie at work, sorry in advance.
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