Dungeons and Dragons HERESY

[violence in the media]

Agreed. When I say "economies and ecologies", I mean really, really high-level stuff. Like "the region is in a major economic depression because $event and $socialproblem interacted to cause $majorevent, which caused a downward spiral only halted because the entire middle class died". For a city, one sentence. Maybe a paragraph if it's a major trade hub. Typically my entire economic system is two maps of trade routes and political borders and a page of text. If you want to have a particular encounter, find a good spot for it then modify the area's interactions until it fits perfectly. Do this until you have a campaign laid out.

You know, this is pretty much the exact sort of thing I was envisioning when I composed my heresy. I'd like several maps of the campaign world/region, with one of them being a bunch of trade arrows and lists of goods going in that direction. When the players get a "protect the caravan" quest, I want them to be able to find out what is in the caravan, and have that have meaning. The caravan should not be a sprite they simply have to shield from harm through a series of dice rolls. As a DM, I shouldn't base the rest of the adventure on a specific outcome of the caravan trip. I should not require that the caravan make it to town OR that it be looted by trolls enroute.

A different map with political groups and their interactions would be nice too. Just because the elves here are at war with the dwarves there when you open the book doesn't mean it has to stay that way. The players could decide to get involved somehow, favoring one side or simply fueling the conflict.

I want players to say, "WTF? Griffons don't act like that." when an encounter with one exhibits unusual behavior. This is a fucking magical world, for chrissake! That "griffon" could be charmed, trained, ploymorphed, illusory, fiendish, or a dozen other things. At least let the players recognize that something is amiss by having observable behavior differ from what they've been officially "taught" about griffons. And to do that, there has to be some concept of what normal behavior for a griffon is in the first place.

With the earlier laws comment, it's fucking pointless when the characters go to Harshistan and get harassed by the authorites for breaking some law or another, because there's no player agency in that. That's just the DM saying, well, I need one of you to get arrested so I can tell this "story." Fuck that shit. If the players can look a Hammurapi's Code carved into the stone at the city gates, they can decide that they need to avoid eye-gouging and tooth-pulling while they're in town. Or they can say fuck it and loot teeth from hobos and take their chances. Either case, the players are making conscious decisions based on information rather than getting buffaloed with some bullshit about wearing blue on the 37th day of Holidaria. I'm not looking for modern legal codes here--10 to 15 common "universal" probibitions (stealing, killing, fighting, etc) plus another 10 or so location specific DOs or DO NOTs (DO pay the gate tarriff, DON'T be drunk in public, etc) would be fine.

[Fuchs]

Kingdoms of Kalamar has a lot of those details, as I recall - at least trade wise.

[FatR]

This, right there, is the biggest reason why the paradigm of 'DM unilaterally creates the world' has got to go.

It's not going anywhere, because most players are more than happy to be railroaded, as long as direction of the railroad generally suits their tastes. People who actually are able and willing to put some effort in world creation are in minority.

Oh, by the way, that leads to my heresy: railroading is generally beneficial to the game, as long as it encompasses plot goals but not methods PCs use to achieve them, and as long as PCs are OK with these goals. Campaigns where GM does not present a clear plot direction all the time tend to flounder and sink. Nothing paralyzes an average party with greater certainty than total freedom.

[RobbyPants]

I was surprised when I learned the error of my railroady ways and changed my campaign. I was going to make things more focused on the players choices and only set up broad objectives rather than linear paths. I was delighted with myself.

Then my players sat around flabbergasted because they didn't know what to do. They would typically (quickly) resort to blatantly asking me what they're supposed to do, or throw out likes like "I roll a Search for DM Plot Hook check."

They truly seemed happier being railroaded. That, or I suck at plot hooks.

[souran]

I was surprised when I learned the error of my railroady ways and changed my campaign. I was going to make things more focused on the players choices and only set up broad objectives rather than linear paths. I was delighted with myself.

Then my players sat around flabbergasted because they didn't know what to do. They would typically (quickly) resort to blatantly asking me what they're supposed to do, or throw out likes like "I roll a Search for DM Plot Hook check."

They truly seemed happier being railroaded. That, or I suck at plot hooks.

You almost certantly don't suck at plot hooks. A lot of people have no desire for "sandbox" style play. Ill defined and general goals seem nice but they can vaporize the ongoing story really quickly. Many players will feel disconnected from a game that is not more story driven because "sandbox" play always favors the more proactive/hog the spotlight style player.


Honestly, the idea that all groups want to go way off the rails and are looking for ultra-proactive playstyles is just as wrong as forcing everybody down the linear path.

Most players realize that in a story there will be sometimes when you act and others when you react.

Batman is proactive about stopping crime but he has to be reactive to the actions of the supervillians. He doesn't hunt them down before they commit a crime.

[hogarth]

Oh, by the way, that leads to my heresy: railroading is generally beneficial to the game, as long as it encompasses plot goals but not methods PCs use to achieve them, and as long as PCs are OK with these goals. Campaigns where GM does not present a clear plot direction all the time tend to flounder and sink. Nothing paralyzes an average party with greater certainty than total freedom.

It's not surprising; more people enjoy reading books than writing books, for instance.

[Blicero]

In my games, I generally have the progression of missions be relatively linear (in that the PC's only have a few things to choose to do at any one time). But I try to make the events of the actual quests as freeform as possible. They'll get some sort of objective, maybe some suggestions for methods, and then it's up to them to decide how they're going to go about fulfilling said objective.

For example, they're currently trying to discover evidence that this guy's a traitor. In order to get him out of the picture so they could invade his manor, first they tried to arrange for a rival family to take revenge on him, but ended up failing because of some bad roleplaying AND diplomacy checks. So next they convinced the king to go on a hunt with him, sending two of their number along to watch over the traitor.

Then, to actually invade the manor, they ended up creating a distraction by setting the stables on fire with an invisible fire mephit and then tunneling into the cellars with the help of a summoned earth elemental.

Depending on whether they're actually able to get the evidence, the story will advance in significantly different ways.

I had no idea that they would do any of these things, but the end result was: They get to feel like they're impacting the overall scope and details of the plot, but I don't have to have 170 quest hooks available at any one time, and I still influence the story's overall direction.

[Wesley Street]

HERESY: Rule books should be walls of beautiful typography. No spot illustrations unless it's a graphic to accompany a specific race, class, monster or organization. No padding out the pages by slapping in a random OMG FIGHTIN' THE BEHOLDER CHECK OUT THE ELF TITTIES illio to fill space. Save the titties for the cover. Setting books and the like would be the exception. Setting books would actually be two parts; one part history and sociology textbook and the other part full color plates of cities, townsfolk, noblemen/monsters, notable scenic vistas, star charts, regional maps, etc.

[RobbyPants]

Why? Just to keep the books cheaper? I like the elf titties pictures.

[Roy]

Why? Just to keep the books cheaper? I like the elf titties pictures.

To keep the content to book ratio higher. They aren't going to 'add more pages', they'll just write more books.

[bosssmiley]

It may not be germane, but the Old Schoolians use a random table format (natch) they call "The Devil's in the Details" to generate factoids, rumours and common knowledge about particular in-game groups.

You have your monster book S.O.P. stuff: initial description and maybe a picture of [thing]; then its game stats; then its combat tactics. To this is added a table of factoids/rumours/local colour/possible plot hooks. Certain table entries will be immediately useful IYG, others will remain little more than background colour until relevant.

The idea could easily be extended to cities, nations, planes and the like. Big list of bullet point (mis)information, only some of which are actually true; but all of which add to the flavour of a particular setting element. Anything you don't like gets the red pen treatment or "That? That's bull..."

Assumed universe if you want it; minimal canon creep if you don't.

James Maliszewski posted an example (http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/03/ ... tails.html).