I’m sitting on the sofa on the morning side of the flat; the sun is rising and illuminating the room with glaring light. Also, the dust on the windows is shimmering with a thousand dust specs and finger prints.
I’m still trying to make sense of the confusing world of Reddit – by using it some more.
Keeping in mind Karl Voit’s admonition to Don't Contribute Anything Relevant in Web Forums Like Reddit, I’m going to copy and paste stuff I write there to this blog. Who knows, perhaps I can come back to it at some later time.
Don't Contribute Anything Relevant in Web Forums Like Reddit
☯ Somebody today was asking about action. “Throwing monsters at my party doesn’t feel like action.”
Desperation. If players fear for their characters, and then the elation when make it through, that gives players the feeling of having had a lot of action. Conversely, if players know that they need a few more rounds of the same thing that they are doing right now in order to win, then they are bored and the sense of action and things happening disappears. I’d think about it like little kids telling a story: “And then he walked on glass! And then he shot the guy at the top! And then a helicopter appeared!” Notice how there aren’t any repeats: it’s never “And then we walked on glass some more!”
To bring it back to role-playing games: when enemies attack, their attack should be fearsome in one go – deal massive damage; avoid large numbers unless these can all be turned by killing a leader, or an impressive show magic or violence; change the environment in every round, or move the fight around in the environment – first fight the orcs and the troll in the small room, then the goblins in the big hall, and then the balrog on the narrow bridge, all in one smooth encounter.
☯ Somebody else was asking about evil campaigns. “Maybe I’m overthinking it, but I can’t imagine ever wanting to even sit at the same table with the sort of person who enjoys descriptions of violence against the innocent, or God-forbid literal raping an pillaging.”
What worked for me was to run a campaign against the humans. The humans were logging the forest, the Alder King ruled over a goblin town, so the player characters were all goblins, drow, and gnomes, and they drove back loggers, assassinated the nearby baron, and eventually organized against a takeover by evil dragon-blood infused aggro lizard folk.
So it wasn’t an evil campaign, but it started out as a campaign on the side of chaos (sylvan creatures, the wild) against the forces of law (humans, urbanization). It went well because we all agreed to not play a cruel or sadistic game. And the later half of the campaign was pretty standard except we didn’t have regular humans, elves or halfings aboard.
The game didn’t go so well when the goblin assassins realized that they could force issues by killing non-player characters or stealing stuff until the player of a drow sorceress got angry and and started burning goblins in goblin town in the search of something they had stolen. The crisis among the players was narrowly averted and the campaign continued, but it was a wake-up call. We couldn’t let the evil/chaotic mindset permeate our party or we’d stop having fun.
My advice: manage expectations (we did), and be on the lookout for evil interactions within the party (we nearly didn’t).
☯ Somebody else was wondering about you meet various people all across time. “I have a campaign where the cast are various people from history (Vikings or Spartans soldiers) the idea is that they all are summoned by some sort of time police to help fight a time hopping villain from influencing the world from the start.”
I think the challenge will be to differentiate all the various people since a difference in arms and armour might not be enough to make for a fun game. I’d try to make it social. Hopefully you and the players are all at about the same level when it comes to history, and so you can happily play out all the pastiches. Befriending Vikings: have a scene where you need to be drinking a lot but never to seem drunk, and to recite poetry, and solve riddles. Befriending Spartans: have a scene were everybody wants to fight naked, or be gay, and to practice so hard every day that days of battle seem chill in comparison. Befriending Mongols: have a scene where you shoot arrows from horseback at people pursuing you, and drink horse milk. And so on. Those would be the adventures in the first half of the campaign. The trick will be to pull of something that is light-hearted but still respectful towards all these people and their way of life. You want to show how different they are and not mock them, because you want to befriend them in-game, and not offend anybody at the table.
#RPG