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Kaziel
2009-08-19, 04:56 PM
...do you design with the party in mind or do you create the area/world/enemy plan and let the players figure out there way through it or start mucking around in it?

This thought came up for me when I was reading the thread traps in a game w/o rogues? Fair? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122038) and I was thinking "Well, if I was a BBEG who was designing my lair and I don't have a party in mind (i.e. this takes place long before the start of the adventure), would I not have something put in it?" The answer to me was "No. I'd stuff it full of as much as I could!"

But then there's the opposite side of the equation from the POV of the players. Finding something that you just don't have the skills or abilities to either take care of or bypass would be a bit dispiriting if I was the player, even if there was another way around the problem.

In a similar vein, when designing an adventure or a campaign do you create an adventure where certain key actions by the players are already planned for (e.g. "Around now, if not already, the players will figure out that the mastermind of the attacks on the town was actually the Baron who wanted to consolidate his power and get the townfolk to trust him and his forces when they repelled the attack."), or do you create a plan and basically drop the party in the middle of it, letting them do whatever works for them to solve the problem (obviously scaling things as appropriate for the group's power level), having the BBEG(s) alter things as the heroes muck around and do their heroic thing.

P.S. I don't mean design the world to have too ridiculous challenges, like dungeons filled with nothing but things which would be an equal battle to a bunch of level 10 players when your party is just starting out. You want to challenge the party without squishing them like bugs.

Umael
2009-08-19, 05:01 PM
Half and half.

I created the world about halfway, then I get the players involved. I take their characters into account and what they want and go with that to fill in the holes.

valadil
2009-08-19, 05:49 PM
I write a lot of generic plot hooks. When I get backstory from my players I go through all my plot hooks and see if any could be applied to the generic ones I already wrote. Then I start 5 or 10 plots at once and improvise from there. I don't do overarching story. Instead I identify the plot the players attach themselves to and let that emerge as the main plot.

Kylarra
2009-08-19, 05:51 PM
It usually depends on the campaign focus, but I generally sandbox and then adjust encounters as needed.

FoE
2009-08-19, 06:20 PM
I try to create my adventures with my players' abilities in mind.

Arakune
2009-08-19, 06:23 PM
They can always hire a deticated henchman for a certain job : healing, trap finding, meat shielding...

Altima
2009-08-19, 07:03 PM
I tend to create a world, tend to work in character backgrounds if they put effort into making one, then create a BBEG who already has a plan.

The players eventually stumble onto the plan and it's their duty to stop it. If they choose not to, well, uh, they get the consequences.

I mean, honestly, what kind of BBEG would gimp himself in the designing of a fortress to give the players a break? Unless material is a concern, I'd assume every badguy does his best to make his place more secure (unless she wants it to fall, but that's another story).

Especially the BBEG who used to be an adventurer. Ouch.

Emy
2009-08-19, 07:22 PM
Especially the BBEG who used to be an adventurer. Ouch.

Former adventurers, especially spellcasters, are the nastiest villains.

Spell turrets! Forcecage + stinking cloud traps! Dispel magic traps! Layered prismatic walls! Wondrous architecture that blocks divination! Anti-teleportation countermeasures! Fighting against mooks that have a battlefield control advantage! Oh, and you have to get to the castle first, which flies and is in the middle of a hurricane!

erikun
2009-08-19, 08:15 PM
Depends on if you're throwing out plot hooks or not.

If you're building adventures for your party, then keep the party's composition in mind. While you can still send them into a trapped dungeon without a rogue, don't send them into one where every door locks and floods the room with lava, and the BBEG simply teleports to the only safe room. This doesn't mean you can't have traps without a rogue - just don't make them impossibly to find or impossibly to disarm. A 15 DC to find/disable is still a reasonable challange to a party who can't normally deal with traps, even if it is easy for a lv. 1 rogue.

On the other hand, if it's The Legendary Wizard Tower of Doom that has nothing to do with saving the world, then trap and prepare as appropriate. As long as the party knows that they don't need to go there, it's certainly reasonable to place the Tome of Horrors somewhere in your game world. The party certainly should know about the danger beforehand, though.

Vortling
2009-08-19, 08:24 PM
Personally I build the world without regard for the abilities the characters have. It makes planning much easier and gives me lots of time before hand to create the world I wish. Once I see what the party composition is I'll adjust the encounters more towards what they have but I won't erase my planning completely.

Altima
2009-08-20, 12:20 AM
Former adventurers, especially spellcasters, are the nastiest villains.

Spell turrets! Forcecage + stinking cloud traps! Dispel magic traps! Layered prismatic walls! Wondrous architecture that blocks divination! Anti-teleportation countermeasures! Fighting against mooks that have a battlefield control advantage! Oh, and you have to get to the castle first, which flies and is in the middle of a hurricane!


How about the BBEG does a scry-and-die against the party?

erikun
2009-08-20, 12:37 AM
How about the BBEG does a scry-and-die against the party?
If I just spend several hours creating a new first-level character, I don't want the campaign to start off with this:

"The Big Bad of the continent used divination to see one year into the future, and saw that you would come to kill him one day. As such, he's been scrying on you, waiting for you to come together. He teleports in front of you, summons 10 Balors, then commands them to carry your souls to the Nine Hells. Roll initiative."

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-08-20, 07:56 AM
How about the BBEG does a scry-and-die against the party?

Not as effective. All the traps and such are (A) defensive, so he doesn't have to find and scry-n-die you first, which is helpful when facing divination-immune foes or people otherwise protected against it, and (B) broad, so he can protect his minions from attack from everyone and not just himself from heroes.

When the PCs are higher-level and the defenses are less effective, however, scry-n-die is fair game. I started off the first and only epic game I ever ran with a scry-n-die attempt by the BBEG's lieutenant, and because it made sense and the PCs had a chance, it actually worked well.

Sipex
2009-08-20, 08:30 AM
My approach is I generate the world, the major NPCs (in my opinion, the players have actually altered some of them from time to time, bringing seemingly minor NPCs to the background and cleverly killing off NPCs I expected to stay around) and some plot hooks.

From that point on what happens is decided solely on what the players do and how the world reacts to them.

eepop
2009-08-20, 10:06 AM
1) Create the world
2) Tell the players what rules there are about making their characters
3) Let them make their characters
4) Have them tell me 5 contacts they have that fit within the setting. From family, to merchants, to innkeeps, etc.
5) Adjust the world for the characters and contacts
6) Profit

toturi
2009-08-21, 11:44 AM
Create the world in a manner that does not break verisimilitude.

If the PCs want to challenge a dungeon that "dozens of our best soldiers went in and never came out", it is their funeral. The guy giving them the quest is already warning them not to go, if they insist on being stupid, I'd try to warn them if some of their PCs' stats indicate they have average or better intelligence - "Your PC thinks it is a really bad idea in the entire history of bad ideas."

The guy giving them the quest/job/shadowrun would want them to succeed unless he is setting them up/planning on double crossing them/have no choice. So he gives them a job that he thinks they are able to do. In fact, he would be making sure the odds are on the PCs side unless he is really desperate.

shadzar
2009-08-21, 10:22 PM
I never look at the PCs when designing the world. Everything will happen in the world whether the players are there or not. It spins on its own as it were.

The players are there to screw up what was planned with the world, and alter it. If I take the PCs in mind when designing the world I would have a flawed world. One made for the PCs to live and win in.

Since D&D (insert your RPG here) isn't about winning or losing the game, but playing it, there is no point that should be geared towards a specific group of PCs.

The world just wouldn't work if everything in it was designed for a group of 5 people consisting of a dwarf fighter, elven wizard, human paladin, half-elf ranger, and halfling thief. If it was made with those exact things in mind, then you have made it destiny or fate, which removes the choices of the PCs from having any effect on it. Thus the choices the players make mean nothing. Ergo there is no game to be had.

So the PCs come across what ever they come across. BBEGs do not exist because this exact group of people are now traveling together. The Sisters Against Emaculate Chastity do not exist just for this group either.

Whether you have rogues as a class, every world would have thieves as no matter how much money there is people will steal, so traps are always likely even if the class isn't allowed or used in a game. It isn't the fault of the DM for having them, nor the players for no one playing a rogue. It is just another challenge the party must overcome.

Drakevarg
2009-08-21, 10:44 PM
I try to keep my players in mind while designing my world, but really I'm not too worried about allowing everyone to have a chance to make use of whatever specialization they chose. For example, if one of the characters has a really high Swim check, that doesn't mean I'd scrap my desert quest. If he's smart, he'll have SOME skills that are actually useful in a dried-out wasteland.

Similarly, just because your party has no rogue doesn't mean the dungeon won't have traps. It just means that the non-rogues will have to be more creative in getting around it.

Or they could die. That happens, too. Maybe next time they'll choose skills that aren't limited to precise situations.

That doesn't mean I'm an utterly heartless bastard, either. Some people, just by virtue of what skills they have, wind up having opportunities to use those skills. (For example, you don't hire a rogue to do an exorcism, you hire a cleric. And you don't hire a paladin to do an assassination, you hire a rogue.)