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Reize
2010-06-07, 12:06 AM
I'm a new DM putting together a high-magic campaign. I'm playing with a group of friends and I'd like advice on making the campaign engaging. One of the players is experienced at optimization but leans more towards flavor and RP. The others have limited play or character design experience.

The idea of the high-magic aspect is to homebrew some of the base classes to have limited casting progression. Hopefully this will keep the classes comparable in power and allow the less experienced/optimization focused players to contribute.

My main question is, "what are some common DM pitfalls and what do you like to see in a campaign when you play?"

drengnikrafe
2010-06-07, 12:12 AM
I feel as though this could be useful. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76474)

As far as a personal things go, I like to feel something. I really enjoy being able to feel or see characters in my mind's eye. I want to be loosely guided in how I should feel about how things are going, but I don't want to be outright told. I believe that leads to some of the best experiences, RP wise.

PId6
2010-06-07, 12:14 AM
On the mechanical side, I like DMs that allow numerous options. I tend to have some interesting character concepts that are fun to build and play, and I'm often turned-off by DMs that say "core only" or distrust things from supplements. For me, building interesting characters mechanically is just too difficult if the options are limited, so I'd much rather play with DMs that allow the things that I want to use.

On the story side, I love it when a DM takes my backstory and integrates it into the campaign somehow. These types of details make the story very personal for the players and their characters, and help encourage roleplaying a lot more. Of course, it's easier when I know the setting and outlines of the story beforehand so I can write a background conducive to such integration.

Reize
2010-06-07, 12:19 AM
Thank you for the link Dreng. I'm not the best at navigating this forum for pre-existing threads.

PId6: I plan to allow as much as possible in the campaign, from sourcebooks to homebrewed feats to accomodate character concepts. Part of the reason I'm making this campaign is because the other people in the group seem a bit daunted by watching all the supplemental rules and a party that looks impossible to rule.

Saveducks
2010-06-07, 12:59 AM
There are a couple pitfalls I have seen
1. Over complicating things, I had one DM who put us in this multi story building with crapload of puzzles involving unmovable rods however, we had a plethora of trouble with it because the description was so confusing we had no idea where we were

2. Overpowered friendly npc's you just feel dumb if you're traveling with someone ten levels higher then you and really has no need for you're company.

3. And possibly most ennoying, inevitable situations one time I had a DM say we had one hour to protect ourselves from an attacking group so we set up a myriad of defenses and felt we had done an amazing job then after fighting off a couple waves of enemies a guy jumped accross the room and punched me in the throat then took out the rest of our party because we needed to be banished. Players should feel rewarded for doing well not like what they did made no difference.

Ravens_cry
2010-06-07, 01:18 AM
A bit of a pet peeve is where there is heavy magic use, but no one is creative in its application.
Also are puzzles that require a party death to get the clue needed to solve.
Or the DM who tells you what your character does. This is my character, this is my decision, damn your eyes.

PId6
2010-06-07, 01:24 AM
1. Over complicating things, I had one DM who put us in this multi story building with crapload of puzzles involving unmovable rods however, we had a plethora of trouble with it because the description was so confusing we had no idea where we were
I hope you guys took the Immovable Rods with you after you left and sold them for 2,500 gp apiece?

And that reminds me of a pet-peeve of mine: the inescapable puzzle. A DM of mine loves puzzles, and they're always absolutely necessary to continuing further. One of the worst was when we went into a room that automatically sealed itself, started an anti-magic field, and created an annoying puzzle that took us hours (real time) to solve. It had no real reason to be there story-wise, and was metagamed beyond reason.

Because of our healing, we didn't mind damage-related penalties for wrong answers (as he had previously used for other puzzles), so he used this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/obstacles.htm#fluxSlime) as the consequence for failure. Yes, that is an epic trap, and we were a level 12 party. :smallannoyed: He even widened the slime's AMF so that it covered the entirety of the 20 by 20 room. :smallmad: My character (a gish, inside an AMF) was killed after taking 17 Con damage in two hits. :smallfurious:

Eventually, the puzzle was solved through a brute force algorithm that I typed up on my computer and then conveyed to the other PCs from beyond the grave. :smallannoyed:

So yeah, avoid that.

Mastikator
2010-06-07, 01:41 AM
I want the option to create stuff, rather than simply destroy.
I also prefer DMs that are lax on rules.

I'm also a big fan of non-linear character mechanics. Like Exalted, but I also prefer PCs to not be "the chosen ones", it's fun a few times but after a while it loses its feeling of specialness.
Oh, and realistic consequences are nice too. Like if you kill many people then you'll get a bad rep and many merchants won't trade with you.
And I especially don't want to see D&D economics. Seriously, anything... ANYTHING but RAW D&D economics.


But that's just me.

Reize
2010-06-07, 01:46 AM
Yes, that is an epic trap, and we were a level 12 party. :smallannoyed: He even widened the slime's AMF so that it covered the entirety of the 20 by 20 room. :smallmad: My character (a gish, inside an AMF) was killed after taking 17 Con damage in two hits. :smallfurious:

Wow, PI, that's pretty intense. I'll try to avoid completely atomizing the party at every opportunity.

I've made a note to be mindful of puzzles and riddles. I imagine it's pretty distasteful when the party is stopped dead because they can't anticipate the DM's thoughts.

Does anyone have suggestions for keeping the campaign from being totally hack and slash while still avoiding a long pause punctuated by "Ok, just run across the room and find the chest full of potions you didn't notice before."

Curmudgeon
2010-06-07, 01:46 AM
The idea of the high-magic aspect is to homebrew some of the base classes to have limited casting progression. Hopefully this will keep the classes comparable in power and allow the less experienced/optimization focused players to contribute.
Really, I wouldn't suggest that. It would take a fair amount of work to make and fine-tune such changes. The results are both unpredictable and likely to confuse your less experienced players in the future.

It's simpler to just rule out full casting classes. So your game will have Bards rather than Wizards, and that's fine.

Rokurai
2010-06-07, 03:24 AM
1. Since any one of your players is experienced, do all you can do to make the others included and comfortable. In my experience, forgoing a few DM dice rolls or a skill check or two now and again in order to foster good roleplay is always a good idea. Since your players will be new(mostly) you want to focus on roleplay more than just game mechanics. The surest way to lose a new or budding player is to bog them down in the game mechanics like climbing a ladder or rope taking skill checks in non-combat situations and the like. If you focus on the roleplay until your group starts exhibiting 'unit cohesion' you'll find that they're much more willing to deal with an unexpected, and potentially unwelcome pitfall in their plans since they know they'll come out having fun in the end.

2. Again, as stated by others here, new players, and, given enough repetition, even experienced players do not want impossible puzzles and challenges. What I do for new parties that have at least one new person whose puzzle preference I do not already know, I begin with simple, sometimes to the point of idiocy puzzles and challenges, and after the session is over, I ask all new players how they felt about the puzzle's difficulty. Remember, you're playing to create a great and memorable experience for the player characters, so communication is KEY! You may continue increasing the puzzle difficulty until at least one player thinks that the puzzles are tough. Human psychology is complicated, but the social mechanics sometimes make it so that new players sometimes feel uncomfortable saying if something is too hard or does not make sense. It is your job as their DM to make absolutely sure they feel that its fine for them to ask you anything that pops in their head(well, DnD related of course).

3. This leads me to a common pitfall that does not affect the game itself, but rather the progression of the campaign. Heavy RP is great, but it sometimes leads to tangents in the conversation. These can be fun at times, but you have to keep them in check, reminding the group of the game going on. If left uncontrolled, you can burn through four or more hour sessions having not even accomplished one forth of an adventure scenario that you had planned for that day. I like using a system that gives players a break in the middle of the session, during which we can all discuss the game, crack jokes about my latest crazy adventure scheme, how the rogue always rolls low until she tries something impossible at which point she succeeds 90% of the time(curse you rogue!), etc. I like to break a session into 2 hours, followed by lunch(or whatever meal it is, we've done sessions from 3 am to 8 am before, don't ask me why it turned out that way), then finish with another 1-2 hours, and 15min wrap-up, getting to a point at which you can resume when the next session rolls over.

4. When you write a campaign, outline a general idea, don't go into a detailed story and decide that this is what must happen, because your players will 100% hate you for it. Chances are that unless all the people you're playing with are also your identical twins and have lived with you since birth, they will surprise you. Do not be disappointed by this. Its great to have multiple options available for your adventurers, but when they do something completely out of the blue(which they will) you will have to do what all DMs have learned to do: improvise. I've had to, on multiple occasions, scrap entire already made dungeons, with storyline and plot elements, just because the PCs decided to ask an NPC something and mistook the meaning behind the NPC's words and decided to go off somewhere completely different from where I had planned. Did I despair? Well, yes, initially, but I got over it, and decided to improvise. You'd be surprised at how many times a much more interesting and rich plotline can emerge by letting the players decide where the story goes next. Let me give you an example: The players were all 3-4lvl group of six, and they had settled into their various niches in the party. To this point I had been running relatively basic encounters and one and 2 session wrap ups with no deeper story. I had decided that today I would draw them into my idea for the campaign, which was, at the time urban-based in a sprawling city where the best and worst of humanity mingled, and three opposing factions were stopping just short of open warfare for control of the city. The plan was to have the players learn of the factions and have to decide whether to help them or hinder them, and if the former, which one to work for. Needless to say that plan was soon ruined, as after only a few sessions the PCs had not only found out in detail about one of the factions, they had actually succeeded in assassinating the leader AND assuming control of it(curse you rogue!). By the end of the campaign, the PCs had used their influence to crush the two opposing factions, made a deal with a powerful green dragon, securing their position of power, and had fought off a horde of invading orcs(none of which was in my original idea of the campaign)(curse you rogue!). In the end the PCs heartily congratulated themselves on a job well done not knowing that they were initially to stop all three factions, restore the former king to power and kill the dragon with the unlikely help of the orc tribes the dragon had been terrorizing, and to this day, little do they suspect how far off course from the original plan they strayed.

What number is this? Oh, ok. 5. All DMs have trouble finding that happy medium between coddling their players, giving them overpowered gear, and having every session be a nightmarish horror where survival is unlikely, and the only reward for living through the session is the promise of worse to come next time around. Try early on to find out the balance that the players are comfortable with. If you give them something too easy to deal with, they'll feel bored, but if you give them something that's too difficult, they'll feel like you're either being unfair, or that they messed up somehow and took a wrong turn somewhere. The ideal is to have something that's beatable, but difficult enough to have the players feel like they've accomplished something when they actually deliver the killing blow.

6. This is more like an advisory specific to high magic campaigns like the one you say you'll be running. It may be tempting to give everyone sorcery and healing, but I recommend that you do a linear spellcasting progression, starting at 1 and going no higher than 3 for classes that had no initial spellcasting proficiency. Also, be very careful about the type of spells you give them. A barbarian with Bear's Endurance or Bull's Strength as one of the lvl 2 spells he can cast when he reaches lvl 9 or 10 is a good idea, but giving him fireball as one of his level 3 spells makes no sense whatsoever. You'll be tempted to do this to, as you say, balance the field between optimized and new characters, but optimized characters will always find a way to take advantage of any additional perks you make available so be wary. Be wary, but never punish a player for displaying ingenuity, as it usually benefits the whole party.

This is 7 I believe? This concerns cheating. There are 2 types of cheating, one is player cheating, the other is DM cheating. This is about the latter of the two. As a new DM you may will underestimate or overestimate the abilities your PCs will have and how they will use them. If you make something too difficult, don't be afraid to 'cheat' for your players, just don't let them know. If you'd deliver a morale crushing killing blow to one of the members standing foolishly close to one of the hydra's heads, instead make it a near graze, letting the player know fear and that they need to get their butts out of there before the next blow. It's much more fun to have something nearly kill the entire party, with maybe one unconscious person being carried by the party as they flee for their lives, than having the monster kill a member of the party outright and ruin everyone's fun. Don't be afraid to hint that maybe they need to run screaming from certain death if they don't get the picture. On the other side, if you make something too easy, i.e. an encounter with a gnoll patrol turns out too easy, don't be afraid to have one of the gnolls shout for help summoning nearby reinforcements. Strive for that balance, and after all, you are the DM, so don't be afraid to make some house-rules for your particular campaign.

8. Rules. Always be open to discussion(argument) about the rules and how they apply to a situation. There is no all encompassing rule, so you, as the DM, have to make the calls as they come. If you're sure that you're correct then don't make the mistake of trying to argue on the spot in the middle of the session, unless its an adventure-defining moment of course. Instead, it's usually better to make a temporary call on the situation, then resolve the matter with the player after the session is over and you have time, while not forcing other players to sit there and listen to the discussion(argument). Your job as DM is to make an enjoyable experience for your players, so you may feel inclined to give in to rule changes, but remember that you are the DM, and as such, your word is final in all matters concerning the campaign.

9. Time management and absences. This one is important, as its the one that most often gets in the way of sessions. Many people have different and sometimes unstable schedules. Try to always keep in touch with all your PCs and make sure that they are still up for the next session 1 and 2 days before the actual thing. Most often, the next session date is determined at the end of the current session, but more often than not, plans change in the time it takes for the next session to roll around. In the event of an absence, you have to make the decision whether to keep going with the campaign or not. Usually, if 2 or more people are absent, its better to postpone the campaign. Depending on the number of people that show up, you may want to give some sort of minor reward to the players that did show up, but not something big enough to make the person who couldn't make it feel like they are being actually penalized. Usually you can still have a productive, if not full session when 2 or more people are absent, and I've found myself giving some minor side quests like solving a string of murders in town, with only one actual encounter, but plenty of logic and interaction along the way(here it is up to your players' RP skills, but you can help by providing a facilitative environment for it). If they succeed they get a minor xp boost and my house-ruled 'divine intervention' Basically, those who showed up for the session but were forced, due to the absence of others, to play a side quest instead get a golden die; one free re-roll on a d20 before they find out the result(they must keep the second roll even if it is lower than the 1st). Sometimes a player has something come up that will prevent them from showing up to multiple consecutive sessions. If the player is coming back eventually, I like to let each of the other players get turns controlling his or her character each session, so one character controls them one session, then another the next, and so on, so that their character still gains xp and is technically not lost in the RP sense. If the player isn't coming back, or has only a few sessions left to play, I try to make the campaign focus a bit more on him or her, so that he may die in some honorable way, and so there is a reason that he is no longer in the campaign(as opposed to going *poof* and disappearing from space-time reality).

Sorry for the long windedness, but I'm sure more will come to mind, and I'll post it then.

Another_Poet
2010-06-07, 03:57 AM
I think giving more of the base classes a partial casting progression is fine, however...

Consider just offering them the Duskblade and Beguiler from PHBII.

Drakevarg
2010-06-07, 04:05 AM
What do I like to see when I play? A high mortality rate, but one caused by human error and not the Random Number Gods.

Os1ris09
2010-06-07, 07:22 AM
Wow, PI, that's pretty intense. I'll try to avoid completely atomizing the party at every opportunity.

I've made a note to be mindful of puzzles and riddles. I imagine it's pretty distasteful when the party is stopped dead because they can't anticipate the DM's thoughts.

Does anyone have suggestions for keeping the campaign from being totally hack and slash while still avoiding a long pause punctuated by "Ok, just run across the room and find the chest full of potions you didn't notice before."

Honestly present them with Role Playing problems. Such as to continue on or to get information they must Role play the conversation with the duke of XX and to gain his trust they must persuade him that they are indeed good adventurers who are only seeking to help the situation.

Stuff like that should keep it from being all hack and slash. Thats what my DM does and personally I just keep my mouth shut since I am never the "face of the party"