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Kol Korran
2014-06-22, 11:43 AM
I believe the following may have occurred to some people, most likely it has already been discussed to some, but I haven't found a topic discussing this. I'd like to discuss some thoughts that I've been playing with lately, and see what happens. So where to begin?

Well, in my current campaign (Wrath of the Righteous) The PCs are supposed to fight hordes of demons and eventually their demon lord. The scales have been set that there will be one winner to this struggle- good guys vs. bad guys, with the sake of the world in the balance.

So the same old story in a way, quite cliche and when you come down to it- somewhat boring. Why boring? Cause you either have the good guys win, which is expected, or you have the bad guys win, which in most games means game over, and pretty crappy ending. Usually in the process, most of the setting gets whomped hard, and it's not always playable from that point. With "Save the world" kinda questions the choice, the question the campaign tries to answer is not really that inspiring or interesting. You don't quite wait to see if it was resolved, at most you're looking at the way it was resolved, and the process to get there. Though that has it's merits, I'd like to discuss the ending again.

I think that in trying to shoot for epic, for grandiose matters, for something "really important" many groups quite limit themselves. It's a "you have to win" situation, which may be nice here and there, but not all the time. What if the question to solve is of a smaller scale? Save the country? Save the village? Save one person? Save ourselves? Maybe not even a question of saving but rather of making some sort of a change in the world, such as bringing separated people together, unraveling an ancient mystery, winning a grand contest or more?

I think that going on a smaller scale than "save the world", GMs and player are more likely to allow the interesting possibility of failure, and/ or alternate solutions. Things are not so black and white. Save a country from an invading army? You could win a war, but maybe also broker peace, form an alliance of a few nations, build some sort of a defensive mechanism or something most campaigns don't fully take into account- fail to save the country... the country is over taken, bad guys now rule it. Had it been "Save the world" this has been the end of the game (most likely, I know there are exceptions). But here this could be the start of another arc or campaign- form a rebellion, get help from outside, lead the survivors to another region and start a new country and more.

I think the point I'm trying to get it is that by avoiding having goals that the party MUST achieve, and enabling failure and where to move with it, the game opens up considerably more. Now this sounds quite a bit like the discussion about railroading and sandboxing, but it's not quite it. Most "must achieve" games are ones where the GM and the players both agree on the end goal, but trying to achieve it and the way there is quite open. But I still think that even with all the good intentions GMs may try to (with good intentions) subvert the game in slight ways to make the end result come to be. I know some don't, but even then- the resolution which all saw coming is not that... inspiring.

I hope I'm making sense, I'm not sure I am. :smallannoyed:

Which leads me to a very tied matter- failures driving the game. Now here I took a lesson from FATE core- there a choice to "fail" is as good as a choice to "succeed" and the game depends on those pretty much equally. Heck, failures are built into the mechanics! (Compels). D&D and other mostly gamist systems are all about overcoming the obstacles- winning the fight, persuading the opposition, solving the puzzle and so on. While some failures are acceptable, on the whole the game expects you to succeed.

Which is a shame. I'm of the opinion that a good game, one in which the resolution question (and other smaller question on the way) MATTERS, must have an open ended resolution, which doesn't means full success or full failure, but rather a range if possible and most importantly- I believe that these failures should not lead to either a) stop the game, or b) just try to succeed again, but will have an impact that changes the situation enough that you need to take in new considerations now.

I know some GMs already do that. I have myself to a degree, though i think not enough, and I don't reckon I'll be able to do that much of it with the current AP (The party is quite set seeing it to the finish). But though I think most GMs try to avoid the "MUST achieve" resolutions, few are aware enough to put an open enough resolution.

Lastly, I'd like to say that I know quite a few GMs do that, but I thought it would be worth discussing for those of us who aren't. You never know what is obvious to one and insightful to another. Also- these are but my thoughts. I hope there is some sense in them. :smallsmile:

(The following are some thoughts on a future campaign in which I hope to implement some of these ideas, not relating directly to the main discussion. Read if you're interested or wish to see more what I mean.)
I plan on running a campaign in Eberron's past that have the PCs tasked in exploring an increase in were creatures on behalf of the Silver Flame. They are basically spies. Before the Last War, before the Silver crusade. This will take place in the area now known as eastern Droaam.

The game will explore the mystery of lycanthropy (I'm changing it quite a bit). But it also explores quite a few other mysteries, such as secrets of the people in town, secrets of the gnolls, centaur and Ogre lords that inhabit the more savage lands.

How will the "open to failure" questions be dealt? A few ideas:
- The mystery of lycanthropy doesn't have to be fully understood. The party could also get it wrong. And it's fine, where ever it leads the party. The more the PCs know the more they will understand, but it's not a "must have" in the campaign.
- There will be quite a few moral dilemmas about people who are were creatures, some of them lost control, some not, some are just suspected, some are accused (wrongly or rightfully). There is no "expected" resolution to this. The party will just need to make their decisions and deal with the fall back. They may gain friends ,enemies, execute the wrong people, free the wrong people and deal with it. I don't choose what is "right". The players make tough choices and live with it.
- At some point the party may have enough info on lycanthropes to warn the forces of the silver flame, who depending on the info given, may send more operatives, or even a small army. Then the struggle intensifies and the party can side with one of the many sides of the conflict (more than just two), each with their goals, morals and such. I don't need any side to specifically win though. It's cool if the flame win, if it is defeated, if the party helps the lycanthropes away, or choose not help other sides of the conflict. I will have a general plane for the struggle, but The PCs will choose what is important for them, and even then they can fail. I intend thereto be stories/ sessions/ games sprouting from those decisions.
- Quite a few forces in the setting have their own agendas and mission- the gnoll matriarch, one ogre magi manipulator, the lords of commerce in the main town and so on. Each will be allotted a "game plan" and some sort of a schedule (A bit like that in RHoD, only more flexible). Things will move at their own pace, but I need not any of the PCs to stop anything, or to support anything, though each will have their affect on the game. Nothing "Must happen", and most things have more than just one possible solution.

So that sort of thing...

Yora
2014-06-22, 12:58 PM
End of the World plots are popular because they are easy. Characters don't need any personalty or background to save the world. Everyone wants to live and the end of the world is the one situation from which nobody can simply walk away. It's the absolutely lowest common denominator, there isn't anything more basic in storytelling than that.

If you want a different kind of threat, then the characters need to have something they want to protect. Bob the chaotic neutral human thief does not value anything but his life. Why should he care and not just run away?

A good idea is to not make the outcome total success or total failure, but to allow for a wide gradient of success. Two popular stories from recent years, in which the heroes fail really badly are Star Wars III, and Halo: Reach. Both are prequels and failure was a given and everyone knew it, but also knew that later on things would still turn out well, so the people in charge of the money were willing to shove over the production money, which they otherwise wouldn't do.
The Sith almost whipe out the Jedi and take over the galaxy, but Yoda and Obi-wan survive and hide the babies to prepare for a next offensive 20 years later. Reach gets completely annihilated with most of the remaining human forces, but one ship manages to escape with the Master Chief and the coordinates of Halo, which will turn around the whole war, that was already lost.
The heroes failed and spectacularly badly. But even after they lost, they still had to press on, because things could get still much worse. If the PCs of a campaign don't manage to stop the evil necromancer lord and his army does reach the kingdom and destroys the kings troops, the PCs have failed. But the undead still have not whiped out every town in the kingdom and the PCs can still make a second attempt to kill the necromancer and save whoever is still left. Still great deedstto be done. And if that also fails, they can try to make run for their home town and get everyone to flee the country before the undead arrive. And they can still fail at this again, but there is still the need to get at least some survivors who are trapped in the temple. And maybe some die on the attempt to leave thr village, but the remaining ones still can be saved.
But what is absolutely required for such a campaign is, that the PCs care about anything but their own life and money. Even if the only thing that matters for Bob the Thief is his little brother, who is trapped in the temple with the other survivors, you have something to work with. So get the players to come up with a couple of things they care about. Doesn't have to be relatives that get taken hostage by the GM. The more things the players can name, the less likely each of them is to be targeted by villains. And it doesn't even have to get that far. What matters is that at some point in the future, these things could become threatened if the PCs are failing too many times in a row.

hymer
2014-06-22, 01:29 PM
Yora has some very salient points I think. I agree. And I agree with the original premise, about failure being an option.
I think you can even play 'save the world' games and let failure be an option along the way. So long as the good and the bad are fighting multiple battles over partial successes, there's nothing requiring that one side wins any given conflict. Then, perhaps, you can end the campaign with an all-or-nothing if the table likes that.
But personally, I enjoy the smaller things you mention for their own sake. Exposing a corrupt policeman is hardly earth shaking, but if he's a compelling villain, it's still extremely satisfying.
If you're fighting for the survival of the world, you're also more locked in. It's a lot harder to take a week off to do something personal, so even if the PCs have well developed background, you'll probably get to see less of it, and it is likely to have a smaller impact on the story.

kyoryu
2014-06-22, 02:06 PM
One of us! One of us!

An important part of having non-"world ending" stakes is player buyin. For that, I find that collaborative campaign creation really helps. It's easier for players to buy into something that they've helped create.

You can also have the "fate of the world be in the balance", even without threatening to destroy the world - the threat can be something that will radically *change* the world in a way that the players don't want. Alternately, the players can be trying to change the world, and hte opposition can be trying to keep it as it is!

You can also play with lowering the scale, and focusing on smaller areas as well. Again, reasonable buyin to this is pretty important.

The one caveat here is that "play to find out what happens" is a pretty different style than "play to overcome the challenges", and it's useful to both prep players that they should expect to "fail" (aka, things don't go their way) on a regular basis, as well as having a system that is conducive to that. Fate, via both Compels and Concessions, does this well, but it's clearly not the *only* system that works for this.

(You just knew I was gonna respond to this one, didn't you?)

Vinegar Tom
2014-06-22, 04:27 PM
I think that the trouble here is that, quite frankly, the current generation of players are spoiled. It's all about "builds", maxing your bonuses in totally artificial ways, class/race combos that are frequently ludicrous but give you some sort of extra-big number among your stats, and other abominations. Which means that players want to start their "characters" (who are usually little more than a string of surprisingly large numbers) at very high levels, where saving the world is an appropriate challenge.

Back in the day, most campaigns represented the entire career of a group of heroes (or villains), so the vast majority of games took place at low levels, where failure certainly wasn't the end of the world! Though of course it might very well be the end of you. But since PCs nearly always went through much longer periods of genuine character development, they weren't expected to be super-competent to begin with. Failure, and indeed PC death (which at low levels tends to be permanent), were things that could happen and frequently did. Indeed, it was assumed that players who got all the way to the highest levels would soon retire because they'd run out of things that could possibly challenge them, becoming legendary hero NPCs, and the player would start again as a young novice adventurer voluntarily. Because that would obviously be more fun than carrying on as a superhero who monotonously kicks the hellgravy out of Asmodeus and all his legions once a week until the GM gives up and lets him ascend to godhood.

Here's an old-school example of failure being interesting. You're hired to free a humble village from cruel domination by a tribe of Orcs in a Seven Samurai kind of scenario. If you fail, the Orcs will slaughter every last villager in retaliation for defying them, and it's kind of your fault even if you did your best. At least some of you will probably die, but it doesn't have to be a TPK. Alas, you do indeed fail, because the Orcs are tougher and smarter than you've been led to believe, or at least these ones are. The surviving PCs probably now have a personal feud with that Orc band, and their leader in particular; taking him down to avenge the slaughtered innocents and lost comrades (or just because they're too proud and/or vindictive to forget about payback for something like that) is a high priority, but you'll need to regroup and think very carefully about how to do that, bearing in mind the aforementioned very smart Orc chieftain is expecting you this time...

So there's a failure which sets up several possibilities. Non-Good PCs might simply give up and walk away. Killing the Orcs won't bring back the dead villagers, so maybe they'll decide a return-match against a foe who defeated and nearly killed them first time round isn't worth it. Evil PCs might attempt to negotiate with an opponent who is obviously smart enough to appreciate fighting ability when he sees it. The villagers hired them as protection. They weren't enough, but they did a lot of damage, and since they'll fight for anyone with cash, maybe the chief has an mission for them? This could of course be a trick on either side or both. Maybe these Orcs are so much more competent than usual because they have a leader so smart that if he isn't stopped, he'll continually grow as a threat commanding bigger and bigger armies (in which case the sadistic GM probably knew they'd fail, and set up the situation to jolt them out of complacency by suddenly making Orcs far more deadly than they were last time, also establishing the chief as an ongoing BBEG who will be much more frightening than usual because the first time they fought him, he actually won).

Or maybe there's already a huge, unprecedentedly organized Orc army with a horribly competent leader gathering not far away in secret, and this was just a scout party that wasn't supposed to engage serious opponents and reveal how well-trained they were; enough evidence can be gathered to prove this to the King, starting the war prematurely before the Orcs were fully prepared, but not quite soon enough to guarantee victory for the good guys; the PCs are now involved in a war which they can't possibly win all by themselves, or come anywhere near doing so, but the grateful King will no doubt appreciate their help for special ops and the like.

And so on. Whatever happens, the consequences of the PCs' actions will not save the world, or indeed cause it to end. At worst, the fate of one probably quite minor kingdom is in the balance, or maybe several kingdoms at some point much later in the campaign. It may be that nothing will change at all - a few insignificant peasants died, and if they're not avenged, presumably the Orc band will do the same to a few more equally insignificant villages, but nobody really cares, and if the PCs walk away they'll probably never hear anything more about it. But they lost, and they chose to walk away. At the very least, they're going to have to think about how brave and competent they really are. Or maybe they even allied themselves with the Orcs, perhaps marking the tipping point for some of them from thoroughly selfish to genuinely evil.

And if they'd won? Job done, the insignificant peasants who will never appear in the story again are very grateful, the end. Next self-contained adventure nugget please! Which is more interesting?

Kalmageddon
2014-06-22, 04:44 PM
As someone with a strong dislike for FATE, I would absolutely oppose the idea that a game shouldn't be about overcoming obstacles, if there is no way to fail, to be defeated, then it's not a game. I want to be able to set myself with an objective and accompilsh it despite the odds.

With that said...
There is absolutely merit in the idea of having smaller scale plots in which a failure might not be the end of the world or indeed the end of the campaign. But it's not by removing the consequences of failure that you make it work.
Overcoming obstacles should still be central to the game, it's a simple matter of giving the PCs the option to live to fight another day, to retreat. So you lose a city, a country, the princess is killed: this is all bad. But it's not the end as long as you can come back for round 2, this time having learned from your mistakes.

Ravens_cry
2014-06-22, 04:59 PM
A trouble with saving the world is just how impersonal it is. Besides, where exactly do you go from there? Saving the MULTI-verse? It's so huge that you can't take it all in. I'd rather have a smaller scale thing where, if you are saving anyone, it's people you can grow to know and care about, not a faceless mass.
Here's an idea. You live on the frontiers of a slowly decaying empire, analogous to Ancient Rome.
Barbarians are encroaching on the territory, and the empire is pulling back, leaving you and your village with little support.
What do you do? Try to fight them off, and, even if you win, killing many people you know and love?
Do you try an and negotiate some kind of deal that may mean consigning loved ones to a life of servitude to far worse masters? Do you retreat with the Empire, leaving all you've ever known behind you, including those who won't, or can't, make the journey?
Heck if I know, but it could be damn exciting, yes?

veti
2014-06-22, 08:02 PM
An interesting (?) twist is when the players come up with a solution to a (relatively) small, localised problem that, incidentally as a side-effect, actually threatens to destroy the whole world. Something like "summoning Azathoth", or "nuclear deterrence".

Ravens_cry
2014-06-22, 08:53 PM
An interesting (?) twist is when the players come up with a solution to a (relatively) small, localised problem that, incidentally as a side-effect, actually threatens to destroy the whole world. Something like "summoning Azathoth", or "nuclear deterrence".
No, I wouldn't do that. That just feels mean spirited. A diabolus ex machina unless it was well hinted at before being sprung.

ngilop
2014-06-22, 10:23 PM
Ok before I actually post anything relevant I just need some clarification on things


is the OP sayin that campaigns centered around saving the world such as "wrath of th righteous" are bad and only lazy DMs and unimaginative types play them?


I can add something that has no bearing on any answer im given to my above question. I should really heavily suggest that you just tell your players that Wrat hof the Righteous is boring and you don't wanna play a game where its an all in type. because you are just not going to be as enthusiastic and energetic/full of ideas/ optimistic about this game as one where you had a 'ladder' o sorts of success/failure. Just explain to them that you do notlike the 'save the wolrd MUST DO' type games find them trite and would prefer X campaign instead as you can fully focus on running that rather thanhave your focu on how this style of campaign is clichéd and crappy.

I am suggessing this from a players prospective and having a DM who really does not want to DM a particular game makes it fun for no one.

FidgetySquirrel
2014-06-22, 10:52 PM
I've done my share of save the world campaigns and I have nothing against them. Still, I thought the same thing, and decided to do something on a smaller scale. It's not so much a threat to the world as it is to a couple of nations, and the PCs won't even be aware of this at first.

I spoilered the details for those who aren't interested.

I created a small-scale setting for this one, basically one continent, about the size of Europe. I haven't mapped out the rest of the world, but I know my players well enough to know that I probably won't have to. Essentially, the elves, dwarves, and humans all have their own nations. 700 years ago, a peace treaty was signed, ending a war that had raged for centuries between the three races. Agents loyal to the drow have infiltrated the human and elven societies, and are working covertly to rekindle the war. To this end, they've even attempted to reach out to their surface kin, supposedly to form an alliance.

Their real plan, however, is to decimate the elven and human armies, and destabilize the surface world. The PCs may, or may not, uncover the truth and attempt to prevent the oncoming war. Whatever the case, there are a number of different endgame scenarios that could be employed, but my hope is that my players can prevent total chaos from unfolding on the surface.

I have already told them that the campaign will be a bit heavy on political intrigue, with the possibility of a war scenario, so they shouldn't feel ripped off no matter how it goes. I'll be gently nudging them toward figuring out the conspiracy, but if they don't, I'm prepared. Hopefully, they enjoy the campaign as much as I think they will.

Knaight
2014-06-22, 10:59 PM
As far as saving the world goes - the appeal really does come down to a lowest common denominator thing. It's not just that it's easy for a game for the reasons Yora mentioned. It's that it's really easy in the source material. There are plenty of fantasy novels about saving the world, largely because it's easy. There's action movie after action movie about saving the world (or just the country of the film studio), because it's easy. Video games are probably even worse about this. So on and so forth. Pulling from the source material can easily produce a save the world game, just because it's so prevalent.

It's also really tedious. I've consistently had much more fun with games which are most certainly not about saving the world. Sometimes there are very large scale threats or catastrophes, sometimes they are closely focused on characters, but the whole "the world will die unless you save it" bit of tediousness generally isn't there. That's not to say that no campaign should be about saving the world, but having every campaign that way is pretty unfulfilling for most people. Some people genuinely prefer it, and that's their prerogative, but I strongly suspect most of it exists just because it's easy, and the vast majority of it could be dropped, to the benefit of a lot of games.


I think that the trouble here is that, quite frankly, the current generation of players are spoiled. It's all about "builds", maxing your bonuses in totally artificial ways, class/race combos that are frequently ludicrous but give you some sort of extra-big number among your stats, and other abominations. Which means that players want to start their "characters" (who are usually little more than a string of surprisingly large numbers) at very high levels, where saving the world is an appropriate challenge.

Point number 1: You may notice that we are not, in fact, on the D&D forums. "Class/race combos" "high levels" and even "builds" are all pretty system specific. Outside of D&D, the trends are pointing in the complete opposite direction of this. Mechanics are frequently there explicitly for character traits, games are frequently about things about as far as saving the world as it gets (for instance, Fiasco is about how your group of misfits manage to utterly destroy their own lives through their ridiculous antics).

Point number 2: The 'old school' style is legitimately descended from wargames. Early D&D doesn't even expect one to name their characters until they were a few levels in. Some of this attitude still exists. I could easily say that the old school style is "moving a glorified pawn around a board to get loot". Would it be a fair description? No. Is it every bit as fair as your description above? Yes.

Point number 3: The smug superiority among some of the 'old school' proponents and the ludicrous misinformation behind it are obnoxious. Knock it off.

FidgetySquirrel
2014-06-22, 11:11 PM
I think that the trouble here is that, quite frankly, the current generation of players are spoiled. It's all about "builds", maxing your bonuses in totally artificial ways, class/race combos that are frequently ludicrous but give you some sort of extra-big number among your stats, and other abominations. Which means that players want to start their "characters" (who are usually little more than a string of surprisingly large numbers) at very high levels, where saving the world is an appropriate challenge.I think you're confusing theoretical and practical optimization. Some people enjoy making stupid powerful builds, like Pun-Pun, but most don't actually use them. Most players will use whatever optimization level the group deems 'acceptable.' For most players, it seems, it's not about power. It's more about maximizing the characters survival rate, which isn't wholly unreasonable, in my opinion. They still flesh out their characters personalities, however, and most campaigns still start out at low-mid level.

Really, there's no reason to get on your soap box and start insulting people with a different play-style than you. I'm not really into high-op play, but I don't go around calling players who are 'spoiled.' They're playing the game the way that they want to play it. As long as the players in the group are enjoying themselves, they are winning, and that's all that matters.

kyoryu
2014-06-22, 11:27 PM
As someone with a strong dislike for FATE, I would absolutely oppose the idea that a game shouldn't be about overcoming obstacles, if there is no way to fail, to be defeated, then it's not a game. I want to be able to set myself with an objective and accompilsh it despite the odds.

If Fate's really about "what's important to you", or "are you willing to pay the cost for something", then the ability to fail is utterly required. Choices between A and B are interesting. Getting both A and B means that there's no choice, and thus no gameplay.

In Fate games I run, the players "lose" (fail/don't get their way) in probably 30%-50% of their encounters. That's pretty much the opposite of never losing.

The difference in Fate is that winning or losing isn't so much about "do my build/tactics stack up" as it is about "what things are really worth it to me?" It's a different focus, and some people won't like it. That's cool.

Here's a little more on that: https://plus.google.com/108546067488075210468/posts/HEWinTXQrgS

But it's pretty much false to suggest that, as a system, Fate is about never losing. It's got more 'losing' baked into the rules (Compels, Concessions, Consequences) than most games I'm aware of.

Also, some more on the importance of failure in Fate: https://plus.google.com/108546067488075210468/posts/CpvrfJUz8du

kyoryu
2014-06-23, 02:03 AM
Let me give a concrete example, from actual play.

In a recent urban fantasy game I ran, the PCs were trying to figure out what exactly had turned a college dudebro into a pile of hamburger. They were able to get a few samples of what they were pretty sure was the critter. They probably could have gotten more clues, but were run off by a group of hunters.

The golem mob boss set up the doctor character with contacts at the hospital that could be trusted to keep things quiet. He failed to get them to cooperate, and they demanded his help with something first - moving a styrofoam container to a helicopter.

On the way, he didn't notice that he was being followed, and ended up getting run off of the road and blocked in his vehicle by several hunters - who told him that what he was doing was transporting tasty snacks for ghouls to nosh on. He wanted nothing to do with that, and so gave up the container to the hunters, who agreed to leave him alone.

Turns out that the operation was being run by one of the mob boss' contacts, the vampire queen of Seattle, Maxine. So, to smooth things over, he agreed to do a favor and transport more stuff for Maxine. Stupidly, he took the doctor with him.

The doctor lost his mind at seeing the organ harvesting operation going on, and ended up getting captured. The mob boss had to kind of let this happen, lest things get even worse.

The doctor wakes up, and tries to escape (using his barely awakening magic), but ultimately fails. Meanwhile, the mob boss arranges with Maxine to sell out the hunters (who are really kind of good guys) in exchange for the doctor (whom Maxine is really interested in, now that she knows he's got da magics). But she'll agree to it for the sake of peace, and the chance to ambush a bunch of hunters is certainly a nice prize for her. A time and place for the exchange is arranged.

At this point, the doc wakes up, and manages to escape. He runs out of the building, and hunted by several ghouls but amplified by his own power, manages to escape until the point where several hunters run into him. They drive him away.

Mr. Mob Boss meets up with Maxine - who is PISSED OFF. She demands a serious token in exchange for the havoc that the mob boss has wreaked on her operation, and so she takes his most trusted lieutenant, and will turn him into a vampire.

None of this stuff was prescripted. It was all a snowball that kept growing and growing based on a series of crap rolls (and a key Compel in a few locations). It could have gone even worse, had the PCs not managed to pull out a few victories near the end.

Kalmageddon
2014-06-23, 04:23 AM
Let me give a concrete example, from actual play.

In a recent urban fantasy game I ran, the PCs were trying to figure out what exactly had turned a college dudebro into a pile of hamburger. They were able to get a few samples of what they were pretty sure was the critter. They probably could have gotten more clues, but were run off by a group of hunters.

The golem mob boss set up the doctor character with contacts at the hospital that could be trusted to keep things quiet. He failed to get them to cooperate, and they demanded his help with something first - moving a styrofoam container to a helicopter.

On the way, he didn't notice that he was being followed, and ended up getting run off of the road and blocked in his vehicle by several hunters - who told him that what he was doing was transporting tasty snacks for ghouls to nosh on. He wanted nothing to do with that, and so gave up the container to the hunters, who agreed to leave him alone.

Turns out that the operation was being run by one of the mob boss' contacts, the vampire queen of Seattle, Maxine. So, to smooth things over, he agreed to do a favor and transport more stuff for Maxine. Stupidly, he took the doctor with him.

The doctor lost his mind at seeing the organ harvesting operation going on, and ended up getting captured. The mob boss had to kind of let this happen, lest things get even worse.

The doctor wakes up, and tries to escape (using his barely awakening magic), but ultimately fails. Meanwhile, the mob boss arranges with Maxine to sell out the hunters (who are really kind of good guys) in exchange for the doctor (whom Maxine is really interested in, now that she knows he's got da magics). But she'll agree to it for the sake of peace, and the chance to ambush a bunch of hunters is certainly a nice prize for her. A time and place for the exchange is arranged.

At this point, the doc wakes up, and manages to escape. He runs out of the building, and hunted by several ghouls but amplified by his own power, manages to escape until the point where several hunters run into him. They drive him away.

Mr. Mob Boss meets up with Maxine - who is PISSED OFF. She demands a serious token in exchange for the havoc that the mob boss has wreaked on her operation, and so she takes his most trusted lieutenant, and will turn him into a vampire.

None of this stuff was prescripted. It was all a snowball that kept growing and growing based on a series of crap rolls (and a key Compel in a few locations). It could have gone even worse, had the PCs not managed to pull out a few victories near the end.

This could have easily happened using any system, improvisation is hardly something that you can do only in FATE. The difference is that FATE runs on it, other systems don't.

Kol Korran
2014-06-23, 04:39 AM
You put some interesting points up there. I'd like to address a few.


If you want a different kind of threat, then the characters need to have something they want to protect. Bob the chaotic neutral human thief does not value anything but his life. Why should he care and not just run away?
....
But what is absolutely required for such a campaign is, that the PCs care about anything but their own life and money. Even if the only thing that matters for Bob the Thief is his little brother, who is trapped in the temple with the other survivors, you have something to work with. So get the players to come up with a couple of things they care about. Doesn't have to be relatives that get taken hostage by the GM. The more things the players can name, the less likely each of them is to be targeted by villains. And it doesn't even have to get that far. What matters is that at some point in the future, these things could become threatened if the PCs are failing too many times in a row.
Hmmmm... that is quite true. The problem however is not to get the character to care, but the player to care in my opinion, which is usually quite tricky, with some players seeking light hearted fun and not getting too attached to the world. I think that such campaigns may need some time to build relations, connections and attachment to a place/ people/ goals much more than save-the-world campaigns. Good point, and worth considering more...


If you're fighting for the survival of the world, you're also more locked in. It's a lot harder to take a week off to do something personal, so even if the PCs have well developed background, you'll probably get to see less of it, and it is likely to have a smaller impact on the story. That is true as well. My first campaign coming back to GMing was a save the world kind of ordeal where the chracters quickly moved from one crisis to the next, on a race with the antagosnits. Though it left soem room for character development, it was less than could have been done with living some breathing room. Note that even smaller scales conflicts may be intense and fast paced enough to leave little place for interaction with the world, but yeah, I see where you're getting.



The one caveat here is that "play to find out what happens" is a pretty different style than "play to overcome the challenges", and it's useful to both prep players that they should expect to "fail" (aka, things don't go their way) on a regular basis, as well as having a system that is conducive to that. Fate, via both Compels and Concessions, does this well, but it's clearly not the *only* system that works for this.

(You just knew I was gonna respond to this one, didn't you?)


As someone with a strong dislike for FATE, I would absolutely oppose the idea that a game shouldn't be about overcoming obstacles, if there is no way to fail, to be defeated, then it's not a game. I want to be able to set myself with an objective and accompilsh it despite the odds.

My group tried FATE (In my sig) but also preferred the complexity of d20 rules. I don't think in FATE you can't lose however, I think that the system enable failure in a way that it moves the story for a different direction.

I was referring to allow failures in that regard, not in making the game not challenging, or obviating obstacles. I just meant that unlike the prevalent concept of D&D that you need to overcome nearly all of the obstacles (The CR system is built to reflect that, as do nearly all of the modules.) I wanted to make the possibility and reality of failure more prevalent as a story driving force. (This I do take from FATE). Failing should be a real possibility, and it shoudln't be the end of the game, but rather something that enriches it, and brings up new possibilities.
But a major part of the game can still be about trying to achieve goals. My players like it, and so do I.u

And Kyoryu, yeah, I assumed you'd be interested in this as well and have something to add. Playing that FATE game got me thinking a bit... Glad of your advice.

THAT said, this thread isn't about this game system or that specifically, but about the concept of enabling failure and smaller scale conflicts to affect the campign you're in. Yes, I'm coming mostly from a d20 background, which colored most of my gaming experience this far. Yes, I've GMed a very interesting FATE campaign recently, and I'm influenced by ideas from it, but I think these things may not be connected to a specific system, and can be made to work in quite a few ones.


Ok before I actually post anything relevant I just need some clarification on things

Is the OP sayin that campaigns centered around saving the world such as "wrath of th righteous" are bad and only lazy DMs and unimaginative types play them?
I... never said that. If that was the impression you got I apologize. I currently DM the Wrath of the Righteous and we are having fun. I have an issue with the APs as written, but that is a different story. Save-the-world campaigns are hteir own genre, with it's up points and possible down points. I'm trying to discuss that. Most of my previous campaigns were "save the world" types of campaigns and I don't consider myself or other who runs them bad GMs, or lazy ones.

I'm saying they all share some common features, such as built up on necessarily winning or the game ending, in most cases, and their problem of integrating failures in a way that drives the story forward. That is what I'm discussing.

HammeredWharf
2014-06-23, 05:04 AM
I haven't checked Wrath of the Righteous out, but you can do plenty of things while saving the world. I DMed a campaign about stopping the apocalypse recently and - while it had a fairly typical endgame with things exploding, people dieing, acid from the sky, etc. - it also had plenty of politics, scheming and side-choosing. As you wrote, everyone benefits from saving the world, but some people may want to benefit from it more than others. For example, followers of Hextor may want to show the world how awesome and right their god is by outshining you in the "saving the world" department. Do you let them do it? It's technically helpful, but what will happen after the world is saved?

You can have a certain endgame in the players vs. The Big Evil Thing That Brings Apocalypse, but the players' angle in that fight and their allies may vary depending on their choices. In my abovementioned campaign, the players chose to blow half of the world up for the greater good instead of saving it all. If they made different choices, things could've gone in a completely different direction.

prufock
2014-06-23, 07:54 AM
I'm running an end of the world scenario now. One of the things I'm doing is to make sure success and failure aren't binary. Degrees of success or failure are possible. Right now the characters have completed about half the tasks, meaning the devastation will be half as bad as it could have been. It's a world where the other planes are bleeding into the Prime Material, and their job is to close the wounds. There is a BBEG who has a vested interest in keeping them open, there are wars going on as a result, there are multiple interested factions with different agendas, and so on. The end game, if things keep progressing as they are, is going to be a massive war. Failure here won't necessarily mean death for the PCs, though some of them are sure to die in battle, and there are a lot of different outcomes possible.

I guess I don't like win or lose scenarios - "winning" can still mean bad things happening, "losing" doesn't necessarily mean losing everything.

kyoryu
2014-06-23, 11:34 AM
This could have easily happened using any system, improvisation is hardly something that you can do only in FATE. The difference is that FATE runs on it, other systems don't.

Clearly you can improvise in all systems (though the more prep a system requires, the harder it is).

The point wasn't about improvisation. The point was that this was all driven by *failures*, which was exactly Kol Korran's point, and directly counter to your assertion that Fate doesn't allow for failures. The only reason improvisation was brought up was to make sure that it was understood that these weren't GM-determined, railroaded failures, but actual events that could have swung either way.

I mean, feel free to dislike Fate. People have opinions, right? But saying that Fate doesn't allow for failure is strange. Fate *runs* on failure. More than most games, it *suffers* if the players aren't failing on occasion.

Kol Korran's point wasn't that things shouldn't be hard. It was "what's the point of an encounter?" In many games, the point of an encounter is to see "is our system mastery sufficient to overcome this obstacle?" (which in many cases is actually an illusion - the game's set up for you to almost *always* overcome the obstacle). Kol Korran's proposing a slightly different question - "what happens next?", with multiple options being valid.

(In Fate, this would generally boil down to "how much do I really want this?", but that's not applicable to all systems).


Hmmmm... that is quite true. The problem however is not to get the character to care, but the player to care in my opinion, which is usually quite tricky

Totally agreed. The basic problem is usually that the GM has spent a lot of time designing the world and the story, and therefore is invested in it. Meanwhile, the player is invested in their character, but not the world. At the worst case, the GM insists that only "their" stuff is important, and the other things that the players do is "side stuff". This leads to the GM being heavily invested in "their stuff" and the players being invested in "their stuff", and a very small area of overlap.

I prefer to fight this by:

1) Engaging in collaborative setting design - my favorite tool for this is A Spark In Fate Core (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/117868/A-Spark-in-Fate-Core). It's free, and while it was designed for Fate Core, I think it would be perfectly usable in any system - no "numbers" get generated by it.

2) Making very sure that, as a GM, I listen to my players, and make their actions important in the world. I feel Fate helps here, as character Aspects can, among other things, set facts about the setting. Even outside of larger things, I try to watch for which NPCs the players respond to, and keep them coming back. And if players set a goal that's possible in the game world, no matter how trivial it may seem to me (compared to my Big Important Story), I make sure to give it sufficient time to develop and sufficient impact. It's much easier to get your players interested in the story/world when you make sure that the things they tell you they're interested in are a part of it.


I just meant that unlike the prevalent concept of D&D that you need to overcome nearly all of the obstacles (The CR system is built to reflect that, as do nearly all of the modules.) I wanted to make the possibility and reality of failure more prevalent as a story driving force.

That's as much a matter of linear adventure design as everything, and any published AP is going to pretty much have to follow this. When you've already got encounters B through Z planned out, the outcome of encounter A is pretty much a given.

Interestingly, this isn't really an old-school D&D thing. It wasn't until the DragonLance modules that this type of structure really appeared.


Failing should be a real possibility, and it shoudln't be the end of the game, but rather something that enriches it, and brings up new possibilities.
But a major part of the game can still be about trying to achieve goals.

Yes, the game *should* be about achieving goals. What else would it be about? :D

Even in D&D, there's plenty of room in the rules to do things like, oh, I don't know, RETREAT? And yet this often seems like a verboten option.

A big part of this is really about setting appropriate stakes for conflicts - knowing *why* you're fighting beyond "we want to kill them! They want to kill us!" A few good articles on this are:

http://angrydm.com/2013/05/four-things-youve-never-heard-of-that-make-encounters-not-suck/

http://angrydm.com/2013/07/how-to-build-awesome-encounters/

This one's about screenwriting, but the vast majority holds true: http://io9.com/why-you-should-never-write-action-scenes-into-your-tent-511712234


Save-the-world campaigns are hteir own genre, with it's up points and possible down points. I'm trying to discuss that. Most of my previous campaigns were "save the world" types of campaigns and I don't consider myself or other who runs them bad GMs, or lazy ones.

I'm not sure it's actually about "save the world" games. It's about:

1) What's the 'point' of an encounter?
2) How predetermined is 'what happens?'
3) What's the role/frequency of failure in your game?

Most published "adventure paths" or the like *tend* to have the answers (respectively), of "show system mastery/how awesome you are", "very predetermined", and "none, until the BBEG at least we don't really expect you to lose because that would screw up the next ten encounters".


I'm saying they all share some common features, such as built up on necessarily winning or the game ending, in most cases, and their problem of integrating failures in a way that drives the story forward. That is what I'm discussing.

Yeah, I see the integrating failures bit, specifically, as being more about how predetermined the "path" is, versus whether or not it's a save-the-world situation. Granted, in a save-the-world situation, it's more predicated on success at the *end*, but before then, it could be wide open.



I guess I don't like win or lose scenarios - "winning" can still mean bad things happening, "losing" doesn't necessarily mean losing everything.

Yup, I think that's key. If the only failure option is "TPK", you're not going to fail very frequently. My personal preference is that *every* encounter should have a significant chance of failure - which means that the PCs should fail on a regular basis.

Garimeth
2014-06-23, 01:29 PM
First, OP, I totally agree. Save the world/universe games don't feel as... gritty to me. I like to try and set up several small conflicts and let the party pursue the ones that interest them. I let the players have a fair bit of creative input into my settings, also.

So imagine it like a sweater with several loose threads, they pull on one, and it just keeps coming. It seemed like just bandits, but its actually imperial deserters, wait no they are corrupt active duty legionairres, wait no - they are reporting to somebody back in the capitol, wait no - etc. But I have several of these, and these 3-5 groups all have different agendas which are competing. The world will progress regardless of what the players do, but if they decide to get involved then they can influence which faction accomplishes its goals, and also how they accomplish them. Or they can just go cowboy and do their own things while the world happens around them.

Here is an example of what I gave to my players at the start of the current campaign (WARNING: Its long.)

15 years ago the Orc Lord began a push south into the Dragon Empire's lands. The attack took the Barbarian tribes in the north by surprise when they swept out of The Frost Range. The Dwarves, Elves, and the Empire allied to stop them near the Northern Colossus, which, during a particularly gruesome day of fighting, suddenly animated and began laying waste to soldiers on both sides of the battle until sunset, and it has not moved since.

10 years ago the previous Emperor was assassinated in an ambush by a party of Orcs on a return trip from Forge. He was succeeded by his son, who was a recalled from the battlefield. Rumors began around the Empire that the unit, all half-orcs, sold the Emperor out. The Orcs pushed out as far as Forge, where the Dwarves held them. A large number of the half-orcs in the Empire went out and helped fill the gaps determined to redeem their race from the unfounded prejudices that swept through the Empire. As winter approached the Dwarves settled in for a siege.

The siege was in favor of the Dwarves. On their own mountain, and stocked with provisions and a clear route to Anvil via the Underforge, they weathered the winter much better than the orcs. Come the following spring the allied defenders drove the weakened orc horde back into the Frost Range. The Orcs have driven out the barbarians that dwelled there previously and are massing for another attempt to push against the Empire. The areas between the foothills of the Range and Northern Colossus have become the site of numerous border skirmishes between the Empire, including the Dwarves, and the Orcs.

In the 8 years since then the Emperor's son has revealed himself as a tyrant. His rule is orderly and disciplined, and decidedly lawful evil. His empire is overtaxed both financially and in terms of men who were killed in the Orc War, which has also resulted in fewer workers to farm and harvest – leading to a few years of lean harvests. Noble parentage has always granted favorable treatment, but the distance between the classes has expanded in the past 8 years. About 3 years ago rumors began of a growing rebellion against the Emperor. The growing unrest blossomed into a riot in Axis. The Emperor swiftly sent in one of his legions and efficiently and mercilessly put an end to the riot, and setting fire to the rebellion.

With the rebellion growing in popularity the Emperor began arresting people accused of seditious or treasonous actions. Around this time The Rebel appeared. The first public appearance of the Rebel was against a platoon of Legionaries NW of Drakkenhall. The platoon was shaking down a farming village and at one point things got out of hand. According to the popular account a farmer resisted being overtaxed and the Legion responded by burning his farm and killing him and his family. The rest of the town complied and paid up. On their way out of the town a man wearing a red headband and a stip of red cloth tied around his left bicep appeared in the road. He demanded that the money be returned and justice for the farmer who was slain. The Legion laughed. The Rebel drew his sword and gave a shout that kicked up a cloud of dust and knocked down the front ranks of the platoon. When the dust settled the platoon was dead, The Rebel vanished, and the money lying on the ground.

News of the event spread quickly and more and more sightings of The Rebel began to sprout up. The red strip of cloth, tied around weapons, worn on the left bicep, as a headband, or flying as a streamer from windows became a symbol for support for the rebellion. The Emperor cracked down, but as is usually the case, the harder he tried to stamp out the insurgency, the more it thrived. The rebellion gained traction and The Rebel began to lead it into something more than random riots and attacks.

The Empire lays fractured. Old enemies lie forgotten and age old loyalties become stressed, is this the end of the 13th Age, and will the falling of the Dragon Empire herald it?



Icons:

The Archmage:
The Archmage is concerned about the instability that the rebellion represents, but is still unfailing in his support of the Emperor, if not particularly a fan of the current resident of the throne he has lived long enough to see several Dragon Emperors come and go. His concern lies more in preserving the stability he has worked for centuries to create and keeping an eye on the High Druid and Orc Lord.

The Crusader:
His priority remains slaying any of the demons that plague the land and exterminating the Diabolists' cults.

The Diabolist:
In uncertain times people become desperate, desperate people are easier to corrupt. She is having a field day.

The Dwarf King:
The late Emperor and the King were friends throughout most of the Emperor's lifetime. Many look at the current Emperor and see a tyrant. The Dwarf King sees the son of his old friend making poor decisions while desperately trying to hold The Empire together. Of course, even if he did see the Emperor as a tyrant, he is more concerned about the Orcs amassing in the Frost Range anyway.

The Elf Queen:
The elves have received no small amount of suspicion of supporting The Rebel, due in part to the fact that most of the early rebellion sprang from the northern portion of the empire near the Elf Queen's domain, although there is a credible argument that violent excesses from the Three in Drakkenhall may be more to blame. The Elf Queen is being very careful to control her borders and not get involved in the civil unrest of the Empire, but a number of elves have taken it upon themselves to fight alongside The Rebel despite her wishes. It probably doesn't help that The Rebel is a half-elf.

The Emperor:
The Emperor is a cold child grown into a hard man. The civilization that his family has protected for centuries is threatened from within and without. Without the stability that the Empire provides anarchy would reign supreme and there would be nothing to keep the Orc Lord at bay, the Sea Wall manned, and the inner sea tamed. The Emperor will do whatever it takes to preserve this, whether the Empire wants him to or not.

The Great Gold Wyrm:
The Gold Wyrm, along with the Priestess, is in an awkward position. He is not comfortable with the descendants of his dragons being used to quell a rebellion, which thankfully the Emperor has not resorted to, nor is he happy with the current Emperor. That said he is a bit pre-occupied with the Abyss an also has an agreement to help support the Empire. So far he still thinks the best way to support the Empire is to support the Emperor.

The High Druid:
The time is ripe for change, and balances are shifting. In the wake of the instability in the Empire the Wild Woods' borders have expanded and there is talk that the High Druid may be to blame for increasing unrest in the Midland Sea and erratic weather along its coasts.

The Lich King:
When people are concerned about a growing police state and a growing food shortage other things start to be viewed as less important are get forgotten about in the bustle. Some of those things involve maintaining the graveyards, burial rites, and wards that keep his power at arm's length.

The Orc Lord:
Since his defeat after the failed siege of Forge he has been building his army to prepare for another push on the Empire and skirmishing with the Dwarves and Elves. Some scholars speculate that he is probably ready, but is waiting for the Empire to fracture more before he attempts another invasion. Others say that he is looking for a powerful artifact that will tip the scales in his next struggle. Either way, everybody who is paying attention is concerned about the massive increase in the size of his army, and nobody is sure how he is managing it.

The Priestess:
Like the Great Wyrm, she is in an awkward place. She is loyal to the Empire and wants good for its citizens, but it unsure about whether or not that good will come from the Emperor or The Rebel. The guidance she has given her followers is to follow the law and continue to do good. A very NG position.

The Prince of Shadows:
For a time there were those who proposed that The Prince was actually the Rebel. Certainly many of The Rebels followers also have ties to the Prince, and they both have a chaotic bent. But the flashiness and public appearances of The Rebel run in stark contrast to The Prince. Not to mention that he still seems to be up to his old tricks as evidenced by his recent theft of an object of great significance to the Emperor, who has upped the bounty on his head.

The Rebel:
Nobody is sure where this half-elf man came from, but he seems to be part general, part warrior, and part scholar. In less than two years he has taken the coals of a rebellion and nursed it into a roaring fire. He will not tolerate injustice and chaos follows in his footsteps. No one need guess his motives either: The Rebel thinks the Emperor needs to go, and not just the current one – the throne altogether, though there are those who say he just wants to be the one who sits on it.

The Three:
The Green remains trapped firmly by the Elf Queen, but the Blue is hoping that in the confusion of all that is going on it may be able to slip its geas. There also seems to be an inordinate amount of activity from the Black in the northwest...


So which elements of that they are pursuing is entirely up to them. Do they save the empire from the rebellion even though the emperor is a tyrant? Do they support the Rebel, and weaken the Empire to attack from the Orcs? So far they are far more interested in fighting the Orc King and the Lich King than the impending civil war. Which is fine. I have an agenda for every single person on that list. I started taking this approach 2-3 games ago and I plan on sticking with it, makes for more interesting stories, and my guys are all way more engaged.

@Vinegar Tom:
Dude, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? The current generation of players is spoiled? My gaming group is composed of the following ages: 29 (me), 28, 27, 25, 22, 42. Most of them have only played 3.5 prior to this game, and they don't even remotely fit your ticket. Almost all of our games start off as what you are describing with your orc scenario, but I as the DM make all those compartmentalized adventures tie into something greater, they are helping me create the story. Sounds like you just had a bad experience. Also, I consider it part of my job as DM to run a game that I like, and the players like. I am a min/maxer at heart, but i play TTRPGs for the social and creative aspects - so I like to take it as a personal challenge to show mechanics based players how fun it is to play in the kind of game I run. At the end of the day though, if a group is playing in a way that is fun for them, then they are winning, as mentioned above.

kyoryu
2014-06-23, 02:08 PM
So imagine it like a sweater with several loose threads, they pull on one, and it just keeps coming. It seemed like just bandits, but its actually imperial deserters, wait no they are corrupt active duty legionairres, wait no - they are reporting to somebody back in the capitol, wait no - etc. But I have several of these, and these 3-5 groups all have different agendas which are competing. The world will progress regardless of what the players do, but if they decide to get involved then they can influence which faction accomplishes its goals, and also how they accomplish them. Or they can just go cowboy and do their own things while the world happens around them.

...

So which elements of that they are pursuing is entirely up to them. Do they save the empire from the rebellion even though the emperor is a tyrant? Do they support the Rebel, and weaken the Empire to attack from the Orcs? So far they are far more interested in fighting the Orc King and the Lich King than the impending civil war. Which is fine. I have an agenda for every single person on that list. I started taking this approach 2-3 games ago and I plan on sticking with it, makes for more interesting stories, and my guys are all way more engaged.

The key here, though, is giving the players *real* choices with *real* consequences. You don't have a series of encounters laid out for them. They will act, and the world will react.


@Vinegar Tom:
Dude, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? The current generation of players is spoiled?

I disagree with his tone, but there was a definite shift from the mid/late 80s until today towards a style of gaming where success is all but guaranteed. Some players consider it "common wisdom" that you should never kill a PC without the player's permission. I've seen entire threads about how new characters should be the best in the world at what they do, or at least the best at what they do on their "side".

Clearly this doesn't apply to you or your group, but it's not an uncommon mode of play.

A number of games are starting to buck this trend more, but the industry has, to a certain extent, selected for people that enjoy it, and linear adventures (which by their nature are kind of based around not losing) are relatively lucrative.

Garimeth
2014-06-23, 02:31 PM
The key here, though, is giving the players *real* choices with *real* consequences. You don't have a series of encounters laid out for them. They will act, and the world will react.



I disagree with his tone, but there was a definite shift from the mid/late 80s until today towards a style of gaming where success is all but guaranteed. Some players consider it "common wisdom" that you should never kill a PC without the player's permission. I've seen entire threads about how new characters should be the best in the world at what they do, or at least the best at what they do on their "side".

Clearly this doesn't apply to you or your group, but it's not an uncommon mode of play.

A number of games are starting to buck this trend more, but the industry has, to a certain extent, selected for people that enjoy it, and linear adventures (which by their nature are kind of based around not losing) are relatively lucrative.

Fair point, and I'm willing to concede that I was probably mostly reacting to his tone.

Side bar, I enjoy reading alot of your posts, not just here but in other threads as well.

Airk
2014-06-23, 03:09 PM
Wow; Aside from the fact that there's someone here who seems to be operating under the bizarre assumption that it's impossible to fail in Fate, and the fact that it only took us four posts before someone went all One True Scotsman on us with the Oldschool-get-off-my-lawn speech, this is actually one of the best threads I've seen here in a while.

Anyway, my two cents - Yes, "end of the world!!!" scenarios are easy to do...adequately, and hard to actually make really GOOD. I think a lot people recognize the former but don't realize the latter. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to make it easier. Change "End of the world!" to "End of the world as we know it!"; Unless the planet is going to be sucked into a black hole and crushed to the size of a pea, there's probably SOMETHING that can continue happening even after your 'doomsday' scenario - at least, if you give it a little bit of wiggle room. Maybe the demon hordes are unleashed through the unholy portal, and the Dark God Who Shall Not Be Named looms large over the world, but where there is life, there is hope. Maybe the heroes failed. Now it's time to save what they can. Or to make some last ditch desperate throw. Maybe there's a way to escape to another world. Maybe there's a way to seal He Who Shall Not Be Named back in his jar for another millennium. Maybe one of the heroes can claim the Ring of Power for himself and set up an epic evil vs evil power struggle. There's almost always some sort of way forward.

This of course circles around to "Should there be a way forward for these characters?" - which is, much as any Scotsmen in the thread might argue, entirely a matter of opinion. I tend to feel like it's more interesting if we follow the same characters the whole way through - let's say we're playing Final Fantasy 6, and the apocalypse happens, and all the old party DIES, and you pick up as...completely new characters after that point. Is that as compelling as what happened? I'd say not. But some people might say otherwise. And for their game, assuming the rest of their group agrees, they'd be right. I think the same thing applies to killing a PC without permission - because it's SUPER IMPORTANT to remember that just because you can't KILL them doesn't mean they can't lose, fail, etc. See all the various exciting demonstrations of failure throughout this thread. Being unable to kill a PC without permission is in no way equivalent to "success is guaranteed" and it's very important to keep that in mind.

I'd also argue that recent games recent D&D games do what they do because people enjoy being Big Damn Heroes, and previous versions didn't let them, so it was actually less that this was a 'better' mode of play so much as that it was a mode of play that had yet to be addressed (by D&D).

At the end of the day though, one of the most important things about running a good game is to NOT have an assumption about what the end will be. In a bizarre, ironic twist, I think people are LESS likely to have an assumption about the 'end of the story' in 'dirty hippy games' (aka "Play to find out what happens") than they are in old school 'overcome the challenges' games - where, all too often, the outcome is 'the PCs overthrow the evil warlord (or whatever) or die trying'. Whereas this is essentially impossible in 'play to find out what happens'. It's worth noting that a LOT of games that promote the latter style ALSO bake in a mechanism to help ensure that the players are invested in the stakes, even though they usually aren't "Save the world, or it will be destroyed by slavering demon hordes". You need look no further than Beliefs in Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard (Also Torchbearer? Dunno how Beliefs work there), Fates in Tenra Bansho Zero, Issues in Primetime Adventures, Keys in Lady Blackbird, and so on - mechanics that allow the players to say "Hey. I'm looking for a game where this is the important stuff. If you provide stuff that revolves around this, that would be cool and fun and I would be invested in that!" This helps avoid the problem of player buy-in that can otherwise crop up, especially if you have players who are prone to "My Guy wouldn't..." RP-failure.

veti
2014-06-23, 05:32 PM
No, I wouldn't do that. That just feels mean spirited. A diabolus ex machina unless it was well hinted at before being sprung.

Oh, I make sure they know exactly what they're getting into. But those methods - they're available, sort of, and if the players can't think of anything better they may be tempted to try them.

It's a fun roleplaying decision - is this risk worth taking, or isn't it?

Jeff the Green
2014-06-23, 08:30 PM
Another way to do it is to have many plot threads. This works best in a sandbox, but can conceivably work in another type of campaign. For example, in a game I'm currently in the big plot seems to involve a ritual that's been put under a pseudoban by the gods somehow reappearing. Assuming we get to it (this is PbP, and while we've managed to last a long time, it does go pretty slowly), I suspect our utter failure at an early stage is unlikely. On the other hand, each character has at least one major goal for coming to the city and have accumulated more in their interactions, and these it's entirely plausible we'll fail to accomplish. My character's is to get revenge on the assassin that killed her family, fiance, and friends in a house fire, and, a decade later, did the same to the archivists and clerics of Kelemvor she'd joined after her first catastrophe. At the moment, she's literally been driven insane by the assassin toying with her, and if she kills the assassin is likely to return to the cloister or admit herself to a sanitarium.

(Actually, that's a good example of failure being more interesting sometimes. I'd been having a hard time getting into the character's head, mostly because I built a backstory of stuff happening to her rather than her doing things, and decided to retire her. Then the DM pulled the old "enemy sends you the head of a friend" card and had me roll on the insanity chart. She's now literally incapable of functioning unless she's within sight of one of the other PCs, which has led to a lot of (IC) uncomfortable situations that have been a lot of fun to play. Another instance from the same game is that we were hired to deal with some Loviatans that had significant covert influence on the city's penal system. We attacked and won (barely), but in our haste to escape we neglected to ensure that all of the cultists were dead. I mean, the barn they were in was on fire, and that should take care of them anyway. Nope, turns out one cultist escaped and it both strained relationships with our contacts and forced us into a deal-with-the-devil situation. Again, uncomfortable for our characters, much more interesting for the players.)