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Bouldering Jove
2007-03-17, 02:37 AM
A note on lexicon and scope: I use the term "GM" in this piece, as in Game Master, instead of the D&D-centric "DM." This is both because GM is more familiar to me and because it's a generic term applicable to any pen-and-paper roleplaying game. Though my examples hew to D&D tradition, I believe the principles I describe apply across the spectrum of roleplaying games.

1. Introduction

Quite a bit has been said on these boards and in general about good and bad GMs, and more specifically the techniques they employ. Every game group is unique and so demands an individual play experience with qualities that would not necessarily be ideal for any other group, but some trends are just about universal, and one in particular is a dislike of railroading. A certain level of railroading is the necessary pressure on the game world of the GM dictating reality; only in its more constrictive forms, where players feel a loss of choice or an inability to meaningfully affect the course of events in the game world, does railroading diminish player satisfaction. A tension thus results between the (hopefully interesting) flow of events dictated by the GM and the influence of the players pursuing their character's interests. Great GMs are the ones who can resolve this tension to the satisfaction of everyone in the game group, but this management is a difficult art, as evidenced by the ease of finding complaints both from players about their GMs and from GMs about the difficulty of managing their players.

How then to avoid chaining players into a rigid sequence of events while still keeping their actions "on the map"? Complete free-ranging plot improvisation is only possible for the most quick-thinking of GMs, and in systems with involved rules for NPC generation like D&D, the crunchy side of gameplay will suffer from a lack of GM planning. So some degree of forethought is essential for your average game group to work out hard gameplay statistics, though creating those statistics by necessity creates what features will appear in your game and thus present limits on the real options for the players. If they stray from the GM's prepared creations, they'll be shunted back towards them. Making "the map" of game features large enough to encompass genuine player freedom will require an immense amount of planning, beyond what a more casual GM is likely willing to dedicate to the game.

"Generics", or stock NPCs to recycle and reuse whenever a rough archetype needs to be called in to fight, are one method of circumventing this problem. The D&D Dungeon Master's Guide provides many generics ready to use, the Monster Manuals are really lists of interesting generics with diverse powers, and depending on the circumstances of the game setting, a handful of well-designed generics may serve the GM well for a very long time. Yet no matter how large the pool of generics to pull from, drawing on them too frequently will make combat encounters predictable and, well, generic. Power progression will also inevitably force generics to be retired or rebuilt. Ultimately, generics are a stopgap, most useful for player curveballs that demand encounters completely beyond a GM's foresight, but not able to completely resolve the problem proposed here.

At this point, some readers may be questioning whether railroading is as severe an issue as I present it. It is after all the duty of players to cooperate on at least a basic level with the GM, pursuing the adventurous "hooks" dangled in front of them and not obstructing the flow of the game for personal showboating. For many (if not most) game groups, straining against the linear walls of the GM's plot will be infrequent, and the largest burden on the GM from player freedom will be creative problem-solving tearing apart what was intended to be a challenge. So why the fuss?

From my personal perspective as a GM, almost any degree of linearity is too much. I don't extract much satisfaction from events going as I planned them, and whenever I insert a change into the game world to direct my players towards a specific outcome, I feel like I'm cheating. My greatest enjoyment from GMing a game is shaping the plot as it unfolds in a natural way from the players' moves, crafting the logical reactions to their actions, and "helping" them slide into the thick of ever-worse disasters to fight or finesse their way out from. That's the heart of my game, and if I feel that way, I'm sure there are a respectable number of others who feel similarly. So resolving the issue of railroading permanently is more than a thought experiment; it's what can make a game consistently fun instead of a string of dull combats.

It's with this in mind that I propose an alternative method of adventure design from the traditional adventure/campaign construct. I don't pretend to be the first to develop or employ this technique, but I have yet to see a write-up detailing anything particularly like it, so I decided to write this and present to the unfamiliar: node-based GMing.

2. Event-Based GMing

First, to understand an alternative, the traditional framework must be understood. Those who've experienced extreme cases of railroading are familiar with "linear" games that allow only one course of action, or worse, "storybook" games where even the illusion of choice is stripped away, but I've argued that even conventional adventure design is restrictive to player freedom. Rather than linear, I believe the design of a traditional adventure is best articulated as "event-based."

An event-based adventure is fundamentally structured around a series of GM-planned events, each a piece of the plot leading to its climax and resolution. The GM can design interesting and effective crunch to suit every encounter, because all of them are planned. The events generally follow a chronological order, similar to computer adventure games where certain criteria must be satisfied before progressing to the next stage of a game. A sample adventure could be presented like so:

1. The characters arrive in town.
2. The characters discover that monsters have been attacking the town.
3. The characters are hired by the town leader to destroy the monsters.
4. The characters seek out and track down the dungeon housing the monsters.
5. The characters progress through the dungeon and destroy most of the monsters.
6. The characters progress to the end of the dungeon and fight the toughest monster.
7. The characters take the treasure from the dungeon and return to town.

This is a fairly banal example as adventures go, of course, but it illustrates how event-based adventures can be outlined. Note in particular how, while the events can be handled in quite a number of ways, each requires its predecessor. If the players aren't able to track down the dungeon, the plot stalls, and the GM must take measures to preserve forward momentum. Rather than letting the players stumble through the woods, a local farmer might approach them and help show them the way to the monsters' lair. The plot allows leeway, but only so much before it progresses.

A more sophisticated adventure design may incorporate any number of subplots. A subplot will be chronologically interwoven with the primary plot, and may be used to stimulate the adventure when it's flagging. At heart, however, it has the same structure:

A-1. The characters are ambushed by monsters just outside of town.
A-2. The characters discover there is a traitor in town.
A-3. The characters discover a clue to the traitor's identity.
A-4. The characters seek out and track down the traitor.
A-5. The characters fight the traitor.

Further complexity and player freedom can be added by incorporating contingency plots, essentially "branch points" provided for events where the players can resolve them in multiple ways. For example, let's alter that subplot:

A-4. The characters seek out and track down the traitor.
A-I-5. The characters fight the traitor.
A-I-6. The characters kill the traitor.
A-II-5. The characters speak to the traitor and discover his daughter is being held hostage.
A-II-6. The characters seek out and track down the traitor's daughter.
A-II-7. The characters fight monsters to rescue the traitor's daughter.

While it might be a bit depressing to consider the fate of daughter if the players choose plot I, it doesn't need to be an issue. The reality of the world will generally be tailored to the contingency the players enacted. If the players shot first and asked questions later, the daughter may never have existed, and the traitor's journal reveals a payoff or other similarly nasty motivation. Of course, it's also an option to emphasize the consequences of such decision-making, and have the players discover the hostage daughter's existence and save her to atone for their rash action. Both GM choices are viable; an event-based adventure is by no means lacking in depth.

Of course, it's highly unlikely that many GMs actually write out and outline their plots in this manner. Nevertheless, if they develop their campaigns around events for the players to encounter or trigger (a villain to kill, a victim to save), the GM almost certainly could outline the entirety of their campaign plot in this sequential manner. Improvisation will still likely have a role, adding depth and texture to the game world, but if the players push too far past the boundaries of the plot, the GM must either find a way to bring them back or ad-lib until there's downtime to plan out a new series of events. Depending on the individual GM and their degree of contingency plotting, players may be jumping through arranged hoops or they may have a reasonable degree of liberty, but ultimately, the sequence of the plot will still bend their characters towards it. How to construct an alternative?

3. Node-Based GMing

A node-based adventure is fundamentally constructed around dynamic GM-created characters, factions, and forces. These are the "nodes" described by node-based GMing, and shall hereafter be referred to as such. Each node is designed with factual details, crunchy statistics, interests, methods, motives, and relationships to the other nodes. No events need be planned, though a GM will probably have plans for the actions of each node regarding the others. The plot emerges in the interactions of the player characters with the nodes, and the best way to represent a potential adventure is with a flowchart rather than an outline.

What constitutes a node? Detailing every NPC in the game is obviously a waste of time. Instead, nodes are the important forces, whether a single actor or a legion, that act on and respond to the player characters. Every soldier in an army is not a node, but the army as a whole is one, being an entity with power, objectives, and leadership. A villain and his loyal crew of henchmen will constitute a single node because they act as one; a villain controlling tribes of creatures, each with internal leadership and enmities towards the other tribes for the players to exploit, will be one node with relationships to several others. Powerful independent agents will be their own nodes, while a faction including many powerful individuals of similar intentions and goals will be a single node. The purpose of thinking in terms of nodes is not to describe those with power but to easily describe the interactions of in-game powers.

When the GM designs a potential node-based adventure, they sketch out and refine an array of nodes for the adventure's particular setting. In essence, they are creating a web of local interactions and tensions for the player characters to stumble into. A well-designed array will include several nodes with an interest in the player characters (who are really a mobile node of their own), for advancing their goals or removing potential obstacles. A plot can be created almost completely on the fly, centering around what the players are most interested in and their characters the most involved in. With predefined motives and methods, each node will present logical courses of action to follow.

On a very small scale, the town guards will fight against everyone who breaks the law and recruit help when they're outgunned or too busy to investigate, the thieves' guild will be trying to prey on the richest people and choicest items in town, the necromancer will be stalking the graveyard and kidnapping people to experiment on, the disreputable inn will recruit thugs to sabotage the honest one, and so on. On a grander scale, the order of paladins will be hunting down evil and protecting the innocent wherever possible, the tyrant will be taxing his kingdom to the bone to gain power and wage war, the forces of evil will be gathering legendary artifacts to complete a sinister ritual, the church will be recruiting champions to take on an extraplanar threat, and so on.

All of these nodes can interact with the players, and other nodes will react to the effects the players create. In essence, by thinking about the actors on the stage rather than the story, the GM can easily continue the flow of action under almost any circumstance without needing to take time to reassess the plot. Indeed, the plot no longer needs to be assessed or managed or brought to heel at all, and can instead unfold in any direction the players wish to travel in. Players can easily join the thieves' guild instead of fighting against it because the GM already knows what nodes will be working against it, and can thus quickly create effective challenges for players to overcome. When the course of play exhausts the adventure potential of the various nodes, then new ones can be easily introduced, with either new ones showing up in the area or the characters' travels taking them to new node arrays (the former is an excellent hook to introduce the latter).

An example would help solidify exactly what nodes are and what a node-based adventure looks like. In the case of the adventure described under Event-Based GMing, the nodes would break down like this:

-The townfolk, including their leader.
-The monsters.
-The traitor.

This looks pretty simple, and their motivations barely need to be expanded on. With the obvious antagonistic relationship between the townfolk and the monsters, the adventure will probably play out much the same way as it did originally. To show the potential of node-based GMing, a more complex example is needed.

4. A Sample Node-Based Adventure: "Bad Company"

Setting: The town of Postoar. Postoar is small but a caravan site of some significance, connecting to the northern port city of Caerten (which it is governed by) with long trade routes south into forestland and west into the plains. The main road that runs through town is the north/south route to Caerten. Its buildings are small and humble but well-maintained. Pleasant as they are, they're overshadowed by the caravan grounds that take up almost the entire west side of the main road. A maze of wagons, carts and livestock are in a continual bustle on the dry, well-trampled grounds. Caravanners are constantly arriving, trading, talking, making plans, checking in with the town's suppliers and striking out again. A haphazard of tents forms a makeshift border to the caravan grounds, populated by travellers in between rides and too cheap to stay in town. To the northwest is a thick and untamed forest, while to the east are some small local farms.

The players will probably arrive in Postoar by working as caravan guards.

Nodes:

Seibel and his Gang: Seibel is a creepy lowlife who runs the only town inn, which is also the shoddiest building in town. His real business is the shakedown operation he runs on all the juicy merchandise passing through Postoar. Using the hidden basement of his inn as his base of operations, he has a variety of thugs who do the dirty work for him and keep his name clean. Every day they trot out through the caravan grounds, look over the various cargo, and pull off a quick heist or bit of knife-at-the-throat extortion when the dust is so thick that the town guards can't see them through it.

Resources: Seibel is a competent rogue himself, and has quite a few fighters and rogues of varying ability working through him. He keeps two barbarian bodyguards, and also keeps in touch with some shady caravan contacts who let him know when big money is going through town. The inn itself has a secret basement which serves as his office, and two secret doors from there, one of which is his personal storage and one of which is a secret passage which leads to his emergency exit behind the inn.

Goals: Profit and nothing more, with no ethical compunctions to get in the way. Pushing out the competition and keeping the law away is a plus.

Relationships: Tries to keep out of sight of the town guards as best he can but isn't afraid to kill any of them that get too close. Wants to kill the new bandits in town (the Silver Band) before they start cutting into his business, but knows nothing about them except that they've been poking around. Doesn't know about the gnolls and doesn't care.

Hooks: An agent of Seibel's will probably try to recruit them to do the dirty work of tracking down and killing the bandits. Of course, Seibel has no attention of paying anyone who can just be killed instead.

The Silver Band: The Silver Band is the secret arm of the Silver Bastion Mercantilist Guild up in Caerten. The Guild is trying to corner the market on rare magical items, and the Band are the agents that both rough up the competition and "acquire" the most interesting magical items for the Guild to sell or reverse-engineer. A team from the Silver Band has set up camp in the forest northwest of town, in pursuit of a particularly exotic magical item that was supposed to be passing through Postoar. They've been sending agents into town and along the roads to watch for it, but the caravan hasn't showed, and they're beginning to suspect someone intercepted it.

Resources: The team has a few competent professionals, including a ranger and a spellcaster, and premium equipment to help them do the job. Most of the grunt work is done by a pack of relatively skilled goblins.

Goals: Getting the item they're after is their top priority. Without it, they'll have to find some way to return back with gear of equivalent worth, probably by raiding a few caravans. They're not upstanding citizens, but they know talking is smarter than fighting when they have a choice.

Relationships: They knew about Seibel before they came to town and have nothing but contempt for him, though they also suspect he may be sitting on the item they want, and are trying to sound out whether he has it. They're trying to avoid the notice of the town guards, but a lot of caravans have reported the goblins watching them from the roadside. They don't know about the gnolls, but one of their goblins never came back from patrol, and they're on the alert.

Hooks: The Silver Band will be making forays into town. They may try to kidnap or steal from a character with interesting gear, but most importantly, their routes back to camp (some of which lead through the west plains) will be helpful for party trackers.

Captain Brasset and the Town Guard: Captain Brasset is a military veteran who didn't want retirement and was assigned to Postoar as a gentle equivalent. This has given him a deep, abiding fury which he takes out on the lawbreakers of Postoar at every opportunity. Seibel's crafty avoidance of legal culpability has only made him angrier. He runs a tight ship, keeping the caravans under constant surveillance and investigating the increasing caravan disappearances of late as best he can with his limited personnel.

Resources: The town guard is the local law, with the authority and punitive power (including a jail) that implies. Though small in number, they're well-trained and fairly well-equipped, and Brasset himself is a ferocious combatant. They have a cleric to attend to wounds.

Goals: Brasset passionately wants dead or in jail every person shaking down the caravans, but he wants Seibel exposed and arrested most of all. He also wants to investigate the goblin appearances and caravan disappearances, which he believes are related, but his limited manpower is an obstacle.

Relationships: The guards are focused first and foremost on bringing Seibel and his goons to justice. They have a vague idea that new bandits (the Silver Band) are in the area, but don't know much beyond that. They know nothing about the gnolls.

Hooks: Brasset will personally tear apart anyone he suspects is working for Seibel, but honest adventurers are just the kind of manpower he needs, and he'll be willing to pay someone who can investigate the caravans and the goblins.

Gatti and her Gnolls: Gatti is the hideously scarred matron of a small gnoll hunting party, which arrived and claimed the plains west of town as their personal grounds about a month ago. They are predatory, vicious, spiteful, and fond of bipeds when they get hungry. They've been the ones attacking caravans, mostly to fill their bellies, but they've been looting the shiniest objects. Of course, the magic item the Silver Band are looking for is exceptionally shiny; the gnolls were the ones who snatched it first and buried it beneath the dead tree that serves as their camp, a few miles into the thick grass of the plains.

Resources: Gatti is a low-level cleric (who can speak broken common) with a pet hyena. Her brood is a sturdy bunch, but the only material resources they have to work with are the weapons they looted from caravan guards.

Goals: To kill and eat anything that shows up on their turf and looks tasty (and to hyenas, everything looks tasty).

Relationships: They don't know or care anything about Seibel or the guards, but they do know that goblins have been running through their territory, and they don't like. They already killed one, but it put up a good fight, and they're aching to take their revenge out on the others.

Hooks: Anyone moving through the plains or trying to track down the item is probably going to have a nasty encounter with them.

How it Actually Played Out: When my player group (a fighter, ranger and druid) arrived in town, fresh off a caravan, their first order of business was to secure a place to sleep in the inn. One of Seibel's henchmen (a halfling woman by the name of "Tiny") saw them as some new muscle in town, and brought them to Seibel for a business proposition. Seibel offered them a very substantial amount of gold to hunt down the bandits and kill them, which they accepted, and got to work by shadowing some of Seibel's thugs the next day and waiting for goblins to show up.

They did, a fight quickly broke out between the goblins and the thugs. The law tried to break it up, the goblins scattered, the guards pursued, and Brasset gave the players an earful. They put a good samaritan spin on tailing Seibel's goons, though, and so he gave them an offer to investigate what the goblins were doing (and leave Seibel to him). They accepted, and started tracking the goblin (and guard chasing him) west. Of course, they ran into the gnoll squad.

The results were hilarious. Revealing in the most bloody way possible that she'd already had her fill on the town guard who was passing through, Gatti was almost willing to let the players through, until she asked them if they were with the goblins and the druid said yes ("Roll initiative." "DAMN it, Eric!"). One Burning Hands spell from Gatti (Fire domain) and a quick fight later, the players and the gnolls were both fleeing from a rapidly spreading wildfire in opposite directions. In between curses, Gatti did shriek that they should leave her hunting grounds and go back to the forest, though.

Resting up in the inn to recuperate and striking out the next day, the players succesfully tracked the disturbances caused by fast-moving armored goblins in the forest (undamaged thanks to the wind pushing the fire in another direction). They tried to spy on the Silver Band encampment when they came to it, but while they were bickering about whether to observe it or attack with the element of surprise, a patrolling goblin came across them and alerted the camp. Outnumbered and quickly surrounded, the players opted to converse (mostly with a very intelligent half-orc while the leader argued with the spellcaster), were told that Seibel was just a two-bit thug, and were offered some cash (with a greater probability of payment) to take him out. The players told them about the gnolls, too, which they were interested to hear.

After the trek back to town, they were quickly brought before Seibel again, the activity attracting the interest of the town guards. Seibel inquired if the work was done. The reply was roughly along the lines of "Fire in your face," and so Seibel bolted through his secret passage while his body guards took on the party. A comedic scuffle ensued, including a critical that decapitated one of the barbarians in the very first action and an attempt to bull rush a writing desk. Without enough time to pore over Seibel's room for hidden treasures, they followed through the secret passage, coming out and discovering Seibel and some more of his thugs in a heated conversation with Brasset and the town guards. The players weighed their options, and were planning to kill Seibel with a ranged attack, when the ranger was spotted, bow in hands. In the following hasty explanation, when they admitted to Brasset that Seibel had hired them to kill some people, Brasset tried to arrest Seibel on the spot. He bolted, but the druid had cleverly gotten around to the other side of the building and managed to knock him down as he passed. One thug was mauled, the others surrendered, Seibel was arrested, and the players were offered no charges in exchange for signing depositions against Seibel and getting the hell out of town. Hooray!

Of course, after they returned to the inn, it was pointed out by the ranger that they technically hadn't completed their contract, as Seibel was still alive.

The following stealth mission attempting to kill an unarmed man in a jail cell was priceless, but suffice to say that it involved fighting through a barred window, a screaming Brasset in pajamas, some diplomacy checks, and getting the hell out of town.

5. Conclusion

I didn't have a particularly strong idea how that adventure would play out going in, and I'm thrilled with the outcome: a good time for all that never had a hitch and never flagged. My campaign continues, and the players have now made the journey up to Caerten, which has many times more nodes, and trouble's already brewing between our intrepid heroes and the local halfling crime families as they enter the Silver Band's employ. Combined with a game I'm running online, I've at least proved that node-based GMing works for me.

The more important question, however, is whether node-based GMing has general utility rather than being my personal technique. That's why I'm posting this on a forum rather than keeping on with my own games, after all. I believe that designing adventures around nodes rather than events provides for flexible, adaptable game plots with a superior degree of player freedom, without any particular sacrifices or additional rigor of planning. But I'm just one person with a limited degree of experience, so I throw this open to all of you guys:

Do you see this as viable? Do you already use comparable techniques? Do you see problems I don't? Does this sound interesting? Too long, didn't read? I've been typing my thoughts out for quite some time here, and I'm curious to see yours.

Maxymiuk
2007-03-17, 04:55 AM
That was an excellent piece of work. You, sir, have put words and, more importantly, structure to what I've been doing in my current game.

From my experience, this method works out great. Throwing the party in among several factions, or nodes as you call them, means that I don't have to contingentize in case something goes "wrong." Because in such a scenario, there is no wrong or right path, party morality nothwithstanding. Currently my group is caught up inbetween four factions: a baron who wants them to peacefully (no corpses) resolve the problem of a village that won't pay its taxes, the baron's advisor - a priest who wants to see the village converted to the faith of Heironeous and the local druid of Ehlonna killed (homebrew world with tensions along racial/religious lines), the villagers themselves who were promised a freehold by the current baron's father, and the druid himself, whom the party has yet to meet. There is also a fifth, unknown node - something that turns animals undead and unleashes them to wreak havoc on the area. After barely surviving an encounter with a zombie bear, the group is suspecting it's the druid doing this.
I don't know what the outcome is going to be. After seeing the group dynamic in their previous adventure (simlar structure, but with three... well, four nodes, but the fourth one was really minor and happened completely by accident) I was half-expecting them to side with the villagers and the druid, but now that the Ehlonna-hating dwarf joined the party... things will get interesting. :smallamused:

One thing I may end up doing differently from you though, is to still use the traditional event-based method. Only instead of employing it on an adventure-by-adventure basis, I'll have the overarching plot running quietly in the background (heck, I typically have two or three), only to suddenly come out into the open and tangle the characters up in it when I deem it appropriate.
An argument could be made here, I suspect, that the nodal method could be scaled up to reflect whole nations, Good Guys and Bad Guys, monarchs, spy networks, etc. as the party increases in power and renown. However from my point of view, at this level the party has already adventured long enough (and the players got a good enough fell for their characters) that they are rather well set in their ways, so they'll automatically close off most of the possible nodes while walking down the path that seems "right" to them. And with that, the distinction between event-based and node-based GMing becomes pure semantics.

Galathir
2007-03-17, 06:48 AM
Excellent essay. I agree with you and I generally use a form of your idea for my campaign. My current party is quite varied and I am never sure how they are going to act so using the nodal method really opens up the options for the characters. I still use some event based adventures, but I am starting to rely more and more on nodes. Once again, excellent post, it's given me some things to think about.

Saph
2007-03-17, 06:58 AM
Good essay - could use some editing, though, I skimmed a lot of that. :P

You do more preparation than I do - when I'm DMing I do something similar, but make most of the stuff up on the spot rather than detailing all the factions in advance.

- Saph

Altair_the_Vexed
2007-03-17, 07:01 AM
Needs more flow-charts :smallbiggrin:

Very good essay, thanks. That's absolutely the sort of things a GM needs to consider and plan for. Don't throw out your adventure cause the players didn't bite your hook - just give them a new hook for the same adventure!

Bouldering Jove
2007-03-17, 10:54 PM
Thank you all for the kind words.


One thing I may end up doing differently from you though, is to still use the traditional event-based method. Only instead of employing it on an adventure-by-adventure basis, I'll have the overarching plot running quietly in the background (heck, I typically have two or three), only to suddenly come out into the open and tangle the characters up in it when I deem it appropriate.

An argument could be made here, I suspect, that the nodal method could be scaled up to reflect whole nations, Good Guys and Bad Guys, monarchs, spy networks, etc. as the party increases in power and renown. However from my point of view, at this level the party has already adventured long enough (and the players got a good enough fell for their characters) that they are rather well set in their ways, so they'll automatically close off most of the possible nodes while walking down the path that seems "right" to them. And with that, the distinction between event-based and node-based GMing becomes pure semantics.
This is very true. When a party establishes themselves thoroughly, they're generally going to keep on as they have been, whether that's rooting out evil or making a handsome profit selling their services (or interacting with recurring allies and villains). When you've got player predictability, node design and event design is identical, because the GM can see everything that's going to happen, regardless of how they build it. Power progression also plays a role. First level characters can have an adventure fighting a housecat, but very few nodes or events in a game world are going to command the attention of a high-level party, so their path is a lot easier to foresee.


Good essay - could use some editing, though, I skimmed a lot of that. :P

You do more preparation than I do - when I'm DMing I do something similar, but make most of the stuff up on the spot rather than detailing all the factions in advance.
All that text could use some editing and compression, definitely, but after typing all that up and making a few small edits, I was rather in the mood to just get it posted. :smallwink: If there's any particular sections you see that are overly wordy, please let me know.

In a system that allows for quick stat generation, I'd be making most of it up on the spot, too. But D&D is a bit awkward in that regard, and I just don't have the experience with it to whip up credible encounters on the fly, so I have to plan out the possible enemies the players will be fighting beforehand. My original notes for the sample adventure were just the basic relationships and then a bunch of stat blocks.


Needs more flow-charts :smallbiggrin:
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/5411/flowchartxe9.gif

Logos7
2007-03-17, 11:31 PM
I kind of really fail to see how nodes aren't event's except in name only

As your flow chart shows you preordain the interactions between nodes by the composition of nodes. In your example in particular the man escaping and a few other's and i thought " HOW DO YOU EXPRESS THAT IN A NODE WITHOUT IT BECOMING AN EVENT "

Noding can be a method of determining or modeling event's , to any extent ( Either Toward's a single story railroad or event based dynamic ). You yourself seem moderate in the middle and so does your example , but i don't think you offer a moderate or middle line method, but rather a different method of discribing the degree of which you lye on Rail Road or Event Based ( Something along the lines of how interconnected your nodes are )

Just my 2cents keep up the good work

Logos

Bouldering Jove
2007-03-18, 01:06 AM
I kind of really fail to see how nodes aren't event's except in name only

As your flow chart shows you preordain the interactions between nodes by the composition of nodes. In your example in particular the man escaping and a few other's and i thought " HOW DO YOU EXPRESS THAT IN A NODE WITHOUT IT BECOMING AN EVENT "
To clarify: the GM's role must still be administering the world and determining what takes place within it. When nodes actually do stuff (try to assassinate the player characters, approach them to do a job) then yes, events are taking place. I could easily outline the way that node-based adventure played out as a series of events. The purpose of thinking in nodes first and events second is that, by understanding the relationships involved when running that adventure, if the players had acted in a wildly different manner I could easily have improvised the actions of each node and had a totally different series of events by the end of it. If I'd plotted it out as events, I might have been in trouble if I was expecting them to kill all the gnolls rather than break off in the middle of the fight.

Short version: you're right. It's a GM technique for designing a flexible adventure, but it doesn't change the GM's role of making stuff happen.


Noding can be a method of determining or modeling event's , to any extent ( Either Toward's a single story railroad or event based dynamic ). You yourself seem moderate in the middle and so does your example , but i don't think you offer a moderate or middle line method, but rather a different method of discribing the degree of which you lye on Rail Road or Event Based ( Something along the lines of how interconnected your nodes are )
Yes, it's definitely still possible to railroad. If a GM preordains a rigid series of ways in which every node is going to act, then it's going to play out like an event-based adventure. However, I would argue that the GM is designing it in more of an event-based manner (by plotting out a sequence of things that will be happening) when they do so.

By trying to formally distinguish between the two, I seem to have implied a greater distinction than I believe there really is. There does exist a continuum, with linear railroading at one end and a plotless world for the players to toy with at the other. My purpose in drawing a line is just to show the difference between the two poles of that continuum (and shamelessly pitch for the adventure design technique I prefer).

Diggorian
2007-03-18, 01:08 AM
I GM Node-style too, lemme try to clarify.


I kind of really fail to see how nodes aren't event's except in name only

Events are like steps and Nodes are like pool balls. Event A leads to B, which leads to C. With PC's as the cue ball, which node ball they hit, and how they hit it, can shape the reactions/locations of all the other nodes/balls -- like when ya break. I could run with the same nodes as Jove with my party and the story can come out completely different.


As your flow chart shows you preordain the interactions between nodes by the composition of nodes. In your example in particular the man escaping and a few other's and i thought " HOW DO YOU EXPRESS THAT IN A NODE WITHOUT IT BECOMING AN EVENT "

The charts shows pre-existing attitudes between the nodes. Seibel's escape wasnt planned per se, but a reaction to the PC's actions. The interplay between nodes and the party (a node itself) create events organically.

EDIT: NINJA-AUTHOR!!!!! :smallamused:

Were-Sandwich
2007-03-18, 06:17 AM
I've read about this technique befor. I think that its a good idea, but for some groups (like mine), its mostly unnesacary(sp?). They don't mind a linear plt, as long as they have fun. I might use it for certain adventures, but for Start of Campaign, get the party together adventures, I have a much simpler plot than I usualy would.

Lord Tataraus
2007-03-18, 12:56 PM
Wow.



That was my first reaction, you did a wonderful job. I am one of those who already uses a less written down version of this style. I usually come up with a setting and a map, tell the players all the common knowledge they know and see which way they run. I have at least ten rough ideas for plot lines already. Then, I put more detail into two to four of the plot lines they could follow based on what they did at the beginning.

jjpickar
2007-03-18, 10:10 PM
I like the idea but I am more of a fan of free form Gming. What I will take away from this however is the possibility of making predetermined forces, nodes as you call them, with their own resources and motivations. I used to do this in a primitive way without the scale and forethought of your grand scheme but now that you have embodied this subconscious tendency I feel the need to emulate.

Excellent work on the essay.

Legoman
2007-03-19, 12:14 AM
I'm working on this type of thing right now - after designing a huge linear plot and having the players decide first session to go the other way, and after mapping out a huge town as a sandbox and having the players decide to go to the next one, the node-based gameplay in the framework of a historical setting (where I'm never going to run out of things to happen next) is looking more and more brilliant.

One thing I've learned from experience is to try and create at least one or two nodes wherever the PCs could reasonably travel - enough that there's a site-based adventure waiting for them wherever their fickle, fickle hearts decide to carry them.

EDIT:

Also, setting your campaign in a historical setting is awesome beyond awesome. The one I'm kicking off takes place in what resembles the Maccabean period, after the book of Malachi in the OT, about 100BC. I know that an Antiochus-like figure is marching on the 'pagan holy land,' I know that the indiginous people have a prophecy about him coming and being struck dead, and that they say that the prophets of old set a timetable for the coming of their messiah, and that time rapidly approaches.

And that's just history. I can go wherever I want with the rise of a new superpower with new weaponry in the north, and the public unrest and uncertainty that follows when Antiochus is struck dead, and cultists try to seize the chance to rally worship for the old ones...

See what I mean? Read up on history, it's fascinating stuff.

Diggorian
2007-03-19, 05:59 AM
One thing I've learned from experience is to try and create at least one or two nodes wherever the PCs could reasonably travel - enough that there's a site-based adventure waiting for them wherever their fickle, fickle hearts decide to carry them.


Yeah, that's why I started writing Nodes when I began running D20 Star Wars. My group was newly formed and I didnt know the players well, but they had their own ship and a galaxy of potential.

The movie 300 and the HBO series Rome have inspired me towards historical campaigns, but as we're already doing D&D for low tech my next projct will be D20 Star Trek game for my group (another PC ship and quadrant of potential).

Legoman
2007-03-19, 09:34 AM
Yeah, that's why I started writing Nodes when I began running D20 Star Wars. My group was newly formed and I didnt know the players well, but they had their own ship and a galaxy of potential.

The movie 300 and the HBO series Rome have inspired me towards historical campaigns, but as we're already doing D&D for low tech my next projct will be D20 Star Trek game for my group (another PC ship and quadrant of potential).

Historical stuff doesn't have to be D&D low tech. Tech matters surprisingly little in the ongoing unfolding of the human race's attempt to figure out how to destroy itself.

Replace important units with star-ships and you have yourself a game.

Diggorian
2007-03-19, 12:45 PM
You're talking about historical themes, I'm talking setting. I'll may use analogues to past events regardless of when the campaign is taking place in the course of human events. Trek definately does.

valadil
2007-03-19, 01:40 PM
Nice essay. That's pretty much exactly how I try to GM. I don't always pull it off because it can be time consuming, but this is my favorite way to run things.

What happens when I get lazy is that nodes start spawning events. My notes for a session will say that if the group goes and talks to their leader he deploys such and such a plot. Eventually as I lose enthusiasm for the game it becomes a list of events, which is pretty much just railroading.

One thing that I did that helped a lot in the last game I did is that I gave out background information on several nodes and their major players. This game focused on fleshing out one city rather than going from town to town, solving bigger and bigger monster infestations. Letting the players know what nodes were out there helped them act within this type of game instead of simply seeking out the next set of events.

warmachine
2007-03-19, 04:58 PM
I think 'faction-based' gaming is a better term.

Mewtarthio
2007-03-19, 08:46 PM
I kind of really fail to see how nodes aren't event's except in name only

As your flow chart shows you preordain the interactions between nodes by the composition of nodes. In your example in particular the man escaping and a few other's and i thought " HOW DO YOU EXPRESS THAT IN A NODE WITHOUT IT BECOMING AN EVENT "

Noding can be a method of determining or modeling event's , to any extent ( Either Toward's a single story railroad or event based dynamic ). You yourself seem moderate in the middle and so does your example , but i don't think you offer a moderate or middle line method, but rather a different method of discribing the degree of which you lye on Rail Road or Event Based ( Something along the lines of how interconnected your nodes are )

Just my 2cents keep up the good work

Logos

From the outside, it may look the same, but the important difference is flexibility. Had the sample encounter been event-based, it would have looked more like:

Seible hires the PCs.
PCs fight goblins and the guard shows up.
Brasset chews out the PCs and they agree to hunt down the goblins.
The PCs encounter Gotti, who fights them briefly before the fight is interrupted by a fire.
The PCs track down the goblins.
The goblins hire the PCs to take out Seible.
The PCs locate Seible's underground lair, and Seible flees through the Secret Exit.
The PCs reveal Seible's Evil Plot and prevent him from escaping the Town Guard. Accolades all around.However, what if...

The PCs politely decline Seible's offer, preferring instead to work only for legitimate government authority?
The PCs kill Seible when they first meet him?
The PCs ignore Brasset and don't hunt down the goblins?
The PCs immediately ambush the Silver Band?
The PCs fail their Survival checks on any of the tracking events?
The PCs inform Seible that the goblins want him dead and attempt to negociate to lead him to their encampment so he can pre-empt them?
The PCs concentrate all their firepower on Seible in step 7, or else make lucky rolls against him, causing him to die before reaching the exit?
The PCs feel honor-bound to not betray their employer and don't rat Seible out to Brassel?
The PCs decide it's time for a new kind of law and murder Brassel in his sleep?
The PCs start lighting random caravans on fire as a blood offering to Nerull?
The PCs kill and eat Seible's men when they first show up, then strip naked and run through the forest until they find Gotti, to whom they swear eternal fealty, for she is quite alluring?With the node-based approach, you can improvise these answers on the fly by just playing the factions like you'd expect them to react, rather than improvising an entirely new plotline or resorting to blatant railroad (such as making Seible invincible). Additionally, the node-based approach can include several other subplots that aren't even necessarily revealed, but still serve to make a few realistic motivations. In this case, the PCs never found out what the Silver Band was seeking, but had they slain Gotti and cast Detect Magic on the tree, or had they asked the Silver Band a few more questions, they'd have learned about it.

asqwasqw
2007-03-19, 08:59 PM
The PCs start lighting random caravans on fire as a blood offering to Nerull?
The PCs kill and eat Seible's men when they first show up, then strip naked and run through the forest until they find Gotti, to whom they swear eternal fealty, for she is quite alluring?


You sir, are deeply disturbed. I suggest medical help...

Back on topic, I believe that yes, this is a grand system to play. It allows much more freeform and dynamic and real characters. However, I am curious as to how you are able to have a working longterm plot with these nodes. While it seems perfectly possible for short term sidequests and regular interaction, a long term plan would be necessary, wouldn't it? I am curious as to how nodes affect long term planning. While it would make things more dynamic, sometimes you may need to have certain events happen. How would you accomplish that?

Ravyn
2007-03-19, 09:38 PM
You decide that the concept of "plot" is overrated and come up with a few more nodes for them to mess with.

After all, plans never survive their first encounter with the enemy. I should know--my players weren't even on their third session by the time they'd recruited the people I'd planned as running antagonists, and my GMs are still adjusting to my inability to see a combat and not try to defuse it, sidestep it, or otherwise render it unnecessary.

Mewtarthio
2007-03-20, 04:18 PM
Back on topic, I believe that yes, this is a grand system to play. It allows much more freeform and dynamic and real characters. However, I am curious as to how you are able to have a working longterm plot with these nodes. While it seems perfectly possible for short term sidequests and regular interaction, a long term plan would be necessary, wouldn't it? I am curious as to how nodes affect long term planning. While it would make things more dynamic, sometimes you may need to have certain events happen. How would you accomplish that?

You just make "long-term" nodes. For example, let's say that your long-term plot is that Lord Darkevil Puppiesbane is trying to collect the eight shard of the Plodevize (each one of which is an Evil Artifact in its own right) to become a god. Unbeknownst to him, the evil Demon King has been manipulating him this whole time, for once the Plodevize is completed the Prime Material Plane will become coterminus to Hades and he will finally be free. The Church of Mercigued, led by Pontiff Koruptus, is trying to guard the Shards of the Plodevize, but in actuality Pontiff Koruptus was unable to resist the temptation to use the power of the Shard Doh-N'tyoozis Yui'Deeit as is now merged with the Aspect of the Demon King. He has ordered the Church to collect the Shards and guard them, ostensibly to keep them away from Darkevil, though in actuality he merely wants all eight to be gathered in one place. Meanwhile, a small branch of the Church has grown suspicious of Koruptus and has formed the Clandestine Order of the Chartreuse Guard to discover The Truth. Unbeknownst to them, the Demon King has discovered their intent and now plots to trick them into furthering his aims.

Now, you've got several nodes:

Lord Darkevil Puppiesbane
The Demon King
Pontiff Korruptus
The ignorant men of the Church of Merigued
The Chartreuse GuardSet up the appropriate relationships, and when the PCs start doing important things, you can react as necessary. For instance, one of the nodes may hire the PCs to collect the Shards, or the PCs may hear about this situation and start seeking Shards of their own accord.

asqwasqw
2007-03-20, 06:56 PM
I don't know, I perfer event-based gaming for long plots, and node gaming for subplots. I want a quest to have players hunt down a dragon, not to have them bargain with the dragon to spare the PC's life if the dragon gets to eat the king they hired. Freeform games are not always a good thing, and sometimes you want a story... But I guess whatever works for you, and this is still a very good idea.

Diggorian
2007-03-20, 07:06 PM
I'll sometimes mix nodes with event planning if a particularly good scene comes to mind. How Nodes interact often inspires these.

Rarkasha
2007-03-20, 08:12 PM
I already try to have stuff happen behind the scenes between NPC's, and having the option of players ignoring certain things and allowing NPC plans to carry on regardless, but this helps put it all into perspective. This will be really helpful for my upcoming game.

Bouldering Jove
2007-03-21, 04:31 PM
I think 'faction-based' gaming is a better term.
"Faction-based" definitely gets the general idea across better, but it implies groups, when a node can just be a single important character, and it implies intrigue-oriented adventures, which node-based games don't have to be. Referring to nodes as factions also starts to get muddled if you're mapping out multiple "factions" within a single group.


I don't know, I perfer event-based gaming for long plots, and node gaming for subplots. I want a quest to have players hunt down a dragon, not to have them bargain with the dragon to spare the PC's life if the dragon gets to eat the king they hired. Freeform games are not always a good thing, and sometimes you want a story... But I guess whatever works for you, and this is still a very good idea.
I understand what you're saying, but that example doesn't quite click. Regardless of how you designed the adventure, if the players want to try bargaining with the dragon instead of fighting it, they're going to give it a shot. If a GM designs an event-based adventure around that dragonslaying, the player decision to bargain thrusts that GM out of his event sequence and into a freeform game whether he likes it or not. He can just have the dragon ignore the attempt at negotiation, of course, but if the GM always shunts the players back onto the intended path, the players are going to start feeling railroaded.

Tough_Tonka
2007-03-21, 09:33 PM
I think you have something pretty good going there.

I once created an entire adventure that was tailored to the PCs hunches, I basically decided their would be 4 or 5 encounters and decided that every other hunch a PC had was right. These hunches lead them to a final planned boss fight in an abandoned warehouse on the docks of Sharn.

Desaril
2007-03-21, 11:36 PM
I know I'm jumping on the bandwagon, but I really liked your essay. I was introduced to the idea by a GM many years ago and what I liked is that althouogh I was a player, I felt that I was creating the plot. The plot was always something we wanted to do. We felt that what we did was important because the story/world changed as a result of our actions. It was really empowering.

It took a long time for me to develop a node-based campaign style, but it has been far more rewarding. The biggest problem is getting linear players to think nodal. Players who are used to railroading don't easily start taking the initiative and making their own decisions. At first many of players kept waiting for the plot to jump into their lap. Therefore, I recommend inserting a few events that the players will encounter if they run out of steam or run too far afield e.g., if they left the town in the example and decided to go griffon hunting or whatever.

A recent superhero campaign involving the escape and recapture of several supervillains involved the following nodes
1) a government superhero task force
2) a pro-mutant hero group
3) a mercenary/anti-hero group
4) a secret mastermind villain
5) a very public megalomaniac villain
6) various random villains connected to the other primary nodes

Events
1) a rampage by one of the random villains
2) an public human sacrifice by one of the escapees
3) an assassination attempt on a government official
4) an anti-mutant rally

Each of these events would tie the PCs back to the nodes if they ran out of clues or ideas.

Logos7
2007-03-22, 10:39 AM
With the node-based approach, you can improvise these answers on the fly by just playing the factions like you'd expect them to react, rather than improvising an entirely new plotline or resorting to blatant railroad (such as making Seible invincible).

Are you saying you can't improvise with event based story? I still think your division between node and event is flimsy. What if someone Ignore's or destorys a node what do you do, you improvise the same as with events, You can have multible events and even synchrositic events

Additionally, the node-based approach can include several other subplots that aren't even necessarily revealed, but still serve to make a few realistic motivations. I

As with Multible Events you can have hidden events.

n this case, the PCs never found out what the Silver Band was seeking, but had they slain Gotti and cast Detect Magic on the tree, or had they asked the Silver Band a few more questions, they'd have learned about it.

Event's can plan for multible contingencies, including PC's never finding things. If i set up an Event ( say kidnapping Ransom NOtes Heoric Savings and Reward, 4 events) and the pcs don't do it, I can either disregard the events or move forward with them. Your saying you can do the same with nodes and the reason why is that i'm gonna say that Event = Node + Interactions. Much like no man is a satsified being an Island , no node is either. Nodes needs to interact either with other nodes or with PC's ( Who are kind of like a Node themselves ) to gain meaning/use.

I think your essay is a preety good explaination of Event Dming, thank you for your time.

Logos

kamikasei
2007-03-22, 11:14 AM
Logos: I recommend using the "quote" tag for clarity.


Are you saying you can't improvise with event based story? I still think your division between node and event is flimsy. What if someone Ignore's or destorys a node what do you do, you improvise the same as with events, You can have multible events and even synchrositic events

I don't really see your point. "What if someone Ignore's or destorys a node"? Well, in that case the remaining nodes react as fits their means and motivation. It's not really improvisation in the same way as when someone does something not accounted for in your event flowchart - there's no fixed plan to begin with. You were improvising in the first place.


Event's can plan for multible contingencies, including PC's never finding things. If i set up an Event ( say kidnapping Ransom NOtes Heoric Savings and Reward, 4 events) and the pcs don't do it, I can either disregard the events or move forward with them. Your saying you can do the same with nodes and the reason why is that i'm gonna say that Event = Node + Interactions. Much like no man is a satsified being an Island , no node is either. Nodes needs to interact either with other nodes or with PC's ( Who are kind of like a Node themselves ) to gain meaning/use.

An analogy from computer science may be helpful here. Event-based GMing is analogous to procedural programming (carry out these actions in this sequence, use if/then/else and similar constructions to behave differently in different situations), while node-based is like object oriented programming (you model a bunch of different "things", which have various properties and can perform various actions; you issue one object an instruction, it may issue sub-instructions to others, etc.). At root, both of these are high-level abstractions of the same basic programming: at the very bottom, it all gets executed as machine code on the chip. An object-oriented program is generally just a set of instructions to a procedural program at a lower level. That doesn't mean there's no difference between the two, or that object oriented programming isn't worthy of study separate from procedural.

Likewise, in this case, node-based GMing boils down to a bunch of events happening around the players, some of which are the direct results of their actions, others of which are the DM taking action through NPCs in a way that's consistent with the NPCs motivations. Node-based GMing simply models this at a higher level than event-based; you could get the same results with the latter, but it might require a much more complicated set of plans and conditions. Conversely, an event-based game makes it easier to get an atmosphere and feel into the game, as with node-based gaming nothing guarantees that the players will proceed in a dramatically satisfying way.


I think your essay is a preety good explaination of Event Dming, thank you for your time.

:smallconfused:? You seem awfully vehement about defending the supremacy of "event DMing"...

Diggorian
2007-03-22, 01:23 PM
When I first starting DMing I had a hard time with Event basing myself. Knowing the results of all actions before the PC's got there seemed so boring, a hard transition from playing as a PC with suspense.

Nodes strongly appealed to me cause it was like what I already knew, PCing, but I just had tons more characters to roleplay.

Often I hear of players that get more character ideas than they could possibly explore; Cowboy-ninja had a thread about that recently. Node style could be a good way for some to transition into the art of DMing, which for me is mainly creating cool characters a nodes and interesting environments then letting the PCs connect them.

Mewtarthio
2007-03-22, 04:14 PM
Are you saying you can't improvise with event based story? I still think your division between node and event is flimsy. What if someone Ignore's or destorys a node what do you do, you improvise the same as with events, You can have multible events and even synchrositic events

The primary difference is that event-based gaming is nothing more than a list of events that you expect the PCs to follow. Node-based means you develop the characters first and create events to match the actions of the players.

Desaril
2007-03-22, 09:05 PM
@ Logos- I apologize if I misinterpret what you're saying, but I got a little confused by punctuation. It seems like you think nodes and event are virtually the same. I heartily disagree.

In a node based game each node is going to make events and the story unfolds. In an event based campaign, the event is supposed to happen to move the story from one event to the next. The distinction has to do with the amount of preordination. If you prepare an event based game, you run into problems when the players stray off the path. In a node-based game, there is no fixed end and therefore no path.

The nodes in the example are the differnt power groups and they should make different events based on the events made by other nodes. Because the PCs are a node on their own, they wil shape events themselves.

The GM who explained this concept of gaming to me compared it to an party politics. The people get to vote, but the party chooses the candidates. The players have freedom to choose their path, but there are some predictable choices based on the nodes set up by the GM (including his understanding of the player's node). It creates a sense of empowerment because the players get to choose.

I think KameKasei nails it when he mentions that event based gaming creates a better chance of an expected dramatic story arc from generating circumstance through increasing conflict to climax, denoument and finale if the players follow the story. In node-based gaming the players control the development of the story and they may not follow that pattern.

That's why the GM has to incorporate some events to move the story even if the player's don't. Of course, the nodes are going to create those events based on node-interaction, so it's still a node-based solution.

Zeal
2007-03-24, 10:26 PM
Could an item, if it were to be important enough, have its own node?

Diggorian
2007-03-24, 11:24 PM
I believe only an intelligent item could have relationships and attitudes that could make it a node. It's not importance that makes nodes, it's ambition.

An item that fulfills the goals of multiples nodes would be a Macguffin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macguffin).

Pronounceable
2007-03-25, 12:02 PM
Any time I GM, I use this method (which is not very often, sadly). It's MUCH better than scripting. Avoiding complaints of railroad, writing a (marginally) good interactive story AND getting to RP a whole lot of characters? YES.

"Node" sounds a bit wrong though. Maybe focus?


Slightly on topic (and rather ranty): These two types can be compared to video games: Metal Gear Solid and Fallout. Fallout is an infinitely better "game". Notice the emphasize on "game". Fallout is a great GAME (a very good example of nodal design), while MGS is in fact a MOVIE (a very good example of scripting), with some interactive parts thrown in (which are regrettably awesome; preventing me from hating MGS).

I'll stop before ranting about the awful PC port and how it made me swore to never buy anything from Konami ever again.