PDA

View Full Version : DM Help Should I show my cards



Kafana
2018-06-09, 02:45 AM
Hi all,

In my campaign the shadow god has joined forces with the chaos god to transform (destroy as far as the mortal races are concerned) the material plane.

The party has, without their knowledge, ventured into the sea of madness, which is the plane of the chaos god (something like Maelstrom from Pathfinder). The sea is mostly filled with chaotic space where stuff like physics doesn't really apply, but there are many "islands of stability" where things resemble the material plane, but are cluttered with twisted magic, creatures, etc. Some of these islands contain gates to the material plane, and this is how the party "got in".

Anyway, the party is about to meet the lord of this island, a sorceress that served the chaos god for centuries. She is a sly individual who relishes toying with the material plane and its creatures, causing confusion and chaos. However, she does not approve of her lords alliance as it aims to break her toy for good.

Now, during this encounter the party will learn where they are and get a high level overview of how the chaos plane works. What I'm unsure of is what comes next. Namely, the chaos lord has half a dozen champions currently on the material plane doing his bidding. Each one of these champions is a 3-4 session long adventure - arrive near the champion and its forces, explore the region, gain knowledge, combat the champion. Does the sorceress tell them about each of these champions and their current location in the world, or does she start with the closest one and continue once they've dealt with that one?

The pros I see with showing all the cards:
+ Allows the players to understand that a true world ending threat is here, and it needs to be dealt with.
+ Gives the players more time to plan the macro strategy - where do we go after the 1st champion.

The cons:
- Removes some suspense and the feeling of discovery, as the high-level picture is presented.

Could you guys give more insight?

Blymurkla
2018-06-09, 03:23 AM
Angry DM had a blog post (http://theangrygm.com/we-gotta-save-the-world-epic-quest-campaigns/) not that long ago where he dug into pretty much this exact dilemma. If you can't be bothered to read that massive wall of text, you can probably just skip ahead to the The Adventures in the Way headline and read from there.

Personally, I'd probably like it better if I knew how many champions of chaos there were to tackle. To have that clear goal. Just revealing one after the other might be a bit heart-breaking: »What, we just massively messed up the chaos gods plans, and now you're telling us he has yet another champion?«

However, revealing one after another has the massive benefit of being easier for you as GM to plan. Find you you're running short on time? Just cut out the two last ones, have the big finale and end the campaign. Or, alternatively, add another one if you need to. You can't do that if you've stated that there are six.

If you go down with keeping them secret, you still need to mentally prepare your players for the scope of the campaign. They need hints that it doesn't really end with the current champion and they need them before the current champion is dealt with. And you need to make each victory over a champion really feel like a victory. Say, only one champion at a time is 'active' (all of them are on the material plane, but only one is currently causing massive chaos). When they beat that one, they thwart the current chaotic abnormalities that was going on, there's a bit of time for celebration, they’ve saved something worth saving (like a village, a country, an NPC they love). Then another champion rises to prominence and they're off again.

jayem
2018-06-09, 06:25 AM
Perhaps break the suspense over the first session?
Alternatively have a clear pattern (NSEW-Underground, Sky) so it's clearly planned.

Rabidmuskrat
2018-06-12, 03:12 PM
The Chaos Sorceress likes toying with mortals, right? I would have her get some hold over them, maybe some kind of curse (or at least she TELLS them it is) and sends them off to fight the first Champion without telling them why. Mostly to kill them for giggles.

Then when they return "Ok we did your job now take away the curse!" she ACTUALLY tells them SOME of what is going on. Maybe she does not tell her own position in it, just that the Chaos God is going a bit nutso and he has X champions and oh here is the next one that you guys should probably take care of btw he has this super awesome magic item you can swipe after you beat him.

You can then make her do stuff that "****s" with the players, like seemingly backstabs them, assist their enemies, etc. and when they then think she has betrayed them she has the defence of "no look I HAD to to keep my cover since I am supposed to be working for him! Here is what is REALLY going on!".

That slowly introduces them to the situation without dumping it all at once, yet gives them all the necessary information at the earliest opportunity.

tl;dr: Start with 1 at a time, then do all cards on the table after they beat 1 or 2.

AtlasSniperman
2018-06-13, 12:06 AM
God of chaos?
Why doesn't he have "between 3 and 12 champions, given his whim. Usually about 7 though". There, the players can guess you're using 3d4(or make up any reasonable combination) but they don't know how many there are right now. In fact, the god of chaos could kill/delete a couple just because (if you want to fast track ) or promote some more(if you want to delay).

Gives the players a rough idea without showing it all, and leaves you some flexibility

Delta
2018-06-13, 04:18 AM
If there's half a dozen, you absolutely have to tell them something in advance. You'll be giving them no less than five "The Princess is in another castle!" moments, that's enough to make a lot of players just phone it in. You don't have to tell them everything or even the precise number, but definitely let them know "There's some champions you'll need to defeat, it's definitely more than two or three" or whatever because otherwise, there's a real danger that if by champion #3, they get told "Yeah... well, turns out there's another one" yet again your players simply stop caring especially if each of them is a multi-session plot.

Firest Kathon
2018-06-13, 04:37 AM
I think you could go for a mixed approach. The sorceress tells them that there are multiple champions of the chaos god, but does not know or want to tell exactly how many. In addition, the PCs should have the possiblity to find out the exact number (ancient oracle, intercept mail with CC: all chaos champions, etc.), so they avoid the "your princess..." moment. Maybe not right away but after defeating one or two champions.

By the time they get the information you should also have already an idea on wether your players like the idea of fighting many champions ("there's still 5 to go") or not ("just one more and you're done"), so you can adapt the actual number until that moment.