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Darth Credence
2020-06-22, 03:10 PM
Hi all - this is my first time posting in this subforum, as I usually hang out over in the media area. I'm hoping to get a bit of advice, and maybe share a bit of what I have going on.
Basic background on me - I was a regular player way, way back, and DMed a lot of games with the AD&D 1st and 2nd edition rule set. I still have a number of books from that time frame, like the Monster Manual that came in 3 ring binders, Fiend Folio, and such. The last book I got from then was Creative Campaigning - I know this, because it was on top of the stack when I recently got out my old books.
Cut to now, when I decided to join a game as a player. I got the new Player's Handbook, read it, and joined the game. Well, I was the odd person out - I only knew the DM, while everyone else had been friends for years. Turned out that there was one player who basically ran the game, because everyone just bowed to what he wanted. And what he wanted was to be a nominally good character who killed merchants because he didn't want to spend money, while at the same time bullying the DM into handing out more and more loot. I did not last long with that group, but between that, frequenting here, and reading Darths and Droids with the gaming tips, I decided to create a campaign. We had our first session yesterday, and while everyone said they had fun, and I'm positive two of the three players did, I want to try to make things better. Hence, request for advice.
Basic background on campaign - I write short stories in my spare time, and they are all set in a specific world which I have adapted to the campaign. The central conceit that makes it different from most is a third axis of alignment, and a set of deities that flow from that. The third axis is nature/civilization. Imagine if you will a 24 sided figure - think a six sided die where each side has a little 4 sided pyramid, adding to 24 sides. The tops of each pyramid is one of the extremes, and the opposite side is the opposing extreme. The eight total corner points of the original cube represent where the three major factors come together - where law, civilization, and good combine, you have justice, while law, civ, and evil are pride. The four sides of each pyramid represent the deity that fits the three corners of its triangle, so there would be four deities of law, with one of the four specifically being where law and civilization meet on edge, representing law, pride, and justice (he's the deity of attorneys and bureaucrats).
The other major thing that sets it apart is that there is an old world, which is fairly close to a standard high fantasy setting, and a new world that has been using less magic as technology has advanced. The new world knows about the old world, but the old world has been through enough upheaval that most do not know it's there and was once colonized by the old world. The new world is on the cusp of guns, although there are only a very few available.
Alright with that out of the way, I have some questions. I think I'm good at preparation. I had three different campaign themes ready, and we did a session zero where we discussed characters and theme. They unanimously went with high fantasy, good vs evil. Great. Two of the three (our fourth is currently on night shift, and is joining for session 3) wanted to start with 5th level characters, and the third didn't care. I compromised and went with level 3, so I wouldn't have to throw out as much material, and because level three is where the real campaign hooks begin. (I feel like I probably made a mistake allowing them to direct that, but it's too late now, and I'm OK with it.)
The first issue I'd like some advice on is dealing with different gaming types. It is clear at this point that I have one fairly shy player, one goofball, and one who is a combination of min/maxer and serious role player. To explain the last one, he's is the type to go to guides on the internet, youtube, whatever, to look for what is the most efficient methods for playing a character. During the actual game, he is very in to roleplaying the character he has, but the character is definitely the result of min/maxing. The first specific issue is between him, who is MM from here on out, and the shy player, who is Mal. Mal is playing a standard human ranger, and he picked skills and attributes that he liked and wanted to play. MM saw this, and tried convincing him that he should instead be a variant human so he could get a feat, and went on about how some of the choices for skills weren't ideal. Mal was fully prepared to change his character to fit what MM wanted. This was all during session zero, and I had to meet Mal separately to help him write up his character. I assured him that its his character, and he is free to make it in any manner he wants. He decided to keep to his original plan. At our first session, MM brought some stuff up again to change his character, but the goofball jumped in to defend Mal's choices, and we went on. Would I have been better off discussing as a group, or perhaps taking MM aside to talk about it, or was allowing the players to work it out themselves a good idea?
Now, for the goofball. Great guy, has the most current roleplaying experience, plays a paladin, and I expected him to be the most serious about playing. Instead, he's a goofball. Now, I've played with goofballs in the past - heck, I've been one. I played as part of a two wizard team, and we had synchronized somatic components that we'd act out together. I love goofballs, because they keep things fun. But I'm not sure how to handle the goofball if they come into conflict with someone else. While MM was looking through the eyes of his familiar, the goofball started to stack stones on her head. If everyone was a goofball, it would have been great. Nothing bad came out of it, as MM just laughed, but I could see possible problems. Any ideas on what to do if it comes to be a problem?
This is getting long, so I'll address my other major question, pacing, later on. If you have advice on handling player interaction, I'd love to hear it. The book I mentioned, Creative Campaigning, talks about it, but I didn't find it very useful for this.

Zarrgon
2020-06-22, 04:50 PM
*It is sometimes better to let the group work out character details. The group does need to work together both in and out of the game.

However the "guy" who goes after the shy guy can be a problem. This is where really the DM needs to step in and say the "leave him alone, he can make any character he wants too".

The goofball. Well, it's always going to be a problem. It's nice during slow time for the goofy person to do something....but it can get disruptive in game play. Often a goofball does not know when to quit. And you can't really "talk to them" as they will see it as a personal attack.

The first thing to do is to keep the goofball player occupied: make sure they have something to do. Your example is the prefect mistake of saying "ok, Bill will use his special thing now, so just sit there and be quiet and don't play".

And what does goofball hear: "it's ok for you to goof around now". See the problem?

So make sure you keep them busy with something to do. Try and avoid things where you tell the goofball to "not play the game and goofoff".

Try and make the game so, for example, no one player scout mini game is needed. Or get the other characters to scout too. Or, best yet, have all the players do it together.

Alcore
2020-06-22, 09:38 PM
Would I have been better off discussing as a group, or perhaps taking MM aside to talk about it, or was allowing the players to work it out themselves a good idea?It is a good idea... if MM drops it and considers it finished. If arguments continue to pop up I suggest talking with MM about it. If that doesn't work he is the wrong player for the group. That is not a bad thing to let go of a player...

I wish I had done it earlier with that one player or left that one game when me and the DM kept arguing that I wasn't optimizing enough (With an archetype that has a reputation of being OP) or roleplaying instead of wading in to rend my enemies apart.


Personally I would have also given MM a talk after session zero. Nothing serious, just try and get a feel for his methodology and general thought process. Presently I doesn't sound like a literal MM and was trying to help. Session two and onwards will shed more light.



Can't stand goofballs. I won't comment as I would be too biased.

Darth Credence
2020-06-23, 10:24 AM
Thanks for the replies - they help. I think MM will be OK, because he did apologize at the time and didn't bring anything up again. I'll watch next time.
A little more info on the specific incident with the stacking stones. When the wizard wanted to do that, I immediately asked the others what they were going to do. The ranger used a nature check to see if anything unusual was going on in the forest, focusing on forest sounds to see if it was quieter than expected. Goofball said he'll stack stones on MM's head so they fall when she comes out of her trance. Then I went to what the wizard saw through the owl's eyes. That entire interaction was, "As your familiar takes flight over the forest, your vision fades and you begin to see through it's eyes. It wings towards the noises you heard, and sees two wolves feasting on the remains of a black bear. As it turns back towards you, it sees a glint from a tiny bit of metal." Can it tell what it is?" "How close do you want it to get to look?" "Never mind, I'm bringing him back." I'm not sure what more I could have done to keep the others involved, and I wouldn't want to stop the wizard from using their familiar.
Both of you have an issue with the goofball, and I can see why. (I'm now hoping I didn't make my DMs life miserable back when I was the goofball - I didn't think so, but I was a young teen at the time and may have been oblivious). I'm going to work hard to keep everyone involved at all times so there isn't an opportunity for this again. Once we actually made it to a dungeon, he was fairly serious.

Now for another question, this time on pacing.
I started them out having just completed the ranger bonding with his beast companion. From there, they were close to a village. I had set up a minor hook that could allow them to bypass the village and go directly to a planned dungeon, albeit without some info. I also set up a deeper hook in the village for the same dungeon, a different hook for a different dungeon, some in town roleplaying set ups, and had some encounters that would attempt to subtly steer things if they decided to say forget the planned stuff, we set out across the dense forest. Like I said, I think preparation is my strong suit. But I found that keeping the game moving is not exactly my strong suit. I expected that in a three-hour session (we set aside a minimum 2 hour, maximum 4 hour time block, so we could end at a decent place in there), we would get through one of the two dungeons I had planned, complete some roleplaying opportunities in town, or get through some stuff in the forest. Instead, they did one in town rp opportunity, made it to the dungeon, and only made it to the stairs to lead to the second and final level because they found the secret doors that would let them cut out 2/3rds of it. That took just short of the full four hours.
I know that part of this is because MM, and to a degree Mal, were jumping on everything. On their way to the village, they found a bear corpse being eaten by a couple of wolves - it was killed by the bad guys from the upcoming dungeon. They analyzed everything about it, searching for the tiniest clues, although no one ever thought to try tracking the people that killed the bear. Meanwhile, GB took the opportunity to commune with his deity and pray for guidance. They did butcher the bear to take back to town to sell the parts. They ended up selling it for the cost of a single meal in the inn. In the inn, they split the party to be able to talk to multiple groups of people in the inn, learning the story hooks. They then followed the priest to his church to talk and learn various lore about the area. I had to change the priest to be suffering from a bit of dementia, repeating the same stories, just so they wouldn't try to pump out all of the campaign information right there. And yet, they ended up forgetting to talk to the deacon about something.
But I have to say that much of the slowdown was completely on me. We are using a large mat with squares to draw out the map and use figures. I was drawing this from my own mapped out dungeon, and I was slow doing so. I also was kind of slow going through my notes to get the next encounter going. I had the descriptions of all the rooms laid out in a document, the maps as a .png file that I could call up, and the encounters stored in D&D Beyond. I used D&D Beyond because it seems to me to be a good tool to design appropriately leveled encounters, and I really liked it for that. Everything was up on a different browser tab, but that ended up being so many tabs that it couldn't read which was which without actually going to the tab.
So, any advice on how to keep things flowing on my end? Are there convenient tools that anyone uses that I can compile everything in one place, and quickly get to where I need to be? I'd be willing to learn more software or specific methods in existing stuff if someone points me to something they know works well. And any good way to get the maps out quicker? I'm thinking about printing off each room as a separate sheet of paper and taping them in place when they enter the room. I'd love to get a table with a screen underneath so I could do the reveal that way, but that is not in the cards.
Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give.

Zarrgon
2020-06-23, 12:22 PM
Now for another question, this time on pacing.


Well, software depends what you are comfortable with and what works for your computer and all. Did you just have one big text document? If so you might want to break it up more, maybe even by room and encounter. Different colors for each type of text can also work wonders. And you might consider adding pictures. Even a simple picture of whatever the nearby text is can work great as it makes that block of text easy to find and remember.

Though it does sound like you might benefit from printing some of your notes out on paper. Maps should be printed or drawn ahead of time, if that is your method. Of course, you could also go Old School and have the players map the dungeon.

You might want to make the maps a bit more simple too. Just a 20x20 cave or room. If your doing complex areas that take you a long time to draw, you might want to scale back a bit.


As a bonus, you seem to have curious active players...and this can be a good thing. Any time you "need a minute", just toss something interesting right in front of them. Maybe a dropped bag of something. Maybe a scroll hanging from some spider webs. A locked chest. A glowing ball of pale light. Anything to have the group stop for a couple minutes while you get ready.

For the game pacing if you want to get through the adventure quicker, you want to really focus on just the adventure. Avoid the trap of making too much of a "living world". You don't want the non adventure things to be interesting and take up game time. You want them to be a bit more firmly in the back ground.

The dead bear is a good example, as you see how the PCs jumped on it. A better dead bear encounter would have been "the bear corpse has been hacked apart and all the meat has been harvested and all the bones have been broken and the skin and fur ripped, torn and cut apart. There is nothing of any value left on the bear corpse". So see, that has much more the message of "dead bear, move along". The other thing to do is to make such things more complicated. For example when they find the dead bear, they also find five gnomes cutting it up. The gnomes are nice enough, but claim the bear meat and either just say they found it or claim to have killed it...either way the bear corpse has arrows in it and none of the gnomes have bows...

The best, IMO, is the strange supernatural magic or something one: The dead bear corpse glows with sick green light and makes the character weak or does damage if they get to close. Or the ghost of the dead bear guards it's corpse. Though it's very important to make it dangerous and deadly to the characters so they just move on. A ghost bear they can't fight is a good one. Or the dark necromatic magic grabs the PCs and hurls them fifty feet away and does some damage. Or as the approach the corpse their weapons get hot and burn (like the heat metal spell, but for all weapons) and once they get with in ten feet weapons start turning to ash. when done with the right twist, the players will just move on quickly.

And ''pointers in the right direction'' can work great. They might miss say foot prints or other passive ones...so you might want more obvious ones. "the bear corpse is covered with ghost maggots and ghost flies...as you watch 13 of the flies all flow together into a giant one foot long ghost fly and it flies off to the north(in the direction of the dungeon)".

If you want fast, tight pacing....and even more make sure the players get at least the 'bare bones' of the plot and setting information: you will have to have IT come to Them. If the wise old wizard has a bit of information, don't have him hiding far away....have him in the tavern for a drink. You want to make it impossible for the players to avoid. You don't need to do this for everything, just somethings. Also the simple rule of three is the players should have three chances to learn a bit of information. You can just have three people or things(like a book or painting) know it or have the one primary source and the two others know that that source knows the information("oh you are interested in werewolves...well our church deacon once cured a lad of wolfism some years back, maybe you should talk to him.")

Hope some of this helps.

Darth Credence
2020-06-23, 07:04 PM
This absolutely helps, Zarrgon, thank you.
I like the idea of pictures on everything - I'll be adding those. You mention not having everything in one document, but my problem is the opposite - I have so many tabs open with a different document that I can't easily tell which one is right for the next room, because each room was its own tab. I'd love to figure out a way to link a map such that I could click on the room on the map and have it open the correct room. For now, until I figure something like that out, I'm going back to my old method of printing all of my notes and putting them in a binder with tabs to flip to.
I also like the idea of having the players map it out - I have the map in front of me and know where things are, and the goofball has cartography and has used it. I can get him, or anyone else with cartography, to draw in the map as they go, and then they can take a picture at the end to keep as a map. FTR, by a long time to draw I mean maybe 20-30 seconds drawing a rectangular room, and adding the doors, but it seems like a long time, and it happens for each room in a dungeon. I shouldn't take as long as I do, because it is so simple, which is why I recognize that I was breaking the flow.
As for the stuff like the bear, I think I'm actually there, but it's good to have some confirmation. The bear was the third of the ways they could learn about the dungeon, and one specifically designed for the ranger. Since they got to it shortly after the bad guys left, it was only then being set on by scavengers looking to eat. The glint of metal was a bit of chain mail, letting them know there was some interaction with people, and the sword cuts confirmed it. Meanwhile, the farmer that they robbed was in the inn, loudly complaining about it to another farmer - the primary hook. That's when they split the party - there were also some dwarves from the mine talking about a different hook they could have gone on, and they split to go listen to each, but chose the bandits. The final backup to getting them there was the priest at the church, the only other reasonable building they could go in. Had they gone to the church, they would have met him there, but instead he was hanging out in the tavern, talking with the dwarves.
Again, thank you for taking the time to reply. I appreciate the help.

Quertus
2020-06-23, 09:24 PM
"Balance to the table" is one of my mantras - I encourage you to learn the concept, and then discuss it with the MM.

Some people care about tight balance; others (like me) are happy playing a sentient potted plant while someone else is playing not!Thor (is that the same as "!Thor"?). Get MM on your side. Find out what balance range he is comfortable with. And then ask him to be a resource to boost the party up to his level… if they ask. But… ask him not to get *too* far ahead of them.

Then let the party know that MM has a more optimized character, and that, if they feel that their characters are being sidelined, that MM will help them retool their characters - and that you are fine with such free changes mid-game to ensure that the game remains fun for everyone.

Problem solved. Everyone's onboard with everyone having fun and remaining relevant.

-----

"I immediately asked the others what they were going to do. "

Kudos! Built-in spotlight sharing instinct.

The goofball… his rock-stacking was pretty funny, not detrimental to the party, and certainly not PvP.

Or it was taking up valuable game time with pointless antics.

So, it depends on the group as to how they took this.

So long as he was taking up *less* time than the player actually accomplishing something in this scene, and isn't a spotlight hog in general, I'd say it's fine in the general sense, and any specific actions should be judged on their own merits.

-----

I love your hyper-analytical players - those are my favorite!

Alcore
2020-06-24, 08:31 AM
Both of you have an issue with the goofball, and I can see why. (I'm now hoping I didn't make my DMs life miserable back when I was the goofball - I didn't think so, but I was a young teen at the time and may have been oblivious). I'm going to work hard to keep everyone involved at all times so there isn't an opportunity for this again. Once we actually made it to a dungeon, he was fairly serious.its more because i find myself the straight man or the humorless one at the table. I'll analyze a joke and I'll "get it" in how it's supposed to be funny but i often find it unfunny if not banal.


A non toxic goofball is good enough of a performer to (usually) read his audience and reign himself in. They are a boon. No matter how bad the joke keep your eyes open (and not just on him); if he is upsetting more than just you you need to have a talk.

Darth Credence
2020-06-24, 10:57 PM
I like the table balance mantra. My instinct is to allow something that plays to everyone's strengths, so that even if someone has a non-optimized build they can be just as important, but I worry that this would make the more optimized players think they are wasting their time. I still intend to do that to keep everyone interested, but I can do that as roleplaying encounters, while allowing the optimized characters to shine in the action scenes. I think that Mal will still go with roleplaying his person, and GB has a fairly optimized character already. Mal has a full backstory of how he saved and then had to leave his village where he was a goatherd, including a ballad about his deeds.
And I must have done something right the first game, because MM and GB both asked if they could bring another player to the game. Five was the most I had planned for, and I was hoping to pick up one or two more on the way, so this is good.
And I remembered that a few years back, DrivethruRPG had a bundle they were selling to raise money for a charity (I think it was relief for Hurricane Katrina), and I bought it just to donate. There are some tile maps for dungeons I can print out and use to quickly build the rooms.

Darth Credence
2020-06-29, 03:12 PM
Had the second session of the campaign yesterday. We are now at five people, which was fine - GB, MM, Mal, and min maxer 2 (MM2) and Shar. (MM and MM2 are not really bad min-maxers, but I'm sticking with the format.) The order in which people showed up basically meant we ended up with two people independently wandering into the dungeon the first three were in - I would have preferred working it in as a story, but it would have wasted a lot of time.
It became clear that GB is not going to be as engaged as everyone else. When they are searching things, he stands guard or patrols. So I gave him the responsibility of mapping everything. His character has cartography, and he had said he was mapping something before, so he has the job. I described, he mapped, and when they prepared to leave, I had him make a cartography check. He got a 12, so I pointed out a couple, but not all, of the errors, had them take a picture, then wiped for the next floor. Made things a lot faster, and I think he was pretty happy with it. I'm learning Inkarnate, and making some nice maps for him to have a kind of reward for it.
Mal wants to range, so he actually helps speed things along. MM, MM2, and Shar all want to discuss anything they find in minute detail. As they talk, I ask anyone not part of the discussion for any actions. As GB continues to stand guard, Mal decides he's not waiting around for this and starts to explore. When the three deep discussion people notice the ranger wandering off down the hall, they get back on track.
I also improved my skills with running things. D&D Beyond has become a really useful tool - I have one browser open with a tab for each character, another open with a tab for the encounters I have saved, a combat tracker, and various notes, then I have the maps available on my tablet so I can always scan through them. With the character sheets in front of me, I can generally access info on the characters as quick or quicker than they can.
Even with all that, it still took the entire session to finish up where I thought the first session would get to - and that only happened because Mal and his leopard knew that it was getting late in the day. Then they all remembered the quest hook from town, and made a beeline for the exit. They never even went into the caverns! I believe this means I just have to double my expected time to get through an adventure.