*This is a cross-post from Dragonsfoot, but since I haven't posted in other sections of this page other than the Café for quite some time,
here we go:*
Hiho,
So, I, as a companion to the oooooh-if-you-haven't-heard-about-it-you-are-SOOOO-backwoods Blackmoor PbP I run at the Comeback Inn (*click sig to see*), I have started a thread about my design decisions, which, if nothing else, has evolved into a splendid self-analysis of my own gaming style.
In the end, it turns out that what most influenced my sense of drama, my choice of characters, and my storytelling in general, was not,
like I had always assumed, predominantly fantasy literature, or my experience with the game itself, but fantasy anime and video games! 8O
Which is rather interesting, because I am a rather occasional video game player, the only time of the year when I touch my game collection being the Christmas holidays. - And while I admittedly enjoy a lot of anime, I am not a fan of the genre in general.
So, I wonder, looking at past, or running campaigns,
where would you other fellow DMs say that your inspiration for your campaigns came from, looking at the actual run of the game,
and less at the initial premise?
One of my players in my GURPS campaign asked me the same question last session. He was DMing a DnD campaign and found it a challenge.
My video game inspirations are generally wide-open sandbox style of games, like Hitman 2, Thief, Deus Ex, and Far Cry 2. All of these games give you specific challenges that you must engage, but they also give you a variety of ways to complete them. In Hitman 2 and Thief it's purely an issue of a wide open level map that gives you tactical freedom to choose how you'd like to engage the enemy, as well as a broad array of weapons and tools. In Far Cry 2 and Deus Ex, it even goes beyond that. Each challenge has at least two solutions to it, and (in the case of Deus Ex) the designers tried for three solutions - not counting any incidental shortcuts the player may find through adaptive play.
That really influenced my campaign design. Right now in my Africa-based GURPS campaign, for example, the PCs are involved in a political tussle, and they have many ways of dealing with the problem.
VIEW CONTENT:
Background: The Matriarchy has ground to a standstill because the queen is mourning the rebellion and departure of her eldest child, the Heir. The Heir is an intersex person who was born apparently as a girl, but developed more like a man at adolescence. This disqualified the Heir from inheriting the queen's political position. The Heir has led a small scale rebellion of most of the Matriarchy's men, in a demand for equal treatment. The Heir has three advisers, each with their own agenda. It's up to the PCs which adviser they go with.
Madesamba was a male soldier with a son, and he wanted his son to inherit his weapons and armor. But because men cannot bequeath and inherit property without a woman's legal permission, Madesamba could not do this. He joined the rebellion in the hopes of convincing the city to provide equal rights. He wants to improve the city.
Chibundu was a male menial laborer who had enough of being treated like property and rebelled to get out. He is utterly ruthless and willing to kill, steal, poison, and cheat if necessary to stay on top. He is open to the idea of overthrowing the queen and ruling in her place. If allowed to do so, he subscribes unapologetically to the "look after Number One" philosophy. He wants merely to rule the city.
Sasema was a female noble's daughter in the city who got fed up with study and memorizing songs and poems. She joined the rebellion for a sense of adventure and exploration. She never wants to return to the city again.
So in the first adventure session the PCs serve as a go-between for the city and the rebels and try to decide what sort of peace they would be interested in brokering. As it turned out, they went with Sasema's philosophy - they said that right now, the city was not ready to enforce equal treatment, and it's not something you can change overnight just by fiat, so they could not guarantee Madesamba's desire for equality. Also, they felt the city's leadership had redeeming features, so they rejected Chibundu's "overthrow and conquer" philosophy.
I made a note of this and in the second session, my PCs faced this challenge:
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Background: With the PCs' help, Sasema has influenced the Heir to continue travelling the land as a wandering tribe. They have come up against a band of brigands, the Nuwaes. The Nuwaes are evangelizing the country with a new religion, and they are willing to use force to do so. The Nuwaes also have heavy artillery and automatic firearms, and they clearly intend to shake down the Matriarchy for tribute.
Madesamba believes the Heir and the rebels must destroy or fight the Nuwaes. He left the Matriarchy because it was imperfect, but he doesn't want to destroy it. Madesamba also believes that knocking out the Nuwaes threat may be the sort of epic heroic feat needed to force the Matriarchy to respect the rebels and concede some social equality.
Chibundu is okay with fighting anybody. He can poison the Nuwaes leadership if that's what the PCs want, and they can then return to the Matriarchy as heroes without shedding a single drop of blood. Or he's fine with joining the attack against the Matriarchy and then forcing them to capitulate, and then having the Nuwaes appoint him as interim leader of the Matriarchy city.
Sasema realizes that the Nuwaes want to destroy her home city and she is willing to oppose that. She is fascinated by the field artillery they have (which she has never seen before) and wants to know more about it. She is the NPC to suggest to the PCs that they sabotage the field guns or their ammunition.
So this is an example of two sessions of play for my group and the different decision trees I give them. It's freeform and involves a significant amount of improvisation, but it's designed so that if the PCs take an unexpected tangent, I have a few other plot threads we can resume. Here, for example, if they defeat the Nuwaes in a dramatic way (sabotaging their guns) the Matriarchy will be more amenable to gender equality and Madesamba's philosophy can prevail. If they poison the Nuwaes leaders, the Matriarchy will never fully understand the threat that the males have just eliminated, and will be less impressed.
I try to make it so that even the less-noble and apparently more destructive choices have some merit. Here, for example, Chibundu suggests letting the Nuwaes shell the Matriarchy city "a little bit" before they're defeated, just to impress upon the Matriarchy exactly how grateful they should be to the PCs. This is morally bankrupt - the PCs would be abetting unnecessary deaths of innocent victims just to prove their point. But it's undeniably effective - it would certainly give the PCs far greater bargaining power if they were seen as the heroes who overthrew a massive threat, instead of just another marauding tribe. It's also possible that they could just say "a plague on both your houses" and leave the mess entirely - if they do that, it will have clear consequences in future game sessions too.
Even the Matriarchy that they're trying to save has some disturbing elements to it. The PCs witnessed the city's religious leaders performing female circumcisions on adolescents - ostensibly to prevent them from undergoing the same mysterious transformation that the Heir did. This added impetus to their goal of finding the Heir and bringing him/her back to the city, so the city leaders could stop torturing girls unnecessarily.
So those are just some thoughts. To summarize:
a) Give your players some guidance as far as goals go, but leave them free to pursue or ignore them as they wish.
b) For major challenges, hard-wire in at least two or three options that the PCs can use to prevail. Remain open to PCs short-circuiting the problem with creative thinking. Reward them for this! (But feel free to note it down for some plot-related complications later!)
c) Avoid the temptation to make the morally "good" choice the only viable option. Also avoid the temptation to make the morally "evil" choice overwhelmingly effective either. Players like to weigh moral and ethical questions in their decision making - it makes the world come alive as place where even the bad guys may have some eloquent rationale for what they do.
