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Jul. 6th, 2010
Bebelith vs. Retriever [gaming]
Jul. 6th, 2010 01:18 pmWe had the first session of the OMG Giants campaign in a while Saturday night, after rebuilding everything in Hero Labs after the most recent wipe of my computer. ( Adventure synopsis! Click only if gaming nerdery appeals to you! )
As the GM, something I was experimenting with in this particular adventure setup was a "high-level dungeon crawl" scenario; to prep the adventure I filled two sheets of graph paper with level-appropriate themed encounters, put a couple of plot MacGuffins in place (and gave them a partial map that included the location of one of them and a couple of different routes they could take), and threw the players at it to see what they would do. I wasn't terribly surprised that they immediately made for Known Plot Point (the temple itself), albeit via a side route -- this group has a history of chasing the plot and ignoring anything that isn't plot -- but I was a little surprised at how stymied they were when Unknown Plot Point (the missing hammer) didn't immediately become obvious. They did do a bit of dungeon-crawling from room to room, killing whatever they could find that seemed to need killing, but they quickly tired of this and definitely seemed inclined to avoid simply Greyhawking the place. From a game design perspective, I had set up two places where the hammer might be and simply decided that it would be in whichever one they came to first, but the party steadfastly refused to go to either place without a clear marker saying "Plot, this way -->"
So I decided to let the divination ritual work and put the hammer in a completely different place instead: in the back of a giant set piece using some miniatures-game maps I have sitting on the shelf waiting for the chance to be loved. This gives the party a chance to unload everything they've got on a large, multi-stage encounter, instead of piece-by-piece going from room to room and should suit the "Heck with exploration, cut to the action!" nature of the group.
Fortunately, we're not gaming this weekend, so I'll have time to write it up before they go in blasting!
-The Gneech
[1] Fortunately, this is D&D instead of Call of Cthulhu, so no SAN checks were required -- although![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hantamouse seemed to have blown one anyway after the word "demon" got tossed around.
As the GM, something I was experimenting with in this particular adventure setup was a "high-level dungeon crawl" scenario; to prep the adventure I filled two sheets of graph paper with level-appropriate themed encounters, put a couple of plot MacGuffins in place (and gave them a partial map that included the location of one of them and a couple of different routes they could take), and threw the players at it to see what they would do. I wasn't terribly surprised that they immediately made for Known Plot Point (the temple itself), albeit via a side route -- this group has a history of chasing the plot and ignoring anything that isn't plot -- but I was a little surprised at how stymied they were when Unknown Plot Point (the missing hammer) didn't immediately become obvious. They did do a bit of dungeon-crawling from room to room, killing whatever they could find that seemed to need killing, but they quickly tired of this and definitely seemed inclined to avoid simply Greyhawking the place. From a game design perspective, I had set up two places where the hammer might be and simply decided that it would be in whichever one they came to first, but the party steadfastly refused to go to either place without a clear marker saying "Plot, this way -->"
So I decided to let the divination ritual work and put the hammer in a completely different place instead: in the back of a giant set piece using some miniatures-game maps I have sitting on the shelf waiting for the chance to be loved. This gives the party a chance to unload everything they've got on a large, multi-stage encounter, instead of piece-by-piece going from room to room and should suit the "Heck with exploration, cut to the action!" nature of the group.
Fortunately, we're not gaming this weekend, so I'll have time to write it up before they go in blasting!
-The Gneech
[1] Fortunately, this is D&D instead of Call of Cthulhu, so no SAN checks were required -- although
hantamouse seemed to have blown one anyway after the word "demon" got tossed around.