Scripted Adventures

[rgrove0172]

In a previous thread the topic of how much free will the characters were extended in a game came up. Some seem to allow thier players complete freedom, essentially refereeing the game as a response to thier actions, while others seem to prepare a failry linear plotline that the players have to follow, similar to one of the published adventures.

My question is how do you master your games, and if you are one of those that allows complete freedom of action, refusing by principle to guide the players into particular situations, then how do plan an adventure at all.

Ive played this way mind you, back in the day when I had the time to prepare whole gaming regions with detail and could simply let the players wander at will, and allow thier actions to determine the flow of the story. Short of this however, when actually planning an adventure, such as the episodic nature of Conan seems to indicate, a more linear and confined approach seems necessary.

For example - Let say you want the players to discover some ruins far off the caravan trail out in the desert East of the Kezankians. You have to plot a way for them to get there right? Let say they are in Shadizar and so you prepare an encounter wherein they are invited to join a caravan as guards. When you spring it on them though, what if they decline? Do you scrap your whole adventure? Do you have them get in a fight and forced to serve with the caravan as part of a sentence from the magistrate? Do you dangle some rediculously delicious morsal out there to make them want to join the caravan? At what point are you measures considered hedging and stealing thier free will?

 

[Oly]

I'm quite open with my players in that between adventures I will hop them around the world.

For example one session ended with my players deep in the Black Kingdoms. Out of game I then had them spend months trekking back to the Western Ocean, had taken work as guards on a merchant vessel only for that to be ship wrecked and them ending up on a dessert island. The next session opened with them on that island.

What happened in between those two sessions was briefly narrated in a continuation of the "Know oh Prince" text.

I do things this way as to me it feels very Conan like, it's how the tales unfold in the books with time gaps and untold encounters.

However it is very different from how I normally game and my players were warned that my Conan campaign would be like this.

In your example if I want them out in the remote wilderness with that caravan then that's how the adventure would open. I'd have some reasons in keeping with the characters as for how that came to be but I'd just jump into the interesting part of the story as a Conan tale would.

 

[Clovenhoof]

I've never prepared everything in high detail. It does have its advantages, but it's too time consuming considering that a lot of the material will go unused. So I usually just sketch out the possibilities, which also takes some time anyway.

As I said in your other thread - if the players refuse to go along with something I have prepared, they will have to accept my ending the game session for the night. I'm not forcing them into a mission but they can't expect me to come up with something at the flick of a wrist.

Looking at our Conan campaign, so far I didn't force anything on my players beyond the initial setup (cf. the corresponding thread) - three of them were sitting in a dungeon waiting for their deaths in the arena. So logically, they wanted to get out of there. So I was prepared to allow them any believable way of escape, and they came up with one. Then they were free in the city but obviously searched by the guards, so they figured they had to get out of the city. Again same thing, I wasn't going to make it dead easy but I'd go along with anything reasonable. So they also fled from the city, but they did so by setting a house on fire as a decoy. I wouldn't have expected that but it gave me an idea how to continue.
That's where we are now - you can expect the city ruler to be not amused about that so he's going to have them hunted down, and may well become a recurring enemy. Either way, they will have to deal with that threat in the next session.

Then we'll see how to proceed.

I have some ideas for more epic adventures, but before we get to these, the PCs are supposed to gather strength, i.e. gain levels. If that can be done without resorting to "Fetch" missions, all the better. Also, I yet have to find out what the characters' long term goals are, if they even know themselves.

 

[VincentDarlage]

For example - Let say you want the players to discover some ruins far off the caravan trail out in the desert East of the Kezankians. You have to plot a way for them to get there right?

Nope. No matter what they do, things get steered in that direction. If they turn down the caravan (which I actually would never even offer - my players rarely need or seek employment as they are too busy hatching their own schemes to care much for advancing someone else's for money), then they find a map or someone mentions it or they find someone with treasure from there and a mystery or this or that - whatever is convenient.

Ultimately, because my players are almost always hatching their own schemes, all I have to do is place the ruin between them and the goal they have set for themselves one way or the other.

One time I needed to get them from Shadizar to the Black Kingdoms, so one character, when he walked into an inn for his own reasons, encountered a man who knew his name. When asked how he knew, he shrugged and led him to a bed with his name carved into it. Further clues led him, in mysterious steps and curious encounters, to the Black Kingdoms to the adventure I wanted to run. If that mystery did not hook him, I would have found something else.

 

[Auggie]

I try to give my players as much freedom as possible- which they have done on many occasions :shock:

While they are directed somewhat, based on the adventure being run, the players can and do use what they deem necessary in order to achieve their goals. Importantly, they DO realise that there are consequences for their actions...

I'll base adventures and locations on where the group wants to go/travel to. Once I have an idea of what they wish to do, I come up scenarios that could logically be encountered wherever they may end up.

We have a long and rich Conan campaign- the directions it has followed are, to a great degree, based on the free will the players are able to use