Scripting and Freedom of Action

[rgrove0172]

In my early days as a GameMaster I would flesh out a region/city/environ ahead of my players, fill it with all sort of plot hooks and opportunities, then let the cards fall where they may. It was truly rewarding watching the characters interact freely with the world I had provided for them. Engaging various characters, stumbling into various plot lines, visiting locales I had generated months before. At the time I felt it was the only way to game.

Time moved on however and what little gaming time I have now is a much more valuable commodity. I have to make each hour spent preparing and certainly each session of actual play as efficient as possible - and by efficient I mean furthering the story line and providing for the enjoyment of the players and I. What this has led to is a more or less "Scripted" game.

Imagine a "Choose your own adventure" story and you have the idea. I flowchart of scenes and how they interact based on the player's choices. Gone are the random encounter tables and whole volumes of detail on places and persons the players will never interact with. The action is more linear granted, but gone is the threat of an odd choice or goofy die roll ruining a carefully crafted plotline. My players are aware of this and dont complain - but Im certain some gamers would scoff at the notion of merely following a script.

Playing this way maximizes the detail present in each scene, allowing for carefully crafted descriptions, sketches or other audio visuals, fully developed NPCs etc. It also ensures that the story will progress more or less smoothly and the end result will be satisfactory - lending to the enjoyment of all. (There is nothing quite as disturbing as preparing a cool encounter that adds to the overall feel and enjoyment of the game and then having the players unknowingly steer away from it or miss it on a random die roll.) Scripting removes this hassle and maintains a little GM control where the plot is concerned.

Its worked well for me, and most of the time its not even as issue with the players as it would be tough to notice. Im just wondering if anyone else uses this style and what you thought of it.

 

[thulsa]

Imagine a "Choose your own adventure" story and you have the idea. I flowchart of scenes and how they interact based on the player's choices.

Sounds good to me, as long as the PCs actually have meaningful choices, and that their choices can change the "flow" of the adventure. When you have a flowchart with several different branches and outcomes, I don't consider that railroading.

- thulsa

 

[FailedSpotCheck]

Choose Your Own Adventure. Wow, that takes me back!

If you want to split the evil sorceror down the middle with your battle-axe, turn to page 84.

If you want to give the evil sorceror a wedgie, turn to page 160.

If you want to compliment the evil sorceror on his sensible, yet evil, footwear turn to page 49.

 

[Ganconer]

Um...let's see..

*Turns to page 49*



Actually I can relate to what you said Rgrove. This is something that has been bothering me in my group as well. And most of the players don't have a great deal of time either so they don't mind being railroaded now and then. Although I still hate when I have to run my adventure that way. A solution we came up with was to have 2 to 3 campaigns going at the same time. We alternate running them for 6 to 8 sessions in a row then give someone else a chance to run theirs. That way it isn't too confusing for players and let's the GM plan ahead when he is playing as just a player in someone else's game. We just started running it this way so hopefully it will let us recapture the more open ended adventures like when we first started playing

 

[rgrove0172]

Sounds good Ganconer - Sharing the wealth is a good approach to keep things fresh, trouble is my player base is limited and the list of GMs even more so... well actually there is no GM list, Im it.

You see my gaming group is made up entirely of old grognards, historical miniatures enthusiasts. Most have some RPG in thier blood somewhere but its been watered down after many years of hard core military strategy. There are a couple that in an odd moment of nostalgia agree to roleplay once in a while, but Im the only Gamemaster - period.

The couple that I have on hold for the Conan RPG are interested primarily as Robert E. Howard fans rather than roleplayers, again from memories of pubescent reading and probably less mentionable activities while oogling Frazetta covers. I have a tough challenge ahead of me, everything has to come off without a hitch or I may well lose my players.

 

[FailedSpotCheck]

Um...let's see..

*Turns to page 49*

<49>

"Wow," you say, laying it on pretty thick, "those are some chic and sensible shoes, Lord of the Black and Fabulous Circle!" You try to stifle a guffaw before it erupts.

"Why thank you, smelly barbarian from the Northern Wastes!" he hops up and down clapping his dainty hands, delighted at your fashion sense. "Just for that, I won't use my Defensive Blast on you, frying you into a crispy cinder!" He extends a long, manicured finger toward a giant treasure chest. "Behold! Take all my gems and teocallis of gold and cloth-of-gold and junk! I have to need for it."

"Um, okay."

THE END.

 

[rgrove0172]

You guys should seek therapy....

Honestly though - I got bit deep one time in a game a few years ago with just this problem.

I was gaming one on one with a buddy, running a character in a remote location in my world as a side game. The guy is a Viking type commoner and Ive got this cool idea for an adventure based on a clan war.

First session, he gets in a fight with a fellow clansman (based on a comment I made off the cuff while dealling with the NPC) and with an unbelievable roll - kills the guy in an unarmed attack.

The village turns on him as the guy he killed is the Chieftain's grandson, so he is banished to the wilds. There goes my clan war idea.

So the guy is heading south through the wilds, empty handed, near freezing. There is a buriel ground in his area and I mention it to him. The tombs there would provide weaponry and possible other useable items. He makes his way toward the location and declares his intent to do some looting as our first session ends.

Next session - after Ive fully detailed the crypts, and the ghouls he will undoubtedly run into while looting - he says that upon thinking on it - his character would be scared to death and probably wouldnt consider looting the graves of his ancestors. He goes the other way. Once again my planning is wasted.

Finally he reaches another clan's holdings and they accept him as an outcast. He gets along pretty well with them for a bit and I decide to pull up my old Clan war idea again. This will put him in the middle of a conflict with his own people - great idea I think. The session we get together however, that I plan to begin the tensions toward war - he elects to leave. He says his character has developed a wonder-lust, no longer bound by the ties of family and tradition - so he heads south for the warm lands.

His decisions and actions were all realtistic and he played his character very well, but it was big pain in the ass trying to anticipate his choices and provide for the next game. I decided after this particular experience that I would have to game a different way.

 

[Krushnak]

in my games i tend to come up with a couple of basic ideas i want include in the gaming sessions such as enemies, location etc and will only write down a couple of the most important npcs. i tend to just react to what the players do and preplan very little as it always inevitably ends up imploding with my gaming group.

currently though i have them on quite an epic quest to collect the items to hopefully create a bane weapon. all of which was instigated by a player who wants this weapon to kill a vampire half-demon that has marked them all.

 

[Sutek]

...I turned to page 160 and all it said was DRAW FORTH THE HEARTED!!!!!!!

 

[mthomason]

One of the big tricks to GMing is the on-the-fly adaptation of your pre-scripted material to fit it in no matter what choices the players make, without it appearing that you are doing so...

For example, you spend all night outlining the Tomb of Nevvreardofim, mapping out all the corridors and writing up the stats for various forms of undead that dwell within, and writing up the speech for when they find the undead (and unkillable) form of Nevvreardofim himself as he explains about his curse and begs the characters to end it by finding a living descendant of his murderer and bringing them to justice, thus finally releasing his spirit to the afterlife (and incidently leaving the way open for them to get past him and into the treasure chamber).

The next evening, your players decide the Tomb looks a bit creepy, and say they'll just wander around the city instead. Before the scream has time to form in your larynx, however, a flash of inspiration hits you.

The tomb map instead becomes a map of the various roads and side-streets in the sprawling city, and you decide instead that tonight is the 1000th anniversary of Nevvreardofim's murder and that he's leading his undead legions against the city in search of the ancestor of Itwazz En'tme, the vizier who killed him and usurped his position as king. Of course they don't exactly care who or what they have to go through to find this person.

You've now turned your dungeon crawl into a running battle around the city while characters try to find some way to halt the undead hordes (being told by a sage who knows the curse of Nevvreadofim and recites a modified version of Nevvreardofim's original speech), trying to find out who En'tme's ancestor is, and then having the debate with the rest of the party when you find out it's actually that sweet serving girl at the tavern that one of the PC's is having an ongoing relationship with).

At least, thats how I usually try and do things Sometimes there's just no way to fit in a nice piece of dialogue you had written out, but with a few name changes it can usually be cycled in again at a later date. Any interesting NPCs that never got encountered just find their way into the NPC card box and I use that to build up a library of NPCs in case I ever need someone similar in the future.

 

[argo]

His decisions and actions were all realtistic and he played his character very well, but it was big pain in the ass trying to anticipate his choices and provide for the next game. I decided after this particular experience that I would have to game a different way.

GM Lesson #1: no Plan ever survives contact with the players.


ever


I am a big fan of improv GMing. I tend to plan out "scenes" or "encounters" that will occur but with little or no idea of how the players will make it from one "scene" to the second.

For example. A few sessions ago I had only two players of my normal group so I decided to run a side-story for that session. At the time the group was crossing the Viyalet so of course I decided they needed to meet some pirates :twisted: My entire session notes consisted of about one page, I kid you not, looked something like this.

Day 1: storm, PC get called on deck to help save the ship and get washed overboard
Night 1: try not to drown
Day 2: pulled out of the water by priate ship, made into galley salves.
Day 3: pirates arrive at "haunted isle", captain looking for treasure. Pirates go ashore and begin looking, bring PC's in chains for labour. Over the day priates get spread out in jungle and picked off by bull white apes.
Night 3: only PC's and a few pirates left, get attacked by ape. Defeat it or flee in darkness.
Day 4: sieze pirate ship and leave, no treasure is found on island.

That was scribled on one sheet of paper. I also worked up a generic stat block for the priate mooks and 3 NPC's Captain, Mutinous First Mate, and one Cool Galley Slave to feed the PC's info and be a possible ally (the other slaves are worthless red-shirts and so have no stats). Game Time!

So how does this "railroady" adventure work out in play? Well, for the first part, the storm, I decided that I would simply keep throwing escalating skill checks at the PC's until they can't handle it anymore and then they get "washed overboard" the longer they manage to hang in the more XP I will give them but their defeat is inevitible. However I got lucky in that both PC's rolled 1's on critical checks early on so off they go and they both wind up blaming their own bad luck instead of me :lol:

Later after making many tension-filled swim checks, they get picked up by the pirates. Now I had intended this to be a quick scene but the players immediately start plotting, trying to get a read on the dynamics of the crew, and generally trying to out-smart me. So Instead of taking one day to reach the island in now magically takes two and meanwhile there is much rolling of bluff checks, intimidate, etc while I ham up the nasty behavior of the pirates.

So then they reach the island. Now you see that the origional plan was for a preadator-style hunt though the jungle with a monster and much backstabing. But the players have locked on to Captain vs. Mutinous First Mate and are determined to play that out. So instead I improv. They march into the island interior and the Captain takes his bunch and orders First Mate to make camp while he goes "scouting". five minutes after they leave First Mate takes his bunch to make a play for the treasure, and leave the PC's to make camp with a couple guards to watch them.

Night falls. The Captain comes back first so sees that First Mate disobeyed. Then First Mate comes back. The PC's get ordered to serve dinner thus giving them opportunity to whisper in more ears. Then someone notices that both gangs are missing a few men (picked off by the Grey Ape earlier that day). Mexican standoff ensues. Roll initaive and now we have ourselves a full-on pirate free-for-all. First Mate takes a few bad hits and flees into the night. One PC suffers a crit and blows his Massive Damage save, down he goes. Then I decide the time is right for the Ape to make a dramatic entrance and start tearing things up. The surviving PC throws the downed one over his shoulder and flees as the Captain and surviving crew make their last stand. Panicked flight through dark jungle then catch up with First Mate on beach (who never liked the PC's anyway). A short sword duel under the moonlight and the PC's now posess a pirate galley of their own. Roll credits.

The PC's loved it and thought themselves very clever for "manipulating" the priates into fighting each other. And all of that came off one page of notes (and about a week of turning things over in my head before the game).

So yeah, improv GMing works for me.

Later.

 

[Yogah of Yag]

Ahhh, the soothing relief of galley salves! :lol:


"Ramming Speed!"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!...

~~~~~~~~~~~

I turned to page 84 and it said...

You heft the heavy battle-axe once forged by the smiths of the Giant-Kings and plunge the mighty blade into the wicked flesh of the sorceror!
His face shows the look of defeat, and as his trembling frame is split in twain...a shower of candy spills out!

He was a sorceror-piñata!

"Mmm," you crunch on the confections, "Hello, sugary goodness!"

THE END.

 

[Ganconer]

Sorceror-piñata! If I had only known...

And I agree with the GM rule #1, Argo. And I hate to admit but sometimes as a player I have seen the writing on the wall of where the GM wanted the party to go, then purposefully chose the opposite direction just to see him squirm and how the night would go as a result. :twisted:

 

[are]

In Feng Shui the plot is only an excuse to tie together the fights.

 

[FailedSpotCheck]

In Feng Shui the plot is only an excuse to tie together the fights.

??? :shock: :?

I thought Feng Shui was proper arrangement of rooms, furniture, flow of traffic through a house, etc.!

Growing up I remember often stubbing my adolescent toes on badly-arranged furniture due undoubtedly to bad Feng Shui! :evil:

 

[Ganconer]

Isn't Feng Shui the Hong Kong movie game?

 

[thulsa]

Isn't Feng Shui the Hong Kong movie game?

Yes it is.

- thulsa

 

[bc99]

There was Feng Shui and Hong Kong Action Theater; both were fun kung fu games.

Thanks for the mention, brings back some memories.

For my games I try and give free reign to my players. It sucks sometimes when they don't "take the bait", but I can usually recycle, reuse, adventures/NPCs they don't get to right away.

For fun I wrote up a 1-shot adventure called "Semper Zombie". The characters were all US Marines, the year was 1946. They were conducting "clean-up" operations in the Coral Sea.

Well, long story short the players were set ashore as a small platoon, and ordered to clear the island. What they uncovered was the result of a Nazi-Japanese experiment gone wrong! They were attacked by hordes of "zombies", the victims of diabolical experiments.

Anyway, it was story driven, and each player only needed 1 six sided die. Was fun.

 

[Oly]

Well, long story short the players were set ashore as a small platoon, and ordered to clear the island. What they uncovered was the result of a Nazi-Japanese experiment gone wrong! They were attacked by hordes of "zombies", the victims of diabolical experiments.

Anyway, it was story driven, and each player only needed 1 six sided die. Was fun.

Way back when I started GMing I worked out a philosphy of giving the players maximum freedom but in a limited environment. The above is a great example of that (and also sounds like lots of fun, I might steal it for an AFMBE game at some point).

By limiting the environment you can make sure that you're got sufficient detail in your head to allow them to do whatever they want to while still having interesting plot related elements around them.