Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Details: Kameron presented the great idea that the players create their own Minor Quests in his article Silly DM, minor quests are for players.
Why is that a good idea? For one thing the players do your job since you as a GM do not have to come up with quests and for another thing they tell you what they are interested in.
Usage in the session: The obvious usage is that players express their wish to either continue or start a story line which cannot be followed at the current point of a story which which ever reason.
But the players could also come up with minor quests for their characters as part of the background creation. That would give the characters something to do right at the beginning of the game and it would give the player an opportunity to flesh out his or her character since that first quest probably addresses personal issues.
When we started playing D&D 4E I told my players that I would create a personal minor quest for every character based on the background story they gave me. I wanted to motivate them to get invested into the game by introducing and following personal agendas of their characters. If I had known this concept at that time it would have saved me time since instead of me creating the quests I would have asked the players to come up with one. My plan was to give them a new personal quest every time they have finished one but due to lack of time I never created new quests after the first ones.
In an ideal situation each minor quests creates plenty of reasons for new quests on their own and you as a GM have only to get along with the interests of the players.
Impact on our session: Unfortunately since reading the article it did not made sense to introduce this idea to my players because I master the Wizards of the Coast adventure Pyramid of Shadows which is mostly dungeon delves with very little room for side quests.
Advice: Do not be afraid of getting strange or seemingly unusable minor quests. If you, as a GM, do not like a quest or if it does not fit into the story, you do not have to go down-that-line. But sometimes if you just go with it, such ideas turn out to be quit entertaining for everybody.
Our D&D 4E campaign started with each character being on their way to a certain city and they met on the way. I asked everybody why their character was going there. One of my players decided that the purpose of her character's voyage was to visit her aunt to get rosehip jam. At first I was a bit annoyed because I was hoping for something more heroic or dramatic but this story line lead to more role playing and laughter than we had in the rest of the adventure. As it turned out the rosehip jam would have made for a good minor quest worth a reward.
Showing posts with label 4 stars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 4 stars. Show all posts
Monday, March 8, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Improve your GMing: Battle of Wills
Rating: 3 of 5 stars the first time used; 4 thereafter
Details: The Battle of Wills is Justin Evans generic adaptation of the Duel of Wits mechanic in Luke Crane's Burning Wheel. It is a system to resolve social conflicts. The rules and free printable cards can be found on SinisterGame.
The quality/layout of the cards and of all other SinisterGame products (all free) is excellent.
Usage in the session: The characters needed to require an object from a white dragon. They could have waged combat but they tried to bargain for it (as hoped). Instead of running a skill challenged I decided to give the Battle of Wills a try.
We varied the rules given on SinisterGame a bit. I, as the GM, always chose my card first. Then did the party agree upon their strategy and upon a speaker who would make the skill check. They could choose either to just play a card or to do some roleplaying. If the went with the roleplaying I decided how good the arguments were and rewarded a bonus to the speakers skill check.
The other characters had the opportunity to do other things while the speaker brought forth his point. Maybe trying to determine how much the object was worth to the dragon or something similar. But they passed.
Impact on our session: The system appealed to both, to the players who like roleplaying and to the strategists who discussed which skill to choose and who kept track of the cards already played in order to keep the chances of an automatic defeat low.
The drawback of using the system and the only reason why I did not give a rating of 4 stars is that the game flow had to be interrupted in order to explain the rules. The atmosphere did suffer a bit because of that.
But my players did enjoy the Battle of Wills and liked it better than a skill challenged. Reason enough for me to use the Battle of Wills again.
Advice: I went along with only three skills to choose from ('Intimidate', 'Bluff', and 'Diplomacy'), which all were based on charisma. Which was later criticized by a player since as a result only two characters became speakers for the group. It would have been better if I had chosen from a broader variety of skills, for example Insight (which is based on Wisdom) for 'Slippery Slop'.
Another things I still ponder on is whether I should give a automatic point if due to the combination of cards a player has an automatic defend. I do like the idea to grant a success if the card combination came up because of pure luck and not due to conscious decisions.
But if in such a situation a check is done, the chance of failure should be smaller than that of the opposed check that otherwise would have taken place. Maybe the opponents skill modifier associated with the card he did select would make a good DC.
Details: The Battle of Wills is Justin Evans generic adaptation of the Duel of Wits mechanic in Luke Crane's Burning Wheel. It is a system to resolve social conflicts. The rules and free printable cards can be found on SinisterGame.
The quality/layout of the cards and of all other SinisterGame products (all free) is excellent.
Usage in the session: The characters needed to require an object from a white dragon. They could have waged combat but they tried to bargain for it (as hoped). Instead of running a skill challenged I decided to give the Battle of Wills a try.
We varied the rules given on SinisterGame a bit. I, as the GM, always chose my card first. Then did the party agree upon their strategy and upon a speaker who would make the skill check. They could choose either to just play a card or to do some roleplaying. If the went with the roleplaying I decided how good the arguments were and rewarded a bonus to the speakers skill check.
The other characters had the opportunity to do other things while the speaker brought forth his point. Maybe trying to determine how much the object was worth to the dragon or something similar. But they passed.
Impact on our session: The system appealed to both, to the players who like roleplaying and to the strategists who discussed which skill to choose and who kept track of the cards already played in order to keep the chances of an automatic defeat low.
The drawback of using the system and the only reason why I did not give a rating of 4 stars is that the game flow had to be interrupted in order to explain the rules. The atmosphere did suffer a bit because of that.
But my players did enjoy the Battle of Wills and liked it better than a skill challenged. Reason enough for me to use the Battle of Wills again.
Advice: I went along with only three skills to choose from ('Intimidate', 'Bluff', and 'Diplomacy'), which all were based on charisma. Which was later criticized by a player since as a result only two characters became speakers for the group. It would have been better if I had chosen from a broader variety of skills, for example Insight (which is based on Wisdom) for 'Slippery Slop'.
Another things I still ponder on is whether I should give a automatic point if due to the combination of cards a player has an automatic defend. I do like the idea to grant a success if the card combination came up because of pure luck and not due to conscious decisions.
But if in such a situation a check is done, the chance of failure should be smaller than that of the opposed check that otherwise would have taken place. Maybe the opponents skill modifier associated with the card he did select would make a good DC.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Improve your GMing: Background creation with around the table questions
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Details: Instead of everybody doing background stories on their own, let others influence some part of it and create a connection between characters as a side effect. One way to achieve this is to frame some questions everybody has to answer about the character of his left or right neighbor and share that information with that player.
Some examples:
Your character knows a secret of the neighbors character. What is it?
Or the variation: The neighbors character knows a secret of your character. What is it?
What does your character not like about the neighbors character?
How did your character met the neighbor's character?
And since there has to be an explanation how that character knows these things a connection between characters is created.
The technique is not restricted to character creation. It could also be applied after some time thereafter. For example by saying that the group has spend some time together and the members have learned more about each others during encounters.
Usage in the session: When we played a one-shot we used this to create the some background for the characters.
Impact on our session: It was fun to see how different the players did answered the questions and most answers were original and made a good base to start the game with. Also did the players get into the mood for more than only some combat encounters and we had some descent roleplaying.
Advice: Whenever I am in a game with new characters I would like to have at least one around the table question. Why?
For a one-shot this helps to create a bit of background story since most players probably would bother to make up a background for such a game.
And for a ongoing game it helps to create connections between characters. And the players do learn about each others background stories. Especially questions about secrets could be the cause for some interesting developments in game. I had enough campaigns in the past where background stories did contain some hidden facts about a character but they never came up in the game. But since one in the group knows about it, if using this technique, it is more likely to come up and have some impact on the game.
This should not replace the creation of background stories by each player but it is a nice way to contribute to the stories.
The questions/answers should be framed in such a way that the answers do not have to much impact on one characters background story. If a player has a clear vision of his character and such an answer would force the player to go into a direction she or he does not want to the player should be allowed to either ignore it or to ask for another answer.
And I would also advice against to many questions. One or two (one for each neighbor) is enough.
Details: Instead of everybody doing background stories on their own, let others influence some part of it and create a connection between characters as a side effect. One way to achieve this is to frame some questions everybody has to answer about the character of his left or right neighbor and share that information with that player.
Some examples:
Your character knows a secret of the neighbors character. What is it?
Or the variation: The neighbors character knows a secret of your character. What is it?
What does your character not like about the neighbors character?
How did your character met the neighbor's character?
And since there has to be an explanation how that character knows these things a connection between characters is created.
The technique is not restricted to character creation. It could also be applied after some time thereafter. For example by saying that the group has spend some time together and the members have learned more about each others during encounters.
Usage in the session: When we played a one-shot we used this to create the some background for the characters.
Impact on our session: It was fun to see how different the players did answered the questions and most answers were original and made a good base to start the game with. Also did the players get into the mood for more than only some combat encounters and we had some descent roleplaying.
Advice: Whenever I am in a game with new characters I would like to have at least one around the table question. Why?
For a one-shot this helps to create a bit of background story since most players probably would bother to make up a background for such a game.
And for a ongoing game it helps to create connections between characters. And the players do learn about each others background stories. Especially questions about secrets could be the cause for some interesting developments in game. I had enough campaigns in the past where background stories did contain some hidden facts about a character but they never came up in the game. But since one in the group knows about it, if using this technique, it is more likely to come up and have some impact on the game.
This should not replace the creation of background stories by each player but it is a nice way to contribute to the stories.
The questions/answers should be framed in such a way that the answers do not have to much impact on one characters background story. If a player has a clear vision of his character and such an answer would force the player to go into a direction she or he does not want to the player should be allowed to either ignore it or to ask for another answer.
And I would also advice against to many questions. One or two (one for each neighbor) is enough.
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