D&D and Harry Potter (no relation)
Well, I worked the Harry Potter rush today. I was supposed to get off work at midnight but got pulled over by the manager to work an extra twenty minutes since I was the only person who wouldn't be going into overtime by doing so. If find it odd to see people actually lining up to buy a book--good grief! Wal-Mart ordered 600 copies of the book in a town whose population is 1700, that one book for every three people in town, there is a snowballs chance in hell that those books will sell out by tomarrow and since Wal-Mart has ten trucks come in each day if they do run out they'll have more probably within three hours. I probably shouldn't compalin--it was my job to go pick up copies for the other cashiers since I was the first off for the night, and most of the people in line were my friends.
As for Dungeons and Dragons, I've got a warning for anyone who might be interested in my campaign this fall: bring a leger. I ended up buying one for the current ship's master since he was trying to write all the ship's financial records on his character sheet and was becomming hoplelessly lost. The master has to keep track of each npc or player's contract, all which usually have different wordings so each gets payed differently, if one of the several hundred employees dies he has to figure in that he doesn't need to pay that one, or feed him or give him grog. He has to keep track of debts, prices of goods from one port to the next, cargo space and all the negotiations for prices. Everyone shares in these figurings in some way (so everyone will need to have a notebook and keep acurate notes of pricings) and it can get really messy. We end ups spending two to three hours a session simply in trade negotiations plotting courses and determining how much supplies are needed to make a trip. Coupled with some players that constantly bicker about getting their cut of the profits and it can quickly turn into a mess, a fun mess, but a mess none the less.
I'm also starting to have some major campaign spanning problems. I started off intending this campaign to last 15 sessions, we're currently halfway through and have gotten nowhere plot wise. The players are happy with the plot and are congradulating me for the complexity and depth of the plot along with the amount of effort I'm putting into making the world come alive. But its starting to wear thin by the fact that they don't persue the plot and each session only serves to create more threads and twists instead of answering or brining closure to the exsisting threads.
The amount of different conflicting interests and plot devices currently in the campaign are hard to keep track of, I'm starting to forget what I've told the players, which threads need to be advanced in the backgrounds, when a rumor from thread A should start surfacing while the players persue thread B. what the plolitical interests of each npc is (or what all the npcs are doing). What wars or major poltiical events should start popping up, when I should start hinting or revealing information about some important npc. When to foreshadow, when to keep quiet.
This throws hundreds of options at the players and I can't plan for all of them. Take the upcomming session, the players can a) travel to Celone (half the crew are currently demanding it or they'll quit), they can b) travel to Armona (they have a slip for 10k in gold for a bank there), c) sail to Darvus (they have a shipment of poison to deliver there right now), e) persue the rumors of some new technological development in the forest, and steal it, f) pick up a new shipment of cargo and simply go somewhere else, g) give the treasures to murphy, h) not give the treasures to murphy, i) be attacked by Cel Donna, j) return to Eisle (they still have half an order for there), k) rediscover the island of Blood (it'd make a nice smuggling base), l) track down the sucubus, m) tell Ayani's master that they lost the treasures, n) take up fishing, o) persue regional politics... and on and on and on, many times I've got no clue what it is that they're going to do next or what they're planning. Sometimes I get some advance warning (like they're thinking of either going to Darvus or Celone) but they could always change their mind erractically between one session and then next.
A lot of these complexities comes from the differing objectives of the players. They aren't all one closely knit crew. They all have their own agendas and almost none of these agendas has anything to do with moving the main plot along. Ayani I've succeeded and giving reason to persue the treasures, Theril couldn't care less (but I think I may have something for the next session that might interest him), Serp is only concerned about swindling more gold out of Tsugaru who in turn is only interested in his smuggling operations and couldn't care less about the treasures, Jack is only concerned with his captainship and is far to erratic to stick to any one goal longer then an hour, Tim, Haze and Willum will pretty much just go along with whatever the rest of the party is doing. The result: this campaign will have no end but will go on until either someone destroys the world or the treasures magically fall into the players laps.
Oh well, at least everyone is having fun. I just need to consentrate on at least putting some closure to some of the plot arcs.
As for Dungeons and Dragons, I've got a warning for anyone who might be interested in my campaign this fall: bring a leger. I ended up buying one for the current ship's master since he was trying to write all the ship's financial records on his character sheet and was becomming hoplelessly lost. The master has to keep track of each npc or player's contract, all which usually have different wordings so each gets payed differently, if one of the several hundred employees dies he has to figure in that he doesn't need to pay that one, or feed him or give him grog. He has to keep track of debts, prices of goods from one port to the next, cargo space and all the negotiations for prices. Everyone shares in these figurings in some way (so everyone will need to have a notebook and keep acurate notes of pricings) and it can get really messy. We end ups spending two to three hours a session simply in trade negotiations plotting courses and determining how much supplies are needed to make a trip. Coupled with some players that constantly bicker about getting their cut of the profits and it can quickly turn into a mess, a fun mess, but a mess none the less.
I'm also starting to have some major campaign spanning problems. I started off intending this campaign to last 15 sessions, we're currently halfway through and have gotten nowhere plot wise. The players are happy with the plot and are congradulating me for the complexity and depth of the plot along with the amount of effort I'm putting into making the world come alive. But its starting to wear thin by the fact that they don't persue the plot and each session only serves to create more threads and twists instead of answering or brining closure to the exsisting threads.
The amount of different conflicting interests and plot devices currently in the campaign are hard to keep track of, I'm starting to forget what I've told the players, which threads need to be advanced in the backgrounds, when a rumor from thread A should start surfacing while the players persue thread B. what the plolitical interests of each npc is (or what all the npcs are doing). What wars or major poltiical events should start popping up, when I should start hinting or revealing information about some important npc. When to foreshadow, when to keep quiet.
This throws hundreds of options at the players and I can't plan for all of them. Take the upcomming session, the players can a) travel to Celone (half the crew are currently demanding it or they'll quit), they can b) travel to Armona (they have a slip for 10k in gold for a bank there), c) sail to Darvus (they have a shipment of poison to deliver there right now), e) persue the rumors of some new technological development in the forest, and steal it, f) pick up a new shipment of cargo and simply go somewhere else, g) give the treasures to murphy, h) not give the treasures to murphy, i) be attacked by Cel Donna, j) return to Eisle (they still have half an order for there), k) rediscover the island of Blood (it'd make a nice smuggling base), l) track down the sucubus, m) tell Ayani's master that they lost the treasures, n) take up fishing, o) persue regional politics... and on and on and on, many times I've got no clue what it is that they're going to do next or what they're planning. Sometimes I get some advance warning (like they're thinking of either going to Darvus or Celone) but they could always change their mind erractically between one session and then next.
A lot of these complexities comes from the differing objectives of the players. They aren't all one closely knit crew. They all have their own agendas and almost none of these agendas has anything to do with moving the main plot along. Ayani I've succeeded and giving reason to persue the treasures, Theril couldn't care less (but I think I may have something for the next session that might interest him), Serp is only concerned about swindling more gold out of Tsugaru who in turn is only interested in his smuggling operations and couldn't care less about the treasures, Jack is only concerned with his captainship and is far to erratic to stick to any one goal longer then an hour, Tim, Haze and Willum will pretty much just go along with whatever the rest of the party is doing. The result: this campaign will have no end but will go on until either someone destroys the world or the treasures magically fall into the players laps.
Oh well, at least everyone is having fun. I just need to consentrate on at least putting some closure to some of the plot arcs.