D&D reboot
So then, I'm starting a new D&D campaign tomorrow night with a new approach.
We recently played through the first part (first three adventures) of Dawn of Defiance, the campaign that is being posted free on the Wizards website for the new Star Wars Saga rules.
Sadly it turned out to be a really wet fart of a game. Okay, I'm not the world's greatest GM, let's get that out of the way now - but I'm not that bad. Dawn of defiance was an overly-padded, railroaded, plot-hole ridden p.o.s. that sort of just happened at the players without really involving them. I complained about this on a Star Wars RPG board and was told (quite reasonably) that really I should let the players run with it. Don't railroad them. If they decide to go left at the traffic lights then throw the adventure out the window and roll with it. I absolutely agree but what, then is the point of having a published adventure?
We were also using the West End Games D6 rules which turned out not to be the greatest roleplaying system ever written, as I thought it was. Essentially the Jedi have the kewel powers and everyone else, smuggler, bounty hunter, diplomat, you name it, have dice in Blaster. It's elegant in it's simplicity but it's also utterly flavourless, relying on the players to provide the colour. That's not unreasonable for a roleplaying game, but we were playing a pre-written adventure that has nothing to do with the characters so there's little opportunity for them to have the stage to themselves and do anything other than roll 3D6 to hit.
We blew a big raspberry at it and decided to move on.
We are allready part way through the published 4th Ed. campaign, having completed Keep on the Shadowfell - but the GM of that game really wants to play so I agreed to run a D&D game with some major changes to our approach.
Firstly, I want the campaign to be about the PCs. I requested, nay, demanded backgrounds for the PCS that included an interesting fact and a dark secret. I also asked for short-term and long-term goals that I could use essentially to write the adventures around.
This means that everything the players do moves them towards their own personal goals but those actions are also directly or indirectly tied to resolving the meta-plot and saving the world. How they go about this will be up to them and whilst I'll nudge them from time to time and provide dungeons for them to pillage I want them to feel that they've gotten there under their own steam and not because it was the next thing on the to-do list.
Also, the nice thing about D&D is that there's no one 'feel' to try and emulate as there is with a licensed setting. This is why I won't run a Firefly game (okay I did once and it was rubbish) because neither I or my players can write dialogue like Joss Whedon and Tim Minear - and that really is an unignorable and important part of Firefly's appeal. I've never read or seen anything atall that captures the feel of the original Star Wars movies, so what hope do I have? And I would never run a Discworld game.
D&D on the other hand has no feel and all of the characters regardless of their race and class are equally important and equally interesting (at least from a game mechanics point of view) not just the Wizards (Jedi). So we'll see.
So far all is going well. The backgrounds provided have been fascinating and it's really interesting to see the main campaign plot points largely forming themselves.
Tomorrow night's game will essentially be a 'getting to know you' session that will allow the players literally to get to know their own characters as well as each others. Meanwhile I'll be taking notes. Lots of notes.
I'm really looking forward to it and I hope it doesn't simply fall flat on it's arse. If it does, I'll just have to accept that I'm a shit DM and go back to simply martialling unrelated dungeon crawls - basically glorified miniatures games.
Fingers crossed,
Wayne
We recently played through the first part (first three adventures) of Dawn of Defiance, the campaign that is being posted free on the Wizards website for the new Star Wars Saga rules.
Sadly it turned out to be a really wet fart of a game. Okay, I'm not the world's greatest GM, let's get that out of the way now - but I'm not that bad. Dawn of defiance was an overly-padded, railroaded, plot-hole ridden p.o.s. that sort of just happened at the players without really involving them. I complained about this on a Star Wars RPG board and was told (quite reasonably) that really I should let the players run with it. Don't railroad them. If they decide to go left at the traffic lights then throw the adventure out the window and roll with it. I absolutely agree but what, then is the point of having a published adventure?
We were also using the West End Games D6 rules which turned out not to be the greatest roleplaying system ever written, as I thought it was. Essentially the Jedi have the kewel powers and everyone else, smuggler, bounty hunter, diplomat, you name it, have dice in Blaster. It's elegant in it's simplicity but it's also utterly flavourless, relying on the players to provide the colour. That's not unreasonable for a roleplaying game, but we were playing a pre-written adventure that has nothing to do with the characters so there's little opportunity for them to have the stage to themselves and do anything other than roll 3D6 to hit.
We blew a big raspberry at it and decided to move on.
We are allready part way through the published 4th Ed. campaign, having completed Keep on the Shadowfell - but the GM of that game really wants to play so I agreed to run a D&D game with some major changes to our approach.
Firstly, I want the campaign to be about the PCs. I requested, nay, demanded backgrounds for the PCS that included an interesting fact and a dark secret. I also asked for short-term and long-term goals that I could use essentially to write the adventures around.
This means that everything the players do moves them towards their own personal goals but those actions are also directly or indirectly tied to resolving the meta-plot and saving the world. How they go about this will be up to them and whilst I'll nudge them from time to time and provide dungeons for them to pillage I want them to feel that they've gotten there under their own steam and not because it was the next thing on the to-do list.
Also, the nice thing about D&D is that there's no one 'feel' to try and emulate as there is with a licensed setting. This is why I won't run a Firefly game (okay I did once and it was rubbish) because neither I or my players can write dialogue like Joss Whedon and Tim Minear - and that really is an unignorable and important part of Firefly's appeal. I've never read or seen anything atall that captures the feel of the original Star Wars movies, so what hope do I have? And I would never run a Discworld game.
D&D on the other hand has no feel and all of the characters regardless of their race and class are equally important and equally interesting (at least from a game mechanics point of view) not just the Wizards (Jedi). So we'll see.
So far all is going well. The backgrounds provided have been fascinating and it's really interesting to see the main campaign plot points largely forming themselves.
Tomorrow night's game will essentially be a 'getting to know you' session that will allow the players literally to get to know their own characters as well as each others. Meanwhile I'll be taking notes. Lots of notes.
I'm really looking forward to it and I hope it doesn't simply fall flat on it's arse. If it does, I'll just have to accept that I'm a shit DM and go back to simply martialling unrelated dungeon crawls - basically glorified miniatures games.
Fingers crossed,
Wayne