(no subject)

[prismakaos]

I need gaming advice.

As you may be aware, I'm DMing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for a few people, all of whom have a mix of what they enjoy playing - a couple are into puzzles, a couple into heavy roleplaying, one into rollplaying and treasure-gathering, some have unconscious metagame tendencies - and the last few sessions have been heavily focused on individuals. Basically, the party splits up, and each character is dealt with separately. While I try to keep it balanced, people are getting bored. Being bored was always my least favorite part of every campaign I've ever played in, and a definite reason for why I prefer DMing to playing. So I need to fix it.

They're all trapped on a boat now, so it won't be too hard to make them stay together right now, but as soon as we get to a town, it become an issue. I know other people have had this issue, so do you have any suggestions for a newbie DM?

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In other news, I'm DESPERATE for the new Nine Inch Nails album, Year Zero. It'll be out April 17, and it sounds good. Downward Spiral good. I love NIN stuff because it's so angry and violent and yet soothing at the same time.

Comments

[spamchang.livejournal.com]

you mean once they go into town, they'll split up? remember that creepy shadow fog evil creature in the dead city somewhere in the first few books of the wheel of time series? yeah. buddy system. no one goes off alone. individuals are picked off at random. buddies are only marginally better at surviving. your best bet is to distract and run like hell to the portal in the middle of the morass...find ways to make them stick together :p let them band up as they wish.

violent, yet soothing. this may say more about your taste in music than the music itself ;)

[ra1330.livejournal.com]

As I player, I'll try my best to offer my perspective here:

In any pause in a city, some splitting up and doing ones own thing is more or less inevitable, I'd argue. That being said, what's splitting us up most, it seems, is our backstories. Typically, in any given city, 1-2 people go off to do something related to their backstory (whether this be something as simple as "I'm the thief, I go off and find information alone" to "I have a bunch of contacts from the secret organization I'm working with in backstory, I should go talk to all of them" to "I had a crazy dream I need to find information about".)

So, with already set backstories and characters, how can you best deal with this?
1) Remove lots of the secretness of the character's backstories from things. I have no reason to go off alone, for instance, if I am no longer concerned about, say, Green finding out what I'm up to. That being said, I think this is probably a risky idea, as I'm not sure how many of us would agree with what the others are up to.
2) Minimize time in town. Generally speaking, we haven't split up too much on the road or in dungeons yet, and for the major tactical reasons, I doubt we will. Game-as-written in the last few sessions, though, has put a lot of emphasis on research in city. Once we no longer are in city, we're probably fine.
3) Increase character trust in one another. This is largely connected to 1, of course. The thing is, in my experience, party-as-friends are more likely to work together and ignore the things that split parties up than party-as-coworkers, and we are currently, mostly, party as co-workers. As an excellent example of this, Sameryn the friend of Halal would not be wanting to turn him over to the authorities, whereas Sameryn the coworker really doesn't see a problem with this. Finding someway to move us towards friendship with each other (and, what that would be for each person, I can't really say), would probably mitigate at least some of it.

Those would be my big 3, I think, if you're really worried about it. Sitting back and thinking for a moment, though, I'm really not convinced you've got a problem here. Do we all have some downtime in the cities? Yes. Is it downtime I think there's any good way of making not downtime for at least some people? No.

Consider what happened yesterday in Hilsfar. Do you honestly believe that, even if I knew they were in alignment with my goals, without knowing Olaya said it was OK, that I would've brought the group to see Opann or Daav? Similarly, back in Kalb, it seems doubtful for me there was much you could do to have had Mike bring us all around on his merry-go-lucky thief contacts, because they're his contacts. So, without finding ways to avoid those sort of social situations entirely, I think you'll just have to accept that this'll happen. You have, generally, been doing a pretty good job to balance them among players (some could, I think, probably use some more, but pretty good), so I wouldn't really be concerned.

[zaldreon.livejournal.com]

I agree with Matt in that some level of splitting up for small things is probably inevitable unless the game is designed to prevent it. However, it is possible to have too much time split-up and people can get bored.

Here are some of my own ideas for ways to minimize time spent split-up.

Make sure your players know that you want to have a group that, more or less, stays together. The whole player group should do character generation together, when possible, and should feel free to discuss ideas with one-another. When a character seems unlikely to fit with the group as it is being created, ask the player making the character about the aspects that seem troubling to you. Most players I have known have been happy to alter their character concepts to help with group cohesion, if they think their character traits (as they plan on playing them) will be a big problem.

If a character is created who has a totally irreconcilable trait, that player may need to make a new character. For instance, in Armistice, at one point Kris created a Holy Knight with a vow to kill any demons she saw. At that time, the group was on a plane beseiged by effectively infinite armies of demons. The holy knight turned out to be incompatible with any group which wanted to do anything other than constantly kill demons until the end of time. So, the narative "camera" stopped following that character, she went off to fight demons, and Kris made a haughty mage on a flying carpet who has been a much better fit for the party.

Minimize shopping time. Often, people choose to split up in town not simply because town is a stylish place to be alone, but because the activities they do are personal and should not concern the other group members. Some of these activities may be genuinely secret awesome plot points, but more often, they are simply matters of maintenance and shopping. Shopping is boring even if the group is together, and doubly so if everybody shops in sequence. Adopt some conventions to minimize shopping time. For instance, in Armistice, if the group is in a place where commerce can be conducted, all items may be instantly sold for 50% of their listed book price and most normal and magical book items under a certain maximum gold value can be purchased for book price. Definitely do not roleplay out all shopping encounters.

Present plotlines and plot elements when the group is together, thus avoiding introducing new "secret" plotlines that need to be pursued by a single character. If the coolest and best plot things involve everybody, and players want to spend the most time on the coolest game content, then they will often be together doing the cool group content. Similarly, try to come up with a neat way to wrap up individual characters' personal plotlines. In this way, individual characters will no longer have those particular plot motivations to go off alone, but also the players won't feel like you simply left their personal plotlines hanging, because you brought them to a neat conclusion. Alternately, if you don't want to end one of those personal plotlines because it is so awesome, then instead find a way to bring the rest of the group into that plotline.

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Ultimately, I think that as long as the players know what you want (more time together) and they agree that this would be more fun, it is likely to happen naturally. Players can skew character behavior to better fit the needs of a game. The ability to do this smoothly, without making a character seem highly inconsistent, is one mark of a good player. I think that playing a character to inflexibly match some pre-determined vision or character concept is as misguided as playing a character who has no personality and always unhesitatingly goes along with whatever is going on.

In this way, it's much like having a discussion in real life. If each person tries to dominate the discussion and won't budge an inch, the group is unlikely to get anything done. If everybody in the group goes along with anything and doesn't express any opinions, you also won't get anything done. Moderation is key.

[faerieloch.livejournal.com]

I second what Jeff said: reduce unnecessary time. Just hand the player the book and let them get administrative stuff out of the way without you having to oversee it. Also, cut to the action: if a player wants to infiltrate some secret organisation, cut straight to "you're outside the room where they're meeting discussing [some secret/mysterious thing related to the main plot].

*Always* try and tie things back to the main plot, since that way you're giving the player incentive to go tell the others about it and less incentive to keep it secret. But again, don't bother with lots of fiddly "roll to see if you find their secret door", "roll to see if you unlock it", etc. Failing these rolls doesn't get anyone anywhere, so why bother with them?

One of the best pieces of GM advice I got from a book was: make sure if you're asking for a roll that both outcomes are interesting. If not, why bother? You're all there to have fun and if you've cut off the way forward because of a failed roll.... This works less well for D&D which has rules for *everything*, but may be worth a try. :)