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[Very Long] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles...
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<blockquote data-quote="haakon1" data-source="post: 5837200" data-attributes="member: 25619"><p>We have a very different group dynamic. I've never started a campaign as anything but 1st level, and even for new people joining an existing campaign, I make them either: (1) start at 1st level, (2) take over an existing NPC in the campaign, or (3) start at 1st level with a higher ECL monster race.</p><p></p><p>I think part of it is that I'm usually bringing in friends (from non-gaming activities) who have never played or haven't played since AD&D, whereas you're dealing with people who played probably 10,000 hours or more already, know what they want, and are assertive about getting it.</p><p></p><p>Are your folks people you primarily know through gaming? I'm a player in a group like that, but the dynamic is still DM led (and he's a 4e fan, mostly CaS in attitude, with the only hints of world building interest actually starting in 4e).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Wizards are much more "involved" in my campaigns, not a whole lot more special or separate from society than clerics or attorneys or merchant princes, but highly powerful people of any class are rare. In my campaign, the ability to cast Fireball marks you as "high level" and not to be trifled with.</p><p></p><p>But Kings and countries are very important. Nearly every adventuring party works for Bissel (the country) as a patron at some point -- lots of missions result from problems reported to the national authorities and the "guy who runs adventuring parties" (a high level druid named Dertol) trying to find someone to do it.</p><p></p><p>Thinking about the involvement of Wizards and politics in my campaign:</p><p>-- Dubricus is a second-son of a nobleman, raised by his nobleman uncle (a childless gay wizard), trained as a wizard and barrister. He just was made a Baronet in his own name and given the Keep on the Borderlands for service to the crown, and from the Margrave (ruler's) point-of-view because the Keep is strategically important but lacks a leader, needs someone with money to prop it up, and buttering up an important family never hurts.</p><p></p><p>-- Lindoras is the daughter of an elvish weaver and cloth merchant. After surviving a bandit attack on her father's wagon while travelling, she decided to learn magic and become an adventurer, and moved to Bissel from Celene because Bissel is an exciting place, raked by war and sucking in mercenaries and adventurers by the bushel (kind of like the Spanish Civil War). She has no problem taking missions for Bissel's government.</p><p></p><p>-- Melias is a friend of Lindoras. His father is involved in a secret society in Celene, called the Knights of Luna, that opposes the elvish queens isolationism and want to help Mankind fight Iuz and other troubles. Melias is both a fighter and a mage, and mostly quiet and very polite to humans, who make him uncomfortable. He's happy to offer his assistance to Bissel's government.</p><p></p><p>-- Gorunn is a dwarvish wizard. He got in trouble with his dwarvish clan for aiding a captured elvish thief, Aramis, and the two escaped together. He and Aramis became somewhat roguish adventurers. He didn't like it when Bissel strongarmed them into taking a mission, and now he follows his own path, mostly interested in exploring fallen dwarvish ruins.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I do a lot of prep, and I also write summaries of what happened. That helps when you don't play very often. I read the summary from the last time to my group each time we start a session, and helps get people in the mood and remembering what's going on.</p><p></p><p>For my email campaign, we've been going to 10 years, and I'll pull up stuff that happened long, long ago and reference it. Two adventures ago, they encountered a former party member who betrayed the party in 2002 real time . . . they killed her in two rounds -- what I hoped would be a cool battle as she tried to escape/hold off the party, was instead a quick one, as they snuck close enough before combat started that she could quite escape.</p><p></p><p>I don't mind that -- they had fun getting the old villain, even if it wasn't the tactical set piece I was planning on. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I've never seen a "player driven campaign", but I have seen players get goals and pursue them, mostly in "downtime mode" in my email campaign.</p><p></p><p>I suspect having people pick goals/plots at the beginning of play doesn't work most of the time. I find "emergent" goals -- stuff that arises in play -- works better. I TRY to think of ways to tie in the background stuff on character sheets, but it's difficult, since they usually have very unrelated stuff. So it's easier to try plots back to stuff that's gone on "on screen".</p><p></p><p>Sounds like your players are bored and killing time -- or at least some of them are, and taking their characters not all that seriously as "people".</p><p></p><p>With the email campaign, some people being engaged and going deep while others are bored is not as much of an issue -- if a few people are going deep on something, the others may just go silent for a while, until something that interests them comes along. Everyone tends to wake up for combat! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite7" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue :p" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":p" /></p><p></p><p>Like recently, the PCs were given rewards for service to the country, and could choose to request pretty much whatever they wanted. Some choose gear, but three chose lands (it's a big party, 8 PC's). The cleric asked for an isolated village he'd rescued, where the party built a church earlier, to be made a church fief, and he was made its lord. The wizard (Dubricus above) asked for the Keep on the Borderlands. The monk asked for a monestary next to the Keep (he got a sizable wilderness land grant and permission to build it with his own money). So we've added a new dimension to the campaign, because the players asked for it, and it fit the campaign -- the cleric, the noble wizard, and the knighted-earlier-in-the-campaign monk were "the right sort" to be entrusted with fiefs, if they were interested in that sort of thing -- PC's who'd developed relationships with the upper class ruling NPC's and were "respectable", not the types to be alcoholics bluffing peasants for no reason. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>I think mostly that rulership stuff will happen offscreen, but they did spend a good amount of time dealing with a bunch of refugees and getting them organized and supplied to resettle to their fees. Some of the players were very interested in this, others didn't much to say for a while.</p><p></p><p>The campaign is moving on to combat and adventure, which is coming to them in the city and going to mess with an NPC associate or two of theirs.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Your old days are quite different from mine. Sounds like you were living an "Elfish Gene" sort of experience (big gaming group with an official club and location to play). My D&D experience was always a "home game" with friends, more "Knights of the Dinner Table", though sometimes it was a ping pong table to coffee table. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> Even in college, there was typically just one or two campaigns at a time, with maybe 8 players, playing in somebody's dorm room.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, my live game is more focused on action; email allows more digressions. But we've spent whole sessions on doing stuff in town or travelling the live game too.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="haakon1, post: 5837200, member: 25619"] We have a very different group dynamic. I've never started a campaign as anything but 1st level, and even for new people joining an existing campaign, I make them either: (1) start at 1st level, (2) take over an existing NPC in the campaign, or (3) start at 1st level with a higher ECL monster race. I think part of it is that I'm usually bringing in friends (from non-gaming activities) who have never played or haven't played since AD&D, whereas you're dealing with people who played probably 10,000 hours or more already, know what they want, and are assertive about getting it. Are your folks people you primarily know through gaming? I'm a player in a group like that, but the dynamic is still DM led (and he's a 4e fan, mostly CaS in attitude, with the only hints of world building interest actually starting in 4e). Wizards are much more "involved" in my campaigns, not a whole lot more special or separate from society than clerics or attorneys or merchant princes, but highly powerful people of any class are rare. In my campaign, the ability to cast Fireball marks you as "high level" and not to be trifled with. But Kings and countries are very important. Nearly every adventuring party works for Bissel (the country) as a patron at some point -- lots of missions result from problems reported to the national authorities and the "guy who runs adventuring parties" (a high level druid named Dertol) trying to find someone to do it. Thinking about the involvement of Wizards and politics in my campaign: -- Dubricus is a second-son of a nobleman, raised by his nobleman uncle (a childless gay wizard), trained as a wizard and barrister. He just was made a Baronet in his own name and given the Keep on the Borderlands for service to the crown, and from the Margrave (ruler's) point-of-view because the Keep is strategically important but lacks a leader, needs someone with money to prop it up, and buttering up an important family never hurts. -- Lindoras is the daughter of an elvish weaver and cloth merchant. After surviving a bandit attack on her father's wagon while travelling, she decided to learn magic and become an adventurer, and moved to Bissel from Celene because Bissel is an exciting place, raked by war and sucking in mercenaries and adventurers by the bushel (kind of like the Spanish Civil War). She has no problem taking missions for Bissel's government. -- Melias is a friend of Lindoras. His father is involved in a secret society in Celene, called the Knights of Luna, that opposes the elvish queens isolationism and want to help Mankind fight Iuz and other troubles. Melias is both a fighter and a mage, and mostly quiet and very polite to humans, who make him uncomfortable. He's happy to offer his assistance to Bissel's government. -- Gorunn is a dwarvish wizard. He got in trouble with his dwarvish clan for aiding a captured elvish thief, Aramis, and the two escaped together. He and Aramis became somewhat roguish adventurers. He didn't like it when Bissel strongarmed them into taking a mission, and now he follows his own path, mostly interested in exploring fallen dwarvish ruins. I do a lot of prep, and I also write summaries of what happened. That helps when you don't play very often. I read the summary from the last time to my group each time we start a session, and helps get people in the mood and remembering what's going on. For my email campaign, we've been going to 10 years, and I'll pull up stuff that happened long, long ago and reference it. Two adventures ago, they encountered a former party member who betrayed the party in 2002 real time . . . they killed her in two rounds -- what I hoped would be a cool battle as she tried to escape/hold off the party, was instead a quick one, as they snuck close enough before combat started that she could quite escape. I don't mind that -- they had fun getting the old villain, even if it wasn't the tactical set piece I was planning on. :) I've never seen a "player driven campaign", but I have seen players get goals and pursue them, mostly in "downtime mode" in my email campaign. I suspect having people pick goals/plots at the beginning of play doesn't work most of the time. I find "emergent" goals -- stuff that arises in play -- works better. I TRY to think of ways to tie in the background stuff on character sheets, but it's difficult, since they usually have very unrelated stuff. So it's easier to try plots back to stuff that's gone on "on screen". Sounds like your players are bored and killing time -- or at least some of them are, and taking their characters not all that seriously as "people". With the email campaign, some people being engaged and going deep while others are bored is not as much of an issue -- if a few people are going deep on something, the others may just go silent for a while, until something that interests them comes along. Everyone tends to wake up for combat! :p Like recently, the PCs were given rewards for service to the country, and could choose to request pretty much whatever they wanted. Some choose gear, but three chose lands (it's a big party, 8 PC's). The cleric asked for an isolated village he'd rescued, where the party built a church earlier, to be made a church fief, and he was made its lord. The wizard (Dubricus above) asked for the Keep on the Borderlands. The monk asked for a monestary next to the Keep (he got a sizable wilderness land grant and permission to build it with his own money). So we've added a new dimension to the campaign, because the players asked for it, and it fit the campaign -- the cleric, the noble wizard, and the knighted-earlier-in-the-campaign monk were "the right sort" to be entrusted with fiefs, if they were interested in that sort of thing -- PC's who'd developed relationships with the upper class ruling NPC's and were "respectable", not the types to be alcoholics bluffing peasants for no reason. :) I think mostly that rulership stuff will happen offscreen, but they did spend a good amount of time dealing with a bunch of refugees and getting them organized and supplied to resettle to their fees. Some of the players were very interested in this, others didn't much to say for a while. The campaign is moving on to combat and adventure, which is coming to them in the city and going to mess with an NPC associate or two of theirs. Your old days are quite different from mine. Sounds like you were living an "Elfish Gene" sort of experience (big gaming group with an official club and location to play). My D&D experience was always a "home game" with friends, more "Knights of the Dinner Table", though sometimes it was a ping pong table to coffee table. :) Even in college, there was typically just one or two campaigns at a time, with maybe 8 players, playing in somebody's dorm room. Well, my live game is more focused on action; email allows more digressions. But we've spent whole sessions on doing stuff in town or travelling the live game too. [/QUOTE]
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[Very Long] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles...
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