The Price Of Freedom, or, Pleasing Those Puerile Players

Welcome to the fifth installment of IMO. This and next time round I will cover ad lib gaming "versus" planned adventures, continuing my foray into the mysterious and dangerous world of the most powerful being known to roleplayers, the Game Master (even the "rules" and "settings" of the much fabled RPG writer are but clay when laid into the greedy claws of the ferocious GM). Due to the raw volume of this topic I will cover it in two installments. In this, first one, I will do my best to tackle pre-planned adventures. Next time round I will go after ad lib gaming. Before I begin, I'd once again like to warn you of my prejudices. I virtually exclusively master using the ad lib method. I have my problems with pre-planning adventures (which might shine through) but I certainly do not consider the method inferior; I have played some altogether excellent adventures with GMs who pre-plan every possible step the characters might take.

One of the most important stylistic decisions every game master must make is the choice whether to play a prepackaged adventure, to write his own adventure (with varying degrees of detail) or to completely ad lib the session. For the players the result of this choice is like the human nose, either they never notice it or it annoys them, perhaps enough to get them to leave the table. Or, to be less pseudo-humorist and more pseudo-intelligent, the players want to be able to completely suspend their disbelieve and dive into the roleplaying. The session should go smoothly, the flow of events should impeccable, horrific, dramatic, humorous and romantic moments should occur at exactly the right moment and no inconsistencies should occur.

I will start this foray by detailing the, IMO of course, greatest problems (and providing some ideas for solutions) that game masters who wish to please their players with prepackaged adventures face. Such game masters are tempted by an entire branch of the RPG market that, IMO, is also its greatest abomination: Prepackaged adventures. I will only spend a word or two on these products as I greatly dislike them. Basically I think that prepackaged adventures can only be used effectively as one-shots. Otherwise, the difficulties of integrating them into a existing game seem, to me, to far outweigh the benefits. If one does not face these difficulties the adventure will, IMO, be damned to be generic. I on the other hand see the only good adventure being the ones that have some relation to the characters that star in them, IMHO the bigger the connection the better. Before I end my rant against prepackaged adventures I would like to warn against starting a campaign with such an adventure. Doing so deprives the GM of such, IMO, wonderful, options as foreshadowing (by hinting at important events and characters right at the beginning), closing story circles (by having the campaign start and close at the same location or in similar circumstances) and allowing the characters to come from a background that is relevant to the campaign.

Game masters who do not use prepackaged modules but still want their adventures to be planned only have the option of writing the adventures all on their own. IMO the first, and often fatal, pitfall here is writing an adventure that has nothing to do with the characters. I must say I see very little reason to do so, but yet I have seen many game masters, my past self included, do just this. The involvement of the characters should start with the adventure. The plot hook that gets the party going (uhm, well, you know what I mean) should be as convincing as possible. At very best it should somehow be tied to the background and personal quests of most members of the party, at the very least it should be something that gives the characters a strong emotional incentive for getting involved in the adventure. IMO the idea of forcing the adventure on the party (imprisonment, geases and the like) is not a very good one. Doing this once can be fine. More than once and the players are likely to feel that they are being cheated out of their freedom. Of course the beginning of the adventure should not be the only time when a direct connection to the characters comes into play. IMO it is a very good idea to link as much as possible to the characters. Knowing the characters' backgrounds (long forgotten friends, old enemies, family members, ancient mystery and so on), their psychological make up ("quick we must swim across the lake", "but I am afraid of water!") and their personal goals (giving a character a choice between the wealth that he always wanted and saving a few people he has no other connection to can be fun) is, IMO, very important when trying to write enjoyable adventures. If your characters do not have detailed backgrounds and personalities I would strongly recommend that they be encouraged to come up with them. Otherwise the game quickly becomes more akin to a table top game (which is fine of course, but in that case actually using table top rules would seem sensible to me).

Another element that I believe should make its appearance in every pre-planned adventure are meaningful choices. Pre-planned adventures have the benefit of allowing the GM to carefully script the plot, making the adventure akin to a good story, with beginning, a building of tension and a climax. A long the way he can add as many fun literary devices, from cliffhangers, to surprising plot twists, to omens, to recurring characters and events (virtually every GM guide tells you how to do all of this). The problem here is, IMO, that the players will quickly feel railroaded, bereft of freedom. IMO the slickest way to avoid this is to add a few crucial junctures in the adventure at which the characters can make truly meaningful decisions that will influence the rest of the adventure. All options of these decisions should be equally valid, otherwise they will hardly convince the players that they are truly granted freedom. I will provide a few examples of what I mean with this below:

• A choice where the party can
  EITHER kill the kingpin they just recently captured and thereby seriously reduce crime in their city, but also make themselves powerful enemies
  OR accept his offer and gain the power to influence the mayor (perhaps to better life in the city?).
• A juncture of the adventure where the party can
  EITHER lead their forces into the Fortress of Shadows a keep that wanders the dimensions and only appears once in a century. Doing so will mean that they will certainly loose most of their warriors, but it also means that they might recover the Orb of Pure Light a powerful artifact that will greatly increase their personal power
  OR lead their forces to the kingdom of Dalwheinen. A large realm the conquest of which will grant them both political and military power.
• A dilemma where the party can
  EITHER save the prince (which one of the characters might fancy) from the clutches of an evil sorcerer and thereby also prevent a vile rite that will kill the king and throw the kingdom into chaos
  OR where the party can return to the kingdom stopping the hordes of ravenous undead that the sorcerer has sent there and thereby saving dozens if not hundreds of commoners. But in doing so they will doom both the princess and the king. But at least they will be ready for the enthusing chaos and might actually gain from the political upheaval.
  [Note that this kind of juncture needs to be placed in such a way that the party can't split, half going after the sorcerer the other half going back. One way teleport magic or portals, having access to but a single ship and so on usually do the trick.]

Such junctures may seem to throw a lot of work at the already overburdened GM (after all entire plot arcs will definitely go unused), but there is a simple way around this. Carefully plan the adventure only to the next juncture. Only roughly sketch the adventure from there on. Set the juncture so that the party will reach it at the end or close to the end of a session. You can then use the time between sessions to plan the adventure to the next juncture. If you do this every session has the very real chance of making your players happy, after all they will feel that the actions of their characters have real influence on the game world. Also they could very well grow to anticipate the choice at the end of the session.

That pretty much sums up the tips I can give for pre-planning adventures (which just might be terrible due to my personal preferences, in which case I forward my apologies), except for one small addition. All of the ideas provided above mention characters and their personalities and backgrounds. This need not be the limit of things. If you are truly comfortable with your players you can use their backgrounds and personalities to enhance the adventure. IMO this requires great care to not turn the game into an elaborate psychological torture, but it can be very rewarding when the characters encounter situations that interest the players.

Now, on to a few words on how to handle a few problems that often crop up when running pre-planned games. The most common problem that game masters tend to encounter when running pre-planned adventures is when the players stray away from the path of the plot. I see four basic ways to address this problem. First, you can simply improv. This is especially advisable if the changes caused by the action will be minor and / or you already have an idea on how to handle the situation. Second, you can interrupt play or even end the session prematurely to think of a way to react. This is often the only solution if the action is interesting and fun, yet leaves you clueless. This is IMO virtually always the best option if you do not have a spontaneous idea, better interrupt play than make decisions that might throw the entire campaign off course (of course you can also go overboard ad libing using the awesome advice of the next I.M.O. :-) , or not). Third, you can simply continue playing, only slightly modifying your plot so that it only appears as if you gave your player free will, basically cheating the players of their free will. Fourth, you can talk to your players beforehand and explain to them that you are running a pre-plotted game and that it will be more enjoyable for everyone if they follow the plot, at least to a certain extent. This is IMO the best method to run pre-plotted games as it can spare both the GM and the players unpleasant surprises.

Well, that's that for now. Next time round I'll cover ad lib gaming.