HQ BG vs. HQ RPG

[Gold Bearer]

[This and the following 21 posts were moved from the Story room topic on 8/1/16 to create a new topic with a new title.]

When I write up an adventure I rarely write up an actual map, I list the important issues facing the adventurers and a few detailed instructions on important rooms the heroes must discover. Then I wing it from my notes.

Sacrilege!


Remember that time our party almost got wiped by the undead but all managed to make it out by lucking out finding that healing potion and holy water?

How could I forget, I can't believe we survived that quest, things would have turned out very differently after that quest if we hadn't made it.


Remember that time the GM decided on a whim to fill the room with undead and we almost died but then the GM gave us a bunch of healing potions afterwards so that fight didn't actually have any lasting effect on anything?

No, why would I?

[cynthialee]

Well I don't get complaints and there are scenarios that we have played out in the past that are epic stories told time and time again.

So I must be doing something right.

[Gold Bearer]

To you they might be epic battles but to me it's not even possible to have epic battles if it's being controlled like that because it's rigged, that's not epic. 'We just got kinda mashed by a group of monsters, no problem it will get easier to compensate.' Do they know you're just making it up as you go along? When a quest starts I've got no control over what happens as EWP beyond what I do in the game itself. That makes it much more exiting for me and for the hero players because anything could happen. That's what makes it exiting. I couldn't play a game with an EWP that tailors it to how well we're doing at the time because it makes all in game events meaningless. If you and your players are happy with it then who gives a smeg what I or anyone else thinks, I just can't understand the point of playing if it's being done like that.

[cynthialee]

I keep the challenges appropriate to the quest. And I don't go easy on them. If anything they wipe 40% of the time. I make my dungeon in my head, then I put the important features in the notes, complete with number appearing of monsters in the important rooms and likely encounters in red herring areas.
I don't need everything spelled out in exacting details to make a fair and functional dungeon.

Here is an example of my dungeon notes I use to throw a game:

The Return of Thandiss
Somehow Thandiss escaped his doom. The Emperors wisest advisors have considered the issue with great consternation and have determined that he survived due to trickery and deception. The undead you killed and thought was Thandiss was actually a powerful mummy that had been cosmetically altered with glamour magics to appear as Thandiss.
The Emperors spies have found the true lair of Thandiss due to a particularly gossipy dragon. Thandiss can be found at 1234 Baker street in the ruins of the city Miltonberg, not far into enemy territory.
Beware, the Evil One has invested allot of effort and time into cultivating Thandiss so he has provided the Lich with a large number of Orcs. Their leader is a powerful Shaman and strong warrior.
Mentor gives each hero a small dagger. “The final blow landed on Thandiss must be with one of these daggers, or by fire magic. These weapons are enchanted in such a way that they will prove permanently fatal for those such as Thandiss.” {These daggers may roll two dice (one purple if you have them) against any Lich, Necromancer, Demon or other diabolical entity**. Against other targets these daggers are normal weapons. If the dagger inflicts a mortal blow on a diabolical entity/person then that entity/person may not be resurrected in any fashion.} He then looks to the spell casters and says “Dread the lure of the Evil One. He may tempt you with great power, it is a trap. Accept his powers at your peril, his price is your soul”. …
”Beware; Thandiss has the protection of the Ork clans. This will not be an easy task. Go forth and complete this task for me, for the Emperor and for all those who would live free from the tyranny of the dead.”
Gruentar the Shaman: Move-6, Attack-4, Defend-4, Body-4, Mind-5; has all 6 of the Ork Shaman Spells from Wizards of Morcar supplement.
The Lich will conform to all the stats of the original character of Thandiss in the story The Hive of the Lich Thandiss, excepting that he can only loose his last Body point if the blow comes from one of the Daggers provided by Mentor or by Fire Magic.
The stronghold will be manned by 10 Orks, 4 Fimir and 4 Chaos Warriors, not counting the room Thandiss will be found in, which will be in a secret room found in a false crypt deep in the dungeon. With Thandiss will be 2 Chaos Warriors with him that comport to the same rules as the dungeon modifiers…ie +2 Movement and Champion Status. There will also be a number of non combatant NPC orc shaman apprentices who will flee and seek to report the Heroes to the local authorities. When this happens a pair of orks will show up from the stairwell in 2 turns. No more than 12 rooms will be discovered. If the party takes the first left they come to in the dungeon it will lead them down a long hallway with a number of empty crypts and the last one will be the one with the secret passage.
All enemies in this dungeon will have Champion status. {Defends on White Shields.}
All Fimir will be granted a single random Chaos spell.
All Chaos Warriors will be at +2 movement points due to the lightweight nature of their Mythril Armor. This armor may be looted and returned for 500 gold coins per suit looted. The armor will not fit any heroes.
No undead other than Thandiss will be in the stronghold. Undead minions do not make for good house guests and Thandiss is a guest in this place. He is willing to reanimate any ork soldiers who may die if heroes show up.

**Note: Any NPC that has any of the Chaos spells or necromancy spells is considered a Diabolical entity.

[cynthialee]

Forgotten to be included in those quest notes when I wrote them, but I remember...Gruentar the Shaman is the wandering monster.
Also not included in the notes...when the Lich is killed all dead orks rise as zombie orks and make their way to the closest living being that is not aligned with chaos.

[cynthialee]

To you they might be epic battles but to me it's not even possible to have epic battles if it's being controlled like that because it's rigged, ...

So tell me that with the game notes I provided that you could not run a fair and proper game.
The only thing not decided for you is where to place rooms and furniture and monsters. If you can't wing it and come up with a basic, fair and challenging 12 room dungeon based on those notes...I put forward that you are too constrained in the box and can't possibly be a good Gamemaster.
Being a good EWP/GM requires an ability to think faster than the players, strong game morals and an insight into the mechanics of the game that goes beyond mere numbers and facts.
With out some amount of insight into the games potential outcomes and adjustment to ingame events...those Champion Level Orks are going to grind the party to mince meat. If they go in the direction I have figured the Fimir are in...it will get brutal, especially if you miscalculate the power of the heroes and put too many of those spell casting, Champion Fimir in one room.
Some adjustments might be called for on the spot. Maybe if the heroes get fragged hard early on and there are limited chances the heroes can win the room with the Lich and the Chaos Warriors...the Choas warriors think maybe they heard something and go and investigate. Then the players are caught in a hall fight with the 2 CW and when they face the Lich they have 2 less enemies in the room. That isn't even a stretch of the imagination. "Hey Bill, I think I heard steel on steel. Might be Empire Soldiers. We should check it out." They look to the Lich and he is busy looking at his crystal ball. He replies "yes...they are in the eastern corridor. Go slay them".
The thing that seems the most illogical to me is the fact that in these dungeons there is no dynamic principle in effect. Monsters never leave rooms? Baloney I say. What of the heroes who spend an inordinate amount of time in the dungeon. Surely there is activity in there that must be considered.

You go with your set in stone boring dungeons where everything has already been thought of for you. I will continue with my dynamic approach and keep them cheering at the table. That is the most important thing ever...cheering, laughing friends.

[Gold Bearer]

Clearly I've offended you. I said that you and your players are happy with it that's all that matters. I was happy to leave it but I'm going to have to respond now.

Of course I couldn't provide a fair game doing it that way, nobody could because make it up on fly is inherently unfair to begin with. I use random events to allow for a lot of variation (including nearby monsters being activated and opening doors). I have no idea what's going to happen in a quest beyond what was specifically designed to happen before it started. In a real game where it's played properly anything can happen, it's not merely what one of the players decided they wanted to happen. That's dynamic. Making up as you go along isn't. If you can't make a balanced quest without making changes during the quest then you're the one who can't GM. Once a quest starts I'm taking the role of the monsters by doing everything within my power to kill the heroes. That's how you build tension and create genuine exCitment, not by tailoring it to how well they happen to be doing at the time so that nothing that happens has a lasting effect or matters in any way because everything's being decided at the time.

Do me a favour and try making a full quest with no ambiguities and stick with it. Don't be a control freak and let whatever happens just happen without any interference, let it be no matter what. That's a real game of HQ, you're just telling a interactive story where the players are just readers with no real influence over the events.

[cynthialee]

How do you figure?
I have a set amount of challenges. The heroes can and do wipe, and they can and do win.

I see your inability to respond dynamically to the changing events in a game as limiting and hardly a genuine experience. It is canned and prepared.

[Gold Bearer]

Because the outcome of each of those set amount of challenges has no effect on how well they're doing overall. If they start of really well it will get harder, if they're struggling it will get easier. There's no reason to try to do well because it makes no difference, the quest will be made to match whatever situation they're in at the time. They can never really be doing well or doing badly and they'll tend to get to the last challenge and stand the same chance of completing it regardless of what happened before that and making everything that happened before that point meaningless.

I just lost my chaos priest in my pbp without getting to take a turn with him despite covering him with decent monsters on all sides. If it were you then you could simply decide to stick another one in the next room. That's not fair, it completely negates the good play of the heroes to have managed to pull that off, and in a confrontation that wasn't manufactured to fit their current situation. I wouldn't like being killed by a monster that the GM had only just decided to put there. That's not fair either.

Yes it is canned and prepared, that's exactly right and a good way of putting it. It is limiting, that's the point. There should be limit on what the EWP can do, that's how you get a fair game. If it's prepared well then it will be a challenging and hopefully interesting game for both the hero players and the EWP as they both try to stop the other from succeeding.

There's plenty you can do with custom rules and while designing the quest to make it dynamic and interesting. Then you have a set task for the players that doesn't change to fit what happens during that task, just like it would in a real situation of group of a monsters that stand in the way of a group of adventurers. That's a real adventure and a genuine experience for all the players. An on the fly, made up as you go along quest isn't.

[cynthialee]

You could be replaced with a computer. Why even bother?