It's just a thought I've had playing Fallout 4 and Skyrim over the last year. Usually the main quest is quite linear, and there are no real choices: you either do it or you don't. And "doing it" usually involves, "go here and kill these dudes." The side quests are usually more interesting, involving not just killing but theft and persuasion, and let you meet more NPCs and see more of the game world.

Now in a computer game all that stuff is programmed in, so however much you love some bunch of NPCs and their side quests, they remain the side quests, and there's only so far you can take them. The benefit of tabletop gaming is that even the dumbest DM is smarter than a computer. What's the main quest? Whichever one the players decide to focus on!

Your campaign world is a loosely-woven mat. It's up to the players which thread they follow to unravel the mat.

Quote from: robiswrong;940267So.... why do the players care?

If the kidnapped people stay kidnapped, or get killed, or whatever, what reasons do the PCs have to care at all?

Well one might assume the players (but not necessarily the PCs) arent emotionless robots incapable of caring or helping a stranger.

Quote from: fuseboy;940210Don't solve the problem for the players (even in your head), that's their job.

Yup.  My greatest GMing epiphany was the day I realized that, no matter how hard I tried to create situations that the PCs could only get out of in one possible way, my players always managed to solve it in a different way than the "right" solution.  So I stopped creating "right" solutions and started putting them in situations with no idea of how they might deal with them.

Quote from: robiswrong;940267So.... why do the players care?
If the kidnapped people stay kidnapped, or get killed, or whatever, what reasons do the PCs have to care at all?

Quote from: Omega;940340Well one might assume the players (but not necessarily the PCs) arent emotionless robots incapable of caring or helping a stranger.

Except of course that the player characters aren't the only people in the game world. Even if there were no reliable  law enforcement to turn to, do the victims not have friends and relatives? And do the player character not have their own priorities?

Obviously one should not read too much into what is just an example and there is argument to say that if you turn up to the play the game, then play the damn game. But they "why" is very important and can make the difference between a routine game experience and a great one.

In a superhero game saving innocents is what your character signed up for, it part of your job description. It's the whole "with great power come great responsibility". In some other genres the "great power isn't always as obvious" and the "great responsibility" bit is absolutely questionable. So if want to run the sort of game where the players character take time to rescue strangers, probably worth addressing that during character generation.

Of course the pure sandbox model makes that less an issue because the GM is no longer bring a goal to the table, just a range of different opportunities. But then not all games are part of ongoing campaigns or well suited for sandboxing, and even then if all the player characters int he sandbox go off in different directions following each individuals motivations, it may not  provide the best gaming experience. So working out as a group the "why" still matters.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;940288If you play computer games, think of it this way: don't try to design a main questline, just design sidequests.

I actually thought this would be an especially good approach to urban adventures like Cyberpunk or Mutant Chronicles. A bunch of sidequests inspired by the meta-events happening in the city. So there's a "story", but the players arrive at it holographically. "Man, there's a lot of cybersnatching going on lately, maybe something's up."

I actually have liked doing a setup similar to a lot of TV shows (for some types of games).  Apparently unrelated situations, with some of them tying into a larger overarcing situation, even if it's not immediately obvious at the time.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;940206I'm still struggling with, as a GM, turning an idea or a goal into an activity with challenging, multiple steps. This is a problem for me REGARDLESS of whether the goal/activity is generated by me or the players, and REGARDLESS of whether or not I'm pre-planning OR improving (based on a "Situation"). Both my players and I find this unsatisfying.

EXAMPLE:

we have the goal "rescue the people kidnapped from the tavern by Orcs" turns into "follow the Orks trail, then deal with them to get the hostages" which isn't even two scenes of activity.

TRIED:

Creating Antagonists w/ Goals (in the above example, Orc doesn't wants to keep his captives as slaves, but that doesn't turn into anything for the players to do besides rescue them).

Creating steps for the Antagonists a la Fronts/Dangers (Orc kidnaps people and takes them back to lair).

Didn't we do this a few years ago? Maybe someone else's thread.

There are several ways of doing this.

One way is to write each scenario step in turn, which leads the PCs along a path. The danger with this is that it soon turns into "You should do this, then do this, then do this, then the end", so the players don't have much choice with what happens. So, you would have an event (People kidnapped from the tavern by orcs), so you have the "Question people at the Tavern", "Find a clue about orc activity in the Blue Forest", "Go to the Blue Forest", "Find an abandoned orc camp", "Track orcs to their main camp", "Fight orcs to rescue hostages". In this way, you imagine how the PCs should solve the problem and build the scenario around that.

Another way would be to write the steps, as above, but allow the PCs to find their way around. So, instead of making them go through all the steps, one PC might try to find some tracks near the tavern and follow the orcs and the GM can drop the pre-prepared scenes into the scenario as and when they are encountered. This can be difficult, as the GM prepares scenes that might never be used, or PCs do things that are unexpected so the GM must invent things on the fly and improvise.

An extreme way is to not prepare anything, but just have an idea where the orcs are and improvise everything. So, the GM reacts to what the PCs do and produces scenes on the fly when and where required. This allows the PCs to solve the scenario in whatever way they want, with the GM simply arbitrating each step and deciding what happens after each one.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;940288Count Barnacle rules a small county on the seacoast, with its capital his keep and market town, known as Seaview.

Is this where we sign up for the Count Barnacle campaign? I've got a couple sheets of loose leaf, and I have sharpened the shit out of my penci. I am fired up!

Thanks all! Here's a summary of my notes from the various sites

Make the given immediate problem part of a larger, more subtle problem (i.e., Front). Ideally, add multiple, conflicting problems.
Make the NPCs and opposition more complex, with motives that can entangle the players. NPC's always want something, and may require concessions or leverage to motivate them. Add complexity to the opposition's goals (they did this bad thing because of some larger issue). In every scene, each individual wants something, and they will attempt to move the scene in a way that gets them what they want
Make the journey towards achieving the goal interesting and challenging. Are the players really passing through an "empty space" w/out people, creatures, or terrain? Journeys should include hazards (terrain, weather, encounters).
The objective / the antagonist's plans occur in a place, and are affecting and affected by it (e.g., unrelated parties that may want to cover things up or take advantage of the situation)
Use Murphy's Law (sparingly), make things go wrong (food spoilage, hit w/ poisoned arrows requiring healing)
Make the objective difficult to deal with head on, so that the players need to obtain resources or plan (e.g., antagonists outnumber them, potential allies have been set against them, allies cannot be harmed by physical weapons).
Build the problem in layers
Come up with the basic problematic situation
Add detail, asking questions and answering them. Why did the antagonists do this thing? Why were they in that situation? Who else is affected by this situation? Which antagonists have competing or secondary agendas.
Increase the difficulty. Add resources to the antagonists. What could the antagonists possibly do to protect themselves and ensure their success. Play the opposition intelligently
Conceal the necessary information (as it would be in the real world). They will need to learn, and go down other paths, as they find the real opposition. Have them encounter other issues as they do this.

EN World, Google+, TheRPGSite

Quote from: PencilBoy99;940206EXAMPLE: we have the goal "rescue the people kidnapped from the tavern by Orcs" turns into "follow the Orks trail, then deal with them to get the hostages" which isn't even two scenes of activity.

Add more obstacles.

A lot of the advice in this thread is indirectly aiming at this fundamental truth (and nothing wrong with that), but the simplest version is:

1. Add one or more obstacles which prevent the PCs from accomplishing their goal.

2. Add one or more obstacles to each of those obstacles (i.e., to prevent the PCs from accomplishing the goal of overcoming the original obstacle).

Repeat until you've reach a level of fractal complexity which feels right to you.

In your example, you've already started this process: The orcs have the captives, and the PCs will need to fight them in order to get the hostages back. To this you add the obstacle of needing to find the orcs first (by tracking them perhaps).

Don't stop: What obstacles can we add to finding them? What if they've laid a false trail? What if they've booby-trapped their path? What if they've left a rear-guard behind them that the PCs will need to fight or avoid? What if some of the captives died on the trip and the PCs will need to investigate their bodies?

And keep going: Complicate the false trail by having it lead to the lair of some of other monster. The bobby-traps are poisoned and they need to find the antidote. The rear-guard is actually made up of mind-controlled captives and the PCs need to figure out how to fight them without killing them. It looks like one of the "dead" captives was faking and there's a new set of tracks leading off into the wilderness.

One of the most basic ways to do this is to simply add a dungeon between the PCs and whatever their goal is: The dungeon can be of any arbitrary length, extending the challenge to whatever length you'd like. In this case, the orcs take the captives back to their caves. The PCs are going to have get down through all the caves in order to get to wherever the captives are. Fill those caves with as much content as you need/want.

On top of all this, don't be afraid to lie to your players.

I don't mean like that, jesus son, have a heart!

No. You set up a clear problem and instead of complicating it, it turns out that the people telling the party about the problem are mistaken... or are in fact lying.  Anyone involved could be lying about something, for some damn fool reason.  Obviously, you don't tell your players that they were just lied to.

SO the players find the orcs, kill the orcs and...

no hostages.


You don't even really need to know why there are no hostages (only if you are comfortable driving that game with no pants!... or if you REALLY suck at keeping secrets!). That's for the player characters to figure out. They don't get paid if they don't deliver the hostages safely back to their families, right? So let them tell you where the hostages are!

NO, not like that! Damn!

Listen to what the ideas they are throwing out, the plans they are making to find that information.  One thing that always goes wrong when making investigations in adventures is that players get fixated on teh 'wrong idea' and never see the naked and howling clues teh GM so carefully planted right in front of them. The solution is to make sure that the Players have the right idea... by letting them give it to you.

Of course, you let them waste time on the clearly stupid ideas, and when the do something that sounds halfway smart you pat them on the head like they were the smartest children in the spelling be and you 'reward' them with the clue you totally made up to send them in the direction that sounded best to you.... from their own ideas!!!!

THat way they'll never get too fixated on something wrong, becuase they always have the right idea somewhere in their playbook.


I know. I know.  This is utterly immoral and its cheating the players and all that.

But right now they are bored. So give it a shot.  Join the dark side.

Just remember: Even if they always have the right idea (because you cheat!) it doesn't mean they always get to win.

Actually Spike's point is good because it ties into the main thrust of advice you've been given from the beginning (from fuseboy's excellent first response,): your presentation lacks uncertainty.

The quest sounds formally given. Everyone speaks the Truth with a capital 'T' from a position of perfect knowledge. All complications between the heroic unified PC party and the path to the villainous unified orc marauders is glazed over as mere inconveniences, not real challenges. The only logical resolution is an honorable fight to the death. And so on...

There is too much certainty in presentation.

That's why rumor & encounter tables existed; that's why surprise, distance, reaction, and morale rolls added value. They shook up the world's certainty. When there are unknowns, there is doubt, which in turn manifests real choice.

You can front-load such uncertainty during preparation, or you can back-load such uncertainty through randomized content contextualization. But in the end you are as GM being asked to present a world where choice has consequence that matters. And one of the most foundational ways to make choice matter is when there is depth of potential.

Shallow context potential leads to shallow choice, which in turn leads to shallow satisfaction. Or, as Eddie Izzard illuminates, this concept is clear in his "Cake or Death?" joke. The choice is too easy.

Some basic questions I'd have about this idea just about the start of the adventure:

How did this community even pop up if it's so poorly defended?
Was there some specific reason for a lapse in the village defenses that allowed the orcs to pull off this raid?
What has now suddenly allowed for this disruption of every-day life?
How has this tribe of orcs been allowed to live in the area if they are such a threat?
Why can't the townsfolk round up a posse and hunt them down?
What is the barrier that makes this an adventure that can't just be taken up by everyone and their mother?
What happens while following the trail?
Did the orcs take any measures at all to avoid being followed?
What information can the PCs gather along the way that will make the difference between success and failure?
If the goal is to free the kidnapped people, not necessarily slay the orcs, could this by itself consist of three different activities--exploration, execution, and escape?
What are the consequences, good or bad, visited upon the heroes in the aftermath?

First, there's exactly one sentence from Spike's post I agree with: don't give your players perfect information.
From my GMing book, which might be ready this year, but probably wouldn't be...
"Don't "just give" your players perfect information for the goal they start chasing, unless it fits the setting. It doesn't fit almost any kind of fantasy setting, and the people who give you the info can be mislead, mistaken or ill-intentioned even in technologically advanced SF settings. (Just ask the SF police, they'd tell you a lot about it).
An aristocrat hiring the party to save the kidnapped princess (cliche, I know) doesn't just tell you where the princess is, when and why she was kidnapped, and what the dragon who keeps her eats.
Not that he's necessarily unwilling to share this info. He doesn't have it, or he believes he has it, but it's a rumour, prejudice, or folk belief that's not meant to inform you - just to keep you from going in the dragon's lair.
That's without even beginning to talk about "the dragon they directed you to is the wrong dragon because one of his rivals wanted to send random violent adventurers to his lair, and masquaraded as him". Which might have happened, too - though there should be at least some hints they could find (probably by talking to witnesses of the dragon's attack, or the dragon's passing towards the place of the attack, or something)."

Quote from: PencilBoy99;940206I'm still struggling with, as a GM, turning an idea or a goal into an activity with challenging, multiple steps. This is a problem for me REGARDLESS of whether the goal/activity is generated by me or the players, and REGARDLESS of whether or not I'm pre-planning OR improving (based on a "Situation"). Both my players and I find this unsatisfying.

EXAMPLE:

we have the goal "rescue the people kidnapped from the tavern by Orcs" turns into "follow the Orks trail, then deal with them to get the hostages" which isn't even two scenes of activity.

TRIED:

Creating Antagonists w/ Goals (in the above example, Orc doesn't wants to keep his captives as slaves, but that doesn't turn into anything for the players to do besides rescue them).

Creating steps for the Antagonists a la Fronts/Dangers (Orc kidnaps people and takes them back to lair).

Goal: Rescue people kidnapped from tavern by Orcs. (I might have to add that to the aforementioned book;)).

• Where do Orcs live? Is the path to their place dangerous even if you follow their trail? (You bet it is. The local gnolls are letting them pass due to a long-standing agreement between the tribes. You're obviously not covered by the agreement. Whether the Orcs also traded some of the captives in exchange for provisions is up to you, just decide it in advance. Oh, and gnoll runners are going to warn the Orcs if you attack them).
• How do you approach unseen? Approaching in an obvious manner probably means you're going to be dealt with the way Orcs deal with trespassers (hint: they feed them to their pet Ogre). Or at least, they would prepare for you if the negotiations fail. (What are the Orcs village's defenses against bands of roaming marauders and adventurers? They wouldn't even be alive if there were none! If they saw you, a frontal attack should be hard - and I mean really fucking hard, by Tucker's name! Hint: cover, traps and hit-and-run tactics have worked for many tribes in history, and they would work for your Orcs, too.  Example: make your Orcs live in a hill in a swamp that you reach by a narrow, winding, underwater trope. There are caltrops under the water, too...in places the Orcs know, but you don't. Incidentally, they make you stop in places where the Orc sentries can shoot at you from behind cover, and Orc berserkers might charge you with long weapons...and possibly push you off the trope. Check the stats of quicksand in whatever system you're using, and combine them with drowning: that's a swamp for you.
  
• If you negotiate...do you really expect Orcs, of all tribes, to have reasonable demands? (Kobolds might have, but then a frontal attack against Tucker's kobolds would be even harder).
• Whatever your approach, how much time elapsed? Some of the captives might have Stockholm syndrome by now. (If in doubt, assign a probability and roll). Variant: are you sure all of them were really "captives" and not "escapees"? (That's information that the quest-givers might well omit intentionally, too. But they still aren't paying you unless you bring them back). Even if no such complications arise, did some captives get traded already (possibly to repay a debt)? If yes, you have to go there and free them, too...but now you also have to make sure the captives are clothed, fed and warm along the way. Oh, and if you make them tag along, forget about stealth.
• When you return them, do the NPCs have the money to pay you as you promised? Or did they overreach their means? What do you do?

Just some ideas.

Quote from: Opaopajr;940684"Cake or Death?" The choice is too easy.

Death. Er, I mean cake!