Our last session was roughly the 10th in the new campaign. Party had decided to hit the road. After exploring a mysterious keep, with the aid of a mysterious stranger, they headed for "the crossroads," a caravanserai. There they were hired as night watchmen to try to catch/kill an unidentified "monster in the woods." I thought this was a one-night adventure but it turned into three. PART of that is because 80% of us play in the same FFL and it's a busy time of year so a LOT of off-topic convos. But still!
The OTHER reason it took so long was because of player agency. On several occasions throughout the story they reached decision points and took .... creative paths. They DID uncover the monster, reveal the twist, bring the true miscreants "to justice." And then left town. Had they been able to tie the wrong-doers to their higher-up the caravanserai would've rewarded them with a pony and a wagon - something they can definitely use and have been asking about (and can only just barely afford.) <edit to add> I would note that there was some questionable writing in the otherwise good product I pulled the adventure from. Too much RR and not enough SB. Thankfully The Alexandrian has taught me well about the three clue rule, so I was able to "add" undiscovered clues in a couple more areas to smooth the road. Better writing could have eliminated this necessity.
So why the smile? At the session conclusion there was MUCH discussion over their new-found freedom and agency. There was SOME last campaign but this time around I've listened, forced myself not to over-plot, and let them go. They THINK they're being naughty murder hobos. They DID kill two people on the way into the first village and the rest of the Night Watch given the opportunity. In reality, ALL of the death sentences were meted out to the local equivalent of the Thieves Guild, unbeknownst to our heroes. So THEY think they've been given a crap-ton of agency (which they have) and I've been able to to run fronts, short form adventures and random encounters that meet their needs. There's a blighted forest spreading. There's a green dragon keeping an eye on them. They're learning of the Noble Houses which run the realm (and learning that perhaps there ARE no good guys.)
Also on the up-side I'm incorporating some of the journey techniques from Adventures in Middle Earth and using the hex crawl techniques from the good folks at Infinium to improve long travel and exploration. "Lonely fun" as we used to call it. And we're gonna try to bring back Skill Challenges from 4e! ChatGPT is your FRIEND! I'm currently using it to generate NPC's (using the GreatGameMaster's OGAS technique,) fix formula problems in my extensive spreadsheets, design the aforementioned Skill Challenges, select actions and grim portents for Fronts, write short adventures(!), and management of climate and weather.
On the DOWN side my hand has been forced on upgrading to NTME23. I moved all three base files into the same folder and instantly fouled up/destroyed all of the links. Think I have enough into to run Tuesday's session but there will be some intensive work to get it all reconnected. ONE document. Some new raw materials. Storefront calculator incorporated. Manufacturing pages cleaned up to be made a bit more uniform. And an attempt at an "easily" updatable shopping list.
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