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| deClench |
 Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 11:53 am Post subject: What do you enjoy in adventures? |
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Patron
Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 112
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Hey all!
I'm really interested in understanding what things people most enjoy from adventures, both PC and GM. What helps you to enjoy the adventure? What elements do you remember most about the ones you've been involved with?
Is it memorable encounters? Why? Were they especially ingenious or difficult or important to the plot?
Is it because of the rich story? Why? Did it especially ring true with your character? Did it seem like you played a meaningful role?
I'll start.
I'm currently playing in a game that seems much more player-oriented than most I've played in recently. I've decided that it's mostly because of the GM not narrating. We, the players, are much more open to wandering, and we learn what we need to from interaction and dialogue. It happens organically. The GM doesn't just tell us where to go. We have to figure out where to go. Sure, that means we have to ask the right questions... and to know to ask the right questions, but it makes me feel more fully a part of the adventure. Once a GM starts narrating more than a few lines to me, I generally glaze over. This way seems much more engaging.
What about you?
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Scott Gable
Zombie Sky Press |
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| ephealy |
| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 30 Dec 2007
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Location: DuPont, WA
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I like dynamic encounters that challenge the party with movement and fluid situations. Burning ships coming at the party as they navigate a failing bridge, dragons swooping through a canyon as the party battles orcs on a narrow pass, etc.
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Ed Healy |
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| Phil Larwood |
| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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| ephealy wrote: |
| I like dynamic encounters that challenge the party with movement and fluid situations. Burning ships coming at the party as they navigate a failing bridge, dragons swooping through a canyon as the party battles orcs on a narrow pass, etc. |
I second the dynamic encounters bit. I like some of those Ed! 
Memorable villains are also important. I have a few villains that the players really hate in my Ice Age campaign (which we recently had to take a break from) but I've never really managed it in a published format. |
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| Daigle |
| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 30 Dec 2007
Posts: 562
Location: Redmond, WA
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| As a follow up to Phil’s suggestion of memorable villains, I think, strange as it may seem, cool treasure helps. At first, I didn’t believe this when a fellow freelancer told me this, but then it clicked. After all, at a base level, the players “kill things and take their stuff”. Once they’ve dispatched the interesting bad guy, it doesn’t hurt to have them find something really neat. It sounds crude even suggesting it, but I’ve heard a number of players over the years refer to a memorable fight as “you remember that fight where I got that magical puzzle box that my familiar stays in?” |
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 6:51 pm Post subject: |
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Kobold Overlord
Joined: 30 Dec 2007
Posts: 4986
Location: The Mines
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Couldn't agree more. The weird treasure, even if it isn't all that valuable, sticks in player's minds.
Halflings and kobold PC seems especially fascinated with teh weird l00tz.
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Wolfgang Baur
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| Tom |
| Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 12:14 am Post subject: |
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I like villains that the party has to encounter more than once.
Places they have to visit as well more than once.
Encounters with a lot going on, especially with a lot to do for the pcs, like ropes to swing into melee, curtains to descent on, while using your dagger, chandeliers to swing on, etc... |
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| Hal Maclean |
| Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 4:22 am Post subject: |
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I like recurring NPCs and antagonists, especially those that evolve over time. I remember one campaign where I introduced rules for ransoming of prisoners. This not only gave the PCs a financial to capture their foes but also left them with the strong impression that "those who live by the sword/spell will eventually die by the sword/spell".
I spent a lot of time creating a recurring cast of henchmonsters who were willing to work as mercenaries for the various BBEGs that appeared over the course of the campaign. All I had to do was level them up to keep them a suitable challenge for the party. Eventually the PCs started to recognize their quirks and foilables, became friendly with them in a "morning Ralph" sort of way.
At one point this saved their lives since the villain at the time wanted to execute them and the twin ogre fighters who spend their time playing cards with the PCs once captured rebelled and helped them escape. |
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| ephealy |
| Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 10:40 am Post subject: |
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| Daigle wrote: |
| I think, strange as it may seem, cool treasure helps. |
When I lived in Jersey, I played in a 2e campaign that went on for years. One day, we found this mirror-like disc. It was obviously magical, but when we investigated we found out it didn't really do that much. I think it could cast a couple protection spells, once a day. As a 14th-level necromancer, I wasn't that impressed.
I kept it anyway. Hell, it never hurts to have a mirror, right? Why not one that can cast a couple low-level spells?
18 months after we found the mirror, we were in the crypt of a castle on the demi-plane of Chaos (home-brew world). After overcoming some puzzles and battling some bad guys, I happened to find a strange metal frame, buried under the sarcophagus of a dead king. Turns out, the frame fit the mirror nicely, and transformed it into a minor artifact.
These kinds of things rock. I don't know if the GM planned this or capitalized on what was available. It doesn't matter. It made for a great game.
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Ed Healy |
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| Watcher |
| Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 11:35 am Post subject: |
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| Wolfgang wrote: |
Couldn't agree more. The weird treasure, even if it isn't all that valuable, sticks in player's minds.
Halflings and kobold PC seems especially fascinated with teh weird l00tz. |
I have a players in my Runelords campaign absolutely fascinated by skulls with continual flame cast on them. They keep one in a bag as a light source, and my pointing out that they're an inefficient light source doesn't dissuade them in the slightest.
And god.. Richard Pett devised some trinket in the Skinsaw Murders called the Hungry Decapitant. A stuff monkey head with a pull cord attached to the tongue, pull it and the monkey shrieks and chatters to call everyone to dinner. The human fighter friggan loves it. Its a serious enough game that he doesn't insist on carrying it on every adventure, but I'm lucky if, two chapters later, the Decapitant doesn't get brought up at every game session. |
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| Amy Carrier |
| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 11:37 am Post subject: Well he’s dead NOW… |
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Joined: 31 May 2008
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I mostly vividly remember the wonderfully inventive (and often extremely humorous) actions of my players:
There was once an evil wizard who ran a magic shop in town. The characters were regular customers, but it was a very adversarial and occasionally violent relationship. Not surprisingly, one of them eventually killed him. After he was dead – a couple of DAYS after he was dead - they realized that they still needed him alive.
They tried to revive him by pouring a healing potion into his cold, dead mouth. (Don’t know why they thought this would work – rigor mortis had already set in.) They even rubbed his throat to help it go down.
The corpse remained cold and stiff, but they weren’t about to give up so quickly. The group had a second potion, one that had not yet been identified. “Maybe it’s a resurrection potion,” one of them suggested. They all agreed that it MIGHT be, so they decided to try it next. Into his mouth it went, to pool in the back of his throat along with the previous potion.
I rolled on the “Potion Miscibility Chart” in the DMG and got the mother load of all possibilities: Explosion. The corpse began to rumble and shake, then his jaw snapped open and a pillar of roaring fire erupted from his mouth. One of my players shouted “Look out! He’s coming back, AND HE’S PISSED!”
Then the corpse’s head exploded. |
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| varianor |
| Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:30 am Post subject: |
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Now that's funny!
I like innovation and engaging anything. As long as it's not yet another dungeon crawl. |
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| Gilladian |
| Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 7:51 am Post subject: |
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Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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I love innovative adventures, but I run a homebrew campaign world, and I HATE opening a module that sounds great at first, but halfway through the backstory I discover that it relies on major chunks of world history that DONT FIT my campaign world AT ALL.
I like adventures that are small in scope. I like novelty, but not such that it would totally reshape a world to incorporate. A single mechanical golem with a neat special ability, fine! A whole castle of steam-punk beings that fought in a war twenty years past... not so wonderful.
And yes, great treasures are what PCs brag on the most later. One of my groups took over a house that had once belonged to a powerful wizard. They loved the refrigerator room, the basement that could only be accessed by teleport, etc... and talk about it to this day, five or more years later. |
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| Legendarius |
| Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2008 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 19 Jan 2008
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I think for me, the things I remember most and enjoy most are encounters. When you look back, it's what the party did to defeat Strahd (or vice versa), how they brought down Zargon, what happened when they landed on the Isle of Dread, etc. It's specific combats and roleplaying encounters where the game really lives.
L |
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