Our Harn group was playing every week and we were always in the battle and travel mode. I don't think winter snow ever slowed us down. We just pulled out snow shoes and trudged onward down the trail. I was growing so tired of being the object of Gargun spears that I suggested to the other players we stop in the next town and rest a while. Go fishing, train some skills, and sit about drinking ale and chasing women. Well they liked this idea. In fact they pulled out books and things to find new things to try and grow as players. The trouble was the GM he was near livid he came back into the room after we decided to do this and I think turned beet red. But he never said a word. Later he told me we missed out on all of these godstone rocks and what not. I thought to myself, we could just do that later. I was wondering how flexable other GM's are with timetables and dates. Have other people had problems with things like this.

When I GM, I often set out a rough timetable for the villain's plots, if for no other reason than to lay out the plot basics. It makes the game easier to run. However, if the timetable is a hard and fast rule - say the villain must attack on the second full moon after the feast of St. Someone - then that fact should be made apparent to the PCs before it becomes too critical. That way the party know that they have a target point and how much time they have to "mess around".

Now if your GM didn't make the timetable apparent to the players, but just pushed the plot forward at a hectic pace, I don't think he had any justification in complaining if the Players took downtime. If that messed up his plot - well I think it is his fault. If he made the timetable apparent - then I think it was unfair of the players to opt out of his work without giving him some notice... but only a little.

Let me just explain that last point a little. I was in one game once where the GM hung a major plot development on the fact that the villain would sacrifice a specific young maiden to gain the power of the gods. The assumption on his part was that we would protect the maiden from the villain and various problems would ensue. But we found out too much. We thought that the risk of the villain succeeding was too great, so we killed the maiden before she was sacrificed. The villain was thwarted, and a huge chunk of the GMs plot went out the window. To me that wasn't unfair. We reacted to his plot in a way he didn't expect. but if we had agreed to play his game and then decided to go off and leave the maiden without protection, then given the work the GM had done on the plot, I think he could have been justly annoyed.

You stated that you all thought you had been moving apace and wanted a rest. Fair enough. But I think it might have been fairer to have discussed it with the GM before deciding. After all, he has put the work in to dreaming up the scenario.

rgds nick

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Nick Lowson
nick@nlowson.demon.co.uk

I once ran a AD&D 2nd ed. campaign in a world of my own, that was about to collide with a comet. I never told the players that there was a timeline for their adventures, concerning the origin of the comet and how it could be stopped (the "evil mage wants to destroy world" - plot), but it became quite obvious when the "burning star" got nearer and nearer and, eventually, the sky got red.

Unknown to the players, I only kept a vague calendar concerning their first adventures and movements around the world until they found the last clue that pointed them to the Vault of Stars where the comet could be redirected, the baddies killed (except for the evil mage who was in the limbo, safe from the blast - time for a sequel!), and the world saved. Contrary to the start and middle phases of the campaign, the last trek to the Vault of Stars was timed to the exact hour when the approach of the comet would start doing some serious damage, and the world would end. The players did not know that, for they were already used to me keeping track of campaign time. Luckily they made it to the Vault of Stars in time and were in place to save the world... Hmm, come to think of it, I've still to run that final, climatic battle between good (well, relatively good) and evil (true, unscrupulous evil)!

Maybe I should run that last session. After all, it IS the fate of the world that hangs on their shoulders!

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"The greatest sport ever: the Biathlon - cross-country skiing interspersed with rounds of shooting Russians." - HierophantX on Finnish winter sports

The villians should be on some time table seperate from the PC's
the world doesn't stop on vacation
I have been a part of several campaigns where the PC's have done something totally unexpected and the GM became lost

The latest campaign the GM tried to strip the clan of their lands and expected the PC's to be unable to stop it
We hired a litigant and kicked up a fuss
We kept the lands but got deeply involved in Rethem politics
the party started killing each other and cutting deals
The GM went several sessions without rolling dice 'you attack him? okay I'll just watch'

Another time the PC's went to the Spurs in Tashall and ended up killing the local Lia Kvir syndic and taking a valuable item
instead of staying and saving the local lord's daughter they ran off to Tharda. The daughter died and her wedding (the start of the succession war) never took place

And I'll ignore my campaign where a knight decided that the Hodiri (I planned for them to become a major united force and his ally in a couple of years - they were already friends and trade partners) were a major threat to Chybisa even if currently friendly and gave them water and blankets tainted with flem from Red Death patients being treated near his village under peoni quaranteen (okay, I just killed 90% of a major tribe who are my friends, and it may spread to civilized areas but Chybisa is safe from attack!)

IMC I decided to start with the 100 BoRye, it went well till the party had a look round the mine and got an attack of the jitters. When danger reasred it ugly head, all the party turned and fled. (didn't stop them claiming their expenses from the miners guild who'd hired them. At least I hadn't written the whole of the scenario out.. SO.. they heard later, how some brave members of the sherrifs men, who'd been sent out to investigate after they'd given up, had found some fabulous item, etc (I added in some talk of bags of gold just to rub it in). But its true, leave a big blank space on your notes for what the party eventually do. I love the idea of killing the sacrifice first though

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"Am I still on the roof?"

There was no quest hinted to us at all. The GM had made up his mind we should do something and this would happen then on his time table. We had no hint of something evil or what was going on, I suggested we stop and do some thing we as players wanted to do instead of being lead around like sheep as one other player put it. We never knew what was going on in the game world. It was a pc rebelion of sorts. We just wanted to RP and our GM was set to make us super heros in the game world without much consent from us as a few of the pc's felt. Some of the best times we had as pc's was from telling each other trail stories as we traveled about. We would tell stories on watchs to new people of things we did and places we had been. Sometimes just the hum drum of life is more fun than the death marchs we were on in the campaign.

Silent Bob, I feel your pain. The last game I played in, there was no down time at all. The GM basically lead us around by the nose pushing us from locale to locale without any oppurtunity to roleplay beyond combats. He had some grand scheme which we were trying to thwart but it never ended it just shifted as new game supplements came out. Granted, I'm one of those that like loose ended games were the players are writing the adventure only a bit less than the GM, still the "endless quest' gets pretty irritating. Your GM sounds like he overeacted, especially if you folks have had no plans.

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Oh Crap!?! I'm starting to look like my Avatar!

The party will hear of events other than their own adventure. I'm often told "I'll just listen to the local gossip" in an inn. It's an opportunity for the GM to talk about the local events, national events that word of has filtered down the road,etc. It can be distorted, baseless rumour or solid gold truth. The party often get a kick about hearing about events they were involved in. (the Great Olokand Cashbox Robbery). I've had parties of adventurers meet other NPC parties, who've carried out missions they rejected or missed out on. The GM's timetable can move on and the party can hear about it and still take part.

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"Am I still on the roof?"

I'm not sure if it became clear in my post, but my AD&D campaign was an attempt to have fun with TSR antics and use as many cliches as possible. Think about it: evil mage, world threatened, the PC group "our only hope." It was just a laugh, but everybody thought it was relaxing to play a mindless AD&D campaign along with more serious games of Harn.

Oh, I actually created the world as the PCs progressed. It all started in the small village of Wayward, when a group of lonely adventurers noticed a new star in the sky...



In my HM campaign, the world evolves around the players even if they do nothing. If (or when, rather) there's, say, a crusade, the players had better not spend the next ten years breeding and watering the flowers if they're going to take part in it. But they can do it if they want to, but then they miss all the adventures that they might have had along the road. Well, with the current PCs I'm sure a crusade would get much interest from the players.

I've noticed that if there are no adventurer hooks for the characters, the players start acting unscrupulously and try to "take over the world" (once again). It seems that improving your social status is the first thing that springs to the mind of an idle PC. Not many characters decide to, say, start a witch hunt or just explore the world. This leads to even more evil or "unscrupulously neutral" (as I often describe my groups) characters.

A friend of mine ran a free form campaign for a long time before he started working on an actual plot. Unfortunately, he put forth the plot just when we were starting to get settled and powerful enough to actually have an effect on the world. We weren't a bit interested in his adventuring hooks, which only meant us taking unnecessary risks and gaining little on our own quest of world domination (i.e. building a political and economical power of our own). This lead to ruthless railroading which only made us upset. His world was also quite a lot on the high fantasy side, which meant that railroading was very easy.

For example, one night, a group of daemons emerged from a interplanary portal in the lord's bedroom of our (no, mine!) castle in the middle of the night! After killing off the other-worldly invaders, we and our guests, families and servants were all drawn into another world, from where we had no choice but to escape. Unsurprisingly, only the PC group survived, the last NPC dying on the doorstep to freedom (it was a laugh).

A better example of my friend's campaign was during the free form phase of the campaign. At one point we learned that there was a valley where some power, that would make munchkins of all of us, could be found. This lead to a vicious hunt for any and all information on the valley and its location. During our investigations, we also killed everybody else aware of the valley and its power. Our group was selfish, unscrupulous and ruthless, as we didn't want anybody else to become munchkin. Thus, we spared no expense and did everything possible to find the valley. I don't think I've ever seen a group as motivated on their quest than the one on its quest for the Hidden Valley.

Our quest almost failed when we killed the only man who knew of the valley's exact location and found out that he had lied to us! Luckily we found his diary later on at a wayside inn (which, uh, caught fire later).

Many characters died on the quest, but ultimately we found the source of power.. The disappointment was great when all we found was a couple of rotten Earthmaster artifacts (haha). Oh, and we got a random psionic skill as well. Well, we had had a great quest, and I still think it was very much worth it. It was just that much fun. It did take the luster of playing unscrupulous characters for a long time, though: I don't think there is a sin that at least one of our characters did not commit at one time during our adventures. Well, at least we had a set goal, so it wasn't just "playing bad" that many evil groups do.

I'm ranting.

I think my point was that in free form campaigns, "good" groups tend to start following orders or looking for ways to serve (which forces you to generate adventures all the same), whereas "Evil" groups start looking for their own good, and thus create their own adventures, (see Patrick Nilsson's post above) and often commit so many atrocities that it soon gets out of hand. Neutral groups tend to seek only monetary gain at first and later, when they're rich enough, turn to either end of the moral spectrum.

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"The greatest sport ever: the Biathlon - cross-country skiing interspersed with rounds of shooting Russians." - HierophantX on Finnish winter sports

Leaping into posting my first day (nay, first HOUR) here. What's become of the chronic lurker I once was? But I digress ...

On the topic of PCs seeking some down-time, one of my favorite gaming sessions went something like this:

I was GMing a Beyond the Supernatural (modern-day horror, for those who've never had the trauma of encountering it -- the horror isn't just for the PCs). The party, about six strong, were self-appointed ghostbuster sorts based near L.A., and in the session in question, they were supposed to go check out some strange rumors coming out of a small town upstate. But, almost as soon as we were all settled in around the table, somebody mentioned that it was one PC's IC birthday. The character in question had never been to Disneyland, and always wanted to go, so they decided to stop by there for a bit before heading up the coast. Well, to make a long story short, that became the session. The writeup for the evil mage and his minions got pushed to one side while I GM'd A Day at the (Amusement) Park. We all had a blast. Those were some stellar players, I have to say. They could make RP out of anything.

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When you fight with a pig, you both get dirty ... but only the pig enjoys it.

I though about this a while and these were some ideas I had. A GM could have said you over hear in the bar about such and such that is so far away. He could offer the PC's jobs from a traveling merchant to move them toward where he wants them to go. Just so many things he could have done.

IMNSHO:

The players and the GM have to work TOGETHER to make a good story. No GM, no matter how well-prepared, can be prepared for EVERYTHING the players MIGHT do. On the other hand, the players need to make their own decisions, and not be "forced-fed" an adventure.

A simple method I use to help with this is to force the players to tell me what they intend to do a week before the run starts. I can prepare the next adventure better if I know they INTEND to leave Trobridge Inn for Tharda, or for Kaldor, or stay and explore. Even if I WANT them to stay and they CHOOSE to head to Tharda... it is still good to know their intentions so I can tailor the "sudden event which will probably cause a change of plans" to fit. I try not to overplay that card... and am usually prepared to at least fake it if they don't bite. Think of it as stacking the odds.... not guaranteeing behavior.

There is nothing players hate more than being TOLD what to do. The trick is making them WANT to do what the GM WANTS them to do. Good GMs find ways of doing this without resorting to the "lure of power and treasure" all the time. Of course, if you have a bunch of powergaming dweebs for players.... there aren't many OTHER choices to choose from. Once again... I stress the need for good players and good GMs.

- Alan