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Maulrus
2007-05-27, 02:50 PM
My party was made up of a dying barbarian, a disabled rogue and me, the wizard lacking spells. We were in a large room with a well that went down hundreds of feet and had a shaft going up hundreds of feet to the roof. A rope was hanging from the top. We were surrounded by six hobgoblins. I was determined to try to fight off the hobbos with my quarterstaff while he ran to the door (we were cornered next to the well) on the other side of the room. He took a look around, dropped our barbarian, and rolled a Use Rope check. I said, "What the hell, man? Get to the door!" But he just grabbed the rope and started climbing up. He knew that there was a huge storm going on, and on the elevated, flat roof of the building we were in, he would have to face a huge storm and lighting. But he did it anyway. I tried to cut the rope, and the DM tried to get the hobgoblins up after him. While they were distracted, I sighed, picked up our barbarian and ran away. It was obvious that the pre-made adventure had nothing on going up the rope. Our session ended after that, and I'm wondering what's going to happen to him.

tl;dr: What happens if you climb a rope out of the realm of an adventure?

Yuki Akuma
2007-05-27, 02:52 PM
Answer: The DM gets to test his creative and improvisational abilities.

thehothead
2007-05-27, 04:28 PM
New goal for my characters: do anything and everything that the DM is not prepared for.

Zel
2007-05-27, 04:31 PM
He climbs up the rope...

into the Temple of Elemental Evil!

Nerd-o-rama
2007-05-27, 05:24 PM
And by "Temple of Elemental Evil", we mean, "Tomb of Horrors".

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-05-27, 05:40 PM
My brother had a habit for a while of bein unable to attend some sessions. To compensate, I remembered that he was playing as a shadow creature and I love groan-inducing comedy. So every time he's missing for some reason, he's incidentally pulled back to the "shadow realm", where he has to play a nonsensical card game to win his way back to the material realm. I award him experience and loot high enough to keep up with the party through the card game as well.

Lord Tataraus
2007-05-27, 05:53 PM
What happens if you climb a rope out of the realm of an adventure?

My group did that once, on national D&D day. It was four of us and we went to a local gaming store to participate. Of course we don't no the DM and first impressions were....not very good....at all. Well we start and he goes through the whole "your lost" thing and then we stay the night at the stable in the abbey (you would know if you played it). So we wake for some reason (I don't remember) and the monk runs over to us and tells us a powerful demon is on the lose and we should save ourselves. Well we look at our character sheets (those stupid premade ones) then look at each other (there are only four of us) and then took his advice and ran for it. The DM looks at us and says "well that was fast, it over the demon destroys the abbey." Well, we convinced him to let us go back and we ended up with only two deaths, a rogue and the cleric. The paladin turned blackguard and the other left the rogue for dead and ran. So, yeah, we didn't get along with that DM at all.

Raum
2007-05-27, 05:56 PM
No experienced DM should expect the party to faithfully follow the yellow brick road. The silver road is so much brighter... :smallwink:

Seriously, DMs have to adjust to the unexpected. Doing so quickly and transparently is probably the hardest DM skill. It takes creativity, some planning, and good knowledge of the campaign world.

Having said that, it may be time for a lesson on why splitting the party is a Bad ThingTM.

Accersitus
2007-05-27, 06:45 PM
My group once played in a quite nice self-made (by the DM) world, and the DM had made us this wonderful map of the world on A3 paper. One session, we ended up saying, why don't we go to the castle ruin over there on the map? After the DM told us to go make dinner, we continued to the castle, and ended up having a great time exploring this great spooky place. This is when we lost track of time, and suddenly we were in one of the most spooky situations we had ever been, and we started hearing noises outside. (It was the mailman, we lost track of the time, and it was suddenly 05.00 :smallbiggrin: ) Naturaly we all tensed up, and sat there not making a sound, wondering who/what was outside.
We later learned that the DM didn't have a plan for the castle we wanted to explore, but he managed to make a really good story for the castle in 30mins. (At one time the party got split up, and by DM/Supernatural influence our characters were comiting suicide as part of the plot).

As a result, we had one of our best sessions in 6 years of RPG, because the party decided, there is no rush with the main quest, and we don't have any side-quests. Let's go there.

RandomNPC
2007-05-28, 03:52 PM
he should have found the roof, made of iron, covered in water. ya know, perfect for a lightning storm. If that didn't get him back down, id have one bolt hit every 1d3 rounds untill he dove back down the hole with the rope.

my group likes going way over there (there being where i dont want them to go)

i usually have a few half baked ideas on the back burner for such occasions. like when the druid wants to find a dire bear to replace a dire wolf... i was tempted to give him a herd of camels with as many HD total as he could have with one animal. they know there's a desert to the north, they have been moving north slowly as they adventure, and they have yet to begin preperations for the desert.

these guys are the type to tell me i haven't left any clues (they are kinda suttle clues) saying they needed extra water and desert style mounts if they want mounts. then, thinking they know something plot vital they could do to save the day that much faster, they are going to go to the forest and do whatever it is they think they need to do. only to have a party of adventurers come up and be surprised that someone saved the day for them.
one of those "sorry, wrong movie" moments.

Driderman
2007-05-28, 04:03 PM
Players WILL leave the plot, that much is sure. A good DM is a DM that can improvise those situations

Closet_Skeleton
2007-05-28, 04:11 PM
And by "Temple of Elemental Evil", we mean, "Tomb of Horrors".

And by "Tomb of Horrors", we mean "Experdition to the barrier peaks".

Ceres
2007-05-28, 04:12 PM
I intentionally design my campaigns for my players to do anything they want. I spend quite some time designing the campaign-world, deciding what major events will happen if the players don't interfere (I like huge, magic, world-changing scenarios), usually including many conspiracies, so the players will keep getting surprised.

Then I drop the players somewhere in the campaign-word, give them motivations, and have them decide from there. I put the world-map on the gaming-table and have them decide which place would be the best place to go to achieve their personal goals.

Perhaps I find this easy because I have done some improv-theatre, but I do believe that any DM can give their players this sort of freedom if they put some work into it. Nothing breaks the illusion of a real fantasy world than a player having to turn around because the DM hasn't designed something. Go on, try improvising. You might like it :)

Driderman
2007-05-28, 04:46 PM
If you can't improvise, you shouldn't really be DM'ing in the first place.
I remember a one-shot session I ran for some mates of mine. I whipped up the introductory plot while they made some oddball characters ( A tiefling fighter noble son and his goblin rogue slave, whom he has had since childhood and has befriended, who did mercenary work with his Air Genasi fighter friend and a blueskinned human chainwielding sorcerer).
It was a pretty basic premise. The local dukes daughter had been kidnapped by an evil wizard and of course, there was a reward. They had a bit of falling out with a rival mercenary group who drugged them and stole their stuff the night before they had an audience with the duke, a hectic race to beat them to the caste and a quite entertaining battle that saw a quite entertaining use of Tasha's Hideous Laughter ( The tiefling failed his save and spent the first 3 rounds of combat laughing hysterically while sitting on his horse, then fell of and spent two rounds more crying in pain while continuing to laugh hysterically ).
After the audience they travelled through the goblin infested forest, battled their Barghest leader and finally found the wizards tower which they infiltrated. They snuck around and found that the wizard was hideously powerful, had a young black dragon as a guard dog through magical dominance and also had an encounter with the wizards succubus. Again, a quite entertaining situation: The sorcerer decides to seduce this piece of lucious human ( she was of course, not showing her true form ) and succeeds. She lets her ridiculously opulent dress with gems and gold sequins and what not fall to the floor after some playful seductive banter and they head for the big bed for some off-screen action. The sorcerers mates are peeking by the door and as the happy "couple" turn the backs, there is an agitated whisper from the tiefling to the goblin: "Quick, get the dress!"
After a while, they figure out how to release the dragon from its slavery and it kills the wizard. It then proceeds to promise not to kill them this time, but they had better watch the skies because it does not like to be indebted.
I realize at this point, which is in the middle of the night, that I forgot all about the kidnapped daughter... Damn!
So the PCs naturally ask the succubus if she's the Dukes daughter and got a long, improvised explanation. This is where the planned plot stops

It seems that the wizard had kidnapped the girl as a bargaining tool for a Balor. This Balor was a very active participant in the politics of the Blood War and had an ongoing feud with a Deva who also was involved in the Blood War. The girl was apparently not the Dukes daughter at all, but the half-human daughter of the Deva whose care he had entrusted the good duke with. The wizard had already traded her away, but "coincidentially", the succubus knew where she had been sent.
With a bit of urging from the succubus, who could use some new flunkies, the fact that a black dragon had promised them a debt of pain and of course the realisation that no girl means no pay, they agree to follow her to Sigil, where she has a manor. They spend some time in the rather decadent company of the succubus' household until they finally get the information they need to continue their quest and head off through a portal that leads them to the outlands, where an evil gnomish ranger with a tendency to bite the heads off birds ( it was getting pretty late at this point ) guides them towards the gatetown to Baator. During their trip they are stalked by a Kyton, I have to admit I can't remember who it was working for but it fit the plot, who kills off their guide and tries to take them out. After some days of haunted Predator-like scenes they finally get the jump on their stalker and of course, kill it. They then proceed to the Gatetown, cross over to Baator and get a room at the Hanged Man inn.
And thats where the story stops since we had been playing non-stop for maybe 16 hours.
The only thing that was planned in advance was the initial quest ( rescue the girl), the rival mercenaries and the wizards tower, without the succubus...

We did intend to continue the story another day, but never got around to it unfortunately. Nevertheless, it was one of the most entertaining sessions I have ever DM'ed and the players loved it too. Hmm, maybe I'll rewrite it to fit the setting I ought to be working on and try it again.

One of my mates is very impressive, when we played a lot of World Of Darkness and Call Of Cthulhu investigation scenarios, he could sit down for 30 minutes, then have a plot of machiavellian proportions where we would have absolute free reign, as he is able to improvise a suitable response to whatever his players decide to do

Hey, whaddya know? I'm ranting:smallbiggrin:

Short version: Improvise good. No improvise, no DM

Jack_of_Spades
2007-05-29, 02:59 AM
I improvise a lot. I barely even have a dungeon ready, just a list of treasure I think they should get and a list of events that I MAY have happen. Then, I see what the players are doing and use whatever adventure hook I think they'd like to use and see where it takes my vague story.

Were-Sandwich
2007-05-29, 04:23 AM
My brother had a habit for a while of bein unable to attend some sessions. To compensate, I remembered that he was playing as a shadow creature and I love groan-inducing comedy. So every time he's missing for some reason, he's incidentally pulled back to the "shadow realm", where he has to play a nonsensical card game to win his way back to the material realm. I award him experience and loot high enough to keep up with the party through the card game as well.

awesome. I hate Yu-Gi-Oh!, but its good or a laugh. You should hear some of our banter over a magic game after we've all had too much caffeine.

Lord Tataraus
2007-05-29, 07:19 AM
It seems a lot of people have the same sort of method as me. I draw up a map and slam it down in fornt of the group and say go at it. We usually have a lot of travelling and I don't have a story for about two or three sessions when they finally stumble upon a plot hook they want to run with. Until then I just improvise and let them explore.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-05-29, 07:53 AM
My crew and I think Yu-Gi-Oh is the most unintentionally funny show ever. We especially love how the card game they play pretty much defies any possible explanation. The "card game" my brother plays in these D&D sequences is an homage to this, in that they're more problem solving scenarios. I tell him what cards he draws and don't bother giving him an explanation- I tell him what the picture looks like, and that there's no text anywhere. He takes wild guesses and hopes for the best.

Lord_Kimboat
2007-05-29, 08:11 AM
Improv can be good if the DM is good at improvisation. Unfortunately one DM I know every game is an improv and that gets dull pretty fast - there's no long story arcs, few recurring villains and no great plans.

One thing that I think some people are missing though is that if things get bad, the PCs should be allowed to leave the dungeon! Retreat is a perfectly good strategy when faces with an unfavorable situation. I feel, that if PCs win ever battle they stop having fun as everything becomes, "what are we going to kill this week?" If they die, they tend to complain and generally aren't having fun either (actually I've had some good games where my character died). The perfect way to get the balance right is if they are forced to retreat every so often.

So if things go bad, let the PCs retreat - of course you can have the enemies pursue them and make it tough. But once they get away, let them regroup. If you have to let them know that you don't have anything prepared after this, most players will be understanding (and happy their character is alive) or you can improv something.

Diggorian
2007-05-29, 09:01 PM
When I improvise, most of the time, I just think what would be cool or especially F'ed up to see in movie or read in a story.

The fleeing rogue expects a storm, with lightning, but does he expect a crazed air elemental up there?

It can be as simple as answering: "What could live here?" and then "How would it react to the PC's?" or "What sort of interesting or dangerous thing could they run into here?"

Toss something small infront of the PC's and they may speculate up an adventure.

dyslexicfaser
2007-05-29, 09:48 PM
And by "expedition to barrier peaks" he REALLY means "rocks fall, everyone dies."