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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Daemon

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    Default Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    I run multiple games (of D&D 5e, but that's not really relevant here) simultaneously in the same homebrew setting. These games are fixed-length--since they're part of a high school club, they last for a school year and then new groups come the next year (although some players carry over).

    This year, I've decided to start all the groups in the same location but in different branches of the same timeline (that is, it's the same timeline but the set of people who start are different in each). My thought is to present them with a selection of campaign seeds in different locations around the play area. Once they've chosen a seed, play follows that general theme (known antagonist with a particular scheme that progresses unless the party gets involved). It's sort-of a sandbox--I don't choose how they approach things, but they were hired to do a job and their bosses are going to get irritated if they don't at least work on it.

    Here's the thing, though. What do I do with the seeds that weren't chosen? I'd like to preserve the parts of the world that aren't touched by the players. Being given a choice and then being told "sorry suckers, you chose wrong and so the world as you knew it came to an end because you chose to go left instead of right, even though you had no way of knowing" just doesn't seem much fun. I fully expect the players to change things wherever they go--the world has already been shaped by previous years' adventures.

    My thought is to have the unchosen paths be red herrings or minor problems that are solved by others. That orcish horde--someone else assassinated the key figure and it devolved into in-fighting while you were off dealing with the dragon-druid. That dragon-obsessed druid? He got eaten by the mother of one of the wyrmlings he kidnapped while you were fighting the orcs. Different groups would see different parts as "actually a threat"--one group might deal with the orcs and leave the druid to get eaten while the other might take the druid and leave the orcs alone (or any of the 3-4 other seeds).

    Would you consider that a problem if it were you at the table? If so, why? What else should I do?
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  2. - Top - End - #2
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Or maybe the low level parties don't really solve end-of-world problems? So some problems are left untouched, and that will escalate into more serious problems in time, but that's not end of the world.

    For example, a young dragon (the kind of dragon suitable for a low-level party, that is) invades a village and demands the villagers to pay tributes consisting of lots of treasure and a virgin every year. Somehow no adventurer went to that villager this year... Tough luck for the villagers, they have to pay the tribute. And maybe that caused some of them flee to other villages, or caused an internal feud about whose daughter to sacrifice. But the village as a whole still survives, just still in dire need of help. And the dragon, having established his control over this village, might turn its attention to somewhere else...
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    Barbarian in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    I run multiple games (of D&D 5e, but that's not really relevant here) simultaneously in the same homebrew setting. These games are fixed-length--since they're part of a high school club, they last for a school year and then new groups come the next year (although some players carry over).

    This year, I've decided to start all the groups in the same location but in different branches of the same timeline
    Is it a single world/timeline (so a kind of split party) or is each groups another's might have been (parallel worlds)?

    Particularly in the parallel worlds case:
    I think if it were actually red-herrings (and the actual paths chosen never were) then that would be a quantum ogre, and when the groups talk it will show.
    If all are too easily resolved, then it would leave the question of why were the PC's involved in the first place (and again it will show).

    I'd have some resolved happily, some resolved unhappily, some partially resolved but they get to finish the job as a side quest, some where the problem has grown (maybe needing to be solved by next years group). Shifting things by a category if needed to balance (so you don't get the you chose wrongly, you lose, effect), but not neglecting the teams efforts.

    In the single world case:
    It's probably much the same, but at least they won't find out so easily.
    You can also look at things statistically a bit more. (and probably get some interesting effects by getting the groups to interact at distances-if they hear of another group going in the same direction, they might decide to resolve a different nearby hook.)
    Last edited by jayem; 2017-09-17 at 12:38 PM.

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    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Flumph

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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    It's only a quantum ogre if you decided it was going to be an ogre in advance.

    If you have an adventure prepped for each group and no matter which way they go they get the adventure you prepped for them, it's a quantum ogre.

    Not that that's necessarily bad, if you change enough of the fine details that the adventure feels like it fits in the place they decided to go and it suits the sort of gameplay that group wants, it's fine to have quantum ogres. Remember your job as GM is to provide stuff to do, so wherever your players go they should encounter some stuff.

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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    My thought is to have the unchosen paths be red herrings or minor problems that are solved by others. That orcish horde--someone else assassinated the key figure and it devolved into in-fighting while you were off dealing with the dragon-druid. That dragon-obsessed druid? He got eaten by the mother of one of the wyrmlings he kidnapped while you were fighting the orcs. Different groups would see different parts as "actually a threat"--one group might deal with the orcs and leave the druid to get eaten while the other might take the druid and leave the orcs alone (or any of the 3-4 other seeds).
    That seems like a pretty decent approach-- it helps preserve the idea of a living world. I think the key should be that the resolution to events they weren't involved with is always mixed-- Party A fights orcs and stops the war with a glorious victory that leaves the human cities unified, while Party B ignored the orcs and saw the human cities eek out a hard-won victory that leaves the region weakened and destabilized for years. That way, if different groups compare notes that can all feel like heroes.
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  6. - Top - End - #6
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Daemon

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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Quote Originally Posted by jayem View Post
    Is it a single world/timeline (so a kind of split party) or is each groups another's might have been (parallel worlds)?

    Particularly in the parallel worlds case:
    I think if it were actually red-herrings (and the actual paths chosen never were) then that would be a quantum ogre, and when the groups talk it will show.
    If all are too easily resolved, then it would leave the question of why were the PC's involved in the first place (and again it will show).

    I'd have some resolved happily, some resolved unhappily, some partially resolved but they get to finish the job as a side quest, some where the problem has grown (maybe needing to be solved by next years group). Shifting things by a category if needed to balance (so you don't get the you chose wrongly, you lose, effect), but not neglecting the teams efforts.

    In the single world case:
    It's probably much the same, but at least they won't find out so easily.
    You can also look at things statistically a bit more. (and probably get some interesting effects by getting the groups to interact at distances-if they hear of another group going in the same direction, they might decide to resolve a different nearby hook.)
    It's decidedly parallel--there is only one "graduating class" in each universe. Each group is in their own bubble. At the end of the year I take elements from both to make a canonical timeline that continues (sometimes with a small time-skip, sometimes not) to the next set of groups.

    There are other teams of adventurers, and my problem with the "you didn't resolve it, so it didn't get resolved" is that it makes the PCs look like the only competent ones out there. Especially at the low end of the power spectrum, most things should get resolved one way or another whether by the PCs or not.

    I prefer that substantial changes to the world happen because of what the PCs attempt (succeed or failure), not because of what they couldn't do (due to being in one place at a time). None of these quest seeds are catastrophic to the world as a whole (been there, did that a few years ago), but they'd involve large enough changes to the world that I'd have to reconfigure quite a few things if they went completely unhindered. The loss of a major city to the orcs, the growth of a devil-worshiping slaver state, etc. The dragon-druid is actually the least worry-some for now--he's going to need decades to perfect his stuff. His effect is almost entirely a side-effect of the failed creations he's pumping out.

    I think I'll do something like the bolded area. When I make the canonical timeline I'll resolve the ones that no-one touched in a mix of ways, and combine the effects of the PCs' actions where I can (where they don't conflict).

    This will be the 3rd year I've done this:
    1. The first year they were both in the same timeline. I knew I was changing editions (from 4th to 5th) the next year, and so I set up a cataclysm scenario--the player choices set how the world would change, not the fact of an "end of the world event". One group handled that directly while the other set up organizations to preserve people through the cataclysm. 200 year time skip after this one.
    2. The second year, I had 3 groups. One group (the adults) ended up discovering a bunch of other regions and creating a UN-like body. Theirs is the closest to the canonical timeline, but I incorporated selected organizations founded by the other two groups' players and some of the discoveries they made. There's still one out-standing quest, but it's contained, for now. 5 year time skip.
    3. This is the third year. I'll have two groups. The adults are continuing on their own timeline (non-canonical due to the high risk of "oops, there goes the universe" implicit in this arc).


    I'm pretty open about things with the players after the fact. I might just straight up tell them that whichever path they take, they'll have an effect. The other paths will probably get resolved, but not necessarily in the same way.
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  7. - Top - End - #7
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Daemon

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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    It's only a quantum ogre if you decided it was going to be an ogre in advance.

    If you have an adventure prepped for each group and no matter which way they go they get the adventure you prepped for them, it's a quantum ogre.


    Not that that's necessarily bad, if you change enough of the fine details that the adventure feels like it fits in the place they decided to go and it suits the sort of gameplay that group wants, it's fine to have quantum ogres. Remember your job as GM is to provide stuff to do, so wherever your players go they should encounter some stuff.
    Here, there's a bunch of different paths, and whichever path they take they'll get that path's adventure. It's more a question of what happens to the adventures of the paths they didn't take. I don't like the idea of things only happening around where the characters are, but I also don't want to have to rebuild the world each year because they could only handle 1 of 5 different adventures.
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    Firbolg in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Here, there's a bunch of different paths, and whichever path they take they'll get that path's adventure. It's more a question of what happens to the adventures of the paths they didn't take. I don't like the idea of things only happening around where the characters are, but I also don't want to have to rebuild the world each year because they could only handle 1 of 5 different adventures.
    They turned out not to be that big a deal, that band of rampaging orcs was actually about four but they were very drunk and quite loud.

    As your parties becomes higher level the kinds of crisis they should be dealing with should be appropriately more severe, to the point that it isn't reasonable to have them resolved offscreen any more, and any world that needs that many high level adventurers to deal with its problems is doomed and you should plane shift out of there to a calmer reality as soon as you can.

    Rather than "adventures you didn't do", fill the world with other changes that are either above the pay grade or beneath the notice of whatever level your party is. It still gives the impression that it's a world where things happen, but not one that is in constant level appropriate peril, and you also get to use some of the things later on when the players are high enough level for them to be involved.

  9. - Top - End - #9
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Well this doesn't seem to have anything to do with Quantum Ogre. ("Quantum Ogre" is a misnomer anyway. "Inevitable Ogre" would be more descriptive of the actual issue.)

    You're essentially asking "what happens in those parts of the world that the players don't visit?" And that's always a good question.

    My suggestion would be: come up with a timeline of events which will happen if no player characters interfere. Say there is an orc horde. If nothing is done to orc horde, they will ransack City X on Imperial Year 201. If nothing is still done, they will continue to City Y and siege it untill Imperial Year 203. Then, if still nothing interferes, they will give up and return to their homes in the mountains. Last remnants of the orc horde will be gone by Imperial Year 204.

    Your prime source of angst seems to come from the idea that parts of the setting will be, somehow, ruined if players don't interfere. The solution to that is twofold:

    1) don't device adventure seeds which would ruin your setting if left alone. Seriously, not everything needs to be of existential importance.
    2) don't get too invested in any particular era or status quo. Rather, build your setting so that how things turn out without the PCs is a default your comfortable with it. City X being ransacked at 201, City Y being sieged till 203 and orcs vanishing after 205 are the "normal" course of history for you. Rinse and repeat for every adventure seed.

    Generally speaking, avoiding overt investment is also helpful for when your players eventually screw up or do something unexpected with the adventure seeds they did choose.

    Also, nothing anywhere requires the PCs to be only competents around. So you can have heroes who are not the PCs take care of an adventure the PCs opt to ignore, and the PCs may learn who those people are later down the line if they get interested. PCs are viewpoint characters and protagonists of their own stories, nothivg requires they be such for a whole damn world.
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  10. - Top - End - #10
    Halfling in the Playground
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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Would you consider that a problem if it were you at the table? If so, why?
    I would not consider this a problem, as long as it is kept to a good amount.
    + i like small sidequests
    + and big side quests
    + cool main quests
    + in a living world
    + can't/won't do all of them
    + hearing about a problem i didn't solve disappearing in a good way is nice

    - too many "save x XOR save y" decisions are stupid
    - quest disappearance reasons might get repetitive / stupid
    - not every tavern needs to spawn three quests. Sometimes there should be none
    - it is not nice to throw 200 save the children quests and "you should save the world" at LG characters.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    What else should I do?
    Incremental quests:
    - Find X (in ruin with another Hint)
    - Deliver X (quest done)
    - Reaserch Hint, get location or contact
    - go there, get more information about M
    This increases player involvment.
    If they did not pick up Hint or didn't reasearch it for M, or ignored M, but you want them to care about M:
    Drop another hint while they do Y ("alternative plot hook", "quantum plot"). This should be kept for things that realy should be dealt with. If X or Y are ignored nothing bad happens. (Bad includes not finding M)


    Slow buildup background plots:
    Rumor of a hunter hearing drums in the eastern mountains
    Farmers say there might be an orc raid coming
    Few Soldiers are mobilised, a scouting quest is activly offered
    .. later
    Medium mobilisation: it is true the orcs are moving closer in force. A defense quest is activly offered
    Orcs raid, kill and plunder but are ultimatly driven back to the mountains

    The orc raid story arc is not something you can not notice. But players can choose to ignore it. If they pick up one of the two quests they have a chance to prevent or mitigate the raid.

    Such an arc allows small extensions, even if the players do not deal with it directly:
    - The players can motivate others to join the Defense of VillageNameHere ("a word with the guilds", "sending a criminal to the wall")
    - The players can divert ressources to their own course, weakening the defence ("stealing the soldiers payment", "my political enemy is the bigger problem").

    The orc raid is a background plot. It happens, it is not a big problem if no interaction occurs, it offers a lot of options to interact with it, including "stopping the raid early", but that should need real heroes and quick action, as it stops everyone else from participating. Only if the players activly work to make the orcs more of a problem it turns into the Massacre of VillageNameHere and they move deeper inland. In general the player characters get a benefit from interaction, but sometimes what they do is bad out of sheer stupidity.

    Normally players do not ignore plots completly, unless they have an important quest. Typically at least one or two pick up a B-plot and interact with it. Unless they scout themself they can not know if the defense will hold. I like to mindgame them a bit by providing NPCs that leave the strong impression that they wont, like a veteran soldier who looks like he has not seen combat or training in a long time beeing a bit too sure that the orcs are no threat. Or a doomsayer terrifying people in the marketplace.

    The beauty of such a plot is, that it can run in the background, can be taken up as a main quest, resolves if ignored, mostly provides benefit if interacted with, it is large enough to be noticeable in advance in a larger region, provides multi-group options, as one group might decide to join the battle while another one steals a wagon full of ressources for the front line.
    As long as none of the groups do something the other ones can not ignore (but have ignored, as they are ahead in the timeline), no problem is created. Of course the good option is to do something about the orcs, and most likely some of the players will care enough to influence the story.

    I played on an integrated (single-world/timeline) multi-group table, but the framework was large enough (we had a place and time of birth and adventure but also a multiverse to explore). Young groups started with their own home region in what other groups consider the past. Once new players leave their starting area they can find weird things left behind by other adventurers, hear stories about them, pick up leftover quests and find new ones. In general a crossing of timestreams was avoidable simply by following different quests in different regions at different times. Older groups sooner or later discovered a problem so big, it could not be ignored. One of the oldest groups took the scouting quest, in the futures past, and they found out the quantum invaders are coming for this world. The knowledge about it was then spread backwards in time and other groups started planning how to deal with it.

    Running a table completly parallel in time sounds interesting, but complicated.
    The trick is to not have everything have terrible consequences, so the quest can carry over to the next year.
    A problem is the syncing period. The players can reasonably argue that they would deal with it instead of sitting around for month. If you minimise these syncing times you may not need to clear the unresolved druid quest from the map. But even then: why? Dragons and Druids both take a lot of time, just let this arc move so slowly nothing extremly bad happens in the next decade. Beeing overrun from all sides is a problem created by scouting all sides and finding out that attacks are coming from everywhere. You have a problem if multiple groups aim to "save the world" with multiple completly different quest lines. You have a real problem if your world goes down unless all of them win.

    If you want to run a "world changing quest line" in a parallel setting make sure you only have one and it is large enough that different groups can approach it from different directions in their own time and not all missions need to be successes for the war to be won.

  11. - Top - End - #11
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    Daemon

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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lo'Tek View Post
    I would not consider this a problem, as long as it is kept to a good amount.
    + i like small sidequests
    + and big side quests
    + cool main quests
    + in a living world
    + can't/won't do all of them
    + hearing about a problem i didn't solve disappearing in a good way is nice

    - too many "save x XOR save y" decisions are stupid
    - quest disappearance reasons might get repetitive / stupid
    - not every tavern needs to spawn three quests. Sometimes there should be none
    - it is not nice to throw 200 save the children quests and "you should save the world" at LG characters.


    Incremental quests:
    - Find X (in ruin with another Hint)
    - Deliver X (quest done)
    - Reaserch Hint, get location or contact
    - go there, get more information about M
    This increases player involvment.
    If they did not pick up Hint or didn't reasearch it for M, or ignored M, but you want them to care about M:
    Drop another hint while they do Y ("alternative plot hook", "quantum plot"). This should be kept for things that realy should be dealt with. If X or Y are ignored nothing bad happens. (Bad includes not finding M)


    Slow buildup background plots:
    Rumor of a hunter hearing drums in the eastern mountains
    Farmers say there might be an orc raid coming
    Few Soldiers are mobilised, a scouting quest is activly offered
    .. later
    Medium mobilisation: it is true the orcs are moving closer in force. A defense quest is activly offered
    Orcs raid, kill and plunder but are ultimatly driven back to the mountains

    The orc raid story arc is not something you can not notice. But players can choose to ignore it. If they pick up one of the two quests they have a chance to prevent or mitigate the raid.

    Such an arc allows small extensions, even if the players do not deal with it directly:
    - The players can motivate others to join the Defense of VillageNameHere ("a word with the guilds", "sending a criminal to the wall")
    - The players can divert ressources to their own course, weakening the defence ("stealing the soldiers payment", "my political enemy is the bigger problem").

    The orc raid is a background plot. It happens, it is not a big problem if no interaction occurs, it offers a lot of options to interact with it, including "stopping the raid early", but that should need real heroes and quick action, as it stops everyone else from participating. Only if the players activly work to make the orcs more of a problem it turns into the Massacre of VillageNameHere and they move deeper inland. In general the player characters get a benefit from interaction, but sometimes what they do is bad out of sheer stupidity.

    Normally players do not ignore plots completly, unless they have an important quest. Typically at least one or two pick up a B-plot and interact with it. Unless they scout themself they can not know if the defense will hold. I like to mindgame them a bit by providing NPCs that leave the strong impression that they wont, like a veteran soldier who looks like he has not seen combat or training in a long time beeing a bit too sure that the orcs are no threat. Or a doomsayer terrifying people in the marketplace.

    The beauty of such a plot is, that it can run in the background, can be taken up as a main quest, resolves if ignored, mostly provides benefit if interacted with, it is large enough to be noticeable in advance in a larger region, provides multi-group options, as one group might decide to join the battle while another one steals a wagon full of ressources for the front line.
    As long as none of the groups do something the other ones can not ignore (but have ignored, as they are ahead in the timeline), no problem is created. Of course the good option is to do something about the orcs, and most likely some of the players will care enough to influence the story.

    I played on an integrated (single-world/timeline) multi-group table, but the framework was large enough (we had a place and time of birth and adventure but also a multiverse to explore). Young groups started with their own home region in what other groups consider the past. Once new players leave their starting area they can find weird things left behind by other adventurers, hear stories about them, pick up leftover quests and find new ones. In general a crossing of timestreams was avoidable simply by following different quests in different regions at different times. Older groups sooner or later discovered a problem so big, it could not be ignored. One of the oldest groups took the scouting quest, in the futures past, and they found out the quantum invaders are coming for this world. The knowledge about it was then spread backwards in time and other groups started planning how to deal with it.

    Running a table completly parallel in time sounds interesting, but complicated.
    The trick is to not have everything have terrible consequences, so the quest can carry over to the next year.
    A problem is the syncing period. The players can reasonably argue that they would deal with it instead of sitting around for month. If you minimise these syncing times you may not need to clear the unresolved druid quest from the map. But even then: why? Dragons and Druids both take a lot of time, just let this arc move so slowly nothing extremly bad happens in the next decade. Beeing overrun from all sides is a problem created by scouting all sides and finding out that attacks are coming from everywhere. You have a problem if multiple groups aim to "save the world" with multiple completly different quest lines. You have a real problem if your world goes down unless all of them win.

    If you want to run a "world changing quest line" in a parallel setting make sure you only have one and it is large enough that different groups can approach it from different directions in their own time and not all missions need to be successes for the war to be won.


    I think what is missed here is that these aren't quest seeds (for one of several during a campaign) but campaign seeds--they are all long-term goals that are expected to last the whole year. From the perspective of the players, they're the only group (so no formal communication/interaction between groups). If two groups choose the same seed, then they'll each have a fresh start and can approach it (and the intermediate quests/side quests/etc in their own way. None of them are "save the (whole) world" size, just a chunk of the play-scape. I do want success or failure to be noticeable for the setting (since I've found my players like leaving a mark). Syncing the groups only happens at the end of the year (and no group carries over directly from year to year by default).

    Does this change things? I have plenty of intermediate steps--for example, the dragon-obsessed druid (whose end goal is to use an ancient lab to create an army of dragon-hybrids loyal to him) is putting out failed creations that are pushing local tribes south into civilized lands. The party starts out with the goal "find out why these savages are coming south in such large numbers" and along the way are other (related or not) goals.

    Another seed might be helping a historical society investigate the ruins of an ancient city. They'll have to work either with a fanatic group or with the local orc tribes (or fight both...), investigate pieces of the city, and deal with a growing undead menace.
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  12. - Top - End - #12
    Halfling in the Playground
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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Does this change things?
    Not at all.

    You should not have multiple plots/campaigns/quests avtive on the map at the same time that have terrible consequences if ignored.
    The idea with "intermediate steps" is that the danger that happens if the quest is completely ignored increases as the likelihood of the quest being ignored decreases. After doing intermediate quests and getting more and more details about the later parts of the campaign, the players will likely make it their main quest. Especially once they reached the point where it becomes clear that failure has dire consequences.

    Basically: at the start of the year there is not a single campaign or "hidden plot" active on the map, only quests and background plots
    Each background plot offers quests.
    Each quest can either stay indefinitly or resolve on its own in a way that is consistent with itself.
    Each background plot as a whole must resolve on its own in a way that is consistent with itself.
    Some quests leave a "hint" to a "hidden plot" when resolved by the players. Often "following the hint" is a new quest.
    Not following such a hint is resolvable without player interaction by having nothing happen -> the hidden plot is not activated on the map.
    If the players follow such a hint, a new plot appears, it is thematically related and has worse consequences, they will call it a campaign.
    Some campaigns can increase in danger up to "defeat the world eating uber-demogorgon", but most end earlier with a reward and an epilogue.

    Now there are two kinds of plots:
    Those that can not be overlooked because they are actively happening around the group.
    Those that can be overlooked by not finding or not following a hint.

    The orc raid can be set up as one of both using "quantum mechanics":
    - The orcs are coming, no matter if the players do the scouting or not. (in this case the scouting quest is optional)
    - If the group does not take the scouting quest, the orcs never gathered and are not invading. (scouting is mandatory)

    Working with the second way is far easier when it comes to "clearing the map", because you do not need major destruction or an deus ex machina. The players didn't scout. They hear no news. Nothing is happening. After some time a PC is wondering about this. It takes some time to find someone who was involved with the NPCs that did the scouting ("following a hint"): "yeah i have seen them leave. Never came back. Those fools." (new quest: find the missing scouting party)
    This allows the group to pick up the campaign exactly where they left it. It follows the "nothing is happening until the players interact with it" mentality. Think of a turn based game: if the players do not end their turn, the orcs do not start their turn.

    Working with the first way is necessary to built a "living world". Things ARE happening, even if we do not interact with them. We expect this. So there should be active visible background plots. However unless you are very clear that you want the group to take such a "background plot" as their main quest, there is a good chance they will not do it, or even make it worse (--> "stealing the soldiers payments"), because it is just stuff happening in the background after all.

    Players are different. Some will take the first quest they see. Some want to choose after taking first steps in multiple plots. Some want to become the hero of the background plot (those give high prestige after all), some would rather investigate an old ruin, discovering hidden treasures and old secrets, while the background army deals with the background orcs.

    This is why active background plots should not result in dire consequences if ignored.
    Leave such effects exclusively to what the players have picked up as their main quest (campaign) and are invested into.

    The alternatives are
    - creating a new setting every now and then
    - preventing dire consequences with a deus ex machina. (<-- this is the one you are asking about)
    - not let plots that are not main quests have dire consequences.

    The first one removes persistence (i like persistence).
    The second one can easily ruin a good story. (This is your problem: druid gets eaten just sounds so cheap)

    Now a "background plot" like the inevitable orc raid may look like it has dire consequences when the PCs do not interact with it, and the military winning and driving the orcs back (only loosing one village) looks a bit like a "deus ex machina". But it is not: "loosing one village" was never a dire consequence, and the military actually managing to do their job is not unexpected. It is all a matter of setup.

    The thing with "quantum scouting" and "intermediate steps" is that it so much easier to set up things to resolve without player interaction or deus ex machina.
    The "investigate the ruins of an ancient city" quest as a start for an "undead menace" plot is a good example: There is no reason to have an undead menace that threatens the land on the map, until someone investigated the ancient city. If the PCs do not do this quest, the "hidden plot" just goes on the "unused ideas" pile and can be reused sometimes else. Nothing happens.
    -> It is not a background plot.
    -> You do not need an explanation why the undeads didn't kill everyone

    "Savages are coming south in large numbers" is a background plot. It is not something that can simply be ignored. And "a dragon eats a druid and that is why they stopped" is a horrible deus ex machina. You are viewing it from the DM perspective where you have perfect knowledge of causation in your plots. View it from the players perspective:
    - Someone asks them to investigate
    - They do not
    Their expectation is not "the savages stop" but "they keep coming and no one knows why".

    And that might be a big problem with dire consequences, because you added "in large numbers".
    The region could deal with some savages, the plot could stay on the map in the next year, becoming a bigger problem, making it more visible that you want the players to investigate and solve it (slow buildup). If the campaign is ignored twice the savages suddenly stop coming. Now that is a (rule of three) twist: everyone expected more, but no one arrived from the north in two month. Which is kind of troubling in its own way. Someone should really investigate what is happening in the north.
    --> reducing the consequences to the point where they are not dire allows you to keep and variate this background plot. There is no need to clear it at all at the end of a year.

    And now you may say: yeah but what about the druid?
    To which i can only answer: "Which druid?"
    Why is there even a NPC actively and continuously spawning more monsters on the map, if no group has any knowledge about it?
    If you have intermediate steps the druid is not active and does not create more monsters.
    There is no reason to have the druid be killed by a dragon ex machina if the druid was never observed (quantum druid). Solving the root cause behind multiple layers of hidden plots is stupid. You need to resolve the plots your players can actually see in a way that makes sense to them without knowing the later part of a campaign they did not take.
    There is no need for a "hidden self driving background plot spawning monsters on a timetable where the players can not see them". Such things are in general a bad idea. Stop adding them to your map: they do not work.

    If no one ever went north, no one can ask you what happend to the druid. You do not need to have an explanation ready, because every question about it can be answered with "Which druid?".
    If they went to the first best savage they could find and got told "dragon druid, creating aberrations, creating an army, planning world domination" you do not have steps: you jumped from "find some information" directly to "defeat uber-demogorgon or he eats the world".

    So my tip for "What else should I do?" pretty much boils down to:
    Do not give up information about quests in later stages of a campaign before a group reaches these stages.
    Simply because large problems no one knows about can very easily be resolved by not adding them to the canon in the first place. If no one investigates the north, the story is not about the north and does not take place in the north. Why is it important that there is an NPC in the north doing stuff?

    If you are asking us how you can add stories about NPC you wrote but never brought into play to a story that should be focused on PCs and written by playing through it, then the answer is: don't. You are not writing a book, focus on what is important for the table.

    Let the orcs come west, let the savages come south and deal with that in your story, if the players interact with it or not, simply because they know it is happening. These are the background plots you placed at the start and need to be resolved.
    Keep the druid a hidden plot until someone does the necessary steps. If no one does: remove the druid completely and add it to the "unused ideas" pile.
    Deal with the savages in a consistent way, completely ignoring the scraped idea: "They stopped coming and no one knows why, and somehow that sounds even worse" is not only a consistent way, it gives minimal information about the hidden plot and may allow you to take the druid right off the discard pile again, dust it off, adapt and reuse it.
    No one will ever ask why it took the druid three years to create just a few dozen aberrations. The more likely reaction is "you are telling me this 20 foot long monster breathing fire is a small child?"

    But now you may say that is wrong, the druid is there and is a (hidden) background plot, and has an own agenda and is progressing.
    So what? There is no need to add an undiscovered hidden background plot to canon. There is no need to have it evolve while unobserved and there is no need to write it out of the canon. The "unused ideas" pile is a far better place for unused hidden background plots. If the players want to know what exactly happens in the north, they should investigated. By not revealing the hidden plot you also keep the option to run something completly different there.

    The real problem with shared worlds are the plots someone scouted out, then abandoned or failed, but out of game told your other groups about, so the players now know about the druid, how far the experiments are, and are invested in knowing what happend, but no group has done anything about it, yet they push this issue by inquiring about it out of game. Again the best way is to not give any more information except what the players just revealed. Bonus points: take note what your players told you, and what they think happens next (cooperative story telling). Unless you want to retcon it completely, in which case you can tell them freely what your original plan was and why you removed it from canon, giving them both the answers they wanted, and the knowledge that they have no in game benefit from this out of game discussion. They may even come up with a better idea than you, one so good, it becomes canon. Happens all the time, integrating those ideas is a great way to let players leave a mark while not playing in the same way a DM does: writing background.

  13. - Top - End - #13
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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    The classical ogre is the one that pops up against the heroes no matter where they go, plotted beforehand by DM as the inevitable main quest. Your ogre fails if left unseen but rises up to become a major threat if observed by players. This is totally quantum.
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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    My thought is to have the unchosen paths be red herrings or minor problems that are solved by others. That orcish horde--someone else assassinated the key figure and it devolved into in-fighting while you were off dealing with the dragon-druid. That dragon-obsessed druid? He got eaten by the mother of one of the wyrmlings he kidnapped while you were fighting the orcs. Different groups would see different parts as "actually a threat"--one group might deal with the orcs and leave the druid to get eaten while the other might take the druid and leave the orcs alone (or any of the 3-4 other seeds).

    Would you consider that a problem if it were you at the table? If so, why? What else should I do?
    I'm fine with this in principle (and do something rather similar with my group - they're not the only people doing things, after all), but a lot of your examples seem too clean. They neatly tie up the adventure, and don't really feel like there was ever a meaningful choice ("Whatever we do, things'll work out if we don't screw up our end!".

    So... muddy the water a bit. Fine, the dragon-druid's plans for world domination were curtailed when a maternally outraged dragon ate him - but she also eats all the local druids, assuming they were in on it or just being indiscriminate, and maybe torches a few villages just to show how annoyed she is. Or maybe she leveled a town or two trying to find the druid in the first place.

    Ignored the orc-horde? Okay. Well, some schlub NPCs went and assassinated the leader - but they left it a bit too late. The horde's fractured, but it did a lot of damage before it did - and it's already in non-orc lands, so while there isn't a massive army any more, there are dozens of smaller warbands going on a pillaging spree. The local lords can stop them, but it's going to be messy and costly and a lot of people will die.


    This isn't meant to be "you're screwed no matter what you choose", but having consequences makes those choices more meaningful and more memorable. If you don't want to spoil the missed campaigns (possibly in the hopes of running an edited version of them later), then don't announce all the details. Don't tell them the evil druid got eaten, tell them that since a dragon came and burned down the nearby forest that the abominations have stopped coming.
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  15. - Top - End - #15
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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Quote Originally Posted by Aneurin View Post
    I'm fine with this in principle (and do something rather similar with my group - they're not the only people doing things, after all), but a lot of your examples seem too clean. They neatly tie up the adventure, and don't really feel like there was ever a meaningful choice ("Whatever we do, things'll work out if we don't screw up our end!".

    So... muddy the water a bit. Fine, the dragon-druid's plans for world domination were curtailed when a maternally outraged dragon ate him - but she also eats all the local druids, assuming they were in on it or just being indiscriminate, and maybe torches a few villages just to show how annoyed she is. Or maybe she leveled a town or two trying to find the druid in the first place.

    Ignored the orc-horde? Okay. Well, some schlub NPCs went and assassinated the leader - but they left it a bit too late. The horde's fractured, but it did a lot of damage before it did - and it's already in non-orc lands, so while there isn't a massive army any more, there are dozens of smaller warbands going on a pillaging spree. The local lords can stop them, but it's going to be messy and costly and a lot of people will die.


    This isn't meant to be "you're screwed no matter what you choose", but having consequences makes those choices more meaningful and more memorable. If you don't want to spoil the missed campaigns (possibly in the hopes of running an edited version of them later), then don't announce all the details. Don't tell them the evil druid got eaten, tell them that since a dragon came and burned down the nearby forest that the abominations have stopped coming.
    Those are good ideas. I think (due to the nature of the groups) that I'm going to pitch it mostly as a meta "which of these ideas sound like the most fun" thing to the players, with only one plot actually happening in each time-line. When I merge the timelines, all the observed plots will have happened and will be merged together into a canon timeline. I may mention at most "oh, there was an orcish threat--the people are suffering although it was repelled" or "a dragon made a mess and so the tribes aren't coming south any more" in the other time-lines, but I'll leave the wrap-up (and the plots that they wrap up) pretty vague.

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    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Two thoughts (and I'll confess to not having read the full thread in detail):

    1) Re-using unused prep isn't quantum-ogreing. Quantum-ogreing is ensuring that the party will go to the one thing you've prepped, regardless of which way they go.

    2) Dungeon World has this idea of Fronts. A number of things going bad at once. The one you focus on will tend to get fixed, while the others get worse. In other words, the initial seed doesn't become the world-threatener, because it gets resolved. Meanwhile, the other things get worse and become larger threats, which the party then has to deal with.
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  17. - Top - End - #17
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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoruy
    1) Re-using unused prep isn't quantum-ogreing. Quantum-ogreing is ensuring that the party will go to the one thing you've prepped, regardless of which way they go.
    I repeat the sentiment that "the Inevitable Ogre" would be more descriptive name to this phenomenom.

    Anyways, as a general advice to the OP, you can reduce elements of preplanning by adding element of randomization for the unexplored campaign seeds. It can be begin with something as simple as rolling a d10 for each seed that's not picked, with 1 meaning the situation will resolve happily in absence of the players, and 10 meaning total disaster.

    Example: again the orc horde is advancing from the mountain to ransack cities X and Y. 1 means a sudden storm makes the orcs turn back before they reach either (the player characters may notice or hear about extraordinary weather even if they are far removed). 5 means the situation grows dire, but not enough to reach the player characters. See above for the example where orcs ransack X and then give up after sieging Y. 10 means both X and Y are ransacked and removed from the map - by the time players are approaching the end of the seed they did pick, they will receive news of this destruction.
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  18. - Top - End - #18
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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    I repeat the sentiment that "the Inevitable Ogre" would be more descriptive name to this phenomenom.

    Anyways, as a general advice to the OP, you can reduce elements of preplanning by adding element of randomization for the unexplored campaign seeds. It can be begin with something as simple as rolling a d10 for each seed that's not picked, with 1 meaning the situation will resolve happily in absence of the players, and 10 meaning total disaster.

    Example: again the orc horde is advancing from the mountain to ransack cities X and Y. 1 means a sudden storm makes the orcs turn back before they reach either (the player characters may notice or hear about extraordinary weather even if they are far removed). 5 means the situation grows dire, but not enough to reach the player characters. See above for the example where orcs ransack X and then give up after sieging Y. 10 means both X and Y are ransacked and removed from the map - by the time players are approaching the end of the seed they did pick, they will receive news of this destruction.
    Great idea. I'm also sensitive to the misuse of quantum (in general--my training is as computational quantum chemist, so it makes me cringe when things are described as "quantum"). In this case, the situations were only an actual threat if observed--they existed in a superposition of threat/non-threat. So it kinda fits.
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  19. - Top - End - #19
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    Default Re: Is this Ogre Quantum or Classical?

    My thought without too much stuff:

    Each of these adventure seeds will involve major NPCs, various threats, and the like. My suggestion is that each area that the PCs aren't involved in, the day is saved, but at a much higher cost than it would have been had they been involved, and possibly using resources that are only available because of the PCs. So you can have a mix of:

    *) NPCs that stick around in the stories the PCs are in get briefly name dropped as having died heroically stopping a threat in the other timelines.
    *) Two threats that the PCs didn't face grow, then come up against each other and self-destruct. The area immediately around them is trashed, but there's no greater threat that manifests.
    *) A few nations on the edge get wrecked by threats, but the threats get wrecked in turn. This means there's no help for the PCs from those quarters.
    *) Major NPCs that the PCs save or support go out on their own adventures, and stop those plot threads from developing. If not for the PCs, they wouldn't have.
    *) At least one of the other campaign seeds gets into a shooting war with the threat the PCs are facing, and as it happens, the threat the PCs are facing wins and steals their resources!

    That might cover it. If you've only got, say, seven major campaign seeds, you could have the PCs take on one, a second be destroyed by the main one, the third and fourth destroy each other, the fifth and sixth destroyed at great cost, and the seventh destroyed by people the PCs helped earlier.
    Last edited by Friv; 2017-09-21 at 06:29 PM.

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