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  1. - Top - End - #91
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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Tailor-made or modules? Sandbox or railroad? Neutral or player-friendly?

    My experience is that the best game a DM can create is usually the kind that that particular DM enjoys and understands and relates to.

    And the measures of how good it is will be are none of the above categories. There can be excellent and poor neutral DMs. There can be exellent and poor player-friendly DMs, Excellent and poor railroad quests, excellent and poor sandboxes, etc.

    The true measures of how good the game will be are how good the DM is, how well she communicates with the players, and how well the players can enter into her approach.

  2. - Top - End - #92
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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    What is best for the people around this table?
    Which is why my very first comment was that tailor made for players is not the same thing as tailor made for PCs.

    What's best for highly competitive players that want a serious challenge is often (but not always) knowing the DM won't be adapting any challenges specially to their PCs. In other words, knowing he won't be doing them any special favors. And it's largely on their personal ability as a player to overcome the challenges. Of course, there are other 'whats best' that go hand in hand with those kinds of players, some of which I don't personally like. For example, high levels of mechanical optimization within whatever parameters are being set as limits for the challenges being faced.

    Meanwhile what's best for others players is often something else completely. As demonstrated by PhoenixPhyre and my back and forth. Clearly what's best for him is nothing like that.

    Meanwhile, what's the best campaign theme, or the best kind of encounters to be facing, for of a party with 3 Wizards + Healbot vs one with 3 Fighters + Healbot, is a totally different matter.

  3. - Top - End - #93
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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    Which is why my very first comment was that tailor made for players is not the same thing as tailor made for PCs.

    What's best for highly competitive players that want a serious challenge is often (but not always) knowing the DM won't be adapting any challenges specially to their PCs. In other words, knowing he won't be doing them any special favors. And it's largely on their personal ability as a player to overcome the challenges. Of course, there are other 'whats best' that go hand in hand with those kinds of players, some of which I don't personally like. For example, high levels of mechanical optimization within whatever parameters are being set as limits for the challenges being faced.

    Meanwhile what's best for others players is often something else completely. As demonstrated by PhoenixPhyre and my back and forth. Clearly what's best for him is nothing like that.

    Meanwhile, what's the best campaign theme, or the best kind of encounters to be facing, for of a party with 3 Wizards + Healbot vs one with 3 Fighters + Healbot, is a totally different matter.
    The bold sentences include a huge assumption. They assume that "adapting any challenges specially to their PCs" == "doing them a special favor." As I tried to show, that's not necessarily true. A DM could just as well be actively trying to kill them by creating difficult challenges adapted to counter their strengths and exploit their weaknesses. That, I contend, will just as readily (or more so!) create difficult challenges that require skill and competitive spirit to overcome compared to a neutral/non-tailoring DM.

    An example of this is the original Tomb of Horrors--it was designed specifically to test those PCs. It was designed, as I understand it, to show up specific players that thought they could beat anything the DM could throw at them. It's current idea (a hard meat-grinder) comes secondarily. It was a challenge designed to show them that they live and die at the DM's sufferance. That is, it was tailored against the party.

    If I were the competitive type, I'd want to face the worst that the DM can throw, not the result of modules designed for story-centric play or for dungeon-delving or for other purposes. Video games include "hard modes" where the system actively cheats against you and people, for whatever reason, find that fun. Yes, there are some players who find non-tailored things funner than "tailored" things, but that's not due to the tailoring or lack there of. They don't like the softening type of tailoring. There's a huge difference there.

    Another way of thinking about this is that not tailoring produces a range of difficulties that depend on the party and how/where/when they encounter the challenge in question: d in [0...1]. A properly-tailored campaign results in a consistent value for the difficulty: d in [D-x ... D ... D+x]. What D is (where the median difficulty is) is a DM-set parameter. One DM may set D ~ 1 (maximum difficulty), another may set D ~ 0 ("I don't wanna die mode"). Both of those will be more consistently hard/easy than a non-tailored one because they adjust for what is a free parameter in the non-tailored scenario--the party. x (the width of the distribution) is dependent on DM skill, with a perfectly-tailoring DM getting x ~ 0. Whether that's a good thing or not depends on the individual.

    But yes, tailoring to the players may or may not equal tailoring things to the players. And there is a place for non-tailored, you-get-what-you-find play. I doubt it's the norm, though. I personally find such play annoying. It requires specific personalities to work in my experience, where the other type can adapt to a range of groups more easily. YYMV, tastes differ, and all that.
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  4. - Top - End - #94
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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    WoTC official play is almost never tailored to the PCs. It can't be, since it's open table. It has a huge audience. I don't know the numbers, since I don't work for them, but it must be a significant chunk of the D&D player base.

    And yes it's a huge assumption. "Tailor made" implicitly = DM in your favor. You even argued that directly! DM is a fan of the players (or PCs). If a DM is against you, that's not tailoring for the party, that's an antagonistic DM.

    Antagonistic is impossible to play a game long term. (From everything I've heard, that's exactly what ToH is.) Neutral is the most challenging playable way to play, that's the equivalent of a games 'Hard mode', the game doesn't cheat against you but it doesn't cut you any breaks. And tailor made / customized for your party is the easiest, because the DM is in your favor.

    Exit: Please note "easiest" does not mean "bad". I like any game that provides fun and/or a feeling of accomplishment. Hard play is just one way to do that. There are many more ways. I also recognize that others find fun on ways I don't find fun.

    Also it's also not binary for difficulty, despite what I said above. it's a sliding scale from truly neutral (which I believe we both agreed isn't possible, but that'd be the end point of playable but hardest challenge) to completely jiggering things in favor of players (which we'd probably both find boring).
    Last edited by Tanarii; 2017-10-30 at 08:28 PM.

  5. - Top - End - #95
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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    WoTC official play is almost never tailored to the PCs. It can't be, since it's open table. It has a huge audience. I don't know the numbers, since I don't work for them, but it must be a significant chunk of the D&D player base.

    And yes it's a huge assumption. "Tailor made" implicitly = DM in your favor. You even argued that directly! DM is a fan of the players (or PCs). If a DM is against you, that's not tailoring for the party, that's an antagonistic DM.

    Antagonistic is impossible to play a game long term. (From everything I've heard, that's exactly what ToH is.) Neutral is the most challenging playable way to play, that's the equivalent of a games 'Hard mode', the game doesn't cheat against you but it doesn't cut you any breaks. And tailor made / customized for your party is the easiest, because the DM is in your favor.

    Exit: Please note "easiest" does not mean "bad". I like any game that provides fun and/or a feeling of accomplishment. Hard play is just one way to do that. There are many more ways. I also recognize that others find fun on ways I don't find fun.

    Also it's also not binary for difficulty, despite what I said above. it's a sliding scale from truly neutral (which I believe we both agreed isn't possible, but that'd be the end point of playable but hardest challenge) to completely jiggering things in favor of players (which we'd probably both find boring).
    Antagonistic != tailor-made for maximum challenge. Not in principle at least. Antagonistic (toward players) is bad and breaks down quickly. Antagonistic (toward PCs) isn't. It's just where the DM sets the difficulty at maximum but allows success (a DM can always make success impossible, but that's not fun for anyone except a jerk). Neutral means that some parties will find a given challenge super easy and others will find it nearly impossible. Thus, the variance is high. It's also trivially easy to make an easy "neutral" setting. Set a cap on CR--nothing above CR 1. Of course, that gets boring quickly, but is easy enough to do. Neutral hard (but without constant TPKs) is much much harder because the margin for error nearly vanishes unless you have the perfect party setup and tactics. Since you only get XP for overcoming a challenge...neutral hard means you're stonewalled. Can't improve easily, because you have to run from most challenges. Can't beat the challenges without improving. Tailoring can remove (at least mostly) that variance. That's the only objective point I'm trying to make. The rest is taste.

    I think that part of the disconnect is that we're motivated by completely different things. Challenge doesn't motivate me much, if at all. I don't play games on hard mode. Grinding turns me off a game quicker than just about anything. I need exploration (new experiences, wondrous sights/descriptions, new situations), narrative (emergent story more than anything), and, as DM, I need to see the party enjoying the situations. This means that I have to constantly adjust to the party. If they're getting bored, I'm gonna change things up based on what they like. Giving out items that are useless for anyone (a suit of plate in a party of a warlock, druid, monk, and rogue, for example) is pointless. This plays very poorly with the neutral/pre-made-campaign/module idea. I don't tend to plan things much more than a session ahead and tend to throw out specifics when something more fun/interesting/better fitting occurs to me or to one of the players.

    The 4e DMG had a great description of 8 different motivations. Don't have time to post it now, but I posted a quick run-down of them in the 5e forums (in my murderhobo thread). I think that understanding that goes a long way to understanding when and how to tailor things to players (and possibly to their PCs).
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  6. - Top - End - #96
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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    I think that part of the disconnect is that we're motivated by completely different things.
    pretty sure that's the wisest thing either of us has posted so far.

    The 4e DMG had a great description of 8 different motivations.
    I'm aware of it. It's not bad. The concept that different players (and DMs) are looking for different things is good. The 5e DMg has something similar IIRC.

    I think tailoring the campaign style to your players, or getting players who will be motivated by your campaign style, is pretty critical to having an enjoyable game.

    I was saying that's a very different thing from tailoring for Pcs. But it's obvious to me after this back and forth, doing that or not doing that (and the degree to which it is done) is one component of tailoring the game style to the players / DM involved.

  7. - Top - End - #97
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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Doesn't this go against the whole combat as war thing? I've always heard that the whole point was to avoid (combat) challenges until you can steamroll them due to preparation and tactics. That makes basically all fights either cakewalks or near-TPKs.
    Combat as War is about 1) composition of encounters being based on simulationist realism (as opposed to being based on game balance as it is in the opposed school of thought, Combat as Sport); 2) not fudging the dice. Although I could be mistaken about #2.

    While people avoiding things that they can't steamroll is one logical response to that scenario, it certainly is neither a) inherent to it, nor b) the only possible outcome.

    In Combat as Sport, you are very limited to a very narrow range of acceptable encounter difficulty. In Combat as War, you have absolutely no such limitation, and encounters organically span the entire spectrum of difficulties, with a correspondingly broad range of outcomes. Claiming that CaW encounter difficulty levels / outcomes are somehow confined to certain narrow range(s) is hilariously missing the mark.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Neutrality is an illusion for TTRPGs. It can work for wargames, because they're a) competitive, b) have 2 sides other than the referee, and c) have fixed, externally imposed criteria (maps and objectives) and d) have comprehensive rules. None of those are true in TTRPGs (outside of very unique situations like tournament module runs).

    b) The "referee" is playing one side of the game. That's inherently partial. The judge is a party to the case.
    I've had GMs in tournament run modules that were not neutral. They clearly wanted someone to win / someone to lose. Otoh, I've known plenty of people who could deliver a neutral interpretation of the rules as one of the players. So, in practice, the line for accuracy and neutrality isn't where you are describing it to be.

    That having been said, one would hope that anyone empowered to make a ruling was someone who cares about the game being fun. Thus, I claim that the only people worth empowering to make rulings are those who are not impartial.

    Which seems to largely match much of your ideas about the GM being a fan of the PCs.

    That having been said, I personally still prefer impartial rulings.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    c) The objectives and maps are not fixed (unless you're railroading hard-core). Throwing this one away (rigidly running modules without adaptation to the group) seems to throw away the best part of TTRPGs in favor of a more-limited CRPG style. CRPGs have better writing, better mechanics (because they can do the hard numerical lifting), and better graphics. TTRPGs have freedom. That's abandoned if you only use modules and stick strictly to them.
    Um, no. The best part of the difference between TTRPGs and CRPG is the ability of the human GM to go off script in a TTRPGs. Having a nice, static start condition can be of benefit to both. If the party wants to take Tomb of Horrors and have their skeleton army strip mine the hill, they can do so in a TTRPG. Same static map, same objective, different approach.

    Or, the group can change the objective, and recruit the locals, and/or get rich looting the corpses of dead adventurers who fail the test. All without changing the start conditions.

    And, yes, the GM could change the start conditions if for some reason the module didn't fit their world. Say, for example, it's been established that the PCs have already made the entire world flat, so there can't possibly be an ancient hill left. But having to make square pegs fit in round holes is hardly the best part of TTRPGs.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    That's why I believe that the notion of impartiality is not inherently a good thing. The DM should be partial. Should favor the players, by knowing what they like and tailoring/modifying the game to fit them. This happens most at the micro level. Adjusting how a particular enemy acts so you're not constantly picking on the same character. Allowing things that are a little bit of a stretch, but still plausible. Interpreting proposed actions generously (as opposed to "gotcha DMing"). These are all partial actions.

    Being a referee is part of a DMs job. But only part. And not the biggest part. The biggest part, for me, is being a facilitator of fun. This requires knowing who you're playing with well enough to make adjustments to the Holy Module (or whatever) in an attempt to maximize fun. If you're playing in an open-table setting, this requires more on-the-spot judgement, and probably more strict rules to allow other groups to continue to have fun (call this impartiality between groups). This is different from being impartial between the setting and the individual groups.
    You've gotta look at the big picture.

    I was just talking to friends about our haunted house experience. They said that, while, this year, they were less scared and therefore got to enjoy the haunted house more in the moment, looking back on it, it was a better overall experience last year, when they were more scared and having less fun in the moment.

    Changing the holy module, you lose out on the experience that is the module. I've lost count of the number of times I've tried to talk to people about their experience with a module, only to discover that we lack common ground, because the GMs had changed things for one or both of us. Or run through a module, only to read it later and discover that the GM changed it in a way that made it worse.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    As an example of this (at an open-table, multi-DM environment) gone wrong--I played at one where I started a few weeks after the "old-timers." For the first few sessions (before I got there), there had been a tendency to let the items/gold flow like water. Once they realized this was a problem, they (the DMs) clamped down institutionally. But that meant that the old characters started out ahead and no one could catch up. Trying to be impartial and "fair" bred resentment. A better way would have been to ret-con those too-powerful toys (with the players' cooperation) and get everyone back on the same footing. That would have been very non-neutral, but better for the game as a whole.
    I've played at tables where all new characters start at first level, with no catchup mechanics. And it worked fine. You don't have to have the ability to catch up to have fun. Balance is not a synonym for fun.

    And I've even seen exactly the scenario you describe, but in an online game. In this scenario, what the old timers had that was taken away was the only thing I cared about in the game, so both that solution or your solution would represent a total failure, to me.

    There are lots of possible solutions to the "problem" you describe. That the GMs failed to select one that worked for you does not logically mean that that entire class of implementations is devoid of merit.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    Mine too. I very much like to tailor things to both the players and the characters. Though it does depend on the type of players. New or inexperienced players will just about automatically have a better fun time in a Tailor Made encounter. And the ''B'' type less aggressive player will often have much more fun in an encounter made for them.

    And this is overly true of anything not combat: The DM does really need to make such things for a player or character and put them in the game. There needs to be a hook or thread for the player to see and take; otherwise they often won't even try to do anything.

    This also touches on the tier problem for games like D&D 3X and beyond: If the DM just does standard events, then the tier problem thrives and is in full effect: The DM has a standard event, the spellcasters dominate/control/do everything and every other character just watches. This does not happen in tailor made events.
    Ok, I agree with tailor making hooks for characters (or, alternately, tailor making / choosing characters for pre-made hooks). And, while not my preference, I can agree with tailoring an encounter for someone who isn't getting enough time in the spotlight.

    But I believe you've conflated tier and spotlight time, or tier and power. My signature tier 1 wizard, Quertus, for whom this account is named, generally plays second fiddle to characters like the party Fighter and Monk.

    So, out of morbid curiosity, what would you do to custom tailor a game to Quertus' party, or one like it, where the tier 1 Wizard is most likely to get voted off the island?

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    It's a style that demands that you don't get attached to characters (and thus don't invest in role-playing). It's a very meta-gaming style (using information the character isn't privy to). Neither of those is bad, just very alien to most modern players.
    Well, I might say that they're bad. But I won't say that they're indemic to Combat as War. They certainly are one version of CaW, sure. But I'd personally label that a CaW fail state. And acting on OOC knowledge is much more common in - and the body backbone of - Combat as Sport. "The GM wouldn't throw anything at us that we couldn't handle". Need I say more?

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    I've had DMs that used modules as the core (maps + encounters). It sucked as soon as you went off script at all. They spent minutes looking up facts and trying to assemble things at the table, wasting everyone's time. Things felt patched together, because they were. Players' actions didn't fundamentally matter, because the modules were too easily broken. Clever ways of sequence breaking were disallowed, because otherwise things fell apart.

    Modules are best if run straight, with knowing acceptance that you're on rails. That, or heavily modified (take the map but rewrite all context). That's as much work as rebuilding the module, so the savings are minimal.
    I'm sorry that your modules and GMs were bad. While neither will ever be perfect, both can be much better than you have described.

    IMO, modules are best if run straight as a starting state of the world, by a good GM who knows how to handle things going off-script in a way that custom tailors the level between "impartial rules arbiter" and "for fun" at the correct level for the group. And, for me, that's pretty much "impartial rules arbiter".
    Last edited by Quertus; 2017-10-30 at 11:49 PM.

  8. - Top - End - #98

    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Ok, I agree with tailor making hooks for characters (or, alternately, tailor making / choosing characters for pre-made hooks). And, while not my preference, I can agree with tailoring an encounter for someone who isn't getting enough time in the spotlight.

    But I believe you've conflated tier and spotlight time, or tier and power. My signature tier 1 wizard, Quertus, for whom this account is named, generally plays second fiddle to characters like the party Fighter and Monk.

    So, out of morbid curiosity, what would you do to custom tailor a game to Quertus' party, or one like it, where the tier 1 Wizard is most likely to get voted off the island?
    It is not my preference, but like I said, it depends a lot more on the players. Some players really respond only when they DM rolls out a carpet for them. Some player just need a more general nudge, like where the DM mentions three times the rough cliff side, and then on time three the player will finally get the idea of ''wait, can I climb up that cliff?"

    Some things that work vs a wizard

    1)Reducing sight. Darkness, fog, smoke, and my favorite of bright light. Anything that limits line of sight. Martial classes have the skills and feats to handle this, plus in melee they don't have the problem seeing a foe within five feet. But the wizard has the huge problem of not being able to target things at a distance. And while something like darkness are easy to 'beat', things like bright light have no such 'easy button'.

    2)Reducing line of effect. Trees, pillars, bounders, and tunnels. Anything that limits and blocks spell effects. This works best vs directed things like rays, but does have some effect on many other spells. Again this does not effect melee all that much, but the wizard can't hit foes with things in the way.

    3)Large battle fields. Not only puts spells out of range, but lets foes spread out.

    4)More foes. Have more groups and more support.

    5)Enhance foes. Even making the 25 goblins 1st level warlocks, and not 1st level warriors. Potions, magic items, class levels, and most of all templates. Even sight changes can have a big impact. This also is foes using tactics.

    6)Different Foes. With D&D 3.5 for example there are six monster books, plus monsters in other books, and more. Plus custom made things.

    7)Less foe knowledge. Limit or eliminate the ''one roll to read the monster text'' idea.

    8)Exotic magical locations. Of all types, but the Planes are the obvious ones. Any place where magic is effected.

    9)Limiting preparation time or giving none.

    10)Three dimensions. One of the best ways. 360 degree battles are a huge challenge.


    Each by it self can have a huge impact....and when you mix them together, you get: The villain jumps into a portal to the Shadow Sea on the Abyss. The characters quickly follow(no prep time). This puts them deep underwater, in water that is both murky and dark. Fighting dozens and dozens of aquatic foes of different types..plus the support foes of the giant animals(to block both vision and lines of effect) , in three dimensions within the limits of both being underwater and in the Abyss.

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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    I'm not sure we're agreed on what it means to tailor encounters to the player-characters.

    I come down firmly on both sides of this issue. If your character has a hot, impressive new ability, then I will do my best to arrange three different things:
    1. An encounter that is blown away by the new ability, and
    2. An encounter that is immune to the new ability, and
    3. An encounter in which the ability is helpful but not devastating.

    Your special ability should be extremely useful at times. But it should not replace the need for tactics and clever play.

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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    I'm not sure we're agreed on what it means to tailor encounters to the player-characters.

    I come down firmly on both sides of this issue. If your character has a hot, impressive new ability, then I will do my best to arrange three different things:
    1. An encounter that is blown away by the new ability, and
    2. An encounter that is immune to the new ability, and
    3. An encounter in which the ability is helpful but not devastating.

    Your special ability should be extremely useful at times. But it should not replace the need for tactics and clever play.
    This is brilliant, but unnecessary. What do I mean by that?

    Well, if a character gets a "hot new ability", look at the upcoming encounters, and ask yourself if there are encounters which match those 3 criteria (awesome, good, and useless). If so, you're good. If not, look at the entirety of possible encounter space, and ask yourself if those three are possible. If so, work to improve your GM skills such that you automatically include a variety of encounters. If not, evaluate whether the ability is broken (good or bad).

    So, yes, that's brilliant - but you shouldn't need to custom tailor things for that to be true. You should just get good enough that that happens automatically.

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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Just to throw this out there, but how about constructing the incentives of the world such that players will actually tailor the game to themselves?

    Like, if I take the discussion about those three encounter types, I'd say that you can tailor it but that Quertus' idea of just making it so the encounters span that already isn't going to work when the abilities people have become very diverse. If we're talking about dealing fire damage, sure. But what if we're talking about the ability to see the connections between events and the people who caused them, the ability to impose a new natural law upon reality within a 1km radius of a ritual site, or the ability to change the taste of food to anything (including things that aren't tastes).

    It seems clear to me that a random sampling from pretty much any kind of distribution of encounters isn't going to really span all those bases. But at the same time, it seems clear to me that this is often not actually a problem in play because (experienced) players with very open-ended powers will seek out opportunities to make them relevant.

    However, that only really covers the first of Jay R's types of encounters. So shouldn't the question then be, how could one incentivize players to actively seek out situations in which their particular powers would not necessarily provide easy solutions, while at the same time making those incentives make sense in an overall world structure?

    The natural result of this is of course going to be tailor-making things for the players, because when the players seek out particular opportunities to explore in greater depth they force you to spend correspondingly more time generating that type of thing. But its in contrast to tailor-making things from an external perspective of 'I'd better make sure you can solve this quest' since its directly connected with the players' activities within the game.

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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    Just to throw this out there, but how about constructing the incentives of the world such that players will actually tailor the game to themselves?

    Like, if I take the discussion about those three encounter types, I'd say that you can tailor it but that Quertus' idea of just making it so the encounters span that already isn't going to work when the abilities people have become very diverse. If we're talking about dealing fire damage, sure. But what if we're talking about the ability to see the connections between events and the people who caused them, the ability to impose a new natural law upon reality within a 1km radius of a ritual site, or the ability to change the taste of food to anything (including things that aren't tastes).

    It seems clear to me that a random sampling from pretty much any kind of distribution of encounters isn't going to really span all those bases. But at the same time, it seems clear to me that this is often not actually a problem in play because (experienced) players with very open-ended powers will seek out opportunities to make them relevant.

    However, that only really covers the first of Jay R's types of encounters. So shouldn't the question then be, how could one incentivize players to actively seek out situations in which their particular powers would not necessarily provide easy solutions, while at the same time making those incentives make sense in an overall world structure?

    The natural result of this is of course going to be tailor-making things for the players, because when the players seek out particular opportunities to explore in greater depth they force you to spend correspondingly more time generating that type of thing. But its in contrast to tailor-making things from an external perspective of 'I'd better make sure you can solve this quest' since its directly connected with the players' activities within the game.
    I mean, fire damage is kinda almost too generic, as, if you can't solve your problems with violence fire, clearly, you just aren't using enough of it.

    I was thinking more that flight was great for an avalanche, ok for a moat, and useless on the astral. Or invisibility was great for combat, ok for stealth, and useless to go unnoticed vs creatures with scent (or when being tracked). But for your specific examples, here's what I see:

    the ability to see the connections between events and the people who caused them - great for solving murder mysteries, good for noticing a doppelganger or invisible foes, useless for natural disasters.

    the ability to impose a new natural law upon reality within a 1km radius of a ritual site - not sure what that means, but I'm guessing great and horrible monkey's paw for things that happen near your home base (but useless for things not covered), and ok to useless for things at a distant site / on the road.

    the ability to change the taste of food to anything (including things that aren't tastes) - I change the taste of Spaghetti-o's into Atropos weight loss? Well, I guess that's good for creating tasteless jokes? And good to great for things that care about food, and useless for things that don't?

    Looking over the last couple of adventures I've run... The ability to replace the taste of grass with a polymorphing effect would have been brokenly good (replacing your own taste with being poisonous would also have been pretty strong by itself). The other two (as I interpret them, at least) would have been fun - useful tools at times, but not broken in either direction.

    -----

    While I generally agree with the notion of players seeking out their own quests, I, too, am at a bit of a loss regarding seeking uselessness. Quertus doesn't exactly intentionally seek out antimagic zones, and neither he nor Armus exactly seek out mindless quests. Although, sometimes, they get roped into such by their friends and allies...

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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    So, yes, that's brilliant - but you shouldn't need to custom tailor things for that to be true. You should just get good enough that that happens automatically.
    This isn't really actionable though, "just become so good it just happens" is... well how do you do that. And if you are that good, are you just going through Jay R's steps so fast you don't realize it anymore?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    This isn't really actionable though, "just become so good it just happens" is... well how do you do that. And if you are that good, are you just going through Jay R's steps so fast you don't realize it anymore?
    Kind of. IMO, the difference between the two is the classic version of seeing the elephant. You tell the soldiers that you are training to keep their heads down, etc, until eventually they get it, and not only don't need to be told any more, but can apply that wisdom and insight to new problems that you hadn't specifically trained them for.

    Yes, you can explicitly follow those steps, and custom tailor content to the specific capabilities of the PCs. And, while a good plan, it should feel just as stilted as railroading, or the way I write in this account. If you are intentionally trying to get better at GMing, eventually, this variation of content should happen organically, even if you wrote an entire module without ever having laid eyes on the specific PCs, and these steps would just be a test of a) where you still need to grow your skills, or b) when certain abilities are "broken" compared to your expectations.

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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    WoTC official play is almost never tailored to the PCs. It can't be, since it's open table. It has a huge audience. I don't know the numbers, since I don't work for them, but it must be a significant chunk of the D&D player base.
    And a lot of people consider organized play to be basically the worst way to experience the game, so there's that. I really wouldn't speculate too wildly about how huge the audience is for something that is basically a marketing scheme.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Airk View Post
    And a lot of people consider organized play to be basically the worst way to experience the game, so there's that.
    I know. I don't agree with those people. At all. I like it for multiple reasons. Most of which are related to being able to interact effectively with a variety of people other than a small group of personal friends, even people I sometimes don't like very much. Not becoming (more) insular. Avoiding echo-chamber thinking. And when I first started, trying something new, trying to break out of my comfort zone in regards to playstyles. etc etc.

    Edit: It also taught me not to be such a rules lawyer martinet at the actual table.
    Last edited by Tanarii; 2017-11-01 at 12:51 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Airk View Post
    And a lot of people consider organized play to be basically the worst way to experience the game, so there's that. I really wouldn't speculate too wildly about how huge the audience is for something that is basically a marketing scheme.
    I also suspect that a fairly large part of the audience is people who would prefer a home game but can't actually arrange one for whatever reason (not least it being vastly easier to coordinate one schedule than five).
    I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    If you are intentionally trying to get better at GMing, eventually, this variation of content should happen organically, even if you wrote an entire module without ever having laid eyes on the specific PCs
    What I'm getting from this is you are saying it that it is completely necessary, even if it happen automatically or based off the abilities they might have if you don't know what abilities they do have. Which seems like a stark variation when you said those kinds of encounters where unnecessary a few posts ago. Could I get some clarification? I have this weird feeling I might be missing something.

    I still think "without ever seeing the PCs" is a weird goal, what is the point of sending characters through an adventure that has nothing to do with them?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    I still think "without ever seeing the PCs" is a weird goal, what is the point of sending characters through an adventure that has nothing to do with them?
    This is such an alien way of thinking to me, that I can't see how you've come by it. That's not to say it's wrong, if it's an honestly held question. I just don't understand how you could have possible gotten to that point. Have you really, honestly, never, ever played any published module or adventure? Only people's customized home written adventures?

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    I appreciate that modules exist, but I didn't mention them from a few reasons:
    1. I am focusing on running games. So I am ignoring any cases where you just make a module for others to use.
    2. The idea of creating a module for your own use before character creation, and then not adapting it is also weird. You aren't going to make any changes?
    3. The published module wasn't nearly as fun. And I found myself repeatedly asking myself "why am I (is my character) here?"

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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Tanarii, you keep equating module with non tailored, especially AL. That's not true. In fact, there's specific guidance in the AL DM guide on how to tailor an AL session to the players. Yes, there are limits to keep it legal, but you're allowed to adjust encounters, or in fact make any changes that "stay within the original spirit" of the module. The big restrictions are on things that transfer between chapters--XP, treasure, and renown. Even maps can be adjusted if desired.

    I see no indication that "no tailoring" is the default for modules or organized play, and I do see much evidence to the contrary. Modules are designed to serve as aids to the DM, not holy writ. The whole first chapter of the PHB says that it's your world, even if you're playing in Faerun and following a module.

    This whole thread is based on a mistake--the only job of a DM is to facilitate fun. For some groups, that means not tailoring anything. For others, it means a custom experience. Good DMs give the group the experience they want. Bad DMs don't, for one reason or another. Tailoring or not tailoring is orthogonal to being a good DM.
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    Your right, it is not as simple as "do this to become a better GM", which is why I made a thread for it. If it was that simple, would it be worth talking about?

    How much and when? What kind? When is Campaign->World more useful than World->Campaign?

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    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Tanarii, you keep equating module with non tailored, especially AL. That's not true. In fact, there's specific guidance in the AL DM guide on how to tailor an AL session to the players. Yes, there are limits to keep it legal, but you're allowed to adjust encounters, or in fact make any changes that "stay within the original spirit" of the module. The big restrictions are on things that transfer between chapters--XP, treasure, and renown. Even maps can be adjusted if desired.
    A DM certainly can adapt adventures. And official play ones encourage you to adapt them for the number of players, because they're based on CaS principles. But that's a modern approach. Someone thinking that modules should routinely be tailored to the specifics of your party, or even the numbers of them, can't have been playing for more than a decade. (No disparagement intended, I'm trying to get to the root of where the thinking comes from on my part vs others.)

    But reading the question more carefully, it was an adventure "that has nothing to do with them". Cluedrew, that sounds more like a statement of failure to plot hook than a statement of lack of (for example) tailoring the adventure to the fact that the party has no solid melee warriors or healers. So maybe I misunderstood what you meant by "tailored to" in this case? Are you talking about plot hooks to draw in and involved the PCs?
    Last edited by Tanarii; 2017-11-01 at 10:21 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    A DM certainly can adapt adventures. And official play ones encourage you to adapt them for the number of players, because they're based on CaS principles. But that's a modern approach. Someone thinking that modules should routinely be tailored to the specifics of your party, or even the numbers of them, can't have been playing for more than a decade. (No disparagement intended, I'm trying to get to the root of where the thinking comes from on my part vs others.)

    But reading the question more carefully, it was an adventure "that has nothing to do with them". Cluedrew, that sounds more like a statement of failure to plot hook than a statement of lack of (for example) tailoring the adventure to the fact that the party has no solid melee warriors or healers. So maybe I misunderstood what you meant by "tailored to" in this case? Are you talking about plot hooks to draw in and involved the PCs?
    The modules I have played (mostly Dungeon Crawl Classics) also use pregens. And its pretty obvious from a DM point of view that those modules would fail to have the same impact if players brought their own characters. Part of the fun of those modules was for everyone to look through the pregens and find traps in how the characters were geared - for example, you'd find that the rogue was statted up with an item that would actually make the barbarian a lot more effective, and so on.

    That said, those were very good for modules but fairly mediocre on the scale of overall tabletop gaming experiences I've had. The upper ends of the scale have been strictly 'tailored' stuff, but not tailored so much in the sense of 'I'd better use a fire immune white dragon because these guys have a fancy fire magic amplifier schtick' but rather tailored in the sense that the system and setting were constructed and modified on the basis of the known tastes of the players in a persistent group that gamed together for a period of years - and then from that starting point, were left in an explicitly extensible form where both GM and players could (and did) add new mechanics or new details or even new setting elements on the basis of what the campaign as a whole felt like at that point. If we decided to all become merchants and struggle over control of trade, within a few weeks we'd have cobbled together a plausible ruleset for doing so even if up to that point we had been playing a system geared towards being pirates looting stuff on the high seas. Having 20 pages of trade control rules would have been pointless - up until the point where someone decided that this was going to be the thing their character was really interested in and got some buy-in to the idea from the party.

    Even for the best modules I've played, I never really escaped the board game feel that the boundaries of the scenario were well-defined and I could see them from where I was.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    But reading the question more carefully, it was an adventure "that has nothing to do with them". Cluedrew, [...] Are you talking about plot hooks to draw in and involved the PCs?
    Yes, the plot side of it. I've yet to have any major issues with mechanical disconnect, where the party overwhelmed a challenge that was supposed to be difficult or could not pass because they were missing some standard ability.

    So, the modules seem to have two types of hooks. The ones we took because plot, and those that just swept everyone along. Our particularly characters had very little to do with what was going on. You could replace them with a different set of characters and the general plot would be exactly the same.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    What I'm getting from this is you are saying it that it is completely necessary, even if it happen automatically or based off the abilities they might have if you don't know what abilities they do have. Which seems like a stark variation when you said those kinds of encounters where unnecessary a few posts ago. Could I get some clarification? I have this weird feeling I might be missing something.
    I don't play console games much. So I'm terrible at them. I have a mantra of "a is jump, b is throw, x is attack, triangle is block, purple is dodge, Cthulhu character is cartwheel" or whatever. When I need to do something, I look at the controller, go through my mantra, and usually push the right button. It's terrible.

    Someone who knows what they're doing usually doesn't even know which button they're pushing - they just push it, because they've trained their reflexes to do so.

    Someone who is good at designing modules with varied encounters doesn't have to consciously think about making varied encounters - they just do. But they still should think about it - especially when the module hits real PCs - to see where they can still grow their skills.

    Is that any clearer than my first attempt?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    I still think "without ever seeing the PCs" is a weird goal, what is the point of sending characters through an adventure that has nothing to do with them?
    Others have already covered this, but I'm all for custom tailored plot hooks - the glue between the static character and the static module. Whereas the module or the character will loss integrity if customized to one another.

    However, it is often better to detail the plot hooks first, and then have the players pick characters accordingly, than to attempt to fabricate plot hooks for arbitrary characters.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    [*]The idea of creating a module for your own use before character creation, and then not adapting it is also weird. You aren't going to make any changes?
    Nope. Doing so negates Player Agency in character creation / selection. They can't see how character X will do on adventure Y if you pull the rug out from under them, and make it adventure Z instead.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    Yes, the plot side of it. I've yet to have any major issues with mechanical disconnect, where the party overwhelmed a challenge that was supposed to be difficult or could not pass because they were missing some standard ability.

    So, the modules seem to have two types of hooks. The ones we took because plot, and those that just swept everyone along. Our particularly characters had very little to do with what was going on. You could replace them with a different set of characters and the general plot would be exactly the same.
    I'm not seeing the problem here. I'm Baron von Evil, and I'm adding chemicals to my chocolate that will cause a significant number of people to become lactose intolerant, in order to boost profits on my parent company's soy products. I'm doing this regardless of who the PCs are. So, what's the problem?

    Modules are great as "this is how the world is at T+0. This is what people will do / what would happen if the pc's didn't exist." Now, add in PCs, and roleplay the major players as they adapt their strategies (or not), and you've got a realistic-feeling game.

    What am I missing that you are objecting to?

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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post

    I'm not seeing the problem here. I'm Baron von Evil, and I'm adding chemicals to my chocolate that will cause a significant number of people to become lactose intolerant, in order to boost profits on my parent company's soy products. I'm doing this regardless of who the PCs are. So, what's the problem?

    Modules are great as "this is how the world is at T+0. This is what people will do / what would happen if the pc's didn't exist." Now, add in PCs, and roleplay the major players as they adapt their strategies (or not), and you've got a realistic-feeling game.

    What am I missing that you are objecting to?
    Because modules don't do that (in my experience). They give the state at time T=0 (call it W(0)) and W(T1) and W(T2) and ...

    That is, it's got pretty tight rails. They may have branching rails, but only a fixed set of ending to each scenario. Sequence breaking or other outside-module play breaks the module.

    The other issue (with plot hooks) is not the initial ones. Those can be compensated for by building characters for those hooks. It's the intermediate hooks, going from chapter 1 to chapter 2, etc. Those assume that you finished exactly how the module says, and happen the same regardless of the characters beliefs, motivations, actions, etc. And that's a problem. It's a big denial of agency, since the whole world resets to one of a few fixed states when you move between chapters. Now, if you all agreed to ride the rails then it's an acceptable loss of agency (you gave it up willingly, after all). But it does diminish the character-centric play style that many people love. The characters are secondary to the fixed story-line which would progress the same way with any reasonable set of characters.
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    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Because modules don't do that (in my experience). They give the state at time T=0 (call it W(0)) and W(T1) and W(T2) and ...

    That is, it's got pretty tight rails. They may have branching rails, but only a fixed set of ending to each scenario. Sequence breaking or other outside-module play breaks the module.
    This sounds like you've been exposed exclusively to official play single-session adventures and DMs that don't have any contingencies to adapt when they have a problem. Because most longer modules either have w(0), or they cover a bunch of possible things players might have done by w(T1).

    I mean, that's a living world right there. It reacts to what the PCs do. The opposite of a quantum ogre. But that's a totally different issue from tailor-made.

    Meanwhile "tailor made" has nothing to do with that. It's either:
    - customizing play style for the players
    - customizing campaign / adventure-arc theme to the PC (ie nature adventures or pirate adventures etc)
    - customizing plot hooks to the PC
    - customizing encounters to the PCs numbers & levels (CaS)
    - customizing encounters to the PCs abilities (CaS on steroids)

    I think the first three are great!

    I don't like the last two very much, especially not the very last one. I'll do it though. I used to regularly customize official play single-session adventures to the number of players, because that's exactly what you're instructed to do. But any customizing of levels within expected range or specific PC abilities is done by the players self-selecting, knowing what adventure is going to be run.

    None of those have anything to do with a living world with real consequences for player actions and real player agency, vs quantum ogres and railroading.
    Last edited by Tanarii; 2017-11-02 at 12:06 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    Meanwhile "tailor made" has nothing to do with that. It's either:
    - customizing play style for the players
    - customizing campaign / adventure-arc theme to the PC (ie nature adventures or pirate adventures etc)
    - customizing plot hooks to the PC
    - customizing encounters to the PCs numbers & levels (CaS)
    - customizing encounters to the PCs abilities (CaS on steroids)
    There's also content customization (both in terms of setting elements and encounters) to the players separate from the PCs. A good example here is phobias - one of the people I've had as players has a really deep, really entrenched fear of needles. She doesn't particularly like the idea of IVs, puts up with vaccination only because she also has a really strong sense of social responsibility, etc. If I, as a GM, in a game she was in repeatedly put cactus everywhere as a hazard in a desert and graphically described the effects every time someone fell in it or similar it would be a total jerk move.

    A similar thing can apply to setting level content, both in terms of phobias and (in my experience more often) in terms of tailoring to varying degrees of player expertise, and in avoiding areas near certain real world hot button issues. Personally, this tends to mean computer science and religion. It's not uncommon for me to be GMing for a group that's mostly professional programmers - and while this doesn't matter for fantasy games, I run a lot of science fiction and space opera. This means that as a stylistic choice I'm basically locked into very cinematic hacking, because there's no way I can research the subject enough for a campaign to appear realistic to actual programmers, particularly when they include actual security specialists. Religion is more a matter of avoiding acrimonious out of game argument; there are groups where I absolutely could run a game about sectarian conflict between real world religious groups in a near-modern setting and other groups where that's a terrible idea.

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    Default Re: Is Tailor Made Better?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    This is brilliant, but unnecessary. What do I mean by that?

    Well, if a character gets a "hot new ability", look at the upcoming encounters, and ask yourself if there are encounters which match those 3 criteria (awesome, good, and useless). If so, you're good. If not, look at the entirety of possible encounter space, and ask yourself if those three are possible. If so, work to improve your GM skills such that you automatically include a variety of encounters. If not, evaluate whether the ability is broken (good or bad).

    So, yes, that's brilliant - but you shouldn't need to custom tailor things for that to be true. You should just get good enough that that happens automatically.
    Insult received.

    In fact, many plots and stories have similar encounters for awhile. I was once exploring an Egyptian pyramid, and all encounters were undead. If a character had developed a hot new illusion-based power, it would be reasonable for the DM to add some grave robbers or others who could be affected by the illusions.

    I once had a plot that involved all the animals being forced out of the great forest, and then the druid developed a big animal-affecting power. If I hadn't changed things, his power would have been worthless for several sessions.

    It is simply untrue that every set of adventures will have the exact same "variety of encounters", and your suggestion that a theme-based plot indicates GM skills that need to be improved is simply false-to-fact.

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