Ranger gets swept downstream, barbarian knocks down tree to save him. Pins him under water. Cleric must resuscitate, barbarian remembers beavers exist. Attempts to make dam via minor deforestation and crit succeeds. Dam acts like bridge everyone happy. After quest I'm the way back new artificial lake, nearby towns have posted quests to hunt down disruptive giant beavers that are assumed to have moved into the area and flooded farmland.
Arctic: 1 season: Cold (+at least one day with no sun and at least one day with no night) Cold: 2 seasons: Cold and less cold Temperate: 4 seasons Subtropical: 2 seasons; hot and rainy, hot and dry Tropical: It's raining.
As for the checks of the ranger type characters something I like to do is give the party a normally balanced variety of checks but allow the ranger (or any other terrain specialist such as clerics in chapels) to use their skills to assist the other players checks. For example the large river that Guy mentioned, if the party has to swim it (athletics challenge) the ranger can roll their survival and on a pass remember something about where the best place to cross a river is and the whole party gets advantage on that athletics roll. This helps your non-athletic characters not feel like they just drew the short straw and have to deal with it, your terrain specialist gets to feel like a hero and to everyone else he's suddenly their ultimate support. It also encourages some extra roleplaying.
I ran an entire campaign arc based on the 18th century Penal Colony fleets. (Australian first fleet in particular) The Party were literally dumped on the shores of the New World, after trumped up charges from the Royal's brother forced them to be sent off. He was given a whole load of Convicts and the fleet, and told that he was to never return. I have them arrive in the middle of autumn, when it's beginning to drizzle. (Australia only has snow on the highland mountains.) The Rangers and Druids can do their whole Bear Gryllis thing, while the rest of the party ends up building a shitty tent city. I had the Native Orcs, the flora, and even the fauna raze their tents in the middle of winter, with pouring rain. It's amazing to watch as the party begins to divide up the tasks and literally plan the next few weeks. They built an outpost settlement; log cabins, Palisade walls that they then cast 'wood to stone' on, farms. They then put down a penal uprising and eventually had to fight off the Motherland's naval reclamation fleet.
As a DM it was incredibly easy to run the Arc too, especially for D&D. I already had a computer-generated map, and made a Random Encounters Table for each of 7 terrains (Desert, Scrub-land, Mountain, Wetlands, Forest. and Underground) on the continent. After that, I left the party to enjoy their open sandbox!
The campaign only works if you have players who have initiative and creativity. The players I have would be by-and-large be a considered 'backseat DMs' by some, so I figured an open world where I can dump the party and tell them to 'have fun' is the best way to channel their creative shenanigans into something I can build on. They built a Dungeon-punk/tippy-verse super-power that became a large enough threat that the Motherland had to send in a 'Reclamation Fleet' when the Party figured that they can stop paying taxes to back home.
@@chdmann that's an honest concern: some of the people I play with or DM for would absolutely run wild with a sandbox and find things to do, but at least half of them would want a set and obvious quest to follow and wouldn't cope without something being dangled in front of them. For my upcoming lost island exploration game I'm planning on mixing the two to see how they react: shipwreck them on an unknown strange island with their equipment and supplies floating away further along the coast to get them traveling, but have strange figures appear and watch them from the horizon so they have a clear *thing* to chase after
Ohhh Guy, I have to give you my rant ... well, my thoughts ... on why it is more poetic to call it 'Fall' than 'Autumn' sometime. Long story short, we English speakers have been saying 'Fall' just a little bit longer than 'Autumn' and it is not connected to falling leaves but to an Old English word used to describe mortality and the act of dying. Whereas Autumn just means ... well ... Autumn.
Got an interesting question on this subject: You're familiar with the scenes in the Fellowship of the Ring where Gandalf, Boromir, and Gimli debate the different routes through which to get from Rivendell to Mordor? People tend to be more familiar with different areas of their world than others, as can be seen in that example. Gimli is more familiar with the mountain passages than the others (save Gandalf), and is convinced of the safety in travelling through Moria, constantly bringing the option up as the group nears the mountains. Likewise, Boromir feels similar about the Gap of Rohan, in spite of Gandalf's argument about it taking the ring too close to Isengard. The challenge for a DM comes with helping the players feel like that familiarity is something that they also bring to the table aside from their muscle or cunning or arcane prowess. However, I see that most DMs (myself included!) tend to approach this by just spoon-feeding this information if/when the players choose to ask for it. Is there another cooler way to allow the players to individually know what locations they know about and how familiar they are without having to get a prompt from the DM? Like each player gets a map of the regions they call their homelands (which can and will overlap other players' maps), including secret shortcuts and personal notes on locations known by the player? (i.e. Gimli's map contains the mountains where he's from, vague directions on the edges to places like Rivendell and Mordor, and contains notes around Moria which say something like "cousin Balin lives here! Food safety ale here!")
As a matter of fact, provided I have time in the "campaign generation" period, I tend to do something like that... It's not always a collection of maps or map-fragments exactly (depends on how well the stinking printer works... or access to a printer at all)... BUT I like to construct something of rudimentary guides and such for "areas of familarity" for the PC's... Then dispensing them around the table dependent upon backstory, region of home, and some deferment to class and family lifestyle... AND... for the record, no. I don't consider classes like Ranger and Druid to be specifically rural nor are they "the only" types to know anything "outdoorsy". Everyone in a relatively rural-ish setting (compared to modern civilized Earth) has some functional knowledge of the wilds, just some more limited than others. Rangers and Druids would get certain benefits for the preferred terrain, particular sub-type, and something to do with training... BUT that's a case-by-case judgment, probably best done at the table. :o)
I tell my players before Session 0 well in advance that I would like them to develop not just a backstory, but also homelands as well. I use a world generator which literally generates a global map and the campaign might only begin on a tiny country. So, I use the player's imaginations to develop the world, flesh it out more. I'd probably read up on what homelands they create then map it out onto the globe then flesh it out. Develop map notes to give players once you've fleshed their homelands out a bit. So, if they ever go near their homelands, they get maps of their character knowledge only they know (this is why I love Roll20). What's more, as GM, you could give out 'false maps' to the other players, kind of like telling players rumors that only they know so you can secretly cause conflict between the party as they decide which way to go. Play A with the actual map knowledge: ''I live here. It's this way!" Player B with false info: ''But the barkeep said that's caved in!''
Specifically in relation to that last paragraph, yes, that is one way to handle such things and is one I have personally done before. One issue doing it that way really has a lot to do with PC background. If you have, for example, a thief/rogue who has never left their home city then what they know may be very dense and detailed but only a relatively tiny area while the ranger who has traveled the wilderness extensively may know a rather large area but won't know a huge amount of detail about the majority of it. Another issue this can create lies in the amount of work the GM has to do, partially collaboratively with each player, to determine where and what kinds of details the PCs will know and under what conditions they may recognize these coupled with how oft they may become relevant. It can be quite disheartening to have all this working info on a place that sees play maybe once or twice a year and worse still to have forgotten you should know this or that place until the session is over because you haven't bothered to look at your personal map in the last five years the campaign has run. As a GM it can be at least as bad because you know how much work you put into planning out those details that didn't ever come up because the PCs bypassed all the relevant areas trudging into unmapped regions to do so. On final thing that doing this can do is in the effect of how much area you have to at least partially preplan, which can be especially bad if you're running the kind of campaign that grows it's world out organically as was fairly common thirty years ago. I'm not sure how common this is these days, but I feel it's worth mention.
I take an easier approach and give those pc's a bonus on the appropriate skill check based on their experience and background. "Kip, being from a port city himself, knows how these fishermen conduct themselves. +2 circumstance bonus to diplomacy" or "Salina has spent many years hunting in these forests. +2 to survival. "
I like the idea of random encounters, especially when traveling through the wilderness. However, I decided a while ago that I would randomly roll for them before hand since I know how long the characters will be traveling for. So for instance, in my recent game the characters are traveling back to town which is 7 days away. I figure 3 combat or non combat random encounters should be enough to make the journey not boring and randomly rolled each of them the day before the game so that I could add more to them than I would normally be able to do so in moment if I just rolled them in the middle of the game.
Yeah so many DMs just forget those little details and treat every NPC as if their sole goal in the game world is murdering the players with reckless abandon.
On the subject of random encounters, I like to have a table upon which I roll 3d6 to see what the players encounter. Encounter does not necessarily mean fight (though it might). Then again, I tend to run a heavily improvised sandbox, and I design the table to add flavour to the region through which the party is travelling. If there's a war on, for example, they might see bands of soldiers (on either side) or refugees. Maybe deserters turned to banditry. Maybe goblin raiders taking advantage of the fact that the soldiers are elsewhere. Random encounters used well can make a world feel more lived in, and less like just a game setting.
Unfortunately, due to lack of local players, I'm not actually running a campaign at the moment. What I mentioned above was more just examples off the top of my head of what might be on such a chart. If I were to run a game in AD&D 2e with the above ideas in mind, however, the table would probably look a little like this: 3 Red Dragon (40% Adult; 30% Young Adult; 20% Mature Adult; 5% Juvenile; 5% Old) (0.46% chance) 4-6 Soldiers (70% local; 30% invading; 2d10) (8.8% chance) 7-8 Column of smoke in the distance (burned and looted village; will meet 3d10 refugees) (16.66% chance) 9 Column of smoke in the distance (burned and looted fortification; 20% chance to meet 2d10 deserters) (11.57% chance) 10-11 Wildlife (30% herd of 3d10 deer; 30% pack of 2d4 wolves (20% desperate); 40% harmless small animals e.g. rabbits) (25% chance) 12 Bandits (30% deserters; 20% desperate commoners) (11.57% chance) 13 Refugees (2d6) (9.72% chance) 14-16 Goblins (2d12; 50% on way to loot village; 50% returning from looted village) (14.35% chance) 17-18 Silver Dragon (40% Adult; 30% Young Adult; 20% Mature Adult; 5% Juvenile; 5% Old) (0.46% chance) As you can see, they might encounter a dragon. It doesn't really fit the theme I'm going for, so it's unlikely (little over 2% chance) and said dragon probably won't actually do anything, but it reminds the party that the world is bigger than just their local area. Soldiers are not an uncommon sight (just under 10% chance), refugees are significantly more common (nearly 30% chance to encounter), and deserters, while not common, are not unheard of. Almost as common as the refugees are the burned ruins of small settlements and temporary fortifications. Goblins are slightly more likely to show up than bandits, having become bolder with the soldiers distracted, and even bandits are more common than they used to be; their numbers swelled by deserters and desperate commoners. The thing to remember, however, is that even refugees will probably be armed - that means there's a 45% chance (roughly) of an encounter being armed humanoids - and deserters, refugees and bandits can be very difficult to tell apart from a distance. Travel is more dangerous than it used to be, so there might be a 2/6 or even a 3/6 chance of an encounter on any given day of travel.
I bing watch your channel for a week and I gain so much info, thanks Guy! I've been a GM for 4 years, but sometimes you bring up advice that I wouldn't ever come up with myself.
A personal tip about Random Encounters. 1) Try letting the players roll the number. That way it makes the players feel more involved in the process. 2) Before the game is when you use the random encounter table, so roll up encounters and place them on the map ahead of time, and then when a random encounter is killed make it function as a clue as to what lay ahead.
Excellent tips. I already feel better prepared with ideas. You needed to cross the large dangerous river. You have just come to a large waterfall. Do you climb down the waterfall & hope for a good crossing below or a ford later down the river? Do go around a long ways for an easy slope downward? Do you attempt to build something? (a bridge, a boat, parachutes, wings, scaffolding to be able to traverse down and later back up again)
I can see how some of those could lead to failures with natural consequences. Or maybe, while they are building, a patrol stumbles on to them. If the party is fast enough, they can stop the alarm. If they are too slow, the alarm gets sounded... If they fail to kill the patrol, the alarm is sounded and they have constant spotters who will re-sound the alarm and give away their positions. Will they try to outrun the patrol? Will they chase the patrol down, for the hope of evading the (unknown) larger group? Maybe an enemy swims across the river and now they must let it go or attempt a dangerous swim (possibly losing gear!) Or maybe they can capture the patrol and find out if there is a ford and where enemy watchtowers and towns are.
This is perfect for my western pathfinder game. I was wondering how I can incorporate nature better. This gave me inspiration to find a way to extend hunting into a group activity.
Thanks for this one. Didn't know I wanted it until I watched it. Also, asking "What do they expect?" Has become the question I ask myself after each session. Great way to keep it fun and uphold continuity.
When you were talking about overlanding and the roll coming up with a random encounter made me first think about some of them being non combat encounters but then I also thought of another idea. If it is becoming a real slog, like that situation suggests, the players could run into an npc who knows of a short cut they could show the players if they do a favor or maybe they need an escort through the short cut because there's monsters in there or something.
Fantastic! I just asked about this a video or two back. Travel has been so boring and nothing but a chance for random encounters, now there is meaning and story elements. Very helpful.
Great as always! You mentioned tone, and while I agree with you on the rest, I personally feel that tone is the most important aspect of wilderness play. Careful use of it can be used wonderfully to transition a game from one type, to another gradually, and smoothly. The use of language, as always, is important, but if the characters are leaving a world of comfort and plenty, with standard dungeon crawls and 'rescue the prince(ss)' tropes surrounded by farmland and idyllic forests and fields, the use of terrain can set them up for the next chapter. Perhaps they are moving towards an area filled with substance abuse, deceit, and intrigue. Well, a transition into a swamp can begin to set the feel long before they arrive... plants that appear friendly on the surface, but are poisonous to the touch. Animals with hallucinogenic venom or mind altering natural defense mechanisms. Heat, humidity, and constant biting insects leading to discomfort and malaise. A town of near slaves working for the next dose of whatever drug makes them feel something other than misery in their servitude. That is just one example, but I believe it could be fun to do an examination at some point of a few environments, and how broad their tonal implications can be. Edit: Oh, and a minor thing! It appears that the video recommendations are appearing on the left, over the credits, rather than the right. Not terrible, but making your effort in putting those credits together somewhat wasted. I just wanted to make you aware.
I've had the problem of one of my players absolutely dominating any challenges on the open ocean, ruining what would have been a fun encounter for the party in what was supposed to be a pirate campaign (even with ships that have magical barriers that restrict his magic items and fire stuff at him under water). This has given me some more ideas as to how to balance things out. Your videos have been nothing short of perfect lately. Thank you, Guy.
when i feel like having an encounter out of the blue. it will usually go %-for level of power and D6 to determine the mood of the encounter. 1being hostile-6 being usefull
Great show, thank you for all the hard work. Ever consider reading for some fantasy audio books? Your voice is better than most audible readers. Do they ever audio record fantasy game manuals? It would be cool to have them read with slight annotation. Glad you do these videos. They are nice to wake up. Being autistic I dislike most readers. You've got a great lyrical quality that makes it easy to listen and learn.
I don’t think that Rangers/Druids carrying most of the traveling checks in the wilderness is a bad thing. That’s kind of what they do. Not to say you shouldn’t include things to keep the other players engaged, but I think you also have to give your nature-lover a chance to shine.
Even with a wilderness setting where a ranger would typically make most of the checks to get through, most systems I know of allow for other players to make supporting die rolls to aid another player. Not to downplay changing it up and having something more magical and unexpected like Guy suggested around 16:00, but I've found that encouraging players to help one another in that way rather than just waiting for the ranger to find a path, or the diplomat to sprinkle some honeyed words.
Had to click the like button.. Just because South Africa was mentioned 🇿🇦 Also some good ideas for me as a new GM, looking forward to Rome of the Frost Maiden
I keep lists of potential encounters in an area - creatures, travellers, structures, events, weather etc. I roll a d12 in front of them when time passes: resting or marching etc, but I use whatever I like so long as I don't roll a 12. A 12 is an encounter with a hostile creature(s). Even then it isn't automatic combat, just possible combat depending on their actions. I like the topic, a lot of time gets spent in the wilderness in many campaigns.
My imagination is surely sparked wonderfully. Perhaps too much, as I spaced out and began daydreaming at some point more than halfway through the video.
Regarding random encounters, I am running a game that starts on an island so I have set apart hexagon sections on the map with highlighter and the different areas each have a different chance to encounter a different thing.
Could you pls write the themes (not the general (which is the video is about) but the little themes 'in' the general theme) you are tackeling in the corner of your videos again? (you did it in earlier vids!) - This often helped me listening!!
I use random encounter tables tailored to the area so that the party can share the improvisational discovery of the story with me. Like Emperor Leto, I want a world of surprises.
Once had a guy in our group who wanted to run a Forgotten Realms campaign. Told us he wanted to show us how to properly run a game. Turns out “properly run” meant try to get us to play magic users so we could pool are XP to make magic items before the game started (it was 3.5) and the. To get lost in the wilderness as he had NO story for us.
The best way I've found to make wilderness in games is adding in some of the crazy stuff found in our own world, for instance in my next session this week I plan on them running into a lake inhabited by bioluminescent plankton...also a siren who tries to drown the players but that is aside the point
Random Encounters are good and fun and I like to include them and as a GM to spice things up for me as well but I don't like using a table to decide what monsters there is,
I appreciate all this info but like... for 5e specifically, I think there's two problems: the rules are not concrete enough (compared to OSR type D&D where overland exploration is practically turn-based) and long resting in wilderness is no different than long resting in a bed. The first problem means that travel is nebulous and linear. Your party goes in a straight line towards their objective, then once every X miles the DM rolls on a random encounter table. You don't get the sense that you're exploring ANYTHING. You get the sense that you're just delaying the inevitable goal of arriving at the final destination. The second problem means that combat encounters are very uninteresting because that players always are maxed out. There's little tension to a random encounter when players are fully rested. The goblin did 3 damage to you. Ok, whatever. Those two things are why wilderness exploration is glossed over or skipped or turned into one combat, then you're there. I don't really care about how rocky the terrain is or how it's raining when there's no mechanical support for that.
Love these kinds of discourses... In my experience, encounters mean to encounter something... NOT necessarily to fight it. I mean, you can travel out in the wilds right now and encounter a mountain. I've encountered lots of things on hikes through woods, desert, jungles, even cities... didn't usually have to fight any of them, though... Particularly liked the short chat about transport. It is (after all) a fantasy setting, so why the hell is everyone ALWAYS walking everywhere? AND if they're not walking, they're riding horses... I love giving the tinkergnomes sh*t to do. Let them invent a host of ridiculous crap for getting around. Transport can even be the PERFECT excuse for minutia-magic. Why not mass-produce "flying rugs" (instead of a classical flying carpet)... The usual magic carpet, will fly like a bird... BUT what's wrong with a rug that only cruises along about three or four feet off the ground??? Is that a problem? Maybe there's a "go kart" that runs on beer... or a tricycle built for a dozen... or desert dog-sleds... or some kind of double-hulled sphere that lets the inner hull sit upright regardless of the outer hull's motions... AND a giant series of "pinball" -esque machinations that catapult or powersling the giant balls from one place to another... convenient, yes... but dangerous as hell. Finally, I'd like to point out that every forest in the world is just a little different in its varieties of animals and plants, from every other forest. SO it might make sense to construct custom random-encounter tables with some six to a dozen (12) unique animals and plants (especially if you like mobile/aggressive plants) and such that can be encountered along with listings for "the usual" stuff from the book of whatever forests... It puts a little more interest and life into the flavor of your wilderness terrains, and I'm confident if this kind of thing is true (and it is) about real forests, it's probably true about swamps, plains, deserts, and other terrains as well... AND of course, DON'T FORGET TO HAVE FUN WITH IT!!! :o)
I have seen a very similar also great Video, but i can't seem to remember where... Anyways I hope I don't forget this one too until I need it. As it happens, my players just left the rural areas...
Great video! My party definitely needed help with this. I've been looking around at a bunch of different RPGs I want to try so I was wondering if you had any suggestions or any tips on DMing a system you're not used to? I've looked at Star Trek Adventures and the Dresden Files but haven't played either.
My best advice (for what it's worth) is that you should start by just reading the Game-master's Guide, and a Player's Guide from cover to cover, first. Assuming you mean to GM a system you don't intend to play first, this is about the most effective start I can think of... Second, go back to the GM's Guide, and start taking notes, and BUILD your GM-screen for yourself with it. By the time you get together a reasonably functional GM's screen (based on approximately what you KNOW you'll need from experience in D&D, for instance) you'll probably be fairly familiar with the general mechanics of running in that system. Finally, the bottom line is that system mechanics really don't have to matter particularly. If you create a good enough narrative, so you have reasons for the judgments you call on the table, you can "get by" running almost any system as arbitrarily as you need or wish... so that storytelling craft is your strongest suit. Don't beat yourself up about unfamiliar books and difficulty divining a ruling from source-material, or a faulty memory... We all lapse stuff. Just remember to make note of your "call" when you make it, so you can get back to the book and double check yourself when it's convenient... If it's worth note and you prefer to change to what the books say, then you can mark them for the next session and bring it up to the Players, just to make sure everyone knows how the mechanic does work, when run properly, and that you won't be "skewing" that offhanded in the future... It just saves some of the "bitching" when one PC gets away with a "stunt" one session and two sessions later, he can't do it because "rules". Oh yeah... DON'T FORGET TO HAVE A GOOD TIME!!! :o)
I watched this because I'm trying to make my jungle setting not suck, which, you'd think that'd be easy/straightforward, it being a jungle/rainforest and all, but unfortunately there are plenty of rivers and they have a sturdy boat, so they're able to avoid roughly 90% of the actual jungle. Is there a video among the archive that deals with making river travel interesting?
A fun thing to do is leave decayed buildings in the forest with nothing in them. No monster or treasure but leave hints that people lived there a LONG as time ago. Lol so much fun watching my players be on edge. "Why the fuck is there a stone tower in the woods? There must be good shit there!"
But.. wilderness sucks.... Long time without much going on other than random encounters. Short food & Short on shelter for the unprepared. (and most DnD parties are woefully unprepared) DM has to track terrain, weather, food, water.... I paid attention to food for one group doing a 2 week trek. 4 days in they were out of food. next day out of water. Clueless party (nobody had any skills useful for hunting/gathering or finding water even and no player had a clue) I had a random encounter show up, so I made it a deer. To make it an easier target I made it white. The players tried to worship the deer....
Random encounters areke, if I have a random table for travelliing show it to my plaers. Let them inspect tt. Let them make a informed roll.Let them haggle f the ould reduce the dice roll etc. And than, if they roll this dragon encounter ... maybe there is only a hut with a family living in it. Nobody expects a steel dragon.
My players get jumpy and paranoid whenever they leave civilization and enter the wilderness. I must be doing something right.... Inclement weather can be an interesting adventure in of itself. My players entered their fist dungeon to get out of a massive hailstorm... Even ordinary animals, or the lack thereof, can present a threat and hooks for an adventure....
I handle it about the same as most settings, actually... I create a loosely knitted "group" of storylines and plot devices... Sprinkle in an assortment of NPC's, some good natured, others generally abrasive, and a few just comical... Then I get up off my duff to deliver narrative and description with spirit, and let the Players cast their dispersions and ruin pretty much everything and everyone they come in contact with... Players are legendary for that. :o)
Ranger gets swept downstream, barbarian knocks down tree to save him. Pins him under water. Cleric must resuscitate, barbarian remembers beavers exist. Attempts to make dam via minor deforestation and crit succeeds. Dam acts like bridge everyone happy. After quest I'm the way back new artificial lake, nearby towns have posted quests to hunt down disruptive giant beavers that are assumed to have moved into the area and flooded farmland.
axdntprn hahaha XD
Seems interesting! Guess I'll have to implement that 😂
temperate = 4 seasons
subtropical = 2 season (rainy & dry)
tropical = 1 season (rain)
arctic, antarctic = 2 seasons (sunlight & night)
Arctic: 1 season: Cold (+at least one day with no sun and at least one day with no night)
Cold: 2 seasons: Cold and less cold
Temperate: 4 seasons
Subtropical: 2 seasons; hot and rainy, hot and dry
Tropical: It's raining.
Subtropical it's actually dry for years and seldom you have precipitatons
Tropical has rainy and dry seasons, not sure where you got the idea that it always rains. Maybe go visit a tropical country...
@@tancrediparisi7321
You are thinking desert....
@@ianallen738 Yeah maybe go spend 5 grand or more visiting a tropical country NERD! gottem.
As for the checks of the ranger type characters something I like to do is give the party a normally balanced variety of checks but allow the ranger (or any other terrain specialist such as clerics in chapels) to use their skills to assist the other players checks. For example the large river that Guy mentioned, if the party has to swim it (athletics challenge) the ranger can roll their survival and on a pass remember something about where the best place to cross a river is and the whole party gets advantage on that athletics roll. This helps your non-athletic characters not feel like they just drew the short straw and have to deal with it, your terrain specialist gets to feel like a hero and to everyone else he's suddenly their ultimate support. It also encourages some extra roleplaying.
I ran an entire campaign arc based on the 18th century Penal Colony fleets. (Australian first fleet in particular)
The Party were literally dumped on the shores of the New World, after trumped up charges from the Royal's brother forced them to be sent off. He was given a whole load of Convicts and the fleet, and told that he was to never return.
I have them arrive in the middle of autumn, when it's beginning to drizzle. (Australia only has snow on the highland mountains.) The Rangers and Druids can do their whole Bear Gryllis thing, while the rest of the party ends up building a shitty tent city.
I had the Native Orcs, the flora, and even the fauna raze their tents in the middle of winter, with pouring rain. It's amazing to watch as the party begins to divide up the tasks and literally plan the next few weeks. They built an outpost settlement; log cabins, Palisade walls that they then cast 'wood to stone' on, farms. They then put down a penal uprising and eventually had to fight off the Motherland's naval reclamation fleet.
chdmann this sounds like a fun gam to play in
As a DM it was incredibly easy to run the Arc too, especially for D&D. I already had a computer-generated map, and made a Random Encounters Table for each of 7 terrains (Desert, Scrub-land, Mountain, Wetlands, Forest. and Underground) on the continent. After that, I left the party to enjoy their open sandbox!
I've wanted to run a game like this for years! Sounds like you did a good job
The campaign only works if you have players who have initiative and creativity.
The players I have would be by-and-large be a considered 'backseat DMs' by some, so I figured an open world where I can dump the party and tell them to 'have fun' is the best way to channel their creative shenanigans into something I can build on.
They built a Dungeon-punk/tippy-verse super-power that became a large enough threat that the Motherland had to send in a 'Reclamation Fleet' when the Party figured that they can stop paying taxes to back home.
@@chdmann that's an honest concern: some of the people I play with or DM for would absolutely run wild with a sandbox and find things to do, but at least half of them would want a set and obvious quest to follow and wouldn't cope without something being dangled in front of them. For my upcoming lost island exploration game I'm planning on mixing the two to see how they react: shipwreck them on an unknown strange island with their equipment and supplies floating away further along the coast to get them traveling, but have strange figures appear and watch them from the horizon so they have a clear *thing* to chase after
Ohhh Guy, I have to give you my rant ... well, my thoughts ... on why it is more poetic to call it 'Fall' than 'Autumn' sometime. Long story short, we English speakers have been saying 'Fall' just a little bit longer than 'Autumn' and it is not connected to falling leaves but to an Old English word used to describe mortality and the act of dying.
Whereas Autumn just means ... well ... Autumn.
Looking sharp dude. Like the cut.
Yeah, the wilderness got cut down a bit...
exactly !
Indeed. Quite dapper.
"I like your cut, GM"
(dice rolling sound)
That's why Guy moved to Japan - his new job as a Yakuza hitman...?
Someboday wants something badyl and has difficulties Getting it. "I want a Good Haircut and have to move to Japan and join the Yakuza for that" XD
Isn't he from South Africa?
Yes.
Mazer Rackham Damn. Best wishes to his friends and family.
Very much agreed.
Got an interesting question on this subject:
You're familiar with the scenes in the Fellowship of the Ring where Gandalf, Boromir, and Gimli debate the different routes through which to get from Rivendell to Mordor?
People tend to be more familiar with different areas of their world than others, as can be seen in that example. Gimli is more familiar with the mountain passages than the others (save Gandalf), and is convinced of the safety in travelling through Moria, constantly bringing the option up as the group nears the mountains. Likewise, Boromir feels similar about the Gap of Rohan, in spite of Gandalf's argument about it taking the ring too close to Isengard.
The challenge for a DM comes with helping the players feel like that familiarity is something that they also bring to the table aside from their muscle or cunning or arcane prowess. However, I see that most DMs (myself included!) tend to approach this by just spoon-feeding this information if/when the players choose to ask for it.
Is there another cooler way to allow the players to individually know what locations they know about and how familiar they are without having to get a prompt from the DM? Like each player gets a map of the regions they call their homelands (which can and will overlap other players' maps), including secret shortcuts and personal notes on locations known by the player? (i.e. Gimli's map contains the mountains where he's from, vague directions on the edges to places like Rivendell and Mordor, and contains notes around Moria which say something like "cousin Balin lives here! Food safety ale here!")
As a matter of fact, provided I have time in the "campaign generation" period, I tend to do something like that... It's not always a collection of maps or map-fragments exactly (depends on how well the stinking printer works... or access to a printer at all)... BUT I like to construct something of rudimentary guides and such for "areas of familarity" for the PC's... Then dispensing them around the table dependent upon backstory, region of home, and some deferment to class and family lifestyle...
AND... for the record, no. I don't consider classes like Ranger and Druid to be specifically rural nor are they "the only" types to know anything "outdoorsy". Everyone in a relatively rural-ish setting (compared to modern civilized Earth) has some functional knowledge of the wilds, just some more limited than others.
Rangers and Druids would get certain benefits for the preferred terrain, particular sub-type, and something to do with training... BUT that's a case-by-case judgment, probably best done at the table. :o)
I tell my players before Session 0 well in advance that I would like them to develop not just a backstory, but also homelands as well. I use a world generator which literally generates a global map and the campaign might only begin on a tiny country. So, I use the player's imaginations to develop the world, flesh it out more.
I'd probably read up on what homelands they create then map it out onto the globe then flesh it out. Develop map notes to give players once you've fleshed their homelands out a bit. So, if they ever go near their homelands, they get maps of their character knowledge only they know (this is why I love Roll20). What's more, as GM, you could give out 'false maps' to the other players, kind of like telling players rumors that only they know so you can secretly cause conflict between the party as they decide which way to go.
Play A with the actual map knowledge: ''I live here. It's this way!"
Player B with false info: ''But the barkeep said that's caved in!''
Specifically in relation to that last paragraph, yes, that is one way to handle such things and is one I have personally done before. One issue doing it that way really has a lot to do with PC background. If you have, for example, a thief/rogue who has never left their home city then what they know may be very dense and detailed but only a relatively tiny area while the ranger who has traveled the wilderness extensively may know a rather large area but won't know a huge amount of detail about the majority of it.
Another issue this can create lies in the amount of work the GM has to do, partially collaboratively with each player, to determine where and what kinds of details the PCs will know and under what conditions they may recognize these coupled with how oft they may become relevant. It can be quite disheartening to have all this working info on a place that sees play maybe once or twice a year and worse still to have forgotten you should know this or that place until the session is over because you haven't bothered to look at your personal map in the last five years the campaign has run. As a GM it can be at least as bad because you know how much work you put into planning out those details that didn't ever come up because the PCs bypassed all the relevant areas trudging into unmapped regions to do so.
On final thing that doing this can do is in the effect of how much area you have to at least partially preplan, which can be especially bad if you're running the kind of campaign that grows it's world out organically as was fairly common thirty years ago. I'm not sure how common this is these days, but I feel it's worth mention.
I take an easier approach and give those pc's a bonus on the appropriate skill check based on their experience and background. "Kip, being from a port city himself, knows how these fishermen conduct themselves. +2 circumstance bonus to diplomacy" or "Salina has spent many years hunting in these forests. +2 to survival. "
Amazing idea I am going to use it
Nice video, but the first few times Guy says terrain, I kept wondering why players would expect to rain.
Same ;D
@@haldir_1234 only by seeing this comment, I realize that he didn't.
I like the idea of random encounters, especially when traveling through the wilderness. However, I decided a while ago that I would randomly roll for them before hand since I know how long the characters will be traveling for. So for instance, in my recent game the characters are traveling back to town which is 7 days away. I figure 3 combat or non combat random encounters should be enough to make the journey not boring and randomly rolled each of them the day before the game so that I could add more to them than I would normally be able to do so in moment if I just rolled them in the middle of the game.
I knew you are a great GM from the moment you said "maybe the orcs circumnavigate the players because they're worried..."
Subscribed.
Yeah so many DMs just forget those little details and treat every NPC as if their sole goal in the game world is murdering the players with reckless abandon.
New shirt: "You're the Geem, man!"
"You're the JIM, man! JIM-MAN"
On the subject of random encounters, I like to have a table upon which I roll 3d6 to see what the players encounter. Encounter does not necessarily mean fight (though it might). Then again, I tend to run a heavily improvised sandbox, and I design the table to add flavour to the region through which the party is travelling. If there's a war on, for example, they might see bands of soldiers (on either side) or refugees. Maybe deserters turned to banditry. Maybe goblin raiders taking advantage of the fact that the soldiers are elsewhere. Random encounters used well can make a world feel more lived in, and less like just a game setting.
Unfortunately, due to lack of local players, I'm not actually running a campaign at the moment. What I mentioned above was more just examples off the top of my head of what might be on such a chart. If I were to run a game in AD&D 2e with the above ideas in mind, however, the table would probably look a little like this:
3 Red Dragon (40% Adult; 30% Young Adult; 20% Mature Adult; 5% Juvenile; 5% Old) (0.46% chance)
4-6 Soldiers (70% local; 30% invading; 2d10) (8.8% chance)
7-8 Column of smoke in the distance (burned and looted village; will meet 3d10 refugees) (16.66% chance)
9 Column of smoke in the distance (burned and looted fortification; 20% chance to meet 2d10 deserters) (11.57% chance)
10-11 Wildlife (30% herd of 3d10 deer; 30% pack of 2d4 wolves (20% desperate); 40% harmless small animals e.g. rabbits) (25% chance)
12 Bandits (30% deserters; 20% desperate commoners) (11.57% chance)
13 Refugees (2d6) (9.72% chance)
14-16 Goblins (2d12; 50% on way to loot village; 50% returning from looted village) (14.35% chance)
17-18 Silver Dragon (40% Adult; 30% Young Adult; 20% Mature Adult; 5% Juvenile; 5% Old) (0.46% chance)
As you can see, they might encounter a dragon. It doesn't really fit the theme I'm going for, so it's unlikely (little over 2% chance) and said dragon probably won't actually do anything, but it reminds the party that the world is bigger than just their local area. Soldiers are not an uncommon sight (just under 10% chance), refugees are significantly more common (nearly 30% chance to encounter), and deserters, while not common, are not unheard of. Almost as common as the refugees are the burned ruins of small settlements and temporary fortifications. Goblins are slightly more likely to show up than bandits, having become bolder with the soldiers distracted, and even bandits are more common than they used to be; their numbers swelled by deserters and desperate commoners.
The thing to remember, however, is that even refugees will probably be armed - that means there's a 45% chance (roughly) of an encounter being armed humanoids - and deserters, refugees and bandits can be very difficult to tell apart from a distance. Travel is more dangerous than it used to be, so there might be a 2/6 or even a 3/6 chance of an encounter on any given day of travel.
At 6:10 I couldn't stop thinking, that the players were part of the reason why the castle became a ruin...
Yes, I remember a campaign where the players decided to first cast a "Transmute Rock to Mud" at the foundation and then an "Earthquake"...
I bing watch your channel for a week and I gain so much info, thanks Guy! I've been a GM for 4 years, but sometimes you bring up advice that I wouldn't ever come up with myself.
You're channeling Brian Eno and Lex Luthor. I never thought it possible before today.
A personal tip about Random Encounters. 1) Try letting the players roll the number. That way it makes the players feel more involved in the process. 2) Before the game is when you use the random encounter table, so roll up encounters and place them on the map ahead of time, and then when a random encounter is killed make it function as a clue as to what lay ahead.
Excellent tips. I already feel better prepared with ideas.
You needed to cross the large dangerous river. You have just come to a large waterfall. Do you climb down the waterfall & hope for a good crossing below or a ford later down the river? Do go around a long ways for an easy slope downward? Do you attempt to build something? (a bridge, a boat, parachutes, wings, scaffolding to be able to traverse down and later back up again)
I can see how some of those could lead to failures with natural consequences. Or maybe, while they are building, a patrol stumbles on to them. If the party is fast enough, they can stop the alarm. If they are too slow, the alarm gets sounded... If they fail to kill the patrol, the alarm is sounded and they have constant spotters who will re-sound the alarm and give away their positions.
Will they try to outrun the patrol? Will they chase the patrol down, for the hope of evading the (unknown) larger group?
Maybe an enemy swims across the river and now they must let it go or attempt a dangerous swim (possibly losing gear!)
Or maybe they can capture the patrol and find out if there is a ford and where enemy watchtowers and towns are.
I really liked the documentary analogy for setting the tone. Well done, my friend! I will use this advice in my games!
This is perfect for my western pathfinder game. I was wondering how I can incorporate nature better. This gave me inspiration to find a way to extend hunting into a group activity.
Planning on running a wilderness based mini campaign soon, thank you for the tips!
Thanks for this one. Didn't know I wanted it until I watched it. Also, asking "What do they expect?" Has become the question I ask myself after each session. Great way to keep it fun and uphold continuity.
When you were talking about overlanding and the roll coming up with a random encounter made me first think about some of them being non combat encounters but then I also thought of another idea. If it is becoming a real slog, like that situation suggests, the players could run into an npc who knows of a short cut they could show the players if they do a favor or maybe they need an escort through the short cut because there's monsters in there or something.
I am making my own RPG System and Setting that is focused on wilderness and survival. This video has helped me a lot.
Fantastic! I just asked about this a video or two back. Travel has been so boring and nothing but a chance for random encounters, now there is meaning and story elements. Very helpful.
Yeah, time to ditch that "random encounter table" that make the wilderness suck!
Great as always!
You mentioned tone, and while I agree with you on the rest, I personally feel that tone is the most important aspect of wilderness play. Careful use of it can be used wonderfully to transition a game from one type, to another gradually, and smoothly. The use of language, as always, is important, but if the characters are leaving a world of comfort and plenty, with standard dungeon crawls and 'rescue the prince(ss)' tropes surrounded by farmland and idyllic forests and fields, the use of terrain can set them up for the next chapter. Perhaps they are moving towards an area filled with substance abuse, deceit, and intrigue. Well, a transition into a swamp can begin to set the feel long before they arrive... plants that appear friendly on the surface, but are poisonous to the touch. Animals with hallucinogenic venom or mind altering natural defense mechanisms. Heat, humidity, and constant biting insects leading to discomfort and malaise. A town of near slaves working for the next dose of whatever drug makes them feel something other than misery in their servitude.
That is just one example, but I believe it could be fun to do an examination at some point of a few environments, and how broad their tonal implications can be.
Edit: Oh, and a minor thing! It appears that the video recommendations are appearing on the left, over the credits, rather than the right. Not terrible, but making your effort in putting those credits together somewhat wasted. I just wanted to make you aware.
Perfect timing! Just preparing a trek though the dense jungles of Xendrik (D&D 3.5 Eberron) for my intrepid adventurers.
Love these episodes. Thanks good sir, you've made me such a better GM.
I've had the problem of one of my players absolutely dominating any challenges on the open ocean, ruining what would have been a fun encounter for the party in what was supposed to be a pirate campaign (even with ships that have magical barriers that restrict his magic items and fire stuff at him under water). This has given me some more ideas as to how to balance things out. Your videos have been nothing short of perfect lately. Thank you, Guy.
Well, that and to have other things for everyone else to engage in.
If your players are traveling to a destination I like to have an encounter on the way that is directly related to what the quest is.
when i feel like having an encounter out of the blue. it will usually go %-for level of power and D6 to determine the mood of the encounter. 1being hostile-6 being usefull
I didn't even think about sand ships...my dessert Orcs just got better
have them attack using wind surfboards.
Hey if you think dessert orcs are awesome just try pastry goblins 😉 jk
The Chubby Atheist "dessert orcs" i'm crying
@@magiv4205 A trifling encounter
Great show, thank you for all the hard work. Ever consider reading for some fantasy audio books? Your voice is better than most audible readers. Do they ever audio record fantasy game manuals? It would be cool to have them read with slight annotation. Glad you do these videos. They are nice to wake up. Being autistic I dislike most readers. You've got a great lyrical quality that makes it easy to listen and learn.
Hopefully going to be able to run a survival campaign later this year. Great video. Thanks
I don’t think that Rangers/Druids carrying most of the traveling checks in the wilderness is a bad thing. That’s kind of what they do. Not to say you shouldn’t include things to keep the other players engaged, but I think you also have to give your nature-lover a chance to shine.
Even with a wilderness setting where a ranger would typically make most of the checks to get through, most systems I know of allow for other players to make supporting die rolls to aid another player. Not to downplay changing it up and having something more magical and unexpected like Guy suggested around 16:00, but I've found that encouraging players to help one another in that way rather than just waiting for the ranger to find a path, or the diplomat to sprinkle some honeyed words.
Had to click the like button.. Just because South Africa was mentioned 🇿🇦
Also some good ideas for me as a new GM, looking forward to Rome of the Frost Maiden
I keep lists of potential encounters in an area - creatures, travellers, structures, events, weather etc. I roll a d12 in front of them when time passes: resting or marching etc, but I use whatever I like so long as I don't roll a 12. A 12 is an encounter with a hostile creature(s). Even then it isn't automatic combat, just possible combat depending on their actions.
I like the topic, a lot of time gets spent in the wilderness in many campaigns.
Just in time. I am about to try being a dungeon master, and the forest is mainly where it is in. Thanks!
My imagination is surely sparked wonderfully. Perhaps too much, as I spaced out and began daydreaming at some point more than halfway through the video.
This was extremely helpful! Thank You!
Very good tips!! Thank you.
You should write a book. Btw always wanted to go to Japan. Jealous. Love the culture there.
As a reference i LOVE "the Edge", with Anthony Hopkins.
Regarding random encounters, I am running a game that starts on an island so I have set apart hexagon sections on the map with highlighter and the different areas each have a different chance to encounter a different thing.
Could you pls write the themes (not the general (which is the video is about) but the little themes 'in' the general theme) you are tackeling in the corner of your videos again? (you did it in earlier vids!) - This often helped me listening!!
Wow, so clean-cut and professional....... . What the hell happened?
I'm working on putting a campaign together, where the players are commissioned by a great king to go explore uncharted lands.
I use random encounter tables tailored to the area so that the party can share the improvisational discovery of the story with me. Like Emperor Leto, I want a world of surprises.
Once had a guy in our group who wanted to run a Forgotten Realms campaign. Told us he wanted to show us how to properly run a game.
Turns out “properly run” meant try to get us to play magic users so we could pool are XP to make magic items before the game started (it was 3.5) and the. To get lost in the wilderness as he had NO story for us.
The best way I've found to make wilderness in games is adding in some of the crazy stuff found in our own world, for instance in my next session this week I plan on them running into a lake inhabited by bioluminescent plankton...also a siren who tries to drown the players but that is aside the point
Random Encounters are good and fun and I like to include them and as a GM to spice things up for me as well but I don't like using a table to decide what monsters there is,
I appreciate all this info but like... for 5e specifically, I think there's two problems: the rules are not concrete enough (compared to OSR type D&D where overland exploration is practically turn-based) and long resting in wilderness is no different than long resting in a bed.
The first problem means that travel is nebulous and linear. Your party goes in a straight line towards their objective, then once every X miles the DM rolls on a random encounter table. You don't get the sense that you're exploring ANYTHING. You get the sense that you're just delaying the inevitable goal of arriving at the final destination.
The second problem means that combat encounters are very uninteresting because that players always are maxed out. There's little tension to a random encounter when players are fully rested. The goblin did 3 damage to you. Ok, whatever.
Those two things are why wilderness exploration is glossed over or skipped or turned into one combat, then you're there. I don't really care about how rocky the terrain is or how it's raining when there's no mechanical support for that.
Love these kinds of discourses...
In my experience, encounters mean to encounter something... NOT necessarily to fight it. I mean, you can travel out in the wilds right now and encounter a mountain. I've encountered lots of things on hikes through woods, desert, jungles, even cities... didn't usually have to fight any of them, though...
Particularly liked the short chat about transport. It is (after all) a fantasy setting, so why the hell is everyone ALWAYS walking everywhere? AND if they're not walking, they're riding horses... I love giving the tinkergnomes sh*t to do. Let them invent a host of ridiculous crap for getting around. Transport can even be the PERFECT excuse for minutia-magic. Why not mass-produce "flying rugs" (instead of a classical flying carpet)... The usual magic carpet, will fly like a bird... BUT what's wrong with a rug that only cruises along about three or four feet off the ground??? Is that a problem?
Maybe there's a "go kart" that runs on beer... or a tricycle built for a dozen... or desert dog-sleds... or some kind of double-hulled sphere that lets the inner hull sit upright regardless of the outer hull's motions... AND a giant series of "pinball" -esque machinations that catapult or powersling the giant balls from one place to another... convenient, yes... but dangerous as hell.
Finally, I'd like to point out that every forest in the world is just a little different in its varieties of animals and plants, from every other forest. SO it might make sense to construct custom random-encounter tables with some six to a dozen (12) unique animals and plants (especially if you like mobile/aggressive plants) and such that can be encountered along with listings for "the usual" stuff from the book of whatever forests... It puts a little more interest and life into the flavor of your wilderness terrains, and I'm confident if this kind of thing is true (and it is) about real forests, it's probably true about swamps, plains, deserts, and other terrains as well...
AND of course, DON'T FORGET TO HAVE FUN WITH IT!!! :o)
I have seen a very similar also great Video, but i can't seem to remember where...
Anyways I hope I don't forget this one too until I need it. As it happens, my players just left the rural areas...
Excellent
Thank you!!!
Another great video on how to be a great geem
Your videos are so inspiring. Can you do a video on super hero settings?
Gonna start calling myself the Geem now
If you have outdoor survival procedures then it’s a game in itself.
Like your hair! Looks great!
I heard that the Middle Earth supplement for 5e has some great traveling advice.
Just make sure to pack lots of lembas and cheese.
Could you share a link?
Love the hair!
Ah the wondreus valleys of Saan' Deehaego
Great video! My party definitely needed help with this. I've been looking around at a bunch of different RPGs I want to try so I was wondering if you had any suggestions or any tips on DMing a system you're not used to? I've looked at Star Trek Adventures and the Dresden Files but haven't played either.
My best advice (for what it's worth) is that you should start by just reading the Game-master's Guide, and a Player's Guide from cover to cover, first. Assuming you mean to GM a system you don't intend to play first, this is about the most effective start I can think of...
Second, go back to the GM's Guide, and start taking notes, and BUILD your GM-screen for yourself with it. By the time you get together a reasonably functional GM's screen (based on approximately what you KNOW you'll need from experience in D&D, for instance) you'll probably be fairly familiar with the general mechanics of running in that system.
Finally, the bottom line is that system mechanics really don't have to matter particularly. If you create a good enough narrative, so you have reasons for the judgments you call on the table, you can "get by" running almost any system as arbitrarily as you need or wish... so that storytelling craft is your strongest suit. Don't beat yourself up about unfamiliar books and difficulty divining a ruling from source-material, or a faulty memory... We all lapse stuff. Just remember to make note of your "call" when you make it, so you can get back to the book and double check yourself when it's convenient... If it's worth note and you prefer to change to what the books say, then you can mark them for the next session and bring it up to the Players, just to make sure everyone knows how the mechanic does work, when run properly, and that you won't be "skewing" that offhanded in the future... It just saves some of the "bitching" when one PC gets away with a "stunt" one session and two sessions later, he can't do it because "rules".
Oh yeah... DON'T FORGET TO HAVE A GOOD TIME!!! :o)
gnarth d'arkanen Sounds good thank you!
you are the g maaan!
I watched this because I'm trying to make my jungle setting not suck, which, you'd think that'd be easy/straightforward, it being a jungle/rainforest and all, but unfortunately there are plenty of rivers and they have a sturdy boat, so they're able to avoid roughly 90% of the actual jungle. Is there a video among the archive that deals with making river travel interesting?
A fun thing to do is leave decayed buildings in the forest with nothing in them. No monster or treasure but leave hints that people lived there a LONG as time ago. Lol so much fun watching my players be on edge. "Why the fuck is there a stone tower in the woods? There must be good shit there!"
10:30 I AM the Jeem!
But.. wilderness sucks....
Long time without much going on other than random encounters.
Short food & Short on shelter for the unprepared. (and most DnD parties are woefully unprepared)
DM has to track terrain, weather, food, water....
I paid attention to food for one group doing a 2 week trek. 4 days in they were out of food. next day out of water. Clueless party (nobody had any skills useful for hunting/gathering or finding water even and no player had a clue)
I had a random encounter show up, so I made it a deer. To make it an easier target I made it white. The players tried to worship the deer....
Random encounters areke, if I have a random table for travelliing show it to my plaers. Let them inspect tt. Let them make a informed roll.Let them haggle f the ould reduce the dice roll etc. And than, if they roll this dragon encounter ... maybe there is only a hut with a family living in it. Nobody expects a steel dragon.
My players get jumpy and paranoid whenever they leave civilization and enter the wilderness. I must be doing something right.... Inclement weather can be an interesting adventure in of itself. My players entered their fist dungeon to get out of a massive hailstorm... Even ordinary animals, or the lack thereof, can present a threat and hooks for an adventure....
👍
How do you handle star wars without making a giant table of hundreds of entries for planets or railroading your playgroup?
Do it like Kotor, condense it to a few planet's with plot devices, or interconnected plot devices and let them choose between them
I handle it about the same as most settings, actually... I create a loosely knitted "group" of storylines and plot devices... Sprinkle in an assortment of NPC's, some good natured, others generally abrasive, and a few just comical...
Then I get up off my duff to deliver narrative and description with spirit, and let the Players cast their dispersions and ruin pretty much everything and everyone they come in contact with... Players are legendary for that. :o)
Your right god damn it i am a "gmm"
ELEVENTEENTH
third
Atlantis is boring
My man looks like a top soy boy here
Guy, you're right about many things, but your entirely negative point of view about everything is... ... ...It takes away from your videos.