Slave to the module

[Baulderstone]

And you have to run right episodes every time. There can be no weak episode. That’s very hard to do, and missed the leverage of your best asset - the players.

In my experience, the best "plot" is always an idea the players came up with that the GM didn't expect.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think 1e Apocalypse World - if one either enjoys the authorial voice used, or can get past it, has really good GMing advice baked into the rules. This advice generally drives to the same place as outlined above using OSE to run a great sandbox module, but from a different angle/perspective.

I’m currently reading Stonetop for a possible campaign for my face to face game and it’s got great advice. It draws heavily on Apocalypse World and Dungeon World, but does its own thing at times, and benefits from having had more time since the PbtA system arrived.

It’s got great advice for GMs and how to run a game, most of it far more broadly applicable than many folks would expect from a PbtA game.

 

[SJB]

Came across this interesting essay about the history of railroading; a Ken Rolston coinage in the way we tend to use the term in RPGs it seems.

However, it seems that the German game The Dark Eye was explicitly committed to railroading from Day 1 (and still is). Probably not one to share as good practice.

Whence cometh “Railroading”? Some history of the term, and on the German love for trains

Inspired by a blog post by Tom, I wanted to look into the history of the term “railroading”. What follows are the earliest occurrences of the term I could find. Then a few superficial thoughts on r…

rpgdiegesis.wordpress.com

 

[Baulderstone]

Came across this interesting essay about the history of railroading; a Ken Rolston coinage in the way we tend to use the term in RPGs it seems.

However, it seems that the German game The Dark Eye was explicitly committed to railroading from Day 1 (and still is). Probably not one to share as good practice.

Whence cometh “Railroading”? Some history of the term, and on the German love for trains

Inspired by a blog post by Tom, I wanted to look into the history of the term “railroading”. What follows are the earliest occurrences of the term I could find. Then a few superficial thoughts on r…

rpgdiegesis.wordpress.com

The excerpt from The Dark Eye is terrible. Leaving aside if simply being bad GMing, a lot of my players are GMs as well, so they often end up reading adventures after I have run them. Can you imagine telling your players, "you could have just gone the other way, dummy!" only to have them later read that you were flat-out lying to them?

 

[Fenris-77]

We are men of action, lies do not become us.

 

[StonesThree]

But yeah, these days it feels like everything has to be EPIC or else many people aren't interested.

Is this not a side-effect of modern DnD's relentless cannonball run towards level 20? The escalating arms race between the players and the GMs forcing ever bigger stakes?

 

[Fenris-77]

I have some suspicions about how many campaigns actually get to 20th level. The arms race is real though, if not quite as confrontational as your post makes it seem.

 

[Baulderstone]

Is this not a side-effect of modern DnD's relentless cannonball run towards level 20? The escalating arms race between the players and the GMs forcing ever bigger stakes?

There is definitely something to that. As a GM during the 3E era, I felt there was a sudden focus on players on what their character would be like in the future over what was happening now in the game. When progression was both slower and less dramatic, players thought about it less.

 

[Fenris-77]

There is definitely something to that. As a GM during the 3E era, I felt there was a sudden focus on players on what their character would be like in the future over what was happening now in the game. When progression was both slower and less dramatic, players thought about it less.

I feel like as soon as people started talking about 'builds', things were different. I never used to think that way about characters.

 

[Baulderstone]

I have some suspicions about how many campaigns actually get to 20th level. The arms race is real though, if not quite as confrontational as your post makes it seem.

And that's what makes it really sad. You have players obsessed with what their characters will be like at 20th level, but they will probably never get there, and even if they do, that's the end of the game anyway.

We had a thread on advice for running Savage Worlds last week, and I mentioned how the system does a good job of handling large numbers of character, so players can acquire groups of followers. This means that players have an interest in making allies in the campaign setting. As I went straight from 3E to Savage Worlds, it was so much more interesting when players were acquiring power through working with NPCs rather than waiting for the next level bump and making the power purchases they planned back at level 1.

 

[Baulderstone]

Continuing from my last post, the whole Challenge Rating concept plays against what I liked in Savage Worlds. In a by-the-book D&D game, it's basically "cheating" if the players get a group of NPC followers, as it throws of the balance of encounters. It encourages the GM to block NPCs from working with players even when it makes sense. It makes friendly NPCs into static quest-givers like in an Elder Scrolls game.

 

[JAMUMU]

The rhythmical dance of the module must be resisted, comrades!

 

[StonesThree]

We never used hirelings in any DnD from 3.5 upwards. Combats took too long already before chucking a load more NPC's onto the table. In hindsight we maybe should have in order to plug gaps in the parties capabilities but nobody wanted to take on the burden of making extra characters and levelling them up.

 

[Telok]

We are men of action, lies do not become us.

"Mr. GM, put on your big girl panties and just tell the truth."

Continuing from my last post, the whole Challenge Rating concept plays against what I liked in Savage Worlds. In a by-the-book D&D game, it's basically "cheating" if the players get a group of NPC followers, as it throws of the balance of encounters. It encourages the GM to block NPCs from working with players even when it makes sense. It makes friendly NPCs into static quest-givers like in an Elder Scrolls game.

It's a shift in game reward style that's often mentioned but never really investigated (and I'm not going to try in a morning coffee post).

We say that the game went from "gold for xp" to "kills for xp", but never really dive into some of the surrounding subtleties like dropping doubling xp requirements per level while not doubling xp per kill each "monster level". And it changed from the big rewards being magic items & spell knowledge & stuff & allies gained through doing heroic stuff as you level up to things like inherent class powers (that includes spells 'cause they're automatic gained) gained by leveling up from fighting things.

That's a major shift, going from a rewards for adventuring (random magic items rolls maps pretty well to online game loot boxes & ccg packs) and level up as a side effect paradigm to the class powers rewards for leveling up by fighting stuff one with the side effect "keep up the pc fight numbers" magic items. To keep the reward cycle going the levels have to come faster and give more, but a side effect of being absolutely certain of getting specific powers is good combos vs lame powers which trends to the "planned power build vs traps that screw you up" game structures.

 

[Fenris-77]

I have an intense but still cordial distaste for the XP-from-kills school of PC rewards. I haven't used it even in D&D in ages.

 

[Sable Wyvern]

The rhythmical dance of the module must be resisted, comrades!

We can dance if we want to.

 

[Dyrnwyn]

Is this not a side-effect of modern DnD's relentless cannonball run towards level 20? The escalating arms race between the players and the GMs forcing ever bigger stakes?

Maybe somewhat, but I don't think it's limited to D&D, or solely a mechanical thing. It seems like everything has to be high stakes and the characters have to be the movers and shakers from the get go.

 

[Arminius]

Came across this interesting essay about the history of railroading; a Ken Rolston coinage in the way we tend to use the term in RPGs it seems.

However, it seems that the German game The Dark Eye was explicitly committed to railroading from Day 1 (and still is). Probably not one to share as good practice.

Whence cometh “Railroading”? Some history of the term, and on the German love for trains

Inspired by a blog post by Tom, I wanted to look into the history of the term “railroading”. What follows are the earliest occurrences of the term I could find. Then a few superficial thoughts on r…

rpgdiegesis.wordpress.com

This is an excellent find—particularly the link to the Ken Rolston article—but there’s a bit of lack of perspective across the two blog posts. Even before the Forge, railroading (whatever you call it) wasn’t regarded neutrally—notwithstanding Rolston, railroading and illusionism were the subject of giant flame wars on Usenet.

 

[Tommy Brownell]

Ironic, as my group kind of is thriving on episodic stuff. I’ve started using various tv shows a guides. Episodic things, overarching plot that becomes apparent

This is how I ran my (beloved by my group) ETU campaign. I used the plot points from the campaign for the big thread building to the campaign finale, but often had other threats taking center stage, with each year of school having its own key NPCs and threats. It was specifically very “Buffy” in structure.

 

[Arminius]

BTW if not mentioned in the blog posts, the issue of DW was #31.

 

[Instantnoodl]

Came across this interesting essay about the history of railroading; a Ken Rolston coinage in the way we tend to use the term in RPGs it seems.

However, it seems that the German game The Dark Eye was explicitly committed to railroading from Day 1 (and still is). Probably not one to share as good practice.

Whence cometh “Railroading”? Some history of the term, and on the German love for trains

Inspired by a blog post by Tom, I wanted to look into the history of the term “railroading”. What follows are the earliest occurrences of the term I could find. Then a few superficial thoughts on r…

rpgdiegesis.wordpress.com

Damn. I never liked The Dark Eye because the world that its set in is not my cup of tea and the rules neither, but I didn't knew the adventures were that bad. The quoted parts are wild... I guess there are people that enjoy the railroad?

 

[Baulderstone]

Damn. I never liked The Dark Eye because the world that its set in is not my cup of tea and the rules neither, but I didn't knew the adventures were that bad. The quoted parts are wild... I guess there are people that enjoy the railroad?

You've really reached a low in adventure design when you have advice on how to handle the fact that your players will hate the adventure.

 

[Sosthenes]

Damn. I never liked The Dark Eye because the world that its set in is not my cup of tea and the rules neither, but I didn't knew the adventures were that bad.

They were a mixed bag, especially the early ones. Part of that comes from the author being steeped in solo adventures (Tunnels & Trolls, which is *the* major influence on TDE), part of it because it was sold alongside regular boardgames, with no proper gamers to explain things and thus a more didactic approach was mandated by the company, which often lead to stuff like this. Shortly after the first game came out, there even was a variant where you were the "fantasy book police", sent to fix plot deviations in public domain classics like Treasure Island ;)
Not trying to defend all of them, Kiesow, the main initial author of the game couldn't write a decent adventure to save his life.

Although the blog post's complaints seem a bit exaggerated, with nary a gray area between purely location based scenarios and "railroads". Travelogues are constrained quite often, how "railroaded" would you view top 10 list stalwarts like WFRP's Enemy Within or Red Hand of Doom?

 

[dragoner]

Modules are good training wheels, I had fun w/a few like the GDQ series. Though this is also a problem publishing stuff is that I want to give more resources than straight adventures. Back in the day everyone read everything so it was impossible to run something after it had been published for a while, though one can still mine adventures for bits. So yeah, I've not really run an adventure as such from published stuff in a long time.

 

[Fenris-77]

I view modules these days as piñatas. I bust them open and run around giggling about all the cool bits and pieces that fall out that I can use in my own stuff. There are exceptions of course, but those are rare. Occasionally I get something awesome like Slumbering Ursine Dunes that's begging to be run as-is.

 

[Baulderstone]

I view modules these days as piñatas. I bust them open and run around giggling about all the cool bits and pieces the fall out that I can use in my own stuff. There are exceptions of course, but those are rare. Occasionally I get something awesome like Slumbering Ursine Dunes that's begging to be run as-is.

That's my feeling. Even if I never run a module, I'm happy if I can harvest some cool NPCs, locations and maps from it.

Modules can also be a good way to answer the question of "what do players do in this game." Going back to The Enemy Within campaign, just reading it gives a GM a better sense of the things players can get up to in the setting than the core book alone. It also presents the setting from a more ground-level view than history and setting information you typically get in a core book.

 

[Fenris-77]

That's my feeling. Even if I never run a module, I'm happy if I can harvest some cool NPCs, locations and maps from it.

Modules can also be a good way to answer the question of "what do players do in this game." Going back to The Enemy Within campaign, just reading it gives a GM a better sense of the things players can get up to in the setting than the core book alone. It also presents the setting from a more ground-level view than history and setting information you typically get in a core book.

I need to reread that. I did play it once, back in the depths of time, but I think it could stand another look by 2023 me.

 

[Caesar Slaad]

I view modules these days as piñatas. I bust them open and run around giggling about all the cool bits and pieces the fall out that I can use in my own stuff. There are exceptions of course, but those are rare. Occasionally I get something awesome like Slumbering Ursine Dunes that's begging to be run as-is.

That's kind of where I've settled. If it doesn't seem like I'll run an adventure as-is, I'll revert to "strip it for parts" mode. Maps, NPCs/monsters, cool plot details or locations mired in a mediocre adventure can live a new life as part of my adventure collective.

This applies on a larger scale as well. If individual adventures in a campaign are cool but some are mediocre, I'll cut them out to run standalone or splice them together with other adventures to make my own kit bash. I did this with the old Night Below and Rod of Seven Parts boxed set adventure. Book 2 of Night Beliw was a grind we never finished, but Ro7P had a chapter that was a blasé dungeon crawl, so I pulled out the cool aboleth city in book 3 of Night Below and used it in its stead.

 

[Nobohom]

As an interesting bit of trivia?
My former thesis supervisor/whatever that role is called, used to be a regular part of Grace Jones' entourage.
I heard stories. Shall not repeat them. But they were vaguely wild.

 

[S'mon]

Reading the 4e The enemy Within thread about railroads and experiencing a pf2e game, I’m somewhat surprised that we still deal with experienced GMs who are also not very good GMs and are also not aware they are not very good GMs.

There's this one guy at the London D&D Meetup who's the poster child for this. I think it's extremely common. Many people have no desire to change or improve. And though many players run for the hills, there's always a GM shortage and more victims available, especially in public clubs.

 

[Ossian]

I believe I am a slave to the module and to the rules. I recognize it and want to improve. I play crunchy games and like detailed modules because I find comfort that there is an answer to most questions that come up. I can be a bit quiet, so when I run something and I’m not completely comfortable with the group, I struggle to think outside the box in real time. I’m also a bit of a perfectionist. If I’m prepping a module that requires some details added, I can agonize for a while trying, for example, to find the perfect town for a location the characters won’t spend much time in.

I recognize all this, and want to improve as a GM. I thought the best course of action would be to give the crunchy rules a rest for a bit and run something that will force me to make lots of rulings on the fly until I get comfortable, as well as use adventure outlines that I have to fill in. I was thinking Low Fantasy Gaming might be a good choice because the setting’s a sandbox with a bunch of adventure frameworks. It would probably be a good exercise for me also to convert an adventure to a different rules or to design a small adventure area and use it.

What do you recommend (books, actions, etc.) for someone who fits the OP description but wants to become a better GM?

 

[Instantnoodl]

I believe I am a slave to the module and to the rules. I recognize it and want to improve. I play crunchy games and like detailed modules because I find comfort that there is an answer to most questions that come up. I can be a bit quiet, so when I run something and I’m not completely comfortable with the group, I struggle to think outside the box in real time. I’m also a bit of a perfectionist. If I’m prepping a module that requires some details added, I can agonize for a while trying, for example, to find the perfect town for a location the characters won’t spend much time in.

I recognize all this, and want to improve as a GM. I thought the best course of action would be to give the crunchy rules a rest for a bit and run something that will force me to make lots of rulings on the fly until I get comfortable, as well as use adventure outlines that I have to fill in. I was thinking Low Fantasy Gaming might be a good choice because the setting’s a sandbox with a bunch of adventure frameworks. It would probably be a good exercise for me also to convert an adventure to a different rules or to design a small adventure area and use it.

What do you recommend (books, actions, etc.) for someone who fits the OP description but wants to become a better GM?

Realizing that you have a problem and want to improve is a great first step! I think switching to a system with "rulings not rules" might be a nice idea.

My personal take: I'm also a perfectionist and always had a lot of anxiety about DMing. Both increased the time to prep a module immensely as I tried to be ready for nearly everything. After a while I moved from running D&D 5e to D&D B/X (in the form of Old School Essentials) and for me this was the stepping stone to finally be more comfortable with DMing and decreasing the prep work.

I think it's necessary to approach world building from a different angle to leave a lot of stress behind. For example: Most of 5e modules are placed in the Forgotten Realms, which is a huge world with a lot of complex and developed lore. I can understand that it is comfortable if the module gives you a lot of answers as this is not YOUR world, but the one you borrow and you most likely don't know all the ins and outs. People might say "Start with the modules placed in that world instead of homebrewing because creating your own world takes so much time and afford". This is where I disagree. I think it's far easier to start with a small selfmade world, and grow that organically with the players than to try running modules inside a already made world.

Small, site based world without big meta-plots is the key for me. I place some basic locations on a hex grid:

• Hub City: This is where the players will start their adventure and most likely sleep and trade their loot in
• 2 or 3 other settlements (Small town, fortress, whatever you like)
• Some dungeons, bandit camps whatever in the proximity of the Hub City that the players could hear rumors about (You can use 1 Page Dungeons etc.)
• Some basic biomes like forest and mountains

And then you observe what the players try to do, loot, kill, hunt, find etc. and only flesh out when there is the need. I don't typically plan further ahead then the next session.

Simple Example:

Simplified Setup: Players hear multiple rumors in the Hub city. One of the rumors involves cultists doing the typical evil stuff deep in the forest. The actual site is just a 1 page dungeon containing a lair full of cultists. The group decides that this rumor is the one they are interested in and so they go find the cultists and clean up the lair.

Reaction: Now I will come up with something simple that will create a bigger plot point out of the cultist losing one of their bases. The cultists don't want adventurers to interfere in what they are doing. As a response they might hire some bandits to ambush the group the next time they leave the town. This is the moment where the world starts becoming personal, as the player action (killing the cultists) lead to a response of the world (ambushed by bandits). This opens all kinds of possibilities for the players. Maybe they interrogate one of the bandits and learn that the cultists hired them and gain a clue for another base of the cultist. The base can also be another simple dungeon or some house in the city, whatever seems cool. You just come up with a few more simple cultist plot points that they players can learn from this place. Maybe by interrogating the cultist boss in the next base they can learn about the goal of the cultists. They want to resurrect some evil being or get more people in the area to believe in their evil god (that is cooler than the other goods). From these simple step by step growth of plot all kinds of side plots, events, faction interactions whatever can spin off and the world starts to come alive by itself. And if the players don't really care about the reason for the ambush just let them explore the next site until they hit something else they find interesting.

Sure you could have had the cultist plot ready in advance, but why stress yourself? From placing these dumb and simple sites with minimal prep in the world bigger plots can grow organically and they are guided by what the players want. Why come up with a huge world and big meta plots when the players might not care about 90% of them.

That's why I left these sequential modules inside big worlds behind. I still look at modules, but I just steal the parts that I think can fit nicely into the organic plot points that my simple world created together with the players. Having rolltables for all kinds of stuff at hand can also help and be a interesting random element for both you as a DM and also for the players that can further develop the world.

I'm not a perfect DM either, but that are my 2 cents about the approach that made me the most comfortable. I get positive feedback from my players and always keep trying to improve from session to session

 

[Ossian]

Great advice! Thanks for posting Instantnoodl.

 

[Bourbonjack]

Great advice from Instantnoodl

I’ll add on one of my “tricks” with this dirt if stert small, build out world building. If players want their characters to be a member of an organization, I have the player develop the details for said organization. I review, modify as needed then insert into campaign world.

 

[Moonglum]

I find one of the best devices for getting otherwise 'stuck' players to be proactive about what this whole adventuring thing is all about is to tack on some simple house rules regarding social status, its uses, and how you in crease it. These are central concepts in En Garde!, Flashing Blades (which has some deep En Garde! influences), and a few other games (Traveller, of course, where status is a core stat; Chivalry and Sorcery always had some sort of over-complicated treatment). I always felt that D&D made a mistake when it pooh-pooh'd the idea that characters come with a social status and background. It can be done badly, and it isn't super relevant to many classic dungeon situations. But players play their characters differently and better when they have some sort of frame of reference as to how they relate to other people.

 

[opaopajr]

What do you recommend (books, actions, etc.) for someone who fits the OP description but wants to become a better GM?

Three Big Things:
1) Practice Lateral Thinking.
2) Practice Small Things Repeatedly with Different Groups.
3) Practice "Scrying the Bones" consulting the dice/cards to push you out of subconsciously routine GM improvisation.

1. Asking one to practice lateral thinking is unfortunately a bit like asking one 'don't think of an elephant', but it can be easily practiced by taking a small situation and running through potential answers -- especially ones that are 'not optimal.' For example, if you are half-way up a 30' oak tree's trunk ask yourself "What are my options here?" This should run permutations of at least climb up, climb down, climb clockwise & counter-clockwise around the trunk, and let go taking your chances with damage and trying to run in 360 directions from the tree. That's already more than the typical up or down. But it should also prompt you to ask questions of context to expand your options: what large boughs that could support my weight are nearby?, what about the branches that could not?, where are the largest clumps of foliage?, the least foliage?, are there any knot holes or secret crevices?, etc.

That internal reflection and questioning helps expand your options, strengthening that other muscle: your own creativity.

2. Practicing small things repeatedly with different groups helps you see how much unexpected answers are left to mine by tapping into minds that are not your own. Small situations allow you to build familiarity, and thus routine (like 'muscle memory') comfort with the material. This comfort gives resilience that your handling will rarely irredeemably break if not followed with optimal choices on the players' end. And all complex plans suffer first contact with other people's free will variable. More heads are better than one; players running through what you are used to can lead to pleasant surprises.

This external testing through other free wills helps expand your expectations, strengthening that other muscle: your own openness.

3. And lastly we subconsciously are victims of our own routines, expectations, and personal biases. Basically, for all our talk of free will we don't actively choose it at every singular moment in life (to do so chases analysis paralysis, if not contemplate order beyond comprehension and thus court madness). There's always the environment beyond ourselves, call it kismet, destiny, fate, and so on. But how can a mere mortal GM emulate the ineffable, to confound their mortal personal biases, conscious or not? Simple, you welcome what you believe to be randomness, or at least 'outside-ness', to shake things up in ways unanticipated by any mortal minds present. You consult the dice, cards, RNG(esus), whatever and then invest correlating meaning into the context.

These are moments of suspended logic and reintegration into the situation with imbued meaning, strengthening that other muscle: your capacity for synthesis.

Conclusion: These are small exercises that can be immediately incorporated into daily life, let alone RPG play. We can find moments where we can ask ourselves: what else could I do here, what is someone else's opinion here, and what does randomness say I should do here? Now you don't have to act it out (because obvious difference in risk between reality and pretend), but you can enjoy the thought experiment as you exercise other parts of you.

Perhaps use it for deciding Tuesday dinner besides Tacos?

 

[opaopajr]

It's a shift in game reward style that's often mentioned but never really investigated (and I'm not going to try in a morning coffee post).

We say that the game went from "gold for xp" to "kills for xp", but never really dive into some of the surrounding subtleties like dropping doubling xp requirements per level while not doubling xp per kill each "monster level". And it changed from the big rewards being magic items & spell knowledge & stuff & allies gained through doing heroic stuff as you level up to things like inherent class powers (that includes spells 'cause they're automatic gained) gained by leveling up from fighting things.

That's a major shift, going from a rewards for adventuring (random magic items rolls maps pretty well to online game loot boxes & ccg packs) and level up as a side effect paradigm to the class powers rewards for leveling up by fighting stuff one with the side effect "keep up the pc fight numbers" magic items. To keep the reward cycle going the levels have to come faster and give more, but a side effect of being absolutely certain of getting specific powers is good combos vs lame powers which trends to the "planned power build vs traps that screw you up" game structures.

Yes, quite a bit was lost in translation from core TSR rules to tables in actual play. And similarly older play functions were lost in transition from TSR to WotC. XP growth, magic items, and wealth/GP were accessible in more than the typical ways expected.

Technically surviving an encounter by fleeing was an XP teachable moment in more than just old D&D (IIRC AD&D it was 1/4 of combat XP). Magical items could be gifted, loaned by NPCs in adventures, and possibly even tricked or pilfered. And Robert Conley reminds us that the real treasure of Tomb of Horrors was those freaking gargantuan Adamantine Doors.

Somewhere along the way a default reward cycle took dominance in play expectations. It could be as innocent as past play becoming tradition to current play. But if tradition is just 'dead people peer pressure' (or at least past experience peer pressure), and the actual past does not limit such things, then maybe the search has to be within us as we interact with others and the text. Good related aspect to bring up!

Is this not a side-effect of modern DnD's relentless cannonball run towards level 20? The escalating arms race between the players and the GMs forcing ever bigger stakes?

Yes, expectations of one's aspirations versus one's present reality is a great sales function. To sell dissatisfaction and offer relief from manufactured widgets you may never use is a solid business model. Previously name level was the end of PC widgets and each new level just gave you HP. You were expected to display your power through followers, henchmen, and hirelings thereafter. A very different reward cycle was offered, a living hex map war game. That's very different from selling dissatisfaction for identity rarities and widget combos.

Continuing from my last post, the whole Challenge Rating concept plays against what I liked in Savage Worlds. In a by-the-book D&D game, it's basically "cheating" if the players get a group of NPC followers, as it throws of the balance of encounters. It encourages the GM to block NPCs from working with players even when it makes sense. It makes friendly NPCs into static quest-givers like in an Elder Scrolls game.

Yes, WotC really sidelined a lot of aspects in the transition. Now TSR did not routinely put NPCs as an in-your-face mandatory feature, but they were talking about henchmen, hirelings, and followers throughout their run. The adventures are... very all over the place and mostly not exemplary (Thanks The Dark Eye. Did not know it had that large of an effect). I do however remember much core and supplement advice about NPCs as emergency replacement PCs, of alternate side quest PCs, of plurality roleplaying by shifting underling NPCs to a fellow player to roleplay, etc. And then we get into weird hires and services rendered, like sages, assassins, magic services, stronghold servants and employees, and so on.

So a lot of the stress where modern PCs expect to cover a niche for an entire party at nigh-epic levels, and that each party should be a Swiss-army knife of contingency plans, leads to Quadratic Solutions to keep up with zero-reliance expectations of the rest of the fictional society. I would even go further, such expectations of party self-reliance to even play, to even finish a shit-written adventure, destroys interest in engaging the fictional world beyond a tissue-thin scenery to destroy and mock. It looks like a lamentable consequence of small decisions snowballing over time.

 

[Voros]

Is this not a side-effect of modern DnD's relentless cannonball run towards level 20? The escalating arms race between the players and the GMs forcing ever bigger stakes?

Nope.

 

[SmallbutVicious]

I believe I am a slave to the module and to the rules. I recognize it and want to improve. I play crunchy games and like detailed modules because I find comfort that there is an answer to most questions that come up. I can be a bit quiet, so when I run something and I’m not completely comfortable with the group, I struggle to think outside the box in real time. I’m also a bit of a perfectionist. If I’m prepping a module that requires some details added, I can agonize for a while trying, for example, to find the perfect town for a location the characters won’t spend much time in.

I recognize all this, and want to improve as a GM. I thought the best course of action would be to give the crunchy rules a rest for a bit and run something that will force me to make lots of rulings on the fly until I get comfortable, as well as use adventure outlines that I have to fill in. I was thinking Low Fantasy Gaming might be a good choice because the setting’s a sandbox with a bunch of adventure frameworks. It would probably be a good exercise for me also to convert an adventure to a different rules or to design a small adventure area and use it.

What do you recommend (books, actions, etc.) for someone who fits the OP description but wants to become a better GM?

I don't really think liking detailed modules is the same thing as being a slave to the module. A detailed module is great because it gives you all sorts of information about how things work, what's where, who the NPCs are and what they're up to. The key is not to get too caught up in the story of the module, which relies on the PCs doing this, that or the other.

That's when you panic because they've gone the wrong way, and start trying to force things back on track. Let them go the wrong way, think about what the NPCs would do if that happened, and then just play it out. Sometimes this ruins the dramatic pacing, sometimes it upends the entire plot and the players end never figuring out what was going on, but that's okay - it's a game, not a novel.

Some of my favourite modules don't have a clear plot. The classic WFRP adventure Rough Night at the Three Feathers is a great example. It's basically written as one night in a pub, with a whole bunch of overlapping plots implausibly happening in the same place on the same night. Then you just stick the PCs in the middle of it and see what they do.

 

[Baulderstone]

I don't really think liking detailed modules is the same thing as being a slave to the module. A detailed module is great because it gives you all sorts of information about how things work, what's where, who the NPCs are and what they're up to. The key is not to get too caught up in the story of the module, which relies on the PCs doing this, that or the other.

That's when you panic because they've gone the wrong way, and start trying to force things back on track. Let them go the wrong way, think about what the NPCs would do if that happened, and then just play it out. Sometimes this ruins the dramatic pacing, sometimes it upends the entire plot and the players end never figuring out what was going on, but that's okay - it's a game, not a novel.

That's how I handled Shadows Over Bogenhafen on my current run of The Enemy Within. The Big Climax didn't play it in quite the cinematically perfect way it is written, but it was still fun. Wandering off-script allowed for cool things like the players pulling a heist on one of the big merchant houses and making off with 200 Gold Crowns. And it being the Old World, walking around with a large sum of stolen gold on you is as much a recipe for further trouble as it is a reward.