Player Focus

[quoghmyre]

Getting back to the original question:-) Keeping players on track. I use 3 main methods.
1. The Pull, help the characters identify why they are doing this adventure. Get them to give you some background as to what's pulled them into the group and where they want to go.
2. The Push, set some very large, very mean bad dude on their tail, or some catastrophic event if they don't get something done in time. Get something important in the game to push them forward.
3. WM's, whenever my players take to long talking among themselves I start rolling that 1d6. If I don't find one I say something like,"You hear loud groaning in the distance" or "Chains rattling", let them know they are not alone. Then roll again, I always have a WM chart at hand, I've had complete sessions where the characters never even got to the dungeon because they kept having to deal with WM, it created a whole fun subplot.

[verdius]

Excellent! I love your approach. If the big picture doesn't keep them focused, give them something immediate..

[mahrundl]

Quog, you seem to do things in quite a similar way to the way I do them. I was asked to run a one-off session, since I didn't at that point feel up to doing a full campaign. I was going to run them through the first level of the published 'Dungeon of the Bear' module.

I decided to ad-lib the start, since all of my players were new to T & T. So I organised a small band of goblins for them to encounter, so as to have a quick combat introduction.

The thing is, due to the module they were planning to investigate some bears that had been raiding nearby farms. Instead, they followed the goblins' trail back to their lair, and set up an ambush for the rest of the group, eventually wiping them out. They have dealt with some rather nasty undead, met the local Baron and his court, visited several temples and have a key to what they suspect is the tower occupied by the undead before they died. They haven't got closer than half a day's ride to the estimated location of the 'Dungeon of the Bear', which has in any case been replaced by a bear-themed dungeon of my own.

As you may have guessed, it's not a one-off anymore...

Mahrundl

[Ahnn Uuh]

Bravo, Mahrundl, for allowing your players to shift from the module to an entirely unplanned freestyle campaign. It's a beautiful thing. It's also much more difficult than just running the module. Of course, they might eventually get around to checking out those bears....

[mahrundl]

Thanks, Ahnn Uuh. It's been far more interesting for me than running the module would have been. I really didn't want to run a campaign, but I found myself very strongly drawn into the world I was creating. It was a good feeling, and I ran with it.

They should get to the bears, one day. I think they've tried 3 times now, and they've been distracted (usually by their own efforts) on each occasion. They will have to go there at some point though. They have accepted the assignment from the Baron, and he *will* hold them to it.

[mahrundl]

As an aside, there are a few interesting items in the bear dungeon. Such as a large wooden box, with a 4-part button on it. They had better be very careful which button they push if they're not outside when they open it...

[quoghmyre]

I don't think I've had any party make it down to Level 3 of Dungeon of the Bear. And by equipping the monsters with
Mail: proof against TTYF.
Amulets: See through Hidey Hole.
Rings: stop direct magical attacks, below L3 or L5.
Normally causes them to retreat:-)

[mahrundl]

Of course, you have to be careful, since those items are pretty good treasure in themselves. If the party does take the monsters out, they'll be (if you'll pardon the expression) loaded for bear.

[quoghmyre]

I think I would have those treasures powered by some deep magic source far below Dungeon of the Bear, then if they left the dungeon they just turn into mundane treasure. That's how I normally deal with objects from external sources in my world. Once I had 3 players in one party all running around with Nevermiss from the Arena.

[mahrundl]

I'm disinclined to do the 'only works in this dungeon' trick, since it seems like something deliberately done to cheat the players of their hard-won loot. I'd be more likely to have them carrying stuff that has a trigger on it, so that the monsters can put up a short-term version of the effect for say the first 5 rounds of combat. That should give them something of an edge anyway, and gives the party the opportunity to try clever things to prevent them from triggering the spells.

Bringing things from another world / campaign is a different matter. Anything magical that crosses between worlds is potentially going to lose (or very occasionally, gain) some abilities, due to the different nature of magic in the new world.

With duplicated unique items, I'm inclined to say that they interfere with each other's abilities and become just an ordinary example of the type. When separated, they will regain their abilities. Or something like that. I'd probably play it by ear, depending on how unbalancing the item is.

[keltset]

mahrundl said:

I'm disinclined to do the 'only works in this dungeon' trick, since it seems like something deliberately done to cheat the players of their hard-won loot.

Yah, I think that T$R did something like this in an old AD&D module where some intelligent creatures had some armor that would turn to dust in the light of day, or something like that.

Makes ya feel cheated!

[quoghmyre]

Yes, it can indeed make the players feel cheated. And after a couple of heated arguments concerning this very topic I banded Solo characters from my world. Unless I had taken them through it F2F thus oking there artefacts.
I made a very clear separation either they were Solo Characters or F2F not both. If they want to take their F2F into Dargons fine but they don't come back to my world.
And you are right it was because they felt cheated if you took the very powerful toys away.
I recall something about this in SA or in one of the Solo's. All items at the discretion of the GM?