MMP#371 – Introductions

Phil, Bob, and Jerry break down and get inside game mastering, playing games, and game design in an effort to entertain and inform you.
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EpisodeBot
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MMP#371 – Introductions

Post by EpisodeBot »

Let us begin at the beginning… or at least with the opening scene. I’m guessing that’s probably not at the beginning of our characters lives but is definitely the beginning of our story.  Misdirected Mark Productions Patreon Time Stamps...

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OldSchoolDM
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Re: MMP#371 – Introductions

Post by OldSchoolDM »

Ugh, discussion in episode felt very judgemental against D&D openings, modules, and play style. It's easy to slip into onewayism. It's a weakness of the (podcast conversation) format.

Thanks Chris for taking a moment to acknowledge and even apologize for this a bit later. It saved the episode from a headphone yank (it wouldn't have prevented yelling in the car - if I had been listening there.) :-)

Compare and Contrast is a difficult discussion device when not scripted with care - it's easy to groupspeak to your-current-favorite-way. Again, thanks to Chris for catching that...
...Papercraft terrain is my Minecraft...
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chrismmp
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Re: MMP#371 – Introductions

Post by chrismmp »

There are a lot of bad dnd introductions that don’t give players enough direction, especially when the adventure assumes players are going to do x.

There are also a lot of bad Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars, and insert game system that have bad introductions for their adventures.

There might not be a one true way but there sure are a lot of bad ways that don’t accomplish the goal and unfortunately some of the worst I’ve read are AL adventures and fortunately some of the best I’ve read are AL adventures.
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Jared Rascher
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Re: MMP#371 – Introductions

Post by Jared Rascher »

On Meandering Adventure Starts

Speaking of openings that don't start where they should, I can't help but think of Ghosts of Dathomir, a Force and Destiny adventure, where your characters arrive on a planet to talk to a merchant with a dark side artifact--the point is that you arrive, and of course, mayhem has happened. Except, as written, the adventure has you show up on the planet and ask around about the address of the merchant's shop, including charts where you can make social rolls that are successful, which give you RED HERRING RUMORS on a success.

Looking for an address doesn't strike me as the most Star Wars opening you could lead with.

My Custom Midgard Start

I started running the Tales of the Old Margreve adventure anthology for my D&D group, but as written, there is only a loose connection for the adventures. The overall theme is dark fairy tale, but there are a few cosmic horror elements, so I decided to make that more explicit in my campaign, and because my group started with three bearfolk, a warlock, and a gearforged, I wanted to have a good reason for them all to be together.

What I ended up going with was a gathering of Bearfolk by the Bear King, a fey lord, as the reason everyone came together. The warlock was sent as an ambassador of Baba Yaga, and the gearforged got lost in the woods and captured by the Bearfolk. I had the bearfolk come up with a competition they had won at the gathering to be named champions of the Bear King, and the group ened up being the champions of various archfey, as I moved things to a clash between the fey and cosmic horror fighting for the soul of the forest.

Monster of the Week Opening

The Fate Horror Toolkit has a section where they mention playing through the "cold open" of a horror story, adding details of the victims and the monster when they start playing, and getting a communal pool of Fate points for each detail they add to the victims and the monster before the actual adventure starts.

Between that idea, and the discussion, I now kind of want to run "cold opens" for Monster of the Week, where the players all play someone that is some flavor of victim. One of them (at least) is doomed, and any of them can be the impetus for the start of the mystery, but once the players have the name and drives of the victim, I'd have them only have access to basic movies, and roll 3d6, taking the lowest two, for all moves.

Any XP gained goes to the player of the characters. Nobody has any wounds or Luck in the cold open--they roll a 6-, the hard move is pretty much going to be that they are the first victim of the monster to get things rolling.
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