Tuesday, March 1, 2011

The Importance of Persistent Conflict - and implications for XP

In my previous post, I talked about the importance of three top-level adventure design elements: temporality, monster agendas, and overwhelming force.

Thinking about what makes a really good adventure, I thought of another key element: persistence of conflict. What this means is, really good conflicts are not just resolved in a one-room battle.

Setting these conflicts up requires the DM to think about "better", not just "more". Rather than just upping the ante in the "powergamer sweepstakes", the DM should get smarter, and more devious.

For example, to challenge your players, you could have 24 trolls hanging out in a cavern. In the next cavern, down a small passage, there would be, what... 8 wyverns? Or 3 ancient red dragons? Next to a cavern with a lich (15th level mage)? And 8 frost giants are hanging out in the adjacent cave... And 3 mind flayers in the next....

I don't know, I guess in my old age I am just looking for something more.... hmmm, not really "challenging" per se... I guess the word I am looking for is -- sophisticated.

I mean, what if the cave complex is not stocked with monsters in every cave? What if not everything wants to "fight to the death". What if the monster who lives in the cave is clever, and wants to live? So it sets up traps, and does a lot of hit and run type stuff? What if it refuses to be baited into a "final battle"?

That is what I mean by "persistent conflict". Giving the players the feeling they are having to CHASE SOMETHING DOWN. Or, perhaps the opposite, that they are being STALKED, isolated, cut off, picked off one by one...

Oh no, "spending the night" in the dungeon is hardly an option now, is it, poppets? How much sleep are you going to get, knowing "that thing" is out there, scheming how to do you in, waiting for one slip up....

Game Design Implications for XP

This is one of the reasons I am not a fan of the original XP reward system. If XP is only earned for monsters slain and treasure looted, the type of game design I am talking about is highly discouraged. If the players spend the entire session dicking around with one monster, they've gained nothing, in game turns, even if they finally end up defeating it.

If you are clawing up the "blood and treasure" ladder, a cavern full of 34 trolls is exactly what you want and need!

But if you are using my "successful adventure" metric (http://oldschoolpsionics.blogspot.com/2011/02/advancement-rules-easy-way.html), just defeating one foe may be enough, if he is played in a clever and dangerous fashion.

1 comment:

Guy Fullerton said...

"This is one of the reasons I am not a fan of the original XP reward system."

I'll start with a potentially bad assumption on my part: By "original XP reward system", you're talking about the OD&D Supplement I Greyhawk through AD&D and BEMCI rule, where about 75-80% of xp comes from treasure acquired and 20-25% comes from monsters defeated.

"If XP is only earned for monsters slain and treasure looted, the type of game design I am talking about is highly discouraged."

I disagree. Given the above ratio, players hopefully discover (and *do* discover, in my campaign) that for level advancement, gold is the target, not monsters. After all, gold generally doesn't try to eat your face.

Now of course there are probably some monsters in the vicinity that add to the challenge of acquiring the gold, and that's exactly where your game design fits in perfectly.

Sometimes monsters carry that treasure, or guard it in their lair. Yep, it happens. But not all treasure is protected that way. And even when it is, my players try hard to get it without a fight (or a fair fight): Sneaking, stealing, charming, extorting, spying, ambushing, laying siege; these are all weapons in my players' arsenal. And of course, the monsters react in an appropriate way, which is only sometimes a straightforward frontal assault.

Sometimes my players overreach (whether their current goal is level advancement or something else entirely) and get into unfortunate predicaments with monsters who are much more clever than they anticipated; the monsters set traps, blockade the party's exit, make alliances, or have been biding their time waiting for the party go get to "that place" where the monsters are at a big advantage.

Sometimes monsters harass the party and generally makes the "dungeon" a hazardous environment without actually 'guarding treasure in their lair'. And in those cases, my players have sometimes made dedicated forays into the "dungeon" to try to eliminate those hazards (possibly by killing those monsters, but they've also made alliances in these kinds of situations), so as to make their subsequent forays safer.

So I've found that dynamic use of creatures in adventuring locales (or more generally: dynamic adventuring locales) works very well with xp for gp, plus the usual modicum of xp for monsters.

"If the players spend the entire session dicking around with one monster, they've gained nothing, in game turns, even if they finally end up defeating it."

Well, presumably they gained whatever their goal was. After all, they were dicking around with that monster for *some* reason, yeah? (And not all goals need to feed directly into level advancement...)