Emergent Goals

I’ve talked at length about not bringing completed characters to session 0, not writing extensive backstories, and tailoring the party to the adventure. The ultimate goal is to unite the party over some effort that can be achieved within the adventure. However, whether you start with a module or a sandbox, there will always be a “break-in” period with a new party of characters. Relationships will be established, reputations will be developed, and the party’s personality will not solidify for a few sessions.

Once this has occurred, the emergent goals commonly associated with sandbox play are more likely to appear and over time this likelihood grows as the party strings adventures together. 

While parties will likely achieve equilibrium faster and enjoy an adventure more if they bring undeveloped notions to session 0, that will not be a cure-all as there is no substitute for time. A module will create a point of focus to direct the collaboration, and not bringing a completed character sheet to session 0 leaves a player open to adjustments to fit the party goal and dynamic, but all groups can create and pursue emergent goals whether beginning with modules or immediately jumping into an open sandbox.

Emergent goals are the natural result of a long-running campaign. The much venerated open-world sandbox purported to realize the distinguishing feature of RPGs: namely, that one can try to do anything and attempt to make someone of themselves, does this only marginally better than a series of modules. Modules can be placed in a sandbox with ideally minimal effort, but so long as the party encounters opportunities to forge their own goals and is allowed and encouraged to pursue them by an accommodating GM, this group will also realize this feature.

The groups that never find this bliss are ones that have an entire campaign plotted from the beginning. Games where deviation causes significant re-work or loss of work on the part of the GM. We need more modules, and fewer campaign books.

Old School, New Players

TL;DR: Start PCs at 3rd level or higher to get them hooked on old school D&D.

What's it called when you're nostalgic for something that came before your time? I have that for TSR-era D&D and its OSR relatives. There's something beautifully simple and flavorful about it and yet I have only really captured the imagination of a couple players over a dozen sessions and one shots of OD&D and B/X. Most find the rules too arcane, the abilities lacking, the progress slow, and most of all it's too deadly.

Let's give the players credit. From a certain perspective all of those are certainly true given their experience. Most of my players are board gamers whom I successfully talked into a 5E campaign. Not a lot of RPG experience. Not to mention while I voraciously consume OSR content, the OSR itself (not even the editions they celebrate) came long before I found the hobby. So if I failed to deliver a compelling world brimming with adventure well then, I can shoulder my share of blame.

Why level 3? For starters, Gygax was rumored to often start players there and I've seen other grognards follow suit. By 3rd level Fighters can whack a few single-HD creatures in a round. Magic Users have more than 1 spell. Clerics actually have spells and can turn low-level undead semi-reliably. The Magic User and Thief are no longer fearfully ducking for cover at every stray goblin arrow or painstakingly probing every inch of dungeon floor. You could start higher, but at 3rd level each class has access to a modicum of their archetypal abilities.

At 3rd level the players can make more choices about dungeon level. Do they want to troll level 1 for easy marks to beat up and steal their milk money? Or test their mettle on level 4 or 5 in the hopes of striking gold?

3rd level still feels plenty dangerous. No, the players didn't "earn" 3rd level but neither do they "earn" 1st level just as nobody "earns" their natural, genetic abilities. Yes, you want players that excitedly roll up their next character when the first goes down in minutes. But you don't want a potentially good player thinking your "gritty realism" tastes more like nihilism.

Does each level add more abilities and therefore more complexity? Sure, a bit. But DMs generally bear the burden of the rules anyway. This is a feature as players are free to figure out both the world and its rules as they play. Not to mention if they don't know the "rules", they're far less capable of arguing them.

Don't we want players looking to the world for answers instead of their character sheet? Yes, reward all manner of creative and resourceful thinking. The players need to experience that the fun and sense of accomplishment comes from being clever in dire circumstances and earning power, not having built a character with the right powers to render the challenge inert. But having one or two versatile tools in the box may actually stimulate more creativity than the desperation of having none.

Make the player's choices matter. Show the world reacting to what they do. How has the environment changed? How do the NPCs treat the PCs differently now that rumor of their deeds has spread? Players should always be making the decision to put themselves in mortal danger or have reasonable chance of escape.

If you don't choose 3rd level, I understand. But avoid starting at 1st level with a table full of players new to old school. They need to see what's achievable in the world so they hunger to earn it. Once they've got some experience (ha!), once they "get it", then they may appreciate the glory of starring in their own rags to riches story. They may enjoy the macabre humor of death lurking a half-pace beyond stupidity.

DM XP: Understanding a Setting

 As I find myself running 2 campaigns in the Forgotten Realms I've realized I need a better grasp of this setting, or at least of the Sword Coast. This was not the case when I just ran The Lost Mine of Phandelver or The Forge of Fury. But as I link these adventures together and the party wishes to return to Phandalin to keep a promise before proceeding to Undermountain in Waterdeep, the transition from loosely connected adventures into ongoing campaign demands it. Simultaneously I have a party ready to move beyond Greenest and up the Trade Way in pursuit of the Hoard of the Dragon Queen, the threshold over which a single adventure turns into a campaign. It's here I find that to provide any flavorful transition, or to convey any of the uniqueness of this realm, I need more experience with it. This leads me to a few conclusions.

First, obviously it is easier to improvise in a world of your own making without conflicting with established lore. Second, unless you've done significant adventuring in a world yourself, and even then it would be colored by the portrayal of your GM, you must do a significant amount of reading regarding the chosen universe to hope to weave convincing opportunities therein. Both of which raise the questions: Just how much does a GM need to understand a setting to run an adventure in it? What is the rate of return on time invested consuming or creating setting material in terms of how much it enhances the adventure and the campaign?

While I can only speculate at this stage in my GMing career, having only completed two campaigns over 3 years in a world of my own making prior to the situation I outlined at the beginning, I will hazard to guess that a single, smaller adventure will generally be self-sustaining in the setting knowledge required to run it. It's as one attempts to link adventures in different locales of the same world, or runs a larger campaign spanning multiple areas, that one must have a stronger grasp of the surrounding area in order to give it any more than the thinnest descriptive color. At which point the GM may be better off skipping any pretense of descriptive color because should the PCs' imaginations be captured enough to attempt interaction with it, the GM may quickly find themselves throwing up construction zones, clumsily redirecting the PCs, or desperately improvising on top of what little idea they had regarding the contents of the area.

This is is precisely the weakness of published modules. They must necessarily be modular, making few demands of the game world and foisting no additional world-spanning assumptions upon it, leaning entirely on the GM to smooth any discrepancies with its established lore and provide the connective tissue between denizens or adventures held therein. While the PCs are often the single unifying thread, short of hopping from universe to universe with each adventure safe in the assumptions of its own ecosystem, some effort must be put forth on the part of the GM should anyone deign to give even a passing glance to the world fabric between adventuring locations.

I pose many questions and offer few answers save truisms: the more experienced a GM is with a given setting, whether published or of their own design, the more capable they will be of running a rich, meaningful, and flavorful campaign that truly conveys the open-ended magic menagerie of choices offered uniquely to players of tabletop RPGs.

I will also point out it will be difficult to afford the wonder and respect due a GM and the adventuring world should any player at the table sufficiently exceed the GM in knowledge of that world. This is true of setting lore, as well as rules and any implications in between. This is perhaps the greatest argument in favor of GMs creating their own worlds. Knowledge of that world should primarily be gained through play within it, and the mystery maintained by the one holding mastery over it, eschewing any outside source that would intentionally or mistakenly subvert it.

Finally it occurs to me that as with fine intoxicants, novelty is often a detriment to the reliable, multi-faceted experience of age. The characters that necessarily develop over a long-running campaign will always be more memorable and more personal than shiny new abilities and personalities. The world that grows and persists with the passage of these characters, the years that pass in a universe shared by a consistent group of players even as their characters retire or die, and they start anew with fresh characters and adventures both, offer a far more satisfying RPG experience than weekend trysts or summer romances. The GMs that have invested decades into their craft, whether across many worlds or just a few, are treasures that cannot be underestimated.