Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Sunday, October 12, 2014
DMing 101: Yes, and...
My game running style is relatively off the cuff, I build skeleton structure
adventures and then fill the holes in with improvisation. You might be a
DM who prefers to plan everything out and to have all your characters established before you sit down at the head of the table. Even for the most hardened scheduler, there will ALWAYS be something the players do that surprises you. No matter how much of a planner you are, this DM 101 skill is going to help you become a more fluid and more fun Dungeon Master.
This skill is called "Yes, and...", and it is a boon to DMs and players alike. "Yes, and..." is a skill from improvisation which encourages actors to take a statement that someone made, no matter how ridiculous, accept it as true, and then expand on it.
You might be familiar with the show "Whose Line is it Anyway?" In the scene below, you can see examples of the actors playing along with every weird statement made (Why do you have a bow? It's quieter, I guess). At the end, Lauren Cohan accidentally kicks over Wayne, who gets up from the stage and proceeds to run away even though he is supposed to be the dangerous zombie. Taking something that happens and making it something cooler, bigger, or funnier is what "Yes, and..." is all about. Wayne could have gotten up from the stage and said "Hey! I'm a zombie, I'm supposed to be the dangerous one" but he chose the funnier route of accepting the ass-kicking he got.
In Dungeons & Dragons, the "Yes, and..." principle is primarily useful for two purposes: the first is progressing storylines and the second is for making awesome moments.
How does "Yes, and..." work?
In improvisation, someone starts off the scene by saying something. Using the principles of "Yes, and...", the second person takes that statement and adds information to it. This continues on and on until the scene reaches a climax. For instance:
Actor 1: "You're right, this cheesecake is delicious, thanks for taking me here!"
Actor 2: "Well, the truth is I didn't just take you here for the cheesecake. I think I want to spend the rest of my life with you"
A1: "Oh. Um, wow. This is just our third date."
A2: "Yeah, but sometimes you can just tell. My love for you is like the taste of the cheesecake"
From these four lines we have established that one person is head over the heels in love with the other after only three dates and we are set up for a hilariously awkward or emotionally painful scene depending on where the actors take it. Imagine if Actor 2 had instead said, "What? We've been going out for over a year!" One of the characters would be a liar or delusional, and as an audience member, you don't know which one is true. Using "Yes, and..." the actors reinforce each others' characters.
In D&D, the most egregious violation of "Yes, and..." that I see is when people say "Your character wouldn't do that." One of the biggest flaws of the alignment system in D&D is that it encourages exactly these kind of statements. "Oh, you're neutral good? You'd never, ever torture a living being to get information." People are much more complicated than 9 buckets of morality, and allowing a player to play his character exactly how he or she wants to play them is the crux of "Yes, and...". Of course, characters still need to deal with the consequences of their actions, but the key of the "Yes, and..." principle is allowing them to take those actions.
How can "Yes, and..." progress the story?
As a DM, I would have a talk with my group about the "Yes, and..." principle before starting the game. D&D is a collaborative storytelling game, and everyone needs to understand that in order to progress the story, players need to react to the scenarios that arise before them, and the DM understands that what the players choose to do should make an impact on how the story progresses (the opposite of this is commonly referred to as "railroading.")
The most extreme instance I had of this was when I ran a very short (three-session) home-brew horror campaign. I told the players that their characters would have a ton of reasons to leave the mansion they were in and try to escape, but that for whatever reason (curiosity, pushover, fear, bravery) they would choose to stay. My players didn't take the principle to heart and it forced me to create a somewhat unthematic circumstance that kept them on the property. The alternative was to allow them to leave and for the game to just end, which wouldn't be very fun for anyone. Getting your players to buy into "Yes, and..." can inspire a game to move along.
The very first time "Yes, and..." will come into play is when you introduce the players to one another. As D&D players we love to make fun of somewhat unrealistic scenarios where we instantly trust someone we meet. However, being accepting of circumstances like this are necessary for the game to run and for the story to unfold. There is nothing harder for a DM than having players create characters and then spend an hour arguing about "why should I even adventure with you?"
The same goes for players reacting to circumstances. If you have a woman wailing about her baby and your party says "I don't care" then you have a real problem on your hands. Even if your group is a crew of villainous scallywags, they could still go up to the woman and say "Why should I care?" which gives the woman the opportunity to say, "I'm the wealthy Duke's daughter."
"Yes, and..." doesn't tell you HOW you must react, just that you SHOULD be reacting with something more than "whatever."
As a DM, you use "Yes, and..." to progress the story. In my previous campaign, the players snuck into a dwarven city that was being besieged by a necromancer and his legions of dead. I wrote two adventure sequences, one where they traveled through a secret mountain passage to assassinate the necromancer, and the other where there was a full on invasion. My players opted for option 3, which was to go and speak with the necromancer to see what he wanted. When he explained that he wanted to get through to the Underdark to go in search of a Gem of great power, the players OFFERED to go get it for him. As a DM, I had to "Yes, and..." their creative solution to the problem and re-plan the course of the game. This lets players know that their decisions truly matter and led to a new series of interesting events.
How can "Yes, and..." make for awesome moments?
The most basic example of "Yes, and..." moments are when players say "I'm going to do this insane thing!" and you say "Sure, go for it." One of my players attempted to aggressively use Tree Shape to ram a person who was flying just out of reach. Another player then proceeded to climb the Tree and jump off of it in an attempt to grab the flying mage. Unfortunately, both of these players flubbed their rolls, but the moments were memorable (and imagine how memorable they would have been if they worked!).
Another time, my players encountered an extremely dim-witted Ettin who enjoyed carving rocks more than his full profession of raising Giant, Violent Beetles. They talked him into giving up his life of violence and they supported his artistry by spreading rumors of the quality of his work in the nearest underground city. I had absolutely no expectation that my players would try this and it was so damn cool that I had to use the principle of "Yes, and..." to encourage the behavior (in general, I think most approaches to problems that aren't violence should be rewarded in D&D).
A word of caution about using "Yes, and..." though. There is certainly a limit of allowable realism. Sure, you can climb up the wall and try to jump off at the flying mage, but your odds of doing it fast enough and successfully grabbing him are very, very low. Sure, you can eat the demonic foci instead of allowing them to complete their ritual, but your stomach might burst into flames. Sure, you can try to persuade the mind flayer to let your friend have his brain back, but it just isn't going to work.
Let me know when you've successfully (or unsuccessfully) used the "Yes, and..." principle in your games in the comments below!
This skill is called "Yes, and...", and it is a boon to DMs and players alike. "Yes, and..." is a skill from improvisation which encourages actors to take a statement that someone made, no matter how ridiculous, accept it as true, and then expand on it.
You might be familiar with the show "Whose Line is it Anyway?" In the scene below, you can see examples of the actors playing along with every weird statement made (Why do you have a bow? It's quieter, I guess). At the end, Lauren Cohan accidentally kicks over Wayne, who gets up from the stage and proceeds to run away even though he is supposed to be the dangerous zombie. Taking something that happens and making it something cooler, bigger, or funnier is what "Yes, and..." is all about. Wayne could have gotten up from the stage and said "Hey! I'm a zombie, I'm supposed to be the dangerous one" but he chose the funnier route of accepting the ass-kicking he got.
In Dungeons & Dragons, the "Yes, and..." principle is primarily useful for two purposes: the first is progressing storylines and the second is for making awesome moments.
How does "Yes, and..." work?
In improvisation, someone starts off the scene by saying something. Using the principles of "Yes, and...", the second person takes that statement and adds information to it. This continues on and on until the scene reaches a climax. For instance:
Actor 1: "You're right, this cheesecake is delicious, thanks for taking me here!"
Actor 2: "Well, the truth is I didn't just take you here for the cheesecake. I think I want to spend the rest of my life with you"
A1: "Oh. Um, wow. This is just our third date."
A2: "Yeah, but sometimes you can just tell. My love for you is like the taste of the cheesecake"
From these four lines we have established that one person is head over the heels in love with the other after only three dates and we are set up for a hilariously awkward or emotionally painful scene depending on where the actors take it. Imagine if Actor 2 had instead said, "What? We've been going out for over a year!" One of the characters would be a liar or delusional, and as an audience member, you don't know which one is true. Using "Yes, and..." the actors reinforce each others' characters.
In D&D, the most egregious violation of "Yes, and..." that I see is when people say "Your character wouldn't do that." One of the biggest flaws of the alignment system in D&D is that it encourages exactly these kind of statements. "Oh, you're neutral good? You'd never, ever torture a living being to get information." People are much more complicated than 9 buckets of morality, and allowing a player to play his character exactly how he or she wants to play them is the crux of "Yes, and...". Of course, characters still need to deal with the consequences of their actions, but the key of the "Yes, and..." principle is allowing them to take those actions.
How can "Yes, and..." progress the story?
As a DM, I would have a talk with my group about the "Yes, and..." principle before starting the game. D&D is a collaborative storytelling game, and everyone needs to understand that in order to progress the story, players need to react to the scenarios that arise before them, and the DM understands that what the players choose to do should make an impact on how the story progresses (the opposite of this is commonly referred to as "railroading.")
The most extreme instance I had of this was when I ran a very short (three-session) home-brew horror campaign. I told the players that their characters would have a ton of reasons to leave the mansion they were in and try to escape, but that for whatever reason (curiosity, pushover, fear, bravery) they would choose to stay. My players didn't take the principle to heart and it forced me to create a somewhat unthematic circumstance that kept them on the property. The alternative was to allow them to leave and for the game to just end, which wouldn't be very fun for anyone. Getting your players to buy into "Yes, and..." can inspire a game to move along.
The very first time "Yes, and..." will come into play is when you introduce the players to one another. As D&D players we love to make fun of somewhat unrealistic scenarios where we instantly trust someone we meet. However, being accepting of circumstances like this are necessary for the game to run and for the story to unfold. There is nothing harder for a DM than having players create characters and then spend an hour arguing about "why should I even adventure with you?"
The same goes for players reacting to circumstances. If you have a woman wailing about her baby and your party says "I don't care" then you have a real problem on your hands. Even if your group is a crew of villainous scallywags, they could still go up to the woman and say "Why should I care?" which gives the woman the opportunity to say, "I'm the wealthy Duke's daughter."
"Yes, and..." doesn't tell you HOW you must react, just that you SHOULD be reacting with something more than "whatever."
As a DM, you use "Yes, and..." to progress the story. In my previous campaign, the players snuck into a dwarven city that was being besieged by a necromancer and his legions of dead. I wrote two adventure sequences, one where they traveled through a secret mountain passage to assassinate the necromancer, and the other where there was a full on invasion. My players opted for option 3, which was to go and speak with the necromancer to see what he wanted. When he explained that he wanted to get through to the Underdark to go in search of a Gem of great power, the players OFFERED to go get it for him. As a DM, I had to "Yes, and..." their creative solution to the problem and re-plan the course of the game. This lets players know that their decisions truly matter and led to a new series of interesting events.
How can "Yes, and..." make for awesome moments?
The most basic example of "Yes, and..." moments are when players say "I'm going to do this insane thing!" and you say "Sure, go for it." One of my players attempted to aggressively use Tree Shape to ram a person who was flying just out of reach. Another player then proceeded to climb the Tree and jump off of it in an attempt to grab the flying mage. Unfortunately, both of these players flubbed their rolls, but the moments were memorable (and imagine how memorable they would have been if they worked!).
Another time, my players encountered an extremely dim-witted Ettin who enjoyed carving rocks more than his full profession of raising Giant, Violent Beetles. They talked him into giving up his life of violence and they supported his artistry by spreading rumors of the quality of his work in the nearest underground city. I had absolutely no expectation that my players would try this and it was so damn cool that I had to use the principle of "Yes, and..." to encourage the behavior (in general, I think most approaches to problems that aren't violence should be rewarded in D&D).
A word of caution about using "Yes, and..." though. There is certainly a limit of allowable realism. Sure, you can climb up the wall and try to jump off at the flying mage, but your odds of doing it fast enough and successfully grabbing him are very, very low. Sure, you can eat the demonic foci instead of allowing them to complete their ritual, but your stomach might burst into flames. Sure, you can try to persuade the mind flayer to let your friend have his brain back, but it just isn't going to work.
Let me know when you've successfully (or unsuccessfully) used the "Yes, and..." principle in your games in the comments below!
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Follow the Campaign 2: Meet the PCs
There are 5 players in my gaming group. All 5 are friends or relatives of mine. All of my players are there to have a good time, and we mix a fair amount of in game banter with out of game banter over the course of play.
A/Mia'thos: A has been playing since high school but is in the bottom half of the group in terms of raw hours played. While he did spend some time in college playing, it did not last for very long. A tends to play characters with big personalities and does an excellent job of describing how his characters cast their spells or swing their swords.
Mia'thos is a tiefling warlock. Mia'thos was raised in a life of slavery in The Fingers. He is a good character but he made a pact with Dispater, the lord of the second level of Hell, to give him the power to break his shackles and affect change. Unfortunately, he now owes Dispater 8 favors - so the question is will Mia'thos be able to walk the path of the righteous or will the lure of hellish powers and his tiefling heritage drag him into darkness?
E/Khart'ka: E is the newest player in our group, she started at the beginning of the last campaign. She started nervously, but has come to really embrace the game and is arguably the strongest roleplayer of the entire group despite being the least experienced. E also has a historical preference for science fiction over fantasy, mostly because she does not enjoy the black/white nature of Tolkien style high fantasies.
Khart'ka is a dragonborn cleric of Bahamut, god of Good dragons and the Tempest. E originally described the concept of Khart'ka as being "like a Klingon. A warrior-poet, but more awesome." Khart'ka hails from a matriarchal tribe in the Arak steppes, and she carries the dead ashes of their saint to give her strength. E likes approaching character creation organically, and we shall see how the character develops, but she has already established a hilarious blessing of "May Bahamut burn you" that garners strange looks and anger from strangers.
J/Dirk: J started playing some form of D&D in middle school, but didn't play terribly much in college. He has on occasion played with another group that he describes as somewhat more chaotic. J is an avid reader and I think this helps him create characters in the sense that he tends to have the most fleshed out character concepts. On the other hand, J occasionally gets bored with his characters over time. He also accidentally has a reputation for being the guy who dies the most, because...uh, he dies the most.
Dirk is a dashing human rogue who has given up a life of piracy. The only Leyhaven local, Dirk returned to Leyhaven after being spurned by the only woman he ever truly loved. Good at heart but greedy at the surface, Dirk loves to tell tall tales. His desire to be free and wander the world comes from the simple life that his parents lead running a wand shop, Wanderland, in Leyhaven.
K/Cinder: K is the most experienced of my players, having played from a young age and throughout his entire life. K isn't a true min/maxer, but his familiarity with the rules certainly lends itself to building some of the most powerful characters. K doesn't general build 'group leader' characters, but often falls into that role or of relatively highly regarded opinion because of his experience.
Cinderbite is a "wood" elf ranger from the Wolom Ravine. Cinderbite is from a tribe of wandering scavengers that has a pragmatic view of the world. Tribes in the Wolom Ravine use undead for labor, but undead used for harm or evil are viewed as pure anathema to those such as Cinderbite. She left her home to travel the world.
V/Roderan: V has most of his experience playing from college with 4th edition, and I actually can't remember if that was his first experience or not. We like to tease V for playing characters that are just V with swords or spells, but he has actually become much better recently at playing out his character. Interestingly, V chose to randomly roll for his ideals, backgrounds, traits, and flaws in this campaign as per the 5e rulebook.
Roderan is a dwarven cleric of Ula, goddess of the hills. Roderan is a life cleric, devoted to saving others. He is a pilgrim of sorts, spreading the good word of Ula and helping those in need. His most notable quirk so far is his penchant for citing scriptures to advise action. Whether those scriptures are accurately remembered or not is a different matter.
A/Mia'thos: A has been playing since high school but is in the bottom half of the group in terms of raw hours played. While he did spend some time in college playing, it did not last for very long. A tends to play characters with big personalities and does an excellent job of describing how his characters cast their spells or swing their swords.
Mia'thos is a tiefling warlock. Mia'thos was raised in a life of slavery in The Fingers. He is a good character but he made a pact with Dispater, the lord of the second level of Hell, to give him the power to break his shackles and affect change. Unfortunately, he now owes Dispater 8 favors - so the question is will Mia'thos be able to walk the path of the righteous or will the lure of hellish powers and his tiefling heritage drag him into darkness?
E/Khart'ka: E is the newest player in our group, she started at the beginning of the last campaign. She started nervously, but has come to really embrace the game and is arguably the strongest roleplayer of the entire group despite being the least experienced. E also has a historical preference for science fiction over fantasy, mostly because she does not enjoy the black/white nature of Tolkien style high fantasies.
Khart'ka is a dragonborn cleric of Bahamut, god of Good dragons and the Tempest. E originally described the concept of Khart'ka as being "like a Klingon. A warrior-poet, but more awesome." Khart'ka hails from a matriarchal tribe in the Arak steppes, and she carries the dead ashes of their saint to give her strength. E likes approaching character creation organically, and we shall see how the character develops, but she has already established a hilarious blessing of "May Bahamut burn you" that garners strange looks and anger from strangers.
J/Dirk: J started playing some form of D&D in middle school, but didn't play terribly much in college. He has on occasion played with another group that he describes as somewhat more chaotic. J is an avid reader and I think this helps him create characters in the sense that he tends to have the most fleshed out character concepts. On the other hand, J occasionally gets bored with his characters over time. He also accidentally has a reputation for being the guy who dies the most, because...uh, he dies the most.
Dirk is a dashing human rogue who has given up a life of piracy. The only Leyhaven local, Dirk returned to Leyhaven after being spurned by the only woman he ever truly loved. Good at heart but greedy at the surface, Dirk loves to tell tall tales. His desire to be free and wander the world comes from the simple life that his parents lead running a wand shop, Wanderland, in Leyhaven.
K/Cinder: K is the most experienced of my players, having played from a young age and throughout his entire life. K isn't a true min/maxer, but his familiarity with the rules certainly lends itself to building some of the most powerful characters. K doesn't general build 'group leader' characters, but often falls into that role or of relatively highly regarded opinion because of his experience.
Cinderbite is a "wood" elf ranger from the Wolom Ravine. Cinderbite is from a tribe of wandering scavengers that has a pragmatic view of the world. Tribes in the Wolom Ravine use undead for labor, but undead used for harm or evil are viewed as pure anathema to those such as Cinderbite. She left her home to travel the world.
V/Roderan: V has most of his experience playing from college with 4th edition, and I actually can't remember if that was his first experience or not. We like to tease V for playing characters that are just V with swords or spells, but he has actually become much better recently at playing out his character. Interestingly, V chose to randomly roll for his ideals, backgrounds, traits, and flaws in this campaign as per the 5e rulebook.
Roderan is a dwarven cleric of Ula, goddess of the hills. Roderan is a life cleric, devoted to saving others. He is a pilgrim of sorts, spreading the good word of Ula and helping those in need. His most notable quirk so far is his penchant for citing scriptures to advise action. Whether those scriptures are accurately remembered or not is a different matter.
Follow the Campaign 1: Evershift World
Enter Evershift.
Evershift is a world loosely inspired by Magic: The Gathering's Zendikar setting, a world of dangerous terrains where adventure and travel were as dangerous as the monsters one might face. One thing I wanted to encourage in my new campaign was a sense of exploration and dungeon-delving, so I chose to design a world based that encouraged that basic premise.
One thing DMs tend to love doing is making maps, and I am no exception. I always tell my players they are welcome to add something to the world or modify it, but I like to come up with a wide, basic expanse of ideas that the players can draw from. Some of the regions I design will never be interacted with. I also don't force myself to stay strictly to the constructions of the map - I will happily fill things in in the middle and I purposefully avoid discussing scale to allow myself to distort the map size and length if it becomes necessary for the game. For me, creating the map is a source of inspiration for both myself and my players, and not limitation.
I also told the players they would be starting in Leyhaven, a relatively powerful city-state that exercises a decent amount of influence over the world by being a powerful trading hub. Centrally located by land and by sea, Leyhaven is inspired by the concept of Venice during the Renaissance, and I decided that a Doge and a Council of Merchants would rule the city to add to that flavor. Unlike Venice, however, Leyhaven sits atop a mesa that borders the sea. Many theorize Leyhaven was created by magic: a large obelisk sits in the center of the mesa and some scholars say it was placed there to capture the magic of leylines (magical 'strands' that travel across the world), and when it did, it caused the mesa to rise out of the plains that Leyhaven is now surrounded by.
Leyhaven has a powerful crank that brings ships up from the sea into the city, but this is only for ships that can pay the port fees. Leyhaven Below is a shanty town that sits at the coast below the mesa, touching the sea, and is a dangerous place of cutthroats and sailors.
In introducing the campaign, I also included the map below, and a link to a Google Doc listing out some of the basics of the geography, politics, creation myth, and religion of the world. In some games I create my own pantheon, but in this one I chose to use a pre-established one as my previous game has been heavily impacted by the home-brewed pantheon I used. I chose the Greyhawk deities because there were a fair amount relating to both travel and terrain: deities that would be notably revered in a world like Evershift.
Details of the campaign in this googledoc
Greetings
Welcome to Mastering Dungeons!
What is this blog about?
MD is my blog about being a Dungeon Master (or Game Master, depending on your preferred nomenclature). I am currently running a 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign and thought that having a resource for new (or old!) DMs looking for tips and tricks would be helpful.
I see, how are you going to organize this blog?
MD will have several types of posts.
-One main thread will be "Follow the Campaign: [Campaign name here]" where I rehash the events of the most recent sessions of D&D with my group.
-A second series will be "DMing 101": opinion pieces I write zooming in on specific topics. These can range from world building to NPC interaction to house rules.
-I may come up with more types of series as time goes!
So, why should we even trust you? Who says you even know what you're talking about?
The best thing about the internet is that there are so many resources to choose from. Maybe you listen to a D&D podcast that really clicks with you. The best way to find out if you think this blog will be useful is to read it and see what you think of the posts. That being said, here is some background on my roleplaying chops
-Started 2nd edition with my parents when I was maybe 10 years old
-Played in and ran several 3rd edition campaigns with friends in high school
-Ran a 3.5 campaign for a new group in college
-Ran and played several 4th edition campaigns for the same group in college
-Ran 4th edition campaigns for my current gaming group
-Ran various one-shot non D&D games for my current gaming group
-Ran Pathfinder for my current gaming group, a regularly played game lasting nearly two years
-Starting a 5th edition campaign for my current group
Oh, cool. So, what kind of DM would you say you are?
My college group was certainly very hack and slash style of gaming. I viewed the games I ran for them as elaborate mini-series. The players were free to make their choices, but they were relatively predictable. Some would say this occurs because of a DM "railroading", forcing a game to follow a certain path. In this instance, it was a matter of knowing my players - what they wanted was a linear game with a decent story to usher them along.
After college, my current gaming group and I got together and found that 4th edition did not really satisfy us. We let some time pass before picking up Pathfinder and giving that a shot. We fell in love with roleplaying again. My style adapted to be more open to player pursuits. What I tend to do is write skeleton adventures and paths. I suspect my players will follow about 80-90% of them, because it IS still generally predictable where they want to go and what they want to do, but I fill out a lot of details about how this happens WHILE we play. In this sense, I consider myself to be a relatively improvisational DM, which is something I will discuss in future posts.
I hope you enjoy the blog!
What is this blog about?
MD is my blog about being a Dungeon Master (or Game Master, depending on your preferred nomenclature). I am currently running a 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign and thought that having a resource for new (or old!) DMs looking for tips and tricks would be helpful.
I see, how are you going to organize this blog?
MD will have several types of posts.
-One main thread will be "Follow the Campaign: [Campaign name here]" where I rehash the events of the most recent sessions of D&D with my group.
-A second series will be "DMing 101": opinion pieces I write zooming in on specific topics. These can range from world building to NPC interaction to house rules.
-I may come up with more types of series as time goes!
So, why should we even trust you? Who says you even know what you're talking about?
The best thing about the internet is that there are so many resources to choose from. Maybe you listen to a D&D podcast that really clicks with you. The best way to find out if you think this blog will be useful is to read it and see what you think of the posts. That being said, here is some background on my roleplaying chops
-Started 2nd edition with my parents when I was maybe 10 years old
-Played in and ran several 3rd edition campaigns with friends in high school
-Ran a 3.5 campaign for a new group in college
-Ran and played several 4th edition campaigns for the same group in college
-Ran 4th edition campaigns for my current gaming group
-Ran various one-shot non D&D games for my current gaming group
-Ran Pathfinder for my current gaming group, a regularly played game lasting nearly two years
-Starting a 5th edition campaign for my current group
Oh, cool. So, what kind of DM would you say you are?
My college group was certainly very hack and slash style of gaming. I viewed the games I ran for them as elaborate mini-series. The players were free to make their choices, but they were relatively predictable. Some would say this occurs because of a DM "railroading", forcing a game to follow a certain path. In this instance, it was a matter of knowing my players - what they wanted was a linear game with a decent story to usher them along.
After college, my current gaming group and I got together and found that 4th edition did not really satisfy us. We let some time pass before picking up Pathfinder and giving that a shot. We fell in love with roleplaying again. My style adapted to be more open to player pursuits. What I tend to do is write skeleton adventures and paths. I suspect my players will follow about 80-90% of them, because it IS still generally predictable where they want to go and what they want to do, but I fill out a lot of details about how this happens WHILE we play. In this sense, I consider myself to be a relatively improvisational DM, which is something I will discuss in future posts.
I hope you enjoy the blog!
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