1 day ago
Can World Building turn into a huge Red Herring?
So what have I been up to while not updating my blog? Well, I've been prepping. Been second guessing myself a lot as well. I've got my major notes but I've noticed that I spend a lot of time crafting things that ultimately serve no purpose other than to expand a culture or project color. Things should function on multiple levels, aesthetics are good, but not when they distract away from ideas. I think that I kind of overwhelm my players with unintentional red herrings.
That said, I am working on tightening my focus, at least when it comes to preparing my notes. I know as a player I always hated blank worlds. I can't tell you how many times I played and the world was just too bland. I may had gone to the opposite spectrum. Designing an entire session based on just getting to know a foreign environment. Is that boring? We only get to play every forth Saturday, I really need to keep things moving.
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4 comments:
It's painfully, depressingly hard to play that sort of game if you're not meeting every week. Unless the players are extremely dedicated, it's all but impossible for them to keep the relevant details in mind. :/
Yeah, trollsmyth. As much as I love playing the slow game, time issues demand that we play a well planned fast one.
We all play for different reasons, and this is one of my reasons, I just have to make sure that I don't hog the spotlight and make sure that the light hits the players. From time to time at least ;)
My group only meet bi-monthly and then marathon for a whole day. None of my players are particularly hardcore, or dwelve too much time between sessions on the game.
With that being said, just having a session with no particular strong hooks or narrative has proven to be our most fun. With our second session, the party arrived a big city in a foreign land, and we spend the whole day just exploring the districts, doing a few odd-jobs and learning the dynamics of the city. It's the heart of the area, and so even though we only progressed the main plot in the last hour, it really helped establish the place for the following sessions, because they would return, the place would change, etc. I think, if you rush things, a certain magic goes away - the special DnD-moments are made of players just goofing around in a well-build world.
Martin Aaby: I've foud it's a special sort of player who can take advantage of such opportunities. Treasure you're players; they sound great! :)
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