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Sunday, September 11, 2011

The Issue of Plot & Logistics versus Hack & Slash .... finding the balance

  Okay, every group has different ideas about this when it comes to how people run their campaigns.  I believe in roleplayinng, not "roll playing", though not everyone feels the same way about this idea.  Among veteran players, some people just want to do a site based dungeon crawl adventure, set up the miniatures on a mat, and just charge through, killing a bunch of random monsters.  When some DMs set up a dungeon, I don't think they design it in a way where the dungeon is livable from the point of view of the monsters that dwell in the dungeons.  Yes, let's throw in a gargantuan pyro-hydra at the end of a dungeon filled with skeletons, zombies, and other related undead.  In a situation like that, I always wonder what is the hydra eating and how did it get in the dungeon in the first place?  In the grand scheme of looking at the dungeon though, issues like that doesn't matter though as long as the players have fun fighting through the dungeon.  I am sure that issues like that can be laughed off and then the players can move onto the next adventure.

    What the issue really boils down to is the issue of pacing and participation.  I like to throw in an instigating adventure hook, a short time of character prep, an outline of plot, maybe a dungeon crawl, and fight or two.  Generally, I try to find the balance of plot and fighting in an ideal session.  Too much plot and the players can feel pretty bored and they might even wonder why do they even have character sheets at all.  If you play a game with too much hack & slash, the game feels like you are fighting stat blocks of creatures with a bunch of dice rolling sort of like you are "roll playing".  In other words, the roleplaying game needs reasonable combination of all of these elements in order to be interesting enough for all of the players. 

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