Quote from: Theory of Games on December 29, 2020, 06:48:20 PM

Quote from: jhkim on December 28, 2020, 05:07:13 PM
I agree with Steven Mitchell's advice. I'd add that in addition to having multiple hooks, there are hooks that can be more flexible in what is done with them than some traditional adventure hooks. For example, there could be a gang war in the town they care about - there are a lot of different ways they can intervene to stop it. These sort of open-ended problems can be challenging with no right answer or obvious choice. Just like in dungeon design - a dungeon can in principle just have one chamber after the other in a linear sequence, with no branchings. A dungeon design can be more or less linear, depending on the map.

Also, to add to flexibility, adventure possibilities can be longer-term and include substantial down time. If the players want to do some business in town, that doesn't mean the adventure is ruined. Instead, just take a few minutes to work out what happens in town, and then move on to other activities. You can have months or even years pass between adventures without it taking up a lot of game time. For example, the PCs can buy a bar and/or settle down with a barmaid, and then go on adventures again later -- all just taking up a half hour of play time.

That said, one has to clearly communicate out-of-game when one is giving more open-ended adventure hooks. Most players expect more railroaded, balanced adventures. It needs to be a clear mutual move to following their lead.

So when presenting open-ended hooks, do you suggest courses of action or just serve it up and let the players decide?

I find some suggesting is always necessary. How much suggesting, and how far they'll go, depends on the players. Some players just don't like open-ended and would prefer linear adventures. But some definitely appreciate a little more flexibility. How much varies, though. Everyone wants some kind of guidance, though. I think the GM just needs to feel out how much is too much.

Oh, one thing I didn't mention -- PCs for open-ended games are different than PCs for linear games. For open-ended hooks, you need more strongly motivated PCs - especially ones that like to cause trouble and shake up the status quo. That reminds me - I forgot one of my favorite open-ended games: Hellcats & Hockeysticks.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/65704/Hellcats-and-Hockeysticks

The great thing about the premise is that players quickly get into the idea that their PC *wants* to get into trouble, and will come up with schemes to do all sorts of mischief.

This is possible in all sorts of other genres, of course, but that is one that I found works well.

For players in general, almost anything can work as an open-ended hook.  Depending on the interests and nature of the players, of course.

For the specific case of training reactive players to be more active, you need the open-ended hooks to have at least two (and preferably three or four) mostly obvious courses of action.  Not all of the possibilities need to be equally obvious or even equally a good idea.  But there should never be one clear hook that is the obvious best way with everything else hidden.  The most obvious choice should also have some obvious drawbacks to encourage the players to look past it.  There should be a least one more subtle alternative that you've at least got some dim idea of an approach that could work. 

The idea is the same concept as the dungeon crawl bit of getting the treasure without fighting the monsters and thus getting the XP without as much risk.  Consider that if the game makes fighting everything fun and easy, no player has any incentive to avoid it.  (Various characters might have roleplaying reasons to avoid fighting, but that's not the point.)  You need the fights to be potentially deadly and sometimes avoidable to make that idea work.  Same principle if you want players to dig for other ways of dealing with any particular challenge. 

If all you've got is a hammer, then everything begins to look like a nail.  The GM version of that is that if you only give your players nails, then they probably won't see the need to get anything but a hammer.  Doesn't mean you need to lead them to not use the hammer or use it.  Merely set up situations where sometimes the hammer works and sometimes it probably doesn't.   

The reason this works (to the extent that the player can be trained to be more active) is that there is a big jump from "follow the formula every time" to "think about what we want to do and make a decision".  Making decisions is habit forming, if you nurture it.

Regarding the multiple plot threads for villains, each of them were on their own clock with a list of events that would happen if they were not stopped.  Keeping them separate gave me the flexibility that I needed for the sandbox.  I did have a few cross-over events, but no single mastermind.  Or it could be said, I had a lot of masterminds since each villain had a team of goons, henchmen, and low powered villains on the payroll.  And, those guys were the ones that usually showed up in the early events.

Story time: At one session all the heavy hitters went to Jupiter to stop a cosmic threat, for the next session I told the players to break out the B-team (it was Champions, everyone had a portfolio of characters.)  So, of course, it was Elastic Guy and Animal Dude that followed a news tip and ran into Doctor Destroyer at the UN.  If it was the heavies, there would have been a brawl, property damages, hostages, etc.  But, since it was the B-team, they actually did some clever role playing and detective work.  They discovered that Dr. D was shopping around for a secluded island base in the Pacific which turned out to be an important clue in a later session.  It was 'early' in his clock/timeline and he needed a new base before going on his spree of kidnapping scientists and technology.  There was no way I could have predicted that outcome since I didn't know which direction the players were going to go in.

Quote from: mightybrain on December 29, 2020, 02:58:17 PM

Quote from: Opaopajr on December 29, 2020, 12:42:06 PMI am explicitly saying one of your players has to be lying ... (or there is gross confusion)

I would lean towards the latter. It's not usually in anyone's interest to deliberately scupper their own leisure time.

You'd be surprised.

There are players whos fucked up idea of leisure time is fucking up someone elses, preferrably several someone elses, leisure time.

Quote from: zircher on December 30, 2020, 12:45:14 AM(it was Champions, everyone had a portfolio of characters.)

I believe this was originally the norm for D&D although it seems to have gone out of favour.

Thanks folks for all your great advice. I'm reworking my next adventure to include more choice. Are there any other blogs or books that tackle this subject, other than The Alexandrian?