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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: tetrasodium on July 05, 2012, 08:18:29 PM

Title: Made some newbie GM mistakes & need some "HALP!" on a timeline fork world fix
Post by: tetrasodium on July 05, 2012, 08:18:29 PM

Newbieish GM needs some “halp!!” Please :)
Not really a spoiler… But it’s a longish explaination of where things went wrong in my game that I think might answer some questions folks migtht have about how things got to this point

(click to show/hide)

I’ll start out with some background on the situation to get things off on the right foot.  I’ve been running a dresden game for several months.  Originally I was far to permissive with allowing half finished phaseless characters with intentionally uncompellable aspects ,painting outside the lines templetless characters… and mistakenly gave out too many higher milestone bribes to my players trying to get them to do things like phases & fix crummy aspects. 

Eventually a couple of the most problematic players in the group moved away & such leaving me with a pile of crap loose end sutterly irrelivant to the remaining near D&D style homicidal-hobo charactersthat were meant to serve as a path for digging their way towards the bigbads in a town (one of which was effectively a minor god) where effectively nothing bad happens, ewveryone of importance gets along, and the characters are at a powerlevel where black council & such might be a threat to them. 

After the worst problem players had life get in the way with me not really wanting to resort to an escalating arms race & armageddon, I had decided to do something that would reshape the world by flinging up lots formerly mundane mortal folks worldwide onto the supernatural ladder in a way that would overn ight spreead chaos &  force them to establish ties in the process of fixing the world.  However complications arose with the holiday & some summer vacation issues kept us from meeting up the last few weeks giving me plenty of time to mull that over making me realize there was both a better way & something that would make them realize potential risks involved  with not being involved in anything with nothing supernatural of note in town.  The minor presence from all of those groups are mostly friendly with each other & the characters

I’m planning to wipe the slate using the sixth law & would like some extra eyes to critique things for me or give suggestions on a possible alternate timestream:

• Warlock living in an area of the world that effectivelly has no white council/redcourt or.... anything presence that might serve as a check decides to violate the sixth lsaw & go back in time (or send someone) to assassinate hitler & make the world a better place… without considering the butterly effect it would kick off.  This happens to be the present broken timestream.
• The world is drastically different as a result of that action, instead of Hitler, there was (& maybe still is) a Kemmler!  WW2 played out pretty similar to how it did originally except for the white council throwing in with the US after the perl harbor  massacre when hundreds/thousands of formerly  dead folks burried in hawaii  rose up & attacked the battleships like had been rumored to have been happening in europe during the war..
• as a result  I get to tell everyone their old godlike & unattached broken sheet of numbers was never born, or had a wildly different upbringing that put them elsewhere & hand out less godlike pregenerated characters for folks to pick from until the group is ready to make their own characters properly instead of starting out replacements to the group in a game that’s effectively broken .  Since most of them are effectively sheets of numbers, I can’t see any of them caring much
• I’m thinking that maybe the white council & magic should be openly ccepted as part of society/governance.  Maybe even having wardens employed by the state in many places.  The open acceptance of magic would probably lead to things like were-wolf anti narcotics teams& other such things to help players not familiar with the dresden books to get settled more easily.  Instead of lonewolf  were’s with no ties, they can just be a former/current dea agent/cop or something & it makes it much harder to be talented with powers in some way without being tied to the world like some of the original players tried to do.
• Maybe Kemmler is still around over in europe where he has a nice little germany & france  sized nation carved out of doctor doom styleentrenched power far too massive to even consider taking on any time soon.  Of course that presence would lead to quite a few more necromancers & wqarlocks springing up elsewhere in places the characters see
• The “I hex their guns/the security systems” easy button gets far less simple to hit as there is likely to be more hex resistant/proof  weapons & people are less likely to be surprised by it wondering why their stuff sudden;lt quit working.  Places with security are likely to rely on both technoligy and magic for security where applicable to avoid that easybutton from letting folks in unhindered
  

The part that I really need/want feedback on is this though… am I missing anything that should/could result from that sort of a timeline fork or setting myself up for problems I’m not thinking of?  Are there any good ideas for inclusion you guys can think to add?

Title: Re: Made some newbie GM mistakes & need some "HALP!" on a timeline fork world fix
Post by: admiralducksauce on July 05, 2012, 09:13:29 PM

First, I think Kemmler being alive and a Hitler replacement of sorts is pulpy awesome. With magic and the supernatural as part of overt society, you might end up with more of a Shadowrun style to your game. Or possibly (as you bring up Doctor Doom) maybe even more of a magical-flavored superhero setting.

The big question is are the remaining players in your group okay with this reset button? It sounds like you're saying the problem players are gone now, but a giant retcon isn't something that is acceptable simply because it might make internal sense within your setting. People are going to have to want to play afterwards, too. I think it sounds cool, and as a player when I think things sound cool I do the GM a favor and don't pick logic holes in his setting.

If having the supernatural tied more closely into the modern world is going to make it easier to get proper backgrounds and story hooks from your players, by all means do it. It doesn't have to make perfectly logical sense - real life is full of crap that, in hindsight, were terrible suboptimal decisions. Budget cuts! Sunspots! Lobbyists! Hookers! A Wizard Literally Did It! There are tons of excuses you can whip up if someone DOES decide to nitpick your choices.  :)

Title: Re: Made some newbie GM mistakes & need some "HALP!" on a timeline fork world fix
Post by: tetrasodium on July 05, 2012, 09:24:54 PM

Quote from: admiralducksauce on July 05, 2012, 09:13:29 PM

First, I think Kemmler being alive and a Hitler replacement of sorts is pulpy awesome. With magic and the supernatural as part of overt society, you might end up with more of a Shadowrun style to your game. Or possibly (as you bring up Doctor Doom) maybe even more of a magical-flavored superhero setting.

The big question is are the remaining players in your group okay with this reset button? It sounds like you're saying the problem players are gone now, but a giant retcon isn't something that is acceptable simply because it might make internal sense within your setting. People are going to have to want to play afterwards, too. I think it sounds cool, and as a player when I think things sound cool I do the GM a favor and don't pick logic holes in his setting.

If having the supernatural tied more closely into the modern world is going to make it easier to get proper backgrounds and story hooks from your players, by all means do it. It doesn't have to make perfectly logical sense - real life is full of crap that, in hindsight, were terrible suboptimal decisions. Budget cuts! Sunspots! Lobbyists! Hookers! A Wizard Literally Did It! There are tons of excuses you can whip up if someone DOES decide to nitpick your choices.  :)

Yea, it's definitely a potential snag if the existing players with poor godlike characters dislike things, but with the worst problem players that were actively going out of their way to avoid involvement with attachments to the world (as opposed to just going with the flow for most of the rest) I'm given an opportunity to pitch it as a way to help a newbie joining us fit in & hit the ground running more easily with a cohesive group with the possibility of still going back & saying it was just for learning if it's an issue.

Title: Re: Made some newbie GM mistakes & need some "HALP!" on a timeline fork world fix
Post by: Sanctaphrax on July 05, 2012, 09:37:04 PM

Assuming you've talked to your players about this, it looks like a good idea to me.

Title: Re: Made some newbie GM mistakes & need some "HALP!" on a timeline fork world fix
Post by: Richard_Chilton on July 05, 2012, 09:45:04 PM

Have you thought about doing a total reset? Starting over in the pre "we messed it up" world with new characters?

Richard

Title: Re: Made some newbie GM mistakes & need some "HALP!" on a timeline fork world fix
Post by: tetrasodium on July 05, 2012, 10:03:00 PM

Quote from: Richard_Chilton on July 05, 2012, 09:45:04 PM

Have you thought about doing a total reset? Starting over in the pre "we messed it up" world with new characters?

Richard

I considered it a few times & it always tends to swing back to not many of my players are familiar with the dresden books & are uncomfortable about being the first one to get involved with things in the world or waiting for others to do so first to avoid cutting the others off.  the original world was pretty much undefined.  The problem players kind of leaned against including anything in conflict with anything & I was to lenient towards footdragging by not wanting to develop anything that would cut them off once they started getting involved letting them build up a bunch of powerful allies while giving out quite a few of the higher tier milestones as bribery to get anything from them before I realized how big of a mistake that was

Title: Re: Made some newbie GM mistakes & need some "HALP!" on a timeline fork world fix
Post by: UmbraLux on July 06, 2012, 01:37:59 AM

Quote from: tetrasodium on July 05, 2012, 08:18:29 PM

I’m planning to wipe the slate using the sixth law...

Blunt feedback:  don't do this without discussing it with the players first.  It's a campaign ender.  Also, arbitrarily revising characters that much irritates many players.  In many ways you're better off ending this campaign gracefully and simply starting a new one.

Sadly, I learned this through experience.  :/

Title: Re: Made some newbie GM mistakes & need some "HALP!" on a timeline fork world fix
Post by: sqlcowboy on July 06, 2012, 06:31:09 PM

I would just start a new campaign.  Sometimes something is so irrevocably broken you can't do much more than that.

Title: Re: Made some newbie GM mistakes & need some "HALP!" on a timeline fork world fix
Post by: Richard_Chilton on July 06, 2012, 07:43:37 PM

Sometimes saying "the game need a reset" is really, really the best option.

Here's a horror story from a while ago.

Was playing D&D (forget which version) and the DM made Monty Haul look stingy.  A couple of us said things "Um, are you sure you want to give us that stuff" but the DM pointed out he was just keeping our characters equal with the others in the group.  Then, as our awesome equipment solved problem after problem, he realised he had made a mistake.  Our PCs were steered towards a side encounter (steered so heavily that he forgot to check his notes and contradicted the reasoning behind the encounter) into what he had designed as a Total Party Kill (TPK).

After three to four hour long combat, half the party was down but the more sensible members (which included everyone who could only hit the opposition on a natural 20 and had exhausted all spells and powers that might do damage) were able to flee with the bodies - taking them to the place that the DM had set up for free resurrections.  That was when the DM revealed that it was supposed to be a TPK because he had lost control of the game - and the general response "Why didn't you say that when we sat down? We could have roll new PCs and not wasted the entire night in a pointless combat!".

There were many, many hard feelings over that.  More for playing out a pointless session (since even the survivors were being retired) than the ill logic behind the ambush.

I've been part of other games that reset or folded, but that long, pointless combat still lingers in my memory.


In this case, ask yourself if the players will enjoy the alternative world you're making.  And think about whether they will still be invested in their PCs.

You are talking about changing the numbers on their sheets - but what about their backgrounds and aspects? There's no way they would have the same histories growing up in such a different world, so you're looking at rewriting backgrounds, histories, aspects - in short, completely changing the characters.  If you are changing the characters that drastically, it seems that it would make more sense to reboot.

If you think that the "everything changes" bit is a good idea, then talk it over with the players first.  You don't want to be remembered as the guy who rewrote everyone's PCs and then made them play an unfun game.

Richard

Title: Re: Made some newbie GM mistakes & need some "HALP!" on a timeline fork world fix
Post by: Jimmy on July 16, 2012, 01:36:19 AM

Another option worthy of mention is the prospect of the current characters being 'captured' or 'frozen in carbonite' style trap. Let the players reroll with end game being the release of their more powerful counterparts. As the game settles down to a less rediculous level of power and threat, conveniently steer the story away from the world needing the old characters to stop things falling apart.