Hello students. Crunch here with the companion article for Wrought Iron Episode 13.
Hands up, who guessed that the party would end up in that cave again? I didn’t exactly plan it, but when the opportunity presented itself, I was happy to explore more of that creepy place. To give you a peek behind the curtain, when I planned out that first encounter in the cave, I knew there was a left and right path. I had set up the encounter with the kids to the left and had a basic idea of what was happening over to the right. The players decided to go left immediately, so I didn’t worry about the right.
Now we’re back in the cave and the right path is where things are happening. So here’s one of the dilemmas that GMs face. Do you change plans that the players had no previous knowledge of? In this example, I had previously made a rough outline of the dungeon the characters might enter. They didn’t. Now that they are going to enter, do I keep it the same? They certainly wouldn’t know. The answer is fairly obvious. Do what’s right for the game. If the location of certain things is important, keep them there even if the players don’t take their characters there immediately. In this case, it didn’t matter. The characters didn’t know what to expect so I could throw anything at them and it would’ve worked out fine. Plus, the creepy nature of the cave made the players expect strange things to happen. I easily could’ve changed things that they had learned about and explained it away as part of the magic and danger of the cave.
For the record, I kept a lot of my plans the same, simply to save myself the work.
I’d also like to point out, as I have before and as is quite obvious as you listen, I am rubbish at designing clever and entertaining dungeons. It’s just a skill that I do not have. I am trying to get better at it, and this attempt didn’t turn out that bad. I’m not completely happy with it, but I think the game played out smoothly enough and the players enjoyed what happened.
One of the things I attempted (and didn’t accomplish) was using a suggestion by listener and site commenter TheScando. Scando suggested a version of our “convert a monster into an environmental encounter” theory specifically for dungeon crawls. In short, the idea allows a GM to break down a high CR monster into many smaller combat, trap, and environmental encounters. It also grants the flexibility of moving these encounters around the dungeon to react to the choices of the players and characters. I don’t think it’s very clear that I tried this, but that’s good, because I don’t think I did it very well. But as I said in the last article, I’m trying to incorporate a more narrative type of combat, and that means moving away from the strict guidelines of traditional D&D combat. I’m not there yet, as is evident in this dungeon crawl. I tried to include the typical combat when it was needed and be more free-form when it wasn’t, but the end result feels awkward, in my opinion. I’ll get there.
But now, on to some specifics about this episode.
When the party was in that first room, the armory that was on its side, I really expected them to pick up some new weapons. In my mind, giving PCs a room full of weapons translated immediately to a shopping montage. But the players didn’t bother to look around. I could’ve made a better effort to encourage them to do so, or just said outright “hey, these are serviceable and free weapons. Want any?” I could’ve used this to hand out some treasure if they had showed more interest. But that’s the important part of this observation. I had to react to what they decided was important. Or in this case, not important. In your games, don’t force your expectations on your players. However, if you plan something important and the players don’t follow your set-up, then it’s ok to either move it around or give them a gentle nudge.
Speaking of which, that bridge scene. Yeesh. Let me tell you, I was shaking my head and groaning at these shenanigans. I loved the commitment to the bit of throwing Deign across the chasm. It was super entertaining, so it all worked out ok. But I didn’t want to just let the tossing happen without a contingency plan, though, because I knew it would end in tragedy. In a worst case situation, someone would’ve died if I let the consequences happen. Or I would’ve had to call for a series of Dexterity saves and stat checks to try and justify salvation. Or I would’ve had to just hand wave the consequences away, meaning that the consequences didn’t matter. Ultimately, none of these solutions are bad. It’s all based on what’s happening in the game and the tone of the game. As it played out, everything was fine. Actually, I’m a little disappointed in myself with the results. When Matthew had the idea of using the Mending spell, I fell into an old habit of looking up the spell and seeing exactly what it did and using that to form my decision. In light of trying to be more narrative-focused, I should’ve just let the spell work because it was a great idea with a cool cinematic visual. Also, I feel some responsibility to the rules as this is an Actual Play, meaning that the rules actually matter. But in the end, the characters got across and a funny scene happened, so everything was good.
If anyone’s wondering what that smashed part of the turret wall was about, remember back in episode 4 when the Tobin monster jumped down and attacked the party? Where do you think he jumped from?
I almost had a combat encounter in the hallway of armor. I love the trope of animated suits of armor hiding in among regular ones. In the moment, it just didn’t feel right. In retrospect, I now see a perfect way to relate that encounter to the larger themes and the ultimate enemy that the PCs will face. Oh well. Not having a fight here let the oddness of the dungeon hit home harder, I think.
I also really thought that there would be a player or character initiated fight when they got attacked by the Ithalix on the wooden fortress ledge. But Scott was role playing very well and thinking only of moving forward to locate his family as quickly as possible. When I realized what he was doing, I didn’t want to interrupt the role play with a fight and just let potential danger become a background environmental danger. But I did bring them into the next scene, just to keep the sense of danger building.
I did my best to reinforce and describe the strangeness of the dungeon with all the rooms from the different environments that had been smashed together. I think if I had presented this environment without the stress of chasing after kidnapped family members, that oddity could’ve had a greater impact. However, I much prefer the tense mood that was created by the excellent role playing that kept the party rushing forward.
In conclusion, I think the most important thing to learn from this episode is flexibility. Pay attention to what your players think is important and let this drive the story forward. Remember the old saying “kill your darlings”? Take that to heart when you’re preparing a game or designing a dungeon. Don’t become so attached to something in the game that you force it into the story if it doesn’t need to be there as events are playing out. Of course, that’s not true all the time. There are cases when you absolutely need to get specific details or NPCs or events into the game. But in general, you as GM are there to set the stage and let the players take control. When they’re done with a scene, give them new elements and let them move forward. You should be less of a director and more of a stage manager.
Next episode, there’s some combat and things start to get hairy. Hairy. See what I did there? Because Cassander’s a druid and…ah, nevermind.
1 pings