2024-01-13 Challenges players face

I'm running Arden Vul as an open table. Sessions are generally less than 2h long. There are maybe a dozen players, maybe half of them regulars. Arden Vul is a megadungeon. The PDF has about 1200 pages. There are many entrances, many levels, many factions, and so on. As it is a megadungeon, players can choose for themselves what difficulty level they want to go for. Conversely, if there's a new player with a level 1 character, they can all agree to stick to lower level characters in order to make an adventure party that promises an entertaining evening for all.

Recently, I've started noticing that the setup introduces some player challenges that I hadn't thought of.

If the party is powerful and the opposition is strong but clearly less powerful, then frontal assaults "work" but at the same time the session only lasts for a certain number of hours and endless fighting killing many dozens of goblins, skeletons or cultists turns out to be somewhat boring and sap away time. Even if the characters aren't hurt, time is lost.

This is a challenge that attacks player entertainment somewhat like character death or long character creation, I feel.

You know how regular combat in the game attacks the player characters. Some elements of it also attack player resources. This is mostly related to character death. The result forces the player to do things they dislike: start with a new character that has fewer levels, fewer connections, less money, or incurs some other loss. Furthermore, if character creation takes a very long time, then the player has to spend the time thinking up a new build, a new concept.

In a way, an opposition that acts like a morass, wasting time unless the players find another way to circumvent the problem, is a similar attack upon the enjoyment of players. No amount of attack bonuses and initiatives won helps against waves of undead if you can’t turn them or hold them off some other way.

But there is more!

Since the megadungeon has a lot of doors and secrets that need keys, and artefacts that are required for certain goals or quests, it's important to note who has what, and where it was found. I don't want there to be a virtual pool of plot items in a bag of holding that is always with the group currently adventuring because even though everybody likes it now I dread the first total party kill where I announce that all the plot items are now lost. That'll be the end of the campaign for sure.

I confess that I also hope on some level that knowing who has what plot-relevant item increases interactivity as people start to realize that for this or that to happen, they need to contact the player of the character who's the owner of a particular item.

But yes, if players stop showing up, their characters don’t show up and the items they have, both magic items they found and plot items they hold, effectively disappear from the game.

So this is an additional player challenge of their organisational skills. Can they keep track of the items? Can they organise hand-overs?

Arden Vul is also a megadungeon where hints can be found in the hundreds of rumours, wall scribbles, frescos, mosaics, and so on. But if nobody collects and studies them, the information is effectively lost. If one player keeps notes on paper, or in their Google Docs, that information is effectively lost to the others.

I know that as a player in the Barrowmaze I’m also not a great organiser of rumours heard and information gathered. There is space for improvement!

So this is another player challenge: how to best share information. Can they build a knowledge repository somewhere, that helps them distribute information and collect hypothesises and conclusions?

The same is true about the ruins explored, entrances found, and perhaps more importantly, the places where no entrances were found but also they left before making absolutely sure. In a few sessions, players don't remember where they've been and they don't remember whether an area was fully explored. This duplicates effort and lost opportunities.

All in all, this is a sort of price to pay for the freedom players have in this kind of setup.

​#RPG #ArdenVul ​#ArdenVul

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Björn Buckwalter sent an email with a comment:

> I think the solution is to be generous with information and

> reminders, and assume that everyone knows everything that PCs have

> done/seen: they get drunk and brag to each other at the alhouse, or

> gossip at the baths, and even if the PCs try to keep a lid on things

> it is unfeasible and the hirelings will slip up.

> Of course, they will still not have the notes, maps, etc., in front

> of them (unless you give them) or memorized, so you will have to

> tell them when dots are connected: “This is clearly the ossuary that

> was stumbled upon five weeks ago by the party led by Tord, that you

> have reached from another direcdtion”, “Your friends found an idol

> just like this one is the ancient library”, “You heard from Mira

> that this corridor will lead to the sunken tower, where she heard

> the wailing sounds.” Then fill them in on the follow-up questions

> they have about the previous session and what was learned and what

> was left untouched.

> You don't want to solve the puzzles for them, I guess, but give them

> enough ingredients to solve them, if the “company” as a whole has

> earned them.

> If they ask “what do we know about this?” or “have we been here

> before?” or “have we heard about this?” be generous: “no, YOU

> haven't been here before, but Kaj's expedition passed through here

> on their way to the temple.”

> I think this also fosters a feeling of teamwork and collaboration

> even if Tord and Mira and Kaj never share the same table. They are

> all contributing to each other’s expeditions and will be grateful. I

> imagine they will feel that they have 1. earned the information

> together, and 2. are advancing the state of the campaign faster for

> everyone’s benefit.

> For items… I would maybe assume a communal pool somehow – at least

> for the plot items – meaning that no-one not at the table has a

> claim on plot items. But rather than bringing everything all the

> time in a that bag of holding, they are only allowed to bring (and

> risk) items that they have very good reason to believe they will

> need on this session. If they find something and don't have the

> right item, bring it next session. Or will this be too

> restrictive/inefficient? (attacking player entertainment?)

> As for the long boring fights, I suspect a solution may lie in the

> roots of the game where hit dice were something you used to hit

> with… at least I'm noodling in this direction myself.

The notes about being generous are good. I think what I’m going to aim for is that the Discord channel acts as the virtual bag of holding: by chatting on the channel, items can be moved around, no problem. And I’ll remind players of things without making an extra effort – if I find it on the wiki, I’ll tell them. But it’s a best effort kind of thing. We’ll see how it goes. At the moment it feels comraderly so I’m happy.

I guess we need to figure out eventually what happens to the player characters whose players leave and don't come back. I'm sort of hoping that I'm going to have them join the non-player parties. Arden Vul has a number of them. And then player can decide to meet up with the non-player parties and arrange for a deal.

I hope these little complications are worth it. We'll see.

Björn wrote back and he has his doubts:

> The Discord channel could work, but sometimes there is that one

> player that is not very active between sessions (or not even on

> Discord). I probably wouldn't want passing plot items be contingent

> on their approval, under the pretext that items ( (well, also PCs)

> belong to the company and not an individual. And for the reminders,

> I agree don't make extra effort, it is just that you will have

> better memory than the players probably (or at least more complete

> memory than any individual player) and you contribute your memory as

> part of the collective memory of the company (consider it the

> hireling channel if it bothers you).

Right now there always seems to be a flurry of activity before and after sessions (and by that I mean a dozen posts or so, not hours of conversation). I'll have to keep an eye out for requests getting lost or ignored, of course. I mean, the goal is not that ability to *deny* the use of the item but rather the feeling of having contributed a tiny bit to the success by *having kept* the item, or something like that.