Accessory - Dragon Magazine #111.pdf - Index of

No campaign ever fails
What to do if your game gets out of control
by Joel E. Roosa
Valandar, Lord of Eldor, General of
Generals, and 23rd-level fighter, pulled on
his shimmering, golden plate mail +6. He
buckled his girdle of titan strength about his
waist and hefted his sword of disintegration
+6. Then he surveyed himself in his mirror
of healthful reflection and deemed himself
fit to battle the dragon that had been ravaging
the countryside.
In another universe, Gelkin, a 4th-level
fighter, put on his chain mail +3, unsheathed
his longsword +1, and lifted his
shield +2. He woefully thought of the few
gold pieces remaining in his pouch and
hoped to find an adventure that might pay
enough to live on for a while.
The preceding paragraphs give examples
from hypothetical campaigns, one wellbalanced
and one “Monty Haulish.” Which
is which may not be obvious.
Valandar was run for nine years of real
time, gained two to three levels per year,
and undertook extremely dangerous quests.
He has an impressive array of equipment,
but none of it has ever made any adventure
a cake-walk.
But Gelkin got all his equipment and
levels during one adventure.
To further illustrate, we visit Valandar
and Gelkin a few hours later.
Valandar, Lord of Eldor, limped into his
chambers, his battered and bloody armor
squeaking as he moved. In his right hand he
held the useless stub of his former sword,
which still steamed from the dragon’s blood.
With a curse on the corrosive fluids in a
dragon’s body, he cast the sword fragment
away. Perhaps it could be made into an
enchanted nail file for his wife.
He gazed forlornly at his blackened waist,
where his girdle of titan strength once hung.
“ Under the armor, under the armor!” he
shouted. “Wear magic belts under the
armor!”
He peered into his mirror of healthful
reflection and immediately felt his wounds
begin to heal. His armor wasn’t so lucky.
Perhaps the master smiths could repair it —
but perhaps not.
Meanwhile, Gelkin, slayer of goblins,
surveyed his handiwork. Three dead orcs
and an open chest lay before him. He was
now 5th level and had enough gold for
months. Gelkin pulled his newfound sword
from its scabbard and learned that it was a
vorpal weapon +5 and also had the abilities
of a staff of the magi. “Neat,” he said.
Campaigns cannot be neatly categorized
on the basis of a few examples from them.
22 JULY 1986
After getting the definition of some terms
out of the way, this article will examine the
problems that crop up in many campaigns
and how to deal with them.
A “campaign,” in the fantasy roleplaying
sense, is a series of adventures with
an overall connection. It usually involves
either recurring groups of characters, settings
in the same world (or related worlds),
or both.
A properly run campaign is usually called
“balanced.” A poorly run campaign is
called “unbalanced.” I prefer the terms
“controlled” and “uncontrolled,” respectively.
Often, when a campaign has become
uncontrolled for a long period of time, it is
called a failure.
Individual adventures can indeed be
failures, but as a whole, no campaign ever
fails, and any campaign can be controlled.
Recognizing uncontrolled campaigns
Most articles about “failed” or “Monty
Haul” campaigns warn about the dangers
of overly powerful characters upsetting the
“game balance.” Game balance is a relative
term. Over-powerful characters from one
game may be under-powered in another.
Obviously, a campaign in which players
use gods of the Egyptian pantheon as player
characters is in a different class from one in
which all player characters are halflings. If
Ra were to enter the halfling campaign, the
halfling players might consider him to be
from an uncontrolled campaign, They
might be right, but a given campaign must
be judged separately from other campaigns.
Game balance therefore depends on the
internal workings of each individual campaign.
To determine if a campaign is out of
control, evaluate the following:
1. Have most of the characters achieved
their levels fairly without undue “favors of
the gods,” and through real danger to the
characters? “Fairly” can even mean starting
all characters at 2nd level or higher, as
long as all characters have the same chance
(although I prefer that all characters start at
1st level). “Favors of the gods” can include
wishes that raise levels, decks of many
things, and various magical tomes. Experience
gained without risk is a gift. In one
adventure, the DM granted my party full
experience points for burning to death three
defenseless treants. Gaining a level per
adventure, or even per two to six adventures,
is too fast.
2. Has magical or technological equip-
ment been mostly earned by real effort?
Gaining a magical sword by chopping a tree
down with a herring might count as real
effort. Freeing a sword from a block of ice
with a blowtorch probably wouldn’t. Of
course, if the herring were highly enchanted,
or the character has to invent the
blowtorch, it might be different. Magical
items lying unguarded behind normal secret
doors take no great effort to acquire; ones
behind trapped secret panels with special
opening codes would.
3. Do most of the characters find the
greater share of the individual adventures
challenging? By “challenging” I don’t
mean vaporizing Lolth as an appetizer,
destroying Demogorgon for the main
course, and annihilating Yeenoghu for
dessert. By “challenging” I don’t mean a
crippled goblin killing three out of six characters.
By “challenging” I mean an adventure
that makes the characters exert their
abilities to a great degree, makes them
worry about survival, and gives some of
them wounds to remember. An adventure
doesn’t have to kill any characters to be
challenging. My adventures kill characters
rarely, maybe once every twenty adventures
or less. Challenges can also be mental —
puzzles to solve, traps to figure out, amd so
forth.
4. Most importantly: Is most everyone
having fun? This includes the DM as well
as players. Not all players enjoy a particular
DM’s style, and vice versa. Not everyone in
a group will always care for the particular
adventure they’re on. Some players like
certain types of adventures and prefer DMs
who oblige them. Some prefer hack-andslash,
some like “thinking” adventures,
some like very controlled, narrow-purpose
adventures, and some just like to roam and
have random encounters. The different
types of players are not necessarily incompatible.
One player’s favorite saying was
“wake me when the fighting starts.” He
wasn’t the least interested in solving riddles
or bargaining with merchants; he let the
others do that. His character fought and he
was happy. On the other hand, another
player preferred to leave the fighting to
others while he lived by his wits.
Each “yes” answer to the above questions
is worth 1 point, each “no” worth 0.
Total the points and continue with the following
section.
5. Are any characters too powerful?
Power is a relative term. An 8th-level