Railroad / Sandbox / Other - The Third Alternative

Image (cc) Dean Peters

There is a sliding scale between the "Railroad" and the "Sandbox" when it comes to RPG campaigns, and between pre-planned and on-the-fly content.

Railroads are pre-set linear story paths that the players can break by deviating from them; this is the main criticism that tends to be levelled at traditional published adventures.  The storyteller in me wants a beginning, a middle, and an end for my campaign "season" just like a TV season, but I don't want to railroad the players. And I don't want to prep it all up-front!

Sandboxes are environments that let the plots be driven by the players; the GM leaves hooks and clues for them to find but the story follows the players' choices.  The storyteller in me loves this, I love to build in player stories, but I don't want to prep a load of stuff that won't get used and I don't want to wing too much

But these aren't the only structure options, these are just the options we see in modules because they are the options that are easy to publish.  I'm looking for a low-prep option 3.

Khurasan down! Suggest a 15mm force for me??

Image (cc) revoincubus

Just heard that Khurasan minis has closed down until the autumn ... so much for the Vespulids for our homebrew wargaming rules then!

So, my options now are:

• Back to my pre-waspid idea of GZG NAC troopers and wheeled tanks - low tech, possibly Chinese / Asian Confederation (People's, obviously) army... purely 'cos I love the trikes, but we have no rules for them yet.

• Original plan of GZG (again) grav-sleds, possibly accompanied by UNSC - high tech, likely to be tied into my Martian rebels for [Starmada] - the ACEF.  Not very near future though?

[Guest] GM Screen: Why You Should(n’t)

Image via Wikipedia (cc)

I've been playing RPGs for 26 years, and in that time I've seen all kinds of GM screens.  Some really cool (a castle wall, complete with towers and crenellations), and some not so cool (a cardboard box).  In all that time I've seen how they've been both helpful and hurtful to a game.  Regardless of your preference, take a look at some pros and cons of using (and not using) a GM screen.  You might alter the way you game, and be thankful you did.

Why you should use a GM Screen:

Descent and balance

Descent's a great game, but our group's reaching the point where the Heroes are rapidly outclassing the Overlord player. We're only 4 or so missions in, so hopefully the balance will be shifted in the later missions.

Two of us took four heroes against the forces of darkness this week, and won by a margin of over a dozen conquest tokens!

We only used pretty basic strategies too:

* Open doors at the start of a turn, run in and collect chests/glyphs before slaughtering minions before they can react.

* Quaff fatigue potions with gay abandon to achieve the above - spend all money in ton on more fatigue potions!

* Position heroes to limit the areas the overlord can spawn in, as (s)he has to spawn out of LOS.

Now, either there're some equally basic Overlord tactics we're missing, or the game's balance is crazy... My thoughts on addressing this imbalance are:

* Start the heroes on zero conquest (or one, maybe) as the chances of getting slotted before activating a glyph are slim to none?

* Allow the Overlord to play multiple spawns when the boss room door has been opened - after all, the remaining minions would rush to the defence of their master, right?

* Give players fewer skills - maybe draw three as standard, but discard one?

* Maybe we should have just had one hero each, instead of two?

Any thoughts, or (better) advice? I'm aware that the expansions swing the balance back the other way, but we're only playing vanilla descent for now!