I agree Shellhead, My rpg sessions are about 2-3 times as long as it takes me to prep them. When I did do my own thing, usually a riff on some works I read or saw, I'd just note down some key encounters and a few key stats required and shoot from the hip from there. I'm sure most DMs with any kind of a social life did the same.

I actually found that not having the script so tightly wound, it was fun for me to game as well because I _didn't_ know everything that was going to happen. A new story was unfolding in front of me as well.

Now, in regards to currently wanting to only run modules. I don't expect the players to ever be railroaded. I've improvised enough over the years that if the players ever do want to look into undocumented corners of the game I'll be fine going there.

I'm sure many of y'all read this when it came out, but if not a fun little essay on old school gaming. I might have my group read it for fun prior to any DCC gaming we do.

www.lulu.com/product/file-download/quick-primer-for-old-school-gaming/3159558

Well now you got me interested in some DCC. So Jeff, would you be interested in coming up north if I run a few sessions this fall?

Interested, but this fall is going to be pretty busy. I'll see what I can work out.

Are you thinking of running stuff out of that Beta or waiting til after the final rules drop?

I have always traditionally run from prewritten modules. But you have to choose the module well. The classic Call of Cthulhu / Warhammer model which describes details of places, people, events and a line of possible reactions is perfect. It kind of give syou something to fall back on, and a basis for shooting from the hip.

If anything has destroyed D&D 4e in my eyes, it is the new adventure structure that has been festering since 3.5, and taken full front stage with 4e. It is more of a list of encounters and skill encounters which include specifics of die rolls and outcomes without context of the underlying situations and context to really let you run it other than a bland rolling exercise.

One of the things I was also VERY glad to see in DCC is monster morale rules. Something that kind of vanished from D&D a long time ago.

moofrank wrote:


I've heard that ever since 3.X, D&D encounters are engineered to have a predetermined difficulty. By that I mean an encounter should whittle away about 25% of a party's resources. So, a party needs to rest/heal about every 3rd or 4th encounter. Can anyone vouch for this?

moofrank wrote:


Amen brother. I'll push it all the way back to 2nd edition, and even some of the material there was superfluous. The less dice rolling the more role playing, and very likely that means the DM is doing more of the work in-situ. Scenario and character trump the technicalities in good role-playing.

Jeff White wrote:


Who's doing the engineering?


S.

Jeff White wrote:


I'd do it earlier, but my summer has become way packed with family stuff, vacations, and other gaming commitments. Fall is always my best gaming times.

P.S. Still want to do a Game Campout in the fall as well(The fall for that because it's too damn hot!) :)

Jeff White wrote:


This is definitely true is 4th edition. The modules are sticking to this fairly religiously. Even when they try and get cutesy and link encounters so that the party needs to run 3 encounters in a row to provide some story tension. Does the acronym TPK mean anything to you?

That and the whole fun of wildly unbalanced and easy encounters or "we're screwed. Run!" is just gone from anything D&D.

moofrank wrote:


So let me get this straight (I haven't played 4th Edition) -- the GM doesn't decide what shows up when and where? The game system is running all that now?

S.

Sagrilarus wrote:


No, that's not the case. The DM can make encounters as balanced or unbalanced as he wants. Starting from 3rd on, the math (and the assumptions that drive it) behind the system has been getting progressively better understood, and addressed directly. So it is much easier to build encounters that are the power level you, as DM, want. Maybe that's balanced, maybe that's easy, maybe that's TPK level.

But there is absolutely nothing that says the DM must make everything balanced. That's still driven by story, and by whatever the group thinks is fun.