When I was much younger, we played an insanely high-level AD&D campaign, and the 3 GMs that we had, including me, basically had to adapt to the fact that the player characters could simply do anything that they wanted - so that it eventually became second nature to build scenarios accordingly. Eventually, it just ceased to matter that everyone had some supposedly game-breaking superpowers, because they failed to break the game even when we would let people use them with complete freedom.
hcarteau :
> > >> Same thing during the Heroquest. The bridge guarded by the giant who
> > >> knocks people into the River of Swords. My guys will probably try to fly
> > >> around him.
> /// That's a familiar feeling : trying to anticipate what the players are going
> to come up with, and how to react to it.
>
> My take is first, never forget it's about fun, for the players and the GM. So go
> for the solution you'll think offers the most fun, the greatest intensity of
> play for them and you both.
>
> What kind of people are they ? Do they prefer to be guided along, in which case
> they'll probably accept the "wall of swords" instead of the "river of blades" ?
> Or are they the kind that takes pleasure in finding other, unplanned ways ? Do
> they like taking odds or do they play it safe ?
This is all good advice, but you should always remember the simple option : can we fly over ? Sure, why not !
:)
>From a narrative point of view, the only important thing is that they must face this obstacle, whether you represent it literally as described, or by some other means.
You could describe some sort of airborne blades at the river site for example, or you could use the blades symbolism perhaps a little further along adter the river has been passed, or perhaps some completely different obstacle entirely that only the flying dead must face...
Joseph Campbell's writings are actually extremely useful for this particular purpose -- it doesn't matter what the obstacle is, because even if the hero thinks he has avoided it, he will still have to face it in another form. :)
He does IIRC devote quite a few pages to the Hero avoiding the challenge, pointing out that this will usually but not always have negative consequences later ; but this is tremendously variable, so that in RPG terms it just boils down to GM whim and GM style how to handle these questions. Sinbad can easily evade most obstacles using his flying carpet for instance, which is entirely non-problematic in his narrative ; whereas Frodo's ability to use the Ring and just invisible himself out of his problems is narratively related to a very drastic taboo and to massively negative consequences ; and every imaginable nuance between these extremes :)
If your players and their characters are empowered with some very extensive means to do the unpredictable, then I would suggest that you concentrate more on the overall structure of your storytelling rather than on the particular specific details (although you can and should prepare these too). If you have your bare bones, they can always be fleshed out on the fly with some improvisation.
It depends on your players too of course -- some players revel in power and its related freedom, whereas it can ruin some other people's suspension of disbelief.
Just some advice, which may be too vague to be useful -- but there are so many potential variables that it's hard to be specific.
Julian Lord
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