Comments on: The Group that Stays Together, Slays Together

By: Colin McLaughlin

Colin McLaughlin — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 10:34:00 +0000

In reply to erasmus. I tried adapting Harbinger House, and I was running the Great Modron March as an ongoing campaign. The Great Modron March was wonderfully easy to adapt, while Harbinger House was something of a nightmare. Like you mention with Tales from the Infinite Staircase, it lacked a lot of basic information, and had some problems with narrative cohesion. For example, it expected the players to care about saving one of the faction players just because he was in danger, and no one had ever even met him until that point. I remember TftIS being friendlier than that, in terms of running, but it's been years and I would not be surprised to find this same challenge.

By: erasmus

erasmus — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 00:03:00 +0000

I discovered Planescape last year and wanted to give it a try. I also thought that running published material would reduce my prep time so I tried running the first adventure from Tales From the Infinite Staircase. It was a lot of fun to read, but turned out to be difficult to run and I had to spend a lot of time preparing it. It was really disorganized – information on some areas was spread out across multiple sections making it hard to run without lots of notes. It was lacking in some very basic information, for example there are no provided clues to tell the party that the wizard they’re delivering a maguffin to has gone missing and isn’t just not in his home when they arrive. And if you don’t provide the proper guidance the party can easily go very far off track from their objective by mistakenly thinking that any one of the many portals they pass by are where they’re supposed to go next.

Did you face similar challenges when trying to adapt the Planescape adventure for your group?

By: Colin McLaughlin

Colin McLaughlin — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 12:41:00 +0000

In reply to MTi. It sounds like you did experience this. When your DM stepped down, you created a new group dynamic, with a new leader. This means you started back over at the forming stage. It can be the same group of people, just in different roles, and you often get a very different group dynamic. Not every group gels, but working through it can be a very helpful thing. If the group isn't willing to work through it, then breaking up can make sense.

By: MTi

MTi — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 07:50:00 +0000

For starters, thanks for that webcomic link!!! It looks good. At some point we can gather all webcomic links that have to do with RPGs, fantasy and geek life in one article.

The subject you are referring to is a delicate one. I actually did not have groups split due to personal differences but more due to life getting in the way, but then again I’m much less experienced than you.

On the other hand, we had a lot of instances of differences on the table, including dispute of where the adventure is going. On both of these instances, the DM stepped down and an other one carried the mantle. I hope this does not happen with me.