What Motivates Your Players?

Sounds like a simple question really, and one that would seem easy to answer.  What kind of rubbish is this?  Players are motivated by killing things and taking their stuff.  And yes ultimately no matter what kind of game you play in, that is at least one of the end goals, but it is often not enough to motivate your players, especially in a sandbox game.

I often hear the question raised, "how can I get new school players into older style or 'old school' gaming?"  I think the key really boils down to one thing; how experience awards are handled.  This one feature sets the tone for a particular style of play.  You see, back in the day, when players sat down around the table, and began to seek adventure, they did so on their own, and the DM facilitated the world for them.  This was because the players had a goal (kill things and take their shit and advance and become more powerful) and the goal was rooted in the process by which they attained it.  Going up in level via experience points.

The older iterations of the game made it quite clear.  You advanced in level and gained experience points primarily in two ways; killing monsters that were challenging to your level and by collecting treasure.  Even up into the 1e DMG, Gygax held this to be true.  In that guide he references the exchange of treasure, or gold pieces, into a converted ratio for experience and specifically pointed out that the treasure must be somehow carried out of the dungeon, not just found.

The change began in 2e, in which the game began to take a shift overall as a whole.  It became less about gaining treasure and fighting monsters and more about that dreaded two-word-phrase "the story."  In the 2e DMG the notion of awarding XP for treasure is resolved to a small blurb, highlighted in light blue, and annotated as an "optional rule for experience."  

"As an option, the DM can award XP for the cash value of non-magical treasures.  One XP can be given per gold piece, or equivalent, found."

As an option?!  Seriously?  So, the new school player (or those whose roots lie in ONLY 2e or editions that followed) have a clear reference on how the game should be.  This is why the new school player will sit around, waiting for the DM's guiding hand to lead him to "the story."  And when the DM doesn't do this (i.e. the old school DM), the game becomes lost in translation and can become a bit awkward.  An example of how a typical adventure may start with an old school DM with new school players:

DM: Okay, you're at the Blazing Drunk Tavern enjoying drinks with your mates.  A minstrel plays a lively  tune in the common room.  Patrons move to and fro eating and enjoying the evening.  What are you doing?
New school player:  Uhh....I have an ale.
DM: Okay, 1 copper.  The keep brings you the ale.  What else are you doing?
New school player: Uhh....*waits for DM to spoon-feed him "the story."*

A very similar exchange with old school DM and players:

DM: Okay, you're at the Blazing Drunk Tavern enjoying drinks with your mates.  A minstrel plays a lively  tune in the common room.  Patrons move to and fro eating and enjoying the evening.  What are you doing?
Old school player: I order an ale, slap the serving wench on the arse, and ask the keep if there are any rumors of this place.
DM: Okay, 1 copper.  The keep brings you the ale.  The serving wench slaps you in the face.  The keep then tells you of some ruins just outside of town which are said to hold a golden jeweled crown worth a fortune.
Old school player: We head out tonight.

You see, the old school player doesn't need any other motivation than the notion of the possibility of fighting some shit and getting a treasure, because the treasure paves the way for the advancement.  It is THE motivation to play.  There is no need for them to sit around and wait for the DM to serve up the one ring to take to Mount Doom.

The key, when starting a new campaign, is to find  the players who fit the style of game you want to run.  There is nothing wrong with storylines in games.  I use them myself.  But make it clear from the on-set on how experience is gained and how level progression works.  So, if you're running an old school style game, make it clear to the players, "hey, you level up by killing shit and taking treasure because each gold piece worth of treasure taken also equals that much in xp."  If they are new school players, they might not get it at first, because it might not come natural to them.  If you have someone more familiar with this style of play at the table it helps because they can guide the new school player, and really, it's so bloody simple they'll feel foolish for not catching on in the beginning once they see how it's done.  The difference is being able to recognize what motivates the new school player vs the old school player.

To put it in a simple analogy, the new school player is all about the destination (the story) while the old school player is all about the journey.

Hexcrawling and its Fundamental Use in Old School D&D Part 1

The first in a series of posts whereby I discuss the merits of the old school hexcrawl.

In new school era games (3e, 3.5, 4e, etc.) when PCs are expected to travel long distances to get to their next destination, it might be typical for a DM to say "after a week long travel you all arrive at 'destination x,' subtract a week's rations," for the sake of "moving the story along."  That's fine and dandy and all, and maybe the players want that at times, but let's face it, in a world of medieval/weird/apocalyptic fantasy, "getting there" is half the battle.  That's the difference between the old school game and the new school era, video game centric scaled "encounters" in modern RPGs.  In the old school, it's not always about the destination, but more about the journey.  After all, in a fantastic setting peopled with monsters and magic, all kind of things can happen when the PCs are moving through the wilderness, even if they take a populated and well traveled road.

In my present game, it won't be long before the party gets a clue to what will likely be their next destination, should they follow that path of course.  They could certainly choose to ignore it, but most likely they won't.  As such, the journey will take them almost a month, on horseback, even if they take the main road.  In a world of fantasy, a lot can happen in a month's time.  So, in essence, they'll be doing some hexcrawling for a while.  Maybe even a few entire game sessions.  A lot can happen on the way to town.

Hexcrawling has been covered in great detail all over the OSR blogging world.  There is already a wealth of information on the subject.  While some may argue semantics, at its heart hexcrawling is similar to dungeon crawling, except the "crawl" takes place above ground, often in wild, and relative uncivilized lands where lots of interesting things might happen.  It becomes even more dangerous at times than the dungeon crawl, with the probability of getting lost, running out of food, or encountering creatures and people well above the level of the party.

If handled properly, a wilderness hexcrawl can be an exciting and engaging part of your campaign that will be just as enjoyable (maybe even moreso) than the "story" you have presented them with.  So, here is my take on the hexcrawl, some pointers on how to make it engaging, and keep your players' interest in the game.

First, the basic elements of what you need for a hexcrawl are pretty much considered universal.

- A numbered hexmap of the area (preferably with hexes representing 5 or 6 miles...I like to use 6 miles) with various land and terrain features like hills, plains, scrublands, marshes, forests, mountains, radioactive volcanoes, or whatever suits your flavor.

- Populate the hexmap with some interesting locations/events the PCs will discover if they enter the hex.  Basically you're creating a key corresponding to the number of the hex you want the feature to be located in.  Obviously, at first you want to focus on the immediate areas around the hex your party will start from.  There is no need to fully flesh out some ancient ruin 20 hexes away which your PCs might never encounter.  Keep focused on what's immediately ahead of you for the time being, as it will save you hours of unnecessary prep time.  When you're initially doing this, just make small notes about the features, and worry about fleshing out major details, drawing dungeon maps, etc. until later on.  In some cases, you're just going to have to wing it.

- Create random encounter tables.  Depending on the terrain or area, you might roll for an encounter 3 times a day or 6 times.  This is usually up to the DM to determine, although there are guides for such.  The 2e DMG has a table which gives the encounter chance, number of encounters to roll per day and what not based on the terrain type the PCs are passing through.  Random encounter tables can be simple with say only 6 options if triggered, or as complex as 100.  This is up to you.  Obviously the less time you spend on the encounter tables, the less diverse the random encounters will be.

Traveling over long distances for PCs can be tedious.  It's up to the DM to keep things entertaining and engaging for the players.  Random encounters or hex features designed for your party to find should be engaging for some reason.  Perhaps the PCs will discover a village in the next hex they travel to.  But let's say that village is cursed, and its citizens can't leave the village.  The PCs can investigate and maybe find the source of the curse lies in a barrow just outside of town.  Perhaps they'll be led to free the village from the curse at the rumor of some hidden treasure in the barrow.

These types of encounters can lead to little mini-adventures on their own, and can make the hexcrawl something the players will remember and actually WANT to be engaged in.  What you want to avoid is dragging out a pointless journey with uninteresting events i.e. "you travel for half a day, you're attacked by goblins (roll out stupid pointless combat), you take up watch for the night, you encounter some wolves (roll out stupid combat), you wake up and head out again," wash, rinse and repeat...boring.  Make the journey count, and make it interesting.

My Great AD&D Amazon Score

The other day I decided to order a 1e AD&D DMG from Amazon.  I mainly wanted a cheap used copy to use as a game aid at the table for our D&D sessions.  The seller was letting it go for around $6 and according to the description from the seller: "a little shelf wear, binding intact, good usable copy."  So I ordered it and it arrived today in the mail, and after opening up the package, I was almost struck unconscious by the condition of this magnificent tome.  The binding was in perfect condition, there was some minor shelf wear on the corners, and the pages were even white with no yellowing!  No drawings or pen marks, no missing pages, and completely intact.  These pictures really don't do it justice, but here they are anyway.

 

Click to enlarge.  Cover is in remarkable condition.

As you can see above, the cover is in unbelievable condition.  Hard to tell there, but it even still has a little shine to it.

The binding is in near perfect condition.

Just as the seller said the binding is indeed intact, but I was shocked at just how "intact" it was.  No tears, or rips at all.

Pages are white and all there. No markings inside.

I'm not really sure if the pic above can do it justice, but the pages are crisp and white, and not yellowed with age at all nor brittle.  They're all there with no markings or writings.  They look brand new in fact.

Clean back cover with no scratches or scuffs.

The back cover has no scratches or scuffs, and much like the front cover, still has a little shine on it.

To say I was shocked at this find is an understatement.  I'm honestly not certain how they were able to maintain this book in this condition without realizing the value of it.  A copy like this could easily sell for $40-$50 on ebay or some other site.  I was expecting something heavily used and worn out, which was fine, because I was planning on using it at the table myself, as I said above.  Instead, I'm thinking of holding this one back and not using it at all.  It's rare to find a copy of this book in this good a shape and not pay an arm and a leg for it.  I'm very pleased.