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General Tabletop Discussion
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Campaign structure: combining the sandbox and adventure path
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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7151050" data-attributes="member: 6787650"><p>At the adventure level, yes--the players can choose whether they want to participate in simulationist fun (go and do proactive stuff in the sandbox, like start a space colony and recruit colonists for it, or engineer a war) or gamist fun (something with a defined start and end, and goals defined by the DM, at a level of difficulty telegraphed at the metagame level).</p><p></p><p>Within the adventure, the gamism mostly isn't there because it's already been hoisted to the metagame level (where it belongs, IMO--same level as character creation, which is <em>extremely</em> gamist in 5E due to feats and multiclassing rules). That's important to me as a naturally simulationist DM because it means that once the scenario is set up, I can let it unfold naturally. The gamism happens when I've got my adventure designer hat on, and am thinking about game structures and game theory, not when I've got my my DMing hat on and am I'm thinking about a living breathing world.</p><p></p><p>Different players have different preferences and levels of proactiveness. Some players really looooove searching for the perfect ingedients for their alchemical elixir of life; other players want the DM to put them in contrived situations where a village needs to be saved from outlaws or a princess needs to be kissed by a special frog. Some like both kinds of fun, on different timescales. I think it's good to be flexible, as long as you're clear which kind of activity is going on right now. (Otherwise, you wind up with the sandbox problem wherein you've offered the players numerous hooks, many of which are still open, and you don't know which ones to prepare for or which direction the PCs are going this week--and players themselves sometimes have trouble knowing when they can stop and take a breather. I'm finding that it works better to be able to end certain adventures in failure, a la "Sorry, the Affair of the White Swan is over. You never find the swan, and the consequence over the next year of that failure is such-and-such..." Then they can put it out of their mind and start over fresh with the next adventure next session.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 7151050, member: 6787650"] At the adventure level, yes--the players can choose whether they want to participate in simulationist fun (go and do proactive stuff in the sandbox, like start a space colony and recruit colonists for it, or engineer a war) or gamist fun (something with a defined start and end, and goals defined by the DM, at a level of difficulty telegraphed at the metagame level). Within the adventure, the gamism mostly isn't there because it's already been hoisted to the metagame level (where it belongs, IMO--same level as character creation, which is [I]extremely[/I] gamist in 5E due to feats and multiclassing rules). That's important to me as a naturally simulationist DM because it means that once the scenario is set up, I can let it unfold naturally. The gamism happens when I've got my adventure designer hat on, and am thinking about game structures and game theory, not when I've got my my DMing hat on and am I'm thinking about a living breathing world. Different players have different preferences and levels of proactiveness. Some players really looooove searching for the perfect ingedients for their alchemical elixir of life; other players want the DM to put them in contrived situations where a village needs to be saved from outlaws or a princess needs to be kissed by a special frog. Some like both kinds of fun, on different timescales. I think it's good to be flexible, as long as you're clear which kind of activity is going on right now. (Otherwise, you wind up with the sandbox problem wherein you've offered the players numerous hooks, many of which are still open, and you don't know which ones to prepare for or which direction the PCs are going this week--and players themselves sometimes have trouble knowing when they can stop and take a breather. I'm finding that it works better to be able to end certain adventures in failure, a la "Sorry, the Affair of the White Swan is over. You never find the swan, and the consequence over the next year of that failure is such-and-such..." Then they can put it out of their mind and start over fresh with the next adventure next session.) [/QUOTE]
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