Why is it a bad thing to optimise?

[Kobold Boots]

Stop there.

Unless your setting is called the Wilderlands of Likes and Dislikes, this is not a sandbox.


My opinion, your mileage, et cetera.

Noted and agreed in regards to opinion and mileage. I just like setting my sandbox with parameters defined by all the people who are going to be spending a crap load of time running around in it instead of just me.

 

[Kobold Boots]

My brain hurts from reading some of this thread.

1. There is DM proactive and DM reactive plot.
2. There is player proactive and player reactive plot.

If there is a story that has more than one person interacting with it, and it's an ongoing part of the game it's plot. Any number of plots can be a story.

If the DM is reactive we seem to agree that it's a sandbox game.
If the DM is proactive we seem to agree that it's not a sandbox game.

There is absolutely no campaign that I have ever been a part of that has been all one or the other and I'd be willing to take a risk to my reputation to say that there is no game that is all one or the other over a long period of time. Why?

1. Because DMs occasionally think something is cool and will put that cool thing in play.
2. Because players will suggest that they want to do something and the DM will allow it if he or she wants players.

Entire thread beyond the optimization answers is a bit dense but we're all to blame for it, self included.

 

[ExploderWizard]

And, still, no one has answered why a randomly generated landslide is not plot.

Whose plot would it be? A plot needs to originate from someone or something in the gameworld. Who masterminded this random event?

 

[JamesonCourage]

Yeah JC, we're not going to agree on this.

Agreeing to disagree, then. No hard feelings.

As always, play what you like

 

[Hussar]

Whose plot would it be? A plot needs to originate from someone or something in the gameworld. Who masterminded this random event?

Only if you insist on a specific, non-literary definition of plot - as in some sort of plan.

OTOH, if you accept that the definition of plot, in this sense, is simply events that occur in a narrative, then no mastermind is required.

But, this pretty much highlights why these conversations never go anywhere. Insisting on a specific interpretation to a word in order to prove why that word is wrong, instead of using the rather obvious definition that fits the situation.

Yeah, no longer interested in silly bugger semantic games.

 

[GSHamster]

I can kind of see both sides. I think it makes more sense if you consider the existence of "subplots".

If subplots can exist, then events can exist which are not part of the main plot. If the avalanche does not materially change the main plot, then we can say that it is not part of the main plot.

Though to be honest, the word "plot" is starting to look funny to me.

 

[pemerton]

having engaged in more than enough silly buggers dueling dictionaries, I'm going to be smart enough to bow out here.

I agree that the dictionary stuff is a bit of a distraction. But there's still stuff I want to talk with you about, so don't bow out (please)!

Four thugs threatening an old couple is not setting, that's plot.

In this example, do you think it makes a different whether or not any of those 6 people is a protagonist?

I've got in mind this sort of example: I open up my new Spiderman comic. The first page is a splash page, with four thugs threatening an old couple. And on a wall, not yet noticed by the thugs but visible to the reader, is the looming shadow of Spidey.

Is this plot? I certainly agree its situation. But arguably, that's because it's setting - four thugs mugging some people who are not in any real sense characters in the drama (at least, not yet) - meets protagonist.

The plot would then be, Spidey beats up the thugs. Or, forgetting that with great power comes great responsibility, swings on by, feeling tired at the end of a long day.

To bring it back to an RPG example - it was not uncommon, in the good old dungeon-crawling days, and perhaps still is not uncommon, to have rooms which were described in terms of some ongoing or imminent action. For example, as the PCs approach the torture chamber they hear loud screams and a low chuckle, and when they open the door to it they see a hulking torturer persecuting a helpless halfling.

Is this setting? I'm not sure what I think, because I'm not sure what's at stake in that description. Once the PCs come onto the scene, it's fairly clear to me that it's situation. Once the PCs start doing things - fighting the torturer, freeing the halfling, grabbing some red hot tongs and joining in proceedings - then there is clearly plot.

Is the landslide situation, or plot? To me, it depends on where it comes from in the course of play, what is motivating the GM, how it interacts with the expectations of the players, etc. If everyone at the table has agreed that the PCs are moving out of town up into the foothills, and the GM is giving some general description of the steep inclines, the rugged terrain, etc, and then says "As you make your way up a particularly steep slope, a landslide starts! What do you do?" - I think we have situation, and the beginnings of plot, but the real narrative action - the stuff that the participants actually care about - is yet to happen.

On the other hand - the PCs are moving through the foothills looking for their nemesis. High up on a ledge they notice a cave entrance (as the GM explains to the players). What the GM has in mind is that this is a nice foreshadowing of the ultimate fight location - but first, thinks the GM, the PCs'll have to deal with the orcs waiting to ambush them in the box canyon!

What the GM has forgotten about is the wizard's levitation spell. The PCs decide to investigate the cave, the wizard using levitation to get up to it, and then dropping a rope down so that the others can climb or be pulled up. The GM, worrying that the sequence of events is going wrong, suddenly says "As the fighter starts to climb up the rope, there is a sudden landslide! The cave mouth is blocked, and the fighter knocked to the ground - take 6d6 damage. Sorry, guys, it looks like you'll have to find another avenue of exploration."

This is definitely a case of the GM introducing a plot element to shut down a situation in a way that is thwarting the choices of the players. It's illusionism at best, railroading at worst (depending on how clever the GM is in concealing the use of fiat to shut down the situation, and depending on how much the players care about such things). I personally regard it as bad GMing, or, at least, GMing of a sort that personally I wouldn't want to experience.

So - is the landslide setting? situation? plot? I don't think this can be decided in isolation. It depends upon how it fits into the unfolding events of play, the interests of the players in the protagonism of their PCs, etc. You can't tell what's going on, and how much GM force is being used, and whether it is the GM or the players or both who have a given degree of control over the plot, just by noticing that the GM has announced that a landslide occurs.

 

[pemerton]

If the DM is reactive we seem to agree that it's a sandbox game.
If the DM is proactive we seem to agree that it's not a sandbox game.

This is true as far as it goes, but "not a sandbox" covers a pretty broad range of approache.

Adventure path play, where the theme, the enemy, and the course of the key events is generally pre-detemined, is one species of non-sandbox play.

Situation-driven play (of the HW/Q, BW etc variety), where the theme, the enemy, and the course of key events is determined primarily by the players (who seed, and then respond to, the GM's proactivity), is another species of non-sandbox play.

But adventure path play and BW-style play are about as different as it gets. I mean, arguably the whole raison d'etre of The Forge and the modern indie RPG movement is to create a story-laden but player-driven alternative to adventure path play.

 

[pemerton]

Whose plot would it be? A plot needs to originate from someone or something in the gameworld. Who masterminded this random event?

Only if you insist on a specific, non-literary definition of plot - as in some sort of plan.

Hussar is right here. When people talk about whether or not a game has a plot, whether or not that plot is predetermined, who has authority in respect of it, etc, they are not talking about the imaginary plots of imaginary people in a fictional world. They are talking about an actually existing fiction - an actually existing sequence of imagined events.

And they are wondering who has control over the sequence - who decides "what comes next", and how?

 

[S'mon]

Just adding a thought.

Looking at the responses, this is what I mean by plot being a bad four letter word. I have no idea why. I mean, "Evolving setting"? Really? Just step up and say plot. It's exactly what you mean. Event A occurs. For whatever reason, could be DM framed, could be player driven, could be randomly generated, doesn't matter. Event B chains off of Event A because none of us play in a purely abstract game where consequence has no meaning.

Event B might be linear, it might not. Depends on the campaign and what, exactly, Event A was. But, Event B will be tied to Event A.

And, since we're talking about a series of events in a fictional construct, that's plot.

You do have a talent to be really annoying, Hussar.