pawsplay
Hero
I am about the most sandboxy GM I know, and I cannot fathom how you came to this formulation. I think you are overgeneralizing to the point where you are, in fact, incorrect.
Confession: I like Plot
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I am about the most sandboxy GM I know, and I cannot fathom how you came to this formulation. I think you are overgeneralizing to the point where you are, in fact, incorrect.
Raven Crowking
First Post
But they only tell us something about Batman because Batman doesn't know for sure what he must do to win. The question "What is winning worth sacrificing?" in a game requires that the question is explored through determining what sacrifices must be made through actual play (i.e., exploring unknown variables). Otherwise its just a yes/no switch.
RC
rogueattorney
Adventurer
I've been getting some cheap hardcopies of 1e materials that I had gotten rid of, or in some cases, never had. One of things I just reacquired was DL7 Dragons of Light. I think that might be a good, specific example to explore this issue a bit...
The basic situation of DL7 is that the evil dragon army is invading the lands of the good people. On a far away island is a tomb of a legendary knight. Within this tomb are a bunch of weapons helpful for fighting evil dragons. More importantly, also in this tomb are the means of making a whole bunch more of these weapons.
The DL7 method of resolving this situation is to:
A. Not tell the players any information other than that the evil dragon army is attacking.
B. Have the party be shipwrecked on the far away island while trying to get somewhere else.
C. Have the party be captured by some elves.
D. Have the party be rescued by different elves.
E. Have the party be imprisoned by the rescuer elves.
F. Have the party be rescued by an npc who desire the pcs to discover the tomb of the knight.
G. Have the rescuer npc not tell the party about the tomb of the knight, only that the npc knows the way to escape to the location the pcs were originally traveling towards.
H. At the behest of the npc, have the party "stumble upon" the tomb of the knight and discover the weapons.
This is classic railroading, where the party is funneled to an end result as desired by the designer of the adventure. And this is the kind of pre-determined A>B>C linear adventure design that most of us saying we don't like plot mean.
I think most of us anti-plotters are fine with the basic situation of "There are bad guys and there's a MacGuffin that will help you fight the bad guys." Our method however would be to give the party the information in the situation and then not care what the players did with that information.
Maybe they go get the MacGuffin. Maybe they try and fail. Maybe they ignore the information and come up with some other fantastic idea as to how to defeat the dragon army. Maybe they decide the dragon army is the side to be on and go on a quest to destroy the weapons in the tomb. Maybe they raise a good army to go fight the dragon army and win without the weapons. Or lose. Maybe they build a huge armada of sky ships and evacuate everyone they can to leave the world to explore the farthest reaches of space.
The point is that the players are given the agency to decide what to do with the information.
I'm not sure those arguing for plot really mean that they want games conducted in the A>B>C type railroad that you see in DL7, but I have a hard time understanding what they're arguing for in any other light.
As a DL7 specific side note that's not entirely pertinent to this conversation: I also wonder at what seems to be the basic dual assumptions that pcs should be epic heroes but that the players don't necessarily want their characters to be epic heroes, thus necessitating all of the nose-dragging.
The basic situation of DL7 is that the evil dragon army is invading the lands of the good people. On a far away island is a tomb of a legendary knight. Within this tomb are a bunch of weapons helpful for fighting evil dragons. More importantly, also in this tomb are the means of making a whole bunch more of these weapons.
The DL7 method of resolving this situation is to:
A. Not tell the players any information other than that the evil dragon army is attacking.
B. Have the party be shipwrecked on the far away island while trying to get somewhere else.
C. Have the party be captured by some elves.
D. Have the party be rescued by different elves.
E. Have the party be imprisoned by the rescuer elves.
F. Have the party be rescued by an npc who desire the pcs to discover the tomb of the knight.
G. Have the rescuer npc not tell the party about the tomb of the knight, only that the npc knows the way to escape to the location the pcs were originally traveling towards.
H. At the behest of the npc, have the party "stumble upon" the tomb of the knight and discover the weapons.
This is classic railroading, where the party is funneled to an end result as desired by the designer of the adventure. And this is the kind of pre-determined A>B>C linear adventure design that most of us saying we don't like plot mean.
I think most of us anti-plotters are fine with the basic situation of "There are bad guys and there's a MacGuffin that will help you fight the bad guys." Our method however would be to give the party the information in the situation and then not care what the players did with that information.
Maybe they go get the MacGuffin. Maybe they try and fail. Maybe they ignore the information and come up with some other fantastic idea as to how to defeat the dragon army. Maybe they decide the dragon army is the side to be on and go on a quest to destroy the weapons in the tomb. Maybe they raise a good army to go fight the dragon army and win without the weapons. Or lose. Maybe they build a huge armada of sky ships and evacuate everyone they can to leave the world to explore the farthest reaches of space.
The point is that the players are given the agency to decide what to do with the information.
I'm not sure those arguing for plot really mean that they want games conducted in the A>B>C type railroad that you see in DL7, but I have a hard time understanding what they're arguing for in any other light.
As a DL7 specific side note that's not entirely pertinent to this conversation: I also wonder at what seems to be the basic dual assumptions that pcs should be epic heroes but that the players don't necessarily want their characters to be epic heroes, thus necessitating all of the nose-dragging.
Jack Daniel
Legend
Hm. I don't usually get involved in these kinds of discussions, because I don't quite have the best handle on my own optimum admixture of scripted plot versus aimless dithering. I do know that having attempted to run a few dungeon-heavy sandboxes in recent years, they've wound up consistently boring all of us to tears. So some higher-than-average proportion of plot, somewhere in the vicinity of 60-70% scripted railroading, is the minimum needed to keep my group and I entertained by the game. Your mileage may vary.
Don't forget, though: railways aren't linear tracks from point A to point B. They have switches, branches, turnarounds, and stations where you can make a changeover to another line. The choice must come down to two diametrically opposed DMing styles, the sandbox referee or the railroad narrator, I suppose I have to choose the latter.
The question is, are you the ordinary sort of railway conductor who lets passengers on and off at the stops they want? Or are you some kind of demon engineer, straight out of an old west ghost story, who traps the poor and unfortunate souls on the train and keeps them in a choice-free and meaningless limbo for eternity?
Don't forget, though: railways aren't linear tracks from point A to point B. They have switches, branches, turnarounds, and stations where you can make a changeover to another line. The choice must come down to two diametrically opposed DMing styles, the sandbox referee or the railroad narrator, I suppose I have to choose the latter.
The question is, are you the ordinary sort of railway conductor who lets passengers on and off at the stops they want? Or are you some kind of demon engineer, straight out of an old west ghost story, who traps the poor and unfortunate souls on the train and keeps them in a choice-free and meaningless limbo for eternity?
KidSnide
Adventurer
I assume that RogueAttorney is using hyperbole for the purposes of argument, but I just want to say that both of these examples seem too extreme.
This doesn't strike me as classic railroading. This strikes me as crazy-over-the-top railroading. I'm not saying that this doesn't exist (after all, it *is* from a published module), but when folks say that "they like plot" -- for the most part -- DL7 isn't what they mean.
(Mind you, I think a good GM could pull off an excellent DL7, but in my experience a really good GM can make almost any game fun, just as a really bad GM can make any game awful. It's the competent-but-not-great GMs for whom module/rules quality makes such a difference.)
Again, I think this is a hyperbolic example, but I think this type of sandbox can be as disfunctional as the DL7 railroad. Sure, if everyone is happy switching to the evil side (or playing "Sky Frontiers"), then who am I to argue with folks having fun. But, as a GM (or a dissenting player) in this situation, I think it would be fair to say "I signed up to run/play-in a campaign in which the PCs try to defeat the forces of darkness. Can we play *that* game now?"
-KS
This doesn't strike me as classic railroading. This strikes me as crazy-over-the-top railroading. I'm not saying that this doesn't exist (after all, it *is* from a published module), but when folks say that "they like plot" -- for the most part -- DL7 isn't what they mean.
(Mind you, I think a good GM could pull off an excellent DL7, but in my experience a really good GM can make almost any game fun, just as a really bad GM can make any game awful. It's the competent-but-not-great GMs for whom module/rules quality makes such a difference.)
Again, I think this is a hyperbolic example, but I think this type of sandbox can be as disfunctional as the DL7 railroad. Sure, if everyone is happy switching to the evil side (or playing "Sky Frontiers"), then who am I to argue with folks having fun. But, as a GM (or a dissenting player) in this situation, I think it would be fair to say "I signed up to run/play-in a campaign in which the PCs try to defeat the forces of darkness. Can we play *that* game now?"
-KS
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
But it doesn't matter whether it is the game rules or the DM that makes this decision. It doesn't matter whether it's a collaborative storytelling effort or a roll of the dice that decide whether it works. I am not sure what will happen, but this is what I am willing to risk.
Raven Crowking
First Post
rogueattorney
Adventurer
That kind of gets to the crux of my last post. If that's not what you mean, what do you mean? I think there's a very basic non-understanding between the parties - or at least on my part - as to what the other side means by "plot" and how it relates to how you run an adventure.
As a GM, I would never decide to run a game in which the opening assumption is that pcs are going to try to defeat the forces of darkness. I would gladly run a game in which there are forces of darkness and the pcs decide that they are going to try to defeat them. Changes or discrepancies in the players' conception of the campaign goal can be hashed out in-game or out-of-game as appropriate.
I can only speak for myself, and I'm not sure if I'm on the other side or not. In the context of a single adventure, I tend to use the word plot to describe the outline of events that I expect will occur. Frex: The players are hired to investigate a theft from the local church. Clues lead them to the nearby sewers. More clues at the wererat den lead them to an evil temple consecrated to the Rat God. The players may or may not follow the plot, and I don't try to make them.
I also use the term plot to refer to the plans made by the NPC's. The wererats' plot is to seduce a novice at the church into stealing a holy relic, to smuggle the relic out of town through the sewers and then to sacrifice the relic to the Rat God. In this case "plot" doesn't have much to do with the PC's. It's a way to explain what happens if they don't get involved or aren't successful.
rogueattorney
Adventurer
You see, this, I don't consider a plot. You've got a situation... A crime at a church, a npc hiring out help to solve the crime, clues at the church lead to the sewer, clues in the sewer lead to the temple, the wererats in the temple are the ones that did it. You have that situation and about three more, and you've got a nice start to a little sand-boxy campaign.
The pcs follow up with the npcs hiring out help, or maybe they take that weird artifact they found last session to the sage to find out what it is, or maybe they decide to finish up wiping out those pesky goblins, or whatever else, it's all good. Maybe they don't follow up with the npc or miss the clues when they investigate the church, and there's another theft. Maybe it keeps getting worse until they do something about it. Or maybe a rival group of npcs follow up on it and defeat the evil temple and are proclaimed heroes.
My problem is when the pcs are forced down a path that leads to that temple regardless of the players' interest in playing out that path.
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