Why we like plot: Our Job as DMs

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Which raises the key question of just what the heck you mean by "the plot".

Adventure Paths are well-known for having a single over-arching plot. One major world event is unfolding. Other things going on are minor distractions at best. Instead of the focus being on world or site exploration, the focus turns to exploring this one key plot. Just like discovering new areas in the WLD or exploring Giant Land, the players discover more about the plot as they push towards its finale. Players that have bought into a plot-driven game are less likely to explore the Spooky Castle because it exists unless they discover or suspect that it is somehow tied into the plot.

I've enjoyed games both ways. And it is helpful to understand what method your players lean towards or are currently leaning towards. My wife only likes plot driven games (she only starting playing this decade if that helps any gaming historians). My main group likes to mix it up, so we have no trouble playing some WLD and exploring the site freely or hunkering into a Paizo Adventure Path leading to a showdown with Kyuss.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Here's a question: Can a game be a sandbox if the PCs are required to be of good alignment?

Being a good guy - altruistic, constrained by morality - greatly limits one's choice of action and makes it a lot easier for the GM to predict what the PCs will do. My last campaign, which I mentioned upthread, was not what I would call a sandbox and I'd say the main reason it wasn't is because it was a superhero game. Because the PCs were superheroes, whenever I presented a Bad Thing Happening, they pretty much had to try to stop it happening. That's what superheroes do. Sometimes they surprised me, when I started an adventure with a mystery (the disappearance of a killer vigilante for example) as opposed to a clearly bad thing like the murder of an innocent, they might not investigate. And they surprised me greatly when they decided to negotiate with a murdering anti-vivisectionist rather than just arrest her. But in general they were predictable.

In the classic D&D sandbox the PCs are neutral greedy. They want to go up levels. They want gold. They want magic items. The GM can present the players with a variety of holes in the ground (or one very big hole) containing a variety of treasure and monsters and the players are free to make a decision at their leisure as to which monsters they bash.

The greed and power motivation seems to permit more freedom than altruism does. A good guy, when he hears a maiden screaming for help, has to go save her. This being D&D, obviously it's going to be a medusa, or a doppelganger, or a succubus, or an assassin or a woman who turns into a snake. But that doesn't matter, the good PC doesn't know he's playing D&D.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Which raises the key question of just what the heck you mean by "the plot".

"To work from an outline for a game" appears to mean making things turn out a certain way, which is correctly distinguished from my (and I think Raven Crowking's) style of play.

I think there are distinct levels of "railroading" or "making things turn out a certain way". Take for example:

The PCs want to leave a path through a forest instead of heading down it.

DM A: "You can't leave the path, lightning bolts come from the sky and nearly strike you any time you get close to the edge."

DM B: "You leave the path. There is a lot of trees. You have no idea which way you are going, it all looks the same. Are you SURE you want to leave the path?"

DM C: "You leave the path, you see dark shapes off in the distance. They appear to be powerful monsters that will certainly kill you if you continue, are you sure you want to leave the path?"

DM D: "You leave the path. You wander aimlessly for 5 days, you begin to run low on food. You haven't found anything interesting. You will likely starve to death in a couple more days unless you head back."

DM E: "You leave the path, wander through the forest until you come across a town. Amazingly, enough, it is the town the path lead to."

DM F: "You leave the path, wander through the forest until you come across a man who says that he needs your help to escort him to the town at the end of the path."

Are all kind of different levels of "railroading" and some are certainly more acceptable to different players than others.

Apparently, to some people it matters the intentions behind the DMs actions. To me, I don't think it matters. If the guy in DM F's game was placed there as a last ditch effort to get the group following the path again or if he was put there because the DM wrote him up as an NPC with valid motivations who just happened to be going the direction we were going before....well, it just doesn't matter to me. The end effect is the same.

And that's kind of the point. If the events of Game A and Game B are identical, does it matter if DM A was running it Sandbox style and DM B was running it AP style?

 

[rogueattorney]

I think there are distinct levels of "railroading" or "making things turn out a certain way". Take for example:

The PCs want to leave a path through a forest instead of heading down it...

The question, though, is why should the DM care if the pcs leave the path? That's why the 1e DMG had procedures for getting lost and wandering monsters.

 

[Ariosto]

I've enjoyed games both ways. And it is helpful to understand what method your players lean towards or are currently leaning towards.

Well, that's progress.

 

[The Shaman]

Here's a question: Can a game be a sandbox if the PCs are required to be of good alignment?

Yes.

That was an easy one.

Btw, there's a world of difference between "good-aligned" and "acting like superheroes" in my games.

 

[Ariosto]

And that's kind of the point. If the events of Game A and Game B are identical, does it matter if DM A was running it Sandbox style and DM B was running it AP style?

It does not matter to me. To whom do you imagine it possibly could matter, when you arbitrarily define "Sandbox style" such that it is the same thing in the first place?

You're just racing straw men around a track of circular logic, for all I can see.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

The question, though, is why should the DM care if the pcs leave the path? That's why the 1e DMG had procedures for getting lost and wandering monsters.

There's a lot of reasons to care if they leave the path. If you have a detailed thieves guild written up along with a complex chart explaining the relationship of the various members of the guild to the noble houses of the city and have written up a dungeon containing the item the PCs are looking for complete with stat blocks for all of the monsters in it. And the entrance to the dungeon is cloaked in magic so only those who have the key can find it, and the leader of one of the noble houses in the city has the key....

It might be a more fun session for both you and your players if they get involved in the political intrigue of the city, trying to get the key through whatever means they can think of than it will be if they wander off the path and instead the session consists of rolling random encounters on a chart. Not because talking to nobles is superior to fighting random encounters but because one is prepared.

When an adventure is prepared, I can normally tell and it's more fun. Only the absolutely best DMs can run an adventure made up on the fly and do it well. Most of the time, it ends up with things like "The Baron? Uhh...his name is...uhh.....Bo...Bob. He...uhh...let's see...he's a noble...he greets you....(roll)...warmly."

If I'm the DM, I want them to stay on the path so I can run an interesting adventure as opposed to one I have to wing.

 

[Ariosto]

There's a lot of reasons to care if they leave the path.

And you, apparently just for the sheer perversity of it, define a "sandbox" game as being driven by those meta-game factors. Got it. What I don't get is just who you think is simultaneously agreeing with your definition and disagreeing with what you infer from it.

It's like choosing to redefine "circle" as meaning the same as "square", and then being baffled that people are not rushing to buy your four-cornered wheels.

 

[Ariosto]

Only the absolutely best DMs can run an adventure made up on the fly and do it well. Most of the time, it ends up with things like "The Baron? Uhh...his name is...uhh.....Bo...Bob. He...uhh...let's see...he's a noble...he greets you....(roll)...warmly."

That kind of improvisation is something I have seen mainly from DMs in the "I'm a Story Teller!" camp. Its reputation for badness goes back years before Dragonlance, along with the observation that some players just happen to prefer to be manipulated.

Knowing the Baron well enough that depiction of his demeanor flows naturally from that knowledge is a basic skill of Dungeon Mastering, whichever style of play one may adopt! Knowing your imaginary world well enough to extrapolate quickly and confidently the nature of a random encounter -- or in appropriate detail as needed the furnishings of a peasant's hovel, tradesman's shop, parish church, wayside inn, or whatever else may be at hand -- is part of skill at being a DM as well.

The fundamental stumbling block you need to get over is this notion of "an adventure" as necessarily meaning something the DM does to the players.