Players: it's your responsibility to carry a story.

[Neonchameleon]

I must spread some XP around, et cetera.

Thanks. Seeing that about one of my comments for the first time just made my day

 

[The Shaman]

You have an agreed genre with agreed thematic material and an understanding both that the game will deal with those things - swashbucklers, musketeers, corrupt clergy, courtiers, etc - and that if the players have a bit of good luck with the dice and their decisions they will see their PCs grow from fortune-seekers to fortune-attainers.

See, this is why I need an editor - you said that much more succinctly than I did.

The OP is (or at least seems to be complaining) about D&D players whose PCs won't act. But D&D doesn't set a genre (or at least, does not set a genre with anything like the specificity of tropes and themes as musketeers) and doesn't establish any baseline understanding about the prospects for PCs (indeed, we regularly see threads on these forums disagreeing about what those prospects should be in a typical D&D game).

I agree with Doug McCrae on this: D&D sets very clear expectations for what the game is about through its character creation and rewards systems, with the caveat that these differ between editions.

I could run a sort of Huguenot agonistes campaign with Flashing Blades - eating dogs and boot leather during the siege of La Rochelle, fleeing the dragonnade after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes - the game really doesn't provide much in the way of in-character rewards for this.

I don't mind you having a bit of a dig at "metagame agendas" - I know you're not a FoRE . . .

pemerton, however much you and I may disagree on the finer points of this little hobby of ours, I do enjoy our discussions, and I hope you do, too.

. . . In light of this problem with D&D play - a probelm that I think is fairly widely recognised (it's not as if the OP is the first time I've heard this sort of complaint) - Nameless1 seems to me to be making some fairly basic suggestions, based on familiarity with non-D&D games, about how to provide the context that will motivate those players to have their PCs act. The alternative approach, of specifying genre and PC prospects much more specifically than is normally done in D&D play, might work equally well, but (perhaps because I'm a FoRE) I tend to think more in Nameless1's terms.

As I noted in a previous post, everything that Nameless1 suggested is a perfectly valid solution. They are not my preferred methods for engaging the players and their characters with the setting, but I agree they work for many.

I'm simply offering an alternative view, one which I personally believe gets back to some of the earliest principles of roleplaying games. One of the areas where I'm guessing you and I are in more-or-less complete agreement is the FoRE concept of 'system matters.' I think later editions of D&D represent playing catch-up to what people were attempting to do with the game in actual play, often as encouraged by media such as Dragon articles, but my personal feeling is that this effort missed the train because the execution focused on maintaining the same character memes while tacking on additional rewards systems.

Since I've walked out this far on a limb, I might as well go a little farther with an example. One of my favorite roleplaying games continues to be 2e Boot Hill. At first blush it appears to be little more than the tabletop skirmish game from which it originated: character abilities are related solely to gunfighting and throwing stuff, and the only way they change is by surviving fights or aging. However, there is a second rewards system as well, the acquisition of wealth. You can drive cattle or rob banks or hunt bounties or enforce The Law, and the system provides the resolution for this as well. Even though it's not reflected in my character abilities, the system still supports a wider range of character goals than shooting, stabbing, or punching stuff.

3e Boot Hill was a significant revision of the game, with skill systems, changes to combat resolution, and a new reward system. The authors didn't try to tinker around the edges; they came at the system with a whole new perspective, and actually created a very good roleplaying game - if the genre were more popular, 3e Boot Hill would probably be on more gamers 'desert island' lists.

I think D&D has a very strong set of core memes; for a variety of reasons, gamers have been encouraged for years to keep expanding those memes, encouraged with great exuberance but perhaps with less-than-thorough consideration of how that expansion is reflected in the system. I think this is what is reflected in the original post, and my suggestion is, return to first princicples first.

I think we might have had this conversation before.

Oh, perhaps once ot twice.

But what makes you think I (or Nameless1, for that matter) would classify this as faffing around? I'm talking about reducing the level of pure exploration of the gameworld. What you're talking about isn't exploration. It isn't looking for the adventure - unless I'm missing something, it is the adventure.

What I am describing as "faffing around" is the bit where the player has to discover, through play, who the local powerholders are, whose wives are worth courting, and where all the clubs are. I prefer a game where at least some of this is known at start up, so that we can cut straight to the action (of course some, perhaps even the most interesting, stuff can be secret at the start and emerge in the course of play - but not everything that is necessary for the fun stuff to happen).

And I would consider that 'faffing about,' that discovery through play, to be adventure, too.

Difference strokes lead to horse races, or something like that.

 

[S'mon]

Could you explain that please? Do you mean that embedding is a reward because of the free followers/castle that come with your level? Which seems to cut against letting the players decide.

No, it could be anything. Any friendly contacts, positions, etc. D'Artagnan gets to join the Musketeers. In my City State game a PC acquired a hot paladiness girlfriend, and he has so-far-unfulfilled a goal of becoming an officer on a pirate ship. Any connections to the setting gained in play are rewards of play. In the Raven's Wing game the friendly relations with Lord Kyle or to some extent Crus the Wizard are rewards for successful play. Fargrim Kern's likely elevated status among the Dwarves if you successfully clear the Forge of Fury for resettlement would be a reward for successful play.

 

[S'mon]

It sets goals, doesn't it, through the level up and magic item acquisition systems. PCs are 'supposed' to go to dangerous places, fight monsters and acquire treasure. And, in old school D&D, become a military commander. That's what one could call the genre of D&D.

If a player wanted their character to become the mistress of the wealthiest, highest status man she could find, if the goals were wealth (just like trad D&D, but with totally different methods), love and security for oneself and one's children then the game would completely break down. The text of D&D just doesn't cover that, it's all about going down holes, fighting monsters and finding treasure, not seduction, relationships and child rearing.

People say you can do anything with it, but it seems to push very strongly in a particular direction, a tiny subset of all the activities that could be taking place in the game world.

I agree; D&D does have a distinct genre; D&D PCs are adventurers or adventurer-type-characters in a fantasy world. The GM had better treat them as such, or he's breaching the social contract.

They may be "ordinary adventurers" with no special luck or breaks (OD&D & Classic) or they may be unusually favoured (3e) or near-uniquely favoured (4e), but in all cases they are fantasy adventurers, to whom unusual things happen at a much greater rate than the general populace. If you don't believe me, take a look at the 1e DMG Town Encounter Table. It is not a tool for simulating the day of the average townsman - he wouldn't last the day! It's there to provide suitably exciting and dangerous occurrences for D&D adventurer PCs.

 

[The Shaman]

I agree; D&D does have a distinct genre; D&D PCs are adventurers or adventurer-type-characters in a fantasy world. The GM had better treat them as such, or he's breaching the social contract.

They may be "ordinary adventurers" with no special luck or breaks (OD&D & Classic) or they may be unusually favoured (3e) or near-uniquely favoured (4e), but in all cases they are fantasy adventurers, to whom unusual things happen at a much greater rate than the general populace. If you don't believe me, take a look at the 1e DMG Town Encounter Table. It is not a tool for simulating the day of the average townsman - he wouldn't last the day! It's there to provide suitably exciting and dangerous occurrences for D&D adventurer PCs.

"You must spread some Experience Points around . . . "

 

[Doug McCrae]

in all cases they are fantasy adventurers, to whom unusual things happen at a much greater rate than the general populace. If you don't believe me, take a look at the 1e DMG Town Encounter Table. It is not a tool for simulating the day of the average townsman - he wouldn't last the day! It's there to provide suitably exciting and dangerous occurrences for D&D adventurer PCs.

That's a very interesting interpretation of the encounter tables. I'm not sure if it's what the author intended but I agree with you that it makes more sense than the 'world sim' interpretation.

You're right that those tables are deadly. At night there's about a 20% chance of a monster such as a vampire, lycanthrope or demon. By day it's 3%. They are rolled once every three turns with, I assume, a 1-in-6 chance of encounter.

I've always assumed that the wilderness in D&D is intended to be ridiculously heavily monster infested, like Vance's Dying Earth. However one could apply the 'interesting lives' interpretation to this also.

 

[Ariosto]

Players, it's your "responsibility" to play.

 

[Ariosto]

I've done this experiment too many times to count where I've told the group either one or the other, ie. I've said, "Go where you want, do what you want, but the onus is on you to find adventure," and everyone is like, "Yay! Awesome!" and we start the game and sit in a tavern for three hours roleplaying hitting on the barmaids, drinking themselves silly, and provoking fights. Usually this goes on until I finally break and paint a flashing neon sign that says, "Adventure, this way!"

Players, it's your responsibility to entertain the DM -- if the DM is Kzach.

I gather that in Mr. Gygax's games, if play was boring him, then he would entertain himself possibly at the characters' expense.

As for me, I tend as ref to be contented wherever the players are finding their fun.

 

[Hussar]

I agree; D&D does have a distinct genre; D&D PCs are adventurers or adventurer-type-characters in a fantasy world. The GM had better treat them as such, or he's breaching the social contract.

They may be "ordinary adventurers" with no special luck or breaks (OD&D & Classic) or they may be unusually favoured (3e) or near-uniquely favoured (4e), but in all cases they are fantasy adventurers, to whom unusual things happen at a much greater rate than the general populace. If you don't believe me, take a look at the 1e DMG Town Encounter Table. It is not a tool for simulating the day of the average townsman - he wouldn't last the day! It's there to provide suitably exciting and dangerous occurrences for D&D adventurer PCs.

How does this not mean that AD&D characters are "special" adventurers? If the random tables only apply to the characters, wouldn't that mean that the rules are specifying that the PC's are special?

I have to admit, I lean far more towards Nameless1's ideas. Mostly because of pacing. I play fairly short sessions. Spending significant amounts of time researching an adventure, rather than adventuring itself, means that I'm going to take forever to actually get to the adventure.

I prefer to cut to the chase. Both as a player and as a DM. It would not bother me in the least for a DM to start an adventure in medias res, simply skipping over the initial stuff. Instead of meeting with the guy who's giving me the quest, start the adventure three days in with all that other stuff taken as read.

 

[Lanefan]

Players, it's your responsibility to entertain the DM -- if the DM is Kzach.

Or Lanefan, but it cuts both ways: I'll only invite in those who I think will be entertaining players, and if they're not then the blame falls in some amount to me. And I also see it as my job to entertain them, or at least try.

As for me, I tend as ref to be contented wherever the players are finding their fun.

Provided it's game-related, then sure.

Lanefan