What is *worldbuilding* for?

[Maxperson]

And I don't need to "inform the players" that there's "more to the world" by narrating irrelevant stuff either. I've never had any trouble conveying the scope of the world in my games when I've wanted to.

Sure, the scope of the world is say, 7. You narrate 7, conveying the scope. We tell them 2+2+2+1 = 7, conveying depth about that scope, which gives it a different feel.

This assume we're playing a wargame or something similar. But otherwise there's no reason to spend time on this stuff if it's not interesting.

"You make your way through the Underdark for several arduous weeks before arriving at a lava-filled cavern that looks like the one the dwarves described to you. Every make a DC 20 Endurance check - if you fail, you're down a healing surge when you arrive."

That's enough to convey a dangerous and challenging journey through the Underdark, if it's not where the action is going to be.

I've played 1e, 2e, 3e and 5e and never played a wargame when I did so. Not once.

And I can frame as many challenging scenes in Tokyo as I can in a voyage thereto. Which give the players just as much opportunity to play and advance their PCs.

Sure, but you do it without the same depth of scope that our style has. Fast forwarding from one major even to another has the effect of diminishing depth of the world in order to enhance depth of character. I'm not yet convinced that the trade-off is worth it. Our style can get some very good depth of character without sacrificing depth of world.

I'll go further: it's not railroading to tell the players that their PCs have been spotted by sentries.

It is if you deprived them of the chance to approach stealthily by giving them about .5 seconds between you leave the dwarves and you are spotted. I personally don't care to play "Guess what the DM will do to us if we don't prepare for every contingency before we leave." I don't have information about what the area the giants live in is like, so I can't properly give you those sorts of instructions in advance. If you then play my PC and bypass the approach to the giant's territory and cause me to be spotted, that's a railroad. I should be given the chance to see what the approach is like in order to convey to you what I would like my PC to do on that approach.

 

[pemerton]

Most games can tolerate passengers, people who attend the game but don't participate.

I get the feeling that conventional GM-driven games can more easily facilitate casual or less-invested players. The player can generate or be given a PC, often a simpler one, and the GM can handle the bulk of the work to customise the game experience to the aesthetics and mechanical preferences of the particular player. This can translate to not punishing players for a lack of system mastery. More casual players have a detailed gameworld to interact with, and can take small actions in the gameworld that lack the inherent weight of actions in Story Now games.

Story Now games seem to demand a lot more investment from players to pay off. I'm not saying that casual players can't participate at all, but a lack of mechanical engagement or system mastery will limit their interaction with the game

I don't know. I don't think there's any specific degree of system mastery or player skill/experience that is demanded by Story Now IN GENERAL. Many such systems are very simple and easy to master.

I think "story now" is demanding not so much in the mechanical sense (4e or BW is mechanically demanding, but HeroQuest revised or Cortex+ Heroic really aren't) but in that the player has to have some vision for where s/he wants the game to go.

And in any game that's not completely light-hearted, s/he has to be prepared to stick to some sort of vision even as his/her PC suffers adversity. I think that can turn out to be surprisingly hard for some players.

For the type of play that I like the most what I want is a sense of vigorous collaboration. I want everyone to bring something to the table and for us to find out together what everything really means. It's important to me that we all play with integrity and passion because the moment demands we do so. The most fundamental requirement is that we are all fans of each others' characters and that our focus is on them. Nothing is more crucial. I don't care about individual creativity. I care about shared creativity. The interesting part is when we get to mess with each other's stuff.

This clear statement of preference made me think about my own.

Introspection is hard, but I think I want to say this: most important to me is player engagement with, and investment in, the fiction. I want the players to care what happens in the game. I want it to go beyond mere pretending and into (what I call) "inhabitation". Things I think of are a player saying "I feel really good about not having killed that bear" - where they chose to tame rather than fight the bear not because it was easier (an elite 13th (?) level challenge either in combat or as a skill challenge) but because they cared about the life of an animal. Or the party spending an hour debating what to do about the name of the Raven Queen, because some want to promote her and others want to constrain here. Or the player of the epic tier fighter who is now the god of imprisonment giving an impassioned speech in the court of Yan-C-Bin about the fate that will befall any djinni who help precipitate a Dusk War - and spending an action point to make sure that the Intimidate check is a success.

I've got nothing against crunchy mechanics - I play 4e and Burning Wheel, and spent nearly 20 years playing Rolemaster - but I don't want my RPGing to feel like wargaming. The mechanics should support inhabitation, and help my character feel like my character. They shouldn't create a pull to expedience that gets in the way of playing my character.

For me, it is these reasons that make me favour a player-driven game. I'm sure creativity is in there somewhere, but that's not the primary concept or description that I emphasise.

 

[Maxperson]

No. In the context of "GM-driven" RPGing, I mostly wrote about the GM reading things from, or referring to, his/her notes. It is [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] who has insistied that even in GM-driven RPGing most stuff is being made up during the course of play.

That's because, no matter how detailed the notes about the world, you aren't going to write up more than 5% of it, which means a lot will happen outside of those notes and you will have to guess/make up things. See the #5 you quoted.

This is all more-or-less as per Gygaxian dungeoneering. As I said in the OP, I think it breaks down once worlds get remotely verimilitudinous.

Eg a PC goes to a baker in a moderately sized city to look for a mince pie. Does the baker have one for sale? What is the probability?

At a beach, what is the probability of some driftwood being within reach?

In a bar, what is the probability of someone starting a fight if a PC is rude to him/her?

And do the players know these probabilities? If not, how are they meant to meaningfully declare actions for their PCs?

Players don't need to know the probabilities in order to meaningfully declare actions for their PCs. I've gone in to strange places and had plenty of meaningful interactions, without knowing anything about the place in advance other than it was a post office, store, party, or whatever. The meaning is in the interaction between the PC being rude and the bar patron, not in whether a fight happens or not.

As a GM, I work hard to foster a feeling of a "living, breathing world", with a high degree of consitency and verisimilitude. My own view is that I do a reasonable job - the gameworlds of my campaigns seems as rich and evocative as most examples I read about on ENworld, for instance, and moreso than many.

I don't see how that's even possible. One of the biggest hallmarks of a "living, breathing world" is that stuff goes on in the world outside of the PCs, the influence of the PCs, and what they are interested in. They will hear stories and rumors about what is happening in Waterdeep, even as they go about their own interests in the far south. In story now, nothing goes on outside of the PCs like that.

 

[pemerton]

I've played 1e, 2e, 3e and 5e and never played a wargame when I did so. Not once.

OK. I don't see how that has any bearing on my reply to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]. Are you agreeing or disagreeing with him that ""Sometimes dangerous" automatically means "interesting" because as soon as there's danger then either combat mechanics (for combat) or some other sort of hazard-resolution mechanics (for other hazards e.g. landslide or getting lost) come into play"?

I can frame as many challenging scenes in Tokyo as I can in a voyage thereto. Which give the players just as much opportunity to play and advance their PCs.

Sure, but you do it without the same depth of scope that our style has. Fast forwarding from one major even to another has the effect of diminishing depth of the world in order to enhance depth of character.

How do you know this? Were you at the table? Would the world have been "deeper" because I mentioned a near-miss with a light plane flying without a licence over Siberia? And made the players roll to see whether or not they collided with it?

Where are your actual play posts that show this depth of world resulting from your techniques?

Sure, the scope of the world is say, 7. You narrate 7, conveying the scope. We tell them 2+2+2+1 = 7, conveying depth about that scope, which gives it a different feel.

I have no idea what this metaphor is meant to convey.

I've got dozens of actual play posts on these boards, with several links to some of them in this thread. Here are extracts from two of them:

[sblock]

Not long after defeating Paldemar, the PCs explored an ancient necromancer's tower (the Bloodtower on the Moorland, from Open Grave). Therein they found:

an imposing statue carved in the likeness of some ancient, alien creature with too many eyes in its head and a body type similar to a cross between a dwarf and a skinned corpse.

An inscription in the statue’s base reads in the Rellanic script, “Ometh watches from beyond the grave.”

. . .

Runes etched on the sanctum walls reveal that this chamber was once a chapel to an entity known as Ometh, once an exarch of a deity of death.​

In the course of play, this got elaborated on somewhat: Ometh was an exarch of Nerrul who was taken by the Raven Queen into her service when she overthrew the former death god. At the time, the paladin was suspicious of any exarch recruited in such circumstances, moreso when a statue to it is found in a Vecna-ites tower.

Ometh recurred from time to time as a subject of conversation among the players, and an object of the paladin's hostility, but only came to prominence again when the PCs reached Epic tier. At that point, the paladin had a dream of a part of the Shadowfell he had not heard of before - the Bridge that may be Traversed but Once. He saw the wailing souls of the dead trudging across it, into some unknowable distance, under the cruel supervision of Ometh. The paladin then became more convinced than ever that Ometh was no good, and resolved that he would somehow remove Ometh from his role as keeper of the bridge.

A couple of levels later, and the PCs are debating whether to continue through the Underdark to find and liberate Torog's Soul Abattoir (this is the paladin's quest) or instead to travel to Mal Arundak, a fortress of Pelor on another plane, to liberate it from siege. The Mal Arundak faction wins the debate (in the end I made them roll dice to settle an argument that seemed interminable and had carried over two sessions), and so the PCs find themselves on The Barrens riding towards Mal Arundak on conjured steeds. (The Barrens is the Abyssal realm of Oublivae, from Demonomicon. Mal Arundak is described in The Plane Below. I am merging the two setting elements, and also borrowing from the description of the Deadhold Wasteland from module P2.) En route they find a deep pit, which - upon inspection - turns out to have been an oubliette trapping the spirit, or some other remnant, or Elidyr, the last king of Nerath. The paladin says a prayer to help Elidyr's spirit to rest, and in the process sees (in a vision) Elidyr's spirit at the Bridge that may be Traversed but Once. A further prayer frees Elidyr from that fate and sees him off to a happier afterlife, much to the chagrin of Ometh. Further en route they find a buried Nerathis castle - all ruins of civilisation and things lost end up in The Barrens - and discover skeletons of the dead within it. The paladin says prayers over them, and frees both from Ometh and the (uncertain, but unpleasant) fate of the Bridge.

The player of the paladin was enjoying the repeated thwarting of Ometh, and so I decided it was time for Ometh to appear!

<snip>

The highlight for me came when Ometh was bloodied, and the paladin confronted him as to his motivations and (suspected) treachery. And Ometh explained the basis on which he had entered into the Raven Queen's service - he had helped her hide her name "with beings beyond the stars", and in return had been allowed to continue serving as an exarch of death. And he warned that, were he to be killed, the pact would be broken and the Raven Queen's name no longer safe.

This decision to link Ometh to the idea of a pact with the Far Realm to hide the Raven Queen's name wasn't quite spontaneous - I had come up with the idea at the same time I statted up Ometh as an aberrant undead - but it did catch the PCs (and the players) by surprise. The paladin wanted to reach some sort of accommodation, but the ranger-cleric of the Raven Queen was still up for killing Ometh, and the fighter-cleric of Moradin, who is increasingly fed up with the Raven Queen and her cultists, was even keener to finish off Ometh once he realised that doing so might hurt the Raven Queen. So negotiations broke down after only a round, and Ometh was killed - the paladin striking the killing blow in the end.

They were preparing to take another extended rest, but the paladin and ranger-cleric (who also serves the Raven Queen) received an urgent vision from their mistress, where they saw a blue-white star falling through the sky from behind the purple star Caiphon, oddly sitting high above the horizon. The general theory is that this is related to the fact that killing Ometh broke the Raven Queen's pact with the Far Realm to keep her name secret, so the PCs will now head off to deal with this. (As the paladin put it, "My mistress is not one to be blackmailed by a giant inside-out dwarf.")

[/sblock]

I have no idea how you think that maps onto your arithmetic theory of narration - but as far as rich, "living breathing worlds" are concerned I'm pretty happy with it.

I'll go further: it's not railroading to tell the players that their PCs have been spotted by sentries.

It is if you deprived them of the chance to approach stealthily by giving them about .5 seconds between you leave the dwarves and you are spotted. I personally don't care to play "Guess what the DM will do to us if we don't prepare for every contingency before we leave." I don't have information about what the area the giants live in is like, so I can't properly give you those sorts of instructions in advance. If you then play my PC and bypass the approach to the giant's territory and cause me to be spotted, that's a railroad. I should be given the chance to see what the approach is like in order to convey to you what I would like my PC to do on that approach.

This is all you just making stuff up.

Here's a repost of the actual example:

GM: OK, so you've agreed to help the dwarves against the giants. Your're heading off, right?

Players: Yes, we're heading off as soon as Aster makes some potions of fire resistance for us.

GM: OK, mark down your potions and cross off your residuum. You trek through the Underdark, following the directions the dwarves gave you. Everyone make a DC 20 Endurance check - if you fail, you're down a healing surge by the time you arrive at your destination.

<players adjust equpiment lists, make checks, adjust healing surge totals if required>

GM: Just as the dwarves told you, after a hard trek through the tunnels you find yourself at the entrance to a massive cavern. It's lit a dull red by the glow of lava that bubbles up through the floor of the cave and flows away in criss-crossing channels. A black, basalt structure stands in the centre - the Hall of the Fire Giant King.​

<snip>

Let's consider a variation of the above:

. . .

GM: Just as the dwarves told you, after a hard trek through the tunnels you find yourself at the entrance to a massive cavern. It's lit a dull red by the glow of lava that bubbles up through the floor of the cave and flows away in criss-crossing channels. In the glow of the lava, you can see fire giant sentries on patrol. And it seems that a group of sentries has seen you!​

So where did I say that this bit - <players adjust equpiment lists, make checks, adjust healing surge totals if required> - takes 5 seconds? Or 5 minutes? Where did I say that the players had no chance to declare Stealth if they wanted to? That's all just your assumption and projection.

And as far as the variant is concerned, where did I "bypass the approach to the giants' territory"? I described it: "you find yourself at the entrance to a massive cavern." What makes you assume that the PCs must be able to spot the giants before the giants spot them?

And finally, here is a quote from AbdulAlhazred, that started this whole discussion of fire giants:

You COULD in theory, perhaps, play a Story Now type of game where the GM frames a scene, something happens, and then without reference to anything else except his own judgment the GM could simply say "OK, now your at place X, and Y is happening" and frame another scene. It just never happens that way.

Reality is that the PCs do some stuff, and change the state of the fiction in a way that represents some sort of choices. They make a pact with the dwarves to go fight giants, instead of exploring the tunnel into the Underdark. The next scene MIGHT be 'fighting giants', but that can hardly be a railroad!

<snip>

The trajectory of the game will be in the direction which the player's signal they want to go

You are assuming that it is a bad thing for the players that their PCs have been spotted by giants. Whereas, following AbdulAlhazred's post, I was envisaging that the players want to fight giants. (If they didn't, presumably they would have taken some steps to avoid the risk of a fight. It's sheer projection on your part to assume that they weren't able to because <reasons>.)

 

[pemerton]

As a GM, I work hard to foster a feeling of a "living, breathing world", with a high degree of consitency and verisimilitude. My own view is that I do a reasonable job - the gameworlds of my campaigns seems as rich and evocative as most examples I read about on ENworld, for instance, and moreso than many.

I don't see how that's even possible. One of the biggest hallmarks of a "living, breathing world" is that stuff goes on in the world outside of the PCs, the influence of the PCs, and what they are interested in. They will hear stories and rumors about what is happening in Waterdeep, even as they go about their own interests in the far south. In story now, nothing goes on outside of the PCs like that.

Impossible - and yet it is happening all the time! For my part, when I want to understand how "story now" RPGing works I ask people who are familiar with it, rather than people who (by their own account) have never engaged in it.

Here's one thing that's gone wrong in your assumptions: in this sentence, "One of the biggest hallmarks of a "living, breathing world" is that stuff goes on in the world outside of the PCs, the influence of the PCs, and what they are interested in," the word they refers to the PCs. Yet the anchor for "story now" RPGing is player-established themes, dramatic need etc. And as even a cursory familiarity with literature and film will reveal, something can speak to a protagonist's dramatic need although s/he is not (yet) interested in it.

Here's another thing: making up rumours about what is going in Waterdeep takes about 5 seconds, if that. I don't need to have writen down anything in advance, or read it in a book that someone else wrote. Sometimes the players will even make it up and save me the trouble!

Or there can be synergy between the two: for instance (to give another actua play report), a player might make a Circles check because his PC wants to meet with elven merchants to buy some herbs. When the chdck succeeds, it is established that merchants do indeed pass by the PCs out-of-the-way tower, on their way from Hardby to Urnst, and having heard that an elven princess is staying there. The ensuing conversation reveals that the Gynarch of Hardby is engaged to be married to Jabal! Later on, when the PCs arrive at a borderlands keep, a lady of Urnst is spending the night there en route to Hardby for the wedding.

Before you know it, there's a living, breathing world, criss-crossed by merchants and wedding guests bearing all sorts of tale and rumour!

 

[Maxperson]

OK. I don't see how that has any bearing on my reply to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]. Are you agreeing or disagreeing with him that ""Sometimes dangerous" automatically means "interesting" because as soon as there's danger then either combat mechanics (for combat) or some other sort of hazard-resolution mechanics (for other hazards e.g. landslide or getting lost) come into play"?

I wouldn't say automatically interesting, but it usually is. The problem you are having here seems to be that you think using mechanics = wargame. It doesn't. D&D minis was a wargame. Using combat mechanics in a combat or other mechanics to navigate a hazard(if even necessary, which sometimes it isn't) isn't wargaming.

How do you know this? Were you at the table? Would the world have been "deeper" because I mentioned a near-miss with a light plane flying without a licence over Siberia? And made the players roll to see whether or not they collided with it?

You've described your game to us many times. None of those descriptions convey the same depth that our style accomplishes. Story now as a concept doesn't get there, either. I'm just going by what I've seen from you and those who play your style of game.

Where are your actual play posts that show this depth of world resulting from your techniques?

If I don't forget, I'll post it AGAIN tonight after I get home from work.

I have no idea what this metaphor is meant to convey.

Depth of scope. You can convey size of the world with a narrative, but the depth of that scope isn't achieved unless the PCs can see it. Hence 7 vs. 2+2+2+1 = 7. Only in the latter 7 can you see the depth.

I've got dozens of actual play posts on these boards, with several links to some of them in this thread. Here are extracts from two of them:

Yes, the depth of your game is linked to what has already been established. You build on things. That's a much more limited depth than is accomplished in our playstyle. We also have that sort of depth that builds on what came before during play, but we also have the depth that is added when the world actually moves outside of the PCs, creating a living, breathing world. Without the world moving outside of the PCs, it's not living, breathing at all. It's dead except when interacting with the PCs.

This is all you just making stuff up.

Here's a repost of the actual example:


So where did I say that this bit - <players adjust equpiment lists, make checks, adjust healing surge totals if required> - takes 5 seconds? Or 5 minutes? Where did I say that the players had no chance to declare Stealth if they wanted to? That's all just your assumption and projection.

You say I'm making it up, then post showing that I'm not. Once they set off(without knowledge of the giants territory), you gave them no opportunity to decide how to approach once they gained that knowledge. You are requiring them to play, "Guess what the DM will do" in advance, and without proper knowledge. Either that or get screwed when you just waltz them past where they need to be to make that decision and up to the giants.

And as far as the variant is concerned, where did I "bypass the approach to the giants' territory"? I described it: "you find yourself at the entrance to a massive cavern." What makes you assume that the PCs must be able to spot the giants before the giants spot them?

Where were the signs of patrols going by? Where did you stop and tell them that they were getting close to giant territory? Where did you give them the option not to play, "Guess the DM" and make an informed decision?

 

[pemerton]

Once they set off(without knowledge of the giants territory), you gave them no opportunity to decide how to approach once they gained that knowledge.

The GM said "Your're heading off, right?" and - after the players replied "yes" - described them travelling through the Underdark. That was when the players knew they were approaching the giants, and that was the players' chance to say they wanted to be sneaky, if they wanted to be. In my exmample the players didn't say any such thing. From which we can infer that the didn't care to be sneaky.

(And how do you know they had no knowledge of the giants' territory? Where did I say that? Where did [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] say that? Maybe the dwarves told them all about it - again, you're just making stuff up.)

You are requiring them to play, "Guess what the DM will do" in advance, and without proper knowledge. Either that or get screwed when you just waltz them past where they need to be to make that decision and up to the giants.

Where were the signs of patrols going by? Where did you stop and tell them that they were getting close to giant territory? Where did you give them the option not to play, "Guess the DM" and make an informed decision?

There's no need to guess what the GM will do! The GM asked "Are you going to the giants", and they said "yes", so that's what is happening. A clever 3 year old could manage that guess!

And that's their informed decision - knowing that they have promised the dwaves to help with the giants, they go off to keep their promise?

And as I already asked - what makes you think they knew they were getting close to the giants' territory before they saw the cave? Why would there be signs of patrols? Everything you say here is framed in terms of a GM-driven railroad: the GM is railroading the players into a confrontation with the giants, but "telegraphs" by narrating signs of patrols, and other contrived evidence of "giant territory", so that the players can make "skilled play" choices that will optimise their chances in the forthcoming, GM-arranged confrontation with the giants.

But that is not the example the [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] gave and I offered some elaboration of. That was an example of player-driven play. If the players want to fight giants, they don't need "warning" or "telegraphing" that they're facing giants. That's inherent in them expressing their desire. And - as I've already said many times - if they want to approach stealthily then that's up to them. Maybe they don't want to be!

 

[pemerton]

I wouldn't say automatically interesting, but it usually is. The problem you are having here seems to be that you think using mechanics = wargame.

No.

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] says that combat or landslide equals interesting. He makes no similar assumption about, say, meeting a friendly border guard. Or a pleasant fellow traveller. It is this assumption that physical danger, with combat as the paradigm, is the core of what is interesting that I am questioning. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't. Only in wargaming is there a straightforward equation of combat = interesting.

You've described your game to us many times. None of those descriptions convey the same depth that our style accomplishes.

<snip>

Depth of scope. You can convey size of the world with a narrative, but the depth of that scope isn't achieved unless the PCs can see it. Hence 7 vs. 2+2+2+1 = 7. Only in the latter 7 can you see the depth.

<snip>

the depth of your game is linked to what has already been established. You build on things. That's a much more limited depth than is accomplished in our playstyle. We also have that sort of depth that builds on what came before during play, but we also have the depth that is added when the world actually moves outside of the PCs, creating a living, breathing world. Without the world moving outside of the PCs, it's not living, breathing at all. It's dead except when interacting with the PCs.

I have no idea what this means. It's all just words.

I mean, what does unless the PCs can see it mean? Or it's dead except when interacting with the PCs? The PCs don't exist. So what they can see, and what interacts with them, depends completely on what we make up. And I can - and do - make up just as much stuff as you can! You imagine the PCs in your game hearing all these wild tales of far places when they sit around in taverns? Well, so do I.

But until you actually tell those tales, in real time, to real people, sitting at a real table, they make zero contribution to the depth of a setting. You sitting at home reading a FR book fillled with "rumours of Waterdeep" doesn't make your gameworld deep. Those rumours only establish "depth" for your setting when you mention them to your players. And I can do that too.

But regardless of rumours of far places, I play a game in which meeting a friendly border guard might be as important and interesting as fighting a combat. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] (it seems) doesn't. Nor - to judge by your agreement with him - do you. From my point of view, that is case closed on depth of setting.

 

[Lanefan]

No one is saying people don't have wealth. I'm saying that there is no wealth mechanic.

In a medieval or modern-day setting this seems - to say the very least - unrealistic.

And I don't need to "inform the players" that there's "more to the world" by narrating irrelevant stuff either. I've never had any trouble conveying the scope of the world in my games when I've wanted to.

Well, these kinda contradict each other in a way: irrelevant stuff is only irrelevant until it becomes relevant, and without it the scope of the 'world' is limited to only that which the PCs are directly interacting with.

This assume we're playing a wargame or something similar. But otherwise there's no reason to spend time on this stuff if it's not interesting.

"You make your way through the Underdark for several arduous weeks before arriving at a lava-filled cavern that looks like the one the dwarves described to you. Every make a DC 20 Endurance check - if you fail, you're down a healing surge when you arrive."

'Down a healing surge' is nothing. 'Dead' or 'diseased' or 'separated from the group and lost' or 'down some significant gear including magic items' are more what I'd be checking for after a long Underdark journey, along with how masny xp they'd picked up in the process.

That's enough to convey a dangerous and challenging journey through the Underdark, if it's not where the action is going to be.

'Down a healing surge' conveys nothing more to me than I didn't get a good night's sleep. It completely trivializes the risks and dangers of such a journey.

And I can frame as many challenging scenes in Tokyo as I can in a voyage thereto. Which give the players just as much opportunity to play and advance their PCs.

Why not give them both opportunities - the journey, and the events after they arrive?

I'll go further: it's not railroading to tell the players that their PCs have been spotted by sentries.

It is if the playsrs haven't been given any chance to take reasonabel precautions against being spotted.

 

[Lanefan]

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] says that combat or landslide equals interesting. He makes no similar assumption about, say, meeting a friendly border guard. Or a pleasant fellow traveller. It is this assumption that physical danger, with combat as the paradigm, is the core of what is interesting that I am questioning. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't. Only in wargaming is there a straightforward equation of combat = interesting.

This is a fair point, so I'll explain my reasoning.

Meeting a friendly border guard or pleasant fellow travellers is interesting, no doubt there; and if people want to RP that I'm all in. But, the chances of such RP generating any mechanical changes to the PCs are extremely low. Ditto for all the RP the characters would also likely do with each other during this time; the romances*, the minor arguments, etc.

Combat and risk and danger, on the other hand, have a quite decent chance of generating mechanical changes - lost gear or wealth, major injuries, death, getting separated, etc. - and that's what I-as-DM need to know about: how has the party that left Washington changed or been changed by the time it gets to Tokyo. (and there's always the very tiny chance of a TPK meaning they never reach Tokyo at all)

* - the only mechanical change I might have to worry about here is if someone gets pregnant...

I mean, what does unless the PCs can see it mean? Or it's dead except when interacting with the PCs? The PCs don't exist. So what they can see, and what interacts with them, depends completely on what we make up. And I can - and do - make up just as much stuff as you can! You imagine the PCs in your game hearing all these wild tales of far places when they sit around in taverns? Well, so do I.

But do you ever tell them these wild tales?

But until you actually tell those tales, in real time, to real people, sitting at a real table, they make zero contribution to the depth of a setting. You sitting at home reading a FR book fillled with "rumours of Waterdeep" doesn't make your gameworld deep. Those rumours only establish "depth" for your setting when you mention them to your players. And I can do that too.

And once you do, those rumours could instantly become adventure hooks!

But regardless of rumours of far places, I play a game in which meeting a friendly border guard might be as important and interesting as fighting a combat. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] (it seems) doesn't. Nor - to judge by your agreement with him - do you. From my point of view, that is case closed on depth of setting.

Well, if you say so...