D&D General No Fixed Location -- dynamically rearranging items, monsters, and other game elements in the interests of storytelling

[Don Durito]

If there is an orcish attack there should be reason for it. There are resources in A that the forces directing the orcs want? A is close to the steppes where orcs are, and its patrols are guarding another direction? The orc chief's wife eloped with someone from town?

Something causes that orc attack. Once you decided there was going to be an orc attack on A, it needs to be grounded in the world.

All of the things that ground it, they'll have some exposure to the PCs. There was a temple of ioun in A (in which the artifact was stored). There where some well dressed half orcs (kids of the baron and the ex-chiefess). There was one overworked tired guard at the entrance.

None of these say "there is an orc attack coming", so PCs leaving aren't choosing to avoid the orc attack. But they did ground the attack in the world, and if the PCs had investigated they'd have some clues, and afterwards if they defended it and worked out why they might remember the events as foreshadowing.

Then the PCs move to B. And you want to move the orc attack. Which means you either have to have a completely different reason for the orcs to attack, not have the forshadowing hooks, or reuse the foreshadowing hooks.

If the orc attack is some modular thing completely divorced from the rest of the world, yes moving it so it follows the PCs has no additional problems. But the very fact the orc attack was a modular thing disconnected from the world is as side effect of wanting to be able to follow the PCs, and it itself is a problem, and once you connect the event to the world and expose those connections they become less mobile.

OTOH, having a "orc mercenaries attack" encounter designed, then using it because you have reason for the some mercenaries to attack, is different. The reasoning provides connection snd drives it, not the schedule of the encounter.

However, the PCs going from A to B should change things enough that the encojnter you'll pull out of the bag at B is different than A. Even if you have A be overrun, and use a tweaked version for a later encounter at C.

Well yes. As I said before, changing the situation changes the situation.

 

[Garthanos]

Haha when 4e recommended your did this with magic items, everyone lost their minds.

Everyone oh right that everyone.... remember it's now denied that it was effective.

 

[Charlaquin]

If you make it too easy it's kind of pointless being secret.

I want to push back against this assertion a bit, because it’s one of the two most common arguments I hear against telegraphing hidden features of the environment (the other being the whole verisimilitude argument, which I don’t really want to get into right now.) But I disagree that a hidden feature is pointless if it’s too easy to find. On the contrary, it’s in the finding that the point of a hidden feature is realized. Specifically, the point is to give the player a sense of accomplishment for having found something they might otherwise have missed. Now, this does of course mean a hidden feature has to be missable to serve its purpose, but it also has to be findable, and in my experience DMs tend to err MUCH too far in favor of making their hidden features harder to find. I’m sure we’ve all had experiences with players failing to find or realize something that wasn’t even supposed to be hidden, so the idea that it’ll be too easy to find the secret door or whatever if you put a clue somewhere in the description is kind of silly to me.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Because all the fun times I remember in D&D are the times I remember things happening, not the times we looked for something to happen in pursuit of unneeded verisimilitude.

This fetishization of a "living, breathing world" is just that, a fetish. It is neither the only nor optimal mode of play. As long as I give my players agency to not follow the current plot (and I do), leaving the bulk of the world details to only be finalized in play has worked for me for decades.

PREACH!

You know what be hilarious? Have 90% of all the dungeons and lost temples the PCs encounter have no treasure or secrets left to find because hundreds of adventurers have already cleaned them out. Just some monsters and leftover refuse from other adventuring parties. That's a living breathing world!
/s

I'm still trying to figure out what a game session like this would be like. Is it fun for some to play through the "standard door routine" each and every time they go through a door year after year?

 

[JiffyPopTart]

OMG yeah. Secret doors everywhere. Mind you, that all started when an Elf could just walk past a secret door and notice it 33% of the time.

Do you think old-school elves even bothered putting secret doors in their castles/lair/dungeons? A lackey would know them all after a solid days work.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Yes.

What if I wanted to scout the three choices or wait for signs of monsters? What if I used a spell or ability to detect a certain threat. These are all things I can do to gain information and make a decision about the best choice.

If after doing these things, I end up encountering what the DM wanted me to encounter anyway, then all of these efforts were meaningless.

Encounter doesn't mean fight, it just means....encounter. You could encounter a dragon by seeing it flying lazy circles above a city a mile away, or see it chow down on a buffalo in a vally below you...or any number of things. By choosing a direction to scout and the GM plopping down that dragon in that direction you organically encountered that dragon.

At least that's how I GM. I'm not going to have a red dragon pop up from a bush and the you "roll initiative" because ...that's stupid. If I want you to have an opportunity to interact with it I would put it by you no matter what way you went.

That being said, it's funny because in the session this week the players were travelling with (not guarding) a dwarven wagon full of arms and armor from one city to the next. The wagon was stopped along the way by an elven druid with a pack of wolves and a bear who demanded they go back they way they came. The PCs tried to help negotiate a peace but they realized it was coming to blows. They had the opportunity to take one side or the other but they chose to stand aside and let it happen. The druid had a young white dragon buried in the snow who did all of her talking. White dragons are really good at hiding in the snow. So I guess once in awhile I WILL have a dragon pop out from behind a bush.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I cannot think of a meaningful choice that isn't consequential.

Everytime they pick an inn to stay for the night (usually based on the coolest name) which you have no intention of having anything interesting happen in no matter which one they pick.

 

[Lanefan]

No. You a describing a consequential choice.

Which is just another word for a meaningful choice where the meaning(s) don't become apparent until after the fact, that at the time might look to be random and-or meaningless.

A meaningful choice is a choice where there's some information the players have to base a decision on. A consequential choice is one where something they chose to do has consequences. Then of course there's the most fun kind - a meaningful consequential choice. You have information to base a decision will face consequences depending on what you decide.

This makes a very big assumption: that the information the players have to work with is true and-or accurate, which is not always (and sometimes not often!) the case.

 

[Lanefan]

PREACH!

You know what be hilarious? Have 90% of all the dungeons and lost temples the PCs encounter have no treasure or secrets left to find because hundreds of adventurers have already cleaned them out. Just some monsters and leftover refuse from other adventuring parties. That's a living breathing world!

Maybe not to the 90% grade, but I've done this on occasion - a party gets to an adventure site only to find out someone else got there first and cleaned the place out (or died trying).

I'm still trying to figure out what a game session like this would be like. Is it fun for some to play through the "standard door routine" each and every time they go through a door year after year?

Why wouldn't it be? That's like asking whether it's fun for some to play chess with the same board and 32 pieces year after year.

 

[Lanefan]

Do you think old-school elves even bothered putting secret doors in their castles/lair/dungeons? A lackey would know them all after a solid days work.

Of course they would, at every possible opportunity! The Elves living there would find them in a heartbeat (if they hadn't already been told about them), meanwhile any non-Elf invaders would be screwed.