Do you prefer your character to be connected or unconnected to the adventure hook?

[Lanefan]

Fair enough. Although, frankly, if you have to do A, B, and C before you go to D, I'm not sure it's really all that non-linear if you can choose which order to do A, B and C in. You're still doing A, B and C, regardless of the order. It's somewhat less linear, I suppose, but, it's still a single line progression from beginning to end, regardless of which order you do things.

True. That said, I suppose they call them adventure paths for a reason.

I do see a difference between truly linear (within an adventure, this would be having the encounters/rooms put together like a string of beads where you can't get to any one without having done all the ones before) and not-quite-so-linear, where you've got choices all over the place but eventually they're going to funnel you either to a choke point or to the BBEG at the end. I don't mind the latter, I'm not at all a fan of the former.

Again, I'm not saying it's a bad adventure. I don't think that it is. And, frankly, there's nothing wrong with linear adventures IMO. I've had great fun with linear adventures. But, in a linear adventure, you don't need anywhere near the character connection to the adventure hook, because, well, this is the adventure you're going on and, well, step on up and let's adventure. So long as the story is engaging enough, I'm happy.

True. IMO the best adventure paths are the ones that seem from the player side to just emerge organically out of the run of play (and this can happen even within a true sandbox) where something that happens in the fiction prompts the party to undergo a connected series of adventures by their own choice.

My problem was that I had players who had had a pretty steady diet of linear campaigns and when I tried (three times no less) to run sandboxes, they fizzled and died because the players had zero buy in. They just did not care at all. And nothing I seemed to do was motivating them. So, yeah, it was a good thing we parted ways. I was not the right DM for that group. I mean, this is the group that I dropped three treasure maps on and got a shrug in response. :/ Unfortunate.

Were my players reading this there'd be a loud chorus of "Hey, send those treasure maps over here - if they don't want 'em, we do! We like treasure!"

And yes, some players prefer to simply ride the train. Makes DMing them easier, to be sure, but it's nowhere near as much fun.

 

[Lanefan]

I disagree, but I think that you equate meta-gaming to “cheating” whereas I do not have so narrow a sense of the term.

Outright cheating is cheating, which is a bit different than what I call meta-gaming though there is some overlap.

I tend to broadly define player-side meta-gaming as the use of player knowledge rather than character knowledge, where the player knows more than the character does or might. The old trolls-v-fire debate.

Different rule systems and mechanics will impact the meta-game for players and GMs alike. We can even see how meta-gaming informs gaming when players switch game systems that engender different meta-games.

Easily solved by not changing systems.

 

[Lanefan]

Even in the most open sandbox world I have been a player in, all campaigns are A to B to C. You might go to F before going to C, but it is still the same. A good DM weaves a story based on the decisions of the players. If you are implying PC's can abandon an A to B to C adventure in a sandbox versus AP, well they still go off to a new A to B to C adventure. Just because they can change it doesn't mean they leave the road.
Sorry, just re-read that. That comes across as course. It wasn't typed that way.

All campaigns are A to B to C in hindsight, but there's a rather large difference at the time they are played.

An adventure path is known all along - always by the DM and quite often by the players - to be A to B to C.

A true sandbox more often comes across during play as A to A to A, where the choice of each A is made somewhat independently after the previous one is completed and with any connections between the A's emerging either in hindsight or not at all. (the DM might have some preconceived connection ideas but isn't married to them, knowing full well they might never see the light of day)

 

[Scott Christian]

All campaigns are A to B to C in hindsight, but there's a rather large difference at the time they are played.

An adventure path is known all along - always by the DM and quite often by the players - to be A to B to C.

A true sandbox more often comes across during play as A to A to A, where the choice of each A is made somewhat independently after the previous one is completed and with any connections between the A's emerging either in hindsight or not at all. (the DM might have some preconceived connection ideas but isn't married to them, knowing full well they might never see the light of day)

Again, I would argue that A to A to A isn't true. It means A1 to A2 to A3 then off to B. A plot or story is still a plot or story. It has the elements of a plot.

I have played with a few DM's that declare the world is open, do whatever you want, etc. But, even then, if you want any semblance of a story, you go from A to B to C. Just like an AP. It might not be as long, but it is the same.

If you are discussing DM's that let players do whatever and just give hints everywhere, tell me this: where do those hints lead? To a B. And then if the player's choose a C. If the players don't go to C, and instead go to a different alphabet, then they go. But they still find an 诶 that leads to 比 that leads to 西 .

As I stated earlier, you might have a DM that lets players jump to F before going to C, but that doesn't negate the fact they will go to C.

If you have a DM not doing any of those, then they are either just doing a dungeon crawl with no objective, playing a board game, or have a lack of knowledge as to what constitutes a story.

That is my point about AP's. They are the exact same thing as what any DM is doing. It's just that due to writing constraints, they write the story straight through as opposed to piecemealing it. I cannot see any other way a game could play out.

 

[Aldarc]

Outright cheating is cheating, which is a bit different than what I call meta-gaming though there is some overlap.

I tend to broadly define player-side meta-gaming as the use of player knowledge rather than character knowledge, where the player knows more than the character does or might. The old trolls-v-fire debate.

Sure, but player knowledge informs the meta-game surrounding how they play their characters.

Easily solved by not changing systems.

Solved? You are positing a problem where one does not exist. It's like switching from poker to bridge. The two games have different metagames about how they are played.

 

[pemerton]

That is my point about AP's. They are the exact same thing as what any DM is doing. It's just that due to writing constraints, they write the story straight through as opposed to piecemealing it. I cannot see any other way a game could play out.

I do not have a whole lot to say about adventure gaming because I do not do a whole lot of it from either side of the screen.

<snip>

my focus is on deeply personal character focused play. Characters do not go on adventures. They pursue their deeply personal goals. Because their goals are ambitious (otherwise they would be NPCs) stuff should naturally get tense.

You start with a tenuous situation and have players create like actual people who are invested in the situation and want things from life. It's all done in tandem. The initial situation and characters are part of the same creation process. Once play starts you just follow it where it goes.

What Campbell describes is one other way a RPG can play out.

Here's an actual play illustration of something like he describes - a session of Wuthering Heights played a few months ago.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Again, I would argue that A to A to A isn't true. It means A1 to A2 to A3 then off to B. A plot or story is still a plot or story. It has the elements of a plot.

I have played with a few DM's that declare the world is open, do whatever you want, etc. But, even then, if you want any semblance of a story, you go from A to B to C. Just like an AP. It might not be as long, but it is the same.

If you are discussing DM's that let players do whatever and just give hints everywhere, tell me this: where do those hints lead? To a B. And then if the player's choose a C. If the players don't go to C, and instead go to a different alphabet, then they go. But they still find an 诶 that leads to 比 that leads to 西 .

As I stated earlier, you might have a DM that lets players jump to F before going to C, but that doesn't negate the fact they will go to C.

If you have a DM not doing any of those, then they are either just doing a dungeon crawl with no objective, playing a board game, or have a lack of knowledge as to what constitutes a story.

That is my point about AP's. They are the exact same thing as what any DM is doing. It's just that due to writing constraints, they write the story straight through as opposed to piecemealing it. I cannot see any other way a game could play out.

I'm reading this as a statement that no game can avoid a scripted A-B-C structure? That even "sandbox" games just scatter A's around, but that they'll lead to B's planned by the GM?

If so, you might want to stretch to some other systems that don't do prep and even will fight you if you try to push a specific plot, even generally. PbtA games are great for this -- less heavy than Burning Wheel, but still focus on that 'play to find out' structure. My Blades in the Dark game, for instance, is currently in a place I would never have predicted, and surprises me every session with what happens and where the characters go. So, it can be done. I would agree that this is very hard to do in a game like D&D, which have requisite prep due to the game structure and that lack the kinds of player authorities that other games do, but you can do it there as well. My current 5e campaign, for instance, had no grand plan to start, just a quick starting fetch quest, and now is revolving around the different motivations of the PCs almost exclusively. I don't have an end point (or even a middle point) for any of those arcs, instead leveraging what the PCs do and how successful they are at it to introduce the next bit. It's a lot more my prep than my Blades game (which is no prep at all), but it's also very driven by what the PCs do rather than anything I've imagined ahead of time.

 

[Scott Christian]

I'm reading this as a statement that no game can avoid a scripted A-B-C structure? That even "sandbox" games just scatter A's around, but that they'll lead to B's planned by the GM?

If so, you might want to stretch to some other systems that don't do prep and even will fight you if you try to push a specific plot, even generally. PbtA games are great for this -- less heavy than Burning Wheel, but still focus on that 'play to find out' structure. My Blades in the Dark game, for instance, is currently in a place I would never have predicted, and surprises me every session with what happens and where the characters go. So, it can be done. I would agree that this is very hard to do in a game like D&D, which have requisite prep due to the game structure and that lack the kinds of player authorities that other games do, but you can do it there as well. My current 5e campaign, for instance, had no grand plan to start, just a quick starting fetch quest, and now is revolving around the different motivations of the PCs almost exclusively. I don't have an end point (or even a middle point) for any of those arcs, instead leveraging what the PCs do and how successful they are at it to introduce the next bit. It's a lot more my prep than my Blades game (which is no prep at all), but it's also very driven by what the PCs do rather than anything I've imagined ahead of time.

Oh no doubt. You are right. My point was specifically 5e, specifically AP's. And also how it mirrors those that choose to play without AP's.
As far as your 5e game, that's great. You may not know where the PC's choices are taking you except for the next session, but you already have an idea of how they will interact with the next session you created. They may surprise you, and that's always fun as DM. But, if you do already have their motive (which of course has a goal) in mind. So technically even though you haven't written it down, there is an objective.

 

[Scott Christian]

What Campbell describes is one other way a RPG can play out.

Here's an actual play illustration of something like he describes - a session of Wuthering Heights [/rl]played a few months ago.

Yes, the rules of the game, particularly the rage aspect is interesting. But, I am referencing 5e, specifically AP's and sandbox.

I agree other games are not so linear, although I would suggest if they try to tell a story, they have to still follow a plotline.

 

[Campbell]

@Scott Christian

I personally do not sit down to the table with intent to tell or be told a story.

I sit down at the table with intent to create and experience a story together with the other players. This is the only way I have experienced for characters to feel like real protagonists, for narrative tension to feel palpable the same way it does when watching a good movie, or for responses to feel genuine. Social cues (spoken and unspoken) just have such a strong impact that anything less than shooting for real tension, genuine protagonism, and honest antagonism just does not feel palpable to me.

I know that sounds like avant garde and probably fairly pretentious, but it's not really super complicated or special. Basically if you value it you have to be willing to risk it. Session 6 of mecha game that we started in Lancer that will transition to Beam Saber next week if it continues is coming up this Sunday. I have a firm grasp on the situation and it is designed to provoke a response from the players, but I have absolutely no clue how things will play out. As the GM I am just as much on the edge of my seat as the other players.

We do this every session. The stakes are often not as high (there has been a lot of unresolved fallout that is just now hitting them), but we put the game on the line every time we play. The danger is that it might suck, but we have to risk that to get that tense shared narrative that we all experience together.