A Question Of Agency?

[AbdulAlhazred]

To a certain extent I think the sort of sandbox aesthetic talked about here is actually coming from a perspective of a version of the real world that actually makes sense. Where people's decisions are based on logic and somewhat accurate readouts of the way the world works instead of delusions and fantasies. Where the shape of history is actually based on what is likely to happen. I mean even a cursory glance at the moment in history we find ourselves should make it obvious that unlikely things happen everyday.

Right, in fact if we start to examine 'likely' and 'unlikely' as concepts we will run into huge problems right away. The real world contains an uncountably vast array of possible outcomes of situations. Simply by application of basic mathematical logic we can derive that the probabilities of all these outcomes are thus individually infinitesimal. Fundamentally nothing is likely, and nothing is 'more likely' than anything else. Likeliness emerges only at the level of our own cognition, where we 'bin' things together and say "well, all these outcomes are, for my purposes, nearly the same." Now you can start to say "this bin is bigger than these other ones." However, you can see that this is actually subjective. In fact it is a well-known (to physicists) fact that even the entropy of a system is a subjective value which is observer-dependent for basically the same reason.

So, when we say that we are 'figuring out what is likely' even in the real world, we are establishing our cognitive biases at a very basic level. In the game world this vast array of possible outcomes never exists to start with, so we're simply left with our judgment as to how some bins might hypothetically be constructed by some observer. There are really large amounts of judgment here, and very few firm guidelines to follow. Its easy to say "oh, you fell down the 40' shaft and landed on a stone floor. Here's the sorts of likely outcomes of that." but as soon as things get more complicated, we either just defer to dice, or make something up that supports one or another set of criteria (agendas).

 

[hawkeyefan]

Not seeing setting that up as a flowchart being helpful. What might be useful is a flowchart of the obstacles they are going to encounter, but the kinds of physical details a map would provide for the whole locations, trivial details for this 1 shot.


They were released from death row after being wrongfully sentenced to death by a resistance sympathizing magistrate to steal a particular treasure.


Not doing so would have meant not playing the game.


Not particularly.

Okay @FrogReaver . I said that a one shot may not be the best example, but I quickly sketched it and asked some questions. It sounds like if it was a flow chart, it would be one box stacked on top of another with an arrow pointing from one to the other. Awesome.

Nothing to say about the second half of my post where I kind of talk about sandbox play?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It’s not even technically realism that anyone is after. Realism gets mentioned primarily because fantasy worlds in most of their incarnations are intended to be very real world centric (or historic or future based real world centric). Even the most cartoonish things like looney toons or Tom and jerry are very real world centric with a few unreal details and over exaggerations sprinkled in.

which is to say if someone wanted a looney toons or Tom and jerry rpg you would find most mechanics would need to be “realistic” to some degree with a few unreal mechanics mixed in to depict the zany interactions.

*story now would probably be an excellent platform for such a game.

Well, 'Toon' is that game, it was actually produced in the mid-1980's. NOTHING that happens in the game relates to reality in any substantial way. I mean, there MUST be some sort of way for a player to come up with criteria for what moves they make in the game, so "Hit someone with a hammer" in Toon and the target is likely to 'fall down', and there's a mechanic that you can call out that is likely to produce that result. However, 'falling down' is in no real sense similar to injury, disability, or death in the real world, it is just a genre convention (like when a Loonytoons character hits another one and they see stars for a few seconds and stop moving). And yes, I would consider Toon to be an early example of a game evincing a lot of Story Now type characteristics.

It is especially worth pointing out that at the level of "the world" in Toon there is essentially nothing. There are zero fictional constraints on the PCs that relate to anything in the world. A player can simply "have some dynamite" or "go get a shotgun" or "build a wall", "dig a tunnel", etc. and none of those things have any logistical or even logical aspect to them at all. There is essentially no set of rules for "the world", there are simply some rules for 'setting a scene' and what elements can appear, which relate only to facilitating 'toonish results'. It is a quite playable game too, though I admit it is not one you will likely play as an ongoing activity as your primary RPG.

 

[FrogReaver]

Based on what? Surely there has to be some structure in place in order for them to base their goals, no?

Their characterization of their character? In a sandbox, I convey important world information to them. I place interesting situations in front of them. They decide whether they want to engage a particular situation and if so how they want to engage. I have the NPC's react to them and whatever they accomplish may or may not affect how the world progresses from there.

So if the goals might be to accrue wealth and magic relics (a pretty classic motivation) then that likely means that there is treasure to be had, right? Which implies a geographical map with locations that may offer treasure of some sort.

That may be their goal right now. But they may change goals anytime. It's not enough to just put a map out there with treasures and treasure locations in this style. And to make that contrast clear, that's the exact kind of sandbox I dislike. Put me on an adventure path over that anyday.

A map is important as some sense of where places and people are can be important - especially when the players are up against a clock as the physical distances between these places often limit what can be done quickly enough.

So, again to kind of view this is a flowchart.....there's likely a home base town as the starting point, with a few options for potential treasure hunting as other boxes in the flowchart. Things like "the ruined temple" and "the cave of the lizardfolk" and "the dungeon of lunacy" and so on.

It would be more like, here's your hometown, here's the dwarves territory, here's the elves territory, here's the halflings territory etc. Here's the portal to the plane of fire. Here's some ancient ruins. Etc. But what drives the world isn't the players going to a specific location on the map. There are events transpiring in the world even if the players sit still.

Now, these boxes need not be set ahead of time, but I'm kind of assuming that's the case based on what folks have been saying about the sandbox style. They could just as easily be generated procedurally through random charts and the like. They could just as easily be crafted according to actions declared by the players. There are multiple ways to do it, but let's go with "GM creates the setting prior to the start of play".

Sure

So you have these locations and they're there for the PCs to engage with.

Kind of but not necessarily. The focus is not as much the locations as events.

How does that engagement get facilitated? Do they need to explore the map and find one at random? Are there NPCs who offer clues or suggestions about the locations?

It depends on the specific campaign. Sometimes it's you are on the frontier so explore. Sometimes the world is already established so the players know where most things are and you are mostly dealing with factions/tribes/and people within the explored setting. And even in the frontier scenario, it eventually leads to an established world where you are dealing with such things.

What do you do as a GM to help the players set their goals and then what do you do to help them try and achieve those goals?

Nothing. I tell them about the world and the people and places in it.

 

[FrogReaver]

Okay @FrogReaver . I said that a one shot may not be the best example, but I quickly sketched it and asked some questions. It sounds like if it was a flow chart, it would be one box stacked on top of another with an arrow pointing from one to the other. Awesome.

Okay.

Nothing to say about the second half of my post where I kind of talk about sandbox play?

Give a guy some time!

 

[FrogReaver]

Well, 'Toon' is that game, it was actually produced in the mid-1980's. NOTHING that happens in the game relates to reality in any substantial way. I mean, there MUST be some sort of way for a player to come up with criteria for what moves they make in the game, so "Hit someone with a hammer" in Toon and the target is likely to 'fall down', and there's a mechanic that you can call out that is likely to produce that result. However, 'falling down' is in no real sense similar to injury, disability, or death in the real world, it is just a genre convention (like when a Loonytoons character hits another one and they see stars for a few seconds and stop moving). And yes, I would consider Toon to be an early example of a game evincing a lot of Story Now type characteristics.

It is especially worth pointing out that at the level of "the world" in Toon there is essentially nothing. There are zero fictional constraints on the PCs that relate to anything in the world. A player can simply "have some dynamite" or "go get a shotgun" or "build a wall", "dig a tunnel", etc. and none of those things have any logistical or even logical aspect to them at all. There is essentially no set of rules for "the world", there are simply some rules for 'setting a scene' and what elements can appear, which relate only to facilitating 'toonish results'. It is a quite playable game too, though I admit it is not one you will likely play as an ongoing activity as your primary RPG.

Hitting people with hammer's isn't reality? Houses, rivers, lakes, trees aren't reality? Walking and falling isn't reality?

I think if you did a dip dive over everything real in looney toons and everything unreal, you would find a huge percentage of what's in it is realistic. I think what happens is we tend to focus on the unrealistic elements as those are what stands out about it. But that doesn't mean there aren't a ton of realistic elements there.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yes, I understand all this. I get it. You don't need to describe this in general any more. I am asking for a specific example of how you do this. Pick a specific group of players you ran a specific adventure for and talk about it.

To lean on your linked blog post about the War of the Swarming Beggars, you say the below:


How was it discovered when you GMed this material?

Couple of things about this one. The War of Swarming Beggars I put up on my blog. I think I put it up in 2018, but I actually wrote the material closer to 2016, so it has been a long time. I will try to answer this and the other questions as best I can, but I have an atrocious memory, so do take my answers with that in mind as I could easily be misremembering something.

But the first thing to bear in mind is War of Swarming Beggars was written to be a module and campaign setting supplement. That it is part module, means it isn't going to be exactly like a campaign at my table (there is more of a premise here if that makes sense). But what it is intending to do is to give the GM a sense of how a sect more might arise and be handled in my Drama+Sandbox setting. This was also written before my Disposable Disciples campaign. That campaign was quite long and reshaped some of my thinking about how to run drama sandbox.

The most important thing though is War of Swarming Beggars is really much more than the sect war premise. That is part of it. But if you look at the other sections you will see there are places, NPCs, and more. For example, players could completely ignore the sect war, and go to the city of Dee to seek their fortune.

When I say there is no adventure, all I mean there is I didn't structure the adventure around set-pieces, scenes, events, nodes, etc. The adventure is a scenario: there is this sect war, here is what everyone is trying to do, here is how the players might be hooked into it. If they engage the sect war, let it play out organically. All the tools such as the tables, as there to help facilitate the background sect war unfolding (this can become really important though because sit matters if one side is losing badly, and it matters if specific members of the organization are alive or dead).

So the discovery is through the interactions. The players decide to involve themselves and do X, when word of this reaches the rival sect, maybe they do Y . Also because that sect war is running in the background the GM needs to account for how the sects react to their changing fortunes. Not sure if this answers your question or not. I don't think it can be pinned down to one procedure if that is your question.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Does Twin-Fisted Eagle reach out to the PCs? Do they hear of him by reputation and seek him out? So it sounds like you have two factions set up in conflict and the PCs are kind of in the middle, free to join one side or the other, or play them against each other, or whatever.

Yes, one thing this scenario doesn't capture well is the number of factions that are involved in my other map I sent you (which is probably a better reflection of how things tend to be). This adventure is very much modeled after the Killer Clans film in that it features two main sects.

In terms of Twin Fisted Eagle reaching out, that is up to the GM based on what he thinks should happen. Basically if the party is unorthodox, then he is likely to seek them out. If the party is orthodox it is more likely Yellow Mantis seeks them out instead. This is purely to get a hook into it as it was intended to be a published scenario. In a regular campaign, these kind of conflicts only involve the PCs if that naturally arises. So there is a bit of artifice here. But your basic sense is true, the players are free to join one side or the other, or play their own game (they can even ignore the conflict). However because Twin Fisted Eagle is nefarious, his hook somewhat forces their hand:

Invited by Twin-Fisted Eagle
If the party is invited to join to join by Twin-Fisted Eagle he will employ manipulation. His preferred method is to create a grudge between the party’s sect (or the party itself) and Southern Hill Sect. He will use whatever opportunity presents itself based on the party and its sect’s recent history. If there is something he can exploit to create a real conflict between them and Southern Hill, he will. Otherwise he takes more extreme action.

His favorite method is to send a large statue of Hen-Shi filled with Divine Powder to the sect headquarters of the party, presented as a gift from Southern Hill sect. The gift-bearer then ignites the divine fire and tries to cause as much death and mayhem as possible. The porters immediately attack and kill as many as they can (these would all be Twin-Fisted Eagle Disciples pretending to fight in the style of Southern Hill Sect). It is a suicide mission designed to infuriate the PC’s and draw them into the conflict. Twin-Fisted Eagle then reaches out to the party, saying they share an enemy in Southern Hill Sect.

If Twin-Fisted Eagle is trying to gain the loyalty of a group of orthodox heroes, or even unorthodox heroes who don’t seem terribly bloodthirsty he will tailor his explanation to them. Once Twin-Fisted Eagle has the party’s attention he will definitely use his son Tu-an to gain their sympathies. He will point to his precious child, and lie that he was having some harmless fun and beat up some locals (certainly an act worthy of a father’s punishment but not the extreme measures that Yellow Mantis employed). He will try to convince the PCs that Yellow Mantis is a fanatic who harms many innocent people in his constant quest to render ‘justice’.

If the party is particularly bloodthirsty, he is blunt and makes clear it is only a matter of time before Yellow Mantis relentlessly hounds them.

EDIT: Also just want to note, this is just the twin fisted eagle hook angle (there is one for yellow mantis presented, and a couple of other possibilities listed after that as well)

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is what I mean when I ask what play is meant to be about. It's the central premise of the campaign, seemingly.

Not really. The campaign is the entire region. The sect war was a module intended to demonstrate what a sect war looks like. Usually I try to avoid creating an angle for the campaign and instead see what the PCs are interested in doing. The one exception to this was my Lady 87 campaign, where I asked if they would be happy to just all be criminals in the Lady 87 Organization. But interestingly I ran that setting material for three different campaign groups and one of them didn't engage any of the criminal elements at all.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Above you provide some suggestions on how to get the PCs involved in the conflict. This is followed by some tables for rumors and daily events. These are the kind of specific things I'm asking about. It seems like these charts are meant to highlight the growing conflict, and to show how it is escalating.

I addressed some of this in the above post, but those are mainly there to help give the GM a tool for tracking and managing the conflict. For example, it will need to be clear who is wining and losing at a certain point, and how things are panning out from time to time. You also need a way to decide who is getting killed. The rumors are just ways for facts of the setting to become apparent to the players. That table is a tool. A more experienced GM could handle rumors through other methods (for instance i don't usually use rumor tables in my own campaigns.