D&D General Let's Talk About How to "Fix" D&D

[jmartkdr2]

Neither is chasing rabbit trails when there aren't any rewards. When players get everything they need by staying on the railroad, and the only way to get more powerful is to stay on it, they stay on it.

Well, yeah - players will do what you reward them for. If you want them to stay on the path, put rewards on the path. If you want them to look around the wilderness, put rewards in the wilderness. If you want them talking to npcs, have the rewards come from talking to npcs.

If the rewards don't align with the desired behavior, change one or the other.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I think your approach smacks a little of bad-wrong-fun. Telling designers they should feel bad about using milestone based levelling.

It's not badwrongfun to be disappointed with something you bought.

Milestones work fine with an AP-style adventure. They don't work well at all with a sandbox adventure. There's nothing morally wrong with them. There's just no reason to fill in a hex map or fill out the details of a city if there aren't any rewards to be had; most players do not care.

 

[TheSword]

I'm not sure where the disconnect is regarding the DM signposting activities in the sandbox is. No oen suggested a wide open plain of nothing for the PCs to wander around in. Of course there are adventure possibilities (pre-generated, random, or some combination). I don't know what that has to do with the milestone versus "earned XP" leveling question.

Reynard, do you not see a disconnect between claiming milestone levelling in sandboxes is bad because it leads PCs... while at the same time acknowledging that DMs lead PCs in sandboxes with questions, location rumors and other rewards like treasure?

 

[TheSword]

It's not badwrongfun to be disappointed with something you bought.

Milestones work fine with an AP-style adventure. They don't work well at all with a sandbox adventure. There's nothing morally wrong with them. There's just no reason to fill in a hex map or fill out the details of a city if there aren't any rewards to be had; most players do not care.

And if your milestones are based on exploring an area?

I didn’t object to being disappointed. I objected to the idea adventure writers should feel bad for using milestones.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Reynard, do you not see a disconnect between claiming milestone levelling in sandboxes is bad because it leads PCs... while at the same time acknowledging that DMs lead PCs in sandboxes with questions, location rumors and other rewards like treasure?

Milestones don't emerge dynamically during play.

 

[fearsomepirate]

And if your milestones are based on exploring an area?

I didn’t object to being disappointed. I objected to the idea adventure writers should feel bad for using milestones.

I don't think anyone said that adventure writers should feel bad if they use milestones.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I guess you could start saying "you have to do N sidequests to get a milestone," but of course not all sidequests are created equal, so you'd want to weight sidequests by difficulty, and at that point, you've just reinvented XP.

 

[Reynard]

I don't think anyone said that adventure writers should feel bad if they use milestones.

I did but I was trying to be cheeky.

 

[Reynard]

Reynard, do you not see a disconnect between claiming milestone levelling in sandboxes is bad because it leads PCs... while at the same time acknowledging that DMs lead PCs in sandboxes with questions, location rumors and other rewards like treasure?

I think I understand. We appear to be using similar language but mean different things. Since I do not want to put words in your mouth, I will define how I am using terminology and perhaps it will clear up some miscommunication:

When I say "milestone leveling" I am not talking about an XP reward. I am talking about when the module or GM says you level when you do a specific thing ("When the characters defeat Lieutenant Mook in battle, they advance to 3rd level.") or when a certain amount of time goes by ("every 3 sessions") or in the case of Rime of the Frostmaiden, a sort of combination ("When the characters complete 2 side quests.")

A sand box is what in computer games are called an "open world." The degree to which the locations, NPCs, events, etc... in the open world are defined prior to the PCs' involvement is not necessarily central to that definition. A sandbox con be a completely random hexcrawl that is procedurally generated during play, or a tightly designed adventure area where everything is specifically crafted. Nor does the density of its features define it, one way or the other. Likewise, whether the sandbox is created by the GM, bought from the store, or any point on the continuum between the two is irrelevant. What makes it a sandbox is that the PCs are free to go wherever they want and do whatever they want, whenever they want.

This does not mean there is no content or that the GM does not present potential quests through anything from bulletin boards to NPCs asking for help to sudden and dramatic events. What there is not is a singularly defined "plot" -- although individual side quests may well have a built in story -- or predefined path (physical, temporal, or otherwise). And because there is no path, there can be no milestones.

Therefore, it is my opinion that it is necessary to award XP for engaging in the open world, with those awards commensurate with the risk and/or difficulty of the element in question, and that the players alone are responsible for making the choices of what elements to engage with.

 

[Lanefan]

If that's the goal, they'll do it. But if there's another goal that's central to the current situation, as I pointed out Out of the Abyss's built in initial situation of being captives of the drow, then farming the XPs with random fights and exploration is a distraction from that goal. If you want them to have the opportunity to level-up, align the XP awards and level-ups with their goals. If you want to see them explore these cool caverns where there are lots of XP opportunities, make sure there's a current goal-friendly hook to explore them that isn't just leveling up so they're prepared to face the capstone challenge to achieve their goal. Otherwise, you'll see the disappointment that people are reporting up this thread.

There seems to be - and please correct me if I'm wrong here - an underlying assumption in your post, that being the players (and maybe the DM as well) are very-to-extremely goal-oriented; that the "goal" is the only thing that matters and everything not directly related to achieving said goal is a distraction, and that this is reflected in the general characterization of their PCs.

Not all tables work this way. For some (many?), achieving goals might often be very secondary to just having fun along the way. For others, the journey and the "distractions" ARE the goal, because they know reaching an end point or achieving an overarching goal might leave them hanging with nothing to do next.

In fairness, adventure paths by their nature are highly goal-oriented - in part because they're often on a very tight 1-12 or 1-15 or whatever levelling schedule and don't handle distractions or side quests well. To me this is a flaw in their design, but for some reason people seem to like 'em so what do I know?