D&D 5E Respect Mah Authoritah: Thoughts on DM and Player Authority in 5e

[FrogReaver]

This. The DM is responding to the players' wishes and the story moves where they take it, not him.

Thanks. I think it also helps illustrate how world events in a living sandbox can either become a play focus or a background element depending on player wishes expressed through their PC.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Various approaches to content creation are definitely different things, but they don't directly relate to the sandbox spectrum, as I've defined it. The spectrum is only looking at one dimension of play: how often players are expected to make strategic choices from among specific options for that choice offered by the GM, rather than being able to make open-ended decisions. The various techniques for creating that content can each be used at any point on the spectrum.

For example, a campaign that focuses on a particular plot and uses mostly pre-written content might have a table expectation that players usually choose from the list of pre-prepared options (thus tending towards the non-sandbox end of the spectrum) precisely because those are the options for which pre-written content exists. An exhaustively pre-written hexcrawl campaign, by contrast, might have the expectation that players can go anywhere within the setting and do anything (thus tending towards the sandbox end of the spectrum), despite being just as heavily reliant on pre-authored material as the plot-focused campaign was.

Similarly, an improv-heavy "living world" style campaign can be somewhere near the sandbox end of the spectrum, while an informal "curated story" style campaign (e.g. something akin to an improvized, tailored CYOA novel) can be near the non-sandbox end of the spectrum despite both relying on the GM making up the content as they go along.

As an aside, I think that the fact that different content creation styles can be used at all points along the sandbox spectrum emphasizes that the variable the spectrum is isolating (i.e. frequency of constrained vs unconstrained strategic decisionmaking) is an independent variable worth looking at when describing a campaign's style. (For the campaigns that fit on the spectrum, anyway.)

So, then, there's no difference to you between a high-sandbox game like a hexcrawl where the GM has extensively detailed setting notes that the players discover and a game where the GM just makes things up as they go?

This doesn't seem like it's useful to do, though, because those things are pretty different in play. The former, provided strong adherence to prep, is much less likely to produce Forced play, while the latter is overly ripe for it. In other words, an Improv heavy game can be one where the GM improvs to keep the players on the rails but hides this, and could be even more controlled than a game that rates much lower on the sandbox scale. At which point, given the intent is to determine the level of player choice, I'm not sure you're doing useful work here with this.

First, I would rarely consider "going over the hills to the north" to be a strategic decision on its own. It's missing any description of strategic aims or purpose. Maybe it would contextually qualify as a strategic decision in certain unusual circumstances, such as a cross-country chase through unfamiliar terrain?

To illustrate what I mean by "strategic choices", consider a situation where the PCs' goal (howsoever determined) is to free political prisoners from a particular Duke. The GM asks the players whether they want to try for a breakout, or instead to try to negotiate with the Duke first. If the table expectation is that the decision is constrained to the two options presented, this would nudge the campaign towards the non-sandbox end of the spectrum. Conversely, if the expectation is that the decision is open-ended, that would nudge the campaign towards the sandbox end of the spectrum. As an example of taking advantage of the open-ended option, maybe the players respond that they want to head to the (previously established, but not yet featured) capital city and instead apply pressure on the (previously established, but not yet featured) King to intervene, hopefully either getting the prisoners released or provoking the Duke into open defiance of the King (which would then provide legal cover for a forcible breakout attempt).

Second, note that the spectrum is agnostic to later tactical decisions regarding how to pursue the chosen strategy and to the eventual mechanical resolution, whether via (e.g.) combat(s), ability check(s), skill challenge(s), player-facing fiat mechanics, roleplayed social encounter(s) decided by GM fiat, or any other sort of mechanic. So I don't think my spectrum is making nearly as many unspoken assumptions as you suggest. The only real assumption is that when talking about comparing two campigns' places on the spectrum (i.e. discussing which one is more sandboxy) the comparison only works if both campaigns fit on the spectrum in the first place. But I've been explicit about that assumption from the start by acknowledging that there are campaign styles that don't fit on the spectrum at all.

Third, from my perspective a GM offering the players meaningless choices is just passive-aggressively constraining the players' options. So when trying to decide if a given strategic decision is constrained or unconstrained, I would simply ignore meaningless options even if they are ostensibly available to the PCs.

Huh. So, I can have a high sandbox score if I, occasionally, ask the players to make a choice about the direction of play they want, and then railroad the heck out of them through that, and then repeat? That's... not at all what I expected.

What you should expect follows directly from how the spectrum is specified. (How could it be anything else?) Proportionately, the fraction of strategic decisions which are unconstrained by an expectation to pick an option from a GM-provided list is 50% higher in a campaign pegged at 60% on the sandbox spectrum than a campaign pegged at 40%. So you'd know to expect noticably more player authority over campaign direction in the 60% sandbox campaign, but that both campaigns feature a pretty even mix of times when the players are expected to follow the GM's lead and times when the GM is expected to follow the players' lead.

(One might alternatively reasonably conclude that, in practice, the calibration issues with the spectrum that I've acknowledged from the start make 60% vs 40% within the margin of error of whatever methodology is being used to score the two campaigns.)

I've repeated the definition of the spectrum many times, so I'm perplexed by how you wouldn't know what to expect to learn when comparing two campaigns' relative sandboxiness. To clarify in case I've created confusion: I'm not trying to say that the sandbox spectrum is some general-purpose analytical tool from which multi-faceted conclusions can be drawn about playstyle. Instead, I'm saying that one can look in isolation at how frequently strategic decisions are constrained or unconstrained in a campaign (if applicable) and the result will be somewhere between never and always. More simply, I'm saying it is meaningful to discuss the concept of sandboxiness on a range, rather than treating "sandbox" as a binary property or using the term as a label that refers to exactly one specific style of play.

Actually, the part that was hidden is how "strategic decisions" was being handled. It appears that play in your sandbox spectrum is just about how often the GM checks in and asks for input on what the game is about. I mean, technically, an AP qualifies if the strategery is narrowed down to "do we play this AP or not." If you classify the rest as tactic decisions to pursue this, then we're in high sandbox territory, yes? I feel the answer to this is no, though, and that there's quite a lot to unpack about the difference between a strategic and tactical decision and who decides which is which -- which goes directly to my point that there's a huge set of unstated assumptions undergirding the spectrum. You've just done a think where you think that you can clearly define a spectrum using "strategic decisions" and than bury the assumptions in the strategic decisions, thereby keeping the spectrum clean and obvious. It's not, though, it's just got one more layer of obfuscation.

 

[Ovinomancer]

In real life objective truth exist. In fiction it doesn't. In fiction the truth is what we are told.

You've moved the pea, shift the goalposts, done some equivocation. I mean, I saw a lot of ways that this example might be attacked -- primarily that there's a large emotional difference between a committed relationship built on trust and a game -- but I didn't expect this.

When I'm railroaded in a game, as a player, that's not part of the fiction. It's my choices being overridden by another real person. This isn't a fictional thing.

What I am trying to do is take things to the level at which they're actually experienced. When GMing it is important to recognise how things actually appear/seem/feel to the players. In these discussions a lot of people seem to talk things about some omniscient objective perspective. But that is not what the players experience.

No one's using an omniscient objective perspective -- this is intentionally not listening and inventing strawmen. People have been explicit that the approach is because they feel it better fits the information that the characters would have rather than secondhand prose from the GM that the players have to interpret for their characters.

I mean, you can prefer whatever you want, but if you have to lie about what other people are saying to make yourself feel better about your approach, that's not a good look.

But again, if the player feel that what they declared mattered, how is it different from their perspective?

What if the player finds out later that it didn't matter? Is it an issue then, or should they just feel pleased that they were entertained in that moment?

Honestly, this really seems to come down to an argument that the GM's job is to entertain the players, and, so long as that entertainment happens, methods are meaningless. What this ignores is anyone that doesn't want to just be entertained by being told a story by the GM, or by having the die rolls and things they say woven into a story by the GM (a slightly different thing). If I want to play a game to find out what happens, not what the GM thinks should happen, but what happens, then this isn't doing a thing for me.

Imagine we play a game like Gloomhaven, but instead of everything being in the open, there's a new role for a GM who handles all of the mechanics in a hidden way and tells you the results. You play a game where everything comes down to the line, and you win by the skin of your teeth. And so the next game as well. In fact, every game is close and a nailbiter! This is fun, right? I would not think so. I would be very leery that a game predicated on random resolution would reliably produce this effect. I've played a ton of Gloomhaven, and this happens -- for sure, had a few games that literally came down to a single moment and the right number showing up -- but it's usually not quite that close. You either win or lose by a clear margin. That's what that game generates, and I don't think it improves if someone's managing it for me to tell me a fun story because that's not what I want from that game.

So, this simple single sentence argument is utterly failing to consider that people might want something out of an RPG that is other than the GM deftly entertaining them with the GM's idea of the story.

Yeah, I agree with all of these. These are the reasons I limit my use of force as GM. Bur I also recognise that it is just for my own enjoyment, not for the players. They wouldn't know.


Yes, I want that too. And if the GM was a masterful illusionist that made me feel like that even though they had planned it all, my experience would be exactly the same.

Mine wouldn't, because it's rather hard to do this if I'm not helping the GM sell it to me. It gets obvious. Firstly, the game can't be about my character, and if I try to make my character matter, that will get shut down or dealt with in an unsatisfactory way. So, the game has to be about things that aren't my character. That's obvious. Secondly, no matter what we do, the arc/pacing will remain the same -- we cannot play in a skilled manner to affect events, because that steers the story away from what the GM wants. Thirdly, we won't be allowed to fail in a way that derails the game. So, when we screw up, something will happen that saves us, no, not us, the GM 's story. The way that this will be avoided is if the GM makes sure we understand that our characters are not important and our role can be filled by another set of bodies. That's the alternative to 'can't fail,' you're completely replaceable. These things do not engage me much, so it's pretty easy to tell when this is happening because the game is something that expressly discounts my character as being at all important to the game except as a pawn to push forward the story. I can detect this.

I find these discussions interesting, It is always good to see other perspectives, even if you disagreed. I also don't think that our GMing styles in practice differ significantly, I just feel that certain things are not bad in similar dogmatic way than you do. I don't use force often. I however I don't think it is a bad tool in any fundamental level. Ultimately I aim to provide good experience for the players, and I feel using force often makes things less fun for me, but more fun for them. Because making things more fun for the players would be the only reason for me to use force.

Given how poorly you seem to be able to articulate the other positions, up to and including actively misrepresenting them after being corrected multiple times, I'm not entirely convinced your interested in learning anything.

I really wish discussions could move past 'force bad!' 'no, force good!' stage and we could discuss what applications of force are beneficial. For example GM might use force/illusionsm/railroading to force a situation that would be relevant to the characters bonds/flaws/motivations, provide challenge that would resonate with the important player authored aspects of the character and let the player make significant decision relating to things that are relevant to their character. Basically the GM might railroad on micro level to give the player an opportunity to use their agency on macro level.

The discussion has long been not about Force bad or good. Every single person you've responded to in the last many pages has been explicit about this. Complaining now that this conversation is about that just shows that you're not actually engaged with the other posters, but instead pushing an agenda against something that you imagine.

 

[Xetheral]

So, then, there's no difference to you between a high-sandbox game like a hexcrawl where the GM has extensively detailed setting notes that the players discover and a game where the GM just makes things up as they go?

There's quite a bit of difference! Just not necessarily a difference regarding where the two campaigns fall on the sandbox spectrum. I don't know how to emphasize more clearly than I already have that the sandbox spectrum measures one aspect of play style in isolation.

This doesn't seem like it's useful to do, though, because those things are pretty different in play. The former, provided strong adherence to prep, is much less likely to produce Forced play, while the latter is overly ripe for it. In other words, an Improv heavy game can be one where the GM improvs to keep the players on the rails but hides this, and could be even more controlled than a game that rates much lower on the sandbox scale. At which point, given the intent is to determine the level of player choice, I'm not sure you're doing useful work here with this.

If it's an entirely improvised campaign high on the sandbox spectrum, then use of Force to determine direction of play would create a contradiction. So I can't agree that a GM making everything up as they go is ripe for Force in terms of negating the players' strategic decisions. The more frequently the DM uses Force to override players' strategic choices, the lower that campaign fall on the sandbox spectrum.

Note that the GM could still use Force in other ways (e.g. altering enemy stats to cut short a battle for pacing purposes) equally well in either a pre-written or heavy-improv game. That wouldn't affect a campaigns's place on the spectrum.

Huh. So, I can have a high sandbox score if I, occasionally, ask the players to make a choice about the direction of play they want, and then railroad the heck out of them through that, and then repeat? That's... not at all what I expected.

No. Strategic decisions exist at all levels of play. Giving the players occasional high-level open-ended decisions would make the campaign more sandboxy than an othererwise-identical campaign that didn't offer that choice, but it would still rate low on the sandbox spectrum unless somehow the high-level decisions outnumber the low-level decisions. (With a caveat again to the calibration issues I've flagged from the start.)

Actually, the part that was hidden is how "strategic decisions" was being handled. It appears that play in your sandbox spectrum is just about how often the GM checks in and asks for input on what the game is about. I mean, technically, an AP qualifies if the strategery is narrowed down to "do we play this AP or not." If you classify the rest as tactic decisions to pursue this, then we're in high sandbox territory, yes? I feel the answer to this is no, though, and that there's quite a lot to unpack about the difference between a strategic and tactical decision and who decides which is which -- which goes directly to my point that there's a huge set of unstated assumptions undergirding the spectrum. You've just done a think where you think that you can clearly define a spectrum using "strategic decisions" and than bury the assumptions in the strategic decisions, thereby keeping the spectrum clean and obvious. It's not, though, it's just got one more layer of obfuscation.

For purposes of the specification of the sandbox spectrum, I would consider tactical decisions to be those relating to resolution of the immediate scene. Strategic decisions, by contrast, would be those that determine the PCs plans and goals (both high-level and low-level), which influence future scenes and thus the direction of the campaign. I thought this distinction was evident based on how I was connecting the sandbox spectrum to player authority over campaign direction, but apparently it was not. I apologize for any confusion, and hope the definition of the sandbox spectrum is now more clear to you.

If it helps, here's an illustrative example of how I see strategic decisions at multiple levels in comprison to a tactical decision in relation to a PC assault on a fortress. A high-level strategic decision would be to try to breach the fortress in order to achieve high-level goal X. A lower-level strategic decision would be what resources to gather and prepare to enable a breach of the fortress. An even-lower level strategic decision would be devising the attack plan for how, where, and when to employ those resources to breach the fortress. Once at the chosen time and place to attempt the breach, a tactical decision would be what ability to use now to surmount any immediate obstacles and enable the desired breach.

All of these levels of strategic decisions determine the direction of the campaign (at correspondingly different scales). And all of these levels of strategic decisions are potentially constrained by table expectations to pick from a list of GM-provided options, or alternatively may be unconstrained. Thus, the spectrum takes all such decisions into account. (By contrast, tactical decisions are often constrained primarily by the ruleset being employed, with table expectations being a secondary parameter.)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You've moved the pea, shift the goalposts, done some equivocation. I mean, I saw a lot of ways that this example might be attacked -- primarily that there's a large emotional difference between a committed relationship built on trust and a game -- but I didn't expect this.

When I'm railroaded in a game, as a player, that's not part of the fiction. It's my choices being overridden by another real person. This isn't a fictional thing.

Everything that happens in the game is fiction.

No one's using an omniscient objective perspective -- this is intentionally not listening and inventing strawmen.

People have been talking things from top down, 'process as a whole' perspective a lot.

People have been explicit that the approach is because they feel it better fits the information that the characters would have rather than secondhand prose from the GM that the players have to interpret for their characters.

And as my example of how the lake monster scenario could be something completely different if we relayed as subjective perceptions of the characters, but not if we relay it as objective mechanics, this argument simply doesn't hold.

I mean, you can prefer whatever you want, but if you have to lie about what other people are saying to make yourself feel better about your approach, that's not a good look.

I am not. If you feel that I do not understand your point correctly, then perhaps try be clearer?

What if the player finds out later that it didn't matter? Is it an issue then, or should they just feel pleased that they were entertained in that moment?

I don't know. I would be impressed.

Honestly, this really seems to come down to an argument that the GM's job is to entertain the players, and, so long as that entertainment happens, methods are meaningless. What this ignores is anyone that doesn't want to just be entertained by being told a story by the GM, or by having the die rolls and things they say woven into a story by the GM (a slightly different thing). If I want to play a game to find out what happens, not what the GM thinks should happen, but what happens, then this isn't doing a thing for me.

If you had fun, why you worry why you had fun? Nothing illegal or dangerous is happening in RPGS, there is no wrong kind of fun!

Mine wouldn't, because it's rather hard to do this if I'm not helping the GM sell it to me. It gets obvious. Firstly, the game can't be about my character, and if I try to make my character matter, that will get shut down or dealt with in an unsatisfactory way. So, the game has to be about things that aren't my character. That's obvious. Secondly, no matter what we do, the arc/pacing will remain the same -- we cannot play in a skilled manner to affect events, because that steers the story away from what the GM wants. Thirdly, we won't be allowed to fail in a way that derails the game. So, when we screw up, something will happen that saves us, no, not us, the GM 's story. The way that this will be avoided is if the GM makes sure we understand that our characters are not important and our role can be filled by another set of bodies. That's the alternative to 'can't fail,' you're completely replaceable. These things do not engage me much, so it's pretty easy to tell when this is happening because the game is something that expressly discounts my character as being at all important to the game except as a pawn to push forward the story. I can detect this.

And if you can tell, then it wasn't perfect illusion was it? Now I don't really think in practice anyone could run a whole campaign or even a game making the players feel that they're in charge whilst they aren't. Well, perhaps if Derren Brown or someone like that was running a game they could. I practice easiest way to make sure players not feel railroaded is to not railroad them. But small instances of force can of course be easily perfectly unnoticed. And as I said, they can actually be used to enhance player agency on macrolevel, to steer the game towards things that allows them to use their agency on important things.

Given how poorly you seem to be able to articulate the other positions, up to and including actively misrepresenting them after being corrected multiple times, I'm not entirely convinced your interested in learning anything.

Look. If I poorly articulate someone's position I'm still ahead of you as it means that I at least thought about their position!

The discussion has long been not about Force bad or good. Every single person you've responded to in the last many pages has been explicit about this. Complaining now that this conversation is about that just shows that you're not actually engaged with the other posters, but instead pushing an agenda against something that you imagine.

Certainly opinions about GM force being mostly negative have been expressed. But your responses to me have mostly been just hostile and free of any actual attempts to communicate, so perhaps it is not worthwhile to continue?

 

[hawkeyefan]

In real life objective truth exist. In fiction it doesn't. In fiction the truth is what we are told.

Sure. And the procedures of the game are happening in real life.

What I am trying to do is take things to the level at which they're actually experienced. When GMing it is important to recognise how things actually appear/seem/feel to the players. In these discussions a lot of people seem to talk things about some omniscient objective perspective. But that is not what the players experience.

I think you mean that’s not what the character experiences, right?

I ask because what the characters experience and what the players experience are going to be different. Even if your goal is to try and bring them as close to identical as possible, there are going to be differences there.

I prefer to err on the side of giving the players too much ratherthan not enough.

But again, if the player feel that what they declared mattered, how is it different from their perspective?

From their perspective it isn’t. But depending on their expectation, it may matter to them quite a bit. Or not at all. Or any point in between.

I think subverting expectations is a betrayal.

Yeah, I agree with all of these. These are the reasons I limit my use of force as GM. Bur I also recognise that it is just for my own enjoyment, not for the players. They wouldn't know.

Yes, I want that too. And if the GM was a masterful illusionist that made me feel like that even though they had planned it all, my experience would be exactly the same.

I guess so, sure. But let me ask you…why hide anything like this from the players?

I find these discussions interesting, It is always good to see other perspectives, even if you disagreed. I also don't think that our GMing styles in practice differ significantly, I just feel that certain things are not bad in similar dogmatic way than you do. I don't use force often. I however I don't think it is a bad tool in any fundamental level. Ultimately I aim to provide good experience for the players, and I feel using force often makes things less fun for me, but more fun for them. Because making things more fun for the players would be the only reason for me to use force.

If we look at Force as a tool, then I’d say it’s a matter of being the right tool for the job or not. I’d say anything that’s not fun for both the GM and the players is something worth examining. I don’t think there should be such disparity there.

Like, the aim should be to provide a good experience for the group as a whole (knowing that what constitutes a good experience will vary by group).

I really wish discussions could move past 'force bad!' 'no, force good!' stage and we could discuss what applications of force are beneficial. For example GM might use force/illusionsm/railroading to force a situation that would be relevant to the characters bonds/flaws/motivations, provide challenge that would resonate with the important player authored aspects of the character and let the player make significant decision relating to things that are relevant to their character. Basically the GM might railroad on micro level to give the player an opportunity to use their agency on macro level.

I don’t know how you mean Force in these examples here. Can you get any more specific?

If Force is a tool, what jobs is it useful for?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think you mean that’s not what the character experiences, right?

I ask because what the characters experience and what the players experience are going to be different. Even if your goal is to try and bring them as close to identical as possible, there are going to be differences there.

No, I mean players. Though, yes, character and player knowledge being closely aligned is desirable.

But what I mean is thinking about how things appear to players, how they receive the information etc. I feel that often in these discussions people worry about the sort of purity of GM methodology that is mostly invisible to the players.

From their perspective it isn’t. But depending on their expectation, it may matter to them quite a bit. Or not at all. Or any point in between.

I think subverting expectations is a betrayal.

Right. And I get that a lot of people here care about how things are done, even if it wouldn't affect their experience in practice. And I just don't understand why... If you had an interesting and fun experience, why it matter how it was achieved? But I think this might be simply a matter of people's brains being wired too differently and thus me being fundamentally unable to get this.

I guess so, sure. But let me ask you…why hide anything like this from the players?

Why hide what? Hiding use of the force at the moment is to maintain the illusion of the game world being objective and real; though of course the players know it isn't, but one doesn't want to bring attention to that during the game.

If we look at Force as a tool, then I’d say it’s a matter of being the right tool for the job or not. I’d say anything that’s not fun for both the GM and the players is something worth examining. I don’t think there should be such disparity there.

Sure. If it is not fun for you, don't do it. But when I said it might lessen my fun as a GM, I mean very mildly. It is like I might feel that I failed to design things properly so that they would run smoothly without little jury rigging.

I don’t know how you mean Force in these examples here. Can you get any more specific?

If Force is a tool, what jobs is it useful for?

In a game there are small decisions: do we go left or right, does this random encounter gnoll live or die, do we speak to the priest or the blacksmith. Then there are big decisions: is my family more important than my honour, what lengths I will go to get my vengeance, will I sacrifice my love for the greater good. And I feel it might be pretty justified to use force on some of those small decisions, if it ensures that we get to the situation where the players can make those big decisions.

 

[FrogReaver]

No, I mean players. Though, yes, character and player knowledge being closely aligned is desirable.

But what I mean is thinking about how things appear to players, how they receive the information etc. I feel that often in these discussions people worry about the sort of purity of GM methodology that is mostly invisible to the players.



Right. And I get that a lot of people here care about how things are done, even if it wouldn't affect their experience in practice. And I just don't understand why... If you had an interesting and fun experience, why it matter how it was achieved? But I think this might be simply a matter of people's brains being wired too differently and thus me being fundamentally unable to get this.


Why hide what? Hiding use of the force at the moment is to maintain the illusion of the game world being objective and real; though of course the players know it isn't, but one doesn't want to bring attention to that during the game.


Sure. If it is not fun for you, don't do it. But when I said it might lessen my fun as a GM, I mean very mildly. It is like I might feel that I failed to design things properly so that they would run smoothly without little jury rigging.


In a game there are small decisions: do we go left or right, does this random encounter gnoll live or die, do we speak to pries or blacksmith. Then there are big decisions: is my family more important than my honour, what lengths I will go to get my vengeance, will I sacrifice my love for the greater good. And I feel it might be pretty justified to use force on some of those small decisions, if ensures that we get to the situation where the players can make those big decisions.

Yep. Force can be used to cut through a bunch of minor stuff and get directly to big decisions. If there's any area where force should be acceptable then it's there.

I also think it's important to recognize that there can be player force upon the GM.

 

[pemerton]

This probably won't be a very popular citation in this thread, but I feel Justin Alexander has a serviceable definition of sandboxing here:

My objection to that Justin Alexander definition is that it is extremely over-inclusive! Here it is:

A sandbox campaign is one in which the players are empowered to either choose or define what their next scenario is going to be.​

So here's a completely serviceable way of playing a D&D campaign: every week (or month, or whatever) the players buy a new module and ask the GM to run it for them. They make sure the module is in the right level range for their PCs. And they gradually build their PCs up.

So the campaign goes - in virtue of those player choices - T1 (Hommlet), B2 (KotB), B3 (Palace of the Silver Princess), A1-A2 (ie the high notes of the Slave Lords), S2 (WPM), C2 (Ghost Tower), G1-G3 (Giants) at which point the PCs retire in glory.

But I don't think anyone would call that a sandbox campaign. The choosing of the scenarios happens completely independently of the players declaring any actions for their PCs.

I mean, the players could even choose to play some or all of the DL modules in this sort of set-up!

When we get to the next bit of what Justin Alexander said - "Hexcrawls are a common sandbox structure because geographical navigation becomes a default method for choosing scenarios, which are keyed to the hexes you’re navigating between" - we see that it is one instance of the definition of sandbox I gave upthread: there is a backstory/setting, with latent situations ("scenarios"), which the players "activate" by declaring appropriate sorts of actions for their PCs (especially "We move from A to B" or "We look around").

The second sentence references both space and notes. But that could be just convention--there's no reason you couldn't meet the primary criteria without relating the scenarios via an extensively keyed map.

So would you count my example of the players bringing a module a week as a sandbox? Or do you agree with me, and with what is implicit in Alexander's actual example of the hexcrawl, that the selection of scenarios (= activation of situtions) must take place via player action declarations for their PCs? And if the latter, how do you envisage that working other than the players engaging with the GM's pre-authored content?

It need not be via moving on a map hexcrawl style. Instead the players could have their PCs wander a city triggering NPCs - as in @FrogReaver's example of the factions. But the basic principle - activate situations that are latent in the GM's setting material - would be the same.

Genuine questions: How many notes count as "story before"?

Story before is not about notes. Apocalypse World uses notes - fronts, threats, associated clocks, etc - but is a "story now" game. (The acknowledgements page even says that the whole follows from Edwards's "Story Now" essay. Perhaps that's an overstatement but it tells us something about how Baker views his game.)

I've never played Sorcerer but I believe it uses notes. HeroWars is set in Glorantha, and so very much uses notes, but is a quintessential "story now" game.

Story before is about pre-authorship of plot, of resolution. @FrogReaver's example of the PC striking a deal with the faction looks to me like story before, because it seems to me that the options for that interaction are already foreclosed - either the PC walks away, or the PC agrees to raid the outpost - and then the GM pulls out the outpost maps and notes they just happened to have ready-to-hand! Of course I can't say this for sure, because @FrogReaver's example didn't describe how any of the fiction was actually established, so I'm conjecturing based on a general sense of how D&D is often played.

Here's an example of a negotiation with a faction leader in a "story now" game (I'm the player; my fried is the GM; the RPG is Burning Wheel); I think you've read it before, because you-posrepped the post I'm quoting from:

* First, I build the PCs - Thurgon, a knight of a holy military order (the Knights of the Iron Tower), and his sorcerer sidekick Aramina. The GM tells me that we're starting play on the Pomarj-Ulek border - that's a bit warmer than I had expected (in my initial conception Thurgon is rather Germanic) but I roll with it. The backstory I've written for Thurgon includes that "Thurgon left the Iron Tower only weeks ago. The Knight Commander of the order sent him forth into the wilderness. He does not know why." And also that Thurgon has not set foot there in Auxol, his ancestral estate, for over 5 years, since he left to take service with the Iron Tower.

* Now there are some ambiguities in Thurgon's background as represented by some build elements: there is an Affiliation with the Order of the Iron Tower; and also a reputation as The Last Knight of the Iron Tower. So it's not clear if the Tower has fallen, or is falling. The GM doesn't push for certainty in that respect. Instead, he starts fairly low-key and as one might expect: we (that is, Aramina and Thurgon) are travelling along the river frontier (between the settled lands of Ulek and the wilder lands of the forest and the Pomarj), where there are old forts of the order (now abandoned) and also abandoned settlements.

* At one of the homestead, I declared a couple of checks: a Homestead-wise check (untrained) to learn more about the circumstances of abandonment of this particular ruined homestead, which succeeded, and hence (in this case) extracted some more narration of backstory from the GM; and then a Scavenging check, looking for the gold that the homesteaders would have left behind in their panic and which the orcs would have been too lazy to find. Unfortunately this second check failed, which meant that Orcs from a raiding party had virtually infiltrated the homestead before I noticed them. Here we have an attempt at a player-authored plot moment, but the failure tilts the balance of narrational and hence situational authority back to the GM. The fight with the Orcs engaged Beliefs and Instincts, so there were local moments that expressed Thurgon's character in this bigger GM-established context.

* The Orcs (as the GM narrated things) were part of a larger raiding party, with mumakil. I think the GM was hoping I might chase the mumakil, but I have no animal handling, animal lore etc and so the mumakil remained nothing but mere colour. The larger raiding party was chased off by a force of Elves, again narrated by the GM. I wasn't surprised that Elves should show up - my GM loves Elves! I tried an untrained Heraldry check to recognise the Elves' arms, and failed - so the Elven leader was not too taken by me! In this there was cross-narration by me and the GM, but it ran in the same direction: as I was saying (in character) that I don't recognise the Elven leader's arms and wondered who he was, he (spoken by the GM) was telling me that he didn't like my somewhat discourteous look. I don't know what, if anything, the GM had in mind for the Elves, but one of Thurgon's Beliefs was (at that time) that fame and infamy shall no longer befall my ancestral estate. So I invited the Elf to travel with his soldiers south to Auxol, where we might host them. The GM had the Elf try and blow me off, but I was serious about this and so called for a Duel of Wits. Unfortunately my dice pool was very weak compared to the Elf's (6 Will dice being used for untrained Persuasion, so slightly weaker than 3 Persuasion dice vs 7 Will dice and 6 Persuasion dice) and so despite my attempt as a player to do some clever scripting I was rebuffed by the Elf without getting even a compromise. Here we have a player-authored plot moment. Although it ended in failure for the PC, it was all about what I as a player had brought into the situation. I'm pretty sure the GM hadn't anticipated this. So I don't know what he anticipated for the Elves' departure, but in the game it followed my failure to persuade them to join me.

For all I know, the GM had a lever-arch folder of notes and stats for his elves! What makes it "story now" rather than "story before" is that the plot - ie what do the elves do, vis-a-vis the protagonists (Thurgon's) desire to have them join with him - follows from the actual process of playing the game and resolving the actions.

Here is another example of the contrast between story now and story before, which I may have already posted in this thread; in this case, the notes are in both cases found in the published Episode Book for Prince Valiant:

The Crimson Bull, by Jerry Grayson, unfolds over multiple events in place as the PCs lead the bull of the title to the Vale of Mud. But these are really just extended framing - they don't presuppose particular prior decisions by the players other than to lead the bull to the Vale; and they provide colour and enrich the situation concerning the bull. The actual moment of crunch is in the finale, when the players (as their PCs) have to decide what to do with the bull and the pagan sacrifice of it by the wise woman of the Vale. I think it's a really well-conceived scenario.

A Prodigal Son - in Chains, by Mark Rein-Hagen, has some interesting elements but, as presented, is a railroad in the sense I've tried to set out above. The tell-tale in the writing is stuff like this:

At this point the Adventurers’ actions can have a direct impact on the story. They can meet with the yeomen leaders of the peasant army, try to sneak into the castle, run to get help from nearby nobles, or attack or harass the peasant army. Bryce does what they ask, but strongly requests that they let him speak with the peasant army.​

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Whatever happened, you need to have things end up with Bryce’s father, the duke, dead. . . .​

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Just as things seem to be winding down (one way or another) Bryce steps out of the crowd . . .​

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At this point you need to have things wind up with someone trying to kill someone else as a result of the heated argument over what to do. It can be a peasant trying to kill a yeoman, Alia trying to kill Samson, Samson trying to kill an Adventurer; but no matter what happens, Bryce throws himself in the way . . .​

In other words, there are moments of choice that are thematically weighty (how do the PCs deal with the politics and associated dynamics between the "prodigal son", his father the duke and his sister Alia) which have to come out a certain way for the scenario to play out as presented. When I used the scenario I picked up some of the key story elements but just ignored all of Rein-Hagen's sequencing and railroading.

I've gone into this level of detail because I think we have to look very closely at the details of how situations and events are being presented, how they relate to thematic framing and resolution, etc, before we can start to identify whether or not we're looking at a railroad.

Also, I think what Jerry Grayson has done is not only better as RPG design (at least relative to my preferences) but displays more ingenuity as a RPG writer. I think it takes a lot of cleverness to set out an extended framing that builds up the pressure in the overarching situation but without forcing resolutions on the way through that then force railroading if the whole scenario is to be used.

Both scenarios take up multiple pages (a bit less than 2 for The Crimson Bull, a bit less than 3 for A Prodigal Son). What makes one "story now" and the other "story before" is the different ways they present their respective situations, the way they manage passage from event to event, the way they frame the resolution, etc.[/indent]

 

[pemerton]

Those posters speculating about when Force is or is not acceptable or appropriate: Have you ever GMed a RPG without using Force?

If you haven't, I suggest that you try it. I think it will help you orient your position a bit more clearly.