D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism

[pemerton]

Let’s have fun with this. Let’s say the hill giants have taken one of the peasants and the rogue, being a Folk Hero, decides to get her back. He gives a stirring speech and 8 peasants (stats spearman) decide to accompany him. They follow the trail to the hill giant barrow.

Probably with a large group stealthing through the barrow is not an option, unless they use the spearmen as a distraction.

This doesn't look to me like a description of a peasant revolt. Which bit of the feudal order is being overthrown?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Which is the same as saying that fifteen different people might walk down a street at different times and while the experience of doing so might be completely different for each one (who they meet, the weather, the time of day, the smell of someone's rose garden if it's in bloom, etc.) it's all the same in the end because in the end the street itself didn't change and they all got from one end of it to the other.

Everyone seems intent on reframing what I say into something I didn't. It's very weird. If we're talking about the street, then walkers on it are interchangeable -- the street doesn't change depending on who's walking on it. If we're following a specific walker and look at what happened to them as they walked down the street, that's going to be different from a different walker's walk in at least some small detail. Regardless of those details, the walker goes down the street, which is the same for all walkers, and arrives at the end of the street, which is the same for all walkers, and completes their walk down the street. The street, at no point, changes for any of the walkers -- they just make choices to encounter it slightly differently from each other.

I mean, there's a huge amount of similarity to recollections of what happens in CoS for various groups. The story beats are the same. The end goal is the same. Vallaki is the same. Doesn't matter who the character are for this. As far as the adventure goes, who's playing it is interchangeable because the adventure doesn't change based on who's playing it.

This is a desired trait, not a negative one, for the purposes to which APs aim.

You seem to only be looking at the part that says the street is the same and people go from one end to the other. I'm looking at the variable experiences they have en route and saying that's more than enough to consider each person's walk down the street to be a unique event.

No, I get that you're looking at it that way -- I've pointed it out to you and various other posters at least three times already. I'm not confused on this. I acknowledge details change on plays (they change with the same party and players and adventure even, if for nothing else other than the RNG). That was never my point. My point is that characters are interchangeable to the adventure. It's how I can announce to my group "I'm going to run Curse of Strahd," and then ask, "What characters are you making for it?" See the line there -- the adventure is picked and then characters made. Why? Because you can make and bring whatever you want, the adventure will still have the same challenges lined up. The difference will only be in the particulars of how a given group overcomes them. This is good fun, btw, and I'm not knocking it. I'm pointing out how APs, and much of 5e play, literally doesn't care what characters are present to try the challenges put out by the GM. It's not a game that does this. There are pros and cons and you absolutely can have loads of fun doing it -- I mean I still play and run 5e so I'm not against this idea at all (obligatory reminder I'm not a "you hate 5e" person). It's how the game is built and how it works. There are other games that don't do this, though, where the idea of an AP, or a main quest, or a side quest are just not.

 

[Umbran]

There isn't a main quest, so there can't be side quests. The construct is wrong.

Following on my warning to the thread, above - repeating a flat rejection, without any reasoning, does not lead to understanding. This is the stuff that makes this seem like head-butting waiting for someone to quit. If folks aren't interested in working to resolve misunderstandings, it is time to quit.

Instead of quitting, we might consider - in what way does following the initially established dramatic need^* not qualify as a "quest"?


* With the understanding that a dramatic need calls for some actions on the player's or character's part to discharge that need - even if we don't know the end state of the need being met.

 

[Lanefan]

Because “Side Quest” connotes “GM/metaplot (Story Before) authored.”

In your eyes, maybe. To me it simply means a temporary diversion from pursuit of one goal in order to pursue another.

Whether those goals are authored or developed by the GM or the player(s) is irrelevant.

The reason why Maraqli’s and Alastor’s “Forge Adventure” doesn’t qualify for “Side Quest” status is because:

a) The inciting event that triggered the armor breakage was PC dramatic need centered (therefore player authored).

b) The armor breakage was “system’s say” meets “player’s choice” (the player could have chosen Str Debility which would have led to different effect and divergent downstream fiction).

c) Repairing the armor became a dramatic need that the players collectively authored to be subsequent focal point of play.

d) Downstream of (c) all subsequent moves were employed to achieve the win con of “armor restored” (starting with the moves at the dig site to restore it that didn’t turn out > Spout Lore > explore glacier for forge > deadly adventure ensues and significant new content creation as a result.

Before the armour got broken they had, I have to assume, some other in-fiction reason to be where they were. Getting the armour fixed then becomes an important side goal, and once it's achieved they can then get back to doing whatever it was they were doing before.

Sounds like a classic side quest from here.

I would hope the above should be clear in how it’s profoundly differentiated from “GM offers plot hooks that have nothing to do with PC dramatic need/relationships” until players bite and “go to the place to get the thing for RandomNPC001.”

Different in origin, very similar in end result.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Following on my warning to the thread, above - repeating a flat rejection, without any reasoning, does not lead to understanding. This is the stuff that makes this seem like head-butting waiting for someone to quit. If folks aren't interested in working to resolve misunderstandings, it is time to quit.

It wasn't repeated. And I've had that discussion with Lanefan before. As have others. You are admonishing me because you've made an assumption, and apparently are of the opinion that I need to, every time, post the entire history of discussion again in case you skip in and lack context. Your assumption is incorrect. I do not envy you the egg upon your face. Further, the lead in that suggests my posts are a main threat to this thread is doubly offensive, especially when you control that option. I generally do not respect threats. If you didn't intend a threat, here, step back and consider how your post can be taken.

Instead of quitting, we might consider - in what way does following the initially established dramatic need^* not qualify as a "quest"?

There have been entire threads on this. Is the new requirement that some posters on some topics have to repeat everything? Heck, this has been touched on in this thread.

Perhaps, had you merely asked this question rather than taking the time to single me out and engage in some threatening moralizing, I'd be inclined to answer you. As it stands, I am not. I plan to not respond to you further, and ask you do me that favor as well, as I cannot utilize the provided board safety tools with regard to you.

 

[Blue]

Let's try a thought experiment. We're playing in an RPG game with a Luck roll that can be substituted in for other rolls, with downside that if the roll is failed, something unlucky will happen in addition to the failed roll, plus it's ablative and goes down with use.

My character is falling off a cliff and know he lousy at skills that would help grab on, and instead roll luck successfully. The DM asks how it occurs, I say that there was a sapling growing from the cliff and I grabbed on - a fairly common trope.

Does anyone have a problem with this?

Later I'm wandering through the tundra, slowly freezing to death. My academic has no real survival skills, so when attempting to make camp I substitute in another luck roll. Mind you, failing this will be dire between the failure and the bad luck result. Luckily (heh), I get the best possible roll, which mechanically should take care of all basic needs - so food, warmth and shelter in this case. Since my character can't provide those for himself, the DM thinks about how the luck can manifest and makes up that nomadic natives have small camps about for when they are hunting and I have stumbled on an empty one.

Does anyone have a problem with this?

...

Let me state this again in mechanical terms. I have a check that will require the DM to come up with something outside the direct actions of my PC, including negative consequences on a poor roll. In both cases it came up with something that makes sense to be found in the area but did not explicitly exist requiring the DM to author it in response to a successful player roll.

If you are okay with that but not the Spout Lore roll to remember the Forge, how do they differ mechanically for you? How they differ conceptually for you?

 

[prabe]

Let me state this again in mechanical terms. I have a check that will require the DM to come up with something outside the direct actions of my PC, including negative consequences on a poor roll. In both cases it came up with something that makes sense to be found in the area but did not explicitly exist requiring the DM to author it in response to a successful player roll.

If you are okay with that but not the Spout Lore roll to remember the Forge, how do they differ mechanically for you? How they differ conceptually for you?

Because if you choose to build a character as "lucky" you're accepting that your character's luck will cause things to happen outside your character's direct influence. That's not a choice someone who builds a character as knowledgeable is making (that your knowledge will cause things to happen outside your character's direct influence).

Mechanically, yes, they're the same.

 

[Lanefan]

Everyone seems intent on reframing what I say into something I didn't. It's very weird. If we're talking about the street, then walkers on it are interchangeable -- the street doesn't change depending on who's walking on it. If we're following a specific walker and look at what happened to them as they walked down the street, that's going to be different from a different walker's walk in at least some small detail. Regardless of those details, the walker goes down the street, which is the same for all walkers, and arrives at the end of the street, which is the same for all walkers, and completes their walk down the street. The street, at no point, changes for any of the walkers -- they just make choices to encounter it slightly differently from each other.

I mean, there's a huge amount of similarity to recollections of what happens in CoS for various groups. The story beats are the same. The end goal is the same. Vallaki is the same. Doesn't matter who the character are for this. As far as the adventure goes, who's playing it is interchangeable because the adventure doesn't change based on who's playing it.

This is a desired trait, not a negative one, for the purposes to which APs aim.

I'm starting to wonder if you and I remember adventures in quite different ways when telling war stories over a beer five years hence.

You seem to remember events, I tend to more remember what individual characters do during those events while sometimes forgetting what the actual events were!

I might not necessarily remember the battle against the BBEG in and of itself but I will remember Thog's valiant-but-doomed face-charge against him; an event that 99% likely would not have happened had Thog not been in the party. I might not remember the sequence of events otherwise in that adventure but I will remember the escalating rivalry between Danegald and Beyonak as each kept trying to one-up the other in feats of martiality and derring-do, to the point where after the adventure they challenged each other to duel. I might not remember what happened during the adventuring day on Auril 15; what I will remember is that's the night Carantha and Jorelle fell in love.

 

[Lanefan]

Let's try a thought experiment. We're playing in an RPG game with a Luck roll that can be substituted in for other rolls, with downside that if the roll is failed, something unlucky will happen in addition to the failed roll, plus it's ablative and goes down with use.

My character is falling off a cliff and know he lousy at skills that would help grab on, and instead roll luck successfully. The DM asks how it occurs, I say that there was a sapling growing from the cliff and I grabbed on - a fairly common trope.

Does anyone have a problem with this?

Yes in the larger concept of very much disliking this type of meta-currency as a mechanic in general, both as GM and player.

If such mechanics are accepted and in use, though, this seems fine.

 

[pemerton]

And your desire to make everything about who has authority, rather than what kind of authority it is, seems so clearly to be clinging to it at all cost that at this point I no longer believe you're actually interested in a conversation.

Put your hand on your heart, you genuinely do not know what subset of mechanics me, @Thomas Shey and some others mean?

I don't know what you mean by "scene editing" other than establishing new setting elements.

All you're doing here is reiterating a subject-matter distinction: between creating and recalling. Both are authorship, but only the latter implicates setting.

I don't think anyone is confused about this. I'm not, given that I have repeatedly contrasted backstory-first and situation-first techniques for dozens of pages now. I'm pretty sure that @Manbearcat is not either.

But you seem to think it is self-evident that action declarations that implicate setting should be treated differently from those that implicate scratches on Orcs. It's not. Both add new content to the shared fiction.

@Thomas Shey says I "make everything about who has authority" without responding to my remarks about subject matter. And @Crimson Longinus says "I do not know what subset of mechanics" are being discussed.

But I have repeatedly posted what I take you to be talking about: action declarations whose resolution implicates setting details, and where the authorship of those setting details - while undertaken by the GM - is not unconstrained. That is a subset of resolution processes; and it is one characterised not just by authority but by subject matter.