D&D General Adventure Types and Literature Types

[not-so-newguy]

I run for a group where most of the players are new to table top RPGs; the other two players are new to 5th Edition.

Tier 1 LEVEL 1-4 Milestone level advancement. I made it strictly linear and chose each adventure [Tower of Zenopus / The Veiled Society / two homebrewed adventures using maps from Nights Dark Terror]

Tier 2(ish) LEVEL 5+ Experience points level advancement. We're now on the Isle of Dread by Goodman Games and the players have free reign to choose where they'd like to go within this sandbox. New players have since joined and they start at level 3 and get a 50% bonus to XP gained. I have presented 8 Adventure Hooks, but made it clear that these are just options.

The method to my madness is this: I wanted the players to focus on the rules during the initial levels and then I could expand their range of choices once they got the basics down

Edit: My literary preference didn't play into choosing to do this. My limited time as a teacher did though.

 

[J.Quondam]

The literature epics are freaky railroads and the authors were padding out the word count because they were getting paid by the word and had no freaking editor. Aka 5 pages on stick jock's shield. Most modern novels are railroads but the editor is cutting content to keep from paying the author.

Homer was paid by the word?

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't particularly like sandbox adventures (playing or running) because I enjoy long-term narrative and long-term characterization. And most of the sandboxy stuff I've played or read are not that... instead they are dozens of isolated "side quests" as you say, almost none of which have any connective tissue. And thus having a singular character experience through all of them is unnecessary-- you could just make up a different character for every single side quest and there's ultimately no difference in play experience. If who my character is doesn't matter because as soon as the next side quest starts nothing is connected back to the one we just finished... to me, that's just a waste of my time.

Now granted, I fully acknowledge that this attitude goes hand-in-hand with my desires to not have PC deaths occur that often either. If your character's going to be killed every six or seven sessions, the impetus to keep playing for me is lessened greatly because I don't wish to just make rando characters all the time just because the game rules required it. Again, a waste of my time. That's for me the ultimate in just "playing the board game" where I start with a new playing piece every couple of sessions. If I'm going to do that, then I might as well play HeroQuest.

 

[payn]

I don't particularly like sandbox adventures (playing or running) because I enjoy long-term narrative and long-term characterization. And most of the sandboxy stuff I've played or read are not that... instead they are dozens of isolated "side quests" as you say, almost none of which have any connective tissue. And thus having a singular character experience through all of them is unnecessary-- you could just make up a different character for every single side quest and there's ultimately no difference in play experience. If who my character is doesn't matter because as soon as the next side quest starts nothing is connected back to the one we just finished... to me, that's just a waste of my time.

Now granted, I fully acknowledge that this attitude goes hand-in-hand with my desires to not have PC deaths occur that often either. If your character's going to be killed every six or seven sessions, the impetus to keep playing for me is lessened greatly because I don't wish to just make rando characters all the time just because the game rules required it. Again, a waste of my time. That's for me the ultimate in just "playing the board game" where I start with a new playing piece every couple of sessions. If I'm going to do that, then I might as well play HeroQuest.

I hear ya. Most my sandbox experience has been old school skill play stuff. I do have a sentimental place for that kind of gaming and will never say no with the right people. However, I for sure appreciate a more connected story with long term goals for the PCs. I like seeing how the setting reacts to them and PCs in kind. Right now I am running Pirates of Drinax for the Traveller system. Its the best sandbox I have played. The PCs are given a ginormous goal to start the game and everything they do is working towards it. Plenty of faction play that adjusts with every session. A real welcome change of pace to the ol sandbox.

 

[el-remmen]

The literature epics are freaky railroads and the authors were padding out the word count because they were getting paid by the word and had no freaking editor. Aka 5 pages on stick jock's shield. Most modern novels are railroads but the editor is cutting content to keep from paying the author.

Homer was paid by the word?

Most novelists today are also not paid by the word.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I hear ya. Most my sandbox experience has been old school skill play stuff. I do have a sentimental place for that kind of gaming and will never say no with the right people.

Absolutely. If I go into a game knowing it's going to be a one-off... then that's cool. No problems doing that at all. But if the game is meant to be a "campaign"... then the advancement and growth of my character in the narrative to me is just as important as the growth of my character in game rules via leveling up. I don't play to "level up". Never have. Which is also why I don't care about high-level gaming or the issues that come with it... to me gaming at 5th level is no different than gaming at 15th. Yeah I have more game mechanic "stuff" I can do... but I'm more interested in what I can do and the impact and decisions I can have narratively.

 

[Lyxen]

I don't particularly like sandbox adventures (playing or running) because I enjoy long-term narrative and long-term characterization.

Most of the players in our groups would agree with you, myself included. We don't do full sandboxes, we usually do more local sandboxes in the middle of a story, so that context is kept.

Now granted, I fully acknowledge that this attitude goes hand-in-hand with my desires to not have PC deaths occur that often either. If your character's going to be killed every six or seven sessions, the impetus to keep playing for me is lessened greatly because I don't wish to just make rando characters all the time just because the game rules required it. Again, a waste of my time. That's for me the ultimate in just "playing the board game" where I start with a new playing piece every couple of sessions. If I'm going to do that, then I might as well play HeroQuest.

Another point of conjunction with the feeling at our tables, character death is bad in terms of story continuity, involvement of characters and therefore of players.

 

[Mannahnin]

Ideally a good sandbox should still develop ongoing plot threads over time in response to what the PCs do, as well as relationships with NPCs that are fodder for character development and growth.

 

[el-remmen]

I don't particularly like sandbox adventures (playing or running) because I enjoy long-term narrative and long-term characterization. And most of the sandboxy stuff I've played or read are not that... instead they are dozens of isolated "side quests" as you say, almost none of which have any connective tissue. And thus having a singular character experience through all of them is unnecessary-- you could just make up a different character for every single side quest and there's ultimately no difference in play experience. If who my character is doesn't matter because as soon as the next side quest starts nothing is connected back to the one we just finished... to me, that's just a waste of my time.

Now granted, I fully acknowledge that this attitude goes hand-in-hand with my desires to not have PC deaths occur that often either. If your character's going to be killed every six or seven sessions, the impetus to keep playing for me is lessened greatly because I don't wish to just make rando characters all the time just because the game rules required it. Again, a waste of my time. That's for me the ultimate in just "playing the board game" where I start with a new playing piece every couple of sessions. If I'm going to do that, then I might as well play HeroQuest.

I hear ya. Most my sandbox experience has been old school skill play stuff. I do have a sentimental place for that kind of gaming and will never say no with the right people. However, I for sure appreciate a more connected story with long term goals for the PCs. I like seeing how the setting reacts to them and PCs in kind. Right now I am running Pirates of Drinax for the Traveller system. Its the best sandbox I have played. The PCs are given a ginormous goal to start the game and everything they do is working towards it. Plenty of faction play that adjusts with every session. A real welcome change of pace to the ol sandbox.

Maybe I have a too broad definition of "sandbox" but my approach to it still has over-arcing plots and characterization/development. It is just that we find out what those are through play, specifically by the way the world reacts to what the PCs choose to do.

On the other hand, I do not like when every single adventure/side-quest is related to a main plot because that seem too coincidental for me - and I like some bottle episodes, where a self-contained event provides an opportunity for different experiences and learning about characters outside of the main plot.

 

[Umbran]

But you know--maybe I read too much and would do better to get away from the books in order to see what's around me.

Now, what we do is watch the change of adventure types we see over time, and corellate that with the decline of the short story form in genre fiction.

Most of the classics you mention are not really written by one person. They are folklore, originally part of an oral tradition that were eventually captured by some author. As part of an oral tradition, the individual segments are designed to be told in one sitting. Nobody told the story of The Odyssey. They told the story of Odysseus and the Cyclops, and a different story the next night, or the like.

This makes those classics more akin to an anthology of short stores than a novel. And, short stories used to be the dominant form of sci-fi. And its decline was matched by the rise of the novel.

We can see this transition a bit in The Hobbit - which originated as tales Tolkien told his children, and it is assembled in segments, much like an oral tradition story.