D&D General The Alexandrian’s Insights In a Nutshell [+]

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's not a plot, unless doing anything as a DM for prep is a plot? The PCs can go "not interested" and go on to the next town. There's no agency removed from the PCs.

"Prepping plot" is where you have a whole sequence of events set up that can only occur if the PCs go and rescue the girl. Not just because there's a whole bunch of hints about the girl seeded around the town. Do you understand the difference?

No, I don't see that there IS a difference. The whole PLOT involving the kidnapped girl centers on a sequence of events, a plot structure, which is built on that rescue attempt. So, sure, it may be that the players can go in some entirely other direction, though GMs in this paradigm do tend to discourage that in various ways. TA doesn't seem, in what I read, to have mentioned that sort of thing except as a potential negative for some, so I think he's not advocating especially for 'railroad' type play. OTOH he is doing a form of heavy prep preplotted stuff. My guess is in his own play that he's using very highly developed settings, such that there's a heavy sandbox type effect. I got that impression from this recent TA post

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

If your prep is "monsters attack the village, the PCs stop them and take a few prisoners, the PCs interrogate the prisoners, the PCs find clues pointing to the monsters' lair, the PCs follow the clues to the monsters' lair, the PCs attack the gate and win, the PCs...," that's a plot.

Not necessarily. PROCESS MATTERS. I mean, I could have that exact sequence show up in a completey Story Now, Zero Myth DW game. Yes, the GM will PROBABLY have some prep, a danger that describes which monsters those are and an impulse they are acting on that brings them to the village. However, even the existence of the village was not predetermined before session zero, maybe not even until LONG after, maybe even after the danger was created (though the doom of 'village attacked' obviously got invented after the village).

I think, at some level, structure emerges, and there is a 'plot like character' to it when it does. It is kind of inevitable. It is mostly a question of how far in advance that is, and what the 'depth' of that structure is, its detail, whether it is spun off PC character elements, player goals, or what. There isn't anything wrong with plot, it is a great tool! We should be happy to acknowledge it when appropriate.

 

[TheSword]

Irrespective of who came up with it first, building dungeons with multiple exits, entrances, routes through them, with loops back to earlier areas is definitely a good piece of advice.

Xandering the Dungeon

I believe that dungeons should always be heavily xandered....Okay, it’s true. I’m just making up words now. Recently, though, I’ve been doing some deep dives into the earliest days of

thealexandrian.net

I’m adding it to the OP list.

 

[niklinna]

Hmmm, I think we have utterly different ideas about how RPGs work. Honestly I mostly feel like that is true with TA as well, while his rosters and such might be usable to elide plot, I'm not sure he's really interested in doing that except on a very local scale. The "three clues" juxtaposed with "situations, not plots" really cannot be resolved any other way. He's not talking about true player freedom to interact with content and PLOT to emerge. He's just saying that specific tactical situations aren't scripted, but all the nodes and clues and such at the next level up, the 'adventure arc' is all totally mapped out, its plot to the max! I mean, it may be "several alternatives might emerge" but all of them were thoroughly envisaged by the GM.

OTOH an AW game does this top to bottom, there's NEVER any plot, at any level of play. Only what story emerges and the plot which that entails after the fact.

That statement leads naturally to the idea that there are multiple levels at which one could prep one way or another. Might be worth exploring whether this layering has functional restrictions on what works and not. Could you, say, have a bottom layer that's all situations, a middle layer of plots, and a top layer that is again situations only? (This is not to say there could only be three layers of course.) Or, can you never alternate from layer to layer...you can have situation on situation, but once you switch to plot, is it all plot the rest of the way up (or down)?

Edited for clarity.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So, "the village is being plagued by bandits" would not be acceptable in your game? A mysterious tomb in the nearby hills? A dragon making it's lair in the mountains?

These all suggest an agenda leading to a specific outcome.

I think all of these techniques and advices are highly situational and their valence depends heavily on additional factors, particularly game play process factors. Just taking your phrase above, I might ask consequentially:

1) how was the existence of the village established?
2) how is the nature and resources of the village established? Is it predetermined or is it open to discovery? Is that discovery player or GM mediated?
3) how was the existence of bandits as a threat established?
4) At what point in the process of play, or pre-play were all of the above established?
5) What are the principles of play which are being invoked, if any, in terms of what to establish, and how?
6) How much is established to follow from the village/bandit conflict?

Those are all vital questions! I mean, if nothing more than the existence of a village and some threatening bandits exists as a 'plot element', then there is VERY LITTLE plot, I think that's safe to say. There's a bit, "the bandits are going to attack the village tomorrow" is a plot element, but a small one. We can see a contrast here though, with say a DW danger. The bandit danger in DW has an impulse: 'loot and pillage' lets say. It will have a grim portent, maybe something like "the local reeve drove off a couple of suspicious strangers trying to steal a cow the other day, they disappeared into the Forest of Grin." There isn't really 'plot' here per-se, there's incipient story though! The bandits are very likely to attack the village, for sure, but it might not happen if, say, the PCs are proactive and attack the bandit camp first, before granting the GM a great opening to use his hard move to have the attack happen (say after the grim portent fires off on a soft move). It is definitely qualitatively a different sort of play, and things like 'clue rules' don't necessarily apply.

 

[niklinna]

We seem to be meandering all over the place and losing the...errr...plot.

The topic of conversation is "Three Clue Rule" is or is not at tension with "Don't Prep Plots." Not "does any prep at all or particular iterations of prep = plot?"

Hm, I was under the impression that the topic of conversation was "What other cool/useful things do you know of on The Alexandrian's blog?"

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The problem I’m seeing in this discussion is that people are conflating what JA describes as a situation with a plot rather than accepting his distinction between plot and a situation. A situation, as JA sees it, might very well be complex and require multiple steps/stages to interact with and resolve and can thus benefit from node design and the three clue rule while still not being a plot that requires the PCs to interact with it in and do so in a particular sequence or way.

So, basically there's no middle ground, either an RPG scenario is COMPLETELY linear, you can ONLY go from A -> B -> C and there's basically one way to do it, which you label 'plot', OR there is some sort of option along the way, like A -> B | C -> D where B and C are alternatives, in which case there's no 'plot' at all and its a 'situation'.

I mean, I won't argue semantics with anyone, but I think in the world of "interactive activities" that this sort of definition of plot has been largely abandoned and replaced by more of a continuum. Even in more traditional cases like, say, a screenplay, areas where the plot is not yet fully defined are not held to put the whole thing in some sort of 'other category' where there's no plot. It is just a 'not fully plotted story' and the missing bits will be resolved somehow at some point. I think this is a more useful kind of definition, personally.

 

[TheSword]

Hm, I was under the impression that the topic of conversation was "What other cool/useful things do you know of on The Alexandrian's blog?"

It was. Unfortunately it’s disappearing into the black hole that is story-now gaming. Which seems all about jargon and self reference.

Not particularly helpful or on topic. Arguing the merits of JA’s points is one thing. The walls of text and multiple post quoting is very off-putting.

Did you see anything else? Im going to have to read the blog aren’t I!

 

[niklinna]

I agree with your diagnosis. What I’m trying to do dig into is how techniques that have players arrive at the same destination (through admittedly different means) because that’s what the GM wants can be viewed so differently. Even Justin does this. The three clue rule is positioned as a robust alternative to traditional adventure design (particularly in mystery scenarios), but it still has the players going through what the GM planned. In my view, the difference is in its robustness rather than in the overall arc of play it creates.

He’s obviously aware of other solutions to implement a mystery. He discusses Gumshoe in his “Three Clue Rule” essay, but he rejects its solution. In his view, a mystery requires having established facts the PCs discover and interpret. If you are creating them as you go, you are superficially following the structure of a mystery story while failing to create the experience of playing a mystery. He doesn’t mention any other games, but the essay is sixteen years old, so they probably didn’t exist at the time. I suspect he’d feel about them the same as he does Gumshoe.

I've only read a few of JA's blog posts, and I don't intend to go back, but did he at any point say, "for this style of play, don't prep plots, but for that style of play, use the three-clue rule", or was all his advice (or the particuar bits being critiqued here) free of any context regarding play style?

 

[kenada]

Justin is giving advice, not dictating how it must be done. Advice is there to be listened to, considered, and as appropriate, ignored. Even though the guy has a bit of a messiah complex, it is not his intent to suggest that you must follow his rules at all times.

There are undoubtedly a great many ways to play D&D, and no advice is going to be appropriate for all of them.

As for his "three clue rule", it basically "no sh*t Sherlock"!

Sure. I agree. However, context is important. I had been responding in a particular thread of discussion regarding the nature of clues and how they are integrated into play. There are differences between techniques, and those are important (which you agreed with in post #87). The rest was my trying to explain why I was using randomization since post #71 seemed directed at comments I made earlier (such as in post #41). If not, then I apologize for my misunderstanding.