TSR How Did I Survive AD&D? Fudging and Railroads, Apparently

[Zardnaar]

Well, I did run a deconstructionist "regular" D&D game where the issue was that there were these roving bands of people who kept killing every thing indiscriminately, looted sacred tombs, operated as if they were above the law, and regularly wrecked the economy of entire countries by dumping gold and gems into it without any concerns for the severe economic shocks that this caused. Worse, they never even paid taxes on their ill-gotten gains.

The players controlled characters who were charged with tracking, finding, and terminating (with extreme prejudice) these scofflaws.

It's quite funny. Players don't like paying tax on their loot even if they have permission to loot sites for a cut to local ruler.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think that it hit me, after looking behind the curtain, that my core memories were all artificial. Every epic moment was scripted by some dude at TSR.
It might be a "no duh" moment for many of you, but it's really shattered my rose-colored glasses of nostalgia.
I've been asking myself for over 20 years, "why can't I run a good, memorable campaign?" Apparently, it's because I'm following standards of player agency, "playing to find out," etc.

It's an art not formula.

Killing an adult red dragon would normally be epic but it's kinda not hard now.

 

[Theory of Games]

I think that it hit me, after looking behind the curtain, that my core memories were all artificial. Every epic moment was scripted by some dude at TSR.
It might be a "no duh" moment for many of you, but it's really shattered my rose-colored glasses of nostalgia.
I've been asking myself for over 20 years, "why can't I run a good, memorable campaign?" Apparently, it's because I'm following standards of player agency, "playing to find out," etc.

Yeah. Definitely not a surprise IME.

 

[S'mon]

I think that it hit me, after looking behind the curtain, that my core memories were all artificial. Every epic moment was scripted by some dude at TSR.
It might be a "no duh" moment for many of you, but it's really shattered my rose-colored glasses of nostalgia.
I've been asking myself for over 20 years, "why can't I run a good, memorable campaign?" Apparently, it's because I'm following standards of player agency, "playing to find out," etc.

This can happen with sandboxing if you (a) don't use guard rails (b) your players aren't very good/competent/suited or (c) You're not very competent and run a boring sandbox. I've seen all these. But I run OSR style games where very often we get fantastic moments and drama, so I know it's doable. I think the most important thing is players who treat it as a living world, and GMs who are flexible and adaptable to player plans. My last session (Shadowdark) there was some great stuff when the players realised they were in the tomb of a Necromancer Queen in life allied to the Orc horde (they worked this out via research on the murals plus good rolls) then when they met her ghost the half orc player said she was an emissary of the (actually long dead) orc horde here to renew their ancient allegiance. Advantage on CHA check, success - and a deadly encounter became a friendly chat. It was awesome. But other players would never have thought to try that, probably never even made the connections, and whined when the OP monster killed their PC.

One thing about OSR games is that they tend to favour flexible thinking over rules knowledge and number crunching. My successful author & military veteran players do very well in Shadowdark compared to modern D&D editions, whereas my aspergery (even more than me) min-maxer player dislikes the lack of crunch and the high lethality. But in a different ruleset like 4e she's the dominant player.

 

[S'mon]

If you want epic stories, you have to ditch elements of gameplay to make that happen. You have to curate the experience and curtail player agency to some degree, usually quite a bit to force the game to unfold in something resembling a story.

My experience has been the exact opposite. Running an Adventure Path never compares to the truly epic nature of an emergent story. Player agency is how you get to see Hubris & Nemesis in the dramatic tale of a warrior who becomes king by his own hand, welding together a disparate collection of free peoples to defeat the Dark Lord - then throws it all away through his own arrogance.

 

[overgeeked]

My experience has been the exact opposite. Running an Adventure Path never compares to the truly epic nature of an emergent story. Player agency is how you get to see Hubris & Nemesis in the dramatic tale of a warrior who becomes king by his own hand, welding together a disparate collection of free peoples to defeat the Dark Lord - then throws it all away through his own arrogance.

Cool. And that happened what...one time in your entire gaming career? How many years of play before and after that one moment? How many campaigns? And how many PCs died before you got to that moment? How many dead-end plot lines? How many anticlimaxes? Etc.

I agree that player agency is king and emergent story is the best way to go. But if you want to ensure the story is satisfying, you have to hack away at player agency to achieve it.

 

[S'mon]

Cool. And that happened what...one time in your entire gaming career? How many years of play before and after that one moment? How many campaigns? And how many PCs died before you got to that moment? How many dead-end plot lines? How many anticlimaxes? Etc.

I agree that player agency is king and emergent story is the best way to go. But if you want to ensure the story is satisfying, you have to hack away at player agency to achieve it.

Well that was one cool thing. There have been many others. And there have been ignoble failures as well, of course. But I've seen very satisfying failures, indeed the catastrophic failure of Varek Tiger-Claw against the Necromancers of the Black Sun in 4e set the scene for the rise of Hakeem Godslayer ten (game) years later.

Certainly, if I were trying to ensure a satisfying story regardless of player ability & interest, the PCs would be either puppets or bystanders. Both of which were common in 2e era D&D.

 

[Zardnaar]

Cool. And that happened what...one time in your entire gaming career? How many years of play before and after that one moment? How many campaigns? And how many PCs died before you got to that moment? How many dead-end plot lines? How many anticlimaxes? Etc.

I agree that player agency is king and emergent story is the best way to go. But if you want to ensure the story is satisfying, you have to hack away at player agency to achieve it.

Beer. Pretzels. Everyone has fun at the table. That's a win.

I'm out of beer and pretzels. Actually I think I have 4 beers. Nvrmind.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I run OSR style games where very often we get fantastic moments and drama

To what extent do you set this up, by dropping potentially epic stuff into the sandbox for the players to find?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This is true, but you could still permanently kill dark lords.

Which led to the other problem, were players romped around the demiplane trying to see how many dark lords they could off.