D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Pedantic]

This is similar to the questions around (i) GMs declaring uncertainty in 5e as well as (ii) mediating DCs via landing on (iia) genre emulation vs (iib) physics simulation and/or (iiib) transparently establishing (or not...which is typically the case) the Medium DC benchmark (is it "Average NPC Joe" vs "Expert NPC" vs "Hero of x Tier" vs "Hero of y Tier" vs "Hero of z Tier") for DC setting in 5e. It isn't enough to say "trust the GM...they will do this competently." That GM process needs to either be transparent and codified or it needs to be absolutely telegraphed (like via meta-conversation) and inferable for players to be able to reliably do their "gameplay necessaries" in orienting to the situation and then executing a sequence of moves which facilitate a desired gamestate.

Just touching on this particular point, 5e is a follow-up and expansion to the 4e rejection of codified task DCs that started with skill challenges. We were moving solidly in the direction of not making task difficulty setting (and the attendant on the fly game design) a DM responsibility in the 3.x era and could have gone further (cleaning up the trap rules, for example).

More to the point though, this is not an inevitable feature. DMs could be bound by strict task rules they didn't create and that are known to the players. Creating and maintaining a setting does not necessarily have to include determining task difficulty. Frankly, I think gameplay would be much better in general if more play focused on players deploying known moves against unknown situations.

The current model, as far as I can tell, seems to exist to put upper limits on player power; by not specifying the precise climbing rules, you can always put a harder climbing obstacle in, instead of having to contend with a player who can't fail to climb things. That and because it hides any real rules complexity behind DM on the fly decision making, streamlining the player experience (though I'd argue to the detriment of that experience as gameplay).

There's more than 2 gameplay loops in tension here.

 

[The Firebird]

How is it even remotely helpful to the average person?

It doesn't actually tell them what to do. It doesn't give them any sort of ability to examine a particular behavior. It just tells them "be good, don't be bad." That's utterly useless as a moral guideline! It's empty of any actual descriptive content. What is good, so that I know what to do? What is bad, so that I know what not to do?

If someone tells you they study ethics at a party, you know what they mean.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

were the companions of the ring railroaded when they failed on the mountain pass and had to go through Moria? When would you consider this an acceptable (non-railroad) outcome? If it weren’t gelatinous cubes but a cave-in?

As above, I refuse to be nickel-and-dimed, so there will be a limit to how many of this kind of question I'm willing to entertain.

The example is irrelevant as it is a written story, so it either isn't even applicable (there are no "players"), or is already a railroad by being explicitly a story an author is telling, and thus not useful to you as an example anyway.

As for the other, I already answered that. I already said, in that very post, that it is reasonable for there to be some dead-end areas in the kinds of places one might describe as "a dungeon".

and your answer to not trusting DMs is to make up rules to use and then trust those same DMs follow the rules?

You're bringing in a complete non sequitur here. This is totally unrelated to what I was asking, so I'm just not going to answer the question.

I will instead repeat the core point: why is it that the DM absolutely must be trusted, whereas players almost never are trusted? Why is it so acceptable to view ANYTHING the players do with a chary eye, "curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal"-like, but the DM's efforts are so sacrosanct, they can only be questioned if you have an itemized list, AND you can only do so at approved times and places, AND your only other recourse is "voting with your feet"?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If someone tells you they study ethics at a party, you know what they mean.

But we aren't talking about someone studying something. We are talking about someone giving--allegedly--"procedures" and "approaches".

Telling someone your ethical procedure is "do what is good, and avoid what is bad" is a platitude. Plain and simple. It communicates absolutely nothing procedural.

 

[The Firebird]

You do realize this bolded bit is an extremely subjective judgement call which can deliver terrific levels of disagreement. An easy area of disagreement actually engages with the immersion/habitation issue.

Agree there can be disagreement. How extreme, I suppose depends on the table. If there is extreme disagreement at the table, that style of campaign is not a good fit for the group.

If someone is playing a PC in a locale where that PC (a) inhabited for the course of their offscreen/pregame life and therefore have attained crucial experience and (b) would have established consequential relationships, a player having their orientation/action declaration process filtered through their GM's "would your character have reasonable access to hometown/regional information or relations who are willing/able to help" concept-space (rather than their own concept-space or through systemitized mediation or reliable currency expenditure) is an utter shut down for their setting immersion and PC habitation (not to mention a shut down of autonomy in gameplay).

I don't think this is true. The player should have some latitude to come up with relationships, but they should be filtered by the DM. If part of the character backstory clashes with the world, then it should be modified.

Point being, you're making a judgement about "reasonable access" and that judgement can absolutely be rationally disagreed with (and, in some cases, should be disagreed with to achieve "same pagedness" bare minimum).

True.

I've got to be away for the rest of the afternoon, but I want to engage with this in the most functional way possible. To that end, I want you to have as much clarity as I can muster. So I'd like for you to set the parameters here so you have maximal information going into this exercise. If you would, please give me:

* A few elements of setting and immediate situation that you intend to be parameters.

* Some kind of conflict archetype (say, perilous journey or convince crowd) with a couple of PC archetypes (pick any two).

After you've nailed that down, I'll depict how I would desire it to be systemitized, GMed, run and a "black box GMing" alternative.

Probably won't be till much later today or tomorrow morning.

Well, I'll take an example from an old sandbox campaign. We started as 16 year olds in a small town. We got to pick or roll randomly for which of the towns 10 families we came from. These had a fixed list of professions; e.g., there was a fisherman but no wizard. That town then came under attack, and we had to organize a defense (most of the adults were away). We started as level 1 characters, which was the least realistic part of the scenario, but imo worked just fine. At that level, we ended up choosing from rogue, barbarian, or fighter (non magic classes).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I agree this particular example is not one you are likely to find in a real religious.

Not only that. It is openly insulting to people of religious belief. Which, for someone who has made such a point of decrying "insulting" terminology from others, isn't a great look.

But we can probably imagine a character who wouldn't do certain things out of a sense of religious duty, a monk who refuses to kill an animal, even a threatening one, because of a belief in karma for example, or someone who refuses to use a spirit board under any circumstances out of fear of demonic possession. You could have other ways to resolve this than "the GM decides character trait and sticks to it" but the GM is just doing what PCs typically do. It isn't so outrageous to say the GM or the players ought to have that much control over their character. Nor is it outrageous to have a system that is less certain (I like fear effects for example in games and those can impact agency in that way). But establishing a strong character trait seems pretty reasonable to me

Sure. The problem comes in with, as I and @pemerton have said repeatedly, HOW do you "establish a strong character trait". Because in that how--in that procedure--there are many points of...let's say discursive interest, putting it mildly.

 

[mamba]

How does this restraint manifest in a way that is knowable to the players?

in the results, if they frequently make no apparent sense, then I doubt there was restraint. I agree that there is no clear line however

The same is probably true for most games with more fixed rules as well, I do not expect them to prescribe a certain action for all cases, so the DM still has some leeway within the parameters, even if they were to follow them, and how do you know that they do not unless they fall far outside?

 

[The Firebird]

But we aren't talking about someone studying something. We are talking about someone giving--allegedly--"procedures" and "approaches".

Telling someone your ethical procedure is "do what is good, and avoid what is bad" is a platitude. Plain and simple. It communicates absolutely nothing procedural.

Not in terms of an algorithm. If someone says "I try to make my world realistic" then I don't know exactly what they find realistic.

But I get what they are trying to do. They value realism more than balanced combat, for example. That's useful to me.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

not sure what exactly you mean, but yes, you have every right to check the GM. You can refuse a GM just like a GM can refuse a player.

I’d say you do not have the right to argue about whatever for 30 minutes during the game session with the GM, but you can ask some questions before joining, after the session, or leave at any point if you do not feel it is working out for you

And yet whenever I bring up having misgivings because of something a GM has said or done, I am immediately subjected to 20 questions for why I'm being such a distrustful jerk, why I'm not just going with the flow, why I'm always seeing the "bad" side, etc., etc., etc., etc.

If this is actually a context where trust must be earned and maintained by the GM, rather than one where the GM merely has it by the divine right of dungeon-kings, why is it such a problem to question? Why am I instantly accused of being so distrustful, instead of someone saying, "Hey, I can understand why you might find that confusing, here's how I would address it if you were at my table" or the like?

It's always my fault for being a skeptic. Never, never, never, never, never the GM's fault for doing something that would threaten the trust they've earned. Oh, and the GMs never have to earn trust. It's always something they just have, automatically and infinitely.

 

[robertsconley]

I'm not the one arguing that the "why" of a thing is protection against railroading. Others here are. Particularly @Bedrockgames, @AlViking, and @robertsconley. Indeed, their arguments are almost exclusively about the "why", because the "how" is left completely unexplained beyond phrases like "what the DM already knows", as has been said repeatedly by others (particularly @pemerton).

It’s not a procedural process defined by a system, but it is a structured approach that I can teach or coach. It’s built on consistent methods for managing the world in motion, extrapolating consequences, and adjudicating based on in-world logic. Explaining it fully takes more than a short forum post; it requires time, examples, and context drawn from actual play.

It's why this page has so many link to posts on my blog.

Managing Sandbox Campaign Articles

This is a master index of all my posts on managing Sandbox Campaigns. How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox Note that at the bottom of the post ar...

batintheattic.blogspot.com

Many of them examples of actual play.

If you’re interested and have the time, I can start walking through it here, within the limitations of forum posts. Others are welcome to jump in and ask questions as well.

But to be clear, there will be some ground rules: I’ll be open to questions, but I’m not interested in debate during the explanation process. After we’ve gone through the material, I’m happy to discuss the merits, but not in the middle of it.