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

[robertsconley]

I will answer your other points later. This post focuses on your questions.

What adventures do they have? Who decides what adventures they go on? Who decides what adventures are available? Who decides if exploration is a goal?

Whatever they find adventurous in the setting. This is not a flippant answer. Whatever region they pick, I have a pretty good idea of what exists there. The players have an understanding of the possibilities based on what their character would know. This part of the Initial Context that I create as part of the start of the Campaign.

What I see

What the player see

Are NPCs all equal to play? Are some more minor than others? Does this factor into your prep in any way?

My preference is that the same rules used to describe characters are used to describe NPCs.

NPCs' society and culture are socially organized in the same way as you would expect if it were real for my Majestic Fantasy Realm. For something like Middle Earth, it reflects how society is described as being organized in those settings. Think of how a GURPS worldbook like Discworld would be written, and that's likely how mine are written.

You can see a slice of this in this supplement I shared for my Majestic Fantasy Realms.
Bandits & Brigands

Or for 5e
Medieval NPCs

To be clear realism is a concern because I wrote my Majestic Wilderlands/Majestic Fantasy Realms as a medieval fantasy setting. When I run Middle Earth, my work reflects its premises. Some of which parallels medieval life but many don't. So the process I use is genre/setting neutral.

Are you considering NPCs both in their fictional place AND their gameplay place? Do you focus on one over the other?

I don't consider gameplay at all other than the NPC stats should reflect their description in the setting.
This reflect my creative goal that the point of my campaigns is to let players visit a setting as their character and have adventures.

In my experience, there are a lot of NPC interactions that can be handled quickly, or elided entirely. The classic example that many people bring up is the visit to the shopkeeper. Unless there's some strong reason to get into that, I'm just going to ask the player what they want and then resolve the purchase or what have you. This kind of stuff can slow play down quite a bit. I've seen people describe their entire session as a "shopping trip" and such a session would make me want to bash my head against the table.

Think of walking around New York City during the day. If you look around there is easily over a hundred people in line of sight. Do you interact with them? no. Could you interact with any one of them sure. But either happens one of several ways.

• You stop, deliberately look around, and make a decision.
• Something at random catches your attention
• Somebody else decides to interact with you.

So what this mean for my campaign for each of these?

• I will quickly generate who is in the streets if the players decides to stop and look around. Then I will roleplay accordingly.
• As part of travel through setting, I roll to see if anything catches the players eye as their character.
• Seeing if some NPC decides to interact with the part is part the above roll procedure.

The random tables I will use reflect the details of the setting and location. It will look different for the Majestic Fantasy Realms vs. Middle Earth, although there is some overlap as a result of how Tolkien chose to do his worldbuilding.

But interactions with NPCs who are important to the players or to their goals? Those are far more important.

Players determine who is important to them. Some are obvious, like Barons, Grandmasters, and Bishops but other I have to pay attention to their choices and makes notes of what they did.

I mean block as in it just shuts something down without being known or without a chance to be changed. The examples discussed so far have been NPC traits.

See my comments on failure.

Is the GM's conception of an NPC as a fictional character more important than that NPC presenting some kind of playable situation to the players?

Neither. The NPCs are an outgrowth of the setting I designed. My players work with me to pick an interesting setting to play in for the campaign. Or as it often the case with my more popular settings like the Majestic Wilderlands, they pick a region or a situation within the setting they want to experience adventuring.

Absolutely, context matters. I've been trying to allow for different contexts in the posts I've made. And my questions are generally about looking at alternate contexts.

THE meta-view of what I do with my campaigns is that I am creating pen & paper virtual realities that players can jump into as a character and experience. The tool I do this with are Sandbox Campaigns.

 

[The Firebird]

As I said, it depends. I described how I would do it. I wouldn't bother with it "being discoverable", I'd just portray it.

If another GM instead wanted to leave it up to the players to discover, then that's fine... I'd expect some kind of chance to learn the information, though. Again... such an opportunity depends on the GM granting it as well as how difficult it may be, how many other details might be needed... and on and on.

But, again, this is exactly how the sandbox scenarion with the guard is working. There are ways to learn that information. So why do you see that as opposed to player agency?

Why is that characterization not fair?

A key goal of sandbox style gaming, the way I see it and Bedrock wrote above, is to avoid playing through the GMs story. It's for players to not feel they are passively a part of the GMs story. And that's my experience with these games--the players are agents, they are not listening to a mystery story, but choosing whether the mystery is worth investigating and if so determining how to do so.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think questions like this are rarely productive because I already am answering them from a defensive posture (and I am not anticipating a good faith response to my answers: and I am not saying you are being bad faith, I just don't think this conversation is one where people are really trying to understand each other, but are simply trying to win).

Well, I asked these questions of @robertsconley not of you. It's fine that you answered, but if you feel they are not helpful or productive, then I don't know why you did.

I ask them because they are what I thought of when I read his post. Maybe as I reply to you, the reasons why will be clearer.

What adventures do they have? This is obscenely broad. They have all kinds of adventures. From gang warfare adventures in a city, to delves into ancient monasteries for artifacts, monster hunts, duels, investigations, to adventures in the sky to become immortals. There is a very, very wide range of potential adventures.

Who decides what adventures they go on? The players

Who decides what adventures are available? This is a mixture of Gm-player. The Gm is preparing the setting and creating an environment and there might be some obvious adventure sites if the players want to do that (for example underground tombs or something). But for the most part adventures arise out of players setting goals for themselves based on what they know about the setting, who they have met, what groups they have formed connections to, etc. So they might say, okay let's go to Iron God Meng and try to form an arrangement with him so we can bring celestial plume through his territory.

I ask these questions because they seem relevant, but are not answered by Rob's description of sandbox play.

Who decides if exploration is a goal? I am not sure I fully understand what you mean by this. But if you mean who decides if they go on an exploration adventure, that is pretty much up to the players. If the question is more "no who decides whether their dungeon delve is going to be exploration based or about dramatic twists", I think that gets complicated because every sandbox is different. But I see every adventure site as a place where character conflict could arise, and other things might be going on. Certainly the characters are in a physical world and there will be an exploration component if they decide to go into an underground tomb. But they could also totally side step that by hiring a bunch of miners (stuff like this happens all the time). If all they want is the object in a tomb, and they don't want to go 'crawling' it is not that uncommon for them to seek someone else to do it for them. This is something that has come up because I've had players who are staunchly not into going on quests like that, and players who almost need those kinds of exploration quests to thrive. Generally I try to accommodate both preferences but either mixing things up or making it so one set of players can go on teh exploration quest while the other player tends to things they find more pertinent to their interests. Usually the party is pursuing some agenda they have set up for themselves

I was reading that as geographical exploration. As I said in another recent post, it's not something I'm generally interested in, as either player or GM. A bit of it from time to time, in the form of unknown locations or super secret lairs or what have you, fine... but as a major goal of play? Not really my thing. Nor essential to a sandbox or player-driven play.

No, the problem I have with skill rolls doing this as a player, is the bribability has less to do with the established traits of teh character the GM has created and less to do with my actual attempt, and more to do with a roll. I get it can be modified, and I am not saying this is going to be a universal reaction. But just as an example, I found myself a lot less immersed in play for years during the d20 era. And the moment I went back to 2E, where you didn't have stuff like bluff and intimate (and a social skill like Ettiquette was a knowledge roll not a roll that you used to act) my experience suddenly shifted back to a deeply immersive one. SO for me, I just find these skills make me feel less like I am interacting with a real environment.

I think what's causing the confusion here is the word established. Because in your first sentence, when you say established traits, I want to respond that if the traits are established... the principled nature of the guard, let's say... then there's no issue. But you mean established as in set by the GM prior to play regardless of whether the players know. To me, established means it's been made clear to all participants... it's been established in play.

If you are not aware of given NPC's trait and then you make a roll and learn about it... how do you know if it was established by the GM beforehand or if he just established it on the spot?

And yes, it does have to do with the roll... the roll indicates the chance of something... that there's a possibility, not one certain outcome. If a roll is made, it should feel like the roll mattered.

Immersion is something that's going to vary from person to person, so that's tough to say, but it seems like yet another priority separate of player agency.

 

[hawkeyefan]

How interesting! Here I was thinking you were wrong.

That's fine! Feel free to argue your point. I feel that I've at least explained why I think someone else is wrong, instead of just asserting it!

 

[Maxperson]

Joe: Hey, Rob, why was there a dragon in that meadow?

Rob: I felt like there ought to be one.

Joe: But the nearest dragon lair is 200 miles away across the Westwall Mountains.

Rob: I just it would be cool for a dragon to fly in to fight you guys.

Joe: Rob you are being an a*h*. That was bs*.

Rob's Note: I do have a friend that I game with named Joe, and that's how the exchange would go if I tried to do something like this.

For me it would have gone something like....

Joe: Hey DM, why was there a dragon in that meadow.

DM: That's an interesting question. What are you going to do to investigate the reason why it was there?

Dragons travel. Some widely. Dragon lairs are also unknown, so just because the nearest one Joe knows about is 200 miles away, doesn't mean that there isn't another one 43 miles away.

I also wouldn't have a dragon fly in just because I think it would be cool for the group to fight one. If there's a dragon encountered, then there's a reason why it was there.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That's fine! Feel free to argue your point. I feel that I've at least explained why I think someone else is wrong, instead of just asserting it!

Perhaps, but I am only seeing vague platitudes from you Hawkeye

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, overall patterns matter. That has been a major part of my point earlier... one instance here and there may not be an issue. But if this is done routinely, then it's likely to become an issue for some participants.

I think that the permissive attitude about this stuff is just kind of surprising to me in that I tend to think of sandbox play as being focused on player-driven play... and so this would be a concern for any GM to consider when they make decisions. To have GMs who are proponents of sandbox type play defending the GM's ability to place realism above player-driven play... it's surprising.



I'm not really aware of games that don't have realism or consistency (to the extent such apply to fantasy worlds, anyway) as considerations for the GM. Except perhaps exceptions like Toon or the like... where the point is that logic and consistency specifically may not apply.

So, setting aside those common concerns, what else should a GM be considering? In my opinion, they game impact of his decisions. Does this NPC contribute to a dynamic situation in play? Does it simply slow play down? Does it block a player?

I am not saying that there are wrong answers to these questions. I'm saying that I think, in terms of player-driven play, of which I think sandbox play is an example, these questions should be considered. Likely before ones of realism and logic... since we can likely still have a situation make sense. Like... sometimes guards can actually be bribed, or priests do actually take a drink.

Sandbox play isn't player driven past the need for proactive players. Passive players will flounder in a sandbox game. Proactive players will pick directions and goals for their PCs, but beyond that realism can be a DM concern without disrupting the sandbox even a smidge.

Don't get me wrong, you can absolutely play a sandbox with more player driven play like you enjoy, but that sort of play isn't inherent to sandboxes.

 

[Lanefan]

I will instead repeat the core point: why is it that the DM absolutely must be trusted, whereas players almost never are trusted?

Because, as with any game or sport that has a referee, it's the players' job to try to push the boundaries of the rules and the DM's job as referee to push back and enforce those boundaries.

If there isn't implicit trust that the DM will do - or at least try hard to do - the 'referee' aspect of the job fairly, neutrally, and consistently then the whole thing becomes a non-starter.

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,

Same answer as above.

AND your only other recourse is "voting with your feet"?

Or to try to convince the table to play a game/system where there is no specific GM role.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I woudldn't say that is the ethos. I think in these sandboxes, setting matters, but so does player agency, so does a sense of fairness and impartiality. There is also an ethos of not having the players feel like they are just passively part of the GMs story and of not railroading. I think this is a style that considers a range of things crucial to play. And by the way, it doesn't exclude what you are talking about. Some sandbox GMs will use things like skill rolls. But because role-play and characterization are extremely important in a living world, some will prefer lighter social interaction rules or no social interaction. As I said in a prior post, the agency of the player characters matters and so does the agency of the NPCs. Ideally the players have a sense of a world populated by people who as active forces like themselves

See the more the GM defines the NPCs in ways that I can't interact with, and the more he keeps that information from me, and the more he relies solely on his own thoughts about how an interaction will go rather than deploying some kind of randomizer or similar process... the more I feel like I'm passively part of a GM's story.

Some of the agenda you're siting above seem contradictory to me.

And are you using "living world" and "sandbox" interchangeably here? Because if so, this is the first I've heard that roleplay and characterization are important to sandbox play.

For agency, again I think it is key to separate characters and players. I want the players to have agency. PCs and NPCs don't have agency.

Or - and hell knows it's certainly possible - I've made a mistake of omission and forgot to mention or skipped over something important. It happens.

That said, if the players ever feel they don't have the information they think they (in-character) should have, I fully expect them to ask questions in order to fill those gaps before proceeding.

That's fine. I prefer to share a lot of information. I think the characters would generally be privy to a lot more information than is typically provided by the GM. So expecting them to ask when the shortage of information may be my fault seems odd.

Statements like "own the choice" make this feel like a trial or hearing. Is that your intent?

No. We're talking about games. We make decisions as players or GMs. We should acknowledge that we are responsible for those decisions, not anyone or anything else.

If I make a decision as a GM and it's based on my sense of plausibility of the game world... the decision is mine, not the game world's.

To the bolded: such as?

The examples that were talked about were a guard who cannot be bribed, and a priest who would never take a drink.

So equally realistic (arguably more realistic) would be a bribe who can potentially be bribed or a priest who may potentially take a drink.

There's almost always room to make a decision that allows for player agency versus one that doesn't. That's the choice I'm talking about owning above.

 

[Maxperson]

If a game goes poorly because of the rules, I'd rather just play a different game with better rules!

My personal issue is that I've never encountered an RPG that I want to play as is, right out of the box. There are always(to date) rules that I dislike and want to change. For me, I'd rather tweak a rule system to make it better than chase a snipe and just keep switching RPGs.