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

[pemerton]

Hmmm your word salient I feel is key in your questioning.
It is likely the PCs may observe the guard beforehand in an attempt to determine what kind of code they follow.
For D&D that falls to the Insight roll.

Sure. That's an example of is reasonably knowable.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Which is fine but after a while it becomes pretty pointless. I can post until my fingers are tired about why I do what I do, why it works for me when other styles would not. I don't think it really changes anything.

At which point, as I've largely done at this point you just--stop.

 

[Lanefan]

It depends. The example as provided is incomplete, so it's hard to say. This is why I've offered a few ways to handle it, depending on the circumstances.

For me, if player-driven play is a priority for me, I would have the trait of the guard be known. I'd either show the players in some way, or I'd let them know it. This is assuming the guard is not meant to be a meaningful obstacle in and of himself, but rather a step toward a more meaningful goal. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on such an interaction and just getting it to the point where it's actionable by the players.

And that right there you're taking away the players' ability to drive.

Part of both sandbox and player-driven play is to let the players decide what minor stuff they're going to spend loads of time on and what they're going to largely skip over.

Here, if you describe the scene at the gate with the two guards casually asking questions of the farmers bringing their goods in to market, it's up to the players to decide whether they're going to go deep in the weeds about how they deal with these guards or whether they're just going to head in through the gate...or turn around and go somewhere else, whatever.

In other words, give 'em the scene and let the players decide what in it is meaningful to them; and if it means the session is largely spent dealing with two gate guards rather than all the various deep intrigues in town then so be it. The town intrigues can wait until next session.

 

[pemerton]

But I look at my XP budget for every combat based on the guidance given in the DMG in my game as well. Nothing forces me to pay attention to that other than the social contract I have with my players of course. But if that social construct isn't enough - if I regularly kill off all my player's characters - then I won't have players for long.

As GM I can always ignore the rules or guidelines and the rules police aren't going to come arrest me.

I don't understand what you are getting at. How is what you say here an interesting thing about RPGs as opposed to, say, chess?

 

[Umbran]

So, yeah, I think everyone with extra ability to harm...

Harm?
I think you and I may have different ideas of what qualifies as harm that might call for care to be taken - and what comes to my mind would not be covered by rules-algorithms that don't have empathy.

 

[pemerton]

.... So they don't do it that way, but another, different way?

I'm making a case for impartial task resolution. Intent is expressed by picking the right tasks and stringing them together to achieve your goals. You get whatever the action says you get and it's on you to make that useful.

I don't know what you mean by "you get whatever the action says you get".

For instance, suppose the action is to build a shelter that will withstand the wind. And you succeed. At what point is the GM at liberty to say, "OK, the wind just got stronger, your shelter is now blown away"?

Or you succeed at your action to persuade the security guard to let you in without telling their boss. At what point is the GM at liberty to decide - perhaps without telling the player - that the guard changed their mind and is now telephoning their boss?

Burning Wheel answers these questions via a =combination of "intent and task" and "let it ride". Torchbearer 2e is very similar.

I don't know how your system of pure task resolution is meant to answer them.

 

[pemerton]

That's quite the strawman and something I've never seen in a game I've run or played.

Don't conflate occasionally not able to succeed with letting people waste a significant amount of time.

Well, you're the one who said it's important that sometimes declared actions be futile (as in, it not be possible for the PCs to succeed although the players don't know that).

As I said in my post, I'm responding to what you said, taken literally. If you mean "occasionally but not frequently", OK, that's a type of process or heuristic that constrains a good GM. Isn't it?

 

[robertsconley]

And that right there you're taking away the players' ability to drive.

Part of both sandbox and player-driven play is to let the players decide what minor stuff they're going to spend loads of time on and what they're going to largely skip over.

Here, if you describe the scene at the gate with the two guards casually asking questions of the farmers bringing their goods in to market, it's up to the players to decide whether they're going to go deep in the weeds about how they deal with these guards or whether they're just going to head in through the gate...or turn around and go somewhere else, whatever.

Or Basket weaving, @hawkeyefan may get the reference from our previous discussion.

In other words, give 'em the scene and let the players decide what in it is meaningful to them; and if it means the session is largely spent dealing with two gate guards rather than all the various deep intrigues in town then so be it. The town intrigues can wait until next session.

This is why I use the phrase "trashing the setting" a lot. A major part of how I run sandbox campaigns is letting any expectations that things ought to go in a particular way. I will roleplay out anything (within the limits of good taste) that the players want to interact with as their characters.

That means exploring the social web that binds the Lower Ram Valley basket weavers, and that is what that portion of the campaign will focus on. And any prep I have to do will be about fleshing out the lives and circumstances of those Basket Weavers.

Here is an actual play example from one of my campaigns.
The original blog post.

GURPS Majestic Wilderlands: Campaign Update #1

We completed three sessions of the campaign with the fourth session set for tonight. The characters are Delvin , an impoverished dwarf ...

batintheattic.blogspot.com

I didn't write everything that happened but dealing with the drunk villager occupied a fair amount of that player's roleplaying during that session.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, and I offered a way that could be discovered. If you roll a persuasion check (or similar) and do poorly, this guy can't be bribed. We find out through play.

All you've found out there is that the guard can't be bribed by you right at this moment.

You've learned nothing about the guard in general, including whether someone else in your party can succeed where you have failed.

If instead this is something that's determined ahead of time by the GM... this guard cannot be bribed... then no matter what you do, you'll find out that he can't be bribed.

Which would seem to be the point of having an un-bribe-able guard.

Roll a critical success on an attempt to persuade him? Failure! Make a compelling argument that he should let you through? Failure!

Those are different things than outright bribing the guard. If you manage to fail on both those attempts as well then the pattern suggests there's something about you this guard really doesn't like and you might be better off just trying a different gate.

Sure! My point is such character traits can be defined without being so impactful to play. Confident... dismissive... outgoing... harsh... stoic... these are all perfectly fine traits that help us picture this person more clearly, but aren't anything so extreme as to shut down entire avenues of player action.

Even something like "Principled" is better, in my opinion, than "unbribable". It gets at the same idea without being absolute. And it can be communicated in other ways to inform the players of this trait.

Sometimes absolutes do occur, even in real life. Here in this example, for all you-as-PC know the guard might be quite open to bribes most of the time, but not right now 'cause his hard-ass martinet of a sergeant-at-arms is watching his every move from the guardhouse.

 

[pemerton]

What is surprising is the continued mischaracterization of sandbox campaigns despite numerous clarifications.

I would appreciate it if you leave the accusations of the one true wayism out of the discussion.

If, by "sandbox campaign", you mean what you do.; and then, in my reply to someone else, I talk about something that you think is not something you do; isn't the best inference that I'm not talking about you? That I'm responding to someone else's account of what a sandbox is, or can be, or may include?