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

[The Firebird]

Here are the relevant rules for Burning Wheel (from the Gold edition, pp pp 9-11, 24-25, 30-31, 72):

In the game, players take on the roles of characters inspired by history and works of fantasy fiction. These characters are a list of abilities rated with numbers and a list of player-determined priorities. . . .​

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One of you takes on the role of the game master. The GM is responsible for challenging the players. He also plays the roles of all of those characters not taken on by other players; he guides the pacing of the events of the story; and he arbitrates rules calls and interpretations so that play progresses smoothly.​

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Everyone else plays a protagonist in the story. . . . The GM presents the players with problems based on the players’ priorities. The players use their characters’ abilities to overcome these obstacles. To do this, dice are rolled and the results are interpreted using the rules presented in this book. . . .​

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When declaring an action for a character, you say what you want and how you do it. That’s the intent and the task. . . . Descriptions of the task are vital. Through them we know which mechanics to apply; acknowledging the intent allows us to properly interpret the results of the test. . . .​

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A task is a measurable, finite and quantifiable act performed by a character: attacking someone with a sword, studying a scroll or resting in an abbey. A task describes how you accomplish your intent. What does your character do? A task should be easily linked to an ability: the Sword skill, the Research skill or the Health attribute. . . .​

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what happens after the dice have come to rest and the successes are counted? If the successes equal or exceed the obstacle, the character has succeeded in his goal - he achieved his intent and completed the task.​

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This is important enough to say again: Characters who are successful complete actions in the manner described by the player. A successful roll is sacrosanct in Burning Wheel and neither GM nor other players can change the fact that the act was successful. The GM may only embellish or reinforce a successful ability test. . . .​

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When the dice are rolled and don’t produce enough successes to meet the obstacle, the character fails. What does this mean? It means the stated intent does not come to pass. . . .​

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Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying. But as soon as a character wants something that he doesn’t have, needs to know something he doesn’t know, covets something that someone else has, roll the dice.​

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Flip that around and it reveals a fundamental rule in Burning Wheel game play: When there is conflict, roll the dice. There is no social agreement for the resolution of conflict in this game. Roll the dice and let the obstacle system guide the outcome.​

The player does not need to convince the GM of anything - all they have to do is (i) determine priorities for their character (which, in BW, are expressed predominantly via Beliefs, Instincts, Traits, Relationships, Affiliations and Reputations), and (ii) state clear intents as part of their action declarations for their PCs.

So I think your characterisation is quite inaccurate.

So I want to come back to the way I framed it before...are statements like "the GM adjudicates the world" and "the GM adjudicates the rules" railroading? The key point to me here seems to be that the GM is not adjudicating successes; the players are.

Consider an example: your players are in a port city and want to hire a ship for a week-long passage.

Prep-DM wrote his city in advance, and he has a list of ship types, how many are are in port (roll for), and the costs associated with the journey. He consults the tables, rolls, and gives the players the options based on ship type.

Improv-DM made his city 20 minutes ago, so he doesn't know. He rolls up three NPC captains to give the players a choice, then picks ship types and fees that strike him as reasonable in the moment.

Burning Wheel DM doesn't have to take on this authority--the players declare their intent, and roll. They succeed, so then they define the captain and kind of ship they've hired, as well as a reasonable cost.

Based on my understanding of your views, you'd find the first to not be railroading (as in Dungeon crawling), the second to be railroading (because based only on the GM's whim) and the third to not be railroading (players in control).

Do I understand Burning Wheel correctly? Does that capture your views?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You may have established that (and while I disagree with the phrase I appreciate it), but that's not what I was responding to. It was


Which is absolutely conflating conservatism with ignorance because we refuse to even consider other options. Which is kind of common fallacy, the "You only disagree because you don't know better".

No. It is not the only reason.

You can know something, and "have tried it", but because it was unfamiliar that whole time, it felt awkward, scratchy, wrong. That's what my point is here.

What you know, you know, and thus it fits like well-cared-for old leather--supple to you and well-fitted, because you're used to all the weirdnesses, all the flaws and all the pain points. When you aren't familiar, which literally every possible new system will be unfamiliar to you when you first encounter it, you're never going to have that "fits like old leather" feeling. It's going to feel like new leather. Stiff. Rigid. Unyielding. Uncomfortable.

Doesn't matter whether the system was made 40 years ago or 20 years ago or 2 years ago or 2 seconds ago. It's going to be an awkward fit, because everything is when you first try it. And because it was an awkward fit, while the system(s) you know extremely well and have played for 20+ years aren't, you'll never go back. Why would you? You have no reason to. Every bit of evidence tells you the thing new to you (whether or not it is actually "new" chronologically) wasn't right, and that the things you've known for so long are right.

And thus nothing can ever change. We're stuck on having only the teeniest, tiniest changes, because meaningful change would make it unfamiliar.

And then you'd start saying it doesn't deserve to be called "D&D" and would sell better if it were called something else. Because it was unfamiliar, but laid claim to the label of familiarity: D&D.

 

[Hussar]

While I think a majority of sandboxes probably are closer to what I am saying than you are, so in that sense, what I am saying here does reflect a norm. But that is just because of how sandbox play got popular (which I think had a lot to do with it becoming a picture in the OSR). But I am not enforcing any kind of normative values here. I am not saying other sandboxes don't exist (I've defended your approach multiple times in the thread). I was just trying to answer a question about our approach. So you can complain about my phrasing if you want, but I don't think it makes sense when in a bunch of other posts I am clearly saying I think sandbox can include games like the ones you are suggesting. I think experimentation with sandbox is good. I don't think we have to have strict boundaries around it. We might use qualifiers so people are on the same page. This is why I call my campaigns Drama+Sandbox. My approach is slightly outside the typical sandbox itself

Oh, no. I totally agree. You've been pretty even handed. Fair enough. It's unusual enough that we agree on something.

But, there are a number of others who have been pretty insistent on characterizing sandbox play as a very specific, narrow thing. My Ironsworn play apparently doesn't count because it uses procedural generation for content. My Out of the Abyss campaign apparently doesn't count because of reasons. When I talked about my World's Largest Dungeon, it wasn't counted because it is too small to be a sandbox. Apparently, in the forty some years I've been running games, I've never run a sandbox. Which is kinda news to me.

Is every game I run a sandbox? Oh, absolutely not. But, a fair few are. Even going all the way back to running the Isle of Dread, I would certainly consider that to be a pretty typical sandbox campaign. I call them sandboxes anyway.

 

[robertsconley]

Sure, you can change the example again to suit your purposes just like you rewrote Keep on the Borderlands to suit your argument.

But, that's expressly NOT what @Lanefan said. The floor was rickety in order to slow the party down. He straight up said this. The floor is actually NOT old or rickety. It just looks that way but is instead completely sound. The only reason it's described as old or unsound is to get the players to act in a certain way.

What Lanefan said

Situation: rickety-looking floor, narrated as such in order to give the PCs reason to be cautious (and maybe delay them a bit), that the DM knows is in fact sound.

I am interpreting this

Situation: rickety-looking floor

And this

that the DM knows is in fact sound.
to mean that it was read from an keyed encounter written beforehand.

You are taking this to mean
reason to be cautious (and maybe delay them a bit),
It was decided on the fly that the floor was rickety-looking, and the referee decided the party ought to be slowed down for an arbitrary reason.

Since we are in a thread where the OP complained about the conservatism of D&D fans, since sandbox campaigns has been strongly associated with fans of the classic editions D&D. And fans of classic D&D are known to use tournament style module that use a keyed map with keyed encounters.

I will ask you, which of our assumptions is the most likely?

And, please, I've been gaming just as long as you have. I've done both procedural generation and I've done the traditional thing too. It doesn't matter that the creaking floor was noted beforehand. That's not the important bit. The important bit is the ONLY reason that this was noted was to influence the players to behave in a certain way.

A large number of posts have been on over definitions and meanings. I just made a pair of posts asking folks to make sure what they mean by player agency when talking about that subject. I am not going to apologize for spelling things out, given the nature of the debate in the post. If we are talking privately, that would be one thing. But we are not.

The important bit is the ONLY reason that this was noted was to influence the players to behave in a certain way.

Yes, rickety floors will cause the character to be cautious when encountered. But have you considered that @Lanefan was obligated to describe it that way as a result of being a part of a keyed encounter? That he hadn't that the players would have been upset at being withheld vital information even if the floor turned out to be safe?

Have you considered that you are making an assumption that he was making it up on the fly? Rather than ask for clarification, you instead leapt into criticism.

I understand why you are upset with this thread, as you felt attacked. But that is not a reason to start assuming everybody is operating in bad faith here.

Now, I read the overall post as describing something happening due to a keyed encounter. But it could have been a result of a randomly generated encounter. While I think it is unlikely @Lanefan could have meant this to be a result of an arbitrary decision. Let's ask @Lanefan to clarify.

There is zero impartiality here. None whatsoever.

To determine this together, we need to ask @Lanefan to clarify.

 

[AnotherGuy]

So, from discussion in this thread are we happy to concede the following are considered sandbox play:

• Hex-Crawl Style sandbox
• Running concurrent modules/APs and/or homebrew content within a sandbox framework
• Story now sandbox (essentially solely player-driven)

Have I missed any?

 

[AlViking]

I would agree with not the goals of the DM, the player goals should factor in


A player wants to climb a wall and the DM calls for a check, how is the outcome not based on the player’s goal? The impartial part is hopefully the DC and definitely the roll

The DC for climbing the wall is unaffected by the player's goals, there will of course be obstacles put in the way of their goals. If anyone ever figures out how to set that DC that is not at somehow influenced by game rules that seek to push a narrative style of gaming, a random roll against a table, procedurally generated, GM just making things up either long beforehand or on the spot? Let me know.

as much as if the DM decided it would automatically fail


it does matter that the DM decided either way instead of being impartial

In a sandbox the only thing player goals affect is the situations and background that I'm going to prepare to give them opportunities and obstacles to achieving their goals. It's never going to be perfect but the ideal I shoot for is to give them interesting adventures as they attempt to achieve their goal while making a believable and engaging playground to attempt to achieve those goals.

If we drill down far enough someone, either the GM or the authors of the rules of the game are ultimately making some kind of call as to what the DC is because it is not a real world. Unless it's based on a detailed map of Earth I suppose, but then it would just be some other obstacle down the road. It's a game, we're never going to be completely impartial.

I want my players to succeed most of the time because that's what makes the game enjoyable for us. But I'm not going to adjust anything once things are in motion to make overcoming a specific path easier or harder. In particular I'm not going to adjust things to influence a specific direction because that's the way I think it "should" happen. If the characters can't bribe a guard, it's because I've thought about how loyal guards would be. They may not be loyal at all, I'm not sure and there's a chance, to this is a society that values honor above all and being bribed would bring disgrace on the guard and his family. But it is still of course my decision to create that fiction.

NOTE: I used DC above but it could be something that requires some limited resource, some other balancing mechanism, or some other randomly determined result depending on the game.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But, there are a number of others who have been pretty insistent on characterizing sandbox play as a very specific, narrow thing. My Ironsworn play apparently doesn't count because it uses procedural generation for content. My Out of the Abyss campaign apparently doesn't count because of reasons. When I talked about my World's Largest Dungeon, it wasn't counted because it is too small to be a sandbox. Apparently, in the forty some years I've been running games, I've never run a sandbox. Which is kinda news to me.

There are some folks who wouldn’t consider what I do to be sandbox either. And it is a term whose useage can vary a little (I have noticed for example many 5E players have a slightly different take than many OSR people. The way I navigate it is clearly qualifying how I approach sandbox, because I get that by introducing more active drama, a lot of sandbox people are going to see that as undermining the concept (and I understand why as well because it is a subject I wrestled with myself over the years). But if you are bringing value to the table you will persuade people. You are bringing a no prep approach which I am sure will have value for certain people (like I can easily imagine a sandbox GM who simply doesn’t have the time to prepare or who is less fond of the prep part than they used to be).

Is every game I run a sandbox? Oh, absolutely not. But, a fair few are. Even going all the way back to running the Isle of Dread, I would certainly consider that to be a pretty typical sandbox campaign. I call them sandboxes anyway.

Going back to Isle of Dread was one of the things that got me on this path sandbox. So I think it definitely is in that camp.

And yes I don’t always run sandboxes either. I tend to run my ogre gate campaigns that way. That is why I called it Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate: I wanted to emphasize the sandbox part of the Wuxia which I think at the time a lot of people saw as not lending itself to sandbox….perhaps less so among sandbox fans but Wuxia fans generally didn’t seem to associate the two things in my experience.

But if I run a horror scenario, it is very unlikely to be a sandbox. If I run a Ravenloft campaign, it won’t be as a sandbox. Sandbox is good for certain types of play but I need other approaches too

 

[FrozenNorth]

To me, @Micah Sweet and @AlViking both clearly explain that their styles prioritize a world with internal logic rather than character-centric storytelling. @pemerton elects not to address this. Instead, he consistently redirects the discussion toward his own framework, one centered on narrative authority and the role of player goals in shaping the fiction.

How does character-centric story-telling fail to prioritize internal world logic? And aren’t you aware that saying « my approach prioritizes internal world logic » comes off incredibly condescending?

Would you agree that the posters that you are disagreeing with ALSO consider that their approach prioritizes in-world logic?

 

[Hussar]

You are taking this to mean
reason to be cautious (and maybe delay them a bit),
It was decided on the fly that the floor was rickety-looking, and the referee decided the party ought to be slowed down for an arbitrary reason.

The problem is, it's irrelevant when any of this was decided.

The entire point of describing the floor as rickety-looking was to slow the party down. That's the whole point. It doesn't matter if the DM did this on the fly or was reading from notes. The decision to make the floor unsafe looking was 100% the DM trying to influence how the players act. It had nothing to do with realism or anything else. It was entirely done to channel the players.

Which is exactly the point we've been harping on for the past several pages. There is no DM impartiality when the DM is the sole source of all information. It's not possible for the DM to be impartial. The DM can try, but, what the DM wants to have happen will always sneak in. The DM wants the party to slow down here, for whatever reason. It has nothing to do with a "realistic world" and everything to do with what the adventure creator wants the party to do at this point in time.

After all, in older D&D play, time is a big element. Slowing down means your torches run out. You generate more random encounters. Increase the risk of combat. All because the DM described the floor as "rickety" when the floor was completely sound.

How is that impartial?

 

[AlViking]

But that is why the example is not the best. One it is a very silly belief. But two the belief is established then the lore created. That is different from establishing the trait around the lore

Also this is why I advocate pinning it down. The GM should know a detail like that before hand.

Also, also, a trait like this should be extremely rare. All we are arguing for is the right of an NPC trait like this to exist, because NPCs having will is important in a living setting. But you shouldn't be using that to thwart players. If it arises in the course of play and happens to thwart them on occasion, that is fair. But if you are doing it to railroad, that is a problem.



I missed the Zone of Truth argument so someone will have to explain it. But the GM shouldn't be interfering with something like a spell ability without extremely good setting reasons (and those should be extremely rare and not just made up to make sure the adventure goes the way the gm wants). Players using spells to get through things faster is fair. For example if I prep a whole mystery (something I usually avoid in a sandbox anyways), if the players have a spell that can tell them who did it at the very start sot they don't have to investigate, I am not going to block that. That doesn't mean once in a while they might not meet a killer who can use magical countermeasures to divination on their own. But even if these exist, they won't be common, they will abide by the same spell rules as the players, and the decision is going to be based on teh NPC in question, not out of a desire of the adventure to be a certain way.

The zone of truth was my example of what I consider logical world building as a reason why a guard would not accept a bribe.

In a world where magic exists at the level depicted in most D&D games, I think there are a number of things wealthy people would do. Once a week or once a month paying a cleric to cast Zone of Truth to question guards and other important staff is pretty common in my world. When people accept employment they agree to honestly do their job, including not taking bribes. So they line up the guards and, since the zone lasts for 10 minutes and is a 15 foot radius sphere the guards all group up and move through the zone stopping only to answer if they betrayed their employment contract with a yes or no. There are counters to ZoT of course, but your average guard is not going to have access to them.