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

[Maxperson]

But are explicitly described as "rare" in almost all settings, with the exception of "Points of Light". If they were as common generally as they are encountered by PCs, then commoners would be extinct.

Commoner: "I take my sheep to market."
DM: [rolls on random encounter table] "you are attacked by 4 kobolds".
[a brief fight ensues, one kobold is wounded, the commoner is dead]

Right. PCs are fated somehow. They run into monsters at a far higher rate.

It's okay if you are using a "bought in" sandbox, but if the DM is making it from scratch, including content that they know will not interest the players is wasted effort, and may even frustrate the players by making the interesting stuff harder to find.

A lot of folks don't play with close friends. They go start games at game shops or advertise to get players for their home games. Long lasting games will see player turnover. Putting in some of everything makes sure that there is something for everyone and the setting will appeal to the widest range of new players.

 

[TwoSix]

the world is never created in consideration and direct response to the PC's goals, desires or identity, if the PCs travel to an area of the world that the GM has only vaguely defined then yes, technically, the world is defined in response to the players going there, but the contents of what is defined is entirely disconnected from the PCs, the PCs could be a war troupe, a travelling circus, the BG3 party or any other kinds of people but it would not affect what the GM decides and extrapolates what is in that location because the world does not care who they are, that is what is meant by 'the world being objective and independent of the players'

And again, exploring the DM's pre-generated world is a conservative approach I find exhausting.

 

[AlViking]

But are explicitly described as "rare" in almost all settings, with the exception of "Points of Light". If they were as common generally as they are encountered by PCs, then commoners would be extinct.

Commoner: "I take my sheep to market."
DM: [rolls on random encounter table] "you are attacked by 4 kobolds".
[a brief fight ensues, one kobold is wounded, the commoner is dead]

It's okay if you are using a "bought in" sandbox, but if the DM is making it from scratch, including content that they know will not interest the players is wasted effort, and may even frustrate the players by making the interesting stuff harder to find.

I have a setting where the monsters (mostly dinosaurs because, well, dinosaurs are awesome) come out at night. The further away from well established cities that have constant patrols the more dangerous it is and even in "safe" areas people live in heavily fortified hamlets. Individual houses and outbuildings are made of stone, in settled areas there are still watchtowers to warn people the monsters are coming. It's fairly safe during the day but being outside at night is likely a death sentence. Some areas are simply too dangerous for people to settle.

In a different region of my main setting there's a city state run by vampires. The rulers view the populace as cattle, they don't decimate the cattle because they need food and they like the nice things provided by trade. The few times adventurers were brought in to do something it was under the guise of protecting people but it was really to take out a rogue element that was culling people at an unsustainable rate.

For that matter there are plenty of settings that don't make a lot of sense because of how many dangers there are. How dangerous a world is depends on the setting and what people want out of the game.

 

[The Firebird]

I simply think that DMs who believe "my mental processes for determining the next outcomes of the entire setting's fictional state are almost entirely objective" are falling prey to Dunning-Kruger. 99.9% of DMs can't do that with anything approaching "objectivity."

Right; I don't think anyone has suggested that in this thread, hence it isn't a salient objection.

The difference here is in the first examples the notes said how the tavern keeper acts, not a check. In the latter, there's a check. The rules are specifically telling to make up a consequence that arises from the character's action and ties back to the player.

That's a big, big, big, big difference. If you can't feel the fundamental distinction between the two, then yes, this discussion isn't going to make a lot of sense.

Do you consider all three of the foregoing examples fundamentally distinct? I included a wide array of situations because my point was that the referee is making judgement calls constantly. Is the key point for you that in the latter case the referee only makes judgment calls when the rules specifically permit the GM to do so?

 

[pemerton]

It's the GMs world, You're getting the chance for your character to impact it with their actions.

But, if you don't describe what is taking place with any more specificity than impact it with your action, all you have succeeded in describing is the ability of the players to oblige the GM to say new stuff in response to the players having their PCs do stuff.

And that is basically the bare minimum for any non-scripted RPGing.

What I've been interested in, for much of the past many pages, is what else has to be the case, for the players' impact to be some sort of genuine control. My suggestion has been that the players must be able to know, at least broadly, what the GM will do in response - and thus can choose to bring about that particular response by declaring the particular action they declare.

 

[Maxperson]

Where are you getting this?

• My next sandbox will most likely be setting the 1e Forgotten Realms Savage Frontier. There are plenty of monsters in that area. A wilderness area beyond civilisation is a pretty standard setting for a fantasy, exploration sandbox.
• Dark Sun has all sorts of monsters everywhere.
• Al Qadim has genies and other creatures from Persian mythology all over the place.
• Warhammer has orcs, skaven, chaos cults and more inside the Empire and without.
• WH40K has xenos everywhere.
• Buffy has vampires and other demons popping up constantly.
• Planescape has a vast array of planar creatures all over the place.
• Latter Earth from WWN has monsters and adversaries all over the place.
• The Godbound setting is full of strange and terrible threats, from angels to demons to automatons and more.

What are these settings that are in the majority and actually have few monsters? I would expect that any that do fit that category have some kind of alternative threat or challenges that mean monsters aren't required.


I often create my sandboxes long (like, literally years) before players are designing characters for them. In any case, I stand by my statement that I'm not going back over the entire argument again, even if you think it's a new one.

@Paul Farquhar is right about monsters.

If the general population encountered monsters at even a 10th of the rate that PCs encounter them, civilization would never have been able to get started. Humans, elves, halflings, etc. would be extinct, eaten millennia ago.

If the PC encountered monsters at the same rate as the general population, the game would be boring beyond belief for a lot of us and would likely have failed.

The PCs being fated, tested by the gods, cursed to encounter monsters, etc. explains the disparity.

Some settings do things differently as you note, but they still don't have monsters commonly encountered by the populace, or else those monsters are not hostile to civilization(Al Qadim's genies).

 

[TwoSix]

Right; I don't think anyone has suggested that in this thread, hence it isn't a salient objection.

Then we have a broad disagreement on our interpretation of other posters' statements.

Do you consider all three of the foregoing examples fundamentally distinct? I included a wide array of situations because my point was that the referee is making judgement calls constantly. Is the key point for you that in the latter case the referee only makes judgment calls when the rules specifically permit the GM to do so?

It's a pretty key sticking point for me.

 

[pemerton]

It's certainly sufficient for the players to "readily anticipate what sorts of outcomes will follow from them having their PCs do particular things."

Really? Always? Typically?

In @Lanefan's example, charming (and really, it would be any delaying) of a random NPC in a tavern is sufficient to implicate the PCs in a political assassination. That's not readily applicable.

In my example from actual play, given that the range of "realistic" possibilities is quite broad (due to the impossibility of accurately describing and reasoning about all the relevant factors), the degree of retribution is not (and was not) readily anticipated.

Upthread we had examples of travelling to Forest-y and Icy places, based on name. Any inference as to what will follow from that must be pretty general.

 

[AlViking]

@Paul Farquhar is right about monsters.

If the general population encountered monsters at even a 10th of the rate that PCs encounter them, civilization would never have been able to get started. Humans, elves, halflings, etc. would be extinct, eaten millennia ago.

If the PC encountered monsters at the same rate as the general population, the game would be boring beyond belief for a lot of us and would likely have failed.

The PCs being fated, tested by the gods, cursed to encounter monsters, etc. explains the disparity.

Some settings do things differently as you note, but they still don't have monsters commonly encountered by the populace, or else those monsters are not hostile to civilization(Al Qadim's genies).

I have never been in a gunfight. On the other hand, I've never been in an army infantry unit during wartime. I've never had to put out a blazing inferno because I'm not a fireman. Characters in the game are not average people, they're the ones that seek out the monsters.

 

[The Firebird]

It's a pretty key sticking point for me.

I guess I don't see it as particularly different. The rules of my RPGing can be described as: "the players describe their actions. The DM adjudicates how the world responds". So when the players say "Hey barkeep, have you heard any rumors?", the rules permit the DM to determine how they respond.

I guess you could add a die roll to every such interaction. E.g., the DM rolls 2d6 on a reaction table modified by CHA and then generates a response. Based on my reading of your post, you would view this as fundamentally different?

I just don't see such a strong difference between the general RPG rules and specific 'roll for it' rules.