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

[AlViking]

No they can interact with those things, they can push on boundaries until new things emerge. You guys reduce everything to this one very rigid play loop and it misses so much of what is happening in a sandbox. If you guys find it to not be your cup of tea. Great. Play something else. But it isn’t our perceived gaming gonservatism that is exhausting in this thread. What is exhausting is done posters utter dismissal of sandbox or its agency claims. Now your style may not be my cup of tea but I don’t feel the need to doubt its claims or suggest you are doing something other than what you’re doing. You guys have been interrogating this approach for hundreds of posts now and we have given you clear answers on how it works and why. But you keep going back to the same old arguments to dismiss it. I don’t think anything we could say will ever persuade you

It really is pointless to argue any more. No matter what is said, we aren't really running a sandbox game because the players don't have infinite options, the players don't design the world, the worlds that are created are fictional. But most important of all? Because we aren't talking playing <some other game>.

None of those criteria (and I'm sure I missed a few) show up in any definition of sandbox that I have ever seen. Yet people continually redefine the generally accepted meaning so they can say "you're wrong".

 

[pemerton]

No, they are engaging with it, causing it to go in unexpected directions. Again, the point isn't to make the players feel in control of the setting or of the narrative, it is to make them feel in control of their character in an objective world. This approach achieves that for many people.

But surely you can accept that all that you say might be true and yet be consistent with (for instance) all that I have been saying. For instance, the players can prompt the GM to say stuff that they (the players) didn't anticipate, and that the GM didn't anticipate having to say (eg the players have their PCs zig rather than zag); but in itself this doesn't mean that the players are controlling what is being said.

 

[robertsconley]

You were the person that brought up « character-centric » approach to characterize the perspective you disagreed with, while labelling the perspective you agreed with as the « internally consistent » approach.

I refer you to this earlier post of yours. I was being challenged by another poster about how "character-centric play" was being defined in my conversation with you:

Let me express this differently: If a certain outcome enhanced a character’s narrative but flat out contradicted a fact that had been established in play, do you believe that the proponents of character-centric play would discard the fact?

I directed them to you because it was clear from our conversation that you had a working understanding of what character-centric play meant. And while I had already offered a definition, I was curious how you defined it, in case I had missed a detail or nuance.

My point is that labelling your preferred approach « the internally consistent » approach was extremely condescending to people that disagree with you but still consider that their campaigns take place in internally consistent worlds.

You are labeling my posts as condescending. I answered you before in post #3,584 But since I didn't receive a response here is a repost. Starting with your earlier comment and my reply.

If your intention is not to be condescending would in not be more accurate to ground the descriptions based on what makes them distinct rather than points they share? As I already responded, making a consistent world is important for all GMs.

I agree that « character-centric » is an accurate description of one side, but I would argue that « GM-curated world » would be more accurate for the other.

First, I was told my description was condescending because it emphasized difference. Now I’m told it’s inaccurate because it doesn’t emphasize difference enough. That contradiction speaks for itself.

You're also attempting to reframe my position by calling it a “GM-curated world.” That’s not a neutral term. It recasts my approach as one of authorial control, as if I’m selectively assembling content to guide outcomes, when in fact, I’ve detailed procedures and extrapolations that produce results regardless of what would best serve a character arc.

As I mentioned in my reply to @Hussar, philosophical foundations matter. He was upfront about his, and I appreciated that. Now I’d ask the same of you.

We all value consistency, but we differ on what that consistency is in service to. In character-centric play, it supports the player character’s narrative. In my campaigns, it reflects a world that operates on its own terms. Understanding our campaign philosophies will clarify why we approach campaigns differently, and why certain techniques that seem natural or necessary in one style can feel intrusive or out of place in another.

To this, I will add the same thing I said to @EzekielRaiden

Framing responses around emotional resonance or suggesting that certain playstyles are inherently “antagonistic” to specific feelings doesn’t help clarify differences, it risks delegitimizing the preferences of others. If we want to compare styles seriously, we need to focus on structure, goals, and outcomes, not assume that those who play differently are aiming for the same effects or violating shared principles.

 

[TwoSix]

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.

Not to mention that the actual range of "butterfly effect" knock-off effects from any action is so broad as to be unable to be simulated in a very short time frame.

If I leave my house for work ten minutes late, that could cause a change in traffic pattern that ends up causing a fatal accident 5 miles away. That's both the result of my choice and entirely outside of my agency.

Framing anything outside of direct causal links to a PC's actions as being "derived" from a PC's actions is just the DM adding a subjective decision-making to their narration.

 

[pemerton]

Part of what makes those moments special is that they're somewhat uncommon, and thus stick in the memory for a while. If they happened all the time they'd soon be forgotten, buried under the avalanche of more recent such moments and eventually becoming the ho-hum norm rather than the memorable exception.

Put another way, if you're running along at a 5-out-of-10 average, a 10-out-of-10 moment is special; but if you're running along at a 9-out-of-10 average anyway a 10-out-of-10 moment is no big deal; never mind that 9-out-of-10 is unsustainable for anything longer than the fairly short term.

And this dial doesn't go to 11.

This makes zero sense to me. I don't need to listen to a 5-year old play the violin, screeching away, so I can then enjoy good playing. I don't need to read a bad novel after I read a good novel, to make sure I don't get numbed to good writing.

I want my RPGing to be chock full of terrific moments. Your suggestions that it is not sustainable is not borne out in my experience.

With apologies for my amateur mapmaking, are you trying to tell me the maps linked from this page...

Decast maps

...aren't real?

'Cause that's how this line of argument comes across: that because the game-world being depicted isn't real, nothing written or drawn about it can be real either; and that ain't gonna fly.

No one has asserted that a map of an imaginary place is not a real thing. The point is that it has no correctness conditions. It is not answerable to anything. It is just made up!

 

[Bedrockgames]

But surely you can accept that all that you say might be true and yet be consistent with (for instance) all that I have been saying. For instance, the players can prompt the GM to say stuff that they (the players) didn't anticipate, and that the GM didn't anticipate having to say (eg the players have their PCs zig rather than zag); but in itself this doesn't mean that the players are controlling what is being said.

Pemerton I will be honest. I have no more responses for you. I don’t think our exchanges have been fruitful

 

[The Firebird]

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.

I replied to each of these examples earlier. I didn't see you ever respond to those points.

To reiterate:

1) Carousing having unintended consequences, including implication in an assassination, is a widespread fantasy trope. It is very predictable to the players.

2) We messed with a powerful faction and now they are striking back is also very predictable. Depending on how much you did, it could be devastating. Star Wars V, right?

Some issues you raised with (2) including things like "it is hard to know what magic items they will have when they perform their reprisal", which is a very high standard of knowability.

The only salient point imo was that it wasn't obvious how strong the reprisal would be. I think setting knowledge can go far here, if the GM has that knowledge and uses their judgement. If it's really uncertain, they can use random rolls to help determine.

3) The names are not the entirety of the information available to the PCs. They can ask their contacts, ask for rumors, talk to a sage, use divination magic, and so forth. If these are major locations in the setting the GM should also tell them what their characters know about these places.

 

[pemerton]

Carousing having unintended consequences, including implication in an assassination, is a widespread fantasy trope. It is very predictable to the players.

I don't think something unexpected might happen is a basis for saying that the players are exercising control. It seems to be the opposite!

We messed with a powerful faction and now they are striking back is also very predictable. Depending on how much you did, it could be devastating. Star Wars V, right?

Some people mess with (say) the KGB and survive. Ohers are crushed. The range of possibility is extreme. How are the players to know what is likely?

The only salient point imo was that it wasn't obvious how strong the reprisal would be. I think setting knowledge can go far here, if the GM has that knowledge and uses their judgement. If it's really uncertain, they can use random rolls to help determine.

Suppose the GM uses random rolls - that just drives home the unknowability by the players!

The names are not the entirety of the information available to the PCs. They can ask their contacts, ask for rumors, talk to a sage, use divination magic, and so forth. If these are major locations in the setting the GM should also tell them what their characters know about these places.

And as I have posted, depending on what this gathering of information actually means, instead of active, player-driven RPGing we have the players following the GM's breadcrumbs - in effect, the GM is exercising the sort of control over the player's action declarations that a good bridge player exercises over other players' play of their cards (ie not usurping authority, but constraining and guiding its exercise)

 

[Thomas Shey]

I have yet to see daylight between them.


Yes...I literally said that a ways upthread, with an example of how (for example) having a merchant with fancy clothes implies a whole bunch of things about tailoring shops and their employees, expecting that essentially no DM (sandbox or otherwise) would have already prepared a list of the employees' names, let alone enough detail for them to be meaningfully active apart from player attention.

In other words, all the pixels poured out about a world that exists "independently" and "objectively" has rung quite hollow when, with either approach, detail only happens because players express interest.

I just think there's a difference between "triggered by player interaction" and "based around player interaction". The motivation seems quite different and thus the potential output quite different.

 

[TwoSix]

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?

Yes, because it's fair and transparent, and at least in the B/X model of play, is a rule-stated procedure.

Now, it also matters as to the intent of the discussion. If the players are traveling to a city 3 days away, and decide to stay in an inn for during their travels, I'm not going to bother rolling for the innkeeper's reaction because there's no stakes there; the players' intent is focused on the city they're traveling to.

Rolling checks just to see if a random innkeeper is hostile and decides to poison the PCs would be something to do in simulation play which I generally have no interest in (unless I'm making a choice to use an old-school system, which I sometimes do).

Creating a hostile innkeeper to poison the PCs during their travels because the DM feels they need a challenge is trad-style storypath play, which I'm not at all interested in.