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

[The Firebird]

I had thought we were quite clear at this point that "railroading" means any action, whatever that action might be, which forces a particular outcome to occur within the fictional space.

Casting power word stun is railroading, because it forces a particular outcome?

I think @thefutilist has a good definition.

By your lights, a DM who wrote a 500-page setting bible containing copious detailed notes about every possible visit-able location could not be railroading, no matter how many things they nix in advance. Nor would it be railroading to be running Dragonlance and telling players which character they will play and what scenes they'll play through--after all, it would be the players ignoring established fiction to deviate from what the Dragonlance novels tell us!

And I think this example is getting far enough from a RPG to miss the point.

I think, in my judgement at least, this is not a coherent position. Context is everything. Sure, players may choose between options, but they're limited to reacting to a largely predetermined set of situations. Beyond that, I honestly don't believe in the existence of GM objectivity/neutrality. It undoubtedly can exist at a small scale, sometimes, but in terms of overall situation, it's impossible. The results can be great, but they're not putting the players nearly as much in the driver's seat as is commonly imagined by some.

I get that you disagree with it. "Driver's seat" is pretty subjective, sure. I don't get why you think it is incoherent.

 

[robertsconley]

So, what I'm looking at are the points of collaboration. They largely happen during play, and they seem mostly centered on the players declaring where they go, which then gives some options of things to do, and they select from those options.

So first off, I appreciate the effort you put into offering a full explanation in this post and others. I’ll be happy to discuss the other points you raised later today, but I want to touch on this part first because I think it highlights why our approaches differ.

From this and your previous posts, my understanding is that you prefer campaigns that are creative collaborations, where worldbuilding, themes, stories, characters, and the process of play are shared among everyone at the table. That makes sense to me, and your comment follows from that foundation.

While we often use similar tools, like having a referee, or in the case of Torchbearer, random tables, you use these tools to support the creative goal of collaborative campaign creation. That creative goal is a fundamental choice that shapes everything else.

Before I go further, I want to emphasize: we're talking about ways to have fun. And there are different ways of achieving fun, even if we’re all starting with the same basic tools, dice, pencil, and paper.


In contrast, my creative goal with a living world sandbox campaign is not collaborative creation. Instead, I build worlds and invite players to visit them, to spend a portion of their hobby time living as characters in these worlds, having adventures. In this setup, I’m both a travel agent and the engine of the world. What I’m not is a tour guide. Some have criticized sandbox campaigns with strong referee authority by saying players feel like tourists watching the referee perform. But in my campaigns, I’m not a tour guide who leads them once they pass the gate. I’m the travel agent who built the destination, and the engine that makes the world respond logically to what they do as their characters once they arrive.

And there’s one more thing I do: I make sure the world remembers what the players do. Visiting fantastic places is fun, but the secret sauce is running the same setting for the same genre over and over again, tracking the lasting consequences of player actions. As a result, the Majestic Wilderlands I run today isn’t just a product of my creativity; it’s the sum of my efforts and those of my players. That’s how I began this whole living world sandbox path, when my second AD&D campaign took place in the same Wilderlands as the first, shaped by the kingdoms and towers that the players in the first campaign had built.

I hope this helps clarify why our approaches differ and that it adds clarity to our future discussions, especially when we talk about techniques and how they serve different creative goals. I’m always happy to explain how a specific technique follows from my approach and how it shapes interaction between the referee and players when my goals are a factor.

 

[hawkeyefan]

This. That is the thing. It is very much about that kind of communication with the GM. Players having feee reign to explore where they want in a campaign is just not a railroad

What you are describing does not sound player driven to me. It sounds more like player generated content. And I am not saying that is bad or less of a sandbox. This looks very workable. But you are talking about something completely different from what Rob and others are deducting when they say their games are player driven, not GM driven. And I think you are glossing over crucial aspects of how we ply. Players arent just picking locations and there for the ride. They are driving the action and direction by their choices, by their actions and declarations, through Q&A etc. yes the GM is managing setting details creating setting content. But I do not at all think that means the campaign is GM driven. Like I said, something where the GM has a story to tell, that would be more GM driven. But this style is bass more on the GM being reactive to players and on the chemistry that unfolds as players pursue their goals and this bones into conflict or harmony with NPC goals

Clearly there is a real distinction here around Gm and player authority. We all agree on that. That is a substantial difference. What we disagree on is what that means in terms of agency and who is driving play.

Yeah, that's the distinction, I think... player-driven versus GM-driven. The example I gave of the Blades campaign is showing the agency that players have on the direction of play beyond just that of control of their characters. They have a strong say in what the game will actually entail. The world is sketched prior to play (Doskvol is a very detailed setting, but the way it is presented leaves a lot of area for input), and then fleshed out through play.

I think a game where a GM has a story to tell as you mention has more in common with one of these two types of play than the other. I don't think that what you and @robertsconley are talking about is entirely GM driven. There is some amount of player input, for sure, and the GM may not have a story to tell. But the GM is still authoring the vast majority of what is available for play. That's the similarity that I see is key... that's what makes it GM driven in my mind.

For example, the players in my Mothership game were free to take whatever jobs they wanted. They could then go to any locations available to them, per their means. There were plenty of jobs on the station, and plenty of jobs off the station out in space or on other planets. But the nature of those jobs and the content included in those jobs? Entirely made by me. I was driving play in the sense that everything play was about was chosen by me.

My players had no issue with this. They understood the nature of the game, and they approached play accordingly. So I'm not using the descriptor "GM-driven" as a negative. It wasn't a railroad, it wasn't linear, I would still describe play as a sandbox type game. But the content of play is very much up to the GM rather than the players.

 

[Faolyn]

How can it not? The players won't go to places the DM doesn't put in front of them. They would have no reason to travel to place X unless the DM provides place X. And, specfically within a level based system like D&D, many areas are more or less walled off by level. Yes, sure, you can wander into the red dragon's lair, but, since that's suicidal for 1st level characters, either that red dragon's lair will be in a location that the PC's can't reach due to lack of resources, or they will be strongly warned off by the DM through the use of NPC's.

Sure they can. If you put out a map with places X, Y, and Z labeled, there's always going to be players who will point at an unlabeled space and ask what's there.

Now, true, the players could choose suicide by dragon, but, by and large, they aren't going to. So, when the DM plonks a red dragon lair in location X, that's a big sign that says, "You must be this tall to ride". Again, the DM is very strongly influencing what the characters do.

I'd say that it's the world doing that, not the GM. It may indeed be suicide for the players to go there, but there's nothing inherently stopping the players to go there anyway. Or to try to pass through there, at least, while on the way to another location.

 

[The Firebird]

Yeah, that's the distinction, I think... player-driven versus GM-driven. The example I gave of the Blades campaign is showing the agency that players have on the direction of play beyond just that of control of their characters. They have a strong say in what the game will actually entail. The world is sketched prior to play (Doskvol is a very detailed setting, but the way it is presented leaves a lot of area for input), and then fleshed out through play.

I think 'player-created' vs 'GM-created', as someone suggested, accurately captures the distinction you're getting at without making fixed world sandboxers feel like their playstyle is not being understood. I think those terms are better than player/GM driven.

 

[Faolyn]

Zero.

The players might go: "we would like to open up a coffee bar". That was something actually discussed in one of my games. In the end they didn't as it wasn't a sandbox game so they had something more pressing they needed to do. But they could have done. NB, I had already established the existence of coffee in the setting.

Heh. I had players ask me if there was anywhere they could buy flavored syrups from, because they had a spell that let them create ice (this was GURPS) and decided to sell slushies for a brief time.

I also had a game (mostly same players) that decided that, since the bard was clearly the face of the party, they would be a band (they called themselves The Sex Crossbows) and instead of killing the goblins I had set to be the low-level killable mooks, they recruited them into working--for pay!--making band t-shirts. Well, tabards, really.

 

[robertsconley]

Hah yeah we both noted that Arbela needed to be fleshed out more.

So by thematically relevant I mean you've got a lot of really great thematic setting, the Beggars, the war, the ethnic divisions and so on. Yet it becomes kind of 'generic fantasy mush' when you get to the actual encounters. Which is also why I wouldn't actually have encounters, just list the npc's, their various priorities and resources and maybe have clocks or the equivalent to give them impetus.

So what this tells me that I should have a section that presents how my original notes were. Well maybe not the original original because it have a terse way of making notes that not usable for sharing. But anyway, my original notes were pretty much what you describe, a list of locations, the NPCs with motivations, goal, etc.

But what happened is I kept track of what happened the first time, I ran the adventure. Then I ran it a 2nd time, a 3rd and so on up to ten times prior to writing the final draft. So what you are reading is essentially a record of all those groups and what they did. If it feel go here and go there, it's because that what one or more groups did.

And this is my first attempt, I'm trying to take a sandbox adventure and write it up in a useful way for an audience. So even after all these years learning new tricks to do that.

So I think the solution is to make a chapter that presents the raw situation without any further notes so a person can approach running it like I did the first time.

So you know the PDF is just the first half the product. The second half was a supplement fully fleshing out the village, the hamlet, and the Mage's conclave. And mostly all about the NPCs and their goals and motivations.

It the section I have to do the most work for for the 2nd edition so I don't normally share it but here are some pages.

As for your other points I will get to them this evening.

 

[Faolyn]

Yeah, then I don't get this division. For me, the "GM describes how the world reacts" is a rule. The "innkeeper is boisterous and friendly" is a rule. When the PCs interact with the innkeeper the innkeeper telling them rumors is then just the DM responding according to the rules.

I don't see why the inlusion of dice makes it a different kind of rule.

To me, at least, "boisterous and friendly" doesn't automatically mean "willing to share rumors." A GM could decide that the innkeeper doesn't share rumors ("gossip isn't friendly"), is willing to share rumors unprompted, or will share them only if prompted in specific ways (e.g., the PCs mention that they're going to a specific location so the innkeeper shares a rumor they heard about it, but doesn't mention a rumor about a different location). The GM could also rely on the dice to determine if the innkeeper shares a rumor when prompted (PC makes a sufficiently high charisma roll, or GM rolls a die and decides on a particular result, the innkeeper talks, etc.).

 

[robertsconley]

I think one of those foundations was discussed upthread between myself and @TwoSix. I believe that I can be impartial enough that the amount of impartiality doesn't matter. He does not. That seems very foundational to this discussion. If you don't think the DM can be impartial enough, you'd prefer resolution methods outside of the DM.

Yup I touched on that as well with I think @Hussar. A lot of the comments here make sense if you know their stance on that issue.

 

[Faolyn]

Well, if I want play to be about my character's hunt for his brother's killer, then those are elements that the GM has to actively include. If he doesn't, then I as a player am not able to have play be about what I want it to be about.

There needs to be collaboration for player driven play.

OK, but I was talking about locations.

But even with your example, I don't have to detail the home of your brother's killer until you actually get there.