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

[Micah Sweet]

@pemerton has always been pretty clear about his definitions. It is equally necessary for others to read and comprehend. I don't think you're wrong about using terms, but requiring strict adherence to your formulations (and note @Campbell not agreeing that your definition of agency is normative) precludes any easy way to discuss alternatives at all. And again, our experience has been that there's a lot of hostility to introducing new terms. It seems to be a kind of linguistic tyranny at times.

I haven't seen a lot of respectfully introducing new terms. What I have seen is some folks littering their posts with terms they apparently assume everyone else firmly understands (or don't care if they understand), because explanations are pretty thin on the ground.

 

[pemerton]

I can see the idea of why someone might say that. I mean, the geography we’re dealing with is pretend. So you could probably design both a dungeon and a sandbox as like a flowchart. You get to this node along that path, and that node along the other path. So I get the idea.

But I imagine that most games that rely on sandboxes would likely wind up having many nodes and many paths to the point where it’d be hard to track them all.

Is that only a matter of scope or has it become something else at that point?

I've got doubts about the utility of a node/path analysis of a sandbox-y game. It's not just the complexity of the geographic possibilities, but also the fact that time sequence matters - as in, activating <this thing> before <that thing> produces a different fiction from activating <that thing> before <this thing>.

A classic dungeon may have some of this, but generally shouldn't have as much of it. Because if it does, then the method that Gygax describes for "successful adventures" won't work - because players won't be able to collect information, and then plan and reliably execute their plans on the basis of it. (This is also why I think that Gygax's DMG somewhat contradicts his PHB: the DMG has advice on making dungeons "living" environments which, if applies fully and faithfully by a GM, will make the advice to players given in Successful Adventures pretty useless.)

Interestingly, though, this difference between the two sorts of game set-up incline me to worry more about railroading in sandbox-type play than in dungeon-crawl play.

Hey! False Equivalences are going to be false, just so you know. There's a rather huuuuuuuuuuge difference between narrow confines in one type of activity that you can't escape, and expansive areas in almost any activity you want to engage in.

It's all just imaginary. So there is a strong element here of "but it goes to 11!"

If I want to have the opportunity to have the GM say lots of stuff about lots of different places and environments, then I shouldn't sign up to a dungeon crawl. Just the same as, if I want to have the opportunity to have the GM say lots of stuff about spaceships, I should sign up for Traveller rather than D&D.

But these differences in the content/topic/genre of the fiction don't, in themselves, tell me anything about whether or not play is a railroad.

 

[hawkeyefan]

But the problem with this is pretty evident in the way you guys talk about prep and sandboxes. It is treated as a kind of lifeless matter, for the players to discover, perhaps interact with a bit, but not something that is hugely dynamic and responsive to what the players do. This is pretty consistent when you guys are talking about sandbox (even when you speak of it and talk about how you like it). You can call it poetry if you want, I think there is more than poetry going on in our descriptions of sandbox, but I think on the opposite end from poetry you have a kind of sterility that is overly reductive and as I have been saying, misses many of the important details and nuances of the interactions between player and GM (which we have all gone over exhaustively so I don't see any value in revisiting)

Because when you’re talking about how the sausage is made it helps to talk about what’s actually happening.

Having a problem with that as a basic description of some RPGs

I’ll take your word that you’re not framing sandbox play as ideologically suspect, but you're still misrepresenting how agency works in my campaigns. The referee maintains the world, but the direction of play comes from the players. They aren’t constrained; they choose what to pursue, and the world reacts accordingly.

Calling that GM-led overlooks the core point: the players decide what happens. The world doesn’t guide them; they guide themselves through it. That’s player-driven, just with a different structure than what you’re used to.

I would say they are likely constrained in some ways, no? Like they can’t get to Boston from Dallas without a long trip, or if they can’t afford passage of some sort. And to be clear… this isn’t a problem, it’s just that there are likely going to be constraints from within the setting that may limit their options.

The point of Blades in the Dark is to recreate the feeling of a heist story in the world of Doskvol. Its mechanics, including flashbacks, flow from that goal. Sharing narrative authority is part of the system’s design, and clearly, that style resonates with many, given how much it's created a family of Powered by the Dark RPGs.

By contrast, the point of my Living World Sandbox campaigns is to present a setting that feels real, where players feel like they’ve been there as their characters.

I know it’s already been pointed out, but yeah, these are the offhanded comments made about other games that I don’t think you and @Bedrockgames even realize you make.

Most RPGs aim to create and portray plausible, believable worlds (even if they’re fantastic in ways). Perhaps you place that above any and all concerns, but that doesn’t mean it’s a concern that only you strive for.

 

[Bedrockgames]

@robertsconley Baker recently posted about revisiting Narrativism (which is distinct from whatever a "narrative RPG" is and good god it's all very easy to get backwards and confused isn't it), which I think somebody else shared in this thread but, in his words this is narrativism as a play style/dynamic:



It sounds like the way you construct your sandboxes and do the up front work, if your players do 1 & 2 you're quite possibly playing a game in the narrativist dynamic per 4. It sounds like your factions in the world have goals that they're pursuing the PCs may run up against, the PCs have drives and interests in the world, and you're not planning ways things turn out. This may not be your intention or goal, and maybe your players are a little less doing 1&2, but while games like BITD or AW or whatever may be designed from the get go to essentially force narrativist play dynamics that's just some creative intention.

This is a big part of sandbox, and has been for a long time in my experience, but I don't think folks would conceive of it as narrativism the way described in this post.

I suspect there might be some key differences. But this is why I am always talking about groups and NPCs being alive. And why I say the campaign is like a chemical reaction. You drop the players in the world and they pursue these goals, which inevitably but up or align with the goals of other people in the setting. One of the reasons I talk so much about wuxia is because the marital world paradigm (this underworld inhabited by feuding sects, wandering swordsman, nefarious criminals, thieves, teahouses, brothels and inns) works so well for this conflict driven play. My suspicion is we won't break it down quite as much. We just equip our groups with goals, perhaps with an eye towards them being gameable, equip the NPCs with motives and obstructions, perhaps with an eye towards gameablity, and let the players interact with them. A lot of my campaigns are players trying to do things like establish themselves in the martial world and taking initiative to forge a path towards some kind of rise within it (which could be striking out on their own in a bold way, allying with a martial hero or sect they think they can work with, or even working with a criminal or religious group). And there are often many other goals mixed in there. Also in these campaigns, roots I find are important. Family matters here. If the players marry, have kids, that produces a lot of potential for this kind of stuff.

I may misunderstand it but I would say something like 3 is even a big part of this. Of course, it is possible I am getting my wires crossed here as I may not be understanding the quoted passage thoroughly

Because when you’re talking about how the sausage is made it helps to talk about what’s actually happening.

Having a problem with that as a basic description of some RPGs

And it is fine if you want to do that. The issue we have is you guys insisting you know how the sausage is made when others are saying it doesn't sound like you do (again if you found a model that works, great, use it, it is the imposition of that model on others where people start to bristle).

I know it’s already been pointed out, but yeah, these are the offhanded comments made about other games that I don’t think you and @Bedrockgames even realize you make.

Most RPGs aim to create and portray plausible, believable worlds (even if they’re fantastic in ways). Perhaps you place that above any and all concerns, but that doesn’t mean it’s a concern that only you strive for.

I think I have been very clear I that I don't think I have a monopoly on anything here. I think sandboxes do tend to have a strong focus on this, but it isn't a zero sum game. There are probably lots of other ways to do it. And there are different ways to these considerations can be balanced out. The only time I even drew a line, was around the concept of solving an objective mystery because we were talking about how that pertained to agency and choice. And I think there you can draw a pretty sharp distinction between a mystery that is concrete, with an objective history and geography to explore, versus one where these things are produced during play.

 

[pemerton]

It sounds like the way you construct your sandboxes and do the up front work, if your players do 1 & 2 you're quite possibly playing a game in the narrativist dynamic per 4. It sounds like your factions in the world have goals that they're pursuing the PCs may run up against, the PCs have drives and interests in the world, and you're not planning ways things turn out. This may not be your intention or goal, and maybe your players are a little less doing 1&2, but while games like BITD or AW or whatever may be designed from the get go to essentially force narrativist play dynamics that's just some creative intention.

Right.

This has always been something that puzzles me. It never seemed to me that the sort of stuff I was doing in my RPGing in the second half of the 1980s (with AD&D) or in the 1990s (with Rolemaster) was so radical that others wouldn't be doing similar stuff. So when I read about "vanilla" narrativism (that is, narrativist RPGing that doesn't use any non-conventional procedures or techniques), and realised - "Hey, that's kind-of what I'm doing" - I assumed that there must be plenty of others out there who would have a similar response.

But it hasn't turned out that way. My experience has been that many, perhaps even most, RPGers who are using fairly conventional procedures and techniques seem committed to strongly denying that they are doing anything with a hint of narrativism.

 

[bloodtide]

The choice of the loaded word "rant" is interesting.

It fits...
Not sure why it is "loaded"

Whereas I've seen ones don't, either directly or by putting it off until later (which at best can create a situation were the actual result of the bad decision can be difficult to fix, more likely just shrugged off with a "we'll remember next time", and at worst never leaves time to discuss it), and I've heard of many more.

So here we are.

I want to play a game. Not listen to a player for 30 minutes as they roll out pseudo science to say they can knock a dragon out of the sky with a dagger if it is thrown "just right".

Same way I don't want to argue with a player rant the demands "the guard be asleep because they want to sneak in". As DM I say what the guard is doing.

Not selling anyone on anything. Just trying to be part of the conversation. That's a big part of my frustrations.

I agree with you. I put forth my way of gaming, but I'm not saying it is objectively "better". It is just the way I do it.

I outright demand players pay attention or I kick them out of the game ("if your phone is so important go home and use it"). Though quite often people mention a problem like "how can I get my players to pay attention during the game?" And I will mention my way and how great it works.

 

[Maxperson]

If I want to have the opportunity to have the GM say lots of stuff about lots of different places and environments, then I shouldn't sign up to a dungeon crawl. Just the same as, if I want to have the opportunity to have the GM say lots of stuff about spaceships, I should sign up for Traveller rather than D&D.

100%! If you don't want the DM to leave tons of options open so you can drive play in a sandbox as a player, you can absolutely sign on to a dungeon crawl railroad instead. You have the ability to make that choice.

But these differences in the content/topic/genre of the fiction don't, in themselves, tell me anything about whether or not play is a railroad.

I mean it does. It just doesn't use your personal definition of railroad, but rather the common definition.

 

[pemerton]

I haven't seen a lot of respectfully introducing new terms. What I have seen is some folks littering their posts with terms they apparently assume everyone else firmly understands (or don't care if they understand), because explanations are pretty thin on the ground.

Hang on a sec - you've participated in many of these sorts of threads for quite a while now - such as this one <D&D General - What is player agency to you?> and this one <An examination of player agency>.

What terminology are you saying you're confused by?

 

[thefutilist]

It sounds like the way you construct your sandboxes and do the up front work, if your players do 1 & 2 you're quite possibly playing a game in the narrativist dynamic per 4. It sounds like your factions in the world have goals that they're pursuing the PCs may run up against, the PCs have drives and interests in the world, and you're not planning ways things turn out. This may not be your intention or goal, and maybe your players are a little less doing 1&2, but while games like BITD or AW or whatever may be designed from the get go to essentially force narrativist play dynamics that's just some creative intention.

This is why I've made repeated comparisons between Roberts play and my own and have pointed out how those exact preconditions created a moment of Narrativist reward in the play of @SableWyvern

Where the current disconnects happen are along the lines of realism and when/how a situation is created.

What a lot of the sim crowd mean when they say 'real', is that extrapolation happens without regard to the player characters. Otherwise the world feels contrived, well in fact is contrived.

A Narrativist response is that the contrivance happens anyway but being aware of it allows for better play for gamestate reasons, amongst others. It's a somewhat complex topic.


The other disconnect is:

Prep v no prep v situation: So if you have the situation limited and prepped, that is obviously different to having to create the facts with very little to extrapolate from. The creation of certain types of facts can't help but be contrived in some sense. When you have those facts in place then as Pemerton and me said, 'you're back at the start of the dungeon.'


AN EXAMPLE TO MAKE THAT STUFF MORE CLEAR

Your group of adventurers decide they want to give up the adventuring life and start a home for stray dogs. They head to a city that has only been mentioned. The GM may have some rough prep for it in terms of where it lies in relative to the geopolitical landscape but not much about the state of dogs.

and here we have our big bone of contention

There might be 'something' within the given prep that allows for extrapolation with integrity but probably not (we can call this ' @pemerton 's warehouse' from several threads ago). Pemertons warehouse = How do you extrapolate if there is nothing to extrapolate from?

So how does the GM decide the current status of the stray dogs and the policy toward stray dogs in this vaguely sketched city?


AND SO THE BLOW BY BLOW IS

Whatever answer you get to 'how', you can then reference this to the blow by blow of actual play. If you watch a video of a session where they are running the dog shelter, what is actually happening? what's being described and what are the PC's doing?

That's when we see the rubber meet the road.

 

[zakael19]

My suspicion is we won't break it down quite as much. We just equip our groups with goals, perhaps with an eye towards them being gameable, equip the NPCs with motives and obstructions, perhaps with an eye towards gameablity, and let the players interact with them. A lot of my campaigns are players trying to do things like establish themselves in the martial world and taking initiative to forge a path towards some kind of rise within it (which could be striking out on their own in a bold way, allying with a martial hero or sect they think they can work with, or even working with a criminal or religious group). And there are often many other goals mixed in there. Also in these campaigns, roots I find are important. Family matters here. If the players marry, have kids, that produces a lot of potential for this kind of stuff.

Oh for sure, and maybe you don't think it quite meets Baker's definition for whatever reason that you experience in play or how you think of your games; but like @prabe 's games are pretty much textbook "vanilla narativism" in 5e since his folks do AFAIK everything in those and he then facilitates play within his city & environs sandbox so that they can pursue those goals against opposition and see what happens.

It's actually probably easier to get to narrativism in a game that doesn't support it on the design side through the sort of up-front work whereby the GM doesn't feel the need to like "manipulate play" because there's already enough there that they know they can just refer to notes and go "yeah ok, so here's what happens when you pursue you goals." And like I get where @hawkeyefan is coming from with poking at all teh set-up being intentional design such that players are exploring a world of the GM's creation, but I've also discovered that I personally like to "play to find out" what happens within something that has some bones and constraints: Doskvol, other FITD settings, Stonetop, etc - that let me not have to fully unveil the world from nothing during play.