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

[AlViking]

You made the decision to not have orcs in your fantasy setting.

That’s not a judgment. It’s not a normative statement. It’s just a trivially obvious statement of truth.

I made a decision about the fictional world before the player ever said what his chosen enemy was and I saw no reason to change it. Do you have a point you're trying to make? Anything at all that adds to the conversation?

 

[SableWyvern]

Impartiality would include play to find out I suppose. I would want this explained again though because my impression is it is a technical term that might have specific meaning (whereas I am just taking the literal meaning of the phrase here).

Based on my experience with BitD, play to find out just comes down to the fact you don't have a predetermined story in mind that the group is trying to bring to life. Here is the situation, now the PCs get involved; what happens? No one knows, yet, we play to find out.

From Blades (emphasis from the original):

No one is in charge of the story. The story is what happens as a result of the situation presented by the GM, the actions the characters take, the outcomes of the mechanics, and the consequences that result. The story emerges from the unpredictable collision of all of these elements. You play to find out what the story will be.

As I mentioned upthread, it's basically equivalent to longstanding ideas that story in RPGs is an emergent property and it is very compatible with Living World sandboxes. The concept certainly didn't originate with PbtA, but I do think it's expressed quite well by John Harper in the quote above.

 

[Maxperson]

You have tried to assert that the original claim is perfectly fine because:
(a) Large predators should be able to force characters to feel fear against their players' wills

This is a design flaw in the game. The designers have said that social skills like intimidate, persuasion, etc. are not intended to work on a PC. The social skill section in the 5e DMG backs that up by stating "when used on an NPC" all over the place, but never once "when used on a PC."

The lion's roar is essentially an intimidate check and should not have been given to them as it violates their stated design intent.

I disagree with anyone who says that they are exceptions. I've heard lion's roars and there was nothing to resist in order for me to not be frightened.

(b) Mundane beings who happen to be classified within the rules as "Legendary" can be parsed as supernatural

I mean, every "fighters can't get nice things" thread for the last 20+ years has had those on our side of things agree with this. Examples given by me in those threads are Zoro from One Piece who has mundanely trained his skill with swords to the point where he can supernaturally cut things 100 or more feet away with a swing. And the Samurai from One Piece who can cut any fire with his katana.

(c) The DM is at liberty to rewrite things so that, even though the character in question is explicitly not supernatural, the DM may present them as such (in other words, straight-up Stormwind Fallacy, "X cannot be a problem with Y because the DM can change X to not be a problem")

I don't know what this has to do with the price of tea in China. If the DM gets to the lion's roar and it doesn't fit with 1) the stated design intent of D&D, and 2) his views on agency and changes it, that isn't some sort of strike against his views. He isn't moving the goal posts by bringing up that these things can be changed.

(d) The "Frightened" condition doesn't necessarily take away a character's actions, and thus somehow does not count as an induced mental state

And this just seems to be wrong on its face. Of course it counts as an induced mental state. You don't cease to be frightened(forced mental state) just because you can take actions.

These exceptions poke massive holes in the original claim. In order to integrate them, the claim has to be rewritten as, "The player has absolute control over the mental state of their character, outside of explicitly supernatural causes, unless they're faced with a massive predator, or a creature which is not supernatural but the DM has rewritten to be supernatural, and even if such an effect occurs from a mundane source, the mechanical effect of certain mental states is so small it should be discounted as not really a mental state at all." Surely you can see how excusing these exceptions has radically weakened the original claim, to the point that it hardly seems to have any weight left at all.

Only (a) and (d) do that, except that they don't poke holes in the general claim at all. They only poke personally at the person(s) who said those things. (b) does not because it's in line with arguments and beliefs that have been made for decades, and (c) does not because re-writing things to be in line with your views on agency does not poke a hole in your views on agency.

 

[AlViking]

There’s never one true way. But it’s there’s no sense of boundary as to what a “sandbox” is, then it’s a fairly useless term.

A sandbox is pretty simple to me. There are no predetermined goals, no long term plan for what the character will do, no overarching plot that must be adhered to. The players make decisions about what their characters do and the GM makes decisions about how the world reacts. How you build the world, how you maintain it, whether or not the world is built taking into consideration individual player desires is secondary.

I posted something a long time ago from this blog post Playing in the Sandbox – Archstone Press that made sense to me, although of course there are variations because we're not talking about mathematical proofs of scientific theories.

• Player-driven adventures: The GM lays out the toys in the sandbox (the world, NPCs, Factions, problems/adventure hooks, etc.), and the players decide what to build with those toys (the shape of the story).
• High player agency: Players are free to act and solve problems in whatever way they see fit, or not at all. There’s no need for the GM to contain the player’s creativity to meet their own expectations for the story. In fact, the GM should have no expected story in mind at all, beyond predictions towards how the world will react to the players’ plans.
• A living world: The world must react to the players’ actions, and to the players’ inaction. Regardless of what the players do, the NPCs and factions should have their own goals that they are working towards in the background, which may or may not be interrupted by the players’ own machinations. The world should not revolve around the players, but must take their presence into account. The world must always be changing, not a static background that only moves when a light is shined on it.

So I'll ask again. Do you have a point to this other than to gin up some criticism, some "gotcha"?

 

[AlViking]

I think with Sandbox play, it is useful to have a sense of what the norms are. I find it useful for setting expectations, and letting people know how my approach might be different from what they are used to.

I think it's useful to have broad categories of things like sandbox or linear, but that's just one dimension to consider when describing any specific campaign. I also think most people understand what you mean when you use those terms or quickly understand when it is explained. Seems to be only an issue with people that have an agenda and want to tear other people's ideas down because it's not what they do.

 

[zakael19]

Based on my experience with BitD, play to find out just comes down to the fact you don't have a predetermined story in mind that the group is trying to bring to life. Here is the situation, now the PCs get involved; what happens? No one knows, yet, we play to find out.

From Blades (emphasis from the original):

As I mentioned upthread, it's basically equivalent to longstanding ideas that story in RPGs is an emergent property and it is very compatible with Living World sandboxes. The concept certainly didn't originate with PbtA, but I do think it's expressed quite well by John Harper in the quote above.

Yeah, so the idea that "there's no story or plot in this game" may be pretty long running; but Play to Find Out is actually meant to be a little more then "lets not pre-plan a story," it's that there's specific things that vary from game to game you're playing to find out. Which I agree, unless you sit down when you're making your characters for a sandbox and agree across the board that what you're getting together to do is "discover how much loot we can get from this world before we die or retire" or something similar you're probably not quite doing the same thing.

For instance, in Blades:

We play to find out if the fledgling crew can thrive amidst the teeming threats of rival gangs, powerful noble families, vengeful ghosts, the Bluecoats of the City Watch, and the siren song of the scoundrel’s own vices. (p.1)

I think it started as a reaction against highly plotted play in the late 90s games, but eventually went beyond that to ask specific questions of the characters and premise of play.

Can you explain clocks to me again, because when I read about them in I remembered them being something different. My understanding was it was a way of tracking progress on things (and I do think many sandbox GMs do use things similar to clocks, but pinning it down is a different concept if I understand clocks correctly (which I might not). Pinning it down is my phrasing. I don't believe it is a unique concept to my sandboxes but it is a principle I think is shared by many, even if it is talked about in different ways. Here is my explanation

While at its base a clock is simply a progress bar (and the concept of Clocks specifically as one came from earlier PBTA games largely); Blades extended the concept into a variety of different uses. A) you can pose ticks on a clock as a "soft" consequence (eg: instead of "the guards notice you on your failed Lurk roll!" it can be "the guards notice some strange sounds and are searching around, I'm marking 2 ticks on this 4 tick Alerted clock"), B) to denote progress towards a goal/obstacle (this armored guy is a 4 clock to defeat, the Outer Defenses are a 6 clock, it's a racing pair of clocks to get to your target before they can escape!), C) and probably the one most relevant to the thread of discussion - faction clocks. These are provided as part of the game to set the initial conditions of the city - what all the factions want, what they're working on, and some potential outcomes.

During Downtime, the GM is supposed to roll some or all of the faction clocks in the city (using the Faction's Tier which is an abstract representation of the resources and power they can bring to bear on their desires), to see how the city changes. You then telegraph that back to the players (people use in-world news papers, open clock notes with a vague title, explicitly telling the players, all sorts of techniques), and evolve the world accordingly. As the players do stuff, they get dragged in (or drag factions in), and new clocks get spun out!

 

[zakael19]

You are going to have got explain how clocks pertain to NPCs having their own goals and I need to know what pass decision onto NPCs is. When I say this, I mean it in the sense of living NPCs. NPCs function similar to PCs, not in the sense of being protagonists in the campaign, but in the senes of the GM runs them freely, they are trying to do things, they are pursuing their goals and agendas. They aren't stuck in one place. They don't just show up because it is cool or convenient. They aren't just there to be antagonists. If the players interact with an NPC one way, he might befriend them, another, he might be their enemy. And it isn't like you have a list of 'ifs', you simply extrapolate from what you know about the NPCs personality how they would respond. I think it also tends to emphasize that NPCs are people who can be reasoned with.

I hope my other post answers most of this (in that NPCs generally belong to Factions, and the Factions have Goals + Tier + Assets + A Starting Situation) that explain how Blades handles NPC play, but just to give a really concrete example of a Faction (spoilers):

THE CHURCH OF ECSTASY The “state religion” honors the life of the body and abhors the corrupted spirit world. Essentially a secret society.

TIER IV

FACTION CLOCKS
Unlock the secret of ascension 12
Eliminate the Reconciled 12

Turf: The Sanctorium grand cathedral in Brightstone. Many other smaller temples across the city.
NPCs: Elder Rowan (leader, devout, resolute, visionary). Preceptor Dunvil (arcane researcher, unorthodox, obsessive, enigmatic).
Notable Assets: A large treasury of tithes from citizens. Extensive arcane and occult libraries, workspaces, and artifacts. Many cohorts of acolytes and hollows who enforce the will of the Church's leadership.
Quirks: Zealous believers volunteer to be hollowed to “become purified.” This was once common among the ancient cult of the Empty Vessel, which preceded the Church.
Allies: City Council, Leviathan Hunters, Spirit Wardens.
Enemies: The Path of Echoes, The Reconciled.
Situation: The purest beings (according to secret teachings of the Church), are those entirely without spirits: the demons. Demons are immortal, but never fade into madness or lustful hungers as rogue human spirits and vampires do. They are perfect; and the most devout of the Church seek to become as they are, to unlock the secret of ascension. Many dark experiments and rituals with hulls, hollows, vampires—and the rare demon—are conducted in the labyrinthine dungeons below the Church's chief cathedral in Brightstone.

Being Tier 4, they roll 4d6 to determine progress on clocks (take the highest). It also informs how potent their assets are. NPC tags give you a handle on RPing them, and what might appeal/not appeal to them if you approach as a friend or enemy. Assets tell you what they can deploy against those who anger them, or how they can help if you make them allies (faction relationships are tracked as a -3/+3 from At War to Allies), and the Situation tells you in a larger term what their clocks mean; and where the situation might go if they achieve their aims.

 

[SableWyvern]

Yeah, so the idea that "there's no story or plot in this game" may be pretty long running; but Play to Find Out is actually meant to be a little more then "lets not pre-plan a story," it's that there's specific things that vary from game to game you're playing to find out. Which I agree, unless you sit down when you're making your characters for a sandbox and agree across the board that what you're getting together to do is "discover how much loot we can get from this world before we die or retire" or something similar you're probably not quite doing the same thing.

Fair enough. I didn't really get that as an important distinction from my time with Blades, but that may just be because (as mentioned) I was already very familiar and comfortable with similar concepts and interpreted what I was reading in light of what I already knew and did. I think it's a fairly subtle distinction that you're making (which is not to say it isn't a legitimate one).

Even with the slight nuance you mention, it still seems more similar than different to me. The differences between playstyles (feel, to me, at least, as if they) are more in the detail of how, exactly, we go about finding out, rather than subtle differences in the exactly what play to find out means.

 

[Maxperson]

"I think the preferred nomenclature is 'murderhobos,' Dude."

I refuted that one years ago. PCs go around from town to town looking for odd jobs, staying in one place for only a short time. They're murdertransients.

 

[zakael19]

Fair enough. I didn't really get that as an important distinction from my time with Blades, but that may just be because (as mentioned) I was already very familiar and comfortable with similar concepts and interpreted what I was reading in light of what I already knew and did. I think it's a fairly subtle distinction that you're making (which is not to say it isn't a legitimate one).

Even with the slight nuance you mention, it still seems more similar than different to me. The differences between playstyles (feel, to me, at least, as if they) are more in the detail of how, exactly, we go about finding out, rather than subtle differences in the exactly what play to find out means.

Sure, and in many ways it may inform the overarching design of the game itself then moment to moment play. Like, we have the Stress -> Vice -> Trauma link not because it's pure game based attrition, but to see if you can deal with the costs of the Scoundrel's life or if you flame out. The game definitely expects you to dig into the cost of that life explicitly, and reinforces that with mechanics.

But I think you could take the sandbox side of Blades and run it with a D&D ruleset and get a really solid game out of it (there's been some buzz in the 5e community over the last couple of years about wrapping a bunch of the core tech from Blades etc in to your play, including a book about uhh "Proactive Roleplaying?" - Reddit thread reviewing said book). It just would lack the character thematic portions in mechanics and expectation.