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

[pemerton]

You seem to want others to describe them in your language and style. That's understandable, but yours is not the only valid method, and your formality and academic methodology simply isn't objectively superior to a more casually stated vernacular.

Apparently it's so much easier to tear down the way others do things so that your methods are the only ones that can work under your definitions. It really is starting to just feel malicious at this point. No one on the traditional leaning side is saying non-traditional playstyles don't work for their proponents.

Who is "tearing down", or saying that things don't work?

I mean, here's a post from upthread:

You are being interrogated about it because the game philosophy of Burning Wheel is seemingly very, very different from more traditional games, and leads to results that can seem nonsensical to those who prefer traditional games. No amount of quoting rules and game designers you favor is going to change that in all likelihood.

Where you justify interrogating me because you think that my RPGing is nonsensical.

And here's another post from upthread:

A game mechanic that relies on dice rolls would be meaningless to me. Actually, strike that. It would be annoying knowing that when the GM waved the metaphorical red flag that I would be forced to roll dice to see if the flaw I was forced to choose comes into play.

Presumably you don't see this characterisation as "meaningless" of RPGing that I enjoy as tearing down.

So likewise, my attempts to understand how the GM of a "living world" sandbox makes decisions, and my suggestions that many of these "living world" sandboxes seem to be rather GM-driven, such that I would tend to find them railroad-y, is not "tearing down". It's just me sharing my thoughts and perspective. No amount of metaphorical description of the imagined world as a causally active thing is likely to change my thoughts.

 

[AnotherGuy]

The emphasis is plausibility first, discretion second. My recommendation is to roll half the time and choose the other half based on what’s most fun or engaging within the set of plausible outcomes, fun that aligns with the group’s goals, not imposed narrative.

Aligns with group's goals can easily be replaced with aligns with character's goals.
Have you found any examples in this thread where the other side is not concerned with plausibility in their games?

As for “conformity to tendencies” That’s not a new point. That’s core Living World procedure, looking at prior events, NPC goals, and world logic to drive what happens next. That’s not authorial discretion, it’s extrapolation from the current state of the world. The outcome isn’t picked because it supports drama, a theme or story, it follows from what’s already in motion. You’re describing what I’ve already laid out, just rephrased to make it sound like it falls under your framework. It doesn’t.

Clocks are used in indie games, typically our games (yours and mine and others with similar styles) have more "Clocks" in motion. I tend to think that is as a result of having prepared more content as opposed to games where the content is predominantly generated at the table.

Nothing I’ve described is an example of meta agency. Meta agency is part of player agency, it’s exercised by the players, not the referee. Players may talk to me during or after a session about their goals, that’s meta agency in action. But most of what I learn about their interests comes from listening to their in-character decisions, how they talk among themselves, and, when necessary, directly asking them, especially after consequential events.

That’s not authorship. That’s leadership. And it’s part of what a referee should be doing when running a Living World sandbox: paying attention, facilitating engagement, and responding to what the players actually care about within the logic and momentum of the world.

What I understand from this is that you plan for what the players care about between sessions while Pemerton finds a way to make that happen immediately at the table during play. That is merely a timing difference.
In the same way some people like to structure their replies by writing things down than speak off the cuff and that is fine.

I can say very often enough I have used ideas or become inspired by ideas by the general chatter of players thinking out aloud and conversing at the table and I make that magic happen with all the necessary bells and whistles of setting plausibility etc. That is not leadership to me. And neither is leadership asking questions between or after sessions as opposed to during play which is what Pemerton does.

I honestly think we are using the word Leadership in an attempt to needlessly differentiate our playstyles from each other on this issue.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Now you see exactly my point. @Bedrockgames JUST stated that the majority of sandbox games prioritize setting fidelity. The notion of maintaining continuity and whatnot has been repeatedly stated as vitally important to sandboxes.

I think some nuance was lost in the course of the discussion. You will find people who say maintaining setting continuity is essential to sandboxes. But I would say this really only describes a large number of sandboxes, not all (and I think most sandbox people recognize this but I can't speak for everyone). In this thread where setting fidelity was being defended, that was on the specific topic of sandboxes that cleave to it, like many living world sandboxes for example. So I was defending the idea that it could be done, that it matters to a lot of people running sandboxes, but not saying it had to be done for it to be a sandbox. I also mentioned this concept can be taken too far sometimes

And now you're telling me that setting fidelity is not all that important.

So you can kinda see why these conversations go around in circles so much. It's like punching fog. Is setting fidelity a factor in sandboxes or not? And, if it's only "associated" with sandboxes, how is that any different than any other kind of campaign? Because setting fidelity can be important in any kind of game.

Sandboxes are different from other campaigns because they fully commit to letting the players do what they want and go where they want in the setting. Usually they have a pretty big area of world planned out in advance (I would say this probably characterizes like 90 percent of them), and often it is a living world with high setting fidelity. But other approaches exist and should exist because the core promise of a sandbox an open style of play. Sandbox is also not uncontested. You will find people who all share a love of sandbox, debating what it means. Me and Rob for example are just two people with our own views (personally I would say Rob is much closer to the ground zero definition of it than me, and so you might rely more on him for reliable information)

 

[Maxperson]

Even if I treat these damage systems as models - which is dubious - they are not relevant to what I was talking about, which is setting design.

Setting isn't any different. Portions of the setting are simple models as well.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

While some of the specific terminology comes from PbtA, most of the concepts predate Apocalypse World by a long way.

The play to find out concept was certainly seeing a lot of support in the early OSR, around the same time Apocalypse World was released, the OSR was just more likely to talk about it in the context of "emergent story". When I first read through Blades in the Dark there were plenty of concepts it took me a while to grasp, but the general idea of "play to find out" in a sandbox was a concept I was already very familiar and comfortable with.

The playing to find out that happens in Apocalypse World is, however, qualitatively different from that which happens in classic OSR games.

In Apocalypse World there is no pre-established fiction, and the nature of the characters themselves is likewise to be discovered, not pre-established in any sense. So we play to find out if the Hardholder has what it takes to acquire a water supply. What will he do? Will he deprive the Sand People of water? Will he shoot some rivals? Will he condemn his own sister to death for being a water witch? Play to find out! I've never played ANY trad concept game where this kind of finding out was on the menu.

Now, I'm no OSR guru, but OSR originated out of a desire to go back to the 'original game' and use it as a vehicle for understanding what the most basic elements of RPG experience were. I've always been a bit of a skeptic, but I don't think there was ever anything wrong with stripping things down and trying different ways of making RPGs. So, I have no reason to doubt that things which are explicit in Apocalypse World also exist in the OSR, nor is there any reason to think AW invented them. I don't think that's ever really been claimed. Still, what AW is playing to find out, that's not something that OSR has done.

 

[pemerton]

Does the "why" of decision-making really just not matter to you at all? I'm still trying to figure out the end goal here.

I think that multiple posters here have conjectured a "why" - namely, the GM has a vision of the setting that they wish to affirm via play.

 

[AlViking]

Now you see exactly my point. @Bedrockgames JUST stated that the majority of sandbox games prioritize setting fidelity. The notion of maintaining continuity and whatnot has been repeatedly stated as vitally important to sandboxes.

And now you're telling me that setting fidelity is not all that important.

So you can kinda see why these conversations go around in circles so much. It's like punching fog. Is setting fidelity a factor in sandboxes or not? And, if it's only "associated" with sandboxes, how is that any different than any other kind of campaign? Because setting fidelity can be important in any kind of game.

I said basically the same as Bedrockgames. There are many ways to run a sandbox campaign and personally setting fidelity (living world is probably my preferred label if it matters) is important to me and makes running a sandbox easier.

But I have no idea what percentage care about setting fidelity and sandboxes can can happen in many different games.

 

[pemerton]

In many of your favored games, does the GM not make decisions based on mechanical processes in the rules?

Only in the same sense as your favoured games: dice are rolled and results announced.

The interesting difference is in the principles that govern what it is that is announced.

 

[Campbell]

Sandboxes are different from other campaigns because they fully commit to letting the players do what they want and go where they want in the setting. Usually they have a pretty big area of world planned out in advance (I would say this probably characterizes like 90 percent of them), and often it is a living world with high setting fidelity. But other approaches exist and should exist because the core promise of a sandbox an open style of play.

This to me is where the real differences lay. Not in how plausible things are, but in the objective of play. That sandboxes present settings as reactive toys to play with. That's the appeal. The ability to go anywhere and do anything without expectations.

At least that's been what differentiates my own sandbox play from other forms of play. Not how coherent the experience, not how plausible the setting is. In my experience plausibility is pretty consistent across various play methodologies if the group puts effort in to maintain it.

 

[pemerton]

Why not? You might find it confusing, but others might find a highly
academic and high-minded vernacular, with uniquely defined terms not agreed upon by all involved to be confusing as well. Personally I prefer a more casual vernacular when having a discussion outside of the graduate program classroom, but we all have our likes and dislikes.

Let me put it this way:

Suppose I'm trying to teach someone how to run a living world sandbox. Which way of describing it seems more likely to be useful:

*Let the world react to what the players have their PCs do?

*When the players have their PCs do a thing, decide what happens next by considering <insert factors here>?​

When I was learning GMing, it was the authors who actually did the second sort of thing - Moldvay, Pulsipher, Gygax - who I learned from. I wasn't very good at the game they taught me, but at least I was able to follow their instructions.