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

[Bedrockgames]

Well, it's good to know that you think the difference is vast. That really clears things up!

Since I use homebrew worlds, when I create that continent-sized map I want it to be what I consider a logical representation of a world. What does creating a fictional world that at a high level follows real world weather patterns have to do with anything? The GM is responsible for building the world and it's inhabitants, the players are responsible for their characters. If you want a game that has collaborative world building out there, there are plenty of options.

In recent campaigns the characters have

• Bypassed encounters completely through clever decisions.
• Decided not to pursue what I thought would be a fun side-quest into the Underdark because they didn't like the NPC that would have given them access.
• Slapped a military officer (who was, admittedly baiting them on purpose) and they can no longer return to their home town.
• Decided to pursue a long term goal of recovering a lost dwarven keep because I happened to mention it's existence, changing the entire direction of the campaign.
• Rejected the help of a ghost because they didn't trust it.
• I was running two groups in a copy of another campaign. Because of different decisions the campaigns bear little resemblance to each other other than location and main NPCs.

There is no invisible railroad. The setting is just there in case they decide to see what's on the other side of the mountains. It's always up to the players what they do when they get to the other side.

Also we aren’t debating who has creative control of the setting. Yes the Gm makes setting content, that is default assumption in mist trad sandboxes. It is about how much freedom players have, how much their actions shape what the GM makes and what things arise unexpectedly from their actions, random mechanics and things like tables. Peopke aren’t denying the GM has traditional GM authority what we are pushing back on is everything boils down to ‘the GM decides’ as if a sandbox is the same as the most railroad of railroads.

 

[AnotherGuy]

That is just one example. I have definitely prepped material, whether it be NPCs, places, etc that never come up in play. That is just part of running a sandbox, you make stuff knowing it might never come up.

I have found myself prepping less and less of late...not sure when that started.
I have set scenes which we roleplay through, I'm not sure if they should really be called framing. I do not believe they are in any way the type of framing @pemerton produces.

So generally I have a few ideas of scenes to run through or 1-2 combat encounters and then the rest is created on the spot.

As an example (sorry it is a little long) - I knew I wanted to run a situation where a cloud giant fortress stopped over Waterdeep as per the entry in the Storm King's Thunder AP. I knew that since the PCs were the Council's representatives they would send them up via griffons to meet with the giants and enquire as to reasons for their arrival.
So besides the entry in the book about (i) them wishing to meet with city officials who could speak to the history of Waterdeep (as the giants believed the city was built on some giant ruins which they wished to investigate old city maps etc), that (ii) the Countess distrusted small folk and (iii) implied that the giants were the isolationist type, the rest of the entry was bare bones. I had NO plan.
Two of the four PCs went up and met with the Count and Countess. So after I provided a montage of imagery of the journey and fortress on the cloud, it was the conversation that arose that set the ball-rolling.
One of the PCs began informing the cloud giants about the recent ongoings, the rise of Heartkiller (Adventure League SKT), their rescue of King Hekaton and that he was off to save his daughter. It quickly became apparent to the PCs that these giants were not aware of the recent events and seemed content to stay out of it. I still had NO plan.

Then after the PCs learned the reason for the giants' visit, the same PC offered to have them talk to King Hekaton as as he explained, they had direct communication and they were going to meet with the King to help save his daughter. He had not told as yet told the Count that he had a Sending Stone in his possession.

THAT is when the plan materialised in my mind. These giants were isolationists not partaking in the politicking. They did not want to choose sides, they did not want others to know they did not want to choose sides for who knew who would eventually rise to power - King Hekaton or Heartkiller?
These small folk (the PCs) were now complicating matters for them with their direct line to King Hekaton. Surely since they were so intimate they would reveal the cloud giants' reluctance to partake in the power struggle between Hekaton & Heartkiller.

At that point some knowing looks passed between Count and Countess and the Count requested to speak with the King, his intention being to destroy the means by which the PCs communicated with the King (I had envisioned he would have crushed the Sending Stone). The other PC noticed the strange ongoings (the player was also smart to all the clues I was providing) and immediately lied saying the ability to communicate with the King was down in Waterdeep. He didn't know exactly what the Count intended, he only knew that the strangeness of the situation prompted a lie.

A opposed Deception vs Insight was rolled, the PC used a fighters maneuver (d10) and pushed his score to 30. He lied so well they believed him.
And with that the Countess gave another look to her husband who in turn said that he would need to discuss their proposal about joining the King to his subordinates and that they should accept the giant's hospitality by waiting for some time, possibly staying the night while they deliberated. They were also distinctly aware that the fortress was moving (away from Waterdeep).

Not wanting to cause a scene, but taking care of the exits (1000+ feet in the air, their griffons stabled and under guard) they were escorted to a room and had their door locked. Now the PCs had no intention of staying the night, the campaign is quite time sensitive and they couldn't afford this distraction and certainly did not wish any conflict.

Food and refreshments were brought to them as they pondered if they should just escape or wait it out and see how it plays.
At this point, I wasn't sure how it was going to play out, only in that the giants, as presented, were not necessarily killers.

2-3 hours of in-game fiction passed, and the players were anxious (as was I ). They were summoned back to the meeting chamber where they were asked a series of questions and whereby the giants also disclosed their fears. The PCs answered honestly and I was running a variation of a Zone of Truth cast by the Countess so that only once a PC lied would there be a need for a Charisma roll, so there was no indication given of the spell being actively present.

Having passed their test, the giants conceded to letting them go reluctantly having to trust that the small folk would not betray them, and also not wishing to harm or inconvenience the Champions of the Council. So the fortress sailed back to Waterdeep, the PCs flew back home, with the cost of the full evening now wasted.
And the giants abandoned their research and left the skies of Waterdeep.

There were other related incidents but yeah this was all born by me (fully GM decides) on a nothing write-up of the giants in the book and the result of 1 contested die roll (Deception vs Insight).
All this to say that this little adventure was born from almost no prep.

None of us deny the power the Gm has, but the GM is not expected to just declare everything and anything, and the players can act on the setting through their characters: which matters a great deal in shaping how things go

That is certainly true based on the above.
If the PCs acted out aggressively or tried to make an escape or were caught lying...I'd have to think how it may play out and what the possible consequences would be.
To be honest, I would feel comfortable consulting the players for ideas, make a quick table and have us roll for it.

 

[Maxperson]

Whatever can be a contributor to the decision...is still relevant. Because guess who gets to decide what things DO contribute to the decision?

The answer is players and the DM both. At least they do if the DM isn't violating the social contract, which the vast majority of DMs do not.

That's right, THE GM. AGAIN.

No. We're not talking about the rare bad faith DMs here.

The setting literally can't make you do anything.

1) The players can via the social contract and once again, this isn't about me alone. There are players playing the game. You would be correct if I were doing D&D solo and I'm both the DM and player(s), but I don't play that way and I don't think very many do. 2) Of course the setting can. It has been established already, so is not going to be ignored in bad faith.

 

[JConstantine]

The Forge and its terminology is very controversial. None of it is any kind of industry standard. So when you try to apply non-standard terminology to other folks, it will cause confusion and misunderstandings.

I think jargon can serve as useful shorthand, but good jargon should be intuitive enough that a lay person could derive its meaning from context. Much of the Forge's terminology is not only unintuitive and flowery, but feels like it was deliberately designed to obfuscate and distinguish the in-group.

Separately, I don't think @Bedrockgames was using jargon so much as colloquial usage.

 

[JConstantine]

You think that honoring rolls should just be a suggestion?

Okay, I guess.

To be fair, plenty of GMs fudge rolls for various reasons. I hate it myself, but it's a common enough trend.

 

[JConstantine]

However if the claim is that the GM at some times are engaging in play, and that they during that period has to abide by constraints (which might be self imposed trough for instance prep as exemplified here) - then that seem absolutely uncontroversial to me.

I was under the impression the contention was what kind of constraints the GM should be under. Plenty of trad-leaning GMs in this thread have mentioned self-imposed constraints.

 

[JConstantine]

It would be like a corporate executive explaining that their questionable actions were only in keeping with the relevant company procedure...when that very person had just recently rewritten things to MAKE that be the procedure. You can't externalize responsibility by reference to a thing you yourself are wholly responsible for.

Except in this comparison, the corporate executive likely needs to get it signed off by the board (i.e. players) and is beholden to their satisfaction.

 

[Campbell]

So here is how the 2014 DMG defines the DM's role:

The Dungeon Master (DM) is the creative force behind a D&D game. The DM creates a world for the other players to explore, and also creates and runs adventures that drive the story. An adventure typically hinges on the successful completion of a quest, and can be as short as a single game session. Longer adventures might embroil players in great conflicts that require multiple game sessions to resolve. When strung together, these adventures form an ongoing campaign,

A D&D campaign can include dozens of adventures and last for months or years,

A Dungeon Master gets to wear many hats. As the architect of a campaign, the DM creates adventures by placing monsters, traps, and treasures for the other players’ characters (the adventurers) to discover. As a storyteller, the DM helps the other players visualize what's happening around them, improvising when the adventurers do something or go somewhere unexpected. As an actor, the DM plays the roles of the monsters and supporting characters, breathing life into them. And as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them.

When I read this, I see constraints and duties. Ones I am occasionally willing to perform but consider phenomenally stressful. The game calls the DM the master of worlds, adventures and rules. To me these are not freedoms - these are duties.

That these constraints, duties and the authority that go along with them is something most of you are ready to enthusiastically sign up for is not evidence of a lack of constraint. It's evidence that you like the set of constraints, authorities and duties commonly associated with the GM role of the games you run. It feels freeing to you in the same way MC role in Apocalypse World feels freeing to me.

That does not make the sorts of constraints that GMs operate under in other games especially constraining. Just different and better suited to creative goals you do not have.

 

[JConstantine]

And maybe six months later the PCs hear tales about some other band of adventurers who took out a bunch of bandits out that way during the summer, and made the region a whole lot safer.

Indeed. Or the bandits have become emboldened and completely disrupted trade, or taken over a town or who knows.

The PCs not interacting with features can have implications and consequences, just as interacting can. And maybe those consequences will affect them, or maybe they won't.

What, like some sort of world that seems alive, with cause and effect?
Going back to BitD - and since I've been accused of cherry-picking, I'll quote the whole passage (pg206):

SERIES COUNTDOWNS
To track the consequences of events in the world, you can use series countdowns. These are progress clocks that give you a sense of how the bigger-picture stuff of the setting and situation is developing. For example, you might wonder how the Skovlander refugee situation will turn out—will the rising public bigotry get worse? Will people learn to accept them as equal citizens? Will the Skovlanders seize some power or wealth to improve their lot? You can make a clock for a possible outcome, like “Open Riots and Renewed Civil War in the Making.” Tick it when events of the game drive toward that outcome (whether they’re events “on screen” during game play or events “off screen” in the background, when you think about the larger setting).
The idea is to put something concrete down where you’ll see it, to remind you of this over-arching development, so it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle of the PCs’ story. Series countdowns make the world seem alive beyond the immediate actions of the group. Also, if the players see a countdown like this on the table, they might get curious about it and get involved, creating more opportunities for play.

Sounds awfully similar to @robertsconley's "living world", huh? Odd how some Narrativists seem to rail against what even supposed "hard narrativist" designers are in favour of. Almost as if what @Bedrockgames said holds weight:

As I have said from the beginning this approach is a response to many of the same problems blades in the dark and similar games are, it just addresses those problems in a different way (i.e. both have strong pre-occupations with agency)

 

[JConstantine]

Expecting every game to be a LEGO set isn't a fair standard.

Also an incredibly dubious proposition judging by the roaring success of Cortex.