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

[EzekielRaiden]

Sure you can have a list; and you'll already have an idea of at least some of what the store contains before you get there*. That said, there's no guarantee the store can fill your list entirely: they might be out of eggs today and might never carry the type of tea you're after.

* - in game play this would be your ability to look at player-visible maps of the setting, read the setting's write-up and history, etc. (if the DM doesn't provide such things before or when play begins then IMO that's cause to look askance).

I...question both of these assertions. That is, you can have a list of things you would like to have, but that's not a list of things you will buy--which, in this case, is what is actually needed when physically at the store. Desirables are not, in themselves, things you can just...take. That's something I think pretty much any style of GMing shares, even GM-less games--if we wanted pure freeform wish-fulfillment, we wouldn't be using the medium of a game to do so. (And, IME, very few people actually want totally unrestrained wish-fulfillment in a group context.)

Further, the whole point is that you CAN'T have knowledge of what the store contains, here, until you actually go there. Because this is supposed to be analogy to a player joining a campaign. It is, literally, not possible for the player to know anything whatsoever about the campaign in a "traditional GM" sandbox-y game, because you literally do not know anything, at all, whatsoever, about what that campaign contains or entails until the GM tells you. That's....the whole point of the style. There is, flatly and simply, not ANYTHING known unless and until the GM opens their mouth, or constructs a model as robertsconley has done, or in some other way places evidence in front of the players. Unless and until that happens, then a priori the players know, genuinely absolutely, nothing.

 

[Lanefan]

I still find this idea of "encountering" such a strange way of conceiving things. If you are sneaking past something, surely you have "encountered" it?

Yes, but the "something" still hasn't encountered you - if your sneaking was successful it still doesn't know you exist.

To be an actual rather than potential encounter IMO there has to be some sort of two-way interaction. Doesn't have to be combat necessarily; discussions, bribes, riddle games, one side fleeing or even just stepping aside - all of those count. But IMO it's not an encounter until there's two-way interaction; sneaking past them avoids that two-way interaction and thus also avoids there being an encounter.

Certainly. I have a great deal of respect for any GM who actively sits down and checks their processes to make sure that those processes actually do cultivate the kinds of player behavior they wish to see. It's a far, far too common problem for GMs to do things they think they must do because of naturalism/realism/etc., or mistaken beliefs about appropriate challenge, or the need for "sufficient" challenge, or various other things, but which actually end up teaching lessons the GM actually would not ever want to teach the players. The widespread use of black-box GMing and all too common failure to actually talk about issues, rather than trying to "fix" them with rules or unspoken processes, just exacerbates the issue.

Funny that you put it this way when what I was referring to would probably have been black-boxed; the players might never know for sure that they're getting extra xp for non-violent conflict avoidance or resolution, though theymight suspect after a while.

As I have mentioned here and elsewhere, I always think of the GM who posted a thread here a year or three ago, talking about how they used gridded maps to help the players perceive the world, and the players saw that as "oh crap, it's a fight we can't avoid, better set up for it". The net result was a GM who felt deeply frustrated at seemingly "murderhobo" players who would never even consider nonviolent solutions, and players who felt deeply frustrated at seemingly a "meatgrinder" GM who forced them through unavoidable high-difficulty combats over and over. I don't mean to call this person out, to be clear--they had discovered the issue and were looking for ways to fix it, which is always a laudable thing. Just proof positive that even an experienced GM operating in good faith and actively trying to do something helpful to their players can still run aground on a conflict that went unspoken.

If those players had learned from other DMs' games that the appearance of a battlemap means a fight's coming whether they like it or not, this reaction makes some sense. I don't recall ever seeing a published battlemap for a scene or set piece that wasn't intended as a combat (though come to think of it there might be one in Madness at Gardmore Abbey - it's two feet from where I'm sitting (though somewhat buried) and I haven't looked at it in ages).

Er...no. 4e explicitly rewards players exactly as much XP for sneaking past, negotiating through, or otherwise resolving encounters without direct combat.

You've allowed your biased perception of contemporary editions ("everything is combat and combat is everything", more or less) to occlude what @pemerton actually said. 4e very explicitly supports players choosing to engage with a potential combat encounter in any way they see fit because it rewards them 100% of the experience so long as they do, in fact, get past the encounter--whatever method they use to do so. Negotiation, bribery, stealth, deception, intimidation? Doesn't matter, all of those things are valid ways of getting through the obstacle. Indeed, IIRC, the 4e DMG specifically instructs you to be open to and supportive of players taking unexpected or unorthodox approaches, so long as they can adequately explain why it should be possible, and willing to face befitting consequences should their attempt fail.

That's good to hear. Does it include avoiding the encounter entirely e.g. your stealth-scouting finds guards on the bridge, you decide not to deal with them, and instead find a different way around?

 

[pemerton]

Thanks for the detailed reply. I see how Prince Valiant lays things out, and I appreciate you taking the time to walk through them.

That said, I was asking less about what the rulebook says and more about why you chose to run it that way. Plenty of RPGs encourage referees to structure things a certain way, but many of us adapt or reinterpret those expectations depending on what we’re trying to get out of the game.

So what I’m trying to understand is, out of all the ways a campaign can be managed, why did you personally choose this structure? Was it just for this game, or is this a general preference you bring to most of your campaigns? What makes it the approach you favor?

<snip>

That’s what I was focused on, the fact that, at least when it comes to encounters, you choose and frame situations in a way that challenges how the characters respond. I’m curious why you prefer that approach, beyond the rulebook prescribing it. What draws you to it?

I accept that in many styles of play, players live the lives of their characters, but it’s done in different ways. In your case, it seems you place a high value on framing situations that challenge your players' character beliefs and motivations. And I think that’s worth digging into, because it helps clarify why we manage our campaigns the way we do, not just how.

<snip>

What led you to gravitate toward games like Prince Valiant or Burning Wheel? You’ve written many detailed essays on tabletop RPGs, but what is the underlying reason you run games the way you do? What makes one system or setting more appealing than another to you? Why Prince Valiant? Why Burning Wheel?

For me, the answer was really nicely put by Eero Tuovinen:

I find that the riddle of roleplaying is answered thusly: it is more fun to play a roleplaying game than write a novel because the game by the virtue of its system allows you to take on a variety of roles that are inherently more entertaining than that of pure authorship.​

When I was young and got into RPGing, I enjoyed comics and novels. I don't read many comics these days, and fewer novels than I would like to. But I do watch more movies, more seriously, now than I did back then.

As well as experiencing stories of characters doing things and making choices, I enjoy creating them. But as Tuovinen says, it is more fun to play a RPG than to write, because of the entertainment that RPGing permits. I like inventing situations, or - in the case of Prince Valiant - presenting situations that Greg Stafford or someone else invented, seeing what the players have their PCs do, responding to that. Sometimes I laugh with them. Or compliment them. Often, especially in failure-and-suffering-laden Torchbearer, I make fun of them (in a friendly way). Occasionally I'm amazed by them - here's an example from TB2e play:

The players then discussed what to do, and wrote Goals and Beliefs:

Fea-bella wanted to hunt down Gerda (who, according to Megloss, had stolen the cursed Elfstone which continued to be the object of Fea-bella's obsession).

Korvin wanted to cleanse Megloss. His Belief that he would follow the clues to hunt down the wicked remained.

Telemere wanted to stop the threat posed by the evil spirit. His Belief, that one should see things to their end, also remained.

Golin wanted to get Megloss on the path to recovery. His Belief changed, from Surely Elves can't be so bad! to Elves are fickle and unstable.​

These drove the play that followed.

Things started with an attempt, initiated and led by Fea-bella, to persuade Megloss to help them get the Elfstone from Gerda. Korvin added in some deception via Manipulator - there might be more than one gem! and Gerda might be more than she seemed, and so the PCs couldn't do it without Megloss.

Megloss, in turn, was dismissing the PCs as a hopeless rabble, and insisting that they head south to find Turner - a petty bandit captain in Megloss's sometime-employ - and join him in carrying out Nob H's plans. (Nob H is a bandit lord, and Korvin's enemy - this was his first occurence other than on Korvin's PC sheet).

The conflict ended with both sides reduced to zero disposition in the same exchange, and so each had to give the other a painful compromise: Melgoss would come and help with Gerda, provided that he got first pick of the gems; he would then take the PCs to Turner, and insist that Turner give Korvin his fine boots.

<snip>

We had already established that no one had spoken with Gerda since she went shopping with the PCs and stole Fea-bella's cursed Elfstone, and she had only been seen silhouetted by her apartment window in the evening, as if gloating over a small bauble held in her hands! Whereas Megloss's house (as had already been established) is on the edge of the village, overlooking a cliff, Gerda's apartment - I now narrated - was at the centre, near the base of the rise on which stands the wizard's tower. I decided - but didn't tell the players at this particular point - that Gerda would erect a deadfall trap over the entrance to her apartment. The players declared that they opened the door and went in. I called for Heath tests against Ob 2 (and as one of the players noted, this time cloaks and woollen sweaters didn't help; though I allowed Golin's player to add +1D to his pool, given Golin wears a helmet). Telemere and Fea-bella were both Injured by the falling stones!

Telemere's player then noticed that he should have used his Instinct - When I enter somewhere new, I check to see if I am being watched - and he used it now. Golin helped, as he also had a salient Instinct - Always look for weak points. Telemere could see that the downstairs rooms seemed dusty and empty, but that someone seemed to have stuck their head out of the door at the top of the staircase - Gerda!

Another Scout test was made, to ensure the staircase was safe. It was.

As the PCs were being cautious, Gerda decided to Flee, and the PCs pursued. The PCs handily caught her, dragging her back in from the window and pinning her in a corner. But they did lose one hit point, obliging a minor compromise - Telemere, who had taken the lead in the window-dragging-back-from, noticed that during the struggle his tinderbox had fallen out of his satchel into the muck and wind outside! (This player has had the least experience with Torchbearer - I think this was his fourth session - and he was starting to "appreciate" its obsession with inflicting punishment in small and frustrating increments.)

The PCs also became hungry and thirsty at this point (gale Health test, deadfall health test, Scout test for traps, conflict). The PCs took drinks from their waterskins while keeping an eye on Gerda. I asked if anyone stopped her equipping a spear - no one did. I also secretly rolled for her loot on the relevant Loot Table - it turned up the amusing result of plate armour!

Gerda declared, therefore, that to get the Elfstone the PCs would have to kill her! Telemere (as portrayed by his player) said, "Megloss, now it's your chance to shine!" This produced much laughter, and earned a Fate point for gallows humour out of GM generosity, even if it didn't quite meet the criteria. I called for a Persuader check, vs Megloss's Beginner's Luck Will: Megloss prevailed, and so responded "I think this one is for Fea-bella."

Fea-bella decided to try and Capture Gerda, and so the conflict was resolved using Kill for Gerda's intent and actions, and Capture for Fea-bella and team's. Her team members were Korvin and Telemere - Megloss stood aside (in part under a general principle of not having NPCs carry too much load, and possibly in slight violation of the earlier compromise, though no player called me on it); and so did Golin, as he was not going to fight his friend Gerda, and he did have doubts about Elves after all!

The conflict was hard-fought. Gerda started with 7 hit points, the PCs with 4 but the advantage of numbers. But when they got their first successful attack in, I revealed my (or should I say Gerda's) plate armour beneath her cloak, to groans and consternation and cries of unfair GMing. Every roll to avoid her armour being damaged was successful, and it absorbed 4 points of damage over the course of the conflict. First Korvin dropped, and then Telemere (I scripted a cunning "A/A/F" in the final exchange, and the last-volley Feint did it's job well!). When only Fea-bella was left standing, with her one hit point and her Injury and Fighter 2 and Health 3 and no Fate points remaining, while Gerda still had 4 hit points, I reminded Fea-bella's player of the Surrender option:

If you’re in a kill conflict and your side still has disposition, you may offer to surrender to your opponent. If your opponent accepts, you get no compromise, but they capture you rather than kill you. In addition, you owe them a compromise based on the amount of disposition lost before the surrender.​

Fea-bella monologued about the pull of the Elfstone, and if only she could let it be - and surrendered. She owned a major compromise, and I noticed the following suggestion on the list of Kill conflict compromises:

The loser is killed, but their demise causes massive collateral damage (starts a fire, opens a dyke, collapses a roof, etc)​

I suggested the following to Fea-bella's player - Gerda kills you, but if you have the will to live, then you will be free of the curse. The reply: "Yes".

So as Fea-bella monologued, Gerda ran her through with her spear. I asked Fea-bella's player, "Do you have the will to live?" "Yes." "You have to say it" "I have the will to live." The Persona point was spent, and Fea-bella's Nature dropped from 2 back to 1. Her Nature cap is now 5 (this is her second "death".) She lost her Enchanting nature - probably because she has renounced her spiritual connection to jewels and the Elven magic they hold - and her Fiery trait dropped back to level 1. (Her previous death had seen it step up to Level 2.) She now has only one Nature descriptor: Remembering.

On the plus side, she took a failed test in Resources, thus stepping up to Resource 3; and with her Nature now at 1 she opened up her Beginner's Luck Hunter skill.

The compromise also had Telemere Exhausted, and Korvin Injured.

Megloss now stepped forward. I checked his Arcanist skill - Arcanist 5 - and looked up Flames of the Shroud in the spellbook. I rolled 5 dice, and got 3 successes; and, noting that mundane armour does not protect against the aetheric flames the spell pulls from the Shroud of Worlds, I declared that Gerda was killed, burned to ashes!

This had an incendiary effect not only on Gerda but on Golin, whose player now declared an immediate attack against Megloss! Fea-bella sat this one out, but Telemere and Korvin both joined him. Megloss was enhanced by the spirit possessing him. Both sides had 8 hp, and there was no doubt that this conflict was all about the killing! Golin, as conflict captain, gave himself the first action, an attack augmented by his Avenging Grudges Nature. He rolled 11 dice, spent Fate to open end his 6s, and cut through Megloss's four manoeuvre successes to deal 6 points of damage. It took another round to finish things, but Megloss was dead and the evil spirit driven off at the end of things. But the players had also lost 3 hp, and so a compromise was in order:

The loser kills half of the winning team (rounded down).​

Korvin, who had lost 2 hits from Megloss, had a mortal wound. But he also had the will to live! He took a failed Health check, and opened up a couple of new skills based on Nature 1; and I took away his Boasting Nature descriptor, and changed his Pragmatic trait to Calm.

Appropriate loot rolls revealed a few useful items: 3 candles in Gerda's apartment; and on Megloss a 2D crescent moon pendant, and also a written description of the evil spirit, prepared (as I explained to the players) while they were cooking, and being taught to cook, in his house. The last test of the session was Fea-bella using her Instinct to Read Every Word, and learn more about the nature and abilities of the evil spirit. (I shared my statblock write-up.)

<snip>

I suggested that the closing scene of the events would occur after the PCs left the apartment - the camera moves across the fallen body of Megloss, to the charred remains of Gerda, to settle finally on the Elfstone, shining green and unsullied among the death and destruction.

From my point of view, I think the saga of the Wizard's Tower, and Megloss, may be done.

It doesn't quite come through in the write-up: but after I described Megloss blasting Gerda with fire, the chatter at the table was light-hearted and bantering. I can't remember what we were talking about, but I noticed that Golin's player was not participating. And as I looked to see why not, I saw he was building a big pile of dice. "What for?", I asked. "Because Megloss killed my friend. Here are my Fighter dice, and my weapon die, and my Avenging Grudges Nature dice on top of those." The calmness yet intensity of the delivery, the determination - there was not a hint of hesitation in his description of what he was doing - were striking.

Golin's anger towards Megloss for his murder of Gerda - the complete opposite of recovery - and his determination to avenge her death, were palpable. The huge pile of dice visually conveyed it. At the table, this moment felt as powerful as anything I can remember from a Claremont X-Man comic. It was blood operatic.

I want these moments. Not because I've authored them, as GM, but because play yields them through its own dynamics. So I choose systems that can reliably produce them.

 

[pemerton]

I still find this idea of "encountering" such a strange way of conceiving things. If you are sneaking past something, surely you have "encountered" it?

In the language that Gygax uses in his PHB and DMG, he agrees with you. The players don't need to avoid an encounter if it hasn't occurred - avoidance is a process that one undertakes if a wandering monster has been rolled and the players want their PCs to escape from it; or if the players open a door and don't like the look of what they see on the other side; of if the players are in a fight, and try to run away.

 

[pemerton]

Does it include avoiding the encounter entirely e.g. your stealth-scouting finds guards on the bridge, you decide not to deal with them, and instead find a different way around?

I posted the XP rules for 4e D&D not very far upthread:

4e D&D doesn't use a notion of "bypassing encounters" in its XP rules.

4e D&D gives XP for combat success; for skill challenge (including failed skill challenges, in the Rules Compendium); for completing quests; and (in the DMG2) for free play that progresses things.

In some of these "bypass the defenders" examples, the resolution would be by way of skill challenge, and that is how XP would be accrued.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It doesn't quite come through in the write-up: but after I described Megloss blasting Gerda with fire, the chatter at the table was light-hearted and bantering. I can't remember what we were talking about, but I noticed that Golin's player was not participating. And as I looked to see why not, I saw he was building a big pile of dice. "What for?", I asked. "Because Megloss killed my friend. Here are my Fighter dice, and my weapon die, and my Avenging Grudges Nature dice on top of those." The calmness yet intensity of the delivery, the determination - there was not a hint of hesitation in his description of what he was doing - were striking.

Golin's anger towards Megloss for his murder of Gerda - the complete opposite of recovery - and his determination to avenge her death, were palpable. The huge pile of dice visually conveyed it. At the table, this moment felt as powerful as anything I can remember from a Claremont X-Man comic. It was blood operatic.

I want these moments. Not because I've authored them, as GM, but because play yields them through its own dynamics. So I choose systems that can reliably produce them.

This captures most eloquently why I choose to play roleplaying games. I want this stuff.

 

[Lanefan]

I...question both of these assertions. That is, you can have a list of things you would like to have, but that's not a list of things you will buy--which, in this case, is what is actually needed when physically at the store.

The list is a list of things I want to buy, not things I will buy. I've no way of knowing whether they'll all be available at a price I'm willing to pay until I get there and look - or, if sensorily-deprived as per you example - ask.

Further, there might be things not on my list that I'll pick up on a whim because they're on for cheap or because I feel like a treat or whatever.

Desirables are not, in themselves, things you can just...take. That's something I think pretty much any style of GMing shares, even GM-less games--if we wanted pure freeform wish-fulfillment, we wouldn't be using the medium of a game to do so. (And, IME, very few people actually want totally unrestrained wish-fulfillment in a group context.)

Indeed, and I'm not sure how this pertains to what we were discussing.

Further, the whole point is that you CAN'T have knowledge of what the store contains, here, until you actually go there. Because this is supposed to be analogy to a player joining a campaign. It is, literally, not possible for the player to know anything whatsoever about the campaign in a "traditional GM" sandbox-y game, because you literally do not know anything, at all, whatsoever, about what that campaign contains or entails until the GM tells you. That's....the whole point of the style. There is, flatly and simply, not ANYTHING known unless and until the GM opens their mouth, or constructs a model as robertsconley has done, or in some other way places evidence in front of the players. Unless and until that happens, then a priori the players know, genuinely absolutely, nothing.

Er...well...no, there isn't. And that indeed is the point, or part of it anyway: the game will in part consist of learning about the setting as play progresses. Some of it you'll learn before you even start playing (assuming the DM's done her homework or it's a pre-fab setting such as Greyhawk or Mystara or wherever), some of it you'll learn as you go along, and some of it you might never learn.

And other than the starting area, odds are a lot of it will only get detailed if and when necessary. Example: when lockdown hit my regular game got sunk so I started running one-on-one with my SO. To avoid too much interaction with other parties that we had no idea when or if they'd ever reboot, we started a new party in a previously-unvisited part of the setting. Sure, it was on the sketch map, and I had some vague ideas as to what was where, but I had to do a fair bit of fleshing-out in order to run a bunch of adventures up there. End result: now we're more or less back to our regularly-scheduled programming there's a bunch more detailed setting area for them to bash around in.

An example of a major setting feature that the players didn't learn about for ages but was there right from day one: the world I use for my setting is actually half of a tidally-locked binary planet system where the two planets are about the same size and unnaturally (very long story as to why) close together. The campaign takes place on the "outside" of one of the two planets; to the inhabitants on that side everything behaves the same as it does on Earth. It took over ten years of play for anyone to learn about the binary-planet thing, another six to learn anything about why they are so close together; and more recently that planetary structure became a rather important plot point for a while (again, a very long story).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The list is a list of things I want to buy, not things I will buy. I've no way of knowing whether they'll all be available at a price I'm willing to pay until I get there and look - or, if sensorily-deprived as per you example - ask.

Further, there might be things not on my list that I'll pick up on a whim because they're on for cheap or because I feel like a treat or whatever.

Indeed, and I'm not sure how this pertains to what we were discussing.

Er...well...no, there isn't. And that indeed is the point, or part of it anyway: the game will in part consist of learning about the setting as play progresses. Some of it you'll learn before you even start playing (assuming the DM's done her homework or it's a pre-fab setting such as Greyhawk or Mystara or wherever), some of it you'll learn as you go along, and some of it you might never learn.

And other than the starting area, odds are a lot of it will only get detailed if and when necessary. Example: when lockdown hit my regular game got sunk so I started running one-on-one with my SO. To avoid too much interaction with other parties that we had no idea when or if they'd ever reboot, we started a new party in a previously-unvisited part of the setting. Sure, it was on the sketch map, and I had some vague ideas as to what was where, but I had to do a fair bit of fleshing-out in order to run a bunch of adventures up there. End result: now we're more or less back to our regularly-scheduled programming there's a bunch more detailed setting area for them to bash around in.

An example of a major setting feature that the players didn't learn about for ages but was there right from day one: the world I use for my setting is actually half of a tidally-locked binary planet system where the two planets are about the same size and unnaturally (very long story as to why) close together. The campaign takes place on the "outside" of one of the two planets; to the inhabitants on that side everything behaves the same as it does on Earth. It took over ten years of play for anyone to learn about the binary-planet thing, another six to learn anything about why they are so close together; and more recently that planetary structure became a rather important plot point for a while (again, a very long story).

If you agree that you cannot know anything of what is in the world, not even in principle until the GM has undertaken efforts to inform you, then how can you possibly have a "shopping list" prior to that?

Like you're literally undercutting your own message here!

 

[Lanefan]

Further to the notion of showing the players my notes, I just remembered one fairly recent example where I not only showed them the notes, I posted them online for people's amusement.

Situation: an all-day gonzo all-star game two years ago in celebration of session 1000 of the campaign.

Adventure: 8 years prior (so, 2015), myself and some others were sitting in a pub knocking back a whole bunch of beer. One of our amusements that night was scribbling out an utterly ridiculous dungeon map, which at the end of the night I quietly took home and kept. For the all-star game, which by nature is supposed to be gonzo as hell anyway, I pulled out this map and did write-ups for each of the named areas, such as they were.

Much fun was had by all at the game, but they didn't explore the whole place due to time constraints.

At the end of the evening I thanked three of the players there for helping design the dungeon, and showed them the map - which they had completely forgotten about! I then put it and the area write-ups online, in part for posterity and in part so they could read about the parts they never got to explore.

 

[Guest 85555]

Mod Note:

(Emphasis mine.)

You may have been calmly addressing their concerns, but you ruined it when you posted this.

Please, everyone- let’s not escalate situations by making things personal.

It is very difficult not to respond the way I did, when the posters are basically screaming at everyone in posts. This place has become extremely cantankerous and hostile. Please close my account