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

[EzekielRaiden]

I tend to think most players, match the energy of the group or table they're at.

If the GM is half-assed fair, runs a decent game consistently and the table is inviting, competitive or not, I could see myself enjoy it. In Lanefan's games the strong theme is survivability with multiple perishable characters but the idea is still to have fun at the table.

There must be some magic happening to have a long-standing group like that. If they were only looking out for themselves the idea of a party wouldn't be able to function. And that would have come out in the wash years ago.

I certainly don't understand how their group has stayed together, I grant you that. That I don't understand does not mean it shouldn't have, couldn't have, nor didn't. It just means I have literally no clue how they managed to stick together so long.

Because every description Lanefan has given about it has made it quite clear how fundamentally mercenary their play is--as in, genuinely every man for himself as far as character behavior goes. I believe Lanefan has even directly agreed to the "mercenary" descriptor before, but that could be confabulation on my part.

 

[clearstream]

What I've never seen before is a) a setting that gives you so much detail for each "zone" but never fills it in completely: Oh, you're going into the Great Wood? Cool, here's touchstones for what it looks/sounds/feels like for each season; here's the sorts of questions you might want to ask the players as you explore to dig into their characters and invite them to add to the world; here's some ideas of why they might go into the Great Wood; and here's the terrain/discoveries/dangers/etc that you can put together to make an Expedition. and b) has players so engaged in the world itself from session zero (where your character creation questions define a fair bit unique about the world and get your specific character invested) that they are actively itching to get out there and uncover those tantalizing hints + bits of lore. A lot of the latter of course we'll establish together (my two groups have very different ideas of what the Forest Folk look like, and why they vanished a decade ago for instance).

This made me wonder how static or fixed other posters' notions of our various modes of play are? Sometimes it seems like posters are saying "X doesn't serve" as if X were immutable or one couldn't propose a variant or innovation to enhance the mode in a desired direction. I'm not arguing that all modes are the same, or that everything productive of one mode is necessarily productive of another, but rather saying that one can question these things.

Designs evolve... and it's one of the jobs of a designer to pursue that evolution. One way that designs evolve is through innovation from an avant-garde. Terms like 'neo-trad' and 'neo-sandbox' could be adopted to encourage acceptance of innovations into long-standing modes of play.

Turning back to Stonetop, The Maker's Roads has this detail that seems intended for groups to use straight (there are four pages of such altogether)

The West Road stretches from Stonetop to Gordin's Delve. About 15 miles from town, it crosses the Highway, which runs from Barrier Pass all the way to Marshedge and beyond.​

​

The roads are wide (~20 feet), grand, and humbling, clearly the work of the Makers. They have lasted for centuries, strangely well-preserved and free of growth.​

​

Big slabs of tiled basalt, gently beveled, stretching to the horizon​

Trickle of rainwater or snowmelt flowing down gutters that never clog​

The unnerving way that dust, seeds, leaves, etc. refuse to land on the pavestones​

Tip: speak quietly, reverently, like you were in a church or temple among the faithful.​

The roads have lasted for centuries without maintenance. Predators shun them. Beings of darkness, chaos, and death are repelled, and generally cannot cross or set foot on them.​

​

When you attempt to commit violence upon the road, or to harm the road or anything upon it, you hesitate. If you will yourself to continue, lose 1d4 HP and roll +WIS: on a 10+, go for it; on a 7-9, you act but have disadvantage on any rolls to commit violence (including damage); on a 6-, you fail to act and mark dazed​

And it gives the group questions like these to connect player characters to the setting detail

Which of you have travelled the Highway or the West Road before? When and to where?​

The magic of the roads—the wards against violence, evil, and decay—how do they make each of you feel?​

When was the last time that you felt small, insignificant, or just very lonely?​

Or at the Crossroads on those roads

What about this place tells you that the veil between life and death is thin here?​

​

This can be used to double-down on the commitment sandbox has to developing and presenting setting in the direction players are interested in. It could be labelled 'neo-sandbox' to call out that some elements are evolving.

 

[clearstream]

This is encountering the monster; you interacted with it, and it with you.

Bypassing the encounter would be if you sneaked past it while it was asleep and it never knew you were there.

In either case I'd give more xp for the Giant than the Ogre due to the significantly greater risk-threat-downside if-when things go wrong.

I've been thinking about what is at the root of this debate. It seems (to me) to be about whether anything is conceded standing as an element of the game fiction outside of what is shared.

Above I quoted from The Wider World and Other Wonders which contains the setting for Stonetop. Is The Crossroads (a feature of The Maker's Roads detailed in the setting book) counted part of the Stonetop fiction even if it has not yet been shared? Prior to being shared, it can't be counted part of the shared ongoing narrative formed by the drafting and redrafting according to rules in the conversation around the table. But seeing as it will be encountered when players say that their characters travel along The West Road toward Gordin's Delve, it seems to me that has standing in the game fiction: only as an element that hasn't entered the shared fiction as yet.

If it is somehow signalled in the shared fiction without the imagined spatial traversal of the characters yet reaching it, players could decide it's a place they want nothing to do with and ensure they avoid it. That could be called a bypassing. It seems to me that posters who point out that this implies that GM or designer prep is being given standing in the game fiction even prior to player involvement, are right.

It seems to me too, that sandbox modes of play leverage that to create experiences of wonder, mystery, tension, excitement and relief. That seems an intentional part of the mode of play and would be something that groups that want to avoid the implied principle (that GM or game designer prep can have standing in the fiction even prior to being shared with players) could need to use other techniques to produce.

 

[AnotherGuy]

It doesn’t matter whether I wrote the content myself or pulled it from published material. Locations, characters, and events all go into the same toolbox. They’re not paths, they’re options, waiting to be acted on (or not) by the players.

Thanks, so just to be clear you take an AP apart for content. As in you don't follow the AP timeline or sequence of events once they engage with the storyline or as you refer to it option?

 

[AlViking]

I've been thinking about what is at the root of this debate. It seems (to me) to be about whether anything is conceded standing as an element of the game fiction outside of what is shared.

Above I quoted from The Wider World and Other Wonders which contains the setting for Stonetop. Is The Crossroads (a feature of The Maker's Roads detailed in the setting book) counted part of the Stonetop fiction even if it has not yet been shared? Prior to being shared, it can't be counted part of the shared ongoing narrative formed by the drafting and redrafting according to rules in the conversation around the table. But seeing as it will be encountered when players say that their characters travel along The West Road toward Gordin's Delve, it seems to me that has standing in the game fiction: only as an element that hasn't entered the shared fiction as yet.

If it is somehow signalled in the shared fiction without the imagined spatial traversal of the characters yet reaching it, players could decide it's a place they want nothing to do with and ensure they avoid it. That could be called a bypassing. It seems to me that posters who point out that this implies that GM or designer prep is being given standing in the game fiction even prior to player involvement, are right.

It seems to me too, that sandbox modes of play leverage that to create experiences of wonder, mystery, tension, excitement and relief. That seems an intentional part of the mode of play and would be something that groups that want to avoid the implied principle (that GM or game designer prep can have standing in the fiction even prior to being shared with players) could need to use other techniques to produce.

Unlike some other systems in D&D for most DMs potential combat encounters are not made up on the fly. Whether they happen may be random or based on some trigger which means they may not be established in the shared fiction of the game. But they are established in my notes as DM. If it's not a random encounter but triggered by location or a specific event or series of events the group can avoid that encounter, they can bypass it. The players don't have to know there may have been a combat even if there is some interaction, it doesn't have to be signaled in any way.

The only controversy here is that some people have an issue with common English or that encounter has a more detailed definition in the DMG than in the dictionary. It's one of the more pointless arguments I've seen.

 

[Enrahim]

....that isn't breaking or even bending the rules. That's requesting a review of the rules, on the grounds that the rules are (allegedly) bad. There is absolutely nothing wrong with petitioning to review a rule. That is essential to the very idea of having rules in the first place. Some rules are more sacrosanct than others (e.g., "can't we just pretend a 19 is actually a crit??? Just this once??????" is far less likely to fly than "can we just skip the 'running start' requirement for a high jump, because that never made any sense to me?"), but very few rules are perfect and intelligent, cautious review is not lawlessness, it is absolutely necessary for there to be "law" crafted by mortal hands.

Honestly, at this point it feels like you are trying to twist Lanefan's words into any shape, no matter how contorted, which makes them somehow not what the plain and obvious words say. I very much grant that charity in interpretation is important, but if someone overtly tells you that players are doing badly at being players unless they try to break the rules, perhaps you should take them at their word?

I do not know if I might be misreading @Lanefan completely. However this is an indisputable fact: When I read Lanefan's posts that in my mind conjures up an image of a game concept I find really cool. When I read your attempts of explaining Lanefan I see an absolute horrible game concept. It might be that Lanefan's game actually is so awfull you describe, so let us set that aside for a while.

I will now try to present the core game concept I find cool that was inspired by Lanefan's posts, by amplifying it and put it into a much simpler context. I present to you my newly designed game "Cat and mouse Uno"!

In cat and mouse Uno you pretend to play Uno. You need 5 players. 4 of the players play mice, one player play cat. The players pretend to be following these two rules:
1: The standard rules of Uno
2: The mice can communicate freely, as long as they in no way reveal anything about their cards.

The *real* rules of the game are as follows:
1: If the cat ever thinks they catch a mouse in breaking any of the pretend rules, they state so, and any foul play has to be reversed and the accused mouse/mice must draw one card without question or explenation.
2: The cat actually play a legitimate game of uno.
3: Noone are allowed to do any irreversible actions like tearing up cards, or throwing the pile.
4: When the cat is out of cards, any mice with cards left lose. If all mice get rid of their cards before the cat, the cat loses.

I think this might be a fun little game. I have not playtested it. But I really think this game will work best if
1: All mice are able to trust the cat to follow real rule one consciously.
2: All mice actively try to break the pretend rules without the cat noticing.
3: The cat is actively trying to catch the mice in breaking any of the pretend rules.

Make a note that of these 3 points only number 1 can be said to be stated by the rules. As such the two other points are purely advice on how to play this game to get a particular kind of good time. Of course you could just ignore advice 2 and 3 and the game would essentially reduce to a standard game of uno with a bit weird end condition. But I guess you could see how that would be a very different experience and that there might be players that would strongly prefer the experience you get by following that advice?

And in this framing I hope my advice regarding how to play the game I just designed is somewhat "acceptable" to you?

 

[Umbran]

Among those in this thread who are arguing that "bypass an encounter" has a clear meaning, there seems to be a significant difference of opinion over this particular issue.

Which in my view tends to undermine the contention that the phrase has a clear meaning!

The phrase has several clear meanings. The central issue of contention is over which is the "correct" meaning.

 

[AlViking]

The phrase has several clear meanings. The central issue of contention is over which is the "correct" meaning.

If there are several clear meanings and one matches up to what the poster clearly meant, I think the "correct" meaning is pretty obvious.

 

[Umbran]

If there are several clear meanings and one matches up to what the poster clearly meant, I think the "correct" meaning is pretty obvious.

My cynical side says, "Yes, but only if our rhetorical goals match. If my rhetorical goal does not align, I have little need to accept the meaning as clear."

 

[FrozenNorth]

This becomes even more prevalent when you have multiple storylines the PCs can engage in particularly in sandbox. It is not just an encounter or even a series of encounters bypassed but entire storylines.

This kind of makes the definition of encounters meaningless though. If my level 5 group is more interested by the caves of Despair and decides not to go to the Cliffs of Carnage, it doesn’t really make sense to say that we « bypassed » the Cliffs of Carnage, even if both the caves and the cliffs lead to the same location (the Town of Lame Naming Conventions).