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

[Micah Sweet]

I'd appreciate it more if you just came right out and told me to shut up, Micah.

I would never do that Hawkeye. I just don't understand going back and forth on an issue that seems to have no common ground (or at least not much). I see very little similarity between the games you enjoy and the games I and others enjoy in regards to the topics under discussion. Debating incompatible definitions of the same terms at this point feels strange to me.

 

[Lanefan]

Are we talking about "breaking the rules" as in not correctly reporting your current HP, or "Breaking the rules" as in "I think my spring boots should allow me to jump further than indicated by the rules", or "breaking the rules" as in "We got a magical crossbow and a bunch of peasants, let us make a railgun"? Or maybe some alternative I can not think of right now?

In my case, I'm more talking about the bolded. There's a difference, I think, between outright cheating (misreporting die rolls, reading the module the DM's running, etc.) which is always bad, and pushing the envelope looking for exploits (which IMO it's then the DM's job to shut down) or cool interactions between different effects or even just trying things the rules don't cover.

"Let's see if, with some creative use of Stone Shape, I can make this whole side of the BBEG's castle collapse" is the sort of thing I mean. That's not an intended use of the spell but until-unless the DM tells me I can't, there's nothing to stop me from trying it.

"I'll disable that enemy ship by flying over and casting Shrink on its rudder" is another example, one our DM let us get away with.

"By your description I must outweigh this guy by 100 pounds easy, so instead of attcking with my sword I'll just bodycheck him off the cliff" in a game that doesn't have rules for such maneuvers.

More generally, it's the slightly Chaotic attitude of "think outside the box and then just do it until something tells you to stop" rather than the Lawful "stay in my lane and wait for something to give me permission". Push the envelope rather than submit to its constraints.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Being friends outside the game helps a lot.

Also, most of the time the game's an amusing diversion that we play for a laugh, and what happens in the game stays in the game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Also, I'm sure you know that FATE is not going to be an enjoyable game for everyone, so conclusions peculiar to its style and mechanics won't always apply.

Though I have to point out nothing intrinsically requires a game otherwise mechanically in the D&D-sphere to require advancement. Frankly, at a certain point, advancement flattened out to the point you might never see a new level again in the OD&D days; there's nothing that would stop you from finding a level that worked for the group's comfort in 5e and just never levelling again. The fact everyone is used to zero-to-hero there doesn't really change that.

Advancement is a question of expectations, not necessity in almost any RPG (and I say that as someone who'd probably find static advancement (as compared to limited advancement) discomforting); the other elements of the game are almost irrelevant outside setting those expectations.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I would never do that Hawkeye. I just don't understand going back and forth on an issue that seems to have no common ground (or at least not much). I see very little similarity between the games you enjoy and the games I and others enjoy in regards to the topics under discussion. Debating incompatible definitions of the same terms at this point feels strange to me.

But I enjoy some of the games that you and others here enjoy. I like and play D&D. I like and play other games as well.

My point is that some terms simply don't suit all games, which some folks are insisting is the case.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Well, if the players are given any sort of map of the setting that shows these roads they've become part of the shared fiction at that point, haven't they? The players may not yet know about the special conditions on these roads (e.g. they have built-in defenses against vandalism), but they know the roads exist.

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.

Yes, if said map (above) is shown to the players ahead of play beginning, or as part of the GM's introduction.

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.

Not so sure about this. If the players get a basic map of the setting up front (very useful in a sandbox setting!) that map will show various things that immediately become part of the fiction as the players know it. But once they start exploring those areas they might find things that aren't on their original map, or that the map is outright wrong or out of date ("As you reach what should be the village of Martages you find it is in ruins and has been for a year or two"), or that there's more to various elements on the map than first appears (e.g. the road defenses you note above).

 

[Faolyn]

No, I said I accept and understand your usage. All I have asked is that you accept it doesn't apply to all games or all RPGers.

Nothing more needs to be said at this point.

So why does it bother you that I use the term, when I’m not trying to force you to use it?

I also note that you’ve ignored the other things I’ve written. Does that mean you agree that pemerton should have understood what I was talking about after I explained it multiple times?

 

[Lanefan]

I have no idea what @robertsconley does, but depending on what the encounters/locations are like, it’s easy to alter them to better fit the party’s level.

A sandbox DM wouldn't do this, however. Instead the adventure site would be what it is and the players would be expected to either a) alter the course of their PCs toward something more their fighting weight or b) stand in and meet their doom in a hurry.

Fewer or more antagonists, or a hazard inflicts more or less damage. Obviously, you’re still going to have a TPK if a 1st-level party wanders into the Demonweb Pits… but at the same time, the party is unlikely to be starting right next to the Pits[1]. In order to physically get there, they’d probably have to go through a lot of obstacles and thus will be gaining quite a few levels.

If on the player-side map there's locations (among many others) labelled as Dragon Mountain, Goblin Forest, Slime Caves, and Coldfear Castle then if the 1st-level rookies go to Dragon Mountain and there get summarily eaten by a great big Dragon they shouldn't be all that surprised. Goblin Forest, on the other hand, could by its name be reasonably expected to be something they at least have a chance of successfully dealing with.

 

[Faolyn]

A sandbox DM wouldn't do this, however. Instead the adventure site would be what it is and the players would be expected to either a) alter the course of their PCs toward something more their fighting weight or b) stand in and meet their doom in a hurry.

If on the player-side map there's locations (among many others) labelled as Dragon Mountain, Goblin Forest, Slime Caves, and Coldfear Castle then if the 1st-level rookies go to Dragon Mountain and there get summarily eaten by a great big Dragon they shouldn't be all that surprised. Goblin Forest, on the other hand, could by its name be reasonably expected to be something they at least have a chance of successfully dealing with.

But that’s going back to the idea that this isn’t really a true sandbox, because the PCs can’t go anywhere—some places are simply instant death for low-level play.

If I were to do this sort of sandbox, I’d do a mixture of these myself.

 

[Lanefan]

Incentives are subjective.

If you enter into a game with the notion that the only incentive is individual power achievement, then yeah, I guess what you say follows*.

That notion would not apply to most of the groups I have run games for or played with recently. Most of them have been suitably incentivized to engage with the content for sake of doing cool stuff in a fiction, with advancement being a distant factor not on our minds in most sessions of play.

Thing is, that's kind of us as well: advancement is very slow in our games and is usually seen as a pleasant occasional side-effect of play rather than the reason for it.

It's like a sports team, again. Sure you're all on a team pulling for the same goal (usually, to win), but that doesn't and IMO shouldn't stop any one player from trying to be the best player on the team or even in the league; and in an RPG situation where that striving to be the best can be rewarded (and trivially easily if using individual xp, for example), it just seems to make sense to do so.

*if XP directly comes from taking risks - if you are doing XP for gold, or similar, you may actually incentivize being crafty over taking risks.

I give xp for taking risks (which covers combat, but also things like scouting, disarming traps, social encounters with potential consequences attached, etc.), and after each adventure they each get what we call a "dungeon bonus" for completing the adventure or mission - kind of like a story reward in other games, only the advancement-of-story piece doesn't really apply.