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

[AlViking]

Oh good grief.

The one fundamental point that has been repeated in this thread over and over and over again is that sandbox campaigns are created independent of the PC's. That the whole "living world" thing is completely separate from the characters.

Now, suddenly, sandboxes can be rewritten based on the level of the characters? :bwuh:? About the only thing that everyone has agreed on throughout this thread is that the biggest thing that separates sandbox play from every other playstyle is that sandboxes are not dependent upon the PC's.

We're thousands of posts in and NOW you're saying that this is wrong? That sandboxes are not necessarily separated from the characters? That it's perfectly fine in sandbox play to rewrite areas based on the level of the PC's?

Am I the only one here seeing this?

If the first level characters want to go to dragon mountain, I'm not sure I'd bother playing it out or just ask them to write up new characters but they're always free to do so. I have a big world with challenges for every level. At low levels they're fighting local street thugs, at higher levels they're fighting completely different levels of threat. If they stumble into something or events are occurring that they're not going to survive, I'll give them an escape route or three.

While I don't use modules often in the few cases I use them as inspiration, for their setting and general themes, not as a hard-coded template that must be used. Adjusting the scenarios to be level specific has nothing to do with changing the world - until something has been experienced in play it's all in the planning stages. I have a living world that exists outside the characters but I can still put up signs that they must be this high to go on this ride.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I don't disagree, I just think the line isn't entirely clearcut here. I think I could quite see generating a village as an encounter for example.

I get the fact that you’re agreeing with me here, but it does seem like the line is pretty clear cut.

I mean, I specifically said « a town isn’t an encounter » and you had to change the premise to « generating a ´village´ » to make it halfway plausible as an encounter.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Frankly? No! I wouldn't agree that they seem like they would accept genuine requests from their players. What I have read has given me the distinct impression that unless the players toe the line quite closely, they will be summarily shown the door.

Well I should have also added that if the dude rocks up insisting to play a Pacific Islander in an agreed upon Viking-themed game that to me is not a genuine request.
I'd also show them the door.

 

[clearstream]

How do you keep track of things that are established during the course of the game, and avoid contradictions occurring ten sessions later?

I didn't realise there would be any mystery about that, but sketches, a campaign diary, and other such ephemera can effectively prompt memory. Players are often willing to remind the group, too.

That's as to what is established in sessions. There is also disclosed prep, signalled or entrained prep, and undisclosed prep. Consistency with that canon will also limit.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Then why does every single person in this thread disagree with you? Not one person agrees with the idea that a sandbox setting adjusts to the levels of the PC's. That's the one defining trait of actually being a sandbox.

I'd say sandbox play can or cannot adjust to the levels of the PCs. It's not a requirement or a defining trait.
Open world with a menu selection for adventures is the defining trait for a sandbox IMO.

Tag lines such as Living World or World in Motion provide their own requirements.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I didn't realise there would be any mystery about that, but sketches, a campaign diary, and other such ephemera can effectively prompt memory. Players are often willing to remind the group, too.

I’m dyslexic, so I can’t take notes, and have a poor short term memory (I find names particularly difficult). I really heavily on what I prepare beforehand, and notes between sessions.

 

[Hussar]

If the first level characters want to go to dragon mountain, I'm not sure I'd bother playing it out or just ask them to write up new characters but they're always free to do so. I have a big world with challenges for every level. At low levels they're fighting local street thugs, at higher levels they're fighting completely different levels of threat. If they stumble into something or events are occurring that they're not going to survive, I'll give them an escape route or three.

While I don't use modules often in the few cases I use them as inspiration, for their setting and general themes, not as a hard-coded template that must be used. Adjusting the scenarios to be level specific has nothing to do with changing the world - until something has been experienced in play it's all in the planning stages. I have a living world that exists outside the characters but I can still put up signs that they must be this high to go on this ride.

This is more in keeping with my conversation with @robertsconley. I agree with you to be honest. My sandboxes work pretty much the same way for the simple reason of that's how D&D works. He completely denies that the D&D system has any impact whatsoever on his design of a sandbox campaign. Which is largely what I'm pushing back against.

However, what you're talking about here and what @Faolyn is talking about is very different. According to @Faolyn, she might rewrite the dragon so that it could be defeated by the party because the world is developed in accordance with the capabilities of the characters. Add some monsters or subtract depending on the power level of the characters. In other words, her sandbox is pretty much the opposite of what you are talking about.

Your living world doesn't change just because the PC's are 6th level instead of 8th when they go to Location X. She has stated quite clearly that in her "sandbox" she very well might.

Isn't that pretty much the opposite of how a sandbox has been defined?

 

[AlViking]

This is more in keeping with my conversation with @robertsconley. I agree with you to be honest. My sandboxes work pretty much the same way for the simple reason of that's how D&D works. He completely denies that the D&D system has any impact whatsoever on his design of a sandbox campaign. Which is largely what I'm pushing back against.

However, what you're talking about here and what @Faolyn is talking about is very different. According to @Faolyn, she might rewrite the dragon so that it could be defeated by the party because the world is developed in accordance with the capabilities of the characters. Add some monsters or subtract depending on the power level of the characters. In other words, her sandbox is pretty much the opposite of what you are talking about.

Your living world doesn't change just because the PC's are 6th level instead of 8th when they go to Location X. She has stated quite clearly that in her "sandbox" she very well might.

Isn't that pretty much the opposite of how a sandbox has been defined?

To me sandbox just means the players drive the direction of the game. Specifics on how that is handled will vary from one person to the next. On the other hand when there are a half dozen or more pages every time I glance at this thread so I don't feel confident commenting on other people's opinions.

 

[robertsconley]

Well I should have also added that if the dude rocks up insisting to play a Pacific Islander in an agreed upon Viking-themed game that to me is not a genuine request.
I'd also show them the door.

This brings to mind something that happened in one of my GURPS campaigns in the 1990s. At the time, we were trying out different ways to start off the campaign in my Majestic Wilderlands and exploring different aspects of life in the setting.

We had just gotten done with a campaign where every character played a mage, which really fleshed out the different magical orders and the culture of magic in my setting.

We decided we wanted to play an all-thief GURPS campaign, with everybody playing a member of the City-State of the Invincible Overlord underworld. However, one of the players wasn't ready to let go of the all-mage campaign and wanted to make a mage again. He was one of our best friends and a core member of the group, so we tolerated it. However, the group all insisted it had to fit with the all-thief idea, and he couldn't just play a mage from a magical order.

So, He and I worked up this whole underworld culture centered around mages who are basically mages with street skills. The elite of this group focused on anti-divination spells like Scryguard to allow the theft of high-value items without it being automatically figured out by the nobles, bringing in a mage from one of the magical orders to divine what happened.

Then I ran a 75-point City Guard campaign where the players were members of the City Guard, and they had to figure out how to deal with 125 to 175-point adventurers raising hell in the City-State after plundering a dungeon. The solutions they developed are still in use today.

Then I ran a 50-point campaign where everybody was part of the same neighborhood in the City-State. That worked out nicely, too, with the climactic moment of the campaign being the entire group taking down a vampire preying on the neighborhood (using GURPS Vampire: The Masquerade for the vampire stats).

If you plan to use the same setting over multiple campaigns, I recommend doing this occasionally, regardless ofthe system. It helps with fleshing out the setting.

 

[Enrahim]

Frankly? No! I wouldn't agree that they seem like they would accept genuine requests from their players. What I have read has given me the distinct impression that unless the players toe the line quite closely, they will be summarily shown the door.

Wow, past post 10000!
Anyone remember what the original post was about?

It was spesifecifically not about political conservatism, and here we are debating how to run an effective (benevolent?) Monarcy - one of the most conservative government forms there is.

Because I feel like that is what this entire line is boiling down to. An rpg is a social activity where conflicts arises. How to resolve those conflicts is politics - it is an activity that need to be governed somehow. It would be perfectly possible to gouvern an RPG via direct democracy. However for some reason that has not proved popular. Probably because the alternative of a monarchy has better properties for the sake of the game.

When comparing monarchy with democracy the main pros for monarchy is generally considered effectivity and unity of vision. Democratic processes tend to take time, and lead to possibly incoherent decissons as different constilations get majority on various topics. Effectivity is generally valued very highly for games in general, and for traditional rpgs consistency are generally highly valued.

The most well known drawback for monarchy is how it is relatively vulnerable to corruption. Indeed if I have understood my political philosophy history correctly a benevolent monarchy has been quite widely considered the most pleasant state a society can be in, but that it's corrupted counterpart the tyrany is among the worst.

So with this established, it seem to make very much sense to aim for a benevolent monarchy, if we can get some reassurance it will not devolve into a tyrany. And luckily for us games has some of those that is not available on a national level. For one thing everyone is very close to the monarch, and even tyrants tend to favor those close to them (making even those prone to even moderate corruption prone to be effectively a benevolent monarch in the scale we are looking at). Another important observation is that it is strongly time limited to the time we are playing, giving less room for corruption to evolve. And maybe most importantly, leaving a game is much easier than trying to escape across closed borders - so if things turn out as a tyrany it should be easy to get out (again limiting the risk of corruption in the first place)

So, we now have both that benevolent monarchy seem to be a highly desireable government form for a game, and that as opposed to when it come to nation governing the risk associated with corruption is much less severe. From this I hope it make sense that all traditional RPGs are formulated as monarchical.

Which then allow us to start talking about how to run a benevolent monarchy? This is where it gets tricky. On one hand the monarch should listen to their "subjects". On the other hand a good monarch should be decisive. Failing on the first make the monarch unable to make good decissions, even if well intended due to not being informed. Failure on the latter mean the government form fail to provide the benefits in effectively that was supposed to be it's strength.

And I think this is where the communication breaks down. Firstly I believe several participants in this conversation talk as if monarchy is an established fact, which it might not be. Secondly if monarchy is established then the duty to listen is really simple and obvious - hence noone talks about that. Thirdly the second duty is the one that is really hard. Hence this is the one that is emphasized in the conversation.

And why is being decisive hard? Because we have the ideals of democracy instilled us in our culture. Listening to each other, discussing alternatives and attempting to build consensus is second nature for all of us (I assume). Knowing the right time to cut trough and say "let's just do this" is tough, and society do not provide us many good examples for how to do it (though no shortage of examples how not to do it).

So here we have a bunch of people trying to figure out how to work in the role they are put in, how to be correctly decisive. Then someone that are not aware of the premise that monarchy is established come and read it. Would it be surprising if they find this seeming obsession on making decissions concerning? Indeed without the premise of monarchy, the entire idea of a single person making decissions is really bad! So of course they voice their concerns.

However for those believing the conversation is about how to be a good monarch this sound like an argument that the monarch should be less decisive - to the point where everyone actually believing that we talk about how to be a good monarch points out that the extent of indecisiveness indicated by the reply is so bad it is basically neglecting that second duty. So they double down on trying to explan the importance of decisiveness believing that monarchy is established. This of course make the others even more convinced these must be tyrants completely obsessed with power and points that out. And thus the ball is rolling.

I want to add that there is an alternative to democracy and monarchy that is quite popular in RPGs and that is "let the dice decide". Most RPGs I know of that is trying to avoid a monachic DM try to use that. However that requires a ruleset that clearly declares when it should be used and how/who to interpret the result. D&D do not have rules of this form out of the box (there are a few exceptions, mainly related to if performing certain spesific actions in combat, but no overarching DM independent resolution mechanics).

I hope this is a worthy past 10k celebration post.