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

[AlViking]

LOL.

No. I haven't looked at every single sandbox ever made. That's true.

Just every single one that's been brought up as an example in this thread.

Show me a sandbox for D&D where the level of the characters is not built into the sandbox.

If you're a 6 year old looking to play baseball, do you expect the pitcher to be throwing the ball at nearly 100 MPH? Of course you don't because you haven't stepped up to bat at an MLB game.

It's the same with the adventurers. They could try to take on that high level threat and it will likely be a TPK. So just like I would tell little Timmy that they probably want to try out for the tee ball team designed for their age group instead of the Yankees, I'll make sure there are options that are level appropriate for the characters. They can still go to the MLB tryouts, they just won't get far.

Beyond that I don't see what the issue is.

 

[Maxperson]

And, most often, they aren'T outside your level range. And, in cases where they are, there is almost a guaranteed exit possiblity. Either the massively overpowering encounter will "just talk" in which case, level isn't important, or, the baddie won't chase if you run away. On and on and on.

But, sure, you routinely have your low level characters run into CR 20 stuff. As in once a session? Once a level? Once in a campaign? Just how often does this happen?

First, CR 20 is just the extreme example. Running into stuff that can kill you doesn't have to mean CR 20. If could be 8, 10, 12 or whatever. How often that happens is at a minimum several times a campaign, because wandering monster tables don't care about PC level. Beyond that, it depends on how reckless the group is.

 

[AlViking]

The point I'm trying to make is the point that I'm made: that the DMG advocates author stance; which is something that I said, upthread, is a significant feature of D&D play.

I don't really care how The Forge would define anything.

 

[Maxperson]

In both cases, you have a player declaring that they’d like their character to find herbs.

That is wrong. In one case you have a player declaring that they'd like their character to find herbs. In the other you have a player declaring that they'd like their character to have found herbs in the past, retconning the herbs.

The latter player could just as easily pick the city they were in 10 sessions ago, the town from 3 sessions ago, or say they ran into a peddler on the road. Retconning is radically different from doing in the moment.

 

[clearstream]

That is wrong. In one case you have a player declaring that they'd like their character to find herbs. In the other you have a player declaring that they'd like their character to have found herbs in the past, retconning the herbs.

Normally there will be an informational-difference. It seems like temporal linearity is normal in sandbox play; I wonder though, if changing that does any real harm to sandbox? Perhaps because in our real-world experience we don't experience any abilty to change the past, a mode of play that prioritises feeling like one is in a real-world would be adverse to flashbacks (even when they are explained as not involving time travel the experienced time-sequence stops being linear.)

 

[Maxperson]

Normally there will be an informational-difference. It seems like temporal linearity is normal in sandbox play; I wonder though, if changing that does any real harm to sandbox? Perhaps because in our real-world experience we don't experience any abilty to change the past, a mode of play that prioritises feeling like one is in a real-world would be adverse to flashbacks (even when they are explained as not involving time travel the experienced time-sequence stops being linear.)

Yes. It changes the feel of the game a great deal. That's neither good, nor bad, but it is very different. Some folks enjoy one way or the other, and some enjoy both. And I suppose some enjoy neither, but they probably don't play RPGs

 

[Maxperson]

Like...let me give this a physical implementation. "We always do X, unless someone says no" vs "We can always do X, if someone wants to" in the context of...let's say an amusement park. Disneyland, if you prefer. Let X be "ride a ride when we pass it".

The former is, "We always ride a ride when we pass it, unless someone says no" means you WILL ride, definitely each and every time, unless someone speaks up and declines. The park-goers who follow this rule must ride the ride, unless someone says not to. This dose not, in any way, imply that there's any negative connotation to say no. But it does mean that someone actually has to nix it, otherwise it WILL happen, regardless of what people feel about it.

The problem you are running into is that the bolded is contradictory. There can be no "must" when anyone can say "no." Nobody can be forced(must) to do anything under such a rule.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The 2024 advice like this is written for new players and DMs. A lot of people, especially newbie DMs run linear games, it's a popular style. The DMG also talks about more sandbox type games, they just don't label them as such.

This text doesn't really mean much since we already know that the DM in D&D has a different role than the players and the books also talk about respecting players and things like encouraging creative solutions.

Just not sure what point you're trying to make.

Appeal to popularity. The current edition of the most popular RPG appears to support their point, which somehow makes it more correct.

 

[Maxperson]

LOL.

No. I haven't looked at every single sandbox ever made. That's true.

Just every single one that's been brought up as an example in this thread.

Show me a sandbox for D&D where the level of the characters is not built into the sandbox.

That would be all of them in this thread. Suppose the level 1 party goes to the local adventuring guild looking for jobs. While there they see on the job board that a local innkeeper has a giant rat problem, kobolds are affecting silver mine production, and the town of Uh, oh is being harassed by hill giants.

Clearly they aren't going to choose hill giants as one giant would likely TPK them in a fight. Rats are boring, so they decide to go handle the kobolds.

Players: "Okay. We're going to take the kobold job up to the clerk and go take on that one. Hope we don't run into any hill giants out there!"

The players know that it's very possible to wander into a hill giant since both Uh, Oh and the mine are in the same geographical area. If the wandering monster table indicates hill giants, guess what they run into?!

At that point they will likely try to run. The giant will give chase or not based on die rolls, since the DM is probably not going to just decide that it doesn't. If it doesn't chase, it will still probably throw a boulder at one and give the low ACs of 1st level PCs and low hit points of 1st level PCs, a damage roll has a good chance of outright killing a PC that gets hit. If it does give chase, rolls will determine if they are caught or not, or if they split up into different directions, whether only one of them gets caught.

And that's just one of the many monsters on typical random encounter tables that are significantly outside PC level ranges.

 

[zakael19]

It still sounds like you're trying to help me overcome my problems with your preferred mechanics.

But they're not problems in that sense. It's a non issue for me. There is no problem I have that I need your preferred mechanics or playstyle to fix.

And for the third time, I already understand that you don't feel it's implausible and I'm perfectly OK with that. You don't have to keep defending your position, because I'm not attacking it. You don't have to keep trying to convince me that it works fine for you. I believe you.


OK, so I (and others) have repeatedly said we find it implausible, and your response is to tell me plausibility has nothing to do with it. That being the case, it sounds very much like your position is that anyone who claims they feel it is implausible is either lying or doesn't actually understand what they're really feeling. I mean, that's certainly a position you can choose to take. I don't see much point carrying on arguing with you about it, though, because if you really believe you know what I'm thinking or feeling better than I do, nothing I say is going to matter.

You're on a discussion board on the internet posting specific reasons that you seem to have identified on why you find a style of play implausible. The natural reaction is for people to go "that's interesting, you seem to have identified specific problems that I don't see or seem to be contrary with how I understand this style of play. Have you considered that if XYZ, it might be more plausible?" Like, if people raise specific objections (and they're doing so in good faith), then it's natural for a subsequent post to be "let me try and answer those objections." In part at least because when people show up going "you may find your preferred mechanisms of play plausible but quite clearly they're not and I refuse to accept any statements to the contrary" it's like cool, I guess? Thanks for sharing your viewpoint?

If you say "I dont like this/vibe with this" and enumerate why then it's generally not going to get a similar response, and also won't carry the same feeling of judgement.