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

clearstream said:

Again I'll assume a 'to me' there, as I have players who do find it compelling; and who are left cold by the sorts of things likely figuring in "let's get to it". There are no doubt cultural (and gender and age related sub-cultural) filters at work in this.

I sometimes label narrativism as "dramatism" due to its commitment to traditional Western drama. Whether that is right or not, I decided to comment here to resist narrowly norming our list of proper subjects... which is what assertions like the closing sentence of the quoted comment seem to amount to.

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Well, I think there is a general point here, which is that pacing matters to pretty much everyone. It's a subjective thing, so different people will find different kinds of pacing valid, but that doesn't dismiss the general point that pacing matters. As a result, it's not a cost-free choice to include "conflict-neutral"/"low-stakes" situations. (IMO more like "no-stakes" in a lot of cases, but that's my perspective talking.) The way it has been presented, this happens pretty much any time the players interact with NPCs when in any safe place. Every transaction has to be played out to the letter, more or less. From the descriptions given earlier, it comes across as "everything short of describing yourself going to the bathroom or chewing your food needs to be played out in full".*

While some people will certainly want all of that, a good number of people won't--and it isn't strictly more (nor less) supportive of verisimilitude to do so. In fact, I'd actually be quite surprised if more than a couple people in this thread would truly expect THAT degree of playing things out. All of us will engage in some amount of eliding away nitpicky detail; most likely, most (perhaps not quite all) of us will expect that a few kinds of nitpicky detail are worth the cost of admission, namely, the risk of dull events that detract from the overall experience more than they add to it.

More or less, it's something people should care about. Is it the player's fault for falling asleep when the party spends 30, 45, 60 minutes on "we talked to the seven different merchants we needed to in order to buy basic supplies, and the guards who wanted to know what we were up to, and then the wagon-men to get our wagon and rented horses out of the stable, and getting onto the road, and navigating the bumpy road under a light rain, and [three further "conflict-neutral" events], and then we got to the dungeon and stuff started happening"? Or is there an issue with the behavior at the table overall, spending much too much time on tasks and events that don't actually make any difference other than really, really, really heavily stressing the color? Some groups, it would be that player who needs to adjust or possibly seek a better fitting table elsewhere. Others, especially if it's multiple players having this problem, maybe the GM needs to not put so much emphasis on low- or even no-stakes events, so as to not kill the pacing completely dead every time mundane life rears its homely head.

But, more to the point: the choice to elide is not indicative of verisimilitude nor its absence. It is completely orthogonal, which is what Abdul Alhazred and pemerton have been talking about. A game that has the proverbial "camera" focused on the action isn't necessarily any more nor less grounded (verisimilitudinous, realistic, plausible, what-have-you) than one that isn't. Some people may find that a game which elides past too many things will be a problem. Some people may find that a game which doesn't elide past enough things will be distractingly un-grounded because their mind wanders during those moments and thus they struggle to stay invested.

*And no, this isn't an exaggeration. I have seen things showing some old-school GMs that did in fact go further than the described limit.

Enrahim said:

Exactly, that is what I think is the case for most that are not very into fail forward in this thread. Hence the label "royal" I could imagine for instance there being some pit trap everyone fell into and the characters are out of all obvious resouces they normally would have had to get out of it. Then it would be at least for me very tempting to fail-forward the low-on-hp rogue's final climb attempt somehow. (Like he gets up, but triggers the pit trap to slam shut with no obvious way to reopen)

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I do not use it like that.
That's very much the kind of bias I do not want to be participating in for my games.

clearstream said:

Reflecting a bit more on the question of the existence of game world I'm going to draw a rough working distinction between it and shared ongoing narrative, supposing arguendo that

Game world is authored fiction about the setting that exists in the form of recorded and depicted setting including certain (but not all) remembered and noted contributions to shared ongoing narrative​

​

Shared ongoing narrative is authored fiction about what happens that exists in the form of a chain of remembered and noted contributions by participants​

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All of recorded, depicted, remembered, noted are taken here to exist as physical objects.​

​

Sandbox worries about and takes care to establish the former independent of the latter. That means that game world can exist even when shared ongoing narrative doesn't exist. This has been commented on many times, such as observations and concerns about fiction that players don't know about. There are often rules in sandbox game designs that haven't anything to do with structuring the shared ongoing narrative (observably contrasting with 'storynow' designs, which worry more about structuring the shared ongoing narrative.)

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SableWyvern said:

Traditional, living world sandbox, as advocated for by the trad gaming crew in this thread, worries about and takes care to establish the former independent of the latter.

With that clarification, everything else in your post seems to be clear and reasonable to me.

One of the early points of contention, which I think we've long since moved past, was the idea that Narrative and sandbox are incompatible (I think we've all since agreed that's not the case).

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I think there is some lack of clarity in saying that certain but not all contributions to the fiction that occur in play are incorporate into the "game world". Which "certain" contributions are incorporated? Furthermore, if setting includes certain contributions to "shared ongoing narrative", then it is not the case that it is established independently of "shared ongoing narrative". So it would be impossible to do what sandboxing is said to do, namely to establish "game world" independently of "shared ongoing narrative". Put succinctly, if B is a part of A then its obviously false that A is independent of B.

Also, Apocalypse World - if done orthodoxly as per the rulebook - involves authoring fiction about the setting independent of play, for instance as part of the first session. And my Burning Wheel RPGing uses the Greyhawk maps to establish geography and thus coordinate the fiction involving travel. That map is authored fiction about the setting, that is recorded/depicted. And that was done independently of play, way back in the early 1980s.

The difference between "living world sandbox" and other sorts of RPGing is about play techniques, how prep occurs, how it is used, etc. It's not about metaphysics.

I have some new thoughts I think might be relevant for this thread. It was inspired by a friend rejecting my claim that FATE didn't seem to support premade adventures. Upon examining it a bit closer I think I see at least one approach it sort of would sort of work if I losened certain assumptions I was having. And then I realised these assumptions might be central to clarifying some of the differences I have seen betwen sandbox styles mentioned in this thread.

It is about how should the setting "react" to the player characters.
1 The traditional hard line event based adventure formulae indicate hardly any reaction. No matter what the characters do, the overall plot is going to unfold in a similar way.
2 Then we have the setting reacts to the players actions trough causal relationships between things established before the player's actions. If the things involved is established by players, GM or third party publications - and if it is known by players or not is irrelevant. The traditional living world sandbox is an example of this.
3 Then we have the setting react to the character's actions but the causality is inspired by them. For instance the characters steal a magical item from a merchant. The GM is inspired to establish in his mind that the merchant has connections to the thief guild. And there is a new causal link making the thief guild react to the characters. This is common for the more improvised sandbox.
4 Then we have games where the setting is reacting to the characteristics of the character. In more traditional play, this would be where the nature of the cult in the forrest is adapted to the power level of the characters when they decide to investigate. More radically this would be when the GM introduce some twist trough a FATE compell. The village was raided, and the character's childhood friend captured for slavery because they were the character's childhood friend. There happens to be a growing cult in the forest because one of the characters is a witch hunter.
5 And then we have games were the setting reacts to direct player/mechanics intervention. Like if a PbtA game result indicate the player should establish something new about the fiction.

I think the further you go down this, the more limited you are in what use you can get from pre-published adventures. At step 1 you can essentially take an entire story. At step 2 you can make full use of any locations, characters and adversaries (and the relationship between these), but might be ready to adapt suggested plot lines. I think this is also the case for step 3, but the likelihood of the players breaking away from preplanned content sue to more interesting complications/opportunities arises increases dramatically. At step 4 however I feel the the level of adaption required to make an adventure properly fit the characters become so massive I could get as much out of just having resource books with discrete elements to mix and match myself. The overall structure of the initial situation might still be salvagable from the adventure tough. At step 5 having more than a seed seem problematic.

Do this ladder make sense? Might it in any way helpful for this conversation? Is there any essential kinds of reactivity I have missed here?

Enrahim said:

I am a bit confused. Are you arguing that a procedure that someone claims are not good for them most of the time should be applied universally anyway as it might be good to use if you royally screw up at some point? Wouldn't it be a much better to just have it in the toolbox and when you find yourself painted i to a corner you can say "I made a woopsie, let us try fail forward here, ok?"

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Er...no?

I am responding to an argument which paints things like "fail forward" as deeply, inherently problematic and wrong--often with the entirely false accusation that it destroys all possible conflict because it (somehow?) makes success guaranteed--by showing what it is for, and how it is a useful tool to have in the toolbox, generically. I have not said that EVERYONE should use it in all cases.

I do, however, think that it is of sufficiently broad and deep utility, and applies so significantly to a common problem that, in my experience, nearly every newbie GM goes through, that it is worth teaching to pretty much every newbie GM. Even if they never use it, even if they believe their campaign process is immune to the underlying problem, simply communicating the knowledge of it draws attention to the underlying problem in an extremely useful way. Even if that newbie GM goes on to have a long and storied GMing career during which they never once use such a tool, simply calling out such a thing engages the brain. It highlights the problem, why it is a problem, and one possible means to address it.

I feel similarly about Let It Ride and a couple other generalized maxims that I've picked up through playing and running Dungeon World. As a good example, the GM Principle, "Think Offscreen Too". I think that's a fantastically important piece of advice for any newbie GM. Most old hands don't need to be taught that lesson, they've learned it themselves through many repetitions of trial and error. Teaching the newbie GM that it's important to consider effects (be they good or bad--dangers or rewards, enemies or allies, consequences of all sorts) that aren't immediately present but which still matter. I imagine most "traditional" GMs here would very much appreciate the "Think Dangerous" Principle, even if they would likely dispute (or want pretty strong limits upon) at least some parts of its description:


But the core of this Principle--don't be precious about the things you create, put the PCs in dangerous situations where it's up to them to get out, the world is full of ways things can go terribly wrong and rather limited on ways things can go well--is something I think most "traditional" GMs would rather that all newbie GMs learn very very early.

clearstream said:

EDIT @SableWyvern I mean that I agree with your closing thought. They are compatible. I point out only present differences in structuring and to concerns that neo-sandbox will have that sandbox may not have. Which you also identified.

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I was pretty sure that's what you meant, I just wanted to head off reigniting a settled argument over a momentary lapse in wording.

pemerton said:

I think there is some lack of clarity in saying that certain but not all contributions to the fiction that occur in play are incorporate into the "game world". Which "certain" contributions are incorporated? Furthermore, if setting includes certain contributions to "shared ongoing narrative", then it is not the case that it is established independently of "shared ongoing narrative". So it would be impossible to do what sandboxing is said to do, namely to establish "game world" independently of "shared ongoing narrative". Put succinctly, if B is a part of A then its obviously false that A is independent of B.

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These seem generally distinct in play. For instance, mechanics that establish that X is true of the game world. That establishing may take place in the form of a contribution to the shared ongoing narrative; and I'm thinking of where such is recorded as enduring fiction and will remain true even for subsequent players who had nothing to do with its establishing.

pemerton said:

Also, Apocalypse World - if done orthodoxly as per the rulebook - involves authoring fiction about the setting independent of play, for instance as part of the first session. And my Burning Wheel RPGing uses the Greyhawk maps to establish geography and thus coordinate the fiction involving travel. That map is authored fiction about the setting, that is recorded/depicted. And that was done independently of play, way back in the early 1980s.

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Yes, almost all RPGs involve some authoring of independent setting. That seems more to sustain my rough depiction than go against it. Differences to my mind interestingly relating to how it is created, what it submits to, and how it enters play.

pemerton said:

The difference between "living world sandbox" and other sorts of RPGing is about play techniques, how prep occurs, how it is used, etc. It's not about metaphysics.

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I don't think metaphysics comes into it. It's not any sort of supposition about how our reality might be structured or whatever. It's about how our kind of fiction may be structured. It's somewhat ontological, but my aim isn't forming an ontology.

EDIT My general worry with your point of view is that were I to resist setting independence then it becomes far more confusing to explain game rules that have nothing directly to do with our shared ongoing narration and everything to do with that setting... and that are often enough expected to be used before and between game sessions and to span over sets of players.

EzekielRaiden said:

Er...no?

I am responding to an argument which paints things like "fail forward" as deeply, inherently problematic and wrong--often with the entirely false accusation that it destroys all possible conflict because it (somehow?) makes success guaranteed--by showing what it is for, and how it is a useful tool to have in the toolbox, generically. I have not said that EVERYONE should use it in all cases.

I do, however, think that it is of sufficiently broad and deep utility, and applies so significantly to a common problem that, in my experience, nearly every newbie GM goes through, that it is worth teaching to pretty much every newbie GM. Even if they never use it, even if they believe their campaign process is immune to the underlying problem, simply communicating the knowledge of it draws attention to the underlying problem in an extremely useful way. Even if that newbie GM goes on to have a long and storied GMing career during which they never once use such a tool, simply calling out such a thing engages the brain. It highlights the problem, why it is a problem, and one possible means to address it.

I feel similarly about Let It Ride and a couple other generalized maxims that I've picked up through playing and running Dungeon World. As a good example, the GM Principle, "Think Offscreen Too". I think that's a fantastically important piece of advice for any newbie GM. Most old hands don't need to be taught that lesson, they've learned it themselves through many repetitions of trial and error. Teaching the newbie GM that it's important to consider effects (be they good or bad--dangers or rewards, enemies or allies, consequences of all sorts) that aren't immediately present but which still matter. I imagine most "traditional" GMs here would very much appreciate the "Think Dangerous" Principle, even if they would likely dispute (or want pretty strong limits upon) at least some parts of its description:

Everything in the world is a target. You’re thinking like an evil overlord: no single life is worth anything and there is nothing sacrosanct. Everything can be put in danger, everything can be destroyed. Nothing you create is ever protected. Whenever your eye falls on something you’ve created, think how it can be put in danger, fall apart or crumble. The world changes. Without the characters’ intervention, it changes for the worse.

But the core of this Principle--don't be precious about the things you create, put the PCs in dangerous situations where it's up to them to get out, the world is full of ways things can go terribly wrong and rather limited on ways things can go well--is something I think most "traditional" GMs would rather that all newbie GMs learn very very early.

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Ok! I fully agree with everything you say here! However I would like to reflect a bit more over the pedagogy in play here. Presenting fail forward as a way to heighten concouseness about the dangers of single point of failure feels a bit backwards. Similarly presenting an extreme view like the literal "think dangerous" to promote what you present as the much more moderate "core" can have the opposite effect.

And I feel like this might be a bit of what might be making this conversation a bit inflamed at times. People want to talk about the same things, but they are used to a vocabulary to talk about these things that are alienating to those not into the same "culture". If we managed to find an uncontroversial common ground for vocabulary that would be great! "Think dangerous" is an example of a short and easy phrase that you point out that could have been aplicable to a very wide range of play experiences, but due to the historical accident of it's initial formulation is now indigestible to many of us.

EzekielRaiden said:

As a result, it's not a cost-free choice to include "conflict-neutral"/"low-stakes" situations. (IMO more like "no-stakes" in a lot of cases, but that's my perspective talking.) The way it has been presented, this happens pretty much any time the players interact with NPCs when in any safe place. Every transaction has to be played out to the letter, more or less. From the descriptions given earlier, it comes across as "everything short of describing yourself going to the bathroom or chewing your food needs to be played out in full".*

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I don't think this is quite right; the question at stake isn't the actual play or recitation of those situations in full. It's perfectly possible and one imagines quite common that you get "alright, you buy 6 days of rations and a waterskin, there aren't any arcane focuses for sale in this town" as the whole of the result. The point isn't the actual amount of table time spent on the situation, so much as it is the mechanical consistency of resolving those situations. If a player asked for more details about the shopkeeper or tried to deploy an ability on them for whatever reason, the basis for interaction would be the same as it would be in a tense negotiation with a fence.

EzekielRaiden said:

But, more to the point: the choice to elide is not indicative of verisimilitude nor its absence.

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I agree here, I just think this is sort of orthogonal to the nature of mechanical interaction. There's a huge difference between "we're eliding this because it's obvious to all of us how it will go" and "we're eliding this because it doesn't merit the introduction of mechanics." The former is relying on an already re-enforced norm that interaction is consistent and that this is a case that consistency produces essentially null results, the latter does exactly the opposite, and makes it clear that interaction is variable.

EzekielRaiden said:

I am responding to an argument which paints things like "fail forward" as deeply, inherently problematic and wrong--often with the entirely false accusation that it destroys all possible conflict because it (somehow?) makes success guaranteed--by showing what it is for, and how it is a useful tool to have in the toolbox, generically. I have not said that EVERYONE should use it in all cases.

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I think it's very funny that one criticism is that it makes failure impossible, when my objection is usually that it makes failure too uncertain to plan around consistently.

SableWyvern said:

Personally, I generally just don't run games where single point of failure is a concept that makes sense on a campaign level. No one ever has to keep going "forward", so fail forward will never be necessary.

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Yeah. Having a single point of failure suggests more direct storytelling than happens in my game anyway.