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

Hussar said:
Except, of course, every single one actually does... 🤷
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Maybe I'm just not understanding what you mean by "lines up with the level system." I'm taking it to mean that the PCs will entirely or predominantly encounter like leveled monsters no matter where they go. What exactly do you mean by it?
 

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Maxperson said:
Maybe I'm just not understanding what you mean by "lines up with the level system." I'm taking it to mean that the PCs will entirely or predominantly encounter like leveled monsters no matter where they go. What exactly do you mean by it?
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Not quite. D&D worlds and sandboxes will be designed in such a way that the challenges in a given area will be geared for a certain level range. So this forest is for levels 1-4. That canyon is for levels 3-5. That mountain is for levels 14+. So on and so forth. In play, the DM will pretty clearly signpost this and make sure that the players don't unknowingly wander into areas they shouldn't.

Granted, the DM won't stop you. Fair enough. But, the DM will make it very clear that if you wander into that mountain area, your characters will die. By the same token, your 15th level characters will never have a reason to go to that forest again. Once you've moved beyond the level range of a given area, that area will be done for the duration of the campaign, unless, of course, we start into the whole "living world" idea and then that forest will have a dangerous monster suddenly move in, because, now the party is 15th level.

Every single aspect of the sandbox is in service to the level system. It's unavoidable. I just don't understand why everyone seems to want to bury the lede here and pretend that it's something it's not.

Yes, as a DM, since you create every single facet of the world, you are writing stories. It's unavoidable. You cannot run a game and not create stories. It's simply not possible in a system where 99% of the content of the world comes from one single source and the other 1% is still presented through the lens of that single source as well.

Yes, your sandbox world is in service to the level system. It's unavoidable. That's one of the biggest reasons WHY we got non-leveled systems created - so that we could world build without having to deal with a level system where the capabilities of the characters have such an ENORMOUS range. GURPS got mentioned. The difference between a 50 point and a 150 point GURPS character is about 3 levels of a D&D character. Maybe 5. And most campaigns in GURPS won't see a 100 point growth. That's a VERY long campaign. To go from a 1st to 15th level D&D character in GURPS isn't feasible. It just can't happen. GURPS characters don't work like that. The idea that your GURPS character could fall off a mountain into a lake of lava and be perfectly fine the next day is just not how GURPS works.

Again, it just baffles me how much obfuscation that people want to pretend is going on here. It's just mind boggling.
 

Hussar said:
Not quite. D&D worlds and sandboxes will be designed in such a way that the challenges in a given area will be geared for a certain level range. So this forest is for levels 1-4. That canyon is for levels 3-5. That mountain is for levels 14+. So on and so forth. In play, the DM will pretty clearly signpost this and make sure that the players don't unknowingly wander into areas they shouldn't.

Granted, the DM won't stop you. Fair enough. But, the DM will make it very clear that if you wander into that mountain area, your characters will die. By the same token, your 15th level characters will never have a reason to go to that forest again. Once you've moved beyond the level range of a given area, that area will be done for the duration of the campaign, unless, of course, we start into the whole "living world" idea and then that forest will have a dangerous monster suddenly move in, because, now the party is 15th level.

Every single aspect of the sandbox is in service to the level system. It's unavoidable. I just don't understand why everyone seems to want to bury the lede here and pretend that it's something it's not.

Yes, as a DM, since you create every single facet of the world, you are writing stories. It's unavoidable. You cannot run a game and not create stories. It's simply not possible in a system where 99% of the content of the world comes from one single source and the other 1% is still presented through the lens of that single source as well.

Yes, your sandbox world is in service to the level system. It's unavoidable. That's one of the biggest reasons WHY we got non-leveled systems created - so that we could world build without having to deal with a level system where the capabilities of the characters have such an ENORMOUS range. GURPS got mentioned. The difference between a 50 point and a 150 point GURPS character is about 3 levels of a D&D character. Maybe 5. And most campaigns in GURPS won't see a 100 point growth. That's a VERY long campaign. To go from a 1st to 15th level D&D character in GURPS isn't feasible. It just can't happen. GURPS characters don't work like that. The idea that your GURPS character could fall off a mountain into a lake of lava and be perfectly fine the next day is just not how GURPS works.

Again, it just baffles me how much obfuscation that people want to pretend is going on here. It's just mind boggling.
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Okay. That's not how we do it. Any area, including a city, has the potential for CR 20+ stuff. The farther out you go, the more likely you are to encounter powerful things. Look at the wandering monster tables in 1e-3e. Any party could easily run into something waaaaaaay out of their range in any environment.

We don't make our worlds like WoW where there's a starting area and then you go to the next area when you outgrow the starting area and encounter stuff your level. There is no 1-4 area here, and then a 3-5 canyon over there. Thinking that way is a good way to end up with a TPK.
 

SableWyvern said:
Your scenario appears, to me, to be:

A group of seasoned, skilled outdoor survivalists are travelling in the wilderness.
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No. They're not seasoned. They're travelling a path with a map in a somewhat wild area. They're fine as long as they stay on the path, but bad weather blows up unexpectedly, and there's no useful cover on the path so they leave it to try and find something (because doing otherwise has a serious risk to their health and well being). They find some, and then try to rejoin the path, but fail (presumably in part because they've had to leave it when the bad weather blew up, and it was difficult to find their way back to it).

What error is it you suggest they made? They were presented with a bad pair of options, and because they weren't particularly experienced with survival, it created a serious problem that is now difficult or impossible for them to address.

They were presumably taking the route they did because it was the only way to where they wanted to go, but they had good reason to believe between the path and the map they were relatively safe. The storm was not expected, and either came up because the GM decided to, or was rolling on a table.

Somewhere in this process the GM most likely introduced the failure point, and did not account for the fact they had limited options. (To be clear, the storm with the bad options and lack of appropriate skills, which the GM presumably knew about, was the single point of failure).

SableWyvern said:
Edit: And, if you still think I'm being disingenuous, there must be something one of us is saying that the other is just not grasping, because I'm definitely not trying to be intentionally obtuse here, or to misrepresent your scenario.
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I'm willing to accept there's misunderstanding; is the scenario more clear now?

And it creeps up on someone because they don't think it through. In this case most likely the GM, but it could be the players.

Again, if you think I'm saying fail-forward is the only solution here, you've conflated my point with others; my posts were entirely about the fact this is not just an issue for story-focused games. I don't have an agenda about the proper way to solve it. I don't even think there's only one.
 
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Micah Sweet said:
The rules govern player and GM/MC behavior. That's rules over fiction.
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The weird thing is this: we have a perfectly good phrase to describe a group of people making up fiction without being governed by rules, namely, collaborative storytelling. Which is what you claim to eschew!

The point of the rules in a game like AW or BW or even (it seems to me) in classic D&D is to turn the activity into a game - albeit a game where the medium and the "material" of play is a shared fiction - rather than collaborative storytelling.
 

Micah Sweet said:
Feeling like you are a character living in the setting.
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Okay...but that's something we have already addressed. There are many ways to achieve that feeling. Doing a lot of conflict-neutral, low-stakes/no-stakes situations is far from the only way to do that. I should think there would be something more specific than the feeling the action generates? That is, "progress" (in any campaign, regardless of how sandbox-y or railroad-y it is) generally means that actions are being taken which achieve demonstrable and relevant results for the players. They can be bad results, e.g. because the players' plan was bad, or because the dice said so, or because they failed to account for all obstacles, or whatever else, but events occurred. Whether or not one likes events that produce progress of some kind, that is a feature of these events.

What is the feature you prize in these "conflict-neutral" events that contributes to this feeling? Because I know that not all such events are going to get attention. As noted, I don't expect anyone here to demand descriptions of how one eats and drinks or how one goes to the bathroom. Such things are, even for you, below the level of notice, but I don't understand what it is about the events above your threshold which contributes to this "ah, this is a world I am in" feeling. Conversely, I can point to what is in so-called "highlight" events, medium- to high-stakes events, conflict-embracing events that contributes to the feeling of good pacing; namely, "progress", actions which demonstrably result in the fictional state moving to a new state, and generally doing so in a timely and consistent manner.

If it is possible to say, what is in events which leave the fiction entirely unchanged, that contributes to the feeling like you are a character living in the setting? I can think of some ideas, but I don't think it's productive for me to speculate on them.
 

Thomas Shey said:
That's a valid position, but its not the same as "What single points of failure?" and acting like they're only a story-intensive game problem.
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All I can say is that I've never experienced it, and it feels like the sort of problem you'd have if following a particular story is important to your group.
 

pemerton said:
The weird thing is this: we have a perfectly good phrase to describe a group of people making up fiction without being governed by rules, namely, collaborative storytelling. Which is what you claim to eschew!

The point of the rules in a game like AW or BW or even (it seems to me) in classic D&D is to turn the activity into a game - albeit a game where the medium and the "material" of play is a shared fiction - rather than collaborative storytelling.
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The rules are important, but the fiction matters more. It's not collaborative storytelling. It's a game where the rules don't take priority over how the setting is presented and interacted with. Where the fiction wins if there's a conflict.
 

Thomas Shey said:
No. They're not seasoned. They're travelling a path with a map in a somewhat wild area.
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This is where we diverged.

Either I'm running a game where inexperienced adventurers are expected to be able to handle long distance journeys into the wilderness, or I'm not.

If I am, then I can't forsee a sequence of events that will create such a dire situation. If a lost map and some bad weather are enough to ruin them, then the game isn't one where this type of expedition is a safe option.

And if it's not a safe option, this should be clear to the players. Heading into the wilderness under such circumstances should occur either with the correct skills and preparation or with a readiness for death and failure.

To me, your scenario presents a situation where no one has put any thought into consequences. While I accept it's possible, I see it as a failure of design and/or communication by the GM. I do not see this as something that should be treated as an expected outcome.
 

EzekielRaiden said:
Okay...but that's something we have already addressed. There are many ways to achieve that feeling. Doing a lot of conflict-neutral, low-stakes/no-stakes situations is far from the only way to do that. I should think there would be something more specific than the feeling the action generates? That is, "progress" (in any campaign, regardless of how sandbox-y or railroad-y it is) generally means that actions are being taken which achieve demonstrable and relevant results for the players. They can be bad results, e.g. because the players' plan was bad, or because the dice said so, or because they failed to account for all obstacles, or whatever else, but events occurred. Whether or not one likes events that produce progress of some kind, that is a feature of these events.

What is the feature you prize in these "conflict-neutral" events that contributes to this feeling? Because I know that not all such events are going to get attention. As noted, I don't expect anyone here to demand descriptions of how one eats and drinks or how one goes to the bathroom. Such things are, even for you, below the level of notice, but I don't understand what it is about the events above your threshold which contributes to this "ah, this is a world I am in" feeling. Conversely, I can point to what is in so-called "highlight" events, medium- to high-stakes events, conflict-embracing events that contributes to the feeling of good pacing; namely, "progress", actions which demonstrably result in the fictional state moving to a new state, and generally doing so in a timely and consistent manner.

If it is possible to say, what is in events which leave the fiction entirely unchanged, that contributes to the feeling like you are a character living in the setting? I can think of some ideas, but I don't think it's productive for me to speculate on them.
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When the players do stuff with their PCs, no matter how unimportant it might seem to the GM, the fiction is not "entirely unchanged".
 

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