D&D General A glimpse at WoTC's current view of Rule 0

[Micah Sweet]

There's nothing wrong with that sort of approach, but it functionally excludes whole classes of campaign because it potentially reduces every campaign to rogue operatives doing whatever they please until the GM, in the form of in-setting response, brings the hammer down. it assumes you can't really go into a campaign planning for it to be about anything, because the first time a player gets a bee in his bonnet and does something completely off-the-wall, you have to chase that result for the rest of the game.

I'd rather the players get to see the fruits of their actions, to be honest. That doesn't mean that you can't have aspects of the settings that potentially turn into lengthy, emotional resonant events. But the players choose with what they wish to engage.

 

[Scribe]

But a MMO is not a "living world" - it's an algorithmic world. (Granted, with complex algorithms.)

RPGing is a chance to do something different from encountering someone else's pre-packed content.

Given the obvious constraints, an MMO in the way Vanilla WoW was presented, certainly is a 'living' world. Things are happening, players are interacting with it, but the events exist and threats are out there, even if the players are not prepared to face them.

RPG's allow a chance to do 'anything' sure, assuming the DM is properly supported to keep the story moving.

I'd still rather play in a fleshed out setting, than some random table generated content.

 

[Micah Sweet]

DMs Bored as Players Thread

An interesting thread that points out how many DMs are bored when they play. I've taken two things away from that thread. First, D&D combat is boring for many people. Second, more relevantly, DMs tend to not enjoy playing because as players they have limited control over the game.



But here's the thing... there's not another person imagining people into a bar in the real world. In a game, there is.

So what we're actually talking about is not the real world. So let's set that aside.

Why is it the case, in your opinion, that only the DM can determine who is in a restaurant?



You don't think it's safe to assume that the average home brew world isn't as compelling as ones that have sparked multimedia behemoths?

I think it's far fairer to the DM to assume their world is going to be moderately interesting.

I'd also say it's likely fairer to them to expect the setting itself to be the less important part of running the game when compared to creating interesting situations for the PCs.



The issue is that in the real world, when you look around the room, you see what you see. You don't need anyone else to tell you what you see.

So for some folks, when faced with mundane situations like this, it's far more immersive to simply state what's happening.



Well, I think there's a difference between allowing the players to lead the game and letting them wander around aimlessly with nothing meaningful happening. As you say, @pemerton can answer himself, but I'm reasonably certain that he would frame the characters into some kind of conflict before too long. Where as @Lanefan would happily watch them wander about town accomplishing nothing if that's what was happening.



But it's the DM who's reacting, not the world. I get that you're trying to simulate some kind of causality here, but it boils down to the DM deciding what happens.

That's no more the way the world works than the player deciding.

So to look at the example offered, the player says their character is drunk and looking to start a fight. As GM, I'd ask them with who? I'd let the player describe the person because why not? So he says "I pick the richest looking guy here". Then we see what happens as a result. Based on just that basic description, I can imagine some potential consequences.

This allows the player to have some say about how things go. Turns out the rich guy is the duke's nephew... well, the player shouldn't be surprised. He had some say in that.

This is the player and the GM collaborating more.

Now, if people don't want to play a game that works this way, that's fine. But to say they can't even understand how it would work? I feel that says more about them than it does this type of game. Or to say that this kind of play is not functional? Or that a DM who allowed things to work this way is not worthwhile? Yeah... that's just BS.

I said that I barely understand it, and that I don't prefer it (or even enjoy it really). I never said it wasn't functional, or that such play isn't worthwhile for some people.

Once again, all of this is nothing more than preference, and I think we should respect each other's feelings and try not to frame the preferences of others as objectively of less worth. That goes for both "sides" of this discussion.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This goes well beyond having an arc, though; you can blow up the very premise of a campaign completely if you accept unlimited player actions as being just something to go with the flow on. Most of the examples I'd give would be outside a common D&D-sphere thing (because most D&D games don't have that degree of focus) but it can even give examples within it (a game about playing an elite city guard unit in a big Rome-like metropolis has suddenly turned into a whole different kind of game if the players suddenly get it into their head to assassinate the Lord-Mayor, and that may not be what the GM (and even some of the players) want). Assuming they'll just continue as is rather than OOC looking at the players (or even player) who decided to do that and go "What the heck, dude?" seems a reach.

Having a premise to your campaign at all in the way you mean is a preference. Now, if you explain said premise before play begins and receive (apparent) player buy-in, then actively playing against it is not a classy move.

 

[Vaalingrade]

People in the area do not just walk into a castle every day. Otherwise there is not much point in having a castle. The king might as well live in a tent, with a sign "assassins welcome" above the flap. Ever seen a fantasy movie or read a fantasy novel? Adventurers are as likely to scale the walls as go in through the gate if they want to get into a castle.

A castle is a massive place of work.

Yes, the inner keep and chambers (if they even exist) may be closed off, but they were constantly having people go in and out. It is entirely unreasonable to assume someone who just says they're going to the castle will be breaking in.

On might even say that assumption is in bas faith.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Cool and all, but it doesn't reflect most games far as I can tell.

What do that have to do with literally anything being discussed here?

 

[pemerton]

This can be story hooks, this can be an AP backdrop...etc how do you view it differently to GM giving stuff?

RPGs of the mainstream sort - which all the ones I play are - have a GM participant, who is responsible for coordinating the backstory/setting and who is responsible for presenting situation.

The key question therefore becomes, where does the content of situation come from? Someone has to provide it, and that person must either be in the GM role or the player role.

It's important to see that the player can provide the content even though it is the GM who is actually doing the presenting/framing. For instance, in my most recent Torchbearer session I described the Elven Ranger seeing the light of a comet shining up through a hole in the floor of a stone structure that reached out into the river the PCs were walking beside, the comet's light being reflected off the water and somehow focused or amplified by the structure. The stone structure had been built by Dwarves, and had an inscription in Elvish.

The comet was something that the Ranger's player had introduced into the fiction several sessions ago - after missing a session, the player had to explain where his PC had been (this is a standard procedure for Torchbearer) and (given that the PC has Stars-wise; and given that the PCs had recently experienced a magical catastrophe occurring in the village where they were staying) he told us that his PC had been following a comet as it travelled through the sky, looking for answers to the cause of the catastrophe.

One of the PCs is a Dwarf, and has as his Creed that Elves need grounding in reality. The third PC is also an Elf, who has as her Creed that in these dark times, all Elves need help.

The purpose of the structure's magic was to allow purification of the river water, which flows out of the Troll Fens. The Troll Fens, and their polluted water, had already been a feature of play over the past several sessions, which had focused around the Fens, the Moathouse in the Fens, and the PCs travelling through the Fens by boat and by trudging.

This is different from "story hooks" which are GM authored without reference to player-established priorities for their PCs.

I'm not sure that is a fair statement, the ones that play many of the indie games such as @pemerton, play from my perspective (and he can correct me if I'm wrong on this) ultra-sandboxes, the players drive the story and the direction of the story even more so than games that Lanefan and myself are running.

I wouldn't normally describe the RPGing I do as a sandbox. I see "sandbox" as describing a particular technique for framing situations. Here are three such techniques (which are distinct from the question of content I talked about just above, although in practice they might tend to lean one or the other way):

1. The GM has a map and key that is detailed enough that players, by their declared actions - generally movement-related ones like "I open the door" or "I enter the clearing" or "I turn the corner" or "I go into the cave" - trigger pre-prepared situations. Gygax assumes this sort of process for establishing situation in his AD&D rulebooks. This is what I would call a sandbox.

2. The GM presents "hooks" which may be low-stakes (a quest-giver approaches the PCs) or high-stakes (the PCs encounter something exciting in media res), and which the players - knowing how the game is meant to work - recognise as situation for their PCs to engage in. I think this is pretty mainstream. It does not rely on map-and-key, but rather the GM's ideas about what "story"/"adventure" they want to present to the players.

3. The GM presents the players with a situation that demands a choice or some action from their PCs. This can resemble (2), but the contrast is this: in (2) the PCs (say) see someone being mugged; whereas in (3) the PCs are themselves assaulted by muggers.​

I generally favour approach (3), although my current game of choice - Torchbearer 2e - uses (1) as well on a small scale ("dungeons").

The main role of the player is to explore and interact with the setting as they see fit through the choices they make for their PCs, yes. Those choices can potentially make for huge changes in the setting if the choices themselves and the circumstances in which they are made allow for such.

The changes are decided by the GM. The circumstances "allowing for such" is decided by the GM.

Providing opportunities within the setting for adventure that the players can pick and choose from (while always allowing for the possibility of the players doing sonething else) is a railroad to you? That's, like, the definition of a sandbox.

As per what I've written just above, the key question is who is deciding what happens next?

If that is the GM, rather than the players, then what I see is a railroad. I mean, the players might be generating prompts into the GM's decision to say this rather than that, but it is the GM who is deciding.

A non-railroad sandbox requires that the players can know what the consequences will be. If consequences are following from circumstances, then players must therefore be able to know what the circumstances are. This is why Gygax, in his advice on how to do skilled dungeon play, emphasises the importance of the players collecting information about the dungeon - in practice, by declaring low-stakes actions around moving and listening and the like, so as to learn what is in the dungeon, enabling them to then make informed plans about how to loot it.

A sandbox in which the key information is - in practice - largely inaccessible is not going to permit the players to take control in this way.

Nothing stops your character from punching the nearest dude if the bar has other patrons. In games I enjoy I just won't be able to dictate who the dude is. Maybe it's no one special and I lay them out with one punch, maybe it's the Duke's favorite son and I just made a powerful enemy. Maybe it's a high level monk the DM was intending to introduce to the group and he deflects my inept punch back into my face. That to me is what makes the game immersive. I only know what my player knows and the world responds to my words and actions.

And this is precisely the sort of thing that I have in mind - the player doesn't know the circumstances or the stakes, and is in effect declaring actions "blindly" and just waiting to find out what consequence the GM decides will follow.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But a MMO is not a "living world" - it's an algorithmic world. (Granted, with complex algorithms.)

RPGing is a chance to do something different from encountering someone else's pre-packed content.

Yes, through the diagetic actions of your PC exclusively in my preference.

 

[nevin]

There's two problems with that.

1. "They" aren't making bad choices. A solitary one of them is making a bad choice and pulling everyone else along with the consequences, usually a character they were expected to work with primarily of PC Glow.

2. Even if they all are, its entirely possible that the campaign effectively ends right there, right now, which may not have been what they expected, nor what the GM wanted, unless he goes through a bunch of justification backflips to make it happen. GMs don't necessarily set up campaigns with the assumption the whole player group will abruptly lose their minds.

And yet sometimes they do even when the GM tries to prevent "agency". The agency isn't the problem in this hypothetical. The humans are

 

[pemerton]

So ... it's metagaming to have the PCs hired to find out who's stealing goods?

In most cases, probably yes - the players have their PCs take the job because they know that it is the GM's planned adventure; not because they have any in-character sense that that is what they would do.

When you play D&D you are agreeing to be part of a group. I mean, if you want to help the enemy, feel free. Your PC has now become an enemy and I have no problem with the rest of the PCs attacking you. Have fun with the next PC. Why would anyone want to continue to play with someone that actively thwarts the goals of the rest of the group in a D&D game?

I thought that you said this was in the first encounter? How can these NPCs be the PCs' enemies in the first encounter?

I mean what if, upon discovering the thieves, a player - playing their PC - feels more sympathy for the thieves than for the PCs' employer? This is hardly an unusual trope. The fact that no "good" player ever has their PC do that is more meta-gaming.

Being disruptive at the expense of the enjoyment of the game by everyone else at the table is being a bad player.

I mean, there's the metagaming, right there!

The excuse "It's what my character would do" is one of the worst excuses for character behavior I've ever heard.

Given that I enjoy immersive play, for me it's prima-facie the best reason a player can give for an action declaration.

The point of a castle is to keep people OUT. So it makes no sense for someone to be able to just walk in. The adventurers, being heroes, have every chance of being able to get in - IF they come up with a reasonable plan for getting in. That's called having an adventure.

Perhaps the player wanted a different adventure - one that might flow from meeting the king.